shasta

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7655882.html#ixzz1STlambli

So, from the article are we to assume Regent Square will be either:

A) A mixed-Use development similar to previous one planned or...

just Luxury Apartments

Not sure if this thread has been created yet but they've narrowed the designer of the new building down to three architects.

http://swamplot.com/the-three-finalists-chosen-to-design-the-mfahs-next-building/2011-05-31/

Unless we get some residentail towers. This recent glut in the real estate market may now make those projects more feasible.

Looks like Mid Town is expanding.

http://innerlooped.com/809/post-midtown-phase-iii/

unfortunately, hines has no obligation to make a contribution to the synergistic urban fabric of downtown houston. the bottom line is.....well, the bottom line. it is the suck, but it is true.

but they have in other markets

No. Those things are no longer true. What was important is gone, with scant context remaining.

Besides. How, precisely, would condominiums in conjunction with office space be paying homage to the past?

In context of the current urban fabric, we already have a rental building across the street in the Rice. So, we know we already have a successful residential component in this area so it works. We also know that we have a light rail, and Main street upgrades, that the city has invested in to become the main axis of downtown. We also know that another light rail is under construction nearby connecting the Theater district. We also know that there is some foot traffic near this intersection.

A mixed use building, not just condos, will continue the synergy that has been created. A good example is the Discovery Green- Hilton- GRB connection. These developments spill into each other.....the crowd from the GRB visits DG and some stay in the Hilton. Walk in the lobby of the Hilton on a given Saturday and look at what you see. Compare that activity and synergy to the spill over affect with Hess Tower and its lobby...It is not the same.

I'm not sure what the best use for this building will be but given the context of the site, I would hate to see a typical office tower with a guarded lobby that would just kill all of the momentum the city has worked so hard to re-create. A signature building with activity (rental, condo, hotel, retail, office, just some combination of these elements) will be better than a 9-5 structure.

South Station is historic structure, the northern terminus of the Acela line (which runs at up to 150 mph between Boston and D.C.), and is in a municipality that is a 'gateway city' for capital that has extraordinarily high physical and regulatory barriers to entry.

Hines' Houston site is a good site; it is by no means an irreplacable vacant lot. Barriers to entry are low, incentives are scant, and we are a second-tier city where the capital markets are concerned.

The site that Hines owns is at the corner of Texas and Main. When downtown was laid out those two streets were made wider because they were the two 'main' streets of downtown. Across the street is the Rice Hotel 2 which was the site of the original capitol building of the Republic of Texas dating back to 1836. This alone makes it one of the most important vacant lots in the state of Texas. The site today is along Main Street. Present day planners have revived Main Street as the central axis through downtown but Texas Avenue still remains a very important street. We all know of the failed Shamrock proposal, but that developer realized the significance of the location.

The intersection of Texas and Main is the cultural and historical center of downtown Houston and hopefully Hines is working on a building that keeps up with the reputation and adds synergy to the site.

No. Hines is in the business of developing buildings that neatly fit into the well-defined portfolios of insurance companies, pension funds, REITS, etc.

I just checked some properties on their website and they do have some mixed use properties. Here's one I found

http://www.hines.com/property/detail.aspx?id=144

Judging from the importance of the site (both historically and today. I hope they consider something more ambitious than the bland 30 story office building. I'm sure the leasing levels for the Rice across the street prove that that location can support residential and the magnolia not too far proves a hotel can compete. Combine either of those with offices and retail and they can add something to Main Street because the current trend is to move towards discovery Green and the improvements there.

There was an article about this on Culture Map:

http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/03-15-11-what-recession-hines-plans-another-new-office-tower-at-block-69-for-downtown-houston/

I wonder if Hines would consider a mixed use project (office, hotel, residential, entertainment) since this is such a high profile and historical site. Anyone know if Hines has done project like this elsewhere in other cities?

So, had the developers of Regent Square had their financing in place before annd started construction on time, they would be now taking advantage of the lack of multi-family housing in the Houston area. Couple that with the success of simialr type of developments and the proximity to downtown, I'm sure it would be a great asset right now. Anyone have information on when they plan to break ground and if they are changing th escope from what we were presented before the hold?

http://www.builderonline.com/multifamily/hottest-multifamily-markets-for-2011.aspx#

Can we get at least one building with a spire. I'm all for designing a building to the street level but a spire sure would add to our skyline.

