Texas Tower (Block 58) by Hines, 47-Story Office Tower

[cloud713 3697]

I agree, they probably don't have any other parking planned for the tower, which is why I asked how Seattle developers handle parking situations/was wondering where the rest of the people might park. The plans call for 700,000 sq ft of office space, and 15,000 sq ft of retail.. 500 parking spaces wouldn't be enough.

[tangledwoods 365]

i like it how our example of what could be better is a SKANSKA project in another city when they have the eyesore of a parking garage here.....

[mollusk 2044]

i like it how our example of what could be better is a SKANSKA project in another city when they have the eyesore of a parking garage here.....

 

Patience, Grasshopper.  If they stay even remotely close to the renderings when the tower is eventually done we'll never notice the parking podium.

[Montrose1100 2877]

i like it how our example of what could be better is a SKANSKA project in another city when they have the eyesore of a parking garage here.....

On a scale of Gherkin to Parking Garage, how would you rate the modern architectural landscape of Houston?

[Timoric 1444]

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Edited July 10 by Timoric

[Texasota 1669]

I agree, they probably don't have any other parking planned for the tower, which is why I asked how Seattle developers handle parking situations/was wondering where the rest of the people might park. The plans call for 700,000 sq ft of office space, and 15,000 sq ft of retail.. 500 parking spaces wouldn't be enough.

 

Based on what exactly? "The rest of the people" will either park in existing garages or on the street, or take transit or a bike in. 

What's the breakdown of commute type in Seattle? I assume its different from Houston, though I have no idea by how much.

[Montrose1100 2877]

Isn't Gherkin a pickle?

https://www.google.com/search?q=gherkin&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=955&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi21rHGuJbLAhXFHB4KHUUWBH8Q_AUIBigB

[hindesky 28275]

I talked with a Harvey supervisor at the Hines 609 Main project during the luffer removal, he said they are going to demo the building this summer and make it surface parking lot and wait for the local economy to improve before they build something on this block.

[astros148 487]

Yay for surface parking lots. 

[HoustonIsHome 1353]

Surface parking? What else would we expect? 

[Triton 10353]

Gotta do it the Houston way yall. Imagine the rare site of this in NYC. 

[Twinsanity02 962]

To paraphrase  Yosemite Sam  "I hates surface parking lots"

[Subdude 1454]

14 hours ago, hindesky said:

I talked with a Harvey supervisor at the Hines 609 Main project during the luffer removal, he said they are going to demo the building this summer and make it surface parking lot and wait for the local economy to improve before they build something on this block.

Well there's a shock!  

[Sunstar 516]

Two steps forward, one step back

[BigFootsSocks 2960]

Good thing Hines isn't known for their architecturally pleasing designs so we can freak out about this and lose all hope

[Subdude 1454]

With the Lamar Hotel block they let it sit as surface parking for about 15 years.

 

[BigFootsSocks 2960]

Yeah but their designs are usually fawned over at haif, so you guys can take solace in knowing there will be something pretty to look at, eventually. A lesson in patience.

[Sparrow 305]

Demoing this block is something too get excited about if you ask me. Prepares the land for something Going Up! next cycle. They could decide just to leave the existing building vacant. I actually prefer an empty parking lot for this block for now. We'll get a better project next time around than we would if they began something now.   

[Houston19514 3132]

33 minutes ago, Sparrow said:

Demoing this block is something too get excited about if you ask me. Prepares the land for something Going Up! next cycle. They could decide just to leave the existing building vacant. I actually prefer an empty parking lot for this block for now. We'll get a better project next time around than we would if they began something now.   

Demoing the building also will make it easier to forget about the Chronicle's existence.

[Timoric 1444]

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Edited July 10 by Timoric

[monarch 2975]

^^^ try the chronicle CHRON.COM online... it has everything that one could need news wise.  however, it is indeed still the chronicle... just a note of caution...

[Houston19514 3132]

On 3/27/2016 at 2:28 PM, hindesky said:

I talked with a Harvey supervisor at the Hines 609 Main project during the luffer removal, he said they are going to demo the building this summer and make it surface parking lot and wait for the local economy to improve before they build something on this block.

Just a little curious about this.  If they are going to demo the building and replace it with surface parking, why would they wait until summer? I would think they would want to get it done ASAP and start earning a little money from the parking.

