811 Main: Office Skyscraper At 811 Main St.

[musicman]

And walking with other people around is one factor that makes a walk nice (for most of us anyways).

see you at best buy the day after thanksgiving for our nice stroll.

[Houston19514]

Compare MainPlace with Blvd Place or Pavillions

The latter two have massive retail components designed in from the get go... They have friendly pedestrian environments designed in from the get go.

MainPlace.. has half a block of retail afterthought.

Mainplace will be a beautiful addition to our skyline.. it'll have a few retail stores tucked away inside the garage.. it will probably add some pedestrians to the block.... but.. it will do squat to make walking downtown a more pleasant or vibrant experience

So you've concluded that two mixed-use (and predominantly retail) developments will have a different pedestrian environment than an office building with ground level retail? Very insightful. Thanks for posting.

To say this building will do "squat" to make walking downtown a more pleasant experience is just, well, ignorant (sorry, but I can't think of any more accurate word). ANY activity on that block (and a 1 MSF building with retail will add a lot of activity) will be a huge improvement over what is there now and will add significantly to make walking downtown a more pleasant experience. That would be true no matter the location, but even more so in this particular block right in the middle stretch of Main Street, which is currently something of a black hole.

[H-Town Man]

I think what he is saying is that the retail will be jutting out in front of, or behind the garage structure. Currently, we have entire blocks of garages facing Main. A garage with retail facing Main will be a welcome sight. Am I missing something, or is H-Town?

If you consider a parking garage with some retail slapped on to be a welcome addition to our most important urban street, then I rest my argument.

Roll your eyes right on out of their sockets to avoid actually looking at the renderings if you want. The part that juts out towards Main Street is the retail portion of the building. People other than I have also asked you what it is about the building that should be different in order to produce better pedestrian life, and all you can come up with is, well, nothing.

How about putting the building itself on Main with the parking garage behind it (and next to Stowers) on Fannin? And then, instead of your standard 1980's corporate lobby, redesign the lower floors to actually make a lively and human-scaled facade for the street. If you don't understand this, do a walking tour of cities like New York, Chicago, Portland, even Austin, and see what architects are doing there to add to the urban environment. Our architects still seem to be stuck in the 1980's, anti-urban era.

You complain about recessed entrances and then post a picture of a building with recessed entrances as your model of what could be done. Then you tell us the good thing about your posted building is that it "juts out" at the lower floors, somehow thereby creating a friendly pedestrian atmosphere, but conveniently ignoring that the retail area along Main Street of MainPlace also "juts out" from the rest of the building. Do you actually have anything constructive to say or any actual reason for your criticism?

Yes, the Frost Tower facade does have a recess per se... my point was that 40+ floors of sheer glass with nothing but a slight cavity to set off the entrance does not make for a good street-level environment, whereas the Frost Tower architect made a diligent effort in the lower four stories (diligent meaning he did more than just stick some retail in front of a parking garage) to create a lively street presence for Congress St.

And with that said, enough! If you don't get it by now, you never will! Agree to disagree.

[H-Town Man]

As for "inhuman environments at street level" I'd say that Pennzoil and Chase do an amazing job of humanizing their scale and sites without turning them into strip centers. The entrance to Pennzoil is almost on the scale of a private residence, the way it slopes down to sidewalk level and brings people inside before they actually enter the building. Chase actually made a large city square with sculpture the justification for its massive height and edge siting. You walk up tiny steps with long runs to get to it. I'd say that is a pretty good urbanist's approach to humanizing the scale. BofA is a scaling disaster, I agree, but it was designed to be freeway architecture at the height of that movement's heydey in the epicenter of its most prominent city. Plus, it's so beautiful, I think most give it a pass for the damage it did to the sidewalk experience. Regardless, there's an entire city block-sized park across the street where you are free to be as pedestrian as you want. Calpine I don't consider a major building in any regard, except that it is very new. It does happen to be in probably the most walkable areas of Downtown, near several cool eateries and bars and adjacent to major performing arts centers, so I'm not sure what your beef is there. I walk around it all the time and find it neither inhuman nor forbidding. 1000 Main closed the entire street in front of itself to make a pleasant pedestrian plaza. How much more freaking human can you get?

I'll concede that Pennzoil is pleasant at street level on two sides of the building, and wouldn't destroy an urban environment if there were shops and mixed-use buildings around it. Chase I don't agree with you... the facade is hostile on Texas and Travis, and private parks in front of office towers generally do not make good public space. I wouldn't call what they did a "city square," and would probably rate the entrance at most a 5 out of 10 for how humanized it is.

As for the other buildings, I don't understand what you are saying. BofA and Calpine are good urban architecture because they have parks and eateries near them? 1000 Main did not close off the street, it was the City of Houston that made that plaza. All 1000 Main did was to ensure that there would never be the nice sidewalk eateries and retail that the plaza was designed to encourage. How much more freaking human can you get? A lot more!

