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strickn

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Everything posted by strickn

  1. strickn
    Houston Public Media had an ad or PSA for the opening day this Friday 9/22. They said to see lynnwyattsquare.com for more about the new cultural venue
  2. strickn
    Hope it doesn't flood.
  3. strickn
    Plum Grove Road, not Plum Hill. Probably not familiar territory to any homebuilders either.
  4. strickn
    It's driven by having windows on only one side of your apartment, like a motel room. The rest is just window dressing. Houston is too nice a place to waste living in places like this, so I wish we wouldn't build them OTOH the target demographic probably spends most of their week in an office... so they'll be missing out for the most part in any event Maybe its style is to remind them of their Excel spreadsheet
  5. strickn
    It matches both the 5-over-retail-over-underground-parking TDLR description and the Gensler style that Dotcom found on linkedin
  6. strickn
    A lot more hassle to use at certain times of day and especially night, however, so would probably get less use And this is supposed to be a signature route between the two non-Hermann and non-Disco Green signature urban parks
  7. strickn
    The FAA's Obstruction OE/AAA database has had, over the past year or two, a tethered kite wind turbine near Victoria that flies at 1500 feet altitude, but the newspaper hasn't said AFAIK whether it is happening or has already happened.
  8. strickn
    Private equity investor-backed high-volume firm primarily building schools in TX & CA. PBK has no relation to local firm Powers Brown. AFAIK it might stand for its managing principals Powell, Boggio, and Ketterl, but they never depart from the branded identity as simply PBK. Given such a high volume of work it's hard for me to speculate about why they sometimes build such similar architectural products with such different budgets: for instance their new Glenda Dawson High School, a whopping 360,000 square foot project on Cullen Boulevard in Pearland, broke ground in May 2007 and was to be completed in 2009 for $54.1 million; https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/pearland-news/article/Dawson-High-construction-slated-to-begin-this-1529035.php Meanwhile PBK's project for Angleton High School was a 375,000 square foot new campus on FM 523; "The campus cost about $82.6 million, and construction started in April 2008" and wrapped up in May 2010. https://thefacts.com/your_town/angleton_cc/construction-almost-complete-at-new-angleton-high-school/article_56eb4282-63c8-11df-99d1-001cc4c03286.html Here is Pearland Dawson HS Here is the Angleton HS This thread will be for others' thoughts. I won't editorialize other than to note that PBK's approach to local placemaking is not my preferred method of placemaking.
  9. strickn
    If it were left up to HAIF, what would you do differently and the same as now in terms of the number, site plans, materials, form, uses and flexibility to new forms and new uses, of the buildings of Houston? Would you keep it professionalized as it has been since WWII or let people of all ages, schedules of construction, and walks of life cobble architecture together?
  10. strickn
    In their midcampus admin highrise they were able to build extra shell floors to finish out as needed. I'm not sure if what you're seeing in Bellaire is low rent administrative and backoffice space, or medical office buildings, but UTMDACC uses specialized equipment for diagnosis and treatment so in that case it wouldn't make sense to decentralize medical care too much either.
  11. strickn
    Would be a lot cheaper, true
  12. strickn
    There would be a lot of stops and slowdowns for bicyclists and runners alike due to all the side streets and median curb cuts allowing left turns onto the side streets that occur on that stretch of parkwayized Memorial, but I agree it's the most feasible route option. ... A lot of screeching halts or collision events could yet be averted by making an undulating HOV flyover for joggers, cyclists and hill walkers down the alignment of the parkway's median islands instead. This would require a frequently elevated approach, though the project need not look like linear overpass columns being inserted in the median. A more attractive and artful approach could take inspiration from the arcs of a stone skipped on the bayou surface nearby, and consist of filigreed metal supports (not pilings but additively manufactured 3D printed formations perhaps?) that arch from median island to median island with walkway "hills" slowly rising and falling on top for the walkers and joggers and other strollers to enjoy
  13. strickn
    Gee whiz, I didn't even have to wish for more wishes before the pavement genie gave me a freebie!
