Jeebus

What's around the Perry Homes red brick firehouse that makes it ridiculously out of place? Oh I don't know, the new shinny Metro Building, or the Catholic Co-Cathedral. You know, buildings designed by real architects. Its like whoever designed it never even went to the site to check out its surroundings. Check out the pictures by musicman, those fake pediments are hilariously out of scale, as is that tower.

You're forgetting that the government works by lowest bidder. For everyone of us booing this bland design, there would be two more if the city spent unnecessary millions just to design something architecturally "significant".

But hey, I agree with you. It looks like another crappy Westheimer strip-center.

Ya think that might be a little, um...stupid...when it comes to emergency response services? Centralization works pretty well with most government offices (although even then, you don't want them all stacked one on top of the other), but of all departments, HFD is probably the best one to keep totally decentralized and just a little bit out of the core of the CBD.

That lawsuit would be unfounded, considering a private establishment can let anybody they please inside, and keep anybody they please outside. Like I said, there are places in midtown that have been doing this for years.

Yeah, I'm calling B.S. to this claim.

But please feel free to refute me by actually naming one active business that does as you claim.

I'm not sure I understand your meaning of additional floors to accomodate more apparatus. I'm pretty sure that when 8's opens you will find that all 8 bays {when looking @ renderings.

They probably meant (I'm too lazy to scroll up and read the original post..) that if the firefighters quarters were built over the bays, then you could add that many more bays where the first floor quarters are now.

I do take out at Ponzo's fairly regularly. I just double park for 5 minutes with my flashers on while I go in and get the food.

Seems Houston has never heard of double parking.

I get Ponzo's at least once a week. I've usually have to double park as well. That Italian roast beef it to kill for.

What a delightfully American solution to the problem of mental illness.

Give them enough time & money and it will happen. They were quick to brag about how the successful bond election will bring fencing to courtyards that never had it (or needed in my opinion).

We keep building more walls & fences.

On campus security should have been there faster.

How? It happened on the front lawn near the street, in River Oaks of all places.

Now HISD is bragging how the passed bond will allow them to fence off the school, along with others. Can you imagine that they will have to fence a school off in River Oaks?

Maybe they can fence it off and have HISD police with K-9 dogs patrol the perimeter. My, how this is starting to remind me of all the added security at airports post 9|11.

I was once meeting with a homeowner with the owner of the company I was contracting for. He was driving a brand new S550 Benz and I was in my Avalon. Parked next to each other, they look very similar. The owner (a player for the Rockets) passed up his Benz and hopped in my Avalon and started playing with stuff. The best part was how ticked off the owner of the company was.

Mistaking a Toyota for a Benz? That doesn't say much for that college educated Rocket does it?

FWIW, I'm dissapointed in the Accords. They are starting to look too American.

This is incredible! That park has generated so much new growth. Who was the creator of Discovery Green, anyway?

Wasn't this the park that people submitted names for? My only fear (and I hate being the negative nancy here but..) is that any greenspace in the greater downtown/midtown area seems to attract the homeless.

I really hope this administration can figure out a solution (bus them to San Antonio/Austin/Dallas) before the park & building construction is finished.

Very cool plan. I love the roundabout.

Doesn't it look like there are tunnels under the roundabout

It also looks like, per their site, that whole cities are contracting DPZ to develop large tracks of land for urban infill. I would love to see them take on some more projects in Houston.

The fact that DPZ is helping Southland design this community is going to make it worth every penny to live there. My wife and I are making serious considerations, especially since we've learned that DPZ is on board.

DPZ's website.

I found this while browsing around DPZ's website, after learning that they are involved with the Sugar Land Charhouse residential development with the City of Sugar Land, and Cherokee Development.

It looks like a plan to redevelop the old Astroworld site. If so, this is great news as DPZ has helped cities across the nation bring back intelligent, practical, and most importantly: functional, mixed use developments over the last 30 years. To have them in the game here in H-Town for two different projects is a great start. I hope to see more from them.

Does anyone here have anymore information about Fannin Station?

Hey Aliana wont be part of SL I thought that was Richmond

I think Sugar Land has Aliana, along with Village of Oak Lake, Summerfield, Orchard Lakes, and all the other developments south of West Airport in its eventual annexation sights.

This woman was nice enough to share with us the most important moment in her life, and that's all you can say? Geez. What a jerk. Think before you post.