Dominique (Ch2) was on "The Event" last night.

True -another UH grad. Speaking of UH Cougars, there is Jim Parsons who is on every week on the "Big Bang Theory" and Jim Nance who is on CBS all the time.

Not really a 'Houston Sighting' bur Star Jones, a graduate of UH's Law Program is a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice.

Ha. Right

I think the most encouraging part of that article is that the tower is 91% leased.

So, I'm guessing One Park Place is doing well proving there is a demand for residential downtown.

This may actually be our best bet because there may be a glut in downtown office towers the next 5-10 years. It would be nice to see residential towers pick up the pace downtown because with residential comes new needs- retail, restaurants, and other people places. Downtown has the chance to make tremendous growth if it does it right!

Houston parks really ought to have Misting Stations. Hit the button and get 30 seconds of mist, especially for those really hot humid days. Just a thought lol

Those would actually make it more humid. Misting Stations work best in hot arid cities like Vegas or Phoenix which is lacking moisture. They should add col air station to simulate a cool breeze on a hot humid day.

Channel 2 promised that we'd see scenes of Houston in the new series "Chase", so I watched it last night.

There was a two-second helicopter shot of the skyline and part of the 4th Ward. If there were other shots identifiably of Houston, I missed them.

It's filmed in Dallas. They show the flyovers over downtown to indicate they are in their Houston office but most of the street scenes are Dallas. They do, however, talk about Houston neighborhoods a bunch.

Is it too much to hope that Houston might get a true alternative rock station? The Buzz is really a best of the 90's station.

This exactly. When the buzz plays songs that are nearing 20 years old it really starts to feel like the next generation classic rock station.

LCD Soundsystem music video filmed in Houston

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5gQidrzojU

I watched 3 of the new shows taped in and about Texas (My Generation, Lonestar, and Chase). I think they are all good. I really like My Generation which is taped in Austin, its a really good show. I don't know why they insisted on basing Chase in Houston when it could has just as easily been set in Dallas. And in Lonestar its obvious that its Dallas when they are in the high rise and they show out the window. Back to Chase though, I think the producers need to pay a little more attention to detail. For instance the team took a trip to Las Vegas, when they got there they brought out all of these vehicles which had Nevada plates, but in the windshield you could see the Texas inspection and registration stickers. Also while they were riding around Las Vegas it was all green with trees and a southern feel to it not a desert feel. I hope they all can survive though. TEXAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I did watch this week's episode of Chase so I think I can comment on your concern. I do know that the truck that the main villain was in had the Texas stickers because he drove it from Texas to Arizona and then Nevada. I'm not sure if the other cars had Nevada or Texas stickers. I do agree with your detail comment- I think when they were in Dallas they had a police car int he background that clearly said "Round Rock Police" and when they were in Galveston they showed a wooded environment from what looks like North Houston as compared to Galveston. they missed an opportunity here to show the island. I also wonder why they insist on making Texans look like Dixie South Easterners instead of well Texans. Also they had some mexicans which they refer to as 'latinos' but it seems like the dialect they were speaking was more mexican-californian english instead of mexican-texan english. I wonder how many people outside of Texas would pick up on these though?

Lonestar has been canceled so that one is gone but let's hope Chase improves and improves quickly.

With all the waiting, it looks like Regent Square may find itself with more difficulty in attracting residents if this projects goes up first.

New 28 Story Tower Planned; sister tower later.

http://www.bisnow.com/houston_commercial_real_estate_news_story.php?p=10181

^^^^^

Can't ask for more of a 'money shot of downtown' than what is shown in that commercial. Good find

Isn't ground breaking (or has been broken) for the Islamic Center on the old Robinson Warehouse site? Or maybe it's the bridge..

edit: wait - you started that thread

Ha.... I guess I did. I remember that article and I wonder if they are starting to build.

Looks like activity is starting at this location. Anyone have any news on what is going up?

As I was reading the following article I was thinking about this project. Does anyone have any updates on it? Hopefully this is the project that Hines is referring to as he talks about a vibrant downtown. Hines really needs to tackle a mix use project and do it well to validate these sentiments. His key points are in bold.

