cloud713

Sounds like were on the same page! Those are my hopes as well, though I thought they wanted to make the post office site the HSR terminal. I guess time will tell. Aren't they supposed to come out with a plan soon for the HSR project? They said the rail line would be on a map within 90 days a few months ago...

Technically the post office site is across the street from the bayou.. Not really ON the bayou.

I count 5.5

working on floor 35?

I took a pic of this with my other updates last week but couldn't remember what was going up here.. Sometime in the last month a 2nd crane was put up. I noticed it one weekend when I was in town recently..

i think certain lines would work just fine... the Westpark Line would be the best obviously, as it could possibly drop people off in the Westchase district, goes right past Uptown/the end of the uptown line, so those could be linked together. then it goes just south of Greenway, requiring just a pedestrian bridge or tunnel across/under 59. and then it would finally terminate at Wheeler Station, just a couple LRT stops from downtown.. the Hempstead/290 line would work pretty good too, connecting into a northern extension of the Post Oak LRT line at Northwest Mall, before going on straight into downtown/Post Office/UH-D sites, or the Hardy Yards at Burnett Station a 288 line or a Sugar Land-90A to 288 line could connect into Fannin South Transit Station, before going on to the Texas Medical Center. they could even potentially elevate that line past the 288/59 merger on into downtown. that kind of reminds me of the "hybrid LRT" system weve discussed for certain routes, it just sounds like they have the types of trains switched around, using commuter rail for both tasks instead of LRT. i wonder which would be more effective?

haha. not sure where they would sit though. it would be insanely windy up the sides of the building. i guess they might hang out on the roof of the back side where its less windy/the wind isnt blowing from? you could put screens/mesh over the shark gil inlets, protecting the tubular horizontal turbines and keeping birds or trash from getting sucked into the turbines. idk, i was just playing off the idea of designing the shape of buildings to be more eco friendly, in this case mainly through use of wind turbines. the shark gil inlet flaps could even be made of solar panels (at least on the 2-3 sides of the building that regularly get sun), since the areas in the corners wouldnt be habitable where the turbines are/where the floor plates get narrow, and thus wouldnt need translucent windows to see out of. on a side/eco conscious note, do they have turbines in the plumbing of high rises? think about it, every time someone flushes a toilet or washes their hands on a floor above the ground floor, the waste water has to flow back down to the bottom of the building. couldnt they harbor some of that energy to, at the very least, counter act the energy it takes to pump water up to the higher floors?

Getting back to a focus :solely on skyscraper design.. Here's an Eco tower I sketched up. Nothing crazy, it's meant to be relatively cheap, not some wild expensive engineering design.. It's a square at the base, and the 4 corners remain at the same sports all the way to the top of the building, while the middle of the 4 sides starts to bow inward as it rises, until it finally forms a rounded X at the top. Almost like the new World Trade Center, but with the 4 corners sticking out/staying in the same position creating fins, forming sloping valleys up the sides of the tower. The sloped sides direct the wind up the side of the building through 4 large turbines on the roof, while the 4 corners contain/focus the air flow. Along the 4 corners would be "shark gill" type inlets (possibly offset/staggered on either side of each corner, to force the across both directions of the turbines) to catch some of the excess wind in horizontal tubular turbines. They may need to be angled up/out so the upward forcing wind exiting the turbines can vent out the corners instead of back out the sides, disturbing airflow. There could be a spire/architectural feature rising above the roof but I left it open to show the 4 main turbines.

figures. i wonder who owns the property on the other side of the bayou from KBR? it would be cool if a botanical garden spanned both sides of the bayou with pedestrian bridges across the bayou and smaller canal/stream/spurs trenched/branching off through the site, forming small islands like a delta at the end of a river or something. each island could have its own themed garden. that would all be assuming someone could buy the property south/across the bayou from KBR, and convince the KBR owners to allow the garden people to develop a botanical garden on the western half of their property. it would be a long shot, but im having second thoughts on it being a bad place to put a garden. its right off of 59 and i10, would be encircled by the EaDo streetcar system if it gets built, and is very close to downtown/would have the best views of the skyline out of most all the potential sites. plus it could potentially be a boon to help gentrify that area.

agreed. that trenched commuter rail line idea super neighborhood 22 was throwing around a couple years ago, between the Post Office site or Hardy Yards/Burnett Station and a new TC (really just a LRT station next to the mall parking lot) at Northwest Mall, tying into an extended Uptown/Post Oak line would be ideal IMO. obviously it would eventually continue all the way out to Cypress. also an express commuter or LRT hybrid route down Westpark from Wheeler Station out to Hilcroft for the time being, before extending out down Westpark to the end of METROs ROW in the suburbs near/past(?) Cinco Ranch, would also be ideal, to accommodate for inner city growth/travel needs. i still say they should of planned/built the Hardy Tollroad downtown connector with additional ROW set to the side for commuter rail, along side the highway. then of course a subway down Westheimer, and Kirby (north of Halcombe/Bellaire). and streetcars. lots and lots of streetcars, to extend the "last mile" range effect of the more expensive modes of rail, so the mass transit system is easily accessible by even more users. the streetcar plan for EaDo is a great start/example to pave the way for other areas to follow. then add some streetcar lines around Montrose and the TMC/Hermann Park/Rice, Upper Kirby/Greenway, and the greater Uptown area.