I did think. I changed "father" to "groom". But here, since this is what you really wanted:

Oh wow, great pictures! Thanks for sharing! I bet the view was spectacular!

1992?? More like 1982!!

Sadly, the only outfit from those pictures that is still fashionable is the groom's tux.

At least this is going to be on the far east-end of Midtown, keeping more homeless off Main St.

The Asian community, in particular the Vietnamese, haven really taken a foothold in this area. I feel like I can actually see the area improving every time I drive down Bellaire or Beechnut. The apartment complexes are the only thing they seem unable to change, even in the ones that they make up the majority of the ethnicity in.

I almost punched a homeless guy in the face for the first time ever.

I was at the CVS in Midtown, he asked me on my way in for money, I said no. He asked me on my way out, I said no.

I then heard him say "Im gonna break someones car" in an aggrevated, but soft voice.

I turned around and asked him to repeat what he just said. He wouldnt of course and just walked off.

If my gf hadnt been right there, I would have put his face into the wall, and I am not a violent person at all.

The homeless need to go away.

You should have. I mean, punching one in the face would have surely scared off the other few thousand.

He hit a stopped train. There was nothing to beat.

Sorry, I have no details. The media did a sloppy job of covering this story.

What is the url of the site you pulled this picture from?

Hmmm, the one city with higher growth than Houston...MUCH stricter design standards! Have you seen Phoenix's zoning ordinance? It's hundreds of pages thick and they govern all the way down to the suitable plantings for residential developments in suburban neighborhoods.

Maricopa County will also pass Harris County by the end of the decade in population. It's already closed the gap from 380,000 to 120,000 in 6 years.

Plus, the cost of living in Phoenix is almost 1/4 more than in Houston. The median income in PHX makes up the difference but its negated some because AZ has income tax.

And since 2000, job growth in Phoenix has been roughly double that of Houston--with housing costing almost 1/3 more and just as much of an endless supply of flat land in the area.

Just to underscore KincaidAlum and Subdude's points--Phoenix is growing faster and is more expensive for people to live and employers to pay their workers--yet they are pickier about development there than here. Those "restrictions" also don't seem to be slowing anything down there, either.

All I can say about Phoenix is that, compared to Houston, everything was newer - thus giving it a "cleaner" appearance. They have just as many strip-malls and other undesirable architectural turds in that town as we do though.

If it weren't for the good looking women in Scottsdale & Tempe (read: ASU), I'm not sure what that town would have to offer.

Why in the world should we have to consider ourselves in the "beggars aren't choosers" stage?

Because if Hines didn't build it, nothing would be there now. Sure, someone might have come along and built something better at a later date - but when? And as Niche pointed out, if we restricted development too much, then nothing will be built. As of now we have 9 additional floors worth of parking that was not there before.

The only thing they need to fix is the light bleed-over issue.

I hate to be a stickler, but this isn't exactly "going up".

SA might have a "nice" parking garage, but that Drury Plaza Hotel sign kills everything. So tacky.

Exactly. It's subjectively tit-for-tat when it comes to judging each city's ability to build architecturally pleasing environments.

We often dismiss things too quickly because of an over-zealous desire for Manhattan-style developments.

I agree completely. I feel as Houstonians we are still in the "beggars aren't choosers" stage of urban planning & development. Hey, we got a nine-story garage on the downtown Main St. corridor. This will only promote more growth for downtown.

Thanks for posting that photo. I was expecting something much much worse from all the negitive comments. I think you guys prepared me for something so incredibly bad that this garage just couldn't live down to it. Don't get me wrong, it's not pretty, but I can handle this. This sinks into the background at least. It could have been much worse, it could have been ugly AND stood out from a distance. It's so boring, I'm very surprised it's getting this much attention. Must be because of the hype.

I again agree that the negative hype definately softened the blow for what I was ultimately expecting. It honestly doesn't look that bad. We're going to be in denial if we think for whatever reason we could redevelop downtown with out at least a handful or so of these popping up before its all said & done.

The renderings that I have seen do not have any sort of ornamental top to the building on the Hines 47. It is 47 floors, thats it. And they have said it will have street level retail.

Just picture it 10 stories shorter than this classic:

Just kidding of course. I couldn't help it. When I read Hines 47, that's all I could think of! FYI - There are no good pictures of 57 sauce on web..