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The Allen: Mixed-Use Development At Allen Parkway & Gillette St.


jmontrose

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1 hour ago, cloud713 said:

 

 

Honestly, I never even knew the condo/hotel tower was supposed to “twist”.. it just looked like they flipped a parallelogram over for each stack, to mirror the one below it and stagger the angle of the balconies/views.

 

When can Houston start expecting to get some projects like that epic Gang tower? ...50 years? Houston is so far behind in architecture/design, it’s sad, especially after being at the top in the 70s.

Once tenants are willing to pay the rents that are necessary to build them. THE RO is getting redesigned right now because the building was overdesigned and they would need rents 30% over market to make the construction numbers work. Companies/people aren't willing to pay that just to be in a pretty building unfortunately. 

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1 hour ago, SMU1213 said:

Once tenants are willing to pay the rents that are necessary to build them. THE RO is getting redesigned right now because the building was overdesigned and they would need rents 30% over market to make the construction numbers work. Companies/people aren't willing to pay that just to be in a pretty building unfortunately. 

 

Thats correct. From my own knowledge base you only get the really high-end / super-fine / "epic" projects when they either have an iconic name attached to the project that warrants a particular pricetag / design (example being Frank Gehry who puts titanium on everything and one that hires him knows they have to put that in there initial pricing), real estate starts to crunch up a bit in terms of availability or there is a large stock of "generic" building types that warrants approaching the high end to stand out, and finally when you have a large speculative market with LOTS of $$$$. The only reason we have the buildings we have from the 70's was due to the latter option. Oil Companies with lots and lots of money to drive a high-end speculative market. Do we really want that again folks? That kinda crashed hard the last time. We will get there, but it won't get there quick. We want the first two options to get the fancy stuff, but it takes some leg work to get there first. We are heading in that direction. We have really gotten a glorious amount of different/interesting/necessary projects for Houston. Its not a matter of if anymore, but a matter of when.

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9 hours ago, Luminare said:

 

Thats correct. From my own knowledge base you only get the really high-end / super-fine / "epic" projects when they either have an iconic name attached to the project that warrants a particular pricetag / design (example being Frank Gehry who puts titanium on everything and one that hires him knows they have to put that in there initial pricing), real estate starts to crunch up a bit in terms of availability or there is a large stock of "generic" building types that warrants approaching the high end to stand out, and finally when you have a large speculative market with LOTS of $$$$. The only reason we have the buildings we have from the 70's was due to the latter option. Oil Companies with lots and lots of money to drive a high-end speculative market. Do we really want that again folks? That kinda crashed hard the last time. We will get there, but it won't get there quick. We want the first two options to get the fancy stuff, but it takes some leg work to get there first. We are heading in that direction. We have really gotten a glorious amount of different/interesting/necessary projects for Houston. Its not a matter of if anymore, but a matter of when.

 

Thats a good point about “the only reason we have the buildings we have from the ‘70s”..

Speaking of Gehry.. I just got back from DC, and I’m still not sure what to think of his Eisenhower Memorial design.

 

Hopefully the rescheduled meeting for this project won’t be pushed back again.

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1 hour ago, Lectro said:

Isn’t the new rendering here? http://dcpartnersusa.com/properties/the-allen/

The middle section isn’t at an angle anymore and the roof looks simpler.

 

Ah, now I see it...if this is the redesign it isn't very drastic at all. But I do see what looks like a pedestrian bridge and I thought that was scrapped.

Allen.jpg

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2 hours ago, CaptainJilliams said:

 

Ah, now I see it...if this is the redesign it isn't very drastic at all. But I do see what looks like a pedestrian bridge and I thought that was scrapped.

Allen.jpg

Here's the one from 2017. I don't see that much difference.

 

0a13d62a-6bc7-47a7-8e52-2068006a58ba-ori

 

Closer:

 

95cq6Gk.jpg

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2 hours ago, CaptainJilliams said:

 

Ah, now I see it...if this is the redesign it isn't very drastic at all. But I do see what looks like a pedestrian bridge and I thought that was scrapped.

Allen.jpg

 

I still think that's the old rendering. If you do the 3D interactive view, you get this view instead (Sorry, I can't remove the overlays).

 

 

theallen.jpg

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Just now, Triton said:

 

I still think that's the old rendering. If you do the 3D interactive view, you get this view instead (Sorry, I can't remove the overlays).

 

 

theallen.jpg

 

Darn, thanks for pointing that out. Here's hoping they make minimal changes to what we've already seen.

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2 minutes ago, Triton said:

 

I still think that's the old rendering. If you do the 3D interactive view, you get this view instead (Sorry, I can't remove the overlays).

 

 

theallen.jpg

 

The blank walls on the parking garage podiums look like Randall Davis's contributions to the project.

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No doubt the debbie downers are going to have a field day tearing into this 'value engineered' design and everything about the current state of Houston architecture. But no matter, it's still a nice building, great height for the area and we could have done a lot worse. Jenga style buildings aren't everything.

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