Fidelity Bank And Trust Company - 1300 Texas Ave.

[hindesky]

I still think it might be temporarily leased by EE Reed the GC who is building the Holiday Inn Express hotel across the street for their lay down yard and trailers. Then the Cambria Hotel could lease it to use for their customers.

[j_cuevas713]

I'm ok with it being a parking lot as long as that little historic building is saved. I see it as a win in my opinion. The building wasn't very appealing to begin with. 

[jhjones74]

20 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I'm ok with it being a parking lot as long as that little historic building is saved. I see it as a win in my opinion. The building wasn't very appealing to begin with. 

I wouldn’t say this is a win - even if the building was less than appealing, swapping it with a surface lot negatively impacts the urban aesthetic of downtown and detracts from the area’s walkability. It’s depressing being a pedestrian in an area catering itself to cars

[j_cuevas713]

12 minutes ago, jhjones74 said:

I wouldn’t say this is a win - even if the building was less than appealing, swapping it with a surface lot negatively impacts the urban aesthetic of downtown and detracts from the area’s walkability. It’s depressing being a pedestrian in an area catering itself to cars

It's not affecting aesthetics much when the building wasn't even much to look at. I didn't even know this building existed until I heard about it being demolished. Now losing that small aesthetically pleasing little building next to it would have been a major loss. This just lays the groundwork for a better building in it's place. And we'll have the new hotel up the street going up to replace this "loss". 

[Nate99]

I'm in the "it was a blighted, old, abandoned box" camp myself. There were some plans once upon a time to build stuff on this whole block, maybe it will come back around. 

[jhjones74]

21 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

It's not affecting aesthetics much when the building wasn't even much to look at. I didn't even know this building existed until I heard about it being demolished. Now losing that small aesthetically pleasing little building next to it would have been a major loss. This just lays the groundwork for a better building in it's place. And we'll have the new hotel up the street going up to replace this "loss". 

I don’t disagree that the building itself was not worth saving. My only point is that walking up Texas Ave, the experience as a pedestrian will now be worse off than it was before. At least personally, there’s nothing less appealing than walking alongside a flat, completely vacant surface lot. Not to mention the heat island you create from all that unshaded pavement.

[j_cuevas713]

48 minutes ago, jhjones74 said:

I don’t disagree that the building itself was not worth saving. My only point is that walking up Texas Ave, the experience as a pedestrian will now be worse off than it was before. At least personally, there’s nothing less appealing than walking alongside a flat, completely vacant surface lot. Not to mention the heat island you create from all that unshaded pavement.

I get that point but with the new hotel going up, I think it will help this corridor aesthetically. Texas Ave is slowly shaping up really nice with high quality developments. 

[strickn]

I don't really think you needed to use the confused reaction when there was nothing confusing about his point 

[strickn]

On 4/4/2023 at 1:20 PM, hindesky said:

https://ballisdevelopment.com/1300-texas-ave-615-caroline-st/

https://ballisdevelopment.com

 

[strickn]

It certainly looked from the demolition photos like the midcentury modern / late streamline moderne brick architecture of 1300 Texas was still standing underneath the pebble concrete slipcover.  Not sure why you were sure it couldn't look like the above rendering and be aesthetically pleasant to the pedestrian

[jhjones74]

6 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I get that point but with the new hotel going up, I think it will help this corridor aesthetically. Texas Ave is slowly shaping up really nice with high quality developments. 

Do we even know whether that hotel is actually going to be built? I know there's another thread on the topic, but just because they got the permits doesn't mean they secured construction financing. I'm no expert on construction/property development but interest rates are a lot higher now than when they would have filed those permits.

12 minutes ago, strickn said:

It certainly looked from the demolition photos like the midcentury modern / late streamline moderne brick architecture of 1300 Texas was still standing underneath the pebble concrete slipcover.  Not sure why you were sure it couldn't look like the above rendering and be aesthetically pleasant to the pedestrian

I'm reacting to hindesky's intel that the lot will just become surface parking. I'd love if the rendering actually ended up happening. Surely not the best design, but better than leaving it as a parking lot.

