tangledwoods

I don't think these residents quite understand how lucky they are.  A storage facility is about the LEAST impactful development possible.  Hardly any traffic, no late night noise, and it will contribute more to local taxes than the existing church.

Now the 7 story thing is a bit tall, but storage centers have a really low Floor to floor height. My guess is it will be around the same height as 1111 Studewood which is 6 floors but typical 14' ceilings.

Yeah there are a few houses that will back up to this and it will be a bit of an eye sore but I would rather back up to a storage center than a bar or restaurant.  Hell imagine the impact that a 7 story condo / apartment tower would have here, that would be WAY worse than a storage center...

i still cant believe they are using BIG, I guess when you are a Swedish multi-billion dollar construction company / developer you can bring in that kind of horsepower.  They will no doubt have a master plan that unifies this with the rest of their properties. Knowing BIG / Skanska there will certainly be green space / natural elements in the other blocks.

Now we just need centerpoint to burry their substation and build a park on top of it....Hell even a parking garage would look better!

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Swamplot has some old pictures of the Tower Shopping Center. 

 

you are such a tease, i thought for a second that swamplot was coming back.....

someone needs to do a case study on the property values around discovery green before and after the park was built.  IMO this will be Nancy Kinder's biggest legacy here in town.  The added value to our local economy that this project brought needs to be studied!

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Based on the pictures that have been posted here, the construction schedule of being finished by June 2021 seems tight. The building isn’t even dried in yet... Has anyone driven by lately and seen progress on the Crocker stairwell? Any doors going in?

if this is mostly core and shell office space, they should have no problem being done by June.  FYI the GC on this job is Harvey - they are on a ton of large jobs here in down and can bring in plenty of horsepower if they have to get this over the finish line.

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Maybe the additional competition might push some of those vacant buildings to consider converting a portion to residential?

 

office buildings are VERY had to convert to residential.  The floor to floor heights suck and you perimeter to core depths make it very tricky to get enough daylight into the residences.

If i had a crystal ball, i would say that Skanska, Hines, Transwestern, etc. will continue to develop new trophy buildings for major tenants moving into the CBD or other prime areas.  I think a lot of the small office buildings scattered through the inner loop are going to be demolished in the next 10 years as the demand for in town living continues to grow.  Look at some of the low rise office buildings in upper kirby, or galleria  that stuff is PRIME for residential and most of those spaces are class b or c at best.

I do think we will see plenty of low rise new office space but it will have to be incorporated into mixed use projects.  I bet we see plenty of GFR + 4 stories office or residential type projects moving forward.  

The brokers are all going to try and pretend that COVID didnt upend the commercial real estate market but I think the biggest winners from this shift in demand will be demolition companies, BRING ON THE WRECKING BALL!!!

Looks like Hilton contracted the randall davis paint scheme disease.  Symptons include using strange paint patterns and colors to "elevate" and "energize" bland architecture. 

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I wonder what this blue steel form is for? This looks like it might be the elevator shaft but I doubt that worn out piece of steel will be part of the finished building.

Its self climbing formwork.  Here is a decent video explaining how it works:

PERI ACS Core 400 Climbing Formwork - Customer Testimonial - YouTube

Long story short:  It is a faster, cheaper, and safer way to place concrete for repetitive vertical stuff like elevator and stair shafts.  All of it gets removed at the completion of the concrete work and sent to the next project. 

Imagine if they could land a Whole Foods or Phoenicia, downtown could use another grocery store.

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What does that mean? That they are taking samples or something else? 

 

Typically this means the client or design team have retained a geotechnical engineer to provide a report that the structural engineer is then able to use to develop their foundation design.  It is not very common for a general contractor to mobilize before that work has been done which is why I am confused on the schedule.

They could have been out there for other reasons (subsurface water testing, or supplementary testing) but it is weird and a bit out of sequence.

My worry is that they had McCarthy "mobilize" to help with fundraising or for PR purposes, not to actually start construction....

geotech drilling rig on site today.  Now I'm really confused about their schedule.

So BBP doesn't like the Corps plan, but they don't say anything about what a better idea would look like.  Do they have an alternative??

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Is there any explanation of how it is supposed to work to widen and deepen the channel to speed the outflow, but only do so to approximately Studemont, if I understand correctly?  Won't that create/add to huge flooding events in the Studemont-Shepherd area?

Part of the Corps plan relies on other work by the County / City which is already funded mainly the North Canal Bypass and the demo of derelict buildings along the bayou downtown.

