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Sellanious Caesar

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  1. Sellanious Caesar
    I counted the building and I got 30 stories on top of 10 stories of garage. 40 stories even, which sounds like the RC in every other city. If this design is any indication of what is to come (I like it), then it will be 400 ft minimum but I think the crown structure on top should push it to 450 ft or higher. 500 ft doesn't sound too crazy as a ballpark figure either. BTW greetings and welcome to HAIF
  2. Sellanious Caesar
    These are all exquisite projects in DAL. I love the look of the Commune + Illume building and One Uptown the most. The Ross Perot placeholder design is extravagant too. Hope the Big D gets a supertall or two one day.
  3. Sellanious Caesar
    I don't care for those that stay at RC or live there but the building is a very striking design and is a refreshment for Uptown which hasn't had as many tall and modern projects in decades. This building will make an impact in the city's Uptown skyline and its design and architectural form is something everyone in the city can enjoy, not just that live at the RC or stay there. I think the building has an awesome design and if its built I'll get to see it every weekday when I drive on 610W.
  4. Sellanious Caesar
    Their hotel renderings that were released a few months ago were beautiful. It is a stunning design that will enhance the Uptown skyline. I think it is necessary because Uptown needs more modern architecture and the renderings for the Galleria hotel that we saw were great. Yes, I am very disappointed that it isn't 40 stories. Not disappointed to the point where I hate this proposal because I think Houston needs an RC regardless of the # of floors it has. The Galleria Mall is Houston's most visited "tourist attraction" and is obviously home to some of the city's most upscale shops and retailers, and across the street from the Williams tower and the Waterwall. This location fits RCs MO to a T. They always put their hotels in huge tourist attraction zones with upscale retailers and apparent wealth. I think what Uptown needs more of is height. Williams Tower and the San Felipe Tower are practically by themselves in Uptown for tall skyscrapers. There are lots of highrises and buildings in Uptown but what it is missing most is in height. I hope a future residential, office, or hotel breaks the glass barrier and goes tall. Uptown badly needs it more than any other district in HOU IMO.
  5. Sellanious Caesar
    This will not be a 4 year university. It won't be a UT Houston. They want the campus for research and collaborative projects it seems like. http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/morning_call/2016/06/heres-what-utcould-do-with-its-houston-campus.html
  6. Sellanious Caesar
    Good detective work lockmat. I went back and read the Galleria thread where the hotel was announced. The hotel is slated to begin construction at the end of 2017 (18 months from now) and has a 250 unit hotel with 75-100 condo residences on top of it. Looks like you uncovered the location of the new RC. Only thing that sucks is that it's 30 stories. Is it just me or do other cities always get better things than Houston? Philly, Atlanta, etc all smaller metros and smaller and less important economies than Houston, but all with 40+ stories for an RC. ATL has 2 RCs, and trying to get a 3rd one for their 98th 14th street development. I don't understand why Houstons always left behind. But whatever. If this Galleria tower is indeed it, then it's quite inferior to RCs original proposal a few years ago at BLVD Place. I want to see Houston get an SLS hotel.
  7. Sellanious Caesar
    Sounds like a minimum of 40 stories by your description and their other projects across the US and world.
  8. Sellanious Caesar
    That is no contest. Ritz Carlton is a higher echelon of branding for a hotel than W, which is 2 tiers beneath Ritz on the totem pole. Houston doesn't need a W but to establish its hotel offerings, it will need a Ritz Carlton. I wonder if SLS has taken a look at Houston. That's one the city will benefit from dramatically, especially because of how exclusive SLS is.
  9. Sellanious Caesar
    You know that famous urban planning saying "grocery stores, pharmacies, and GFR follow rooftops"? likewise, Ritz Carlton follows entertainment clusters (LA), upscale shopping corridors (ATL), or wealthy edge cities with high concentrations of conference space or office space. My guess would be in or near ROD, the Galleria, or Uptown Park shopping center. Here are 4 skyline clusters in order of most likely to least that I could see Ritz setup shop in 1. Uptown Houston 2. Museum District 3. Greenway Plaza 4. Neartown (building cluster on Allen Parkway, centered around AIG building)
  10. Sellanious Caesar
    I would guess either Uptown Houston, Museum District, or Greenway Plaza. My my bets on Uptown Houston.