[strickn]

The rendering was, if I understood correctly, not a rebuild at all, but a removal of the un-aesthetic 1970s pebble jacket from the brick building.   It cannot happen now that the building is demolished.

[Nate99]

Views previously unpossible 

 

[hindesky]

 

They building next door is not very nice looking, hopefully they do something make it look better.

[strickn]

HAIF paging Skanska; come in, do you read?  vacant land.  over.

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

This demo project seems to have stopped, I wonder if they have bigger fish to fry elsewhere?

[jhjones74]

They had the money to knock it down but that’s it 😂

[Luminare]

Hmm this thread is interesting. I have some questions as this hasn't been clearly stated, and we probably don't have enough information, but what is actually happening here? Is it a hotel as someone mentioned? Was the property purchased by someone else? One post says the law firm is now in Uptown?

Here is another question, does anyone have photos, or images, or old plans/elevations of what this building looked like prior to the pebble slip screen cladding?

I see people in here talking about the merit of whether this building should have been demolished or not, but before that conversation could go forward we should have a better idea of what the state of the existing building actually was.

So here is how an architect would look at this. The client (lets pretend Gulfstream is my client, they aren't, but lets pretend) proposes reusing the building, and wants to explore preservation, but when someone says that they really mean rehabilitation if its a remodel of an existing building as preservation (and even restoration) in technical jargon is very difficult, limiting, and expensive.

First thing explored would be what is the official status of this building. If I had to take a guess this building wasn't listed as a historic building at any level Federal, State, or Local. So now we don't have to worry about any of those heavy requirements, nor does that mean the client can get tax credits to assist them in preservation, rehabilitation, or restoration.

With that out of the way the architect would likely start exploring what can actually be rehabilitated.

From photos posted on here, my analysis is that the exterior cladding on top of the brick was compromised. You can see the moisture could not escape the slip screen in places. Some panels looked dry and absent of moisture while other panels weren't. That means the slip screen could not be relied upon to hold its own weight into the future, so you would have had to replace that entire slip screen system outright. So we can eliminate even keeping the slip screen from the equation which also eliminates preservation from the possibilities of this project.

Now lets go to rehabilitation. If through a process of rehabilitation that means we would have to take the slip screen as being an important characteristic with historical impact on the building and that means each individual panel would have to be taken off piece by piece, then cleaned with moisture taken out of each, and then reapplied. Some panels probably wouldn't have survived that process. This means we would need new panels. Okay, who makes panels like this anymore? I'll tell you right now, probably not many. Where is a contractor with experience with a system like this? Probably not many. Even if you figured all that out, what does this slip screen look like with old and new panels...probably mismatched and odd looking. Now think about all the costs to do this, which would have been a lot. This means in any situation, unless the client had a true emotional attachment to that slip screen, would mean regardless of any approach the slip screen is gone. The end.

Next step. Slip screen has to be removed. Okay what does the existing brick facade underneath look like, or how has that held up over the years. From demo photos it doesn't look like the brick held up that well as the slip screen was directly applied on top of the brick with a backing to adhere it to the brick. That means that if there were moisture problems with the slip screen that could mean its affecting brick in places as well. As you are taking the slip screen off you might also take grout off from the existing brick, and replacing original grout on existing brick is expensive. Not only that you would have to rehabilitate the brick to take off the adhesive from the slip screen. No you can not pressure wash this off, and you could use chemical treatment, but the brick is probably already in rough shape, so you would likely need to use some very delicate techniques by a specialized contractor...which is very expensive. Then after that process you would need to repoint all the brick on the entire facade. Like the slip screen, some of the brick will not make it through this process and again you will need to figure out if you can find a brick similar in color and look.

