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rechlin

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Everything posted by rechlin

  1. rechlin
    Amazing how they managed to spell his name wrong every time (it's Liu, not Lui). I guess we'll have to see how POST Houston turns out, which could potentially be a major development (even though I realize it's been cut back a bit from the original design), but if he does a good job with that, maybe we can have better hopes for the Coca-Cola facility.
  2. rechlin
    I did the IAH-PEK trip last year, and it was definitely a disappointment. The IFE system was worse than what Turkish was using way back in 2013, and the food was mediocre at best (no better than United, and that says a lot). I wish we had a different nonstop option to China. The only good thing is Air China still does 9 across in coach on a 777 instead of 10 across like some of the penny-pinching carriers. The only other time I flew to PEK was on a 747 via Northwest so that's too long ago to be comparable. Hopefully we'll see a nonstop route to Shanghai in the future as an alternative, as I would take that next time I go to China.
  3. rechlin
    I used a webcam to record the construction of the existing tower, along with the other buildings nearby, from 2015 to the present. I still haven't gotten around to making the timelapse video (over 200,000 three-megapixel images). Now the Hampton/Homewood blocks most of my view of the roof of the tower, but I am expecting to relocate 3 floors higher in July, which should give a better view, so if the construction doesn't start until then I should be able to get the construction progress of the roof preparations for the hotel in my webcam.
  4. rechlin
    The rendering pretty clearly shows the W hotel on top of the tower, not the garage. The amenities deck is on top of the front part of the tower and the W hotel is on top of the back part of the tower. None appears to be on top of the garage. And I watched them build that garage; there is no way that garage is supporting a hotel like that. So no, I am pretty sure you are incorrect. Yes, a little bit of the garage is incorporated into the existing tower, but I'm not counting that since that's well below the beginning of the hotel.
  5. rechlin
    No, the article is misleading. The Houston First building is attached to a parking garage. The hotel will be on top of the Houston First building, not its attached parking garage.
  6. rechlin
    Scaffolding is now down and the sidewalk is reopened, though the slipcover is still removed from much of the "north" side:
  7. rechlin
    You're not accounting for unexpectedly high HVAC costs. It will probably look something like this when it's done:
  8. rechlin
    No shutdown of consequence would be necessary to add a new station between Wheeler and Museum District. Remember, Central Station Main was added without any significant shutdown (occasional shutdowns with bus bridges at off-peak times and that's it). That said, although the 1000 meter gap between Wheeler and Museum District is bigger than the typical 400-800 meter gaps in Midtown, Downtown, and the TMC, it's in line with the spacing of the rest of the MetroRail system. And having stops delays the already slow train, meaning you would need a lot of people getting on and off before a stop becomes more than just an annoyance. So I think a lot more than just this Museo Plaza development will have to be completed before another stop would be justified.
  9. rechlin
    The title of this thread is a bit misleading by saying it's in Bellaire. It seems that it's actually in Alief. Not only is it not anywhere near the city of Bellaire, but it's a full quarter of a mile from even the street of Bellaire Boulevard. Could we get that corrected?
  10. rechlin
    And before it was called the Galleria Area, it was called the Magic Circle.
  11. rechlin
    The condition of the original façade looks better than I feared but it's still far worse than the Main Street Food Store building at 1101 Main, which was reportedly already hard to justify restoring. It appears the columns between the windowed sections were totally destroyed. But maybe we'll get lucky -- I'd love to see that 1929 façade back.
  12. rechlin
    It looks like they finished the interiors before installing the windows. Isn't that risky, in case of a storm blowing rain in?
  13. rechlin
    It already has. For quite a few months, about 8-10 spots have been reserved for this. The new construction just makes it so they can go out a separate door instead of the main door, potentially speeding up the curbside pickup. The parking situation is why I usually walk to this grocery store rather than drive.
  14. rechlin
    The building with Conservatory and Prohibition is now on the market. Wonder if the owner is wanting to get out now that it lost two of its biggest tenants? https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/1004-Prairie-St-Houston-TX/13441245/
  15. rechlin
  16. rechlin
    They took the exact same approach when renovating Buffalo Bayou west of downtown several years ago. They hammered them all the way into the ground so you can't see them anymore. I'm sure the same will be done here.
  17. rechlin
    Yes, I definitely see some very minor changes in Segment 3, but not much (I didn't look at the other segments). The ROW for IH-69 under Montrose is now narrower so they won't have to rebuilt the already-new Montrose bridge. Slightly less of the 527 spur will be rebuilt. The ramp from Hamilton to 288 southbound is reconfigured. The ramp from IH-45 southbound to IH-10 westbound is slightly shifted. The Sabine Street bridge is no longer being shown as being rebuilt. Also, the bridges over the freeways now all show wide sidewalks that weren't indicated before, which mostly doesn't seem to affect much except for a slight reconfiguration of Allen Parkway at the 45 spur, along with a new sidewalk going along the spur there too.
  18. rechlin
    The new plan still shows the train tracks by the jail and UHD. I wonder if the plan to move those is dead?
  19. rechlin
    The Starbucks was open for special guests today and will be open to the public tomorrow, December 14.
  20. rechlin
    LEDs are good but not that good. With equal brightness on lights that you'd typically see for lighting (the equivalent of 15 to 150 watt incandescent bulbs), you normally see about 1/6 to 1/7 the electricity usage for LEDs. Not "almost nothing", but still a large savings. That's because incandescent bulbs are typically around 15 lumens per watt, whereas LEDs are typically closer to 100 lumens per watt. Now, I realize you are talking about lower wattage decorative lights, which can be a bit more efficient in LED form, but in my experience, bulbs like the 0.1 watt C9 ones you linked are quite a bit dimmer than the 7 watt incandescent C9s when you get the wattage that low. C9 LED bulbs of brightness comparable to that of 7 watt incandescents still use over half a watt and sometimes closer to a watt, which is again approaching 1/7 (but perhaps a bit better) of what incandescents use.
  21. rechlin
    No, construction hasn't started yet on Buffalo Speedway. This is Greenbriar.
  22. rechlin
    Pre-construction contract signed with Kiewit. Price has now jumped up to $20 billion. https://www.constructiondive.com/news/texas-central-signs-preconstruction-contract-with-kiewit-firm-for-20b-bull/568072/
  23. rechlin
  24. rechlin
    Looks almost done. All the shelves are in there, too, but nothing is on them yet:
  25. rechlin
    I think the concern is the cost of collecting the fares. As the article said, fares only cover 11% of the operating costs of Metro (and an even lower percentage, as I recall in the 7%-9% range, of total costs). And spending $100m on a fare collection system (probably with a lifespan of no more than 20 years given past experience) seems like a lot if they are only collecting $70m per year. That said, I acknowledge the need to prevent homeless from camping out on the buses and trains, which would be much harder if fares were eliminated. Surely there is a solution, but I can't think of a good one. And the issue of needing to make the Metro Lift service free also to prevent violating federal law poses an additional problem. Our transit system is already one of the cheapest in the country (less than $1.14 effective price for 3 hours of unlimited rides, after amortizing the free rides on the Q card, for full fare, and something like half that for discounted fares), so its cost is not a barrier to entry for many other than the homeless.
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