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Rice announced the $30 million gift for College #11, Duncan College. Along with new residential college #10, McMurtry College, there will be two new LEED certified buildings for Rice (and its first Gold certification). http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.as...;SnID=417075778 http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories...63&ana=e_du

The Wells Fargo Plaza: Location: Street 1000 Louisiana Street Postcode: 77002 Neighborhood: Downtown Borough: Inner Loop East City: Houston Country: U.S.A. Technical Data: Height: 972 ft (296 m) Floors: 71 Construction: Built in 1983 Style: Modern Facts - Inside, two double-decked skylobbies offer public views from different heights uring business hours. - The building's footprint is in the shape of a dollar sign. - Tallest all-glass building in the Western Hemisphere. - Wells Fargo Center is located in Houston's Central Business District on the corner of Rusk and Travis Streets. - The 71-story building features a warm bronze glass facade and a main lobby adorned with terrazzo tile accented with incandescent lighting. - Wells Fargo Center's convenient location offers Metro Bus Service and direct access to downtown Houston's 2.5-mile climate controlled underground pedestrian system. - The design partner for Wells Fargo Plaza was Richard Keating. - This is the second tallest building in Houston and Texas. Companies: owner: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company owner: Metropolitan Tower Realty Company, Inc. developer: Century Development Corporation design architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP associate architect: Lloyd Jones Brewer & Associates general contractor: Turner Construction Company structural engineering: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP tenant: Wells Fargo Bank

https://shopcompanies.com/properties/medical-center-crossing

Thanks to lockmat for discovering this one. A Hyatt Regency is planned, but anyone know the exact location? https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=574503485955130&set=pb.453063364765810.-2207520000.1384359537.&type=3&theater

San Felipe Plaza, Sunset, originally uploaded by zoomanderson1. San Felipe Plaza bids adieu to another day in Houston. The architect, Richard Keating, once told HAIF that it was one of his favorites. Shame about the location, though. It so often gets overlooked. A little closer to Uptown or downtown would have done wonders. Thanks to zoomanderson1 for the photo from the HAIF Flickr group.

The highly visible plot of land on Rice's campus on the corner of Main St and University Blvd. will house The Collaborative Research Center. Designed to be LEED certified by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, the tower will contain 477,000 square feet for class/lab space for bioscience and biotech research. Rice will operate the center in conjunction with Baylor, MD Anderson, UT Health Science, Texas Children's and a host of other TMC institutions. The building will have 3 levels of underground parking and 10,000 square feet of retail/restaurant space that faces Main St. Plans call for the design to allow for the addition of another tower on top of this one and another on adjacent land...

Richard Keating, of SOM fame, stopped by the Houston Architecture Info web site a couple of weeks ago and left behind a little trail of e-mails. I thought I might respond to them with a collection of questions from the HAIF readers. For those of you who don't know, Keating is the man behind Wells Fargo Plaza, El Paso Energy Building, CenterPoint Energy Tower, and San Felipe Plaza. So, post your questions here and I'll put a bunch together and send them out to him interview style. If we're lucky, maybe he'll write back!

"When completed in 1961, the First City National Bank complex in Houston connected a 36-story office tower to a low-rise banking pavilion. The contrast between the two buildings is emphasized not only by their scale, but also by their careful detailing and materiality: the tower, with its recessed windows and white marble cladding, stands in deliberate opposition to the banking pavilion’s glass and steel structure. In keeping with the city’s car culture, the pavilion was designed to allow customers to complete transactions through six drive-in windows. While this portion of the complex was later demolished, the tower, now known as One City Centre, still stands as an early example of modernism in downtown Houston." http://skidmoreowingsmerrill.tumblr.com/post/142803990147/throwback-thursday-first-city-national-bank-when Sorry if these images have been posted before but searching for "One City Centre" yields hundreds of posts about Midway's CityCentre. Imagine that pavilion still fronting main... Sigh.

