cloud713

Yep.. It would be the perfect payback for embassy suites ruining the disco green skyline by putting the ass end of an even taller Ritz blocking all of the embassy's east facing rooms views.

This doesn't have to do with the football stadium, but one of the two cranes went up today for the new Business school. A mod can start a new thread if they want for "other Baylor construction" or w/e...

Forgive my ignorance.. What's he doing in town?

True, but that's the most expensive line in history and has to go through some seriously tough bedrock while avoiding all of NYCs utilities and other underground. I've heard around 500 million is about average, but you might be right.

It looks like the hardy yards are ~50 acres, KBR is 136 acres, and astroworld was around 75 acres.. I think astroworld would be the best location of the 3 for a botanical gardens IMO, but I'm sure the owners want too much money for the land, and HLSAR bought half the property already. KBR just seems in too shady of an area and too isolated, and hardy yards would be better suited as a mixed use development. As much as I enjoy golfing im thinking the course off 45 that spans both sides of the bayou, with a little bayou wrapping around the west side of the course would be the best setting for a garden. Right off 45 for easy access. They'd just have to plant some really tall skyrocket junipers or some big trees along the north side to block any refineries from view., heh. The only reason Gus wortham isn't in the middle of no where is the light rail line they're building out there.. But I don't see many people taking what's likely to be the least utilized light rail line in the system all the way out to the gardens.

Lol well yeah the ritz would obviously have it's back facing the embassy/be one sided, but you may be right. I'm just going off of the location they were supposably scouting. Since it seems like international tower isn't going to happen I would love to see a ritz right there on market square. I think a hotel would be a nice component to that area.

yes. room for a restaurant and some basic residential needs ("retail") i believe.

im really hoping Ritz decided that would be a good spot to build there new tower, and can build something unique/tall there to hide part of Embassy from view. heh

i guess not? can someone from the "golf" camp at least give their take on the meeting? biased or not its nice to get some input of what went on for those of us who didnt attend. other than these golf courses where could a Botanical Gardens go? i guess there is Hardy Yards and KBG site, and the Astroworld, but practically all of those sites are treeless and would need a lot of mature trees imported ($$$) to set the ambiance of a Houston botanical garden. i guess something important we would need to know for that is what size should the botanical garden be? i did some quick research on other botanical gardens around the state to see what we are up against.. San Antonios botanical garden - 33 acres Dallas' botanical garden - 66 acres Ft Worths botanical garden - 109 acres for comparison, NYCs is 250 acres. ive only been to the SA botanical garden but felt it was a decent size for older people and people with disabilities (my mother has a muscle disease and cant walk super long distances), but for the sake of competition and being the best in the state were going to want to have a much larger botanical garden.. heh. maybe they can have little scooters for to rent for people with disabilities, or have one smaller section of the gardens be like "gardens from around the world", close to the front, to kind of sum up the whole place for the people who cant make it all the way around a 100+ acre park.

the Big Dig was a lot more than tunneling a light rail line.. they tunneled whole swaths of highway through the middle of the city. tunnel bored subways typically run about 500 million a mile. your looking at about 10 miles between Westchase and the red line in midtown. that means a Westheimer subway line could be built for $5 billion. its almost twice the cost of what weve spent on our entire light rail system (counting the green and purple lines), but it could be "worth it" in the future. given the cost of a Westheimer subway line, i would just tunnel the post oak line through uptown, coming up to the surface for the portion that travels along and north of 610. then have a line branch off of the 610 portion, through the south side of Memorial Park, before joining up with Memorial Dr and finally connecting into the green/purple lines under i45 at the Theater District, with minimal stops in between downtown and uptown (maybe one at Shepherd where a potential upper Kirby subway would terminate/join tracks to head into downtown, and possibly one at Montrose). it would be less than 2 miles of subway (say 1.75 billion), with 5 miles of surface rail (500 million), would be almost a billion cheaper than a line down Westheimer from just the segment from the Galleria to Main St (would still be 3 billion). and really the Post Oak line is already going to be built/could theoretically be subway one day. so that would already be paid for and the additional expenses you would be paying for an E/W line between uptown and downtown would only be the 500 million in surface rail between 610 and downtown, making the similar Westheimer stretch 6 times more expensive. for sure. and for the record. i always hear "even Chicago isnt building elevated rail anymore". is that true? yeah the tunnel system screws up any subways for downtown without running them like 30-40 feet deep (from the floor of the tunnel, your assessment of 25' from the top of the tunnel is probably about right) IMO i would put subway lines down Post Oak, Westheimer, and Kirby (north of Halcombe/Bellaire).

