kbates2

^ eyesore

28 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

I'm not sure exactly why, but I've been pretty skeptical about that 98 Red River project since it first came to light.  Perhaps the Austin Business Journal shares my skepticism (or knows even more).

Two sides of that for me: On one hand, even when I searched online to find more about it, the articles that I found had a HAIF poster as their only source.  On the other hand, that poster was Paco Jones who is almost always correct.

Looks better than our supertalls, unfortunately.

5 hours ago, Tumbleweed_Tx said:

^^^ between you, me, and the walls, it's been announced here, and the name of it is in the image above.

This is the instagram page for Post Houston that puts up updates, renderings, vendor ads, etc. every day. The picture seems to be of the eastern side of the building, under the farm portion of the roof. I haven’t seen what’s going in that portion l.

Also, S3mh seems to really misunderstand the hilarity of giant anatomically correct penises.

The dude actually wrote the words, "music pollution" in his letter.  

Anybody think that they are ever going to fix the broken section of the bayou trail/bike path right by here?

4 hours ago, cityliving said:

Serious question - were these taken from a drone or a helicopter? (saw one parked in about this exact vantage point for a while today around the time these were posted)

1 hour ago, Nate99 said:

If we're doing a wish list, The Federal prison on Texas could convert into a hostel, though I'm not sure that would be net better for the neighborhood. 

Maybe take the doors off the cells and convert it to a homeless shelter to get folks off the street. 

The ones on the streets have the potential to get into shelters as it is, they just don't for drug or mental health reasons.  That jail is one of the few exceptions to the rule that anything is better than a surface parking lot.

Yeah that blows.

1 hour ago, downtownian said:

Wow not sure why I thought it was the airport code. Any idea of how Austin got ATX?

AUS is Australia?

Sounds like this is the big time news.  That is awesome.

This will help to mitigate the look of the Embassy Suites from Disco Green.

Chris Shepherd coming to downtown is huge news for me personally but I don't know if that is the pretty big announcement.

I'm hoping for new apts or a grocery store...

Yeah that's a bad look.

12 minutes ago, hindesky said:

The ground is very soft and spongy so it won't hurt when they fall.

The concrete edges will though.  We took my three year old here the day it opened.

It looks sort of cool but calling it a kids play structure is a stretch. 

Concrete cornered play structures at falling height, Mihalic must have read about kids in a book once.

I think it's 26.  At least 26 floors with roofs....

4 hours ago, adr said:

Still unclear if "open air drug market right out your front door!" is to be included as an amenity on the listing brochure.

With Dean's closed, they have been able to set up an actual storefront.  TBH, it's much more professional now.

6 hours ago, downtownian said:

Preservation Houston is hosting a web meeting on Dec 15 on efforts to rehabilitate the Kiam Building at 320 Main. I was unaware that any efforts were currently underway. This previously had a Mia Bella on the ground floor until a plumbing issue (I believe) forced it to close and the building is vacant today. 

 

invite below:
 

Join Preservation Houston and architect Joe Meppelink for an online Preservation in Practice program Tuesday evening, December 15, examining the restoration of the 1893 Kiam Building downtown, one of Houston’s first proto-skyscrapers, early multi-story buildings that set the stage for taller steel-framed structures.

Clothier Ed Kiam built the five-story building to house his clothing store on lower floors with office space above. Architect H.C. Holland designed the building with Romanesque Revival elements including arched windows and rusticated masonry accents. It was said to be the first building in Houston with an electric elevator and drew attention because it was fully outfitted with electric lights when it opened. Over the years, the building had a variety of tenants, including prominent attorneys, architects and the first Houston location of the Sakowitz Bros. department store.

The Kiam Building was restored in 1981, but has stood vacant in recent years. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as part of the Main Street/Market Square National Register historic district and is a contributing building in the City of Houston’s Main Street/Market Square Historic District. In his presentation, Meppelink will discuss the Kiam Building’s history and the current work to document and rehabilitate the building while meeting local, state and federal preservation standards.

 

Would be amazing if this got a great rehab.

I haven’t seen any movement to starting street patio seating.

Courthouse is adding elevators and modernizing/fixing crappy design.  4th crane is an apartment complex close to Irma's.  There are threads for both but I'm like real lazy.

1 hour ago, enriquewx91 said:

 

This morning from I-69

Tetris is proud of The Preston.

The uptick in the homeless population is likely going to be a large problem for the downtown apartment market.  It seems like ever since they put up the fencing underneath 59 near Franklin, that massive homeless camp has just moved into random corners of downtown.  I've been down here for 6 years and have never really had areas that I fully avoided due to panhandlers.  There are several areas now that I hesitate to walk by.  I'm still confident in downtown residential over the long run but with so many homeless, no yards to spend time in with everything closed, and with the current status of working from home, I think that occupancy numbers are going to fall sharply for a period.