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Office Building For Midtown At 3501 Main St.


Moore713

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The office portion of Mid Main, a mixed-use development in Midtown, is slated to break ground as soon as preleasing is complete, Transwestern said June 2.

Houston-based Transwestern is in charge of finding office tenant(s) for the eight-story, 203,316-square-foot, Class A office building at 3501 Main St., which is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2016.

The office building’s 545-space parking garage will include 9,716 square feet of high-end retail space on the first floor. Houston-based Lewis Property Co. is leasing the retail space.

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2014/06/02/mid-main-mixed-use-development-to-break-ground.html

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I wonder why they don't put the office space on the Main Street side and the parking garage on the Fannin Street side, instead of having the parking garage all over the place?  Maybe the goal is for this to also serve as a retail parking garage that serves the surrounding area, in which case it makes some sense to maximize visibility. But it's still an eyesore to their apartments across the street.

 

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^^not sure how you would make that work without comprising an entire side of the building with parking garage views. it looks like they've tried to treat the main street portion of the garage to a similar aesthetic as the office portion so i don't really get the complaint.

 

curious to see what sort of traction they receieve in preleasing, though. as desperately as everyone wants midtown to start sprouting office buildings, historically there really hasn't been demand for it and very few high credit tenants would view it as any sort of viable alternative to cbd.

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^^not sure how you would make that work without comprising an entire side of the building with parking garage views. it looks like they've tried to treat the main street portion of the garage to a similar aesthetic as the office portion so i don't really get the complaint.

 

Right, the idea is that the office space would be on the Main Street side and the parking garage on the Fannin side. So the Fannin side would be compromised, similar to how Rusk Street will be compromised by the garage planned for Skanska's building, etc.  This is based on the idea that Main is the street to see and be seen on, and that their apartments across the street would rather look across at offices than at parked cars.

 

My guess as to why they didn't go this route is that they wanted all their office space up high, so that it would have better views. Hopefully Main will get to the point where a 2nd-4th floor office above it will be desirable for the views of the street.

 

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If you look at the rendering closely it appears that they have masked the corners and ends of the garage to keep it from looking so much like a garage. I could be wrong but it looks like they have altered the facade on the ends to be  a little more appealing. 

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Right, the idea is that the office space would be on the Main Street side and the parking garage on the Fannin side. So the Fannin side would be compromised, similar to how Rusk Street will be compromised by the garage planned for Skanska's building, etc.  This is based on the idea that Main is the street to see and be seen on, and that their apartments across the street would rather look across at offices than at parked cars.

 

My guess as to why they didn't go this route is that they wanted all their office space up high, so that it would have better views. Hopefully Main will get to the point where a 2nd-4th floor office above it will be desirable for the views of the street.

 

 

what difference does it make if they're going to have GFR along main? if they mask the portion of the garage that faces main to look like office i fail to see why they would ever go the route you are suggesting. odds are the apartment dwellers across the street don't care one iota, nevermind that they probably won't be able to see the cars due to the treatment that portion of the garage will get on top of the fact that practically all of those residents will be away at work during business hours regardless. it's not like the offices have balconies so that the tenants can engage with the "see and be seen" Main Street. that's some mighty fine nit-picking.

 

downtown houston is a totally different beast since practically every building abutts up against another tall structure - lots of views get blocked.

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what difference does it make if they're going to have GFR along main? if they mask the portion of the garage that faces main to look like office i fail to see why they would ever go the route you are suggesting. odds are the apartment dwellers across the street don't care one iota, nevermind that they probably won't be able to see the cars due to the treatment that portion of the garage will get on top of the fact that practically all of those residents will be away at work during business hours regardless. it's not like the offices have balconies so that the tenants can engage with the "see and be seen" Main Street. that's some mighty fine nit-picking.

 

downtown houston is a totally different beast since practically every building abutts up against another tall structure - lots of views get blocked.

 

GFR is great, but the way the building looks above it has an impact as well. Yes, they are apparently doing some surface treatment on the Main Street side, but it's still obviously a parking garage, and thus has a less desirable effect on the atmosphere than office would. Take for example the garage at 601 Travis, which has an excellent surface treatment, but nonetheless is a glum thing to look at for Rice Lofts residents. I'd be willing to bet that many residents across the street would pay at least one iota to look at an office building rather than a veneered parking garage.

 

I don't understand what you're saying about balconies. The point is, if Main Street is the see-and-be-seen street, then designing a building that looks best top-to-bottom on that street and sticking the garage on Fannin seems like a better choice than doing half garage, half office on both. Many other buildings in Houston have chosen to push the parking garage out of view from the desirable street and do a full office or office/retail treatment from top to bottom.

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I have to agree.  It looks like a dreary office building perched on top of a dreary parking garage.  I would kind of prefer a shorter streetscape for Midtown.  I always thought that the HCC building was way out of scale for the neighborhood, and this looks as if it could be as well..

 

 

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... I would kind of prefer a shorter streetscape for Midtown.  I always thought that the HCC building was way out of scale for the neighborhood, and this looks as if it could be as well..

Really?  I've always thought Midtown should be a bit more vertical particularly near Downtown.  No 50 floor buildings - unless something grand is proposed - but perhaps eventually we can have 8-15 floor towers throughout.  I mean, those tin-can townhomes will eventually be nasty looking and it has always looked weird to have such a low density/low height area right outside Downtown between 2 other districts that have highrises (Museum and TMC).

 

At the end of the day I'd like most of Midtown to look like the density/height levels of Post Midtown Square.  This goes that direction, but its not a great architectural work - at all.

