H-Town Man

i couldn't tell if you were being facetious or not either.

I think the complaint that only 1% of baseball jobs are located downtown should have tipped the scales on this. Oh well, I guess sarcasm isn't always apparent.

"Let us think that when we build, we build forever."  Read that somewhere.

Someone forgot to turn on their sarcasm meter...That said, MMP is still a destination and having three major league stadiums all within walking distance of each other is still a good thing if you ask me.  It makes sense for development to happen between these venues.  The parks downtown only reinforce that point.  It has taken longer than many ever thought, but with the downtown initiative people are going to be moving into these areas.

I think you forgot to turn it on.  Pretty obvious that I was lampooning the Metro haters, esp. with the "toy train" reference.

Wow, I didn't catch that. It took over a decade but look what a downtown ballpark brought!

Do NOT assume that this is going up just because there's a ballpark.  Ballparks do NOT attract new development, they simply (at best) cause development that would have happened somewhere else to be relocated.  More than likely this would have just happened someplace else if the ballpark wasn't there.  Look at all the other residential towers proposed for downtown, were THEY because of the ballpark??? Stop trying to connect this to the ballpark.  Ballparks have never inspired development and never will.  This has happened over and over in U.S. cities, and every ballpark has lost money.  Next you'll be telling me that it's because of the toy train over left field.  The $250 million spent on this should have gone toward creating a bunch of little ballparks all over the suburbs, which would have served a lot more baseball players than the few who use the downtown ballpark.  Did you know that only 1% of baseball jobs are located downtown?  

2/7, GreenStreet FB page:

Looks like Extreme Makeover hit University of St. Thomas.

Stupid question.... Is this Mid Main project apart of the Superblock initiative from years ago?

A few blocks south.

That thing needs some serious deuglification.

AS far as I know, changing the setbacks requires an ordinance. An ordinance requires discussion, etc, and there would be a lot of parties expressing an opinion over whether the rules should be changed everywhere. There would be arguments over whether the setbacks would be flexible, so CVS can build with parking in front, as they seem to prefer, while Jim Bob's Bar builds right up to the sidewalk. Then there's the whole discussion on where the extra space for wider sidewalks would come from. In the end, everyone would just give up and leave things the way they are.

 

Urbanism doesn't threaten me, it's just not going to happen in the manner many supporters seem to expect.

 

Setback rules are by nature flexible. In almost every city, they're expressed as a minimum.  Right now we have a minimum set back of something like 25', the proposition is to get rid of that and make it 0.  CVS could still put a parking lot in front if they wanted.

Parker spent a lot of political capital getting the historic districts permanently protected. Brown probably would have spent that same political capital getting these setbacks and sidewalk issues taken care of, if not some sort of form-based zoning ordinance.

Ross, the fact that so few people care about the setback requirements should make them easier to change, no? To say this "isn't going to happen" seems naive; many people just a decade ago said protected historic districts would never happen in Houston. As far as Houston's developing urbanism, why does this threaten you?

That girl in the crosswalk's going to be shedding the pounds soon because she's WALKING to where she shops.  And that's exactly what we've been talking about.  Wow! indeed.

Photoshop request - someone please put a Metro train in front of that thing...

Oh, I just meant the architecture of the townhomes. But yeah, in many places it's bad all around.

Out of all those developments, it looks like two or maybe three of them had a developer that thought, "Let's build a neighborhood that someone would want to take a walk in, and not just drive through on the way to wherever." The rest look like sheer dystopia. It's sad - you look at the State/Allen district in Dallas, another neighborhood that is all new townhome stock, and because they actually thought about the street, it is one of the most exciting districts in town. Shame to see a central part of our city wasted.

Wonderful post! It is so odd to me how some of the new construction is so tastefully done. Looks clean, classy, and just the right amount of ornamentation. And then you have these hideous multi-colored, plastic side panel, mish-mashed messes.

This.  It seems like about 65% of new Heights residents appreciate beauty, and about 35% just appreciate garage doors.

Driveway: by the people who brought you Terminal C.

Building: by the people who brought you the Medical Towers?

Careful, statements like that will have the preservationists on this board at your throat in no time.

Nah, as one of the "preservation twins," I can say it wouldn't be a big deal if either of these were imploded, and if it were the Days Inn, I'd help swing the wrecking ball myself.  The thing about us preservationists, we don't just want to preserve buildings because they're old, but mainly if they are historically significant or contribute to the architectural landscape, like the Astrodome (world's first domed stadium) or 806 Main (Houston's first skyscraper) or the recently demolished Prudential Building (landmark example of an early modern skyscraper / Houston's first highrise outside of downtown).

