MarkD

Oops, I meant April 22 - and that was wrong too, it is April 24 I guess. I think they are planning on having the building done by then, but the landscaping won't be entirely finished by then.

I believe there is supposed to be a dedication ceremony on March 22, but I don't think they will be quite done with all the landscaping by then. It will definitely not be done in 2 weeks (I spoke to the project manager today). As a side note, the Rice F&E people have been doing a great job lately at keeping up communication with the Rice students/faculty/staff who are interested. I'm going to be getting married in the Rice Chapel before the project is finished, but when I e-mailed just to find out what their timeline was they immediately responded and are actually going to make sure there is no construction noise during the wedding. Quite a bit more helpful than they had to be.

In Jax's absence, I'll go ahead and give a run down since I just stopped by Rice's construction info office... There are actually a ton of projects going on right now. (Some of these have been mentioned in other threads... but I'll just list them all anyway) 1) CRC (webcam) 2) South Plant (webcam) - this building will basically provide power/utilities to the CRC and probably eventually some other buildings on this side of the campus.. This is just off Main st. 3) New Rec Center - You are right, Rice is building a 50 meter outdoor pool as part of a new rec center that will also have much more+nicer weight/cardio facilities, indoor and outdoor basketball courts, an outdoor recreational pool, and probably a bunch of other stuff. This is going to be put in the empty space across from the business school. They haven't really been doing anything so far except for moving trees - although it is an impressive sight to see them transplant fully grown live oaks. 4) McMurtry and Duncan colleges - two new residential colleges (undergraduate dorms) near Sunset and Rice 5) Autry Court - Basketball arena is being renovated - should be awesome (although still small compared to other D1 basketball facilities - but who cares, we will still rarely ever fill the place). I think one of the coolest parts of this renovation is that they are building a huge pedestrian plaza that goes around the building that will also serve as a much improved entrance to Reckling Park. 6) My personal favorite: Brochstein Pavillion going in the heart of the campus - should be completed within a month, and will feature a coffee house run by Deidrich's, so I will finally have another option for coffee/lunch. Along with the building is a complete renovation of the area behind the library, adding tons of trees, fountains, outdoor seating, etc. Should be really nice. There are also a few other smaller renovation projects going on (drainage/landscaping improvements near the south colleges, renovation of an old building to turn it into an engineering design lab). I have never seen so much green fencing in all my time at Rice...

By that definition, Midtown is a suburban neighborhood, considering that directly across the street from this location is a strip mall with a surface lot and a bank with a drive-thru ATM.

Actually, the people in the neighborhood are the ones who announced this - before the developers got the chance. And the developers were actively hiding their plans from the neighborhood. First, the developers did not just go in and buy the property, rather, they purchased a controlling interest in the stock of the company that owned the property. I'm not sure when the neighbors realized this had happened, but they had known for some time now that the effective ownership of the existing apartments had changed hands, and that the new owners were planning on replacing it with two to three story apartments or townhouses. This was what the developers were telling the city and the neighbors all along, including as they spent $500,000 on sewer improvements. The neighbors discovered the developers true intentions when they obtained a copy of the impact study filed with the city, well before the project had been announced. So I don't see how you can criticise the neighborhood and say that "their lack of planning and involvement brought it to this". If anything, the fact that the developers outright lied to the neighborhood is what brought it to this.

The only way you're going to put a light rail line down Bissonnet is if you just close the road to traffic entirely. Considering that there is absolutely nothing on Bissonnet right now but cars, I wouldn't expect this to happen.

It looks like one of the more likely options for the U-line station would be Dunlavy and Richmond, which Google maps says is .7 miles away. In the alternative plans it looks like the closest station would be a bit farther (Shepherd and 59). The nearest Main line station is by Rice which is about a mile-long walk. This is Houston - hardly any of the people who can afford to live in this place will be willing to walk that far every day in the summer... So I agree, proximity to the light rail is definitely not an argument in favor of building this tower. And I'm just not sure how it makes sense to build this large of a building in a location where there isn't a single multi-lane road within a half-mile radius...