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Subdude

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Yes, they finished up tearing down the first two warehouses last friday or saturday morning.

The building they're tearing down today I think was a city building that was boarded up in September.

Yall think it's too early to make any assumptions? I know I'm not holding my breath.

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So what gives? City of Houston just waisting money with the demos?

Not sure. It might be that by demolishing the warehouses, it reduces the taxable value of the property were it to be sold back to a private owner, and that that is somehow being reflected in the County's underwriting (if the County is so diligent as to bother with proper feasibility analysis). Or it might be part of the effort to get peoples' attention and force the issue to be more visible to Harris County.

The timing is a little suspect, but one way or the other it does make sense to demolish. Whether it is just because the City doesn't want to take on general liability for anything that happens there, or if it is related to insurance, or if it is just an effort to clean things up to that the site is more marketable--whether to the Dynamo, their financiers, to the County, or to a prospective buyer from the private sector.

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New Developments:

it looks like its up to Larry Catuzzi and Gene Locke for their recommendations on the proposal

"The Dynamo want to know if the stadium project is going to go forward by the end of the year."

Article from Fox News

i dont know guys, we'll see

So really we'll know by mid-December? Does anyone work past the 20th?

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Not sure. It might be that by demolishing the warehouses, it reduces the taxable value of the property were it to be sold back to a private owner, and that that is somehow being reflected in the County's underwriting (if the County is so diligent as to bother with proper feasibility analysis). Or it might be part of the effort to get peoples' attention and force the issue to be more visible to Harris County.

The timing is a little suspect, but one way or the other it does make sense to demolish. Whether it is just because the City doesn't want to take on general liability for anything that happens there, or if it is related to insurance, or if it is just an effort to clean things up to that the site is more marketable--whether to the Dynamo, their financiers, to the County, or to a prospective buyer from the private sector.

I'm guessing that tearing down the warehouses might actually increase the taxable value of the property, rather than reduce it (and your suggestion that tearing them down will make the site more marketable supports that conclusion)

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I'm guessing that tearing down the warehouses might actually increase the taxable value of the property, rather than reduce it (and your suggestion that tearing them down will make the site more marketable supports that conclusion)

I agree with you in principle.

However HCAD does not make an effort to adjust land value downward when there are functionally obsolete improvements on a property. By taking the value of those improvements off the books, the effect that I described can and does occur.

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New Developments:

it looks like its up to Larry Catuzzi and Gene Locke for their recommendations on the proposal

"The Dynamo want to know if the stadium project is going to go forward by the end of the year."

Article from Fox News

i dont know guys, we'll see

I don't understand what's so hard about this. Not one but TWO county commisioners passing the buck. Worthless. Garcia wants to know how her constituents feel? Hello! Many of your constituents are represented by the organizations at the press conference. And Lee's getting people to look at the project in order to tell him whether or not its a good deal? Is he afraid to make a decision?

This makes me wonder again why we have the county commissioners (other than the whole state law thing :D). Make a decision already! These negotiations have gone on for almost 3 years!

Reading the above quote again brings about a sheer irony. Garcia wants "the constituents" to tell her what they want (seems that they already have). On the other hand, Lee wants 2 people to decide for him.

Am I reading this right? Two people (who we have no idea where and what they're connected to) could decide this project?

Edited by GovernorAggie
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My main concern is if they do move forward with the stadium, they take into consideration the homes in the surrounding area and try to make community oriented improvements with the stadium so everyone benefits by it. If they do move forward with it, they need to put significant thought into the parking arrangements. Where would people park - is there enough space in the land the city purchased to build both the stadium and adequate parking for 25,000 fans? Who would purchase additional land for parking if it was necessary?

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If they do move forward with it, they need to put significant thought into the parking arrangements. Where would people park - is there enough space in the land the city purchased to build both the stadium and adequate parking for 25,000 fans? Who would purchase additional land for parking if it was necessary?

Isn't there still at least an idea if not a plan to put in a light rail going down where the location of the new dynamo stadium will be? i could have swore i saw a plan that had that idea somewhere.

I'm sure you could use the minute maid parking for the dynamo games when the astros are out of town or when they fail to make the playoffs like they did this year.

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So really we'll know by mid-December? Does anyone work past the 20th?

Hopefully, we'll know on December 9th.

One thing I do know as well is the fact that a new light rail is in the plans for the area (stadium or not). Also, the Minute Maid parking lot on the Dynamo stadium side would be used for Dynamo parking.

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As I was leaving this morning it looked like they would finish tearing down the third warehouse completely today. There were also a large number of vehicles and a 5th warehouse and it looked like they might be prepping it for something today or next week.

