rechlin

If I had never seen the original design, I would be ecstatic about this.  The new design isn't bad; in fact, it's better than a lot of buildings being built now.  It's only because the original design was so wild that I'm disappointed, because the new design is certainly far less interesting that the original.

It's times like this that I just wish they'd never shared the original rendering.  I think we'd all be a lot happier right now if it had been kept under wraps.

They've had a tree on the roof of the newer Texaco tower for a while now.  At first I thought it was to indicate that something was topped out (strange since it's been topped out for the better part of a century!), but after seeing the tinsel on it, it may well have just been a Christmas tree!  Click for a wider view:

Also, I've noticed this last week they've had a whole lot of activity on the roof.  First they finally replaced the brick on the corner of the mechanical penthouse that had been removed months ago, then they were removing a lot of large objects (part of the elevator mechanicals maybe?) from it with the crane, and now they have a bunch of guys on top of the mechanical penthouse removing a lot of debris.

So, if my count is right, you've got five under construction projects in view without so much as turning your head, all of which will be well along if/when Six Houston shows up to block the view of a couple of them.  

 

Cool.  

Yes, it's pretty fun!

Actually if you look closely, you can already see the following in the webcam:

• HSPVA digging
• Hampton Inn/Homewood Suites
• George R Brown parking garage prep work and eventually renovation
• Marriott Marquis
• Texaco renovation
• 500 Crawford apartments
• EaDo Station apartments (or at least the crane for it)

And once construction becomes more visible, you should see:

• Nau Center (all you can see so far is the cover over the locomotive)
• Incarnate Word parking garage

And if they ever build them, you should see:

• Block 98 residential high-rise
• 6 Houston Center
• Alexan Downtown (if it is tall enough)

And if I turn the webcam slightly to the left, once it gets tall enough, you should see:

• Catalyst apartments

BigFootsSocks,

The homeless population is finally nowhere near the majority downtown.  The city has done a decent job of relocating some of the homeless, and the population of paying residents downtown has been gradually increasing.

And now I'd say the police (thanks to not properly cleaning up after their horses) contribute more excrement to downtown streets than the homeless.

houstontexasjack,

Fracked wells typically produce for 6 months to 2 years before the production slows to a trickle.  So right now it's mostly the oilfield service companies that are hurt, but within a couple years the production companies will start losing even more revenue, too, if they don't resume drilling.

But from what I've read, OPEC is more interested in hurting Russia than the US.  Plus, seeing that several OPEC members (particularly Iran and Venezuela) are in serious pain as a result of lower oil prices, with a little luck this drop won't last that long.

Somehow we survived $40 oil in the Great Recession, though, and supposedly the wells in North Dakota are now mostly still profitable at $45 (and some still profitable at $30), so hopefully there will be no overreactions.

It's not like they aren't working.  All day long they have vehicles driving around and doing things, and a fairly steady line of concrete trucks have been going to the site.  I know it doesn't look like they are making a lot of progress, but they are certainly active.  I guess what they are doing is just not very visible.

Does anyone know what those three things that look like drilling rigs are doing?  They've been there for weeks.

I find it interesting that we still can see no signs of any tunnel connections.  The floor plans released on the web site don't show the tunnel level (perhaps intentionally?), either.  I wonder if they are still trying to make arrangements for how to connect it to the tunnel system?  Or maybe they punch the hole through the wall later in the construction timeline?

According to their website at http://www.greatsouthwestbldg.com/they have a bunch of vacancies but still seem to be at least somewhat occupied.  And Irma's Southwest restaurant is on the ground floor.

I have the webcam going again.  Thanks for your patience.  Let's hope it stays up longer this time!

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

Sorry, it looks like they reset the network and because the wifi uses a captive portal, I can't log the phone back in to the network unless I'm physically there.  So unless I can get someone to reset it in my absence, it will be down until I return next week.

Meanwhile, a differing opinion: Houston may benefit from lower oil prices. The sweet spot is between $55 and $90 a barrel. Chevron Phillips is planning a second major expansion at Bayport, and they need cheap oil...

 

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2014/11/why-lower-oil-prices-are-good-for-houston/

I'm not sure if I can trust anything that says that downstream is exploration and production.  No, that is upstream.

Photos from today.  Ground floor is there now, and they are pouring the elevator shafts above ground now (click to embiggen):

Here's a photo of the wood framing that Nate99 noticed (click for bigger view):

I had lunch there about a week and a half ago (about 2x the price it would have been elsewhere, but about what I expected, and the food was very good) and sat right by one of the exposed steel beams.  It definitely looked very cool.  I like what they've done with the building.  The tunnel level is quite nice, too, with some large meeting rooms and an attractive floor.  They really did an excellent job on the building.  Still, it's a bit disconcerting how many bathtubs I can see at any given time from my building (my coworkers already have some interesting stories of what they've seen of guests who forget to close the window shade in the bathroom in the morning).

Yes.  The window to the left is the correct view, but the window to the right is pointing about 90 degrees off (it's looking at BG Group Place from the wrong angle).  But this is normal for this kind of rendering so I don't know why it really matters.  It's just an approximation of the view.

Just checked the windows.  Pennzoil Place still has 11 boarded up windows, JP Morgan Chase Building has 2, and Esperson has 1.  And not only does the Houston Club garage have a giant gash in the top, but it has some caving in of the cinder block wall on lower levels, too.  Guess they decided to have it fall towards the garage that is about to be scrapped than the other nearby buildings where damage would be more of a problem.

Houston19514, I already mentioned that yesterday, along with a photo. They've already boarded them up this morning, though.

The rumbling of the windows where I was (811 Main St) was extremely intense as the explosives went off.

Wish they had done it at 7:15 instead of 7:00.  It was just too dark for good photos.  I did get video which I will upload soon.

It knocked out at least a half-dozen windows in Pennzoil Place.  If they put any little round stickers on them, they are sure to be gone now!

Click on any of the photos for a larger view; the third one shows the carnage.

That's not a foundation.  That looks like garage floor B1 to me (floor B2 was the one below it).  Next step is the ground floor, and then we'll be going vertical!

They've been making good progress excavating the other half of the block (where the remainder of the garage will go), too.

Looks like they are doing a 25 block exclusion zone:

It's too bad those renderings are 12 years old.  I really wonder what the current plan is.  Hopefully they haven't changed things!