Wow, what a total transformation.  I'm not sure how I feel about the clashing architectural styles between old and new, but this should be great for downtown.

I like how they are taking away parts of the 4HC parking garage to improve street presence with GFR, and the addition of extra outdoor patios will be great.  So many times I want to eat outside, only to find that all the tables on the existing 2HC rooftop deck are taken.  I'm really liking how vast areas of useless concrete in the existing site plan are being replaced with greenery, buildings, or dining areas.  Mobility appears to be vastly improved too, with better walkways and more stairs/escalators in ideal locations.

Another small grocer is great for downtown, too; hopefully it can fill in gaps left by the existing Phoenicia across the street.

The site plans show 8 rooms in the Entertainment area marked as "theaters".  They are relatively small, though, with only a couple dozen seats per theater -- I wonder if this is going to be some kind of small upscale niche movie theater like iPic?

My only real disappointment is the dominance of "concepts" and "laboratories" in the food hall.  People downtown don't want "concepts" (which to me implies something that's not fully thought out and probably will close in a few months), they want consistent, reliable places to eat, especially where they can get something quick and cheap (there's no shortage of fancier places).  Seems like there's no room for a place like Doozo anymore, which is far more than just a concept, and instead just a very popular place for affordable food.

11 hours ago, houstontexasjack said:

 

There’s not much extra connectivity that’s lost by not extending Blodgett to Main. 
 

Actually that is used by all the buses that stop at the Wheeler Transit Center (5, 25 Westbound, 65, 152, 153) to get back onto Main to continue their routes.  Without Blodgett they would have to drive all the way down to Arbor Place, adding additional lights and delays to all those routes (though 5 and 65 would be less affected).  Most of those are heavily used routes; Metro would not be happy about that.

With Blodgett being removed here, I wonder what Metro will do.  From the renderings it seems the Wheeler Transit Center will be reconfigured, so maybe they will have the bus depot curve to the west to exit onto Main instead of Fannin?  But that would be an awfully tight hairpin turn for the buses, consider the cap park doesn't extend all the way to Main.  I really wonder if TxDOT thought this through.

Here's the current bus routes (25 is red, 152/153 is green, 65 is blue):

And here's what they would have to do if Blodgett is removed:

14 hours ago, hindesky said:

I don't know but it's a horrible looking building up close. Went by there about a month ago, it's in bad shape.

 

It reminded me of buildings you see of old Soviet era slum buildings.

Honestly, with just a good pressure washing it would probably look better than an unfortunate number of the hotels/apartments being built nowadays will look after the same 45 years.

16 hours ago, ekdrm2d1 said:

 

@Triton

 

Today I noticed [redacted] in two places! One on Briar Hollow near San Felipe and the other at Hanover Square on W. Dallas. 

 

Could you please stop giving him attention?  It will only encourage him if he sees this.

If that's the "value-engineered" version of The Allen, I'm happy.  Still looks unique and fairly interesting.  While a partially cantilevered building would be even cooler, we all know Houston can't support anything too architecturally daunting, so I'm pleased if this is what we can get.  Still wish they could have added the pedestrian bridge over Allen Parkway, though.

8 minutes ago, Urbannizer said:

Mixed-use development (need access to article)

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2019/06/13/site-of-104-year-old-houston-business-to-become.html?iana=hpmvp_hstn_news_headline

Quote

Site of 104-year-old Houston business to become mixed-use development

 

Real estate developer Texas Group is preparing to build a new mixed-use project on the site of one of Houston’s oldest businesses.

Texas Group Principal Danna Sivan said her firm is about three weeks away from closing on the property occupied by Southern Importers, which has provided theatrical supplies and costumes to the Houston community for the past 104 years. Southern Importers announced June 13 that it will cease operating from its shop at 4825 San Jacinto St. in Houston’s Museum District on June 29. The store is in the process of liquidating its inventory.

Sivan declined to comment on how much Texas Group is paying for the property or the cost of the mixed-used development. However, the Harris County Appraisal District has valued the land and the building at $1.7 million combined.

Sivan said the mixed-use project is still in the planning phase and that details about the mix of office, retail and multifamily residential space was not yet available. The firm is also in the process of hiring a team to handle general contracting, design and engineering for the project.

The property is being replatted, she said, “in order to tap into transit corridor ordinance benefits.”

Once those steps are completed, Sivan said Texas Group wants to break ground on the project as soon as possible.