[Nate99 7145]

The guy in a hard hat setting up barriers said it would take a year to demolish. Perhaps the exterior will start coming down this summer, but it appears that they are starting now.

 

[tangledwoods 365]

Quote

The guy in a hard hat setting up barriers said it would take a year to demolish. Perhaps the exterior will start coming down this summer, but it appears that they are starting now.

I have worked on a few jobs like this one, here is how it will likely go:

• They will run interior asbestos abatement crews that will likely gut / scrap most of the interior.  
• Then the building will be processed down with high reach demo excavators.

This one should be pretty fun to watch once the get to the facade and structure demo. 

[j_cuevas713 1981]

I really hate seeing this building go... I'm actually right next to it now... I mean we will have a crater on this side of DT... right next to the massive Chase tower... idk, just hope something replaces one of these lots soon because this is depressing... you have a boom and to replace all the great construction you have Skanska build a garage and the Chronicle building coming down. 

[lockmat 2086]

So considering that 609 still has a lot of vacancy and the O&G industry stinks, we should expect in announcement in 4-5 years at the soonest? Unless of course they decide to go mixed-use or hotel?

[jmitch94 1466]

Especially since office is way over built right now. 

[Sunstar 516]

22 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I really hate seeing this building go... I'm actually right next to it now... I mean we will have a crater on this side of DT... right next to the massive Chase tower... idk, just hope something replaces one of these lots soon because this is depressing... you have a boom and to replace all the great construction you have Skanska build a garage and the Chronicle building coming down. 

Not to mention the fact that there's already a giant parking lot right next to this location by Market Square. 

[j_cuevas713 1981]

What would be awesome is if both lots were filled with residential, that would def make up for demoing this building. 

[Texasota 1669]

And it would really tie the whole neighborhood together with the Rice and the new towers right nearby.

[Sunstar 516]

I'm sure the future for this location will be great, but in the meantime - blech!

[Urbannizer 39427]

Houston Chronicle Building by russell.hancock, on Flickr

[Moore713 377]

Not surprising given the area explosion as a hot spot and parking shrinking  in that area that for the time being they see a parking lot as more revenue potential than another building ..The beauty about Hines unlike other companies is that the moment they decided that a building is more profitable than a lot..they will

most likely move ahead with it.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Moore713

[KinkaidAlum 2387]

damn it.

 

We already lost the Houston Club Building and the two smaller edifices so the f'in Lancaster Hotel could park 50 cars. Now, we're losing a full block?

 

Lets all pray oil rebounds quickly but I am old enough to recall all of the scars that were created in the 1970s and 80s being empty for decades...

 

[wxman 680]

Nobody would pay $10 million (or whatever Hines paid for the Chron building) to own a building that they're going to have to pay millions more to have demolished just to turn it into a parking lot. Thank GOD Hines are the ones who bought the lot. I suspect it'll sit as a lot for a year or two but you can bet for sure that somewhere in Houston, in a corner office on the upper floors of a building that there is a sketch or model of a new skyscraper that will eventually adorn that block. Anybody?

[astros148 487]

I dont think they will have build a skyscraper here, more like a 30-40 story hotel/retail. This side of downtown will be booming with nightlife and rest assured hotel demand always follows. It sucks that this side of downtown will have two adjacent parking lots esp during super bowl 

[Montrose1100 2877]

On April 5, 2016 at 6:28 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

I really hate seeing this building go... I'm actually right next to it now... I mean we will have a crater on this side of DT... right next to the massive Chase tower... idk, just hope something replaces one of these lots soon because this is depressing... you have a boom and to replace all the great construction you have Skanska build a garage and the Chronicle building coming down. 

i would love to see this block become a massive residential/hotel/retail tower. Along with the International Tower block, it would be nice to have residential developement creep further towards the theater district.

[Nate99 7145]

10 hours ago, astros148 said:

It sucks that this side of downtown will have two adjacent parking lots esp during super bowl 

 

Who knows what is actually going to happen for the events, but the surface lots around DG looked well utilized around the Final 4 festivities.  Tie something in to Market Square Park and those two blocks could be a temporary plus for the Super Bowl crowd. 

 

But for what it's worth, dude in hard hat told me that it would take a year to complete the demolition. It might still be in carcass stage next February.

