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One Park Place: Multifamily At 1400 McKinney St.


GovernorAggie

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Sorry, if we are talking about the city of Dallas ONLY (not the burbs) then there is a BIG difference in how she is growing compared to Houston.

Caused by ZONING? As do most people on this topic, your postings have strayed off well beyond the topic of zoning. (For example, in your following post, you emphasize townhouses with no front-facing garages. Two things on that subject: (1) That has NOTHING to do with zoning, and (2) there are plenty of townhouses with rear-facing garages in Houston. Likewise, the fact that they were built to the sidewalk is not a zoning issue.)

First and foremost, Dallas has zoning which creates clear boundaries for development. This means that most residential neighborhoods in Dallas are clearly RESIDENTIAL in nature and have nearby "main streets" that contain all of the other uses of development. People in Houston go gaga over the Rice Village, but Dallas is FULL of little Villages that serve diverse neighborhoods.

Most residential neighborhoods in Houston are also clearly RESIDENTIAL in nature and have nearby "main streets" that contain all of the other uses of development. (And FWIW, I don't know anyone who goes "gaga" over Rice Village.)

Secondly, Dallas neighborhoods have differing building code regulations that require such things as setbacks in certain neighborhoods (mainly residential) and differing codes that have to be followed in areas that are zoned for commercial use. This is why the local village centers in the Dallas area are built closer to the sidewalk with parking hidden from view in the rear of most properties.

You MIGHT be on to something with this one, but how does that explain the townhouses built to the sidewalk? That is presumably not a commercially-zoned district. Apparently, there is a way to accomplish the different setback requirements short of a full-fledged zoning regime.

Now, many people confuse zoning with other building regulations, but the fact of the matter is, a lack of zoning does hurt Houston. It's why we have businesses located on residential streets, self-storage units on primary boulevards, and industrial warehouses and even factories literally in the middle of residential neighborhoods.

I have seen statements such as this countless times. Can you give me, oh, say, even 5 specific examples of "industrial warehouses and even factories" literally in the middle of residential neighborhoods? AND, if you can, can you also really guarantee that there are not similar juxtapositions in Dallas?

No zoning hasn't hurt Midtown per se, but inacting a zoning law couldn't hurt it either. What midtown truly needs is a variance on the current building codes. Right now, someone who wants to build a pedestrian friendly "urban" type development has to bend over backwards to appease the city. The current laws require certain amounts of parking per square foot and setbacks that pretty much require new projects to have surface parking out front. The city has made it VERY easy to allow for suburban developers to build what they want and very difficult for someone with a different vision.

It is possible that enacting a zoning law COULD hurt the development of Midtown. Is there really any doubt that bad zoning would be worse than no zoning at all? What if the zoning law made it strictly residential, or strictly multi-family residential? What if it zoned all commercial uses to Main Street. That does not get us to the vibrant mixed-use district we are hoping for...

Thus, in the end, it really wouldn't matter much what a local neighborhood group in Midtown came up with unless there was enough pressure to change city codes. There was significant public backlash to the original CVS across the street from Post Properties' Midtown Square but that didn't change anything because CVS was following city guidelines!

True enough, but again, largely irrelevant to the zoning debate. Nobody that I know of is complaining about the commercial usage of that tract of land, which, of course is what a zoning regime would address. The complaints are with the parking requirements and setback requirements, which, as you know are separate issues from zoning.

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Well, well, well, Mr. Finger has let the cat outta the bag. Hopefully this one comes to fruition.

So any comments on the style from what we can see??

37 stories is pretty significant. Especially for a downtown residential rental tower. If the occupancy is absorbed quickly, then I think that we will see more towers sooner rather than later--and I would not be surprised if many of them were apartments with the intention of converting to condos later.

It also looks as if Finger and Turnberry could be positioning themselves to have the tallest buildings completed in Houston since ??? When was the last time Houston has a building completed of at least 38 stories??