“The Museum District is going through a transformation, and we are excited to partake in shaping the upcoming neighborhood,” Sivan said.

Southern Importers has been a fixture of the Houston performing arts scene for the past century. Founded in 1915, the company was originally located on the second floor of the former Prince Theater at 320 Fannin St. Four of the company’s five employees have worked for Southern Importers for more than four decades.

“To sustain a family business for more than 100 years is pretty amazing. There’s nothing I love more than hearing customers come in and say how much they have enjoyed coming to the store over the years,” third-generation owner Mickey Frost said.

The list of celebrities the company has worked with reads like a “Who’s Who?” of the 20th century pop culture scene. Southern Importers has provided props and costumes to stars such as Beyonce, Phyllis Diller, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, Gwen Verdon, Jo Anne Worley of "Laugh In," Tommy Tune, Patrick Swayze and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons.

Frost, 78, took over the store from his parents in 1975 after working on aeronautics and spacecraft projects for Virginia-based General Dynamics Corp. for 10 years. He earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Rice University.

“When my parents retired and I took over the store, it was before Halloween really took off as a big deal among adults,” Frost said. “We rode the crest of a wave for a good long while. But so much has changed in recent years.”

Internet retail shopping has taken a toll on Southern Importers' business and keeping the store open became “unsustainable,” Frost said.

Frost said he will miss working at Southern Importers but “the time has come” for it to close.

“We will be welcoming customers up to closing time on June 29,” he said. “So it’s a perfect time to come walk down memory lane with us and pick up some great bargains, too.”

1 hour ago, Houston19514 said:

No.  The angle is wrong for it to be from the roof of the Holiday Inn.  It has to have been taken from the roof of the former Days Inn/Heaven on Earth.

 

Edit:  Confirmed.  The post on Reddit says it was taken "From the Roof of the Old Days Inn."

No, not wrong.  The Days Inn was originally a Holiday Inn.

Yes, and I'd guess it was probably from October given that the Caydon tower still has the cranes up and isn't quite topped out yet.

Seen on reddit, posted by /u/west1974 (older photo though):

13 minutes ago, keaton said:

I've moved more to the north now in the Rice, so I can't see the whole block anymore but thinking about a livestream from my window. Any camera experts who can recommend a good one?

I've been very happy with the Amcrest 4 megapixel (halfway between full HD and 4K resolution) camera.  I use it with Blue Iris software which supports YouTube live streaming; I haven't checked to see whether you can do live streaming with cheaper/free software.  Best thing is they are designed in Houston (but built in China by Dahua); Amcrest is based out of the Energy Corridor.

This is the model I've used but they have both cheaper and more expensive models too.  It's currently $92.54 shipped including tax, after the 10% new customer discount:

https://amcrest.com/amcrest-ultrahd-4mp-dual-band-wifi-video-security-ip-camera-pt-black-ip4m-1051b.html

As an alternative, if you have an old cell phone you can set one up to stream to YouTube too.  That won't cost you anything, but the picture quality will be significantly worse.

Another alternative is what I did for my construction webcam.  It's also an old cell phone, but it takes still 3-megapixel photos every 5 minutes and uploads them to my server.  That has the added cost of needing to configure and maintain a server (or I suppose you could use your PC if you leave it on 24/7), and won't give you live video, but even cell phones as old as the 7-year-old Galaxy S2 that I use can take decent photos.  You can see its results here:

http://webcam.rechlin.net/811main/

53 minutes ago, CaptainJilliams said:

While I would love to see new imagery, if it's going to take this long to update I would rather have them update it in 2023 or 24 so that we see developments like Texas Tower, the Preston, and Arise Post Oak done by then.

Looking at the area inside the loop, we already have new imagery (from February 2019) if you turn off "Globe" mode in Google Maps, to disable the 3D view.  But yes, the 3D view is quite old, from about February 2015.

I am perplexed that this is still showing the railroad going through the north edge of downtown under UHD and the northern railroad in the 6th ward (outlined in purple below).  I was under the impression they were going to be tearing down the "Be Someone" bridge and realigning it to make the northern branch of the railroad go down to the southern branch (drawn in orange below), which would also make the northern canal to White Oak bayou possible.  Has that been canceled?  If not, has nobody told TxDOT?

Thread and renderings here:

17 hours ago, X.R. said:

Well, it looks like the architect finally has a plan. Think it looks great but the sidewalk seems a bit skinny.