like i said. a Brickell City Centre would be fantastic.. i just dont know where they could put something that large. the Brickell takes up over 10 acres. i guess it wouldnt be impossible to find space for it in the parking lot district or somewhere on the east side of downtown, given that Discovery Green is 12 acres.. looking at a satellite view, i see 6 adjacent surface parking lots between Root Square and OPP, spanning from GreenStreet to the Hilton. that would be an excellent location for a large scale mixed use venue IMO, tying in with the new retail district they are planning along Dallas, and smack in the middle of GreenStreet, Houston Center, Discovery Green, and the Toyota Center. that would be where i would put it if i had my choice. other large scale/multi block development options include just north of Minute Maid, the Post Office site, and the blocks south of Toyota Center/the planned GRB expansion, and north of St Josephs, but that area doesnt seem nearly as appealing, unless the East End streetcar system is built and they follow through with their planned downtown spur.

there was talk of extending the Post Oak/Uptown line to a new station/TC at Northwest Mall, so commuter rail could stay on the same Hempstead ROW without any funky turns/slow segments. and while 45Ns railroads dont quite interface with downtown, if you follow the tracks on the map, the 290/Hempstead line leads into the Washington Ave area before branching off, with one line going through the Hardy Yards, and another line going through the Post Office site and UH-D. those same lines also connect in with the Hardy Tollroad rail lines going north, and there could probably pretty easily be a turn/split installed branching to the south/the line to Galveston. if not, the Galveston Line could end in the East End near or just past the rail yard, connecting to the Green or Purple LRT lines.

THIS. the business centers in Dallas are spread randomly all across the city. in Houston there are a few individual districts, (in many cases 2 of the 3 districts happen to line up along the same potential rail paths) distinct from the areas around them (though you say all the areas are the same density and blend into each other seamlessly.. how does Afton Oaks blend into the urban canyon that is Uptown/Post Oak?). DART also built with the intention of attracting future development, not building where the potential ridership is and the lines are currently needed. you really think that when there are 10 million people in Houston in 2040, and the roads are jam packed with traffic that more and more people wont be willing to give up their cars to take a much quicker, more efficient means of transportation? i get that commuter rail wouldnt be an instant success right now along most corridors, but if we at least set aside the ROW for when it is needed and will be successful, then we will have a lot easier time providing Houstonians a decent transportation system in the future instead of half assing it trying to come up with routes through a fully developed inner loop where imminent domain would be necessary, and costly, to acquire new ROW when the time comes for rail.

to give another idea of what 2 billion can buy.. the entire 10 building Greenway Plaza complex sold for less than a billion dollars. granted the land in Greenway/Upper Kirby is cheaper than in Downtown.. still, 4.4 million sq feet of office space. that would be like 2 and a third JP Morgan Chase towers if the size/cost were comparable, and thats for less than ONE billion. imagine a 2 billion dollar development. i really think this could be like Brickell City Center in Miami if its real. http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/print-edition/2013/12/13/deals-of-the-year-commercial-real.html?page=all

great point. how many people live in Atlanta the city? less than 450,000. while that would generally be a good thing for a commuter rail system, having most of the people living outside the city, but that number of residents probably correlates with the number of jobs in the inner city. i would imagine Houston has a MUCH greater percentage of jobs in the loop vs Atlantas number of jobs in its city. comparing downtowns alone, downtown Atlanta has around 26 million sq ft of office space. downtown Houston has almost twice that much (and 150,000 employees). Uptown Houston has around 24 million sq feet (almost as big as downtown Atlanta, with 55,000 employees), the Texas Medical Center has 46 million sq ft of floor space (over 100,000 employees), almost as much hospital space as the amount of office space in downtown. together just between those three districts, the area in/around the loop have over 110 million sq feet of work space and 300,000 employees. surely we could have a couple successful commuter rail or hybrid LRT lines extending out to some of the more populated suburbs, hitting Uptown and Downtown along the way (getting down to the TMC would be a little tricky [without building a subway extension between downtown/TMC] except for lines coming from a 288 route or the 90A Sugar Land route, which could get to the TMC via 288 or the Almeda median). and so true (though some people will argue that connecting work zones isnt the way to building a successful system).. its definitely a great start. we need something better than the University Line between uptown and downtown. if a subway down Westheimer is too expensive i still say they should put a surface commuter line from the north side of Uptown/branch off the Post Oak LRT line, through the south side of Memorial Park and run along side Memorial Dr before hitting the end of the green/purple LRT lines in the theater district in downtown. it wouldnt need but maybe a stop at Shepherd if there were ever a subway line down Kirby (though the Kirby line could theoretically continue on down the Memorial Dr line into downtown so there wouldnt be a need for a transfer), and possibly one at Montrose if they ever build a streetcar system, and do follow through with putting a streetcar down Montrose. two stops in between downtown and uptown vs 10 stops and a transfer if you took the University Line over to the Main St line.