Ok I'm getting a little side tracked turning new park space into green mixed use developments.. i scoured Houston with google maps the other day for legitimate park proposals and was having a hard time finding "dead zones" in between parks since there were so many tiny pocket parks in neighborhoods all around the city.. i kept coming back to building more deck parks (i think the 2 ive proposed are the only ones worth while ATM) over freeways, or converting large swaths of land like Hardy Yards, KBG site, or Astroworld. so here's another green development built around park space. Though I get the feeling this would mainly only get used by the residents/guests/shoppers since the park space is kind of isolated in the development (again, I got carried away after the last park idea spawned a fantasy mixed use district.. Lol). there arent many (if any) residents within walking distance of the Astroworld site, and most people that ride the light rail that far south are only doing so to transfer to their cars and drive home to Pearland. i dont imagine many residents from inside the loop go to Sams Club or would venture all the way to the south end of the line to shop at the retail ive proposed in the development (but maybe im wrong?) I've just been eager for development on the astroworld site like many. Maybe I should of named this thread something different since I think Houston is doing a pretty good job on park improvements. I guess this is more about making developments and parts of town more green and pedestrian friendly. A mod can change the title if they'd like. Something like "building greener and more pedestrian friendly developments"..? Idk. I realize the building heights aren't drawn to scale. The tallest would be like 200 feet tall, at only 10 stories if that were accurate. The series of buildings steps down from the 10 story residential high rise, right next to the light rail station and future METRO site, clockwise to the 8 story mid rise apartments (didn't want the town houses in the back being towered over by anything too tall/invading their privacy), and the 6 story hotel along 610, before finally coming to two opposing crescent buildings, the front building with retail lining both front and back/facing towards the crescent building in the middle which is lined with retail on one side facing in towards the rest of the retail. There would be a large fountain and courtyard area in the central 90* wedge plot behind the retail section, a large garden w/ a gazebo and paths in the plot south of that, and a grassy lawn to the west. All three areas lined with pedestrian pathways. And of course on football game days, the rodeo, or concerts you just walk across the bridge to the venue.

Yeah I agree. What's wrong with a dog park if the area is destined to become a residential/mixed use Mecca (proposed green/garden district over/next to 59), or already is (uptown and the area east of 610).

That's what I thought at first too. So will it be a lighter shade of blue?

when the facade started going up i was a little put off by the color but now im really digging it! thanks for the updates. my buddy snapchatted me a couple pictures of the tower the other day that i meant to post but never got around to it. i count 32 or 32.5 floors in that picture. 1/5th the way to go!

there also isnt a park within half a mile of the majority of Post Oak in Uptown, or the area across 610 from uptown. that just so happens to be a location where i had already thought a park would be ideal. sink 610 during the next rebuild, between Westheimer and San Felipe, and build a deck park over it like Phoenix's. it would serve both the booming Uptown population, and the up and coming areas on the east side of 610, while providing a crucial pedestrian friendly linkage between the two destinations. also while were on the topic of deck parks, i had always thought one would go great over a newly submerged 59 through downtown, just north of the GRB CC from Rusk, to Commerce, again, providing a crucial pedestrian friendly linkage, this time between downtown and eado/the east end. i got a little more detailed on the surroundings with this one, adding in some buildings to create a mixed use development, but was a little less detailed with the park (note, the "Future Expansion" area.. i couldnt decide what amenities to put in the rest of the park.. i was trying to keep it from turning into a larger version of Discovery Green (though that wouldnt necessarily be a bad thing). this could turn the area into a new Garden District or Green District, especially if they kept the green roof tops/terraces in any developments that go up around the area. this one has much more potential to spur new development than the Uptown deck park IMO because there are 8 lots immediately surrounding the park that are either vacant or have run down warehouses on them that could be cleared off for new development. not counting the 4 developments i have drawn in with the park (a condo tower, apartment building, restaurant/bar/club venue, and hotel). Uptown Park is planned to be a 1.2 billion dollar renovation, with 6-7 towers. this park over/around 59 could easily spur over a billion dollars in new development for the city and more importantly that particular area which has been kind of slow to take off. i meant to draw my buildings taller, but as it was only on one sheet of paper it was hard to make that many floors drawn to scale. though i kind of like how it came out with the 14 story, 8 story, and 6 story buildings, all with green rooftop decks and tiered terraces, and now feel anything too tall in the area might throw off the scale of eado/the east end? im a skyscraper enthusiast though so that part of me always wants buildings to be taller, heh.. Red- potential development sites Blue- drawn in developments included with the park Yellow-new consolidated parking garages

