Texas Tower: 47-Story Office Tower At 845 Texas Ave.

[HoustonIsHome]

Hines isn't getting younger.

If his goal is to leave the ultimate landmark them he won't be sitting on this for long. 

 

But let's face. People keep boosting him like everything he does he does for the city. Now I do admit, that if you asked 10 people what are the most impresdive landmarks in our city, probably 9 out of those 10 would give a Hines building because he dominates our skyline: Chase, BOA, Galleria/Williams tower,  Shell, Calpine,  609 Main, BG group place, etc. But Hines, like every other company out there is out there for the $$$. 

 

Hines group will ask themselves two things when deciding what to do with this lot:

 

How can we maximize profits, and

How can we maintain our brand.

 

Now, the city getting a tower to br as g about may still happen,  but I doubt Hines goes out there with a mind on giving the city something to be proud of.

 

609 Main is a nice state of the art tower not because Hines thought it would please this city, it is a nice state of the at tower because Hines knows that he could sell it. 

 

If Hines determines that the best bet is to build a 25 floor safe looking building on this lot in 12 years then that's what we are going to get. 

[H-TownChris2]

Safety net is starting to go on the building. (Not sure what it's called, it's the same thing as what the Houston Club building had)

[amashgo]

@H-TownChris2 Its called a safety or debris net. Same difference. 

[Urbannizer]

On 7/27/2016 at 9:46 PM, H-TownChris2 said:

Safety net is starting to go on the building. (Not sure what it's called, it's the same thing as what the Houston Club building had)

 

http://swamplot.com/lawsuit-limboed-chronicle-building-now-dressing-in-black-slowly-going-to-pieces-downtown/2016-07-28/

 

[Urbannizer]

Judge gives temporary protection in downtown tunnel case

 

A judge has ruled that the tunnel corridor between the former Houston Chronicle building and a neighboring property cannot be destroyed during any demolition or construction at the site.

 

The temporary injunction is the latest development in a legal dispute between the property owners over access to downtown's vital tunnel system.

 

State District Judge Wesley Ward last month granted temporary protection for the tunnel corridor, at least until the matter is settled at trial in January. Theater Square would be responsible for any protective costs in the interim. Earlier this month, the group posted a $468,000 bond for that purpose.

 

The order requires Hines to keep Theater Square apprised of its construction plans and give at least 10 days to raise objections to any specific work. After protective work is performed, Theater Square would have to reimburse Hines within 20 days.

 

According to court documents, the temporary injunction, "is not intended to prohibit Block 58 (Hines) from designing and constructing a new building on the Chronicle tract."

[Urbannizer]

http://houston-texas-us.blogspot.com/2016/08/la-fin-de-chronicle-bold-banner-borne.html

 

[Nole23]

*Just bumping a page worth of threads ahead of all of the spam*

[htownboy]

These photos were taken on Sunday

Edited August 9, 2016 by htownboy

[Subdude]

On 7/28/2016 at 4:43 PM, Urbannizer said:

 

http://swamplot.com/lawsuit-limboed-chronicle-building-now-dressing-in-black-slowly-going-to-pieces-downtown/2016-07-28/

 

 

This is a cool picture.  On the portion with the facade removed you can see where a section of the building frame sits lower than the facade skeleton.  That would  have been the roofline of the original Majestic Theater that was eventually incorporated into the Chronicle Building.  To the left of that was the Milam Building which was extended over the top of the theater.  

[Nate99]

26 minutes ago, Subdude said:

 

This is a cool picture.  On the portion with the facade removed you can see where a section of the building frame sits lower than the facade skeleton.  That would  have been the roofline of the original Majestic Theater that was eventually incorporated into the Chronicle Building.  To the left of that was the Milam Building which was extended over the top of the theater.  

 

Pretty much all of the windows are out along Texas now, you can see it even better.

[cloud713]

1 hour ago, Subdude said:

 

This is a cool picture.  On the portion with the facade removed you can see where a section of the building frame sits lower than the facade skeleton.  That would  have been the roofline of the original Majestic Theater that was eventually incorporated into the Chronicle Building.  To the left of that was the Milam Building which was extended over the top of the theater.  