  11. Sellanious Caesar
    I like this plan personally. I think this is good for Houston in many ways. 1) We could always use more schools. Ask Metro LA, Metro Boston, SF Bay, DC/Balt, NYC area, Chicago metro, Raleigh Triangle, etc etc if they would accept losing any of their great higher learning schools and they'll tell you no way IMO. . The jobs created and investment in the education industry will be a boon for Houston in a time when oil prices are plummeting every day to new lows. It's a sturdy white collar industry presence like this that will help Houston diversify. Colleges and universities make substantial money from student housing, books, on campus things, etc. 2) love its location. It'll be a great extension to the greater TMC area. It's great to have an urban school campus develop densely adjacent to the NRG Park and TMC areas. With accessible options to light rail, and McRaven wants to get LRT extended to the campus, it's in a great site to continue the footprint of the urban development occurring south of Midtown all the way to the NRG Park, Museum district, and TMC areas and now extending further south of loop 610. Thanks to UT's plans. 3) this is great for the community. It gives more school options, and it will eventually as it seasons into Houston's livelihood over the course of a few decades, will become an integral part of the community's culture. I.e. Sports, events, socials, research competitions, recruiters, etc. Houston has the chance to build a new school brand, not to compete with UH and Rice but to compliment them in terms of offerings in the Metro Houston area. I doubt a UT-Houston will ever be better than UT-Austin, but UT-Dallas is pretty good now, accredited and recognized public university, UT-Houston can certainly compete well with that. 4) I like its urban concept renderings. I like the whole thing. It's a win, esp. considering what's on the land now. DEW IT UT!
  12. Sellanious Caesar
    So is this project and TMC3 project one in the same? Or are these 2 different projects altogether?
  13. Sellanious Caesar
    We should replace the name Uptown with Diamond City.
  14. Sellanious Caesar
    The Kirby Collection is actually my favorite Houston project of the last couple of years. I had also liked the Saint Honroe project as well until they screwed that one up completely and made it unrecognizable.
  15. Sellanious Caesar
    I personally always just thought Uptown had 2 parts, inside the Loop and outside the Loop. The Outer Loop Uptown calls itself "Galleria Area" locally. The Inner Loop Uptown doesn't have a local name yet, but I think River Oaks District would work great. If you can refer to an area by the name of a mall (eg. "Galleria Area") then you could also refer to an area for a street level shopping district too IMO.
  16. Sellanious Caesar
    I see the Museum District is constructing a nice skyline now. The Carter will look stunning on its completion, it's near the freeway too, so will look high-class for all to easily see. The Hotel ZaZa area has a nice cluster too, I notice with TMC to the south and the Mosaics along 288, that high rises are developing all around Hermann Park. Houston's infill is amazing to watch. Hope this happens, Museo's 54 story tower instantly becomes to Museum District what the Transco Tower is to Uptown (just obviously on a more micro level to Transco, and Museum District on a micro level to Uptown). Oh BTW before I forget, I notice lots of those cute cutting edge condo "semi- towers" at 8-12 floors sprouting up in Museum District and Midtown, so there is hope for continuity in a potential future skyline spanning from DT 2 TMC after all.
  17. Sellanious Caesar
    BTW I want Virgin Atlantic more than Virgin America. One of them is a foreign airliner the other a domestic. I would embrace IAH getting Virgin Atlantic and Hobby getting Virgin America. That would be great! Hope the same for DFW too!