while i agree, you dont think it would make sense if we just put "starter" commuter rail lines down some of the more congested/populated corridors first, like 290, 45N/Hardy, and 45S, before we go all out running lines out to Baytown, Tomball, ect. Houston doesnt exactly sprawl evenly in all directions. i dont see a need for commuter rail down i10east, 59n, 59s, 288, 249, or the other freeways/rail corridors. at least not in the immediate future, though i think it would be smart to reserve ROW along some of those routes so that we can more easily install rail in the next few decades when Houston has over 10 million people. but a line from an intermodal station in downtown or Hardy Yards up to IAH, The Woodlands and Conroe; a line from Cypress into said intermodal type station at the post office site downtown, or the Hardy Yards site; and a line from that same station out along Highway 3 to a stop at Nasa/Kemah (with streetcar line along Nasa Road 1, to serve those touristy attractions), before going on to Galveston (maybe with a couple other stops at densely populated areas along the route). i dont see the galveston line having as high of "commuter" ridership as the 290 or 45N/Hardy lines would, but it would be a great addition for making Houston more tourist friendly by providing rail out to some of the more popular tourist attractions in the city (and the potential new SpacePort at Ellington Field).. there could even be a branch down Broadway for an express route to Hobby. it could make less trips than the other routes during the week days when the line might not be as busy, and ramp up the number of trips on the weekends when more tourists are visiting and/or Houstonians want to make a trip to the beach. while that is true, we would hopefully be getting a couple subway lines like we have been discussing in this thread, to provide more shorter distance inner city "express routes". why cant we re route the busses that would be replaced by these trains, and have them spiderweb outward from each of the new commuter rail stations, serving the populations in the areas around these stations? i understand your point, but there are ways around that. the localized spiderweb bus networks are one idea, larger or new park and rides at the stations are another idea. B-Cycle sharing programs and bike racks are another remedy for people who dont live within walking distance. i dont see a need for quite a few of those stops/places you mentioned. we definitely cant have commuter rail running on a similar system as the LRT with stops every half mile. and i think a lot of that route would easily be better served by a "hybrid" LRT (light rail doesnt need as dense of areas as commuter/heavy rail) line along the Westpark corridor, which theoretically shouldnt be much of an issue to build since the ROW is already owned by METRO.

The Texas Flag poles are a theme for Texas Ave in downtown. Not unique to or owned by this building. And as for "Christmas trees" on the roof of skyscrapers, that happen after the last structural support beam is in place/the building is officially "topped out".

haha, one can dream. unfortunately i think our plate is pretty full through 2017. i dont see the city trying (or wanting for that matter) to start a new huge project in the middle of hosting the superbowl. hopefully the boom will continue through the decade (wishful thinking, i know), and we can get some serious projects planned during the next few years to start construction after the superbowl is over. we will have a new iconic tower by then (609 Main), possibly a new theme park by then if the Grand Texas theme park happens, and will be in the process of getting a new world class museum addition (Holl MFAH expansion, due to be completed around 2019 i believe. though maybe the new Menil drawing institute will be finished by the superbowl?). i wonder if there are any plans for new fountains. there was a plan for one to book end the new shopping district in downtown, near discovery green, back in the 2011 plans. not sure if thats still the case. i wish they would close off the other two halfs of Main St around Main Street Square so there are 3 full continuous blocks closed off for a pedestrian promenade, and add more fountains to the area. unfortunately i dont see any new cutting edge transportation, or any new transportation for that matter happening by 2017, besides the Uptown BRT line, and the 2 current rail projects. no matter what though, Houston is sure to be looking good for the superbowl...

really? not even one along the Hardy Tollroad to IAH, The Woodlands and Conroe, a line along Hempstead Highway/290, or the Westpark corridor? i think all three of those could be successful commuter rail lines. the other potential "spoke" rail corridors (possibly Westpark even) should be hybrid LRT express/minimal stop light rail service IMO. at least for the next few decades.. i wish they could extend the Dallas-Houston HSR line to have occasional service to Galveston, so we could have fast rail service to the beach and other popular tourist areas like Nasa/Kemah, instead of a 50 mile hourish long commuter rail journey.

haha, no problem. glad i could contribute on my drive to Waco. it does indeed seem like a mini-me version of the ExxonMobil site. and to think, at one time ExxonMobil apparently had 16 tower cranes on site. absolutely ridiculous... all these cranes remind me of the old rumor that Dubai had 1/5th the worlds tower cranes back around 2007, before the bubble popped. not sure if it was true or not, but it makes me wonder how many of the cranes in the US are in Houston. probably like 1 in 20, or less, but still interesting to think about.

Terrible photo of them drilling with a mobile crane. They were also hard at work down in the hole with the excavators/machinery..