1100 LOUISIANA AWARDED LEED® GOLD CERTIFICATION (HOUSTON) – The Houston office of Hines, the international real estate firm, announced today that 1100 Louisiana has received Gold certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® rating system for Existing Buildings (EB). Developed, leased and managed by Hines, 1100 Louisiana is a 1.4 million-square-foot, 55-story office tower located downtown Houston. Clad in Spanish Rose granite, the building was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and was completed by Hines in 1980. Under Hines’ management, the building has earned the ENERGY STAR® label six times and has a current rating of 87. As a result, the building performs 40 percent better and saves $1.34 in energy costs per square foot per year when compared to the national average building. This translates to estimated greenhouse gas reductions equivalent to removing approximately 2,125 passenger vehicles from the road. Green building features and programs include: reduced heat island effect; reduced nighttime light pollution; a 31.5 percent reduction in indoor potable water use; comprehensive commissioning; installation of low-mercury lamps; building waste diversion of 50 percent; green cleaning; and alternative transportation options for commuters, among other things. Hines worked closely with Kirksey’s EcoServices group, which played an instrumental role in managing the administrative aspects of the LEED certification process. Hines Senior Vice President of Operations Cliff Gann said, “1100 Louisiana is an excellent example of a holistic approach to buildings. Good design augmented by operational expertise yields a better tenant experience and lower operating expenses for tenants and owners alike. LEED Gold was a natural target for this property.” 1100 Louisiana is 98 percent leased to tenants, including: Enterprise Products; Enbridge Midcoast Energy; Forest Oil Company; King & Spalding; and Vitol Inc.; among others. Globally Hines is responsible for 145 projects, representing more than 89 million square feet that have been certified, pre-certified or registered under the various LEED rating systems. Hines was a founding member of the German Sustainable Building Council, and is active in the BRE Environmental Assessment Method program in the United Kingdom and the Haute Qualité Environnementale program in France. In 2009, Hines was recognized by the EPA, for the second time, with the ENERGY STAR Sustained Excellence Award; Hines has 138 buildings, representing approximately 77 million square feet that have earned the ENERGY STAR label. Twelve Hines development or redevelopment projects, representing more than six million square feet, have been designated as Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR. Hines is a privately owned real estate firm involved in real estate investment, development and property management worldwide. The firm’s historical and current portfolio of projects that are underway, completed, acquired and managed for third parties includes 1,111 properties representing more than 449 million square feet of office, residential, mixed-use, industrial, hotel, medical and sports facilities, as well as large, master-planned communities and land developments. Hines has offices in more than 100 cities in 17 countries and controls assets valued at approximately $22.9 billion. Visit www.hines.com for more information. To learn more about sustainability at Hines, visit www.hines.com/sustainability. ----------- 1100 Louisiana is also known by some as Enterprise Plaza.

http://www.har.com/HomeValue/dispSoldDetai...p;MLNUM=2231945

Building on their success with binding tubes together with the Sears Tower, SOM updates the design for the skyscraper wonderland of Dubai · SkyscraperNews content includes: an article, photos. Skyscraper News View the full article

Crescent Sells Houston Office Property Gain and Promoted Interest Realized FORT WORTH, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 12, 2006--Crescent Real Estate Equities Company (NYSE:CEI) announced today that it has sold Three Westlake Park, a 414,792 square-foot office property in Houston, TX, in which Crescent owned a 20% stake in a joint venture with a pension fund. The office property was sold for $87.3 million, or $210 per square foot. Crescent expects to recognize in net income a gain on the sale of approximately $17 million. Included in this gain is approximately $7 million, which is attributable to Crescent's promoted interest and will be recognized in funds from operations, as adjusted ("FFO, as adjusted") as of December 31, 2006.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John Merrill. The firm opened its second office, in New York City, in 1937 and has since expanded internationally, with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seattle, and Dubai.

Medical Center National Bank located at 6631 South Main Street. Designed Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the curving front elevation of the pavilion-like Medical Center National Bank building (1960, demolished) used panels of marble inset into a metal frame to provide filtered light into the banking hall.