just doing a quick glance over of the city on a map, i dont see any parks near the Villages. thats kind of odd. the 215 million dollar Bayou Greenways 2020 project will be a help to improve our parks system, adding 1,500 acres of new park land and 80 additional miles of trails along the bayous. that is a part of the larger/long term Bayou Greenways Initiative. but i think we can do better than turning some floodways into park land (dont get me wrong, its a great use of that un utilized space, and i dig the terrain).. Discovery Green was/is awesome. and the Midtown Superblock Park should be a hit as well. but with so many people coming to this city and given the fact we arent one of the 7 top cities with 9 out of 10 residents within half a mile of a park, i think if we want to improve our image (isnt the mayor trying to do that/wanting Houston to be "greener"?) we are going to have to work twice as hard to accommodate all the new residents while also providing new/better parks for the current residents in areas being ignored.

isnt One Park Place a condo tower? i know a lot of people own second homes there. will both of the new Market Square towers be apartments? Ritz Carlton was supposably looking around downtown for a site for a hotel/condo tower.

that kind of reminds me of the building in the TMC (i think its the UT school of Nursing?) with the slatted sloped roofs like the garage above. i wonder if there are solar panels on them or if its just for looks?

it doesnt look like anyone posted this article. its about a week old (from just before the meeting), but still has some interesting information and opinions. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Which-park-should-be-home-to-Houston-botanical-5361822.php

there was a slide for total acres per 1,000 residents. we performed decent in that, at around 23.6 acres of park space per 1,000 people. still not enough to make a name for ourselves as a "park city/garden city/green city/w.e", but that one was one of the few (if not the only one) where Houston performed better than the average of the cities polled. EDIT: Geez.. the top three threads in this forum ATM are all posted by me, and all have to do with green space. its as if i were a greeny-environmentalist freak or something.. heh.

What can we do to improve our parks system? What parks would you say could use renovations, and how would you like for them to be renovated? Where do you see the potential or need for new parks? i think improving our parks system, paired with a green roof initiative could really change a lot of peoples perceptions about Houston from being a dirty polluted oil dominated city, to an environmentally friendly, beautiful green city. Here are a few stats for why I think we could stand to work on our parks system. "In seven of the nation's largest cities, nine out of 10 residents live within a one-half mile walk to a park, according to the report. The seven are New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, D.C." only 45% of Houstons residents (or half the percentage of the 7 cities listed above) live within walking distance of a park.. thats over 1.2 million people who cannot walk to a park in this city. (the average of the 40 largest cities in the US was 68%.. the highest was San Francisco at a whopping 98% of its population) Houston spends $40 per resident on its parks system a year. less than half of the national average ($82). compared to the highest spender (Washington D.C.), who spends $397 a year per resident on its parks, we spend almost 10 times less on our parks. We didnt even make the top 10 in any of these "snapshots", covering baseball/softball fields, basketball courts, swimming pools, skate parks, rec centers/senior centers, and dog parks. http://www.tpl.org/sites/default/files/cloud.tpl.org/pubs/ccpe-cityparkfacts-2012.pdf

arent they almost getting to the point of being able to print solar panels? then theyll be able to line the sides of every building, 18 wheeler, train, ect.. you get the idea. it will be insane.

haha i was going to say something along those lines.. these churches/organizations would be POed if someone built a different religions symbol right next to theirs. especially if it was even bigger. heh.

those are certainly good ideas that should be considered as well.. going along those lines of energy efficiency, ive always wondered if buildings in wet climates like the PNW have storm water drain/"gutters" for the roofs of their buildings.. imagine if they had a bunch of little turbines lining the length of the drain pipe through the building, generating energy every time it rained or after snow melts. a better idea would be implementing the same design with the plumbing for highrises, so every time someone flushes a toilet or uses a sink the water spins little turbines the whole way down the pipes back to ground level. it may not generate a whole lot of electricity, but it generate some. maybe in the future buildings will start being built with extreme facade designs that redirect the wind currents through a series of turbines or something.. now that i think about it, they are already starting to do that. there is some tower in China with a couple slots in it with turbines in them, and the building kind of slopes in around the slots to force the wind into them. (i wonder why/how they could get the turbines to work in that tower but they couldnt make them work on Hess Tower) geez i can ramble..

didnt they talk once about building something in the northeast corner of the park since that space was underutilized? does anyone know if that is still the plan? its kind of small, but would be an awesome location for a tall/thin "Ritz on the Park" or something.