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The link below takes you back to the original release. I cant imagine putting a tall office tower in phase 1 or 2 and potentially blocking view in the latter phases. Plus this section with the tall tower is on the lowest point of the site and the only area below the 500 year flood plane

 

https://imgur.com/pUsudtZ

Also, interesting stats on this Andrew guys page:

 

  • Architecture Firm: Page
  •  
  • Size: 600,00 square feet
  • Location: Houston, TX
  •  
  • Completion: 2021
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On 6/4/2019 at 1:37 AM, Urbannizer said:

Looks like a larger office tower was originally proposed with Phase I

 

ER_Site.png

http://www.andrewvuono.com/

 

On 6/4/2019 at 12:49 PM, Mr.Clean19 said:

The link below takes you back to the original release. I cant imagine putting a tall office tower in phase 1 or 2 and potentially blocking view in the latter phases. Plus this section with the tall tower is on the lowest point of the site and the only area below the 500 year flood plane

 

https://imgur.com/pUsudtZ

Also, interesting stats on this Andrew guys page:

 

  • Architecture Firm: Page
  •  
  • Size: 600,00 square feet
  • Location: Houston, TX
  •  
  • Completion: 2021

 

I imagine that this would have been a high profile pitch to a company wanting to have a dedicated building or campus that isn't from Houston. I know some have had suspicions (or legit info. I really don't know) that this was at one point pitched to Amazon. Probably pitched to others.

 

At this point I don't think thats what Phase 1 or even Phase 2 wants to be. Now Phases 3 and 4? That looks prime to be a big time campus for a very large company.

Edited by Luminare
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  • 4 weeks later...
1 hour ago, H-Town Man said:

They hope to start Phase I sometime next year, with 20 year buildout.

 

http://realtynewsreport.com/2019/07/01/next-gen-mixed-use-development-keeping-it-fresh/

 

 

This article was actually a really good read. It once again illustrates how simple things might seem at first glance, but get infinitely more complicated once you get more into detail.

 

We would all like more and more GFR, but the current retail landscape hasn't really sort itself out yet. With comments such as this:

 

One of the concerns about mixed use developments today is the retail component.  “With some projects, you can’t fill every ground floor space with retail, because there isn’t the demand to justify the retail,” he added.

 

Retail has become a major challenge in mixed use.  “The retail world is more competitive; the tenant base is changing,” he continued. “What was a 5,000 square foot soft good clothing retailer a few years ago now may be a 2,500 square foot retailer.  We built 400,000 square feet of retail at CityCentre and even though it is all full now, probably we would have built less of that today.”

 

Retail will survive, but its still learning how to challenge the online space, and create a unique identity. Retail is shedding sqft that would have normally be used to sell more "generic" wears and "base-essential" wears, and instead are focusing are particular brands, boutique looks, and more specialized retail experiences. Not to mention because our city still lacks the critical mass of foot traffic necessary to sustain a large amount of retail is a reason why its not only a challenge to put it into a new building, but determine the sqft that is possible. I believe we are well on our way to reversing this, but it will take time. Hopefully, by then the retail market grows into its new transformed identity and we can position ourselves as a city to embrace it.

 

Really like their remarks about context driven development and how they approach such large scale projects:

 

Public support is also important. Reis said Cooper Carry does a great deal of public engagement with a new mixed use project.  “We let everyone be heard,” he said. “At every public meeting, there will usually be one or two vocal people who have a single agenda that they want to get across. We listen. If the process is transparent, they see 85% of the people around them are for the project. It’s a way to gain consensus.”

 

With mixed use projects, engaging community groups and stakeholders is very important, particularly in Houston — a city sans zoning, Brinsden said “Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should,” he joked.

 

Its really encouraging to hear, but what I didn't know about was just the hurdles to gain lending support for such projects because of how segmented it is:

 

Financing of mixed use projects has become easier,  said Rathie.  “It’s been a learning process around mixed use,” he said.  “Institution capital likes the idea behind mixed use but it’s new.”