  18. Sellanious Caesar
    I think HOU and DFW compliment one another beautifully IMO. DFW has rolling hills, lots of them can be very nice but DFW's ace is that from DT Dallas, the Ouachita Mountains are just 90 mins north. Most folks in the DFW area live north of DT Dallas and DT Fort Worth in the northern suburbs like Plano, Denton, Richardson, Grapevine, etc so are 30 mins closer to the Ouachita Mountains than those in DAL or FW proper. This is a huge advantage for hikers, campers, lodgers, and folks that like to be outdoors. HOU is a coastal city. It has the ocean (gulf is apart of the Atlantic), bays, ship channels, islands, etc. From DT Houston it is 1 hour to Galveston (50 miles). This is great for beach goers, folks that love to fish, play beach volleyball, boat, jet skii, etc. Houston has lots of suburbs south of DT, so for some folks the beach is even closer than it is for folks in the Inner Loop. Galveston is a great historic town with lots of 19th century gothic architecture, amazing Cajun, Creole, and Seafood to go with some awesome amenities like Moody Gardens, the Strand, Pleasure Pier, East Beach (you can drink on the beach) and lots of activities like the beach music concerts every weekend or events like Mardi Gras. HOU is only of the only 3 metros in TX that has cruises and cruise line service along with CC and RGV. As HOU and DFW grow I for one want to see them identify more with the topography advantages that surround them. Both cities compliment each other well and I hope HSR is built between them. My full vision is that I want HSR to link the TX Triangle cities together (HOU, DAL, ATX, SA, FW) and also link NOLA, Monterrey, OKC, Tulsa, Corpus Christi, RGV (SPI), Wichita, Little Rock, Fayetteville, Baton Rouge, Fayetteville, and the small college towns like CS, Waco, etc too. It would be a very strongly bonded region IMO. NOLA is to HOU party goers what Vegas is to LA party goers. El Paso should look into developing passenger rail with ABQ and DEN when that corridor gains critical mass IMO. I'm from Sydney, Australia and Texas setup has lots of similarities to Australia. El Paso-Las Cruces has over 1 million folks but is isolated like the way Perth has over a million and isolated in west Australia. Adelaide and Corpus are similar coastal towns with bones to be a much bigger city. Brisbane and Canberra fits in the shadows of SYD/MEL the way SA and ATX sit in HOU/DFWs shadows, etc. I was in DFW recently and got the day pass everyday for transit. It was nice to leave the car in the hotel garage the entire weekend and just use DART to go everywhere in the city. I was there to see Dallas since it's been a while. I love that you can see SMU, U. Dallas, and other colleges by train, that both Love Field and DFW Airport are on transit lines, that all of the urban Inner city areas like Deep Ellum, Uptown, Midtown, and other fun sights and nightlife areas are on the train line. We also used A-train and TRE to go to DTFW and DT Denton and toured the DTs of some of the suburbs in the line (Plano, Richardson, Garland, etc). It was nice because we walked everywhere and when we weren't walking we just took the train everywhere for everything. We didn't touch our car even once after we checked in our hotel and didn't need it again until we checked out. The trolley, DART light rail, A-Train commuter rail, TRE commuter rail, and trolley systems were more than enough for us. I was impressed and wished HOU had the same amount of coverage, hopefully one day. HSR will tie the region up spectacularly, first the TX Triangle and then the major centers around the TX Triangle IMO.
  19. Sellanious Caesar
    Dallasites and Houstonians relationship is still like Melbournites and Sydneysiders like. Open competition and hostility. Push to be #1 at everything. Part of if is because they're of similar size, like Melbourne and Sydney, try to be #1 for Texas like Melbourne and Sydney try to be #1 in Australia. At least the rivalry is more interesting and competitive than CA's LA vs SF. I like DFW BTW. It's easy to like both HOU and DFW.
  20. Sellanious Caesar
    These turned out nice. Even without ground floor sidewalk interaction (shops, lobby, etc). I wouldn't mind seeing more of these, it's great filling in.
  21. Sellanious Caesar
    On the bright side this land will probably be sold off to someone that will propose a nice midrise infill or a highrise MF or a few highrises for hotels or MF or office. Literally prime real estate and location. Will be scooped up fast.
  22. Sellanious Caesar
    I noticed that as well that there's a net gain housing units with all these projects vs the old apartments. But it had me thinking about the household size in the old apartments vs these new residentials being built. I would imagine that the household size would be >2 (mirroring areas of DT) vs the old apartments where people probably had kids. Any ideas?
  23. Sellanious Caesar
    They will probably enclose this Hanover Tower with Phase III all around it. http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/4312-west-ave-kirby-westheimer-retail-and-residential-complex/page-18#entry432541
  24. Sellanious Caesar
    I've been saying this for 2 years but Upper Kirby is one of the two corridors (the other being Allen Parkway) are quickly becoming Houston's condo canyon/highrise canyon areas. The Kirby Collection, now this, the Phase III of WestAve (largest phase yet), and 2727 will show that off nicely.
  25. Sellanious Caesar
    I like it too. It's befitting of TMC. Guys, it's a hospital. Architectural wonders are better suited for Downtown, Uptown, or even Greenway.
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