HoustonIsHome

Well Houston is not SF.

And no one is advocating reducing supply.

In fact I am advocating increasing supply by leaving existing supply in tact and adding new luxurious supply.

The existing luxurious supply should,  as you say try to be more competitive by dropping price, but not as competitive as the existing lower priced units that keep getting demolished in favor of ultra luxury units.

I hope so too. 

Timeless beauty

Is been a million years since it was proposed and yet this building would still look awesome if built today. 

What are the other towers in this rendering? 

Would you really need a tremendous number of parking spots with a location like Hermann? A drivers paradise like KBR would definitely need tons of lots, but Hermann does seem to manage lots of visitors by having more options via both cars and Public Transit.

18 hours ago, Angostura said:

 

 

- Relatively new

- In a desirable location

- Reasonably priced

 

...you can (at most) pick two of these.

 

 

It sometimes doesn't seem this way when cheaper units are replaced by more expensive units on a given site, but for the overall market, as long as the number of units on the site goes up (which it almost always does), the net effect is to lower prices relative to where they otherwise would have been. For a given demand, increased supply reduces the market-clearing price.

 

Most "affordable housing" isn't comprised of new-build units. Rather, it's previously un-affordable housing that has come down in price.

 

W/r/t commute, a lot of reasonable priced housing can be had in the Houston "donut" (the area between 610 and 8), which is within a 20-30 minute commute to a lot of job centers.

 

Let me respectfully disagree with you here. 

I have seen Houston  rental stock rise by the 10s of thousands in the last few years and the prices have steadily risen.

This is largely due to new arrivals accustomed to paying higher rents in California and certain east coast states.

I think the balance would be preserved if the affordable rents were left to coexist with the newer and more expensive residences.

But if you create new residences on vacant or abandoned property AND on already occupied AND we continue to receive new residents accustomed to passing higher rents, what makes you think the new builds will lower prices? 

These new apartments are often better looking than what was there before

 These new apartments are often better use of the the land in terms of increasing density.

However it is not sustainable to keep eliminating the lower price point units and creating these fantastic but Uber expensive units.

The city will continue to densify if we add to what we have. 

Not everyone can afford a $2000 a month unit. In fact the bulk of our city can only afford maybe $600  to $1000

Taking away housing for the 75% to build for the 25% will result in the 75% breaking for the burbs. Now guess what is going to follow the people? The jobs, entertainment and retail.  And guess what that does to our metro? It makes it even more spread out as people seek cheap housing and the service industry chase them. 

We need to increase density by maintaining the crappy but affordable housing that we currently have And build new luxurious housing. We need both to keep the city growing.

Perfect example is Dallas from 2000 to 2010. Dallas built so many new developments all the census estimates predicted that the city grew by hundreds of thousands of people based on the density of all the new luxurious builds.  But what they didn't take into account was that these new units were created by displacing many many low income residents. 

Houston is a huge city by the land area. We have enough space for both. I wouldn't be surprised if by the next census we join Dallas in having all these new buildings but yet out rate of growth drops from hundreds of thousands a decade to only a few thousand a decade.

7 hours ago, monarch said:

^^^ another solid HAROLD FARB design... and similar color scheme as the montrose project.

And similarly, highly priced.

Makes me almost want someone to build a huge ugly box building but with cheap units. 

Our service industry residents are going to have a hell of a commute in the next few decades if middle income units keep getting demolished to build higher priced ones. 

I don't think the garage takes away from tower.  I think it looks like a continuation of the building.  Looks like a gun standing on its butt

Hines isn't getting younger.

If his goal is to leave the ultimate landmark them he won't be sitting on this for long. 

But let's face. People keep boosting him like everything he does he does for the city. Now I do admit, that if you asked 10 people what are the most impresdive landmarks in our city, probably 9 out of those 10 would give a Hines building because he dominates our skyline: Chase, BOA, Galleria/Williams tower,  Shell, Calpine,  609 Main, BG group place, etc. But Hines, like every other company out there is out there for the $$$. 

Hines group will ask themselves two things when deciding what to do with this lot:

How can we maximize profits, and

How can we maintain our brand.

Now, the city getting a tower to br as g about may still happen,  but I doubt Hines goes out there with a mind on giving the city something to be proud of.

609 Main is a nice state of the art tower not because Hines thought it would please this city, it is a nice state of the at tower because Hines knows that he could sell it. 

If Hines determines that the best bet is to build a 25 floor safe looking building on this lot in 12 years then that's what we are going to get. 

A couple of residential buildings this size in Midtown east of main would make such a difference

Looks like the downtown days in with replaced windows. 

The was a hose running from the building out to the curb on the Travis side. Water was coming from it. Looks like they were draining something

39 minutes ago, UtterlyUrban said:

If we had mad more of an effort, this land would have had something on it and this building may not have been built at all, no?

That isn't necessarily true. The monteleone was an expansion.  I said maintain the older crop of buildings,  not never alter them.

The Monteleone had outgrown it's space so they built a larger building.  But the stipulations was that what goes up needs to match or surpass what comes down.

The goal of historic preservation is not to stifle development. The goal is to maintain character.  You can build a completely new building and come out of it with even more character than before. The Monteleone is a great example of that. 

