cloud713

lol ricco.. can we all agree this is about a 58 story tower? assuming the rendering is correct.

thats OVER 34 stories.. heh.. how tall is the tallest building around BLVD Place?

awesome, thanks for the updates Jim

i just read some potentially bad news for all of us who had our hopes up on a much taller redesign.. im not sure how they can make it "much larger" and keep the same height without drastically widening the tower. hopefully they dont ruin the design and keep the proportions the same to make the building taller.

http://swamplot.com/bigger-taller-hines-to-redesign-proposed-609-main-st-office-tower/2013-07-09/

heres an interesting post i saw in the comment section. does anyone have any information on this other "super tall lot" Hines owns?

@walt–the proposed Southwest Bank Tower from the 80′s was 1200 feet and had been approved –it’s true Chase Tower was lowered 5 stories in the early 80′s, however the FAA can allow for over 1200 feet, this building will not be 1000 feet–Hines wouldn’t build a building of that size for this location, they have another lot deemed for a super tall when the market allows

i want to see more renderings/different angles of the redesign. a night time rendering would be cool to see if/how the architectural feature on the roof looks if/when lit up.

This is great news. I agree that Houston needs more 800ish footers...I really hope this one will be an 800+ footer, too. It's a great location. I've always thought the surface lot south of Two Shell Plaza would be a great place for an 800-900 footer, too. I'd love for downtown to eventually add four or five 60-69 story buildings in that range (750-950 feet), and then something like three 80-89 story buildings (1,000-1,200 feet) and two 90+ story buildings (1,200-1,400 feet with at least one of them 100+ stories), and have them all blend in well together, and have great lighting at night also. I wonder if any of us will ever live to see something like that here.

haha, one can dream... i know the FAA didnt like the idea of the Bank of the Southwest Tower back in the 80s, though i heard theyve changed flight patterns out of hobby since then or something, so it wouldnt be as much of an issue anymore. i wish our buildings had better lighting at night too. Wedge used to be all outlined in green but supposably nearby residents complained it was too bright and they were turned off. i hope thats not true. maybe when some of these skyscrapers from the 70s-80s are up for renovation they will implement some better lighting.

i had hopes that it would not compete with the design of bg group place.  at 41 stories, it looks a little lost in the city from certain angles.   if it is significantly taller, it will enhance the skyline greatly.  shall we start betting on the new height?

im glad its going to be taller as well. the only angle it would of stood out in at 41 stories is the north/east side of town. ill go ahead and guess 850 ft (i hope its taller but im trying to be realistic and not get my hopes up). Houston needs some 800ish footers to fill in the void, though anything taller would be icing on the cake.

HOPEFULLY this means it will get even taller ... fingers crossed! 

its going to be taller. they said it was going to be "much larger" than the original 41 story proposal. its already got a podium on the base so unless they radically redesign the building or make it a lot fatter, its definitely going up.

I really doubt there are any "anchors" running out into the adjacent lots. Exxon has never owned those lots, as far as I can tell, and you don't get to use someone's property without paying for it.

i emailed the city of Houston planning and development about it and they said the building plans for Exxonmobil building could be viewed at 1002 Washington. i still dont understand why all 4 lots around the tower have remained vacant for all this time.

lockmat, was that a serious proposal? what ever came of it?

It's going to be a trick to connect this tract with downtown. Any ideas?

And as strickn has pointed out, it's not well connected to downtown either.

I'm very pessimistic.

The East End has plans for a street car system that would run through downtown, form a loop around the East End, and eventually connect to the KBR property, so by the time this would be developed they could have a street car service in place, connecting KBR, the East End, and downtown.

I think he got that quote from the comments section on the Chron's coverage of the Chevron tower.

 

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2013/07/chevron-to-build-downtown-tower/

 

The user, UniversalRockstar also goes on to say, "Foundation?! Ha!!! What are you smoking?! Before the 80′s bust there were several 100+ story towers on the drawing board and some are being revived. You will soon see an 85 story and 100+ story towers going up in DTHouston."