So after that I would present the client with the cost of rehabilitating the brick facade and it wouldn't be cheap. We haven't even gotten to the marble, or the other monolithic stone, or the fact the existing soffit, fascia, and coping are garbage and are compromised. Let say the client is like, okay that is expensive, but we really want to explore what a full renovation + remodel of the exterior and interior could look like if we went forward with that. So then that is done and its why we got someone like below:

On 4/17/2023 at 7:38 PM, strickn said:

On 4/4/2023 at 12:20 PM, hindesky said:

https://ballisdevelopment.com/1300-texas-ave-615-caroline-st/

https://ballisdevelopment.com

 

Then the client likely came back after this process and said, okay that is indeed really expensive. We will need to do an analysis of the benefits of simply demoing the building, and doing a new building. Meanwhile the client on their side is likely doing a study of what the costs would be to simply relocate. I'll save everyone the suspense as this seems like what happened, but after internal investigations by the law firm its likely they came to the common sense solution which was to relocate, and plus they can sell the land at a profit! What a steal. They get to save money, move to a better facility (maybe we get an interior rebuild later), and the client gets to make a profit off the property. Who doesn't take that?

Now the new property owner before purchase also probably got the same info from "my client" and now knows the status of this building too as well as subsequent investigations, and likely they will conclude as well that the building has outlived its usefulness, and its more productive, cheaper, and makes sense to demo.

On 4/15/2023 at 9:41 AM, jhjones74 said:

God I hope this isn't true. The city should really disincentivize creating surface parking lots like this, one way could be by taxing them at a higher rate than land with buildings. Because the free market really breaks down here - the owners of the land likely will make enough money on parking (particularly with the Astros season starting up) to justify destroying the building that was there, and not developing anything else.

It's interesting that Gulfstream Legal Group, the tenants that were previously in the demolished building, now list their headquarters at 720 N Post Oak Rd. I was hoping that was just a temporary space while they were constructing a new headquarters, but it seems likely now that could be their new home.

No. No. No. No. I remember thinking this way a long long time ago when I was at university. It doesn't work. Wonder why its incredibly difficult to develop in San Francisco, or New York City? This is why. Why is it incredibly difficult to develop in a lot of European cities...this is why. You being overly focused on dis-incentivizing one use will affect the ability to do other uses. This line of thinking has had a lot of unintended consequences in clients abilities to build. It just does. It simply doesn't work. Clients are always going to look for the most direct way to redevelop, and any scheme proposed like this lends to exponential costs to redevelop a property...period.

 

On 4/17/2023 at 11:31 AM, jhjones74 said:

I wouldn’t say this is a win - even if the building was less than appealing, swapping it with a surface lot negatively impacts the urban aesthetic of downtown and detracts from the area’s walkability. It’s depressing being a pedestrian in an area catering itself to cars

Well it wouldn't be any better if the building was abandoned and left to stand. At that point the building becomes a HAZARD to pedestrians. No replacing this building with a surface parking lot is not "catering" to cars, its "catering" to what the client wants and will make the property useful, until they find a better use for it. Anytime I hear this argument this always ends with...this property isn't catering to what "I want". Well yeah its not catering to what you want because you don't own the property! If you want this property to cater to what you want then buy the property, and make it the property cater to what "you want". I guarantee this myth that property owners just love their property to become surface parking lots, or that they just hate world around them is simply not true. Each and every person that owns a property that is a surface parking lot right now wants something else to be on it. The only question is, what should it be? With a surface lot you know exactly what you can make, and get out of it. A building? Way more complicated, and more expensive. These decisions come down to costs, not greater ideals about pedestrian experience, or heat island effect, or whatever buzz word someone wants to use. I don't like surface lots either, but its what the economics in our time has deemed the default use if you don't know what to do with the property. At some point lets hope that a clever individual with capital can build something nice here.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Luminare

[jhjones74]

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

Hmm this thread is interesting. I have some questions as this hasn't been clearly stated, and we probably don't have enough information, but what is actually happening here? Is it a hotel as someone mentioned? Was the property purchased by someone else? One post says the law firm is now in Uptown?