For what it is worth, I try not to ever judge an end landscaping product against the designer.  Value Engineering (aka cost cutting) has ruined plenty of landscape designs.  Also there are plenty of horrible contractors out there and even more owners that dont do proper maintenance. 

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Is that HVAC or elevator equipment?

 

That is a rooftop DX air handler (HVAC).

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Wow, just wow. I was just in Memphis and that city knows how to save its history. I'm embarrassed. And this is all the wiggle room that is needed for those other historic buildings on 11th to see the same fate. Literally makes me sick to my stomach. When is this city going to do something about its Preservation Ordinance? 

I'm sorry but there is nothing remarkable or worth preserving about an old movie theater that has been converted into a church.  Now, I will certainly admit that a 7 story self storage building on 11th street in the heights is a rather bold "only in Houston" maneuver.... at least the property will now contribute to the local tax base.  I am curious how they will manage with the new permitting requirements for stormwater detention.

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Well, it's currently being sued for trying to enforce what little ordinance it has . . . so we'll have to wait for that to pan out first 😁

Oh really? Any more details?

https://theleadernews.com/leader-listings-real-estate/citys-preservation-ordinance-faces-legal-challenge/

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This is an odd part of town for this. Does the surrounding area compliment this?

 

odd location = good clean local (totally not sketchy) politics.  I am not saying it is a bad location, but it was 1000% placed there based on politics.

Ironically, there was a decent amount of pushback against the project by local folks.  It seems that no one "won" in the end.  But of course someone did...

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And rigidity? Do concrete buildings sway as much in the wind?

i am NOT an engineer, but from the construction side we do talk about movement (sway) and it isnt really a consideration until you get very very tall (then you get fun things like tuned mass dampers).

In my experience, there is no difference between concrete and steel on building sway.  

4 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

Interesting. So what are the advantages of concrete over steel? Isn't it usually cheaper? Is it more fire resistant? More rigid?

 

1. Concrete frames are almost always cheaper (but that might be changing)
2. Concrete is more flexible for slab edge facade anchorage (unless you are using lost of post tensioning)
3. Concrete doesn't typically require additional fireproofing 

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I've been wondering this: is there an advantage over using steel vs concrete/wood? I've seen your question in other threads and just wondered since no onw has really answered it.

In developer world advantage = dollars.  So that is why we see so many concrete frames for tall buildings.  Back when the Chevron new 50+ story was real, that project was slated to use steel. 

There are really 2-3 positives to steel vs concrete:

1. Steel typically has a lower interstitial depth (distance from bottom of structure to finished floor above). On a tall building, this can add up to decent savings:  if your structure reduces 5" per floor then on that 50 story building you could cut 21ft of facade out and still have equal interior spaces.
2. Steel typically is faster than concrete.  On a tall building steel will go up much faster than a concrete frame.
3. Steel is more flexible.  If you have a building with geometry, long spans, or variable column spacing, steel can be easier to work with.
4. Bonus: steel is seen as more environmentally friendly (not that Texas cares too much).  Concrete (specifically the cement used in concrete) is responsible for 8% ish of all CO2 emissions in the world.  Both steel and concrete are recyclable but steel is more often recycled and a lower carbon footprint.

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Putzmeister = she fancy!

Most people have no idea how incredible advanced the concrete business has gotten.  You can look at things like these placing booms or the self climbing formwork (checkout the latest pics on The Allen for a good example).  

What is going to be really interesting in the next 24 months is if any of the new developer jobs go to steel frame.  Steel prices have collapsed and concrete hasnt really dropped.  Wood products are going up in price and I think we might see 1-2 jobs switch to steel if they aren't too invested in the structural design.

I'll play this game:

If I was still a kid and my dad said he worked there, I would assume he had the most boring job in the world.  This might be the most vanilla ice cream Hines project I've seen.  The curtain wall is OKAY, the sky lobby bump outs are OKAY, the cool 1st floor carousel is OKAY.  For lack of a more clear criticism it feels like the building has no soul.  The garage podium topped mesh / tight louvers is particularly UGH BORING.

Its almost like someone took Transco Tower, made the floorplate more leasable, rotated the tower 45 deg off street grid, replaced the cool top with a reduced copy of the BHP crown and called it good.

I am sure the lobby will be very nice and the amenities will be to par with Hines typical class-a offerings, but there is nothing here that says WOW COOL.  At least the Skanska rectangle had the understory tunnel "COOL".