Could be wishful thinking, but i am hoping that with the development of the new DT park, highrises will begin to surround it....sort of Chicago or NY style. They probably won't top 50 stories (we could only hope), but with a lot of midrises filling up the East side of DT, it is going to add to the density of that area. Any ideas on a date to begin construction? Are they going to have it ready or at least almost ready for the new park's opening. OR is it a matter of build the park first.......and the buildings will come?

m

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Could be wishful thinking, but i am hoping that with the development of the new DT park, highrises will begin to surround it....sort of Chicago or NY style. They probably won't top 50 stories (we could only hope), but with a lot of midrises filling up the East side of DT, it is going to add to the density of that area. Any ideas on a date to begin construction? Are they going to have it ready or at least almost ready for the new park's opening. OR is it a matter of build the park first.......and the buildings will come?

m

I think Finger has said construction on One Park Place is scheduled to start in January.

Was it rescheduled for today? I never heard for sure.

1:00 PM today

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So, will this tower now be called "Discovery Tower." That actually isn't a bad name. Maybe this whole area will now have a "Discovery" theme to it. Something like Dallas' Victory.

Edited by Trae
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Not far off from H-Town Man's suggestion of Midway Green a month or so ago. Not bad. Certainly not a cookie cutter name.

I think it'll stick in a positive way. Of course, I could be wrong.

Like you, i will keep a positive attitude. I was trying to get back on (i was knocked off the internet) and disclose the new name. :(

Discovery Green. Hmmm.

How about starting a new thread..........GH???

What do we all think of the name......and its future potential?

Also, it would be interesting to know some of the other suggestions as well as the criteria for choosing.

I am so glad it did not include any type of Space City, Texas Forever, Down Home sort of stuff.

Not that i am not proud of Houston's past, or TX for that matter, i just know Houston seems to always get stuck in the rut of only two or three ways to describe her. ALSO, check out the new structure Gehry helped build in Chicago (in association with the Lake Front Park). Too bad we couldn't get something like that as a new architectural icon for Houston. Maybe a Calatrava.

m.

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From the perspective of a homeowner, I'd hate to have the City steal my appreciation potentials away to other areas that they deemed more deserving for whatever arbitrary reason.

Happens all the time, whenever they extend a freeway out to add new housing instead of letting the market compete for existing stock.

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Funny that you should mention how glad you are there wasn't a space theme.

The very first thing I thought of when I read the name was, "Oh crap, they named it after the Space Shuttle Discovery."

As for the previous tangent about Dallas, zoning, and other things...

Sorry to break off topic.

That said, I do notice a theme that the biggest foes to zoning in this thread are people who make their living off of the current environment in Houston. There's always the threat of the big bad government telling us what we can and can't build and that in the end, our growth will be compromised.

Funny thing is, EVERY other major city has zoning and yet development continues to occur in Miami, Seattle, New York, Dallas, LA, Portland, etc... It's just a better growth. Growth that emphasizes quality of life issues and sustainability. If that makes me a snob for believing such, then so be it.

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I agree that in some cases zoning can go wrong but I really do think there must be a right way to do it. The classic Houston method of suburban expansion -- declaring eminent domain and then putting in massive permanent infrastructure upgrades designed to attract development where there is little -- needs to be at least *tried* in someplace like midtown or North Main, ideally with some sort of visual standard (like you might find in the Woodlands, to use a suburban example everyone can relate to). Zoning-for-use, on the other hand, is something I don't really care for.

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Happens all the time, whenever they extend a freeway out to add new housing instead of letting the market compete for existing stock.

Yeah, but freeways and major thoroughfares have the opposite effect of artificial barriers put up by zoning.

When a neighborhood's development is forced at the expense of another's by decree of law, the higher prices of development to non-market standards cause a deadweight loss to the municipality because they're pricing some people out of the City (i.e. to unincorporated Harris County, a competing suburban municipality, or to another metro area) as a result of affordability problems. That deadweight is compounded when businesses follow those people.

With a freeway (paid for by a more general public), they're opening up a broad swath of land that was previously inaccessible to development. That doesn't mean that people are being forced to live there, just that they have the option. When people are allowed reasonable options, they will choose what is reasonable and what is not. Unless a decisive concensus can be built by means of a referendum, it is not the government's place to choose for them.

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I agree that in some cases zoning can go wrong but I really do think there must be a right way to do it. The classic Houston method of suburban expansion -- declaring eminent domain and then putting in massive permanent infrastructure upgrades designed to attract development where there is little -- needs to be at least *tried* in someplace like midtown or North Main, ideally with some sort of visual standard (like you might find in the Woodlands, to use a suburban example everyone can relate to). Zoning-for-use, on the other hand, is something I don't really care for.