 

I was wondering if that upside down L was the outline of the theater when I saw that picture.. Neat seeing how it was all pieced together.

[Nate99]

[mollusk]

It seems like most ongoing businesses remove their signage from abandoned premises slated to be torn down.  Could this is be a sign that Hearst is giving up on the traditional fishwrap business in favor of a more anonymous digital presence, do they just not give a flip, or is whoever does their real estate managing somewhat inept?  #3 would seem to be further supported by how the previous partial reskin and remodel seemed to take years longer to accomplish than it remained in place afterwards.

[Nate99]

1 hour ago, mollusk said:

It seems like most ongoing businesses remove their signage from abandoned premises slated to be torn down.  Could this is be a sign that Hearst is giving up on the traditional fishwrap business in favor of a more anonymous digital presence, do they just not give a flip, or is whoever does their real estate managing somewhat inept?  #3 would seem to be further supported by how the previous partial reskin and remodel seemed to take years longer to accomplish than it remained in place afterwards.

 

That occurred to me as well. Does anyone not in the demolition business want their brand prominently displayed on something being demolished? 

 

The news business isn't what it used to be, it only follows that those charged with picking over the carcass might not have that much attention to detail. It's not Hines' or Cherry Demolition's business to care that Hearst's branding is literally falling in the gutter.

[Houston19514]

Does anybody have any idea what they will do with all the marble?  That would make a lot of great kitchen counters.

[KDW]

Above the 1st floor is aluminum cladding that looks like marble. 

[Houston19514]

3 hours ago, KDW said:

Above the 1st floor is aluminum cladding that looks like marble. 

 

If true, that's pretty hilarious (because the Chronicle apparently thought it was all marble.  The entire primary structure was clad in white marble.)

[H-Town Man]

Didn't they spend forever redoing all the marble in the early 2000's? And how do you make aluminum look like marble, especially through decades of wear? I'm tempted to call BS on this, as delicious as it would be.

 

[Timoric]

-

Edited July 10, 2019 by Timoric

[KDW]

I know someone who walked the building during the demolition bidding process, he said the entire 10 story section is aluminum cladding made to look like marble. Just what i was told, I guess we will see when it starts to come down.

[Avossos]

3 hours ago, KDW said:

I know someone who walked the building during the demolition bidding process, he said the entire 10 story section is aluminum cladding made to look like marble. Just what i was told, I guess we will see when it starts to come down.

If it really was metal, those holes in the side would look different IMO

[arisegundo]

I can't remember what it was but you could definitely tell from the repeating patterns that it wasn't natural stone. 

 

The cladding took about 4 years and was completed just in time for Ike to blow off a panel or two.

[ChannelTwoNews]

A couple from yesterday...

 

 

 

[H-Town Man]

On ‎8‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 0:16 PM, arisegundo said:

I can't remember what it was but you could definitely tell from the repeating patterns that it wasn't natural stone. 

 

The cladding took about 4 years and was completed just in time for Ike to blow off a panel or two.

 

Did it really take 4 years just to clad the thing in aluminum? This site is like some kind of underachievement nexus in the universe. I'm not even sure Hines can overcome all the bad voodoo.

 

[hindesky]

[nativehoustonion]

That will be Hines next supertall in the future.  

[Urbannizer]

 

http://houston-texas-us.blogspot.com/2016/08/deconstruction-of-houston-chronicle.html

 

Chronicle sign gone:

 

 

[samagon]

23 hours ago, nativehoustonion said:

That will be Hines next supertall in the future.  

 

in the immediate future machine we get surface parking lot, as far as the eye can see! so excited!

[bobruss]

I'm not going to let one parking lot get me down, because we just got rid of 15 this last year and besides we know it will eventually have a landmark building sitting on it. Just relax and not make such a big deal out of it. Now if someone besides Hines owned it I might be concerned.

[dml423]

While it is rough to lose any building downtown, I think what makes this one hurt a bit more than others is that it was the last main news source that was located downtown. Just think of how neat it would be to have an area of downtown where all the newspapers, news channels, magazines, & root sports were located. They could film the local morning shows and you could actually see people walking the streets compared to the generic skyline picture they always have up. Ehh, one could dream...