  14. strickn
    It's bound to flip into a multifamily parcel assemblage at some point by the next decade Hopefully with ground floor patio retail courtyards like Westbury Square tho
  15. strickn
    So desperate to motivate you to do your archaeological quest (volunteer to help them get the paperwork rolling or get a local grantmaking foundation onboard to let high school and middle school students participate even!) that I selfliked my own comment... eek
  16. strickn
    The residential building cattycorner from this block has (aerial image reveals) a swimming pool on the corner of Bagby and Westheimer behind the blank wall. But I do like the height of the walkway that protrudes eastward from that building to make the pool patio feel at least a little more domestic and cozy or shaded and connected to it all. Home sweet home. Now given that this site for sale faces SSW, it could be a prime candidate for a city setback variance to let it build conditioned space over the sidewalk above the second floor, structurally covering the sidewalk below. In sun and rain that allows pedestrians a walking passage of similarly lofty size to that of the cattycorner arcaded walkway at the swimming pool. Only one lone small street tree would have to go or suffer. An even nicer variance would allow the lofty sidewalk shade to extend farther in cabled fabric form over the entire crosswalk in both directions-- from the median island, to here, and from here all the way to Whole Foods. Drivers could then call it an informal porte-cochere
  17. strickn
    Those cannas are nice. Good suggestions. not many developers in Houston own a building with a fire escape on it, I notice.
  18. strickn
    Mods, can Spring threads be moved out of Great Northwest and into Points North? It occurs in both subforum descriptions but Spring is only on I-45 and belongs only in the latter.
  19. strickn
    If it couldn't be done due to all the curb cut movements then like an HOV flyover it would require an elevated approach, though the project need not look like linear overpass columns being inserted in the median. A more artful approach could take inspiration from the arcs of a stone skipped on the bayou surface nearby, and consist of filigreed supports that arch from median island to median island with walkway "hills" slowly rising and falling on top for the walkers and joggers and other people to enjoy Oops, thought that it was going to add my comment into my recent one. Good info though hindesky
  20. strickn
    Would be dramatically hastened by securing an easement for a "hike and bike HOV lane" in the Memorial Drive median from Detering to Westcott and then from Westcott to Crestwood (to connect BBP, Spotts/Cleveland and Spencer M Clements parks directly into Memorial Park), no?
  21. strickn
    Does the new name also mean it's not their headquarters space (even if if was a sale and leaseback agreement) anymore? It's a good design from Gensler.
  22. strickn
    https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/chevron-buys-campus-cypress-bridgeland-houston-18348039.php 77.6 acres per Chron
  23. strickn
    The idea that cutting your risk strips your profit more than proportionately: I'm going to guess if you create tighter supply by signing a deal, then the other market suppliers benefit from the new market clearing price more effectively than you can; you have already reduced your exposure to the new demand at the new level of risk and reward by eating the par. You as a building owner would prefer not to hand others that price feedback if you had a better option to avoid downside. If it's indicative of an immediate sensitivity to a need for reportable cashflows, as Brookfield has shown in Denver for instance, a belief that the tide is sinking, a belief that their product would cost too much to renovate, or that Houston Center will reap the rewards and they already doubled down on it and have too much exposure to O&G now, whatever the combination might be, it is the case that now other building owners have just as much space to sell or rent out as they did before. All their negotiating potential to lock in higher prices just appreciated thanks to increased scarcity -- while the first will have even less space that can benefit than before.
  24. strickn
    A par value rent rate opts out of the opportunity to negotiate any better terms, so that that market value is lesser use of the word. To be exact it's a lagging market valuation versus the normally optimistic sense of a supplier finding out what a market will value by rising/pushing market value. The idea that cutting one's risk in this way strips one's profit more than strictly proportionally would be based on a theory that if you create tighter supply, by signing a term sheet, then the other suppliers benefit from the new market clearing price more effectively than you can; you have already reduced your exposure to the new demand at the new level of risk and reward by eating the par. Other buildings have just as much space to sell or rent out as before but their negotiating potential just rose, thanks to this, while this owner has less space than before.
  25. strickn
    The next rung is likely going to be George R Brown II... I think this ship has sailed, sorry.
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