[Highway6]

So you've concluded that two mixed-use (and predominantly retail) developments will have a different pedestrian environment than an office building with ground level retail? Very insightful. Thanks for posting.

To say this building will do "squat" to make walking downtown a more pleasant experience is just, well, ignorant (sorry, but I can't think of any more accurate word). ANY activity on that block (and a 1 MSF building with retail will add a lot of activity) will be a huge improvement over what is there now and will add significantly to make walking downtown a more pleasant experience. That would be true no matter the location, but even more so in this particular block right in the middle stretch of Main Street, which is currently something of a black hole.

True.. it will removed what has been a blighted block and replace it with a stale, yet clean block... that is an improvement. It will go from smelling like urine to nothing.. how exciting.

I concluded that just throwing around the catchphrase "ground-level retail" as if it's a solve-all to urban vibrancy and downtown pedestrian life is ignorant. Retail is just one piece of the puzzle and HOW it is implemented into the Designed environment is what will make or break the pedestrian's experience and therefore if this block in the middle of Main Street, will do anything to significantly improve downtown's walkability or if this new block will go unnoticed.

Blvd and Pavillions have a different and positive pedestrian environment because they were designed to do so, not just because they have retail.

MainPlace has no designed pedestrian environment... so eventhough it will have a little retail, it will have a less positive effect on the walkability of Main Street than the retail-less 1000 Main does.

[Highway6]

If you don't understand this, do a walking tour of cities like New York, Chicago, Portland, even Austin, and see what architects are doing there to add to the urban environment. Our architects still seem to be stuck in the 1980's, anti-urban era.

Only part I disagree with. It's more an indication of the developers of a city, not the architects, stuck behind the times.

Mainplace is being designed by a firm in Connecticut. The chance of a building being designed by an outside architect is just as great as a local architect.

One of the better pedestrian experiences on Main, 1000 Main, was designed locally.

CofH closed the block becasue the developer wanted it closed.. then the architect designed the space.

That block is not purely the result of the City snapping their fingers.

Edited September 12, 2007 by Highway6

[Houston19514]

If you consider a parking garage with some retail slapped on to be a welcome addition to our most important urban street, then I rest my argument.

How about putting the building itself on Main with the parking garage behind it (and next to Stowers) on Fannin? And then, instead of your standard 1980's corporate lobby, redesign the lower floors to actually make a lively and human-scaled facade for the street. If you don't understand this, do a walking tour of cities like New York, Chicago, Portland, even Austin, and see what architects are doing there to add to the urban environment. Our architects still seem to be stuck in the 1980's, anti-urban era.

Yes, the Frost Tower facade does have a recess per se... my point was that 40+ floors of sheer glass with nothing but a slight cavity to set off the entrance does not make for a good street-level environment, whereas the Frost Tower architect made a diligent effort in the lower four stories (diligent meaning he did more than just stick some retail in front of a parking garage) to create a lively street presence for Congress St.

And with that said, enough! If you don't get it by now, you never will! Agree to disagree.

LOL Oh, I get it. I assure you, I understand you completely. ;-)

[H-Town Man]

Only part I disagree with. It's more an indication of the developers of a city, not the architects, stuck behind the times.

Mainplace is being designed by a firm in Connecticut. The chance of a building being designed by an outside architect is just as great as a local architect.

One of the better pedestrian experiences on Main, 1000 Main, was designed locally.

CofH closed the block becasue the developer wanted it closed.. then the architect designed the space.

That block is not purely the result of the City snapping their fingers.

That's a good point - the developers commission a design, and the architect does what's requested. I wonder if the architect who did this even visited Main Street or thought about the buidings around it.

The rough thing about this town is that because there is so little existing demand or benefit for street-oriented architecture (because there are so few people on the street), the developer has very little incentive to consider the street in his plans. It almost requires an act of charity for a developer to do something that really improves the street.

What's saddest of all is that even among architecture enthusiasts in Houston, there is so little understanding of what makes a quality urban design. We have a strong heritage of being a skyline town, and so that's all that most people expect or want - more skyline.

[Houston19514]

What's even more sad is that some architectural enthusiasts cannot look at a rendering and see that it clearly does provide a pedestrian-friendly environment, incorporating most of the components they claim to favor...

the garage does not front on main street... Retail fronts on Main Street... The building actually "juts out" at about the 3 story level in the retail section, giving it more of a pedestrian scale... It appears to have a little bit of inset at the 1st story level, further increasing the pedestrian scale effect.