 

Brinsden agreed, noting that Midway had to capitalize each use separately for CityCentre. “Today you probably could raise capital from one institutional partner,” Brinsden said. “The capital markets understand mixed use developments better now.  But even today, office residential, retail and hospitality cycles operate differently, so we’re always working with different market forces.”

 

The issues surrounding this and the institutions that normally lend now getting more familiar with these kinds of projects are maybe why we have seen an explosion of announcements for such projects around the city in the past few years.

 

There is more here to look into and I would advise others to give it a read. They are working hard to not only understand how to get this done, but to do it in the best way possible in each particular situation. 

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2 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

They hope to start Phase I sometime next year, with 20 year buildout.

 

http://realtynewsreport.com/2019/07/01/next-gen-mixed-use-development-keeping-it-fresh/

 

 

Huh. I thought we were expecting an official groundbreaking this year? And a 20 year build-out for all phases is also longer than initially suggested.

 

I understand that projects of this scale are hard to fully predict, but the fact that these dates and numbers are changing this early is a tad bit concerning.

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On 7/1/2019 at 3:53 PM, thedistrict84 said:

 

Huh. I thought we were expecting an official groundbreaking this year? And a 20 year build-out for all phases is also longer than initially suggested.

 

I understand that projects of this scale are hard to fully predict, but the fact that these dates and numbers are changing this early is a tad bit concerning.

 

On 7/5/2019 at 4:09 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

That fact they "hope" to start Phase 1 next year already has been worried. I thought Phase 1 was going to start this year.

 

I'm pretty sure there's no article out mentioning a 2019 groundbreaking, nothing official at least.

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5 hours ago, Urbannizer said:

 

 

I'm pretty sure there's no article out mentioning a 2019 groundbreaking, nothing official at least.

Yeah I don't remember anything like that either but at the pace they are going I just assumed that this would start sooner than later. I get that all the basic infrastructure needs to be set first though. 

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8 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

Yeah I don't remember anything like that either but at the pace they are going I just assumed that this would start sooner than later. I get that all the basic infrastructure needs to be set first though. 

 

They are basically building a whole new city in a area that used to have terrible infrastructure. Its going to take time. I get it though. I want this to start as well.

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On 7/1/2019 at 3:53 PM, thedistrict84 said:

 

Huh. I thought we were expecting an official groundbreaking this year? And a 20 year build-out for all phases is also longer than initially suggested.

 

I understand that projects of this scale are hard to fully predict, but the fact that these dates and numbers are changing this early is a tad bit concerning.

A 20 year build-out seems reasonable if you compare East River to City Center.  They’re still expanding City Center, and it has been operational for many years.  I’m guessing East River will be similar.  It will exist and be functioning well before the 20 year time frame.  It will just continue to grow in scale year-by-year.  From a business standpoint it makes sense.  Grow slowly, invest slowly, and start generating revenue sooner.

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They seem to know how to grow a development, so I'll give them leeway. City centre seems to have have developed in an organic way and has become a very popular and successful west side mixed use project. Let it grow in a more natural way instead of building a Disney type theme city all at once.

 

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6 hours ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

What does this mean when this is released? Construction about to start? Just more plans? 

 

In order for them to do what they are proposing they have to re-plat the land. If you look to the right of what they are initially replatting you will see what older plats looked like. An application doesn't necessarily mean that something is happening, but many times it does mean something is happening or is going to happen.

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13 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

Looks like a shorter version of Stuyvesant Town. Might be taking this East River thing a little far.

 

 

 

Stuyvesant Town is towers-in-a-park, single-use residential, whereas this site plan has more street-level mixed-use urbanism. 

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2 hours ago, Angostura said:

 

 

Stuyvesant Town is towers-in-a-park, single-use residential, whereas this site plan has more street-level mixed-use urbanism. 

 

I was referring to the particular buildings in the photo that I quoted, which are midrises-in-a-park, single-use residential.

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22 hours ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

They will definitely do some workforce housing to get a tax credit. 

Why do you think that? Has Midway ever done workforce housing? Market rate units tend to underwrite better regardless of a tax credit. And if they are going to try to push the retail rents, they are going to want as high of an average income as possible in their multifamily projects to show any potential retail tenants. 

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