It would be interesting if he was telling the truth, but there's just something about his posts on that topic that make me think he's the one smoking something...

haha agreed, with all of the proposed towers already vying for tenants, i dont see a supertall happening anytime soon (unless Hines wasnt kidding about Texas Sizing their tower), unless theres a corporate relocation where a big company decides to build a tower for themselves.

"Some message board" was here!

 

jimenez:

 

 

 

http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/27752-new-chevron-tower-for-downtown-houston-50-stories-at-1600-louisiana/page-6#entry427137

heh. i see he only has 5 posts. i assume he was joking, but one can hope. didnt the Bank of the Southwest Tower proposal cause a lot of drama with the FAA? 

What you described sounded like this:

 

 

http://www.gensleron.com/cities/2013/6/24/town-square-initiative-houston.html

woah, ive never seen that before! yet again someone beats me to the punch... i was envisioning it to be less of a typical "park" though, but more of a submerged promenade with more retail and cafes with outdoor seating areas around the grassy central area. and large trees to provide shade (or some of those suspended horizontal roman shades to open in the summer time). an outdoor area you could envision a farmers market or something taking place in. i dont see a single tree/shaded area in that proposal, it gets HOT in Houston.

was that planned for the parking lot/block to the east of Shell Plaza? when i was looking at the map of the tunnel system i noticed all four sides of that lot are surrounded by the tunnel system and that was my first idea for a submerged park location, but i felt that the lack of any vacant lots around the block took away from the parks ability to spur future development, and given the fact that all the buildings surrounding that property are office it would only get used during lunch break, so i decided it would be better fit for the south side of downtown where some residential activity is currently taking place and where the tunnel system could really use the street access and improvements.

According to some anazlie  the first tower to get off the ground will reduce the demand of the others.. I do not count the Cheveron since that in a in-house bulding designed for their own use.. but I do belive that the first two towers to break ground in the spec market will reduce or even stop the construction of the rest/.. right now Hines and captial seem to be the only two with hard dates

ugh, unfortunately i think this is probably true for the office market. especially with the Exxonmobil building up for vacancy after they renovate it starting in 2015 (unless Chevron ends up buying the property and relocating). i really wish Capital Tower was taller but at least were getting a bigger Hines tower. our only other hope is a major corporate relocation. i guess we will still continue to have new residential projects going up around downtown, with the Texaco redevelopment and others planned.

Great point about Chevron leasing to Exxon.

Also, are you referring to the Gensler idea?

Gensler idea? not sure what that is, you quoted all three portions of my reply.

It can't be true that the building's anchors go off into every surrounding block. City-Data is easily one of the least resourceful forums on the internet.

then why arent the 4 parking lots to the N/E/S/W sides developed with towers? it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi when they built it. maybe they were worried about our soil being different or something and wanted to better anchor it? i hope those rumors are false so that those lots can be developed, but that info apparently came from someone affiliated with the Exxonmobil building.

I always thought that Enron2 was a brilliant deisgn that complitmented, and honored, its two closest neighbors/parents. The shape and wall curtin from Enron1.  The proportions and the top detail echos the Petroleum club of the Exxon.  Even the overhangs from the Exxon building are "mirrored" on the side of Enron2 that faces Exxon (look close)...but not on the side that faces its father...I mean...Enron1.  Really Brilliant and sensitive.  The Exxon building would fit beautifully in to the "Campus".  I bet that Chevron would add some significant green space on one of the blocks in the area.  Park or Plaza. 

i was just thinking the other day the lot to the north of Exxonmobil would be a prime place to implement my submerged park idea linking the streets to the tunnel network, with the ring of retail/cafes around the bottom and openings connecting into the tunnel system (through Wedge, would also link to Exxonmobil, Travis Tower, and the plot to the north east of exxonmobil, on main street along the light rail line, where i envision the park spurring a residential tower). Mayor Parker was talking about wanting to better connect the streets with the tunnel level and that side of downtown isnt linked to the tunnel system very well, but its starting to sprout residential projects which will need the retail/dining.

Thanks for the clarification. I don't know if this source thinks Chevron would buy or lease from Shorenstein.