I don't think anyone actually knows the answer to this besides the property owner 

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

No. No. No. No. I remember thinking this way a long long time ago when I was at university. It doesn't work. Wonder why its incredibly difficult to develop in San Francisco, or New York City? This is why. Why is it incredibly difficult to develop in a lot of European cities...this is why. You being overly focused on dis-incentivizing one use will affect the ability to do other uses. This line of thinking has had a lot of unintended consequences in clients abilities to build. It just does. It simply doesn't work. Clients are always going to look for the most direct way to redevelop, and any scheme proposed like this lends to exponential costs to redevelop a property...period.

Interesting you'd use these cities (NYC, San Fran, EU cities) as examples  - all of them are objectively more aesthetic cities that people actually want to visit and stay in. There's a reason leisure trips to NYC, London or Barcelona are common and trips to Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta are not. And before you say all of these cities are more expensive - we can have both. We have the space in Texas to have ample cheap, suburban living and have a metropolitan vibe in our central business district

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

Well it wouldn't be any better if the building was abandoned and left to stand. At that point the building becomes a HAZARD to pedestrians. No replacing this building with a surface parking lot is not "catering" to cars, its "catering" to what the client wants and will make the property useful, until they find a better use for it.

I don't disagree that having rotting, abandoned buildings in any city is worse than having even a surface lot. My point ultimately is just that it still seems entirely too easy, with no consequences, to end up turning our central business district into 75% surface parking lot, as it was in the 70s. We're still at 25% now (Axios Article) 

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

Each and every person that owns a property that is a surface parking lot right now wants something else to be on it.

Disagree with this. As an example, CPC corporation, the Taiwanese oil conglomerate, owns many lots around the Toyota center. These lots are an amazing way for any big money/institutional investor to store cash, with an average 8% essentially risk free return, while covering property taxes with parking fees. The current tax/parking fee schemes allow for good money to be made off parking, ultimately pushing offers above available bids for developers actually wanting to develop 

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

The only question is, what should it be? With a surface lot you know exactly what you can make, and get out of it. A building? Way more complicated, and more expensive. These decisions come down to costs, not greater ideals about pedestrian experience, or heat island effect, or whatever buzz word someone wants to use. I don't like surface lots either, but its what the economics in our time has deemed the default use if you don't know what to do with the property. At some point lets hope that a clever individual with capital can build something nice here.

In general your viewpoint is much more sympathetic to the individual property owners, which at some level I can understand since these are the people taking the commercial risk to own the land. "These decisions come down to cost" is exactly what I'm talking about though. Change the cost structure to reward property owners for developing land in a way that doesn't exclusively benefit their bottom line, to create a built environment that people actually want to be in

[goofy]

3 hours ago, jhjones74 said:

Disagree with this. As an example, CPC corporation, the Taiwanese oil conglomerate, owns many lots around the Toyota center. These lots are an amazing way for any big money/institutional investor to store cash, with an average 8% essentially risk free return, while covering property taxes with parking fees. The current tax/parking fee schemes allow for good money to be made off parking, ultimately pushing offers above available bids for developers actually wanting to develop 

This is the biggest point! I don’t think cpc even want the land, they got it when they bought Huffington, but they were great assets. 

[Ross]

On 4/15/2023 at 10:41 AM, jhjones74 said:

God I hope this isn't true. The city should really disincentivize creating surface parking lots like this, one way could be by taxing them at a higher rate than land with buildings. Because the free market really breaks down here - the owners of the land likely will make enough money on parking (particularly with the Astros season starting up) to justify destroying the building that was there, and not developing anything else.

It's interesting that Gulfstream Legal Group, the tenants that were previously in the demolished building, now list their headquarters at 720 N Post Oak Rd. I was hoping that was just a temporary space while they were constructing a new headquarters, but it seems likely now that could be their new home.

State law prohibits taxing empty land as you propose. And, the City of Houston doesn't perform the tax appraisals.