Moving the tower to Main Street instead of Rusk (as some have suggested) would have the exact opposite effect, by creating a monolithic structure towering over the entire Main Street block, the antithesis of pedestrian scale. It's entirely possible they positioned it the way they did in order to create a better Main Street pedestrian environment. And here's a news flash: 1 MSF office towers are going to have large lobbies. Pretty much a fact of life. For starters, you're going to have at least 2 and possibly 3 banks of elevators, security/information desks etc etc. This building is so unlike the typical 1980s anti-urban architecture, it's a little astonishing that an architectural enthusiast would even make such a comparison. 1980s towers were trophies built in the middle of the block with little or no interaction with the street, no street level retail, surrounded by beautiful plazas and landscaping. This building, on the other hand, fills the block to the sidewalks, at least makes an attempt to create a pedestrian scale on Main Street, with the structure jutting out at the 3rd floor level, includes street level retail on Main Street (the full extent and type of which of course none of us yet know; but it could add a LOT of vibrancy to this block.)

Certainly throwing around the "catch-phrase" ground level retail is not the solve-all to downtown urban pedestrian life, and of course we all know that nobody said it was. But, while not sufficient by itself, it certainly is a necessary element. This building adds to ground level retail inventory in a very crucial, central block, and it does so with a reasonably pedestrian-friendly design. I hope the floor plans include large enough retail spaces that we might have some restaurants with outdoor seating, which of course would add to the vibrancy created. Whether that is possible is something none of us yet know and may depend on what kind of tenants the building can snag.

A couple years after this building opens, these predictions that this building will be bad for pedestrian activity (or at best do nothing to improve the pedestrian vibrancy downtown) will look just as foolish as the earlier predictions on this forum that Houston Pavilions was not going to be built, that Discovery Green would never happen, that multiple downtown hotels would be close...

Edited September 12, 2007 by Houston19514

[H-Town Man]

Moving the tower to Main Street instead of Rusk (as some have suggested) would have the exact opposite effect, by creating a monolithic structure towering over the entire Main Street block, the antithesis of pedestrian scale. It's entirely possible they positioned it the way they did in order to create a better Main Street pedestrian environment.

That's an interesting idea - that the architect placed the parking garage (with some retail) on Main St. because he was really concerned about the street environment, and heaven knows a tall skyscraper can't be designed with an interesting base in order to make for a lively street environment.

[ricco67]

Well, on a modest update:

It seems like some internal demolition/Deconstruction is starting on the Walker side. no activity (that I have seen) on the main street side.

[ChannelTwoNews]

Well, on a modest update:

It seems like some internal demolition/Deconstruction is starting on the Walker side. no activity (that I have seen) on the main street side.

Is this just the storefronts or does it extend to part of the hotel at this point? Just curious...

Edited September 13, 2007 by ChannelTwoNews

[HtownWxBoy]

http://www.costar.com/News/Article.aspx?id...3CAB731AF942821

From the article...

"D.E. Harvey Builders will be the general contractor. A ceremonial groundbreaking is scheduled for April 22, 2008 (Earth Day) with the grand opening slated for Earth Day 2011."

[PAC]

Couple of comments for the debate:

1) Did someone actually compare a partial block, 1M sf CBD office development with the multi-acre suburban Blvd Place or a 180,000sf downtown land development? MainPLace has 54,000sf of land and is an office building. With an office building, the ground floor design has the following elements fighting for space: lobby and lobby entrances, garage entrances and exits (4-5 lanes total), loading docks (3 lanes), and retail space. The amount of retail in MainPlace is the absolute maximum that will fit, and the design of the store fronts is still developing. As a side note, the store fronts are actually set back further than what the West Bldg is today by about 6'...so the sidewalks will be wider.

2) The building will be on the tunnel system.

3) The reason the tower is not oriented along Main Street is due to the sun. To maximize the efficiency of the HVAC systems, the tower must be oriented as shown to mimize sun exposure. This system efficiency is a major component of sustainable design.

4) The front door is on the corner of Main and Rusk, facing Main Street, with a secondary door at the corner of Rusk and Fannin. The lobby is small when compared to the buildings around town, just as 717's lobby is minimized.

[H-Town Man]

Couple of comments for the debate:

1) Did someone actually compare a partial block, 1M sf CBD office development with the multi-acre suburban Blvd Place or a 180,000sf downtown land development? MainPLace has 54,000sf of land and is an office building. With an office building, the ground floor design has the following elements fighting for space: lobby and lobby entrances, garage entrances and exits (4-5 lanes total), loading docks (3 lanes), and retail space. The amount of retail in MainPlace is the absolute maximum that will fit, and the design of the store fronts is still developing. As a side note, the store fronts are actually set back further than what the West Bldg is today by about 6'...so the sidewalks will be wider.

2) The building will be on the tunnel system.

3) The reason the tower is not oriented along Main Street is due to the sun. To maximize the efficiency of the HVAC systems, the tower must be oriented as shown to mimize sun exposure. This system efficiency is a major component of sustainable design.