Since I know they are a point of contention, here's a closeup of one of the stars:

Thank you for the closeup.  And on closer inspection, this is definitely a star.  I count one, two, three, four... five points.  One on top, two on the bottom.  Whether one likes it or doesn't like it, it's a star.

Agreed, you didn't say that. Your particular phrasing sounded like a unfairly negative hyperbole though.

If you had characterized my position as, "Your opinion is not important because you don't have money in the project" I would have agreed with your characterization, because that's pretty much what I think. Importance is relative. You may have meaningful thoughts on the matter, but less pragmatically so than people with actual skin in it, again, my opinion. If it's not going to matter, it's not that important of an idea, I think we look at this completely differently.

But I don't equate someone holding an unimportant opinion to the person being unimportant, that's just an ugly way to phrase something. It's that you said "You're not important because you don't have the money that they do". That sounds like "shut up poor people you have no value" to me, but that could be an incorrect inference on my part and its not what I think.

Fair enough. I hate making enemies on here so I won't push that one any further, but I still think your comments on self parody were meant to antagonize.

"Hold accountable", "Walmart",  "They always do this to us", "smdh", "mediocre Texas historicist architect". I find it all to be delightfully overwrought and so entirely predictable an outrage over something so small, or more succinctly, self parody. Criticize all you like, it makes this place enjoyable.  

 

If you think these stars are that serious and important, more power to you, I'll be enjoying the discussion while you are here for whatever smug satisfaction you get from knowing more about architecture than me but still having the exact same amount of impact on the actual architecture being discussed. My post in #342 just pointed out the obvious, they like the stars so on they go. It must be my lack of reading comprehension that precludes me from seeing where I implied that all should be silent on their choice. 

 

I'll be danged if it doesn't look to my uncomprehending self like I criticized them too, in post #342 of all places. 

So are we agreed that I never said "developers hate poor people"?  Just for the record...

Awesome photos. May I ask where you found the mural that had the drawings of the Texas cities?

Here you go...

 

 "... along with the implied "You're not important because you don't have the money that they do."" 

 

You're going to see what you want to. 

 

The histrionics over a small feature seemed over the top to me, and parodies are funny, not antagonistic.  If I am itching for an argument, you certainly seem itching to oblige. I'm not. It's all opinion and there is no perfect or objective. 

Let me help you with reading comprehension.  The statement says nothing about the attitudes of developers.  Rather, it refers to people on HAIF who post comments which imply that someone's opinion on architecture is silly or unimportant, because they're not the mighty developer with the money to actually do the project.  You made such a comment earlier on this thread (post 342), and it's a common sentiment on HAIF among people who don't like architecture or maybe don't know much about it, but enjoy saying to the people who do, "Who are you to criticize the mighty developer? Get the money to do it yourself if you don't like it."

all this over a few plaster stars 15 stories in the air.

 

wow.

The concern was that they are a predictor of how the lower stories will look when done (see post 339).

That was not meant to be personal to you, just an observation on the general tone of things like this thread that I find humorous, but perhaps I'm easily amused.

I could write the replies myself as a joke, and many have, it's fun with stereotypes, certainly nothing serious like "developers hate poor people".

Pretty obvious that the comment on "self-parody" was meant to antagonize, but I guess you need to backpedal now that you made such a fuss of my "attributing ill motives."

Please quote where anyone suggested anything like "developers hate poor people."

 

I bent nothing, you assume ill motives to people that disagree with you on something trivial. 

 

Either way, the argument continued fresh with the usual arm waving over something that might actually be faithful to the original. 

Different argument, I let the old one go.  Trying not to start a personal feud here.

I assume ill motives?  Was I wrong in thinking you had me in mind when you said that the opinions of preservationists on here "borders on self-parody?" Sounds like you were looking for a fight...

 

And if they are, do you retroactively dislike the original styling? 

 

If they are, then it makes the decision to employ them in the restoration a lot more palatable. Because it's my opinion that a restoration should aim at, you know, restoring the original, and that the original provides an "objective" standard for how it should look. (But that's just my opinion, don't want to upset anyone.)

As far as whether I like or dislike (or retroactively dislike) the original, I was never in love with it, mainly because of the number of cornices, and the pilasters floating 15 stories above the ground. The 1912 was better composed than the 1920 alteration.