But it does sound a little fishy. Had Chevron not thought of buying when Sh. bought it? Seems they would have saved money.

Although you have to admit this rendering makes you wonder.

great news! so it looks like they will be going forward with construction in the first quarter of 2014 without any tenants signed. im sure they wont have a problem finding tenants for that amazing location. i wonder why the redesign of the building is taking so long? i guess like you said they will be adding many first class amenities to the base/a podium maybe? i hope they keep the design the same, (taller of course) or it gets even better.. Hines isnt really known to cheapen their stuff so im hoping there wont be any Embassy Suites/Marriott Marquis lame redesigns to the final product. cant wait till the end of the year to see the new proposal. the 41 story tower was already taller than BG Place which is 46 stories, after the redesign the height of this tower is sure to be taller a 50 story building, putting this in Houstons top 10.

not to mention Exxon will be moving out of the Exxonmobil building in 2015, leaving 1.2ish million square feet (or are they not the only tenant currently in the building?), though its scheduled to undergo renovations afterwards, and im sure no tenant is willing to sign a lease without renovation plans, and wait around till 2017 or whenever for the renovations to be done when they could just have a brand new building in the same amount of time. either way unfortunately unless the Chevron rumors come true and they buy out the Exxonmobil building for headquarters relocation in the next few years, there will be 1.2 million sq ft of vacant office space hitting the market around 2017 so i hope these new downtown developments get started soon.

It doesn't look so much like a recessed groove as it does an offset. There may be an offset on the other side that matches this one.

 

The rendering in post #257 gives a better view of the offset. Look at the top of the building. It looks like one side goes inward, and the other overlaps it.

agreed, its not just a "groove" in the side of a flat/curved? wall. the whole middle section is recessed in on both north and south sides. 

I wish there was a way to make a post persistent at the top of the thread so I didn't have to keep skipping back 5 pages to find the rendering. I thought I'd put it here again to save other people the trouble. I really wish we could see this from more angles. What's that groove along the one side? I wonder if the side facing the bayou where all of the Houston skyline photos are taken from has a similar feature or if it's just flat. At least it's a rounded rectangle floor plate rather than a simple box.

here is a rendering of the base from the south east, showing the same recessed grooves on the south face of the tower as well. maybe they will implement some lighting in the grooves?

There have been no public signs that it will break ground any time soon.

Hines has two other brand new office developments they are marketing, too. One at 610/10 and the other in River Oaks. Of course, they have other downtown buildings with available space. I guess they know which price points and locations their clients are looking for.

true, i just keep seeing people say this building will break ground in 2014. Chevrons new tower isnt even expected to break ground until 2014 so im not sure how a tower with no tenants yet would be able to have that kind of schedule unless they already have all the building permits, ect. for the site. i really hope another boom is coming to downtown, its nice to see some companies looking to the future and trying to be more urban instead of moving to the suburbs like the current trend has been.

The majority of the tallest NYC buildings are boxy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_New_York_City

true.. its just so much cheaper and more efficient to build a box and keep the floor plates the same shape all the way up the building. im sure the building will turn out much nicer than the rendering makes it out to me. that rendering does absolutely no justice to 1500 Louisiana or 1400 Smith and they are some of the nicest buildings in our skyline IMO.

They really chopped off that crown and to think that was one of the most striking things about the hotel, along with the Texas shaped pool area. It now looks shorter making the building as a whole appear less significant than the original rendering. Is it possible in this town to build something according to the initial rendering or does every project have to be scaled down in some fashion?

this thread is hard to find without the title "Marriott Marquis"

to me it still looks like some of the architectural features are on top, they just shortened it and changed the cage-like covering that protruded from the top on the front side.

edit. ugh, looking back on it they definitely removed some of the architectural features of the top. why does the city continue to let developers cheapen the projects around downtowns crown jewel? what happened to Embassy Suites was a crying shame.. i cant believe they are going to let the same thing happen again. at least they are still showing the texas shaped lazy river i guess. maybe the top will have some fancy lighting besides just Marriott lit up in red letters? wishful thinking..

how sure are we that this tower will start construction next year? is there a tenant already signed or about to sign?