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They've been stripping the windows and wiring and whatnot from the largest warehouse in the proposed area. There's only 2 warehouses remaining in the area now.

They're cleaning off the site of the last warehouse that got torn down last week. All that remains are the slabs.

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My main concern is if they do move forward with the stadium, they take into consideration the homes in the surrounding area and try to make community oriented improvements with the stadium so everyone benefits by it. If they do move forward with it, they need to put significant thought into the parking arrangements. Where would people park - is there enough space in the land the city purchased to build both the stadium and adequate parking for 25,000 fans? Who would purchase additional land for parking if it was necessary?

There would not be enough room on the site for parking. The stadium would take up almost all of the six blocks. But there is already plenty of parking in the area already. MinuteMaid Park holds 40,000 and this stadium would require much less parking. The existing parking lots north of Texas would hold a lot of the required parking.

Also, as others have said, the East End and Southeast light rail lines will run right past the stadium at the north end. That should reduce some of the parking demand for both MMP and the soccer stadium.

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I don't keep up with the soccer stadium all that much but I will throw an interesting note out there about something I heard concerning the soccer franchise in Houston. A current project is moving forward to build their training complex on the southwest corner of SH288 and Airport. Money will come from the City of Houston, the Houston Parks Board (who is coordinating the project) and the Dynamo. Monies are tight these days from the City and from the Houston Parks Board who solicites donations from foundations and Corporate sponsors. In a meeting several weeks ago to discuss the project everyone showed up with some money towards it except the Dynamo. Mayor White was alittle PO'ed that Oliver and the boys want so much but bring so little to the table. Parks Board is involved because the final project will have something like 18 fields for playing soccer and lacrosse. My question is if they can't kick anything in for the practice facility, what the heck are they going to do when it's time to put up the real money? (for stadium construction)

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There would not be enough room on the site for parking. The stadium would take up almost all of the six blocks. But there is already plenty of parking in the area already. MinuteMaid Park holds 40,000 and this stadium would require much less parking. The existing parking lots north of Texas would hold a lot of the required parking.

Also, as others have said, the East End and Southeast light rail lines will run right past the stadium at the north end. That should reduce some of the parking demand for both MMP and the soccer stadium.

I realize Minute Maid has a lot of parking, but what they have doesn't begin to cover the overflow parking that comes into the streets in the proposed soccer stadium area. People go out of their way to save a few buck and park and walk from those streets. Unless parking is planned well every street surrounding the new complex will become a parking lot.

Maybe they could do something like Midtown and have residential only parking in front of the homes. That would at least simplify things for the residents in the surrounding area.

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I just noticed this 3D model up on google's sketchup site for Google Earth.

Do you think this is somebody's attempt at predicting what the stadium will look like, or is there a rendering out there that we haven't seen?

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/det...amp;prevstart=0

Wow, thanks Jax. If that's it, I like what I see so far.

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The 3D model is pretty detailed. If you open it up in SketchUp and look around there are some details, like a "Budweiser Gate" with a big beer bottle over it, and some street level retail (in the rendering there is a storefront that says "Aveo Home" but it is probably just a placeholder. Anyways, very interesting.

post-3613-1228252812_thumb.jpg

post-3613-1228252587_thumb.jpg

post-3613-1228252865_thumb.jpg

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The 3D model is pretty detailed. If you open it up in SketchUp and look around there are some details, like a "Budweiser Gate" with a big beer bottle over it, and some street level retail (in the rendering there is a storefront that says "Aveo Home" but it is probably just a placeholder. Anyways, very interesting.

Nice, thanks. I doubt someone who was just bored made those renderings. But I guess anything is possible. Maybe we should forward that to swamplot and see if anyone can confirm if they're real.

I really like the dark brick, which I think will blend in nicely with the urbanish/downtown-east end area. Are there other US soccer stadiums in urban areas?

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not real. I downloaded it and looked at in GoogleEarth. stadium has too many seats with too much additional offices/mixed-use. The Upper deck seats face the west/setting sun. there was a lot of time spent designing this plus the little pieces of advertising. probably a UH design project.

the real stadium will be 24-27,000 seats with shed roofs. the field will be depressed to take advantage of sight-lines.

and Ollie is not going anywhere.

Edited by Corbusier
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not real. I downloaded it and looked at in GoogleEarth. stadium has too many seats with too much additional offices/mixed-use. The Upper deck seats face the west/setting sun. there was a lot of time spent designing this plus the little pieces of advertising. probably a UH design project.

the real stadium will be 24-27,000 seats with shed roofs. the field will be depressed to take advantage of sight-lines.

and Ollie is not going anywhere.

I'll bet you a case of beer he isnt the president of the Dynamo's 12 months from today.

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