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Discovery West: Mixed-Use Development Downtown By Skanska


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2 minutes ago, nate4l1f3 said:

Thanks! This is why we need sticky posts within threads. 
 

The little quarter purple block angers me lol

I asked the site superintendent about that small section of the lot and he said he works for the construction arm of Skanska and doesn't really know what kept the Skanska development wing from purchasing that portion. To me it seems like whoever owns it is missing out on the one great opportunity to sell this.

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4 minutes ago, hindesky said:

I asked the site superintendent about that small section of the lot and he said he works for the construction arm of Skanska and doesn't really know what kept the Skanska development wing from purchasing that portion. To me it seems like whoever owns it is missing out on the one great opportunity to sell this.

Golconda Ventures.  Long-term owner of a bunch of blocks in the southeast part of downtown Houston and they have historically had no interest in selling or developing.

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5 hours ago, MarathonMan said:

Skanska does good work — I’m looking forward to seeing this one rise.  And it marks the final development immediately adjacent to Discovery Green!  No more surface parking lots flanking the park. 😊

Did a @hindesky type ride through downtown. Say what ya want about Discovery Green as a park, but I couldn't help thinking with the amount of people who were there at 7pm on a Wednesday that so much of this development was made possible by that park and what its done for that area. City just needs some more greenery to link this area to Bagby (which is starting to look incredible), and main street's water feature and stuff helps, and I can't help but think this will continue the revitalization of downtown in a massive way.

The barriers were already spilling out onto Labranch's road a bit so I'm assuming some part of Labranch will be shut down when things really get heavy. Exciting. 

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54 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

Golconda Ventures.  Long-term owner of a bunch of blocks in the southeast part of downtown Houston and they have historically had no interest in selling or developing.

I think they're an entity of the Taiwanese national oil company? Which probably has good motivation to park their money somewhere outside of Taiwan.

 

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27 minutes ago, X.R. said:

Did a @hindesky type ride through downtown. Say what ya want about Discovery Green as a park, but I couldn't help thinking with the amount of people who were there at 7pm on a Wednesday that so much of this development was made possible by that park and what its done for that area. City just needs some more greenery to link this area to Bagby (which is starting to look incredible), and main street's water feature and stuff helps, and I can't help but think this will continue the revitalization of downtown in a massive way.

The barriers were already spilling out onto Labranch's road a bit so I'm assuming some part of Labranch will be shut down when things really get heavy. Exciting. 

maybe it's just the surrounding buildings, but the main street water feature just feels like a cold lifeless area to me.

I'd love to see the fountain between Lamar and McKinney replaced with something like what they have in the flanking street areas that are ped only.

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5 hours ago, pacarlson said:

Any official structure height for this one yet?  I'm guessing it has a reasonable chance to exceed 400' given trending FF office heights.

I'm betting 508' total, so shorter than one park place and taller than Hess tower. Knock on wood, but I'm betting every building in this development will be in the 500'+ range. 

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1 hour ago, TheSirDingle said:

I'm betting 508' total, so shorter than one park place and taller than Hess tower. Knock on wood, but I'm betting every building in this development will be in the 500'+ range. 

I'm willing to bet that this will probably be the shortest building in the development.

 

On 6/24/2021 at 12:00 PM, Houston19514 said:

Golconda Ventures.  Long-term owner of a bunch of blocks in the southeast part of downtown Houston and they have historically had no interest in selling or developing.

You know, the city should really penalize property owners who own surface parking lots or undeveloped lots downtown and refuse to develop them or sell them.

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10 minutes ago, Big E said:

You know, the city should really penalize property owners who own surface parking lots or undeveloped lots downtown and refuse to develop them or sell them.

There would be no legal or constitutional basis for doing this. Part of the right to own property is the right not to sell it. This was a natural right before a lot of other things that people consider natural rights.

On the other hand, the city has condemned property in this part of town when it was needed for the Toyota Center.

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6 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

There would be no legal or constitutional basis for doing this. Part of the right to own property is the right not to sell it. This was a natural right before a lot of other things that people consider natural rights.

On the other hand, the city has condemned property in this part of town when it was needed for the Toyota Center.

You could create tax incentives or penalties that could help push development though. 

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9 hours ago, jmitch94 said:

You could create tax incentives or penalties that could help push development though. 

We already had the Downtown Living Initiative and Opportunity Zones.  Not sure if penalties would fly in TX.  Maybe when the foreign oil company that owns several of the lots downtown sales their lots their will be a dramatic change.

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11 hours ago, jmitch94 said:

You could create tax incentives or penalties that could help push development though. 

There already is a tax penalty - they have to pay a bunch of property tax every year on the land as it sits there. And there are positive incentives, as BeerNut mentioned. You can't really do much more without endangering Houston's reputation as a good place for investment. We want more foreign money flowing into Houston because it benefits us, on the whole. We don't want to scare away what foreign money we have.