It may seem counterproductive to maximizing profits by placing limits on development/demolition,  but in the case of Rue Royale the positives outweigh the negatives. That street commands some of the highest retail lease prices.

With nothing around to match, or  aspire to surpass then we get embassy suites surrounded by asphalt lots.

If we had made more of an effort to maintain more of the older crop of buildings maybe this one would have been forced to be more ornate.  Kind of like the hotel Monteleone reno.

Still mad at you Lancaster. 

On 6/26/2016 at 11:00 AM, intencity77 said:

Love, LOVE the idea of bringing more people to live downtown but I'm not liking this building. Too bulky, too beige, too boxy. Reminds me of a modernized version of the unattractive 2016 Main building. At least Hines nearby residential tower will balance things out aesthetically speaking. 

I disagree.  It is nothing to shout about,  but I don't think it resembles 2016 main. To me it looks more attractive in person.

Aris is a much more attractive building and does fit it better with MS, while at the same time looking more modern,  but I think this building is more safe than unattractive.  Now the embassy suites and the Hampton/homeward suites around Discovery Green,  those are unattractive buildings

I would do love to do a Riverside Reno.

Wish I could afford one

Yep

On a block between 4 icons

Our tallest- Chase

Our most ornate- Esperson

Our most awarded- Pennzoil

One of the most iconic- Gulf

You would we would have gotten something spectacular. 

Then again, I guess you can can it a spectacular disappointment

On 6/21/2016 at 11:58 AM, wxman said:

Is it just me or is this building turning out to be far more dominating than I thought it would be? This is like the Heritage Plaza of this building cycle....sort of the last big hooray before all the cranes come down on this cycle.

I feel that way too.

Major influence on our skyline.

The height ofb the proposed international tower would have made a big difference in our skyline too. Wish we had gotten both this cycle

Love it. Only thing I would change:

That huge glass around the  entrance should be repeated all throughout the ground floor. 

I like the  top part of the building but the podium is too fortress-like. Too unwelcoming. 

Looks kinda like something that would house juvenile delinquents.

Looks totally ridiculous next to chase. 

What is it? A step stool?

On 4/6/2016 at 4:56 PM, Sunstar said:

Not to mention the fact that there's already a giant parking lot right next to this location by Market Square. 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but other than the Chronicle, Chase and Exxon, isn't every last building on the east frontage of Milam between market square and the Days Inn a parking garage? 

I know there are some on the Travis side,  but Milam is pretty much all parking garage other than Chase, Chronicle and Exxon.

With the chronicle building and Houston club gone chase and Exxon with be the only non parking building on the left side of Milam from Market Square ask the way down to The Days Inn.

There is the International surface lot, then the Chronicle  surface parking, then Chase, then Skanska garage, then Esperson Garage, then garage,  then garage then garage .... all the way down to Bell where the is surface parking on one side and Exxon on the other.

Kind of sad that there are basically only two non parking buildings fronting that side of Milam. 

The more sq footage taken out from the commercial side and converted to hotel or residential,  then the lower our vacancy rate for office space which gives us more chances for new commercial building.

It's a win win.

Preservationists get to keep our history and modernist get new shiny buildings. 

I disagree Monarch. 

The Galleria has already been a shinning beacon of retail awesomeness. 

It became a standard that many malls copied.

I was just afraid that renovations alone would not be enough to keep it awesome

21 hours ago, BigFootsSocks said:

Yes, a tower of luxury for the few; that's what Houston needs

I consider myself one of the biggest cheerleader of affordable housing.

In order for us to continue growing rapidly we need more affordable developments.

But for me hotels are a different story. 

I am excited for glitzy brands and glitzy new buildings. 

The galleria has been showing its age the last ten years or so. This will be a change big enough to keep the galleria in the premiere league. I was scared a bit for it with all the awesomeness going on in ROD, but with all the minor improvements like SAKs and now this,  I  believe that both ROD and the galleria will be just fine. 

Apart from HCC what is there in East Mid Town to attract Houstonians who do not live there to visit the area? 

I know there was an effort recently to revitalize Baldwin park but I have not been there in over 10 years so I don't know the vibe around that park.

If UH was in HCCs location downtown and the university (and of course Midtown) would have a totally different feel. 

Our University trifecta clustered around TMC is close to Downtown by Houston standards, but too far for the feel to carry. Don't get me wrong, the whole UH, TSU, Rice, TMC area is one of the best things about our city. However,  the devide between our urban activity clusters are either physically really wide or mentally wide. While at Rice they told us try to stay away from the areas east of TMC.

Can you imagine how campus life would feel if residents benefitted more from the entertainment and retail in west midtown?  Conversely,  can you imagine how much more lively Midtown would feel if it benefit from the college town feel of 3 major schools and a 100,000 person medical center.?

UH is less of a commuter school now because of the additional on campus residents,  but it still feels like a commuter school because of the fortress type set up.

Pardon my ramble but midtown location is the best in Texas. It is too good not to have a major draw like a university,  a major attraction like an aquarium,  zoo, collection of museums,  etc

The rail makes it convenient,  but people like stumbling from one thing to the other. Not going from isolated island to isolated island