 

On 4/15/2023 at 10:41 AM, jhjones74 said:

God I hope this isn't true. The city should really disincentivize creating surface parking lots like this, one way could be by taxing them at a higher rate than land with buildings. Because the free market really breaks down here - the owners of the land likely will make enough money on parking (particularly with the Astros season starting up) to justify destroying the building that was there, and not developing anything else.

It's interesting that Gulfstream Legal Group, the tenants that were previously in the demolished building, now list their headquarters at 720 N Post Oak Rd. I was hoping that was just a temporary space while they were constructing a new headquarters, but it seems likely now that could be their new home.

State law prohibits taxing empty land as you propose. And, the City of Houston doesn't perform the tax appraisals.

 

On 4/15/2023 at 10:41 AM, jhjones74 said:

God I hope this isn't true. The city should really disincentivize creating surface parking lots like this, one way could be by taxing them at a higher rate than land with buildings. Because the free market really breaks down here - the owners of the land likely will make enough money on parking (particularly with the Astros season starting up) to justify destroying the building that was there, and not developing anything else.

It's interesting that Gulfstream Legal Group, the tenants that were previously in the demolished building, now list their headquarters at 720 N Post Oak Rd. I was hoping that was just a temporary space while they were constructing a new headquarters, but it seems likely now that could be their new home.

State law prohibits taxing empty land as you propose. And, the City of Houston doesn't perform the tax appraisals.

 

[Brooklyn173]

Real question.

Is a paved parking lot empty land? Or is it "developed' land comprised of mostly asphalt?

[Ross]

On 4/15/2023 at 10:41 AM, jhjones74 said:

 

 

Not sure why I am getting multiple posts

Edited May 6, 2023 by Ross

[Luminare]

1 hour ago, Brooklyn173 said:

Real question.

Is a paved parking lot empty land? Or is it "developed' land comprised of mostly asphalt?

Yes

[Houston19514]

On 5/5/2023 at 2:31 PM, jhjones74 said:

I don't disagree that having rotting, abandoned buildings in any city is worse than having even a surface lot. My point ultimately is just that it still seems entirely too easy, with no consequences, to end up turning our central business district into 75% surface parking lot, as it was in the 70s. We're still at 25% now (Axios Article)

 

To be clear, we are currently no where near 25% surface parking lots, and the Axios article did not claim such.  The Axios percentage is of land dedicated to parking, both surface lots and buildings, and includes parking buildings, even if the ground floor is dedicated to retail..

[004n063]

I'm with Luminare when it comes to creating complicated disincentivization schemes. 

That said, that's what we have already, via the appraisal process. I'm not in love with the fact that a property owner who makes a lot more economically productive is levied a higher property tax than the owner who lays down an asphalt frying pan.

Of course, switching from the current system to a purely land-value property tax system would radically disruptive in ways that would certainly be chaotic and could be catastrophic. And simply adding a land value tax atop the current appraisal-based system could just as easily end up leading to more vacant, unpurchased properties than the current system. 

If we were starting a city from scratch, I'd be a full-throated LVT advocate. 

And Ross is also right - there literally is not a thing we can do about it anyway.

What the city can do, and should do, in my opinion, is eliminate the minimum parking requirements that plague so much of the city - or at least require districts to maintain those policies through affirmative democracy.

Likewise, the city can invest more in transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure to chip away at parking demand. I think the 2015-2030 progress on that front will end up being nothing to sneeze at, but we the public should keep putting the pressure on the city and our TIRZs to accelerate the transformation of Central Houston that we are currently witnessing.

[hindesky]

Arcosa is back, they finished digging out the basement and are filling it with stabilized rock. Once again one of their workers said it is going to be a parking lot. Across the street saw workers surveying the parking lot for the Holiday Inn, I still think this will be EE Reed's lay down yard while building the hotel across the street.

[hindesky]

I wonder if this is going to be a porous asphalt parking lot?

[hindesky]