Sunstar

12 hours ago, bobruss said:

Im not sure what your referring to because they did all of the east west streets from Commerce to Texas from Bagby to 59.

Its called the Cotswold project. Streets, trees, sidewalks, lighting and signage  were all improved and once the landscaping is done  in front of the new group of residences it should be finished. Im sure those sections will be landscaped similarly. The trees planted in 2002 have grown quite a bit, and it already feels 100% better. The grove of Bald Cyprus trees in front of Minute Maid are beautiful. It feels like a new world  there. Once  retail and shops open it will be  a neighborhood, but you can't manufacture neighborhoods. they grow in their own way organically.

I would like to see a redo of Crawford from MMP to Discovery green. Not sure if it would make sense to do on LaBranch. 

This is a very interesting article. The developer is claiming that the old facade was heavily compromised when they put up the current cladding 50 years ago, and there wouldn't be much left to restore. Then the Texas Historical Commission establishes a guideline that a building must be at least 50 years old to be considered historic, which I assume would help the developer apply for the redevelopment grant. 

I have an issue with taking the developers word for it, since not doing the full restoration and still getting the grant probably helps their business case quite a bit. 

16 hours ago, samagon said:

 

yeah, thankfully it's unsolicited. not that I don't want to see something like this in Houston, or it isn't a cool concept, but there's other parks in Houston that money should be spent on before we come back to BBP. It was what 50 million to do the current renovation?

 

I don't think BBP is slowing down anytime soon. I don't have any direct evidence, but I would expect them to release details on the next phase of the project that will extend the project eastward from Allen's landing some time this year. They've been busy buying up a lot of old industrial sites along the Bayou's east end. Two specific elements from the master plan that I would like to see come to fruition is the Commerce Street Promenade and the Turkey Bend Ecology Park. 

The key word in the article is unsolicited design. Nevertheless, it's fun to see architects and landscape architects highlighting the potential of Buffalo Bayou. 

That's a big tease

On 6/6/2016 at 4:25 PM, Houston19514 said:

Fortune 500 came out today:

 

Houston metro area now has 24 Fortune 500 companies.  That is down 2 from last year.

 

The primary changes:

-- We added Huntsman and

-- KBR, Buckeye Partners and MRC dropped out of the 500 (they are now at 501, 656, and 541, respectively; No doubt a result of the drop in oil prices.)

 

Our count of 24 is without counting NRG, which is listed as headquartered in New Jersey, but technically is dual-headquartered in NJ and Houston. 

 

The State of Texas has 51, down 3 from last year.

 

D/FW has 20, down 1from last year.

 

Here is the list for Houston:

1	Phillips 66 (30)
2	Sysco (57)
3	ConocoPhillips (90)
4	Entrprise Products Partners (104)
5	Halliburton (117)
6	Plains GP Holdings (121)
7	Baker Hughes (178)
8	National Oilwell Varco (192)
9	Kinder Morgan (198)
10	Waste Management (221)
11	Occidental Petroleum (225)
12	Group 1 Automotive (267)
13	Huntsman (277)
14	Cameron International (319)
15	EOG Resources (322)
16	Anadarko Petroleum (324)
17	Quanta Services (352)
18	Centerpoint Energy (363)
19	Targa Resources (387)
20	Apache (388)
21	Calpine (402)
22	FMC Technologies (410)
23	Marathon Oil (438)
24	Spectra Energy (493)

Didn't realize Sysco was so high on the list. Otherwise, mostly O&G industry. Such a highly skilled work force here, it's a shame other industries don't try to take advantage of it. 

Go Gators!!!

10 minutes ago, cloud713 said:

But we cared.. Does Hines not care about the people of HAIF?!

What about our feelings? 

I didn't realize Globe Life was over 20 years old! Still, not a very timeless design. 

Minute Maid Park is already 16 years old, but I hope that they keep using it for another 20 at least. It's a great urban ballpark that they're just starting to realize the value of with all the great development in the area. 

I'm guessing they won't start taking in residents until the parking garage is built?

I guess this would encompass the Sawyer Yards development:

I walked by there today and I didn't see anything. Looks like the site hasn't been touched. 

So if this is the old post office site, and this is the developer, I'm assuming we'll see this turned into a City Centre type of development? Some residential and commercial,with structures ranging 4-10 stories?

44 minutes ago, Nate99 said:

Interesting, this treatment looks better than what was shown in the rendering. 

I like to take a wait-and-see attitude. While the Marriott sounds like it will be awesome, I want to see the finished product before I start kicking the Hilton to the curb . 

I like the Hilton Americas 

7 hours ago, Elseed said:

 

I believe the original plan was to redevelop the sakowitz building and part of another building into street level retail? Which I think could work. However, after the city announced that they've narrowed the the list of developers to work on this project no one has really heard anything from the city.

I think the other building in question is 1010 Lamar, behind the Sakowitz building. I haven't heard any updates on that redevelopment. 

As far as the inward facing restaurants along the Green Street Development, perhaps they could treat the Dallas side as a patio area for outdoor dining. They could place tables and a hostess stand on the sidewalk and install awnings. It's not retail, per se, but it would help create a more inviting environment for patrons.

8 hours ago, Elseed said:

So still no word on any potential tenants in the retail corridor?  

More importantly, where would the retail go? Besides Forever 21, the rest of the Green Street development on the Dallas side is a hotel currently under construction, 3 restaurants and the House of Blues. The Sakowitz building is still a parking garage,and the other remaining structures along this route are parking garages. I'm hoping the corner of the corner of 1111 Travis will have a retail component. But other than that they would have to build something new. 

I'm sure the future for this location will be great, but in the meantime - blech!

22 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I really hate seeing this building go... I'm actually right next to it now... I mean we will have a crater on this side of DT... right next to the massive Chase tower... idk, just hope something replaces one of these lots soon because this is depressing... you have a boom and to replace all the great construction you have Skanska build a garage and the Chronicle building coming down. 

Not to mention the fact that there's already a giant parking lot right next to this location by Market Square. 

23 minutes ago, samagon said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_(chess)

how could chess possibly have such an impact on basketball?

*Spoiler text*     I kid, I kid!!!

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was quite the chess player

56 minutes ago, samagon said:

final 4?? More like final blade of grass.

I'd hate to watch a basketball game at NRG, but don't feel bad for the people who watched at NRG, feel bad for those that watched at the astrodome. Could you even imagine? I can, only because I went to wrestlemania there in 2001. Anyway, whether it's good place for fans or not, it's great for the NCAA, they had the highest attendance at a final game ever. that's lot's of ticket sales. We'll see the final 4 again, or at least other cities will offer their football stadiums for the event. Ha, I just had an image of this being played at jerry world. anyway, I'd not feel sorry for the attendees, location aside, they can tell everyone they know they were there for the best final basketball game in the history of the tournament and if it were in a smaller arena they'd probably have not been able to afford seats, or they'd be complaining about having to pay a scalper thousands of dollars for the tickets.

I think that because of the distance between the convention center and BBP that they will continue to use disco green. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but then they'd have to shut down Dallas on that weekend designating it for pedestrians only (perfect since it's the main street in the shopping district anyway, so as people walk they can shop on all the storefronts along dallas). and then have a stream of continuous buses going back and forth on mckinney and walker.

The Astrodome was host to the so called Game of the Century, which basically made college basketball what it is today. It's pretty interesting stuff, if you're not familiar with it, look it up on Wikipedia. My understanding is that NCAA final four games can only be hosted in domed stadiums, so I'm not sure how much worse NRG is than any other option. If that's the case, I would blame it on the NCAA and not NRG, or Houston.