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Houston Potential Projects That Were Never Built


Subdude

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The building being torn down in sevfiv's pictures is the one to the left in the Ritz-Carlton proposal.

A few months ago there was a topic about tunnels that have been closed off. The door marked "garage" connected to one of those segments.

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I've never seen this building before.  It definitely would have been a different design than most of the stuff we have.  And it looks to be at least 75 stories so I guess around 1000 feet.  Oh and I can't see the first two pics.

1700 Travis would have been 70 stories. Kind of ugly if you ask me. Block 265 would have been 80 stories, and the Cullen Center proposal 47.

I do like the BOTSW, Block 256 designs, though, as well as some of the ones not pictured here (Block 261, Project X, and Y, etc).

What were Block 261 and Projects X and Y? One that I wish I had a picture of was to convert Main Street from Commerce to Lamar into an enclosed mall.

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Block 261, X and Y were all KPF projects. I have renderings of them in a book I bought, titled "Kohn Pedersen Fox, Buildings and Projects, 1976-1986", by Rizzoli Publishing. X and Y were pretty tall (70,and 60 stories) while the 261 was a smaller building.

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Del Oro development.  View is intersection of 288 and the South Loop.

DelOro.jpg

You can *almost* see my house in that picture...I'm just across 288 from Del Oro.

That particular location became townhomes/condos instead of office buildings...but very close by, the Med Center looks a lot like the rendering. Lots of offices/research buildings going up.

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You can *almost* see my house in that picture...I'm just across 288 from Del Oro.

That particular location became townhomes/condos instead of office buildings...but very close by, the Med Center looks a lot like the rendering.  Lots of offices/research buildings going up.

Am I the only person who can't see this picture :unsure: (and the one below it)? I even tried IE and still and just copying the URL and putting it in like that. Besides BotSW and 1700 Travis (which I think would look good in a clearer color rendering) I think we got most of the good buildings during that time.

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Block 261, X and Y were all KPF projects.  I have renderings of them in a book I bought, titled "Kohn Pedersen Fox, Buildings and Projects, 1976-1986", by Rizzoli Publishing.  X and Y were pretty tall (70,and 60 stories) while the 261 was a smaller building.

Scan them and post them up please. :)

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Also, not in that picture that the proposed tollway in the median of 288 is already built.

As for the pics, I'll see if I can get them scanned.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Only one I really regret not having is that tall one in Houston Center, and maybe the second half of United Bank Plaza. Bank of the Southwest and Block 283 were great, but would have been out of scale. The Philip Johnson one was just plain ugly. I wonder if he was also the architect on the Main @ Congress building - it looks like his proposed buildings for Times Square. Good thing that didn't go up either - it would have taken out some of our best historic buildings.

I wonder what the original plan for Cullen Center was like?

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Only one I really regret not having is that tall one in Houston Center, and maybe the second half of United Bank Plaza.  Bank of the Southwest and Block 283 were great, but would have been out of scale.  The Philip Johnson one was just plain ugly.  I wonder if he was also the architect on the Main @ Congress building - it looks like his proposed buildings for Times Square.  Good thing that didn't go up either - it would have taken out some of our best historic buildings.

I wonder what the original plan for Cullen Center was like?

I don't think Johnson was the architect for Main @ Congress. That was probably just the style at the moment.

This is all I have for Cullen Center, again from a Fuermann book.

CullenCenter.jpg

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The Fuermann books are great, aren't they? Some of the pictures in them are fantastic. About half of the ones you find are autographed, so he must have signed like crazy. The titles are extravagant: "Houston: Land of the Big Rich," "Houston: The Once and Future City," and the pictures and drawings reflect so much optimism and bravado. That must have been a great time to live in Houston.

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  • 1 month later...
Savoy-Field office building, approx. 1964.  Hotel and garage only completed.

SavoyField.jpg

i recently acquired this postcard, and i was SO confused about the office building part...

does anyone know more about this? the current savoy has a crummy garage (about four stories) where the proposed office building sits in the postcard...

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I kind of like the Sterling but it would have been way to big for Houston in that era. I wonder what happened to Ross Sterling. After he sold his shares in Humble to Standard, he went on a building and buying spree in Houston but I guess the biggest thing he ever built was the Post-Dispatch skyscraper (22 stories, Texas at Fannin, I think, now the Magnolia Hotel). I've read that when he sold the Post-Dispatch paper, it was at auction, which kind of sounds like bankruptcy. His bio in the Handbook of Texas says after he was defeated by Ma Ferguson for a second term as gov, he came back to Houston and 'built another fortune in oil.'

Then there was:

99.jpg

SW corner of Polk and Dowling, now demolished. Referred to as a red brick oven by Post staffers.

The Shamrock was a bad business decision -- too far out of downtown and too big. It was never profitable. Hilton couldn't turn a profit on it. No wonder the complex never got built.

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  • 2 weeks later...
i recently acquired this postcard, and i was SO confused about the office building part...

does anyone know more about this? the current savoy has a crummy garage (about four stories) where the proposed office building sits in the postcard...

The crummy garage is there in the postcard. The office building was supposed to have been built on top, but I don't know why it didn't happen. If you look along the back of the hotel section there are protrusions in the building that don't make sense until you realize it was supposed to connect to the office building. Until recently there were brass "S-F" plaques embedded in the sidewalk around the Savoy.

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  • 1 month later...
Somehow, I don't miss that we never had most of these built. They may have made the skyline look a little less modern, due to the number of international style glass boxes(and generic concrete boxes) that would have been built. I do like the BOTSW, Block 256 designs, though, as well as some of the ones not pictured here (Block 261, Project X, and Y, etc). The campeau center looks like something out of Detroit, though (really old, almost genuine 20's in appearance) and may have thrown off the balance of the skyline, once again.

I'm happy with what we have:

SKDT1039.jpg

But if some of those Buildings were Built, and some not, then you would probibly be saying the same thing. :)

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  • 4 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Hey Sub, that "6" Houston Center is not "6" Houston center. ;)

Its simply an early design for 5 Houston Center. ^_^

But it is on a different block than 5 Houston Center. 5 is next to the Fulbright building, this one is in front of it on the block adjacent to Park shops.

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But it is on a different block than 5 Houston Center. 5 is next to the Fulbright building, this one is in front of it on the block adjacent to Park shops.

It only appears so. The block adjacent to the park shops belongs to the park infront of the GRB. Besides, I remember this picture on skyscrapers.com as being 5 Houston Center before the current design was released.

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