4) The front door is on the corner of Main and Rusk, facing Main Street, with a secondary door at the corner of Rusk and Fannin. The lobby is small when compared to the buildings around town, just as 717's lobby is minimized.

That is interesting as far as sun exposure goes. Makes you wonder if the western side of our skyline could have developed the way it did if they had been concerned about that back then.

The thing I can't get past is: another parking garage on Main Street. When this is finished, won't we be averaging about one per block between Main and Lamar? And this is supposed to be our signature boulevard! Do you see any parking garages on Michigan Avenue, or Fifth Avenue, or any of the signature streets of a dozen other major cities???

Fifteen years ago there was only one parking garage along this stretch; soon there will be five. All this during the "downtown renaissance." And something tells me that whenever something is built on the block at Main and Texas (which Hines is pursuing), it will have a parking garage... because the sun was too bright... or something like that...

[PAC]

The tower on Block 69 / 600 Main will be oriented the same way as MainPlace and have a similar type of shading design, and will also have a parking component to the building. As long as Houston is a city of drivers, buildings will continue to develop with parking garages included.

[ricco67]

ok, internal deconstruction/demolition is occurring in all buildings. they are now parking vehicles in the various structures.

[H-Town Man]

The tower on Block 69 / 600 Main will be oriented the same way as MainPlace and have a similar type of shading design, and will also have a parking component to the building. As long as Houston is a city of drivers, buildings will continue to develop with parking garages included.

Fair enough that we need parking garages, but it seems that our developers (Hines in particular) used to do a much better job at hiding and minimizing them.

You don't really need shade at 601 Main, considering there is a 1,000 foot building at 600 Travis two blocks over.

In the not too distant future, urban planning textbooks will be using Houston's Main St. as an example of what happens when urban life gets taken over by cars - a city's most historic street becomes lined with parking garages.

It was nice knowing you.

[Jax]

There are actually people walking around in that picture. Is that Houston?

[lockmat]

Houston w/o the tunnel system, dreaming

[GovernorAggie]

There are actually people walking around in that picture. Is that Houston?

And it's not summer is it? It's gotta be winter b/c Houstonians DO NOT go outside in the summer!!!

[Jax]

I do!

I guess I'm not a Houstonian yet though.

[MyEvilTwin]

And it's not summer is it? It's gotta be winter b/c Houstonians DO NOT go outside in the summer!!!

Looks like pre-A/C days to me. Just as hot inside as outside!! (Egads, did people really live here back then?)

[sevfiv]

In the not too distant future, urban planning textbooks will be using Houston's Main St. as an example of what happens when urban life gets taken over by cars - a city's most historic street becomes lined with parking garages.

It was nice knowing you.

alas - this could have been a great redevelopment - i wish there was an empty space where this skyscraper could have been constructed, or Hines would have had the guts to redevelop. it's so unfortunate that Stowers is having such a hard time taking off.

the buildings on this block --- with the proper expertise and funding --- could have been part of a really neat commercial/residential entity.

and they are short enough to add to the eye-level/street-viewable architectural qualities of decades past which is being blipped out of existence.

the Sloane photo is Main at Rusk - funny enough, looks like the West sign was relatively kept up throughout the years...

[Subdude]

Couple of comments for the debate:

2) The building will be on the tunnel system.

How is the tunnel connection going to be made?

[ricco67]

How is the tunnel connection going to be made?

With dig dug, of course!

[sevfiv]

as of today, crews are doing asbestos abatement in the strip between the Montagu and Super Stop, and it looks like they've set up office in the Super Stop.

[H-Town Man]

There are actually people walking around in that picture. Is that Houston?

Yep, that's Houston. And in a few years, the block you see in the middleground will have TWO parking garages, facing each other, both built by Hines.

With dig dug, of course!

Post of the Day.

Edited September 16, 2007 by H-Town Man

[Subdude]

Yep, that's Houston. And in a few years, the block you see in the middleground will have TWO parking garages, facing each other, both built by Hines.

Well yes, but one of them at least is "architecturally signifiant," so it's OK.

After reading the posts here I question whether street-level retail can really be successful in a downtown like this. It seems that there needs to be a minimum density of stores over several blocks to draw shoppers. One Kinkos can't sustain it. Besides, downtown already has vibrant pedestrian shopping area underground, and that will always be difficult for any street-level retailer to compete with. This isn't to say that street-oriented pedestrian-friendly shopping districts can't succeed in Houston. Rice Village has been at it for decades, and Houston Pavillions looks great. For Main Street however I think it is too late for that.

[flyingman]

We need a fine mix of closer residential spaces, more retail, and specifically a WAY better public transportation system to get things going in downtown. Does the chicken or the egg need to come first? They need to stop playing that game! Suck it the hell up and develop simultaneously, and you'll have real success.

Until then, visitors and ourselves will never be able to visit one specific place in Houston to experience the amazing mix of culture we have... the culture of Houston.