Sunstar

Oh well, I had always hoped this building could somehow be incorporated into BBP’s design, but I understand that downtown is probably better off without it from a flood control perspective. Also, the south side bayou trail can now continue East, although the next barrier is right across San Jacinto at the Harris County inmate processing center. I was hoping.that would meet the same fate as 1119. All that land plus the adjacent parking lot would open up a nice bit of green space along the bayou.

Metro hints at a future light rail extension along 90a, but the only substantive thing I can find on the MetroNext plan is two way HOV. Missouri City is part of Metro’s service area and voted in the bond referendum, but light rail is unlikely unless Sugarland and other Fort Bend towns are willing to chip in. This feels like a big miss to me, but I’m not sure what the projected ridership for such a line would be even with full participation from Fort Bend county. I’m also curious If Metro could purchase their own ROW inside the existing Union Pacific ROW when the time came.

the good news is we got the Julia Ideson building as our new library. In the above picture it’s interesting that it seems like downtown more or less ends at McKinney. Not sure if there were any notable buildings south of there at that time.

Seen in the lower left.

Chevron will never develop anything on that lot. Perhaps they would consider selling it or gifting it to the city instead of just keeping it as an empty field.

It seems like they've stripped out more of the original building than the renderings had indicated, unless the plan is to build it back similar to what was there.

I thought so too at first, but I pulled this aerial from 1962 not long before Grand Central Station was torn down and you can see the western edge of the building comes very close. Maybe it's a newer section that was added to the original structure later on. Sorry about the copyright markings, I can take this photo down if needs be. This is a very interesting site, Houston has had a train depot here pretty much back to the beginning:' In this photo you can see the old Brazos hotel across Washington Ave, which was later torn down to make room for the last Grand Central Station:

Found this old aerial of Grand Central. I can't make out that old post office building in this photo. If it was built back in the 30s, it should be visible in this picture, slightly to the east and right behind that other building.

If it's contributing to flooding downtown then I agree it needs to be removed. The building had some unique character to it, but I also think turning that whole section along the Bayou from Fannin to Elysian into green space would be quite nice. I'm guessing they were never able to purchase the Centerpoint property on McKee since I don't see it incorporated into their plan.

I was hoping they could somehow incorporate 1119 Commerce into the design, it's a cool old building they way if backs right up to the Bayou.

The renovations of older buildings for new hotels has been a huge boon for downtown IMO, and I hope the trend continues. I agree revenues are mainly business driven, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I suspect there has been an incremental increase in our tourism numbers over the past 10 years or so, and that will likely continue, but I don't know of anything we can add above what we already have that will suddenly catapult us into the ranks of Austin/San Antonio, let alone NYC or SF. It kind of is what it is. The further densification (not sure that's a word) of downtown and other neighborhoods will help. I also think projects like the next phases of the Buffalo Bayou and the Memorial Park Master Plans will also help from a beautification standpoint. But several of our major attractions like Nasa and the San Jacinto Battlefield, which in most cities would be huge tourist attractions, are hindered by being too far outside the city with no reliable means of getting to other than rental car or Uber/Taxi.

If it's not revenues, something must be driving new hotel developments downtown. It seems like a new one opens every new week, with more being announced all the time. Perhaps the revenues aren't enough to entice some of the higher end brands to to open up here, but they will soon be in a tiny minority.

Oh nuts, I missed them! 😃

I totally forgot this was a thing. Thanks for the post.

I can’t wait to see this sucker lit up. It’s going to look great!