Hmmmm... putting in massive permanent infrastructure upgrades designed to attract (re)development where there is little, like midtown or North Main. I have an idea! HMaybe we could try a light rail line.

Edited by Houston19514
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Yeah, but freeways and major thoroughfares have the opposite effect of artificial barriers put up by zoning.

Correct. Instead of barriers, they are subsidies. The effect is opposite.

Anyway, my point was that the end result is that the city is giving away your appreciation potentials in favor of suburban developers and rural landowners, and on your dime.

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Hmmmm... putting in massive permanent infrastructure upgrades designed to attract (re)development where there is little, like midtown or North Main. I have an idea! HMaybe we could try a light rail line.

Our starter line was a good start, but in my mind it is not nearly grand enough in scope. I can't wait for the rest of the lines to be put up.

I still like the idea of localized pseudo-zoning based on form rather than function.

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One Park Tower located overlooking Discovery Green. This definitely sounds urban to me. The park itself will be beautiful. The tower as well. And folks, please, don't compare this to Dallas' Victory or whatever. This is Houston building and adding and making itself a better city. Do not compare to Atlanta or anyplace, please. Comparisons are only opinions which are useless in my book. Apples to oranges? Doesn't work.

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Right conclusion. Wrong reason. Go back and read what I wrote.

Actually, I think I might know more about what you wrote than you do. If you still don't understand, feel free to question your initial assumption that land without eight-lane freeways is for some reason "inaccessible" to development.

Anyway, my point was that the end result is that the city is giving away your appreciation potentials in favor of suburban developers and rural landowners, and on your dime.

Edited by N Judah
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Actually, I think I know more about what you wrote than you do. If you still don't understand, feel free to question your initial assumption that land without eight-lane freeways is for some reason "inaccessible" to development.

Anyway, my point was that the end result is that the city is giving away your appreciation potentials in favor of suburban developers and rural landowners, and on your dime.

Uh, yeah, but what about all that other land that's around the eight-lane freeway? Read this, please. Now this one, on Pareto efficiency. And finally this one, on deadweight loss. Now break the assumption of the Von Thunen model and run an upgraded road out from the city toward the wilderness. Some land of initially low value is removed by the road, but everything around it just became more accessible and very much more valuable. Moreover, if the cost of laying relatively low-cost infrastructure such as roads and sacrificing a small amount of low-value land was below the amount of change of land value around the road, then that is because the project added value such that society as a whole was made better off (i.e. Pareto efficiency). That doesn't mean that there aren't winners or losers, just that society is better off if society can be viewed as a sum of its parts.

In comparison, the only effect that your policy has is to induce people to build up for lack of other options, regardless even of who provides those options. If the government is amenable to the idea of allowing private investors to completely finance transportation infrastructure, then toll roads will be built to outlying areas and the land values in suburban locations will reflect the relatively low cost of the toll, but will still fill in with housing, just as has been the typical pattern. That would be the ideal case, but it is one that can be replicated in the condition of Pareto efficiency if the government subsidy replaces private financing at the same time intervals. But then, you'd stated "Happens all the time, whenever they extend a freeway out to add new housing instead of letting the market compete for existing stock." So you would seem to be anti-freeway, altogether...a stance that is not supported in the free market.

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Subsidized freeways are not pareto efficient. Literally everyone loses except for the suburban developers and the people who are subsidized move out to these new developments. You in particular, as a homeowner, lose your "appreciation potential", and pay for the privilege. Something that makes a select few significantly better off while making everyone else much worse off cannot be said to be pareto efficient.

Being anti-freeway is completely compatible with the notion of a "free market." A truly free market is said in theory to be marked by an absence of artificial price pressures from taxes, subsidies, tariffs, or government regulation (and in practice doesn't really exist). This is different from your notion of a "free market" as simply being unregulated, which allows for a strong state, which is definitely what we have in Houston.

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I think we're missing the point here, which is that the name "Discovery Green" sucks.

Agreed. If we want to be sharp and on point, it may serve us all better to actually go to the thread that addresses the new park http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...mp;#entry120820 to display our dismay at yet another 3rd rate exercise in civic branding.

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