 

It's skinny but not quite as skinny as it looks from the concrete.  It seems they will be flanking the sidewalk on both sides with brick, so that will probably add a good 8 inches to each side.  Still, it will be narrower than downtown sidewalks, but it will be wider than those installed in residential areas.

Amusing they are using 15-year-old cars in their renderings, but I suppose that's more realistic than the supercars seen in some others' renderings.

The Chronicle and ABC13 are reporting that it started with a car fire, but from the photos of the damage it looks to me like that equipment next to the car (generator or electrical box) probably started on fire first, and then it may have spread to the cars, as KPRC2 reported.  Strange that both seem equally certain about their contradictory reporting, though.

I agree this would be fantastic, if it goes down Center as @Avossos said, instead of Washington.  There are no good east-west alternative roads to Washington, so if the rail went down that, it would slow down traffic (bicycle, automotive, etc) way too much.  It's OK that rail went down Main because drivers and cyclists can always take roads like Travis and Fannin.  But with Washington, there is no good alternative.

And yes, it should ultimately go at least to Shepherd, and maybe all the way to Westcott, and then somehow eventually make it up to the Northwest Transit Center, perhaps via Old Katy Road.

1 hour ago, urbanize713 said:

 

I could not agree more. On the Travis St and Milam St sides they took what was otherwise a large sidewalk and made it tiny. Unsure how no one pointed that out. Wish them all the success but kind of hoping the City takes corrective action. It is especially bad on the Travis street side. Otherwise, I think it is a great addition and in my opinion turned out better than expected. 

I'm pretty sure they did it that way on the Travis side right by the garage to slow pedestrians as they approach the garage exit/entrance, to minimize the chance of a pedestrian getting run over by a car.  You don't want joggers going full speed by a blind exit (yes, motorists should drive slowly and pay attention to where they are going, but who are we kidding?  This is Houston, where even the Chief of Police runs over a pedestrian in a crosswalk downtown...).

On 5/21/2019 at 10:37 AM, Urbannizer said:

Subscribed article:

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2019/05/15/boutique-style-apartments-to-go-up-near-heights.html

Quote

Boutique-style apartments to go up near Heights Waterworks

 

A three-block stretch in the Heights will soon see another apartment project line its sidewalks.

 

Houston-based Urban Genesis plans to close next month on less than an acre near the corner of West 20th Street and Lawrence, a few blocks from Braun Enterprises’ Heights Waterworks redevelopment project.

 

The project, tentatively named Waterworks Highline, would be close to Phoenix-based Alliance Residential's Broadstone Waterworks apartments. About a block away, a new Greystar project could go up on a tract of land at 512 W. 20th St.

 

“This has been a target market for us,” said Matt Shafiezadeh, who oversees strategy and investments for the group. Urban Genesis selects small tracts of land for more boutique-style apartment buildings with fewer units in popular locations. The retail scene along West 19th Street in the Heights led Urban Genesis to factor in about 5,000 to 7,000 square feet of retail space within the project, something like a smaller-scale Heights Mercantile, he said.

 

As more high-end apartment projects go up in the Heights, Shafiezadeh sees a growing need for apartments that rent about $200 to $400 below the rents in competing apartment buildings. He estimates an average $1,300 monthly rent for an apartment about 650 to 700 square feet in size.

 

Shafiezadeh expects to close in June and break ground by the end of 2019, if all goes according to plan. The four-story building with about 80 to 100 units would be where four homes currently stand. The homes belong to the same owner, Shafiezadeh said.

 

Tommy Leblanc with Avison Young represented both the buyer and seller in the deal, he said. Dallas-based UD Architects will design the project and Cardinal Construction will be the contractor. A construction loan provider hasn’t been chosen.

2 minutes ago, Urbannizer said:

Calling on @rechlin, @CrockpotandGravel 🙂

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2019/05/21/renovations-at-high-profile-energy-corridor-site.html?iana=hpmvp_hstn_news_headline

Quote

Renovations at high-profile Energy Corridor site move ahead. But additional development might be on the way

 

Developer Dart Interests is moving forward with plans to reimagine a 35-acre Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) campus in west Houston, which was once to be the site of a $1 billion mixed-use development that promised to bring drastic changes to the city’s Energy Corridor.

