cloud713

Of all the buildings in the "potential" category, I like this one the most. It would be one of the next notable Houston skyscrapers.

you really think International Tower would possibly be Houstons next "notable" skyscraper? you dont like 609 Main...? one is just a box with a curve on one side.. the other is a uniquely angled 3d polygon. both will/would have LED lighting...

dont get me wrong. I.T. used to be my favorite design of the new proposals, partly because of the curve and the long strip of color changing LEDs, but i think 609 Main will be the more timeless classic design in the long run.

(i cant figure out how to turn the italics off..)

here are the stats for BLVD Place, from wikipedia, to compare to the Uptown Park stats.. (BLVD Place is planned to have 6 towers)

"The development will be the largest in Uptown with over 1.8 million square feet with 205,000 sq. ft.of retail space, 1,400,000 sq. ft. of office space, 275 hotel rooms and 1,000 high rise residential units. "

Uptown Park expansion When it's completed, Uptown Park could include luxury residential, office space, retail and a hotel. Here are the developer's projections:

 

Residential: more than 1,000 units in at least three buildings

Hotel: more than 300 rooms

Retail: an additional 100,000 to 150,000 square feet (on top of 169,000)

Office: 850,000 square feet

so Uptown Park will possibly have 100,000 sq ft more retail than BLVD Place, a few more hotel rooms, about the same amount of residential, and almost 2/3rds the amount of office space.

On a related subject. They were going to remodel the house across the street from the Menil to create the space for the new cafe,'

but apparently they felt the building would not meet code so they tore the house completely down and are going to start from scratch. I heard that it would be rebuilt as a bungalow like it was before, but with the new plans included.

Interesting.. I too thought they were going to reuse the bungalow.. I wouldn't mind if they designed it similar to the drawing institute or the Piano building, but I agree they will probably replace it with a bungalow type building..

I think I just soiled myself. HAPPY DANCE

Right.. 7 new towers in what will be one of the biggest mixed use developments in all of Houston?? Hell yes.

yeah.. i was put off by the mediocre initial sketches, but those new renderings look very nice and i like how the design plays off the main building.

i was just wondering when they would announce details for redeveloping this site.. so is this the million+ sq foot development Urbannizer first linked about or is that separate? i didnt notice anything about 75,000 sq ft of retail in the info for this..

Or it tells you that no one knows where to route the 160,000 cars that travel that highway daily if it's not there.

 

this. unlike our plan to reroute 45 along a widened 59 and i10, they had no option to widen/put "45/75/345/whatever" lanes along 30, 35 through the mixmaster, and then down Woodall Rogers under Klyde Warren (they would have to do serious reconstruction to widen that underpass/"tunnel"). they just planned on letting the vehicles have a free for all on the surface streets of downtown/deep ellum Dallas..

haha, unfortunately i grew up in the age of cell phones, so ive been multitasking behind the wheel ever since i learned to drive. i agree, its not the safest, but i try not to use my phone or w/e else when there arent many cars around (it was mainly just an 18 wheeler in front of me for this vid).

anyways i figured some people would appreciate the video of driving between the new hybrid/suspension bridges and going around the back(front?) side of the stadium that never really gets seen, and include the staging site for construction along with the track and field site.

heres a little drive by past campus and around the stadium construction, along with the track & field stadium construction..

I'm not sure they are going to.. I thought the other skyhouses were exposed concrete like that?

"Only" 13.. Heh, that's like 1/3rd the whole tower

some of this sounds like it would be better suited in the Whats your ideal transit plan for Houston thread. i started to write a reply to some of those post but didnt want to derail this thread.

somewhat on topic, i have always wondered why they dont have a bus or streetcar network connecting the corporations in the Energy Corridor to the local P&Rs, like kdog suggested.

Just like Astoria then.. Do they still ever put cranes through elevator shafts, or have they ever done that? Could of sworn I've seen pictures of that before, but don't recall anything being built like that in Houston..

I can't find projections for the East line, but the METRO projection for the Southeast line was 17,200 average weekly boardings for year 1.

 

weekly or weekday? if you meant weekday, no way that will happen. probably wouldnt even happen if the line was connected to Hobby. it should be higher than the North extention though i would think..

30-35% of total value? that would be a very large project ($330 million at 35%)..

idk where the 17,400 figure came from, but that doesnt sound nearly feasible unless they tear out quite a few houses/businesses along the north line to build dense mixed use developments, and develop the whole Hardy Yards site at Burnett Station.. id be surprised if the ridership numbers were 17,400 even in 10 years. there just isnt nearly enough development along the north line compared to the original Main St line, which runs through downtown, the museum district, the medical district, and Reliant Park.. 17,400 is almost half as many people that ride the original 8 mile stretch of track.

while searching for $115 million downtown Houston projects i found this from 2002, to give an idea of what we could expect for the money. granted there has been some inflation since then.

2002

5 Houston Center

1400 McKinney. New construction of a 27-story, 581,000-square-foot office building with an eight–level, 1,250-car parking garage. Developer: Crescent Real Estate Equities, Ltd. Estimated cost: $115+ million.

http://downtownhouston.org/site_media/uploads/attachments/2013-03-26/Downtown_Development.pdf

^^ interesting fact.. 

Speaking of widening roads, how much more can we realistically widen the west loop? That area always has traffic when I look at the map on my phone.. I'm not sure even if we added 2 more lanes each direction if if would keep traffic from backing up.. What will we do?

 
i heard locals fought 610W expansion in the 90s and made them upgrade the highway with the promise they wouldnt add more lanes. odd..? that area badly needs more lanes, and it seems like they could add another lane or two each way. its need is inevitable, if not already here..

not going to lie, this article, and especially the picture in it of the underground station just outside of the terminal, makes me a bit jealous of DART. why cant Houston figure out a way to run rail down/along 45 and the branch south at Broadway straight to the front of Hobby, or follow the train tracks along Hardy Toll Road, and branch off on the spur to Bush. not light rail that stops every quarter mile, but express routes with minimal/no stops from the airport to downtown.



http://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/20140206-outside-airports-doors-train-station-to-downtown-dallas-coming-along.ece

haha im not saying it SHOULD be.. im just saying theoretically it COULD be. there is 96 square miles of land inside the loop. your telling me we couldnt develop all of the 4-500 or so high-rises in the Houston area inside the loop?

I have this strange feeling that it would.

Agreed, all of Houston's highrise development could fit inside the loop...

The new convention hotel is $324M. I wonder if skyhouse's numbers are a tad skewed since they are building essentially tract towers.

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2012/12/downtowns-324-million-hotel/

i wondered that too but i think the hotel is just really expensive for whatever reason hotels may be expensive. the massive 1.7 million square foot Chevron Tower (JP Morgan is "only" 1.9) was supposed to cost less than 400 million. so i dont think 115 million for a 20-30 story 500,000 sq ft highrise is out of the question.

Edit: ****, i hope its not the Hilcorp tower...

Man this is so true...and make 10 story garage...with a mural on all 4 sides and giant letters that say parking on top in Neon red lights....

you are either a good jokester or.. idk... im hoping that was a very sarcastic joke. a 10 story garage with neon lights? completely opposite of blending in with the park setting.

good question. either way id bet they are referring to a new highrise. probably one we already know about, but the "public" doesnt.. maybe we will be surprised with something new?

wow, the garage went up quick