Beacon of Inspiration

For more than 50 years, Gerald Hines has been a leading light in

real estate development

Growing up during the Great Depression in Gary, Ind., where his father worked in what was then one of the world's largest steel plants, Gerald Hines could see the skyline of Chicago, just two dozen miles up the curving shoreline of Lake Michigan. Once, on a family trip into the Windy City, the young Hines saw the famous Wrigley Building, its top lit with a great beacon visible from miles around. "I said to myself, some day I'd like to build one of those," he recalls.

And build he did. His Houston-based holding company, known as Hines, has developed skyscrapers and mixed-use projects across the United States and throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Hines still serves as chairman of the 53-year-old company he founded, which controls real estate assets — including publicly traded investment vehicles called REITs — valued at more than $25 billion.

Even with his Texas-sized success, however, Hines is self-effacing, the opposite of a flamboyant mogul like Donald Trump. Trained as an engineer, Hines is more at home with a slide rule than a microphone. He has commissioned some of the world's top architects, most notably Philip Johnson — himself a flashy architectural provocateur — as well as Cesar Pelli, I. M. Pei, Robert A. M. Stern, and William Pedersen, among others.

"Hines recognizes both the civic and monetary value of great architecture," says Stephen Fox, a Houston architectural historian. "And his training as an engineer means he understands the details of building."

After serving in the Army during World War II and then graduating from Purdue University, Hines accepted a job in Houston in the late 1940s — just as a postwar boom, driven by oil, was gathering speed in the city. "It was the frontier, the place where things were happening," he says.

Hines' idea for conquering this frontier was to develop real estate. He opened a small office in 1957, but his breakout moment came in the mid-1960s when land about seven miles southwest of downtown Houston became available for a shopping mall. Architect Gyo Obata, of Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, was already working with retailing legend Stanley Marcus on a new department store for the site. Hines convinced Marcus to make the new Neiman-Marcus store an anchor tenant for what would become The Galleria Houston, a development that had a profound impact on American retailing.

"We used the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II as the model," Obata recalls, referring to the legendary 19th-century glass-covered shopping and commercial arcade in Milan, Italy, widely considered one of the world's great interior spaces.

Opened in 1970, The Galleria Houston was an instant hit, not only with shoppers, but also with aficionados of great architecture. It featured a skylight that spanned the entire central space, just like its namesake in Milan, as well as cafés, restaurants, elegant shops, and a central skating rink. To this day it forms the hub of the Galleria/Post Oak area, often called Houston's second downtown.

Beginning in the 1970s, Hines collaborated with the some of world's top skyscraper architects. Philip Johnson designed the twin-towered trapezoidal Pennzoil Place, hailed by the New York Times as a "dramatic and beautiful and important building." By the mid-1980s, Hines was commissioning buildings in Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Miami. In the 1990s, his company began expanding into Europe and Asia.

Hines turned over the reins to his son, Jeffrey C. Hines, who became president in 1990 and took on the additional title of CEO in 2008. While maintaining Houston as his home base, these days the senior Hines also spends time in homes in London and Cap d'Antibes, in the south of France. He remains passionately involved in Houston life. He endowed the Gerald Hines School of Architecture at the University of Houston and a professorship in real estate development at Rice University. He also uses his substantial local influence to promote a more urban and sustainable downtown for the Bayou City.

"Houston is going to be more of a 24-hour place," he predicts. "A downtown that closes at 6 p.m. is awful."

Hines is proud that most of the buildings he's developed remain in the company's portfolio. He expresses a special fondness for Williams Tower, part of the Galleria complex and the tallest building in Houston outside downtown. When conceiving the tower, Hines and architect Johnson chose to place a shining beacon at the apex — similar to the one on the Wrigley Building beacon in Chicago, which had inspired Hines decades before.

"Our beacon is visible from miles around," Hines says proudly.

— James McCown

citykid is right though, there are a few select areas where Houston builds for aesthetics. The Galleria is one, but downtown, the city's main centerpiece could do a better job.

Are you serious?

You think that Uptown and the Galleria area is aesthetically pleasing.

I'd take downtown with Discovery Green, it's historic buildings, sports and theater districts and walkable streets over a big clumpy mall with a mini freeway called Westheimer and unbearable traffic any day of the week.