 

The renovations underway at the Republic Square property’s existing 324,000-square-foot building are far smaller in scale than what its former owner announced four years ago. But Dart says it is already looking ahead to other mixed-use development opportunities for the property, which is located at 13501 Katy Freeway.

 

“We decided to focus on upgrading the existing building at this stage. But we’re already speaking with our design team about what else we could bring to the property to appeal to tenants in in-demand sectors and those that are going to be in-demand in the future,” said Randall Tuller, senior vice president at Dart (formerly Third Palm Capital).

 

Plans for Republic Square have gone through several iterations since it was purchased from Exxon Mobil in 2013 by Houston-based PM Realty Group and Greenwich, Connecticut-based Atlas USA Holdings for an undisclosed sum. Since then, ownership has transferred to Dart.

 

In 2015, PM Realty Group rolled out a plan for Republic Square that called for the construction of up to five office buildings with 2.6 million square feet of space, two full-service hotels and 800 apartment units. The plan also included 100,000 square feet of retail space, including a 35,000-square-foot high-end gym, a beer garden and restaurants. An existing conference center was to be revamped. That $1 billion project was scheduled to break ground in 2016.

 

But because energy prices took a hit around the same time, the project was scaled back significantly. PMRG and Atlas ended up selling the property to what was then Third Palm Capital, which initially planned to turn the existing building into a coworking space.

 

Tuller declined to disclose how much Third Palm, now Dart, paid for the property. But the adjoining parcels have been appraised at $84.2 million, according to Harris County Appraisal District records.

 

Tuller said plans for Republic Square evolved over time to be more multiuse in nature. It was decided that only the first floor would offer smaller coworking spaces, while the second and third floors would be reserved for larger tenants. The top floor of the building contains parking facilities.

 

The first phase of renovations on the existing building’s first floor is already underway, Tuller said, and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2019. The project’s first phase is focusing on the first floor’s lobby, conference rooms, fitness center and restrooms, as well as the landscaping around the building and the nearby lake, Tuller said. Upgrades to the building’s air-conditioning system, as well as its mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems have already been completed by Gilbane Construction, Tuller said.

 

Dart hopes to soon begin work on the second and third floors, Tuller said. Plans for those floors are still in the design phase.

 

Dart announced May 20 that it had tapped NAI Partners to provide property and construction management services at Republic Square. NAI Partners was hired to handle leasing at Republic Square in February.

 

Since then, nearly 35,000 square feet at Republic Square has been leased, and Tuller said there are potential deals for another 100,000 square feet in the pipeline.

 

“We’re presenting the property to tenants of all sizes, and we’re getting a lot of positive responses to the amenities it will soon offer,” Tuller said.

 

But Dart has not ruled out further development at Republic Square. Tuller said the company is working with Dallas-based architecture and engineering firm Huitt-Zollars to draft a new master plan for the property.

 

“We see a lot of opportunities for retail and multifamily development,” Tuller said. “Additional office space will also likely happen down the road.”

 

In fact, Tuller said that is part of the reason Dart hired NAI Partners to oversee the property. In June, NAI Partners hired office brokerage veteran Randy Nerren away from MetroNational, where he helped to provide landlord services for Houston’s Memorial City.

 

“We would like Republic Square to see some of the same kind of development as Memorial City on a smaller scale,” Tuller said.

5 minutes ago, iah77 said:

 

 

Why should the government be able to force you to develop something?

 

That's like taxing people who don't study for not "developing" the full potential of their mind lmao.

 

It doesn't seem like anyone is suggesting the government should force anyone to develop something.

The idea of property taxes being shifted to more land-based and less improvement-based is not a new concept, or an illiberal concept.  Land is scarce and finite; improvement is not.  Because taxes can be seen as a discouragement to do certain things, it makes sense that it's in the public interest to focus more on taxing the land than the improvement.  The Economist newspaper has advocated for this, too, as I recall.  To avoid vacant properties from increasing sprawl, which makes costs go up for everyone, some jurisdictions charge higher taxes for some vacant properties, too.  This is all a system of encouragement; nobody is forcing anything.

The Regent Square property has been a blight on central Houston for a long time now -- a giant fenced off field that is serving no use to anybody, aside from a small amount of vacant-land property taxes being paid.  Perhaps it would make sense for Texas to charge higher property tax rates on vacant or unused urban properties (like Regent Square and the old Holiday Inn downtown) to minimize blight and encourage investment.