[H-TownChris2 1879]

12 hours ago, astros148 said:

I dont think they will have build a skyscraper here, more like a 30-40 story hotel/retail. This side of downtown will be booming with nightlife and rest assured hotel demand always follows. It sucks that this side of downtown will have two adjacent parking lots esp during super bowl 

Mixed Use?

[cspwal 2936]

It  would be nice if instead of a just a parking lot it also had some tunnel access from street level.  Don't know how they would do it 

[Gary K 0]

I walk by this building at Milam & Texas corner every morning on my way to work.

 

The electricity appears to be off, and there is a large (running) generator situated outside the giant warehouse door truck entrance.

 

Wonder what's going on?

 

Edited April 22, 2016 by Gary K
change

[KDW 48]

Probably started the asbestos abatement portion of the project. Gotta be done before the wrecking ball hits.

[cspwal 2936]

Looks like the theatre square people aren't happy with the demolition

http://swamplot.com/hines-and-hearst-being-sued-over-planned-demo-of-former-houston-chronicle-building/2016-04-26/

Quote

Linbeck’s Theater Square entity claimed in a Wednesday night filing that the planned demo is the latest in a string of interferences with its attempts to build a tunnel through the former newspaper building’s basement and connect its property into the broader downtown tunnel network.

 

[j_cuevas713 1981]

http://www.chron.com/business/real-estate/article/Downtown-property-owner-files-lawsuit-to-halt-7375374.php

[jmitch94 1466]

I know Hines is most likely going to turn this into a very nice development but having a surface lot is really going to hurt the feel of this area.  

[samagon 2582]

On 4/14/2016 at 7:48 PM, astros148 said:

I dont think they will have build a skyscraper here, more like a 30-40 story hotel/retail. This side of downtown will be booming with nightlife and rest assured hotel demand always follows. It sucks that this side of downtown will have two adjacent parking lots esp during super bowl 

 

Optimist here: if the concern is for the superbowl, there's nothing stopping the owners from pulling a temporary TABC for each property and having some beer booths along with 10-15 food trucks and asking for a modest 15-20% cut of sales.

 

reality here: they'll probably just charge $100 per parking spot.

[AREJAY 1184]

http://swamplot.com/daily-demolition-report-what-lies-beneath/2016-05-13/

801 Texas is on the demo report for today 

[bobruss 4461]

I believe that Hines has bought property in the past in downtown and demolished buildings and held the property for a few years before proceeding with development. Please verify or correct me but it seems someone has quoted that before. I also spoke with one of the very high up officials in the company who happens to be the next door neighbor to family and he said it will be a while before anything is done with the property. There is no incentive to start another project right now due to our economic state, and to do differently would be unsound judgement in my mind. I don't know how many of you were around in 1985, at the height of the oil bath but the  investors in the Heritage Plaza were the last ones in the building boom to start construction and before the slab was dry they were filing for bankruptcy. With millions of square feet of sub lease available downtown and 22,000 new inside the loop apartments almost  10,000 of them downtown why build even if your talking 3 years for completion. The oil companies won't be absorbing that space for a while and its going to take several years to fill whats being built right now. 

Perfect example is BG Place soon to be 00Place. It will happen but I think its going to be a parking lot for a while.

I hope not but history says they will wait.

[rechlin 2684]

In the case of the last few Hines projects downtown (BG Group Place, 609 Main, Walker@Main garage and Calpine), the existing structures were torn down immediately before building the new structures.  Technically in the case of 609 Main, the McDonald's came down quite a few years before construction began, but that was a minor building, and maybe that had nothing to do with Hines (the Texas Tower, the only building of consequence on that block, wasn't taken down until they were ready to build 609 Main).

 

This is a different situation, with millions of vacant square footage downtown, including a new Hines tower that is only about a third pre-leased (and Hines' since-sold last tower, BG Group Place, will soon have over 40% vacancy), so maybe Hines will delay things a bit, but it seems their strategy is to deliver office space every 5 years or so (frequently when nobody else is building), so it really wouldn't surprise me if they start on a new building here within a couple years of 609 Main opening (the opening of which will more-or-less coincide with the Chronicle block being cleared).

[KinkaidAlum 2387]

The McDonald's was taken down for a proposed apartment/condo tower called The Shamrock.