POST: Mixed-Use Development At 401 Franklin St.

[Moore713]

34 minutes ago, Fortune said:

The fact that Post HTX included the word "mall' in their post tells you how behind this developer is. No one wants to hear the word mall in 2020.

 A " Mall " might not be such a bad thing.. because trying to retail off in downtown Houston has for the most part been a object failure.

[cspwal]

There's been two mall attempts in downtown already - shops at Houston center and green street.  How are they going to do better at attracting tenants and customers besides the giant surface lot?

[rechlin]

I assume they mean "mall" like the National Mall, a big place to walk around, and not "mall" as in "shopping mall".

[TacoDog]

On 5/2/2020 at 8:39 PM, Fortune said:

The fact that Post HTX included the word "mall' in their post tells you how behind this developer is. No one wants to hear the word mall in 2020.

 

I don't know if the developer runs their Instagram, but they were quoting a movie from 2001, so yeah they are behind a bit.

[j_cuevas713]

So someone from Lovett contacted me about doing some animation work to promote PostHTX on their website. They referenced Printworks in London and Kraftwerk Berlin. Gives you an idea of the vibe they want for the venue.

[jermh]

5 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

So someone from Lovett contacted me about doing some animation work to promote PostHTX on their website. They referenced Printworks in London and Kraftwerk Berlin. Gives you an idea of the vibe they want for the venue.

 

FYI: If you didn't know already, Lovett has a job listing for a "graphic designer" on Linkedin right now, but the description reads more like a UI/UX design and Animation role. Required proficiency in Adobe XD and After Effects, so it looks like they are using "graphic designer" as a catch all title in this case. No affiliation or anything, I just happened to randomly read the description yesterday.

[pablog]

7 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

So someone from Lovett contacted me about doing some animation work to promote PostHTX on their website. They referenced Printworks in London and Kraftwerk Berlin. Gives you an idea of the vibe they want for the venue.

Hey man. Send me a link to your portfolio! 

[BeerNut]

 

[CaptainJilliams]

I'm just happy they're actually doing work on this site. Hoping the final product look sharp.

[Luminare]

11 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

So someone from Lovett contacted me about doing some animation work to promote PostHTX on their website. They referenced Printworks in London and Kraftwerk Berlin. Gives you an idea of the vibe they want for the venue.

 

Kraftwerk is pretty cool. Its a massive building though. I once tried to get inside when I stood in line to get into Tressor which is one of the biggest nightclubs in Berlin. If you want to be really self-referential then throw in some tones from Kraftwerk the techno group haha. Maybe some Radioactivity, or some Trans-European Express. Now I seriously want a techno night club to be in the mix for this development.

[BeerNut]

7 minutes ago, Luminare said:

 

Kraftwerk is pretty cool. Its a massive building though. I once tried to get inside when I stood in line to get into Tressor which is one of the biggest nightclubs in Berlin. If you want to be really self-referential then throw in some tones from Kraftwerk the techno group haha. Maybe some Radioactivity, or some Trans-European Express. Now I seriously want a techno night club to be in the mix for this development.

 

Speaking of Kraftwerk...Florian Schneider, Kraftwerk co-founder, dies aged 73 (I know you meant the club though...)

 

I talked my friends into going to Tressor back in 2001.  No headliners so it was easy to get in.

[Luminare]

10 minutes ago, BeerNut said:

 

Speaking of Kraftwerk...Florian Schneider, Kraftwerk co-founder, dies aged 73 (I know you meant the club though...)

 

I talked my friends into going to Tressor back in 2001.  No headliners so it was easy to get in.

 

Oh wow. With some much noise about this virus going on everything else gets pushed aside. How crazy is that? I'm talking about them and there founder just died today. Thats sad news.

 

Was talking about the club and then was talking about the band. People don't really know just how pioneering the group Kraftwerk were. Was introduced to there works by a professor when I was in grad-school there.

 

The line for Tressor when I was there in 2016? I believe was super long. I think I eventually went to Watergate. That whole area of Jannowitzbruecke is a cool part of town though.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Luminare

[BeerNut]

2 minutes ago, Luminare said:

 

Oh wow. With some much noise about this virus going on everything else gets pushed aside. How crazy is that? I'm talking about them and there founder just died today. Thats sad news.

 

Was talking about the club and then was talking about the bad. People don't really know just how pioneering the group Kraftwerk were. Was introduced to there works by a professor when I was in grad-school there.

 

The line for Tressor when I was there in 2016? I believe was super long. I think I eventually went to Watergate. That who area of Jannowitzbruecke is a cool part of town though.

 

I think Tressor had fallen out of favor compared to some of the newer clubs in Berlin also that area was considered "rough" at the time.

[Avossos]

In my mind, the only thing keeping this from being a slam dunk is the lack of rental apartments / parking lot. Does someone have a reasonable suggestion why they decided to leave the lots and ignore rentals? Seems like they would truly make it a live / work / play type place.

 

Potential reasons -

- Too expensive to do both?

- they want to attract more car traffic than pedestrian traffic

- there is costly remediation to do if they try and build new

- they want to partner and get a 3rd party to build apartments

- they plan to sell parcels

- they are waiting to announce more development for future phases?