 

I want a near continous cluster of density from DT to Hermann Park.  It doesn't have to take the entire width of Midtown, but the 2-3 blocks nearest Main Street should have a denser/taller aspect to them.

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Really?  I've always thought Midtown should be a bit more vertical particularly near Downtown.  No 50 floor buildings - unless something grand is proposed - but perhaps eventually we can have 8-15 floor towers throughout.  I mean, those tin-can townhomes will eventually be nasty looking and it has always looked weird to have such a low density/low height area right outside Downtown between 2 other districts that have highrises (Museum and TMC).

 

At the end of the day I'd like most of Midtown to look like the density/height levels of Post Midtown Square.  This goes that direction, but its not a great architectural work - at all.

 

I want a near continous cluster of density from DT to Hermann Park.  It doesn't have to take the entire width of Midtown, but the 2-3 blocks nearest Main Street should have a denser/taller aspect to them.

 

But isn't Post Midtown Square only 4 or 5 stories? I think this is about the highest we could hope for as an average height per block across Midtown right now. If we get much taller buildings in there then it drives up land costs and makes it hard for anything but tall buildings to go in, leaving a bunch of empty blocks like south downtown. Also tends to kill the neighborhood vibe with big shadows, parking garages, and tons of cars entering and leaving.

 

My ideal vision for Midtown would be something like Chicago's Northside (Clark, Lincoln, Wrigleyville, etc.), a sea of 5 story residential buildings with GFR on major avenues, generally brick in construction. Before anyone flames me, I realize that this is Houston, not Chicago, that we're a car-based city without a major mass transit system, that the 21st century will have 21st centure architecture and ideas, etc. :)

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What is the highrise over by Post Midtown Square?  Its 13-14 floors has a yellow-orange colored metal "awning" architectural detail at the upper floor... used to be a Post building (I thought?)

 

I'm fine with 5-8 floor buildings and maybe the occasional 15 floor building.  Again, I'm talking about the 3 or so blocks either side of Main.

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I don't see what's so bad about this.  They've masked the view of the garage pretty well along Main and it has the height aspect that everyone seems to complain about.  I'll dig it even more if they intend to provide parking to nearby retail since this area will definitely need it with all of the new developments in the works.

That being said, your arguments about making a nice looking parking garage reminds me of my time at Baylor. Behold, the Garage Mahal:

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I don't see what's so bad about this. They've masked the view of the garage pretty well along Main and it has the height aspect that everyone seems to complain about. I'll dig it even more if they intend to provide parking to nearby retail since this area will definitely need it with all of the new developments in the works.

That being said, your arguments about making a nice looking parking garage reminds me of my time at Baylor. Behold, the Garage Mahal:

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Which arguments remind you of garage mahal?

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I bet they've worked a plan with the church to use the parking garage for Sunday services also. Or weddings and other night time events.

If I'm not mistaken, they did work out an agreement with the church, so that's probably why the garage is larger than normal. Though you'd think since it's office that the workers wouldn't be using the garage the same time as the church (Wednesday nights and Sundays?)

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Which arguments remind you of garage mahal?

Not necessarily arguments, but everyone talking about how they don't like look of the parking garage and the need to mask it all the way round.  That's exactly what Baylor did with their parking garage and they paid a lot of extra money for the aesthetics.

 

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Not necessarily arguments, but everyone talking about how they don't like look of the parking garage and the need to mask it all the way round. That's exactly what Baylor did with their parking garage and they paid a lot of extra money for the aesthetics.

For my part, I don't think it needs to be masked all around (although a partially masked garage may look strange), I just wish it were off Main Street. Not an appropriate place for a garage.

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I think they did the orientation this way with the set back for scale so the building didn't seem as imposing from the street level/out of place in Midtown.

Considering they were only working with half a block, they would of had to of split it up into quarter blocks for the garage to go on the half away from main, and offices be fronting main st from the ground floor all the way to the top of the building. That garage would of been tiny floor plates/really tall.. Like 14 stories tall...

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I have always thought that the main street corridor leads itself to a mix of office,residential and entertainment structure.. As for gfr given it location to HCC a decent place to eat for worker/students /and staff could go over big there.

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I'm sure they also plan on people parking there for rodeo, texans games and other big events at nrg, since it's right at the rail station.

It's easy to access from midtown and montrose for people wanting to park and ride.

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I'm ok with this building as well. It looks a little too fat for the site, but this will be a nice infill for this area. At least they are trying to blend the garage with the rest of the building. Hopefully in the future with more people living in this area we can reduce the amount of parking needed with each new construction or midtown could plan some general parking structures for the whole area. This is a decent start though. Not like it needs to be super flashy. Once you bring the businesses then you bring the demand to have people live in the area because midtown is still relatively a ghost town.

Edited by Luminare
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If you look at the rendering closely it appears that they have masked the corners and ends of the garage to keep it from looking so much like a garage. I could be wrong but it looks like they have altered the facade on the ends to be  a little more appealing. 

Is there another rendering out there showing the reverse angle? I see the edge definition of a different facade system on the south extending over as the roof so it could look like anything from the TxDot bldg off Washington/Hempstead to the downtown Metro bldg by PGAL. It's not a bad rendering but the angle is not very flattering. 

 

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Good location, midtown has great north-side roads and ok east-west roads. Lots of stuff to do afterwork close by. An office lobby works as a natural fit between a church, theatre, and resturant/bar/club scene. It's close to the HCC bldg in height which is on par with most other midtown midrises. Nice infill, ready for the other renderings showing site ingress/egress.

Edited by infinite_jim
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