tangledwoods

on the former YMCA block

I am starting to think that King Owl and I have the same sources!  I can tell you that the Architect has been selected and this will be a tower built specifically for Chevron.  Word on the street is that this project will be their response to the Exxon project so I think we can expect this to be much nicer than your typical spec office building.

I was referring to Chevron.

A 50 story proposed other than the three you just mentioned? How confident are you of this information?

gotta be referring to the Chevron tower...

I am pretty confident with my intel    the only thing I haven't been able to get firm on is a start date, but everything I hear leads me to believe we will see it break ground in the next 12 months.

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The flier says something like 'unparalleled tunnel access.'

Last I checked, the Skanska project has 5 tunnel connections. 

Also I think we should all remember that Linebeck, Skanska, and Hines are all chasing the same group of potential tenants.  I think we will see one of the three go in the next year maybe two if we are lucky.

Now the good news is that there is a 50ish story tower that will beat all 3 of these out of the ground.

They really made a big mistake with the green glass on this job.  From what I am hearing the tenant brokers are really hating on this building.  It sounds like the cut a ton of corners to get this thing built per BBVA's demands and it will probably cost them tenants.

The Skanska building is looking much better than this chunk of blah.

Do they have a leasing website up yet?  I have looked but cant find anything.  I would be curious to know how much they are going to want for these units.

sad that something like this (glass box) will likely replace the Houston Club Bldg.

The CBD and Galleria are very different markets with very different rental rates.  Anything that gets built in the CBD will not be influenced by the glass boxes going up in the energy corridor or Galleria.

I drove by yesterday and saw that there is a crawler crane on site now. This will be the crane that does the erection on the precast portion of the garage.

And to think you million dollar condo will come with a free special feature, always smelling like french fries...

It Looks like they just picked up their first tenant:

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2013/01/west-loop-tower-gets-first-tenant/

Does anyone have some construction update shots? The curtainwall should be done soon right?

The rig you see is for drilling auger cast piles or drilled piers, next time I drive by I will check it out and let you know which one it is.

From what I understand that garage extension is going to be precast, so they are probably waiting until the last possible moment to build it. Once the garage goes up the site will be completely full.

It looks like the building has topped out, and the glass is really starting to fly up.

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2012/12/galleria-area-office-tower-tops-out/

Snarky jokes about "caliper inches" being lost are funny and all, but we lost an estimated 6.6 million trees due to the drought. Shouldn't we be just a little bit concerned about unnecessary tree loss? Would it be too much to ask that a HUGE local player like Hines at least think about relocating those trees?

Yeah, yeah, being green isn't cool. Of course, a sub tropical city without trees isn't very cool either.

You can plant hundreds of trees for the cost to move one, and when you do move a tree the chance of survival is less than 50%. You are correct, we have lost millions of trees from the drought which is all the more reason to plant new trees.

I don't like the combo of glass and stucco (or whatever that is)

I miss the simple and timeless look all an all glass curtain wall.

It is precast concrete, they use precast because it is typically much cheaper than glass. We have been spoiled over the last few years with some really nice all glass mid-rise buildings. Now that the market is heating back up we are going to see glass prices rise and a whole lot more precast on these type of buildings.

Checked out the Skanska website... looks like it's only 14 floors now?

http://www.usa.skans.../3009-Post-Oak/

That is a very old brochure, check out the building website:

http://www.3009postoak.com

I think people are missing the bigger picture, this isn't really about the daycare at all. It is about getting tenants out of the Houston Club. As the article states they will have an empty building sitting on a full city block with five tunnel connections by the end of this year. That is the real story, and the big question is what is going to go in its place.

Hanover's website replaced the rendering with "Coming Soon." I remember when ChannelTwoNews found the "Another Hines DT Project" rendering from an engineering company website involved with the project and they took it down. I don't understand why they publish it if they don't want anyone seeing it. I can understand the engineering company mistake, but not so much Hanover, unless it's an old rendering.

Well everyone said their rendering looked like shit, that is probably why they took it down!

My guess would be because the RFQ for the convention hotel wasn't just for a hotel. It was also looking for folks to develop a garage, some mixed use, and even possibly an office component.

I have no idea what Hines' bid was, but if it did include office space, then it would be unlikely that they'd compete with themselves for tenants. While the downtown market is faring pretty well, it isn't faring that well.

Exactly, the proposals included mixed use and office components. Each team that proposed had different levels of self financing. We all know that Hines could bankroll two big jobs in the same town, but I just don't see them doing it in this economy. The last thing Hines would do is compete against themselves.

I wonder how long blue prints for downtown have been sitting around? Hines is big enough that they will just sit on it until the time is right. I don't necessarily believe that b/c they have blue prints that building it is imminent. Hope I'm wrong.

Here is how I see it, Hines is on one of the teams pursuing the Houston First convention center project. If they win that job then the other Downtown project will probably go on hold, if they don't get selected for the job then I could see them going public on their tower before Convention Center stuff gets traction. Either way I think we will see Hines go to market with something in the 4th quarter with construction starting sometime in 2013.

Hmmm.... You basing that on something? I'd be shocked if we got 3, never mind 5. office highrises, I mean.

I am hearing 2 spec office towers and 2-3 hotel towers. I think we will see the hotel stuff go up before the office towers.

I'm happy for the energy corridor but I wish downtown was getting some action.

Don't worry I think we will see 3-5 highrise jobs in the CBD in 2013.

I think the lack of reaction is due to the fact that it looks like every other Gables property currently under development. Let me be clear I like the design, but it doesn't offer anything new.

Seriously we need pics! I have a bet riding on the stupid thing.

There is plenty of room East of 45