[Luminare]

17 minutes ago, BeerNut said:

 

I think Tressor had fallen out of favor compared to some of the newer clubs in Berlin also that area was considered "rough" at the time.

 

Still is to be honest. It was definitely gentrifying when I was there, but while they were building a lot of new stuff on the bank of the Spree, just down a few blocks there was still a anarchist type settlement full of squatters and Antifa types haha. Thats Berlin for ya. I would have liked to see the city in 2001. By the time I got there most of the hip stuff were further out East since by 2015-2017 most of Mitte and a few other areas around it were pretty much fully gentrified. Don't know how long the east will hold out though. Its changing very quickly for good and bad.

 

I'm just glad Lovett is letting OMA do its thing, and are trying to take good cues from other cool places since we don't have a lot of that natively here in Houston.

[pm91]

18 hours ago, BeerNut said:

 

 

Not gunna lie, this looks cool AF

[gene]

Yep amazing photos @BeerNut !!!

[CaptainJilliams]

I'm not sure if anyone has had the chance to take pictures, but from i-45 there is a lot of steel going up on the roof of the building. It caught me off guard the first time I saw it, thought it was an entirely new building going up at first. It also looks like they are repainting the exterior. 

[BeerNut]

[tangledwoods]

i am absolutely shocked / confused as to how the project wasn't put on hold.  Did they land a tenant that none of us know about???

[Texasota]

This thing has tax incentives out the proverbial wazoo, and it seems like projects in Opportunity Zones (as I believe this one is) are starting to be seen as a really good place to park some money under COVID-19 related circumstances. 

[H-Town Man]

1 hour ago, tangledwoods said:

i am absolutely shocked / confused as to how the project wasn't put on hold.  Did they land a tenant that none of us know about???

 

They got their financing before Covid-19 and there's no reason to stop now. If you stop know, all the work you did and money you spent just sits there and goes to waste, and you can't pay the loan off. Who knows what things will be like in a year when this thing is finished. If there's a Great Depression, then maybe all the people who would normally be travelling to L.A. or Seattle will cut back their family vacation to downtown Houston and Post HTX. 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by H-Town Man

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, Texasota said:

This thing has tax incentives out the proverbial wazoo, and it seems like projects in Opportunity Zones (as I believe this one is) are starting to be seen as a really good place to park some money under COVID-19 related circumstances. 

 

What tax incentives is this thing getting?

[Texasota]

State and federal historic at least, but I think there were others as well. There's a link a few pages back that goes through some of the financing details on the project.

[EllenOlenska]

I know on other threads people are talking about this as a sort of central station/centerpiece whatever you want to call it.

But what does it abut to the north. I really don't know. Is it gonna be a long fence along a train embankment to and from which no one can move? 

[Houston19514]

24 minutes ago, Texasota said:

State and federal historic at least, but I think there were others as well. There's a link a few pages back that goes through some of the financing details on the project.

 

Found it. Thanks.  Historic tax credits, Opportunity Zone, and EB5.  I thought you were talking about something more like sales tax rebates or property tax abatements.

[Luminare]

1 hour ago, H-Town Man said:

 

They got their financing before Covid-19 and there's no reason to stop now. If you stop know, all the work you did and money you spent just sits there and goes to waste, and you can't pay the loan off. Who knows what things will be like in a year when this thing is finished. If there's a Great Depression, then maybe all the people who would normally be travelling to L.A. or Seattle will cut back their family vacation to downtown Houston and Post HTX. 

 

 

m e h. Lets not go overboard. I'm assuming the person you are responding too is also a laymen. For some reason the initial reaction of a laymen is to immediately panic and ask why anything is happening during a downturn. Of course this is a very real emotional fallacy which can sometimes make people panic which in turn makes some people make rash financial decisions such as pull investments from projects, but we know that if you are actually the one building a project then the last thing one should do is panic. The best course of action for anyone currently with a building under construction is to not panic and stay the course because exactly what you just said will come true. Panic will just lead to a terrible waste of money, and panic makes one only focus on the short term not the long term. I'm certainly not amazed this is still being built. I would actually be amazed if they stopped.

 

I encourage all laymen to ask the kind of questions this one did, but I simply ask in return that they listen to those who know what is actually going on, so next time they don't have to ask these types of questions, and if they ever started a project the first thing they won't do in a downturn is panic. Because what they don't know...is that we aren't panicking. They don't know that actually we've been working more since this all started not less, and so have others on here that I've talked too.

Edited May 26, 2020 by Luminare

[gene]

wowsa...

i ride my bike from the galleria to downtown everyday just to do it and to have a possibly super cool new destination to visit (apart from discovery green) is exciting!

(and yep @BeerNut that view...dang!!!)

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by gene

[Fortune]

6 hours ago, tangledwoods said:

i am absolutely shocked / confused as to how the project wasn't put on hold.  Did they land a tenant that none of us know about???

 

According to this article they have secured a anchor tenant.

 

https://www.bisnow.com/houston/news/commercial-real-estate/6-houston-projects-to-watch-in-2020-104550

[j_cuevas713]

Based on the scale of this project, anyone want to guess who it could be? Watch it be something like Memorial Hermann 😆 jk jk 

Edited May 27, 2020 by j_cuevas713