We also aren't anywhere close to a point where we need Golconda's land to continue growing and improving downtown. Skanska has a pretty big chunk of land that will take them most of a decade to develop to its highest potential. There are numerous sites around Market Square, Jones Plaza, Minute Maid Park, and all along Main Street that are ready to be developed. By reducing the supply of available land, you actually get better projects on the remaining land, something that Austin has experienced with its Capitol View Corridors. So don't worry.

 

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 Downtown surface parking lots may have to be placed in an  "endangered species". Their boom times were the 1970's through the 1990's. They appear to be disappearing. My concern are the hideous high rise garages which bludgeon the eye, such as one can sees at Main and Walker. The ideal would be high rise garages such as the one at Preston and Louisiana.

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13 hours ago, Twinsanity02 said:

 Downtown surface parking lots may have to be placed in an  "endangered species". Their boom times were the 1970's through the 1990's. They appear to be disappearing. My concern are the hideous high rise garages which bludgeon the eye, such as one can sees at Main and Walker. The ideal would be high rise garages such as the one at Preston and Louisiana.

I'm all for high density parking with at least some ground floor retail. It's a million times better than the equivalent 8-10 surface lots. There's no point in worrying about beauty until we obtain the walkability to enjoy the beauty.

Edited by staresatmaps
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On 6/30/2021 at 8:36 AM, Nate99 said:

I want to be a render person some day, I'd do something like this lady. "Aaah my eye!"

I personally like the lady in the bike lane. She has the look of "Oh flurf, did I go the wrong way?"

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On 6/28/2021 at 5:37 PM, Big E said:

You know, the city should really penalize property owners who own surface parking lots or undeveloped lots downtown and refuse to develop them or sell them.

 

The concept is called a land-value tax. The idea is that, rather than base property tax valuation on the land-plus-improvements, you only tax the value of the land. So the owner of a block used for surface parking would pay the same tax bill as the owner of a block across the street used for, say, an office tower. 

This incentivizes landowners to more quickly develop to highest-and-best use, thereby discouraging the kind of land speculation Golconda is engaging in, and eliminates the tax penalty associated with remodeling existing structures.

It also removes the tax incentive to quickly demolish an existing structure, then leave the lot empty for (sometimes) years before actually building on it (see e.g. Chevron's demo of the downtown YMCA).

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35 minutes ago, Angostura said:

 

The concept is called a land-value tax. The idea is that, rather than base property tax valuation on the land-plus-improvements, you only tax the value of the land. So the owner of a block used for surface parking would pay the same tax bill as the owner of a block across the street used for, say, an office tower. 

This incentivizes landowners to more quickly develop to highest-and-best use, thereby discouraging the kind of land speculation Golconda is engaging in, and eliminates the tax penalty associated with remodeling existing structures.

It also removes the tax incentive to quickly demolish an existing structure, then leave the lot empty for (sometimes) years before actually building on it (see e.g. Chevron's demo of the downtown YMCA).

Has this been tried anywhere in the U.S.? Besides scaring a lot of investors out of Houston because you've suddenly dramatically altered how properties are taxed, it seems like this would have a decentralizing effect on development, as people would choose to build office buildings in suburban locations where land is valued much less and tenants would flee the dramatically high tax reimbursement costs downtown.

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On 7/2/2021 at 10:53 AM, H-Town Man said:

Has this been tried anywhere in the U.S.? Besides scaring a lot of investors out of Houston because you've suddenly dramatically altered how properties are taxed, it seems like this would have a decentralizing effect on development, as people would choose to build office buildings in suburban locations where land is valued much less and tenants would flee the dramatically high tax reimbursement costs downtown.

From Wikipedia

"Notwithstanding the change in 2001, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership Business Improvement District employed a pure land value taxation as a surcharge on the regular property tax from 1997 to 2016.[22] In 2000, Florenz Plassmann and Nicolaus Tideman wrote[23] that when comparing Pennsylvania cities using a higher tax rate on land value and a lower rate on improvements with similar sized Pennsylvania cities using the same rate on land and improvements, the higher land value taxation leads to increased construction within the jurisdiction."

 

It would probably make most skyscraper taxes downtown much lower. Compare the property tax of a skyscraper downtown to the property tax of a same sized area of houses in the burbs. Now compare the land value of a block downtown compared to the land value of a same sized area in the burbs.

 

Also the value of empty lots downtown would go way down, because property owners would be forced to sell land rather than pay the taxes. Much of the value of lots downtown is due to speculation.

 

Edited by staresatmaps
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On 6/30/2021 at 7:36 AM, Nate99 said:

I want to be a render person some day, I'd do something like this lady. "Aaah my eye!"

 

Aaah my eye.png

For my renders I've been using this site:

https://www.mrcutout.com/

Apparently if you let them use your photos you might get a royalty from it. Don't quote me.

If you make it on a site let me know and I'll personally star you in a fancy render I do some day.

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