HoustonIsHome

It's easier because they could purchase parking contracts to satisfy city requirements instead of building it's own. Also, people who live downtown still have cars. You say you can't imagine them driving much downtown, but you do know they leave downtown too right? Downtown residents do drive. So they do need places to park their car.

I think we have just begun to see parking garage construction. We have gained net parking, but we will also be getting more residents and more jobs will follow, which means more required parking until it levels out and downtown residents feel more comfortable not owning cars. I think we need like 10 to 20 more of these 15+ storey garages scattered around downtown to make it easier on new construction. That would have the added benefit of making surface parking less lucrative.

I agree, I love the new look of Central Square, but was always intrigued by the old version. In a weird way I appreciate a little bit of urban blight in a few locations. Makes a downtown feel lived in. Too much sterility is boring.

An awesome sign. So the market is there, we just need the right product

Did the previous building have structure issues? Was it unleaseable? I don't know much about this area. Trying to figure out the economics of demolishing a building and not sure about being able to deliver a replacement

I am of the opposite opinion. I would rather this building stay in its current state and evolve into some major retail option if the Dallas Corridor picks up as a shopping district than to demolish it in favor of a souless box which most likely be it's replacement.

I don't think these schools are battling for demographic. Tons of smart black kids out there to go around. (Although we would not hear the end of it if PV would try to build a campus here). What they are jostling for is prominence, research dollars and top people in academia. TSU is aiming to stay alive, UH is aiming to get on UT's standing, UT is aiming to expand its standing. TSU is not even a threat to UH, let alone UT. Conversely, UH is not much of a concern for TSU, so why would UT be? Let's face it TSU is not one of those Atlanta HBCUs. Young top AA's are not anxious to enter TSU, but eying UH as an equally exciting alternative. A School like UT would be their top choice, UH would be the school they will settle for and TSU would be their safety. Now there will be a lot of kids who are seeking the school culture that only HBCUs offer, but more often than not those are not the top tier students. For me TSU was never an option. I wanted to stay local. UH was an ok option for me applied to RICE as a long shot, was floored when I got in. I don't have anything against TSU, it's just not close to being a top tier option so of course won't be in much competition with top tier schools

Of course he is not going to be concerned. He is not in major competition from UT. They serve different markets. That's Like a speciality cup cake store concerned about a giant golden coral moving in across the street. They are competing for different buyers so they won't be worried. Now UH would be like Lubys.

I think what happened with me with this tower is that it was far along before they released a hi res rendering. Many of us was stand-ofish because we didn't know what to think. Because we didn't get wowed by a flashy rendering, we had little to be disappointed with.

You don't get it HTownman. Like it or not Athletics do have tangible benefits to schools. I am not that into sports, but I am fiercely loyal and competitive. I have not been to a rockets game in over 10 years, have not seen a texans game in years, the coogs, i know nothing about, but don't mess any of them. Even the owls. Heck, UHD doesn't even have teams but hey, if the gators were in something I would be behind. And I don't even like sports. Point is school spirit is alive and well in those that don't even pay attention to the games.

Is that the scientology building?

Less than a dozen schools in all of the US make a profit from athletics. Which camp would to like to be in? The big conference group that includes UT and A&M that get a net of $51M to -$15M as is the case of UT and A&M respectively, or would you rather be in the small conference group that get -$10M to -$100M as is the case with Rice and UH respectively? The money gets spent either way. That won't be changing. What might change is the conference UH gets placed in. And that has big implications for the school. I don't know about you but a net decrease in academic budget of 10M to me is much better than a net decrease of 100M. UH will do what it has to do to increase its image, and if it saves money doing that by being in a more lucrative conference then it is affront to the school if UT doesn't want them being in that conference. And to back track, yes, athletic do not directly contribute to fundraising unless you are UT or a handful of other schools, but it does impact school economics in terms of branding, national exposure and who chooses to go there. I worked with high school student for years from many schools. All the boys wanted to go to school in Oklahoma, Nebraska, etc. Not because these are wonderful places to be. They wanted to go there because of the sports programs. Now these are not the brightest bulbs of the pack, but still when your student body looks at their city's flagship university as a last result then we have an image problem. With the girls they wanted to be out of town to be away from parents, and that is typical with any high schooler in the country, but a good sports department does help with attracting students. I hate to say it, but for some UH is far from first choice. And lastly, yes it is good to be UT right now. No matter what the scores say, a 180M gross is hella good.

Are you kidding me?UT was number freaking 1 in the country for profits from longhorn merchandizing. UT has been #1 for a decade generating a billion http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9560094/texas-longhorns-again-top-merchandise-sales-list I dunno what drain you are talking about UT operating budget for football in 2013 was $27M, their ticket sales alone brought in $34M. Add in merchandizing, and other revenue and the total for that year was 109M. That's huge profits. http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/uts-football-program-is-the-most-profitable-in-the-country-by-a-lot/ Last year was even better for UT athletics, they made 180M. http://www.burntorangenation.com/2015/12/22/10642206/texas-longhorns-athletic-department-profits Like it or not, sports add prestige in more ways than one. And Conferences had a lot to do with it. Here is a quote from the link above: UT makes more on sports than some schools entire endowment. TSU endowment is only 50M. St Thomas is 80M. Houston Baptist is 90M.Another interesting factoid. From 2008 to 2014 UH transferred 106M from its academics department to athletics. During the same period UT did the opposite transferring 51M from its athletics department to its already swollen academic coffers. http://www.texastribune.org/2015/09/03/quest-top-tier-u-houston-spends-big-athletics/ It's good to be UT.

They didn't break any laws, but they did split with protocol. They would still need to go through the board to develop an in situation of higher learning, they would have had to go seek permission of they were using state funds, but there is nothing illegal about them purchasing property with their own funds

And a higher emphasis on graduates dor nit mean that the school is selective. As for Rice what do you mean punch above its weight? Rice is arguably the 2nd highest rank school in the south. It's ranked higher than Emory, a bit higher than Tulane and way higher than Vanderbilt. The SAT scores is but one metric and can't be looked at by itself. Doesn't UTD have higher average SAT scores than UT Austin and A&M? UTD works that metric, it's their thing, but it no way is UTD top tier like you are saying. The Top Public Research schools are: UT Austin A&M Then Tech and UH are next. As for a purely research facility, I think everyone welcomes that, my problem with it was I didn't want it to fragment and dilute TMC (I don't want ten mini TMC, like we have 10 mini Business District and no good ones. But anyway, no one knows what UT is planning. UT doesn't even know what UT is planning.

The undergrad to grad ratio is meaningless. UTD is nothing like Rice and is more selective than Rice but far from the most selective in the State. A step above UH? Nope. They are both on the same level overall. Some may site UH as Tier one, which would mean it is actually the one that is a step above UTD in academic quality, but to me they are about the same Edit: this site shows the acceptance rates for both at 58% http://colleges.startclass.com/d/b/Public/Texas

Are not all Tier one universities research driven?

So classic. Love it.

Downtowns restaurant game is going to take the next step up once these residential units fill up

That's What I have been saying. Clad the building, leave the fins

Yeah I don't want it to close. I'm fact I wish it was a little further west, so I can grab lunch and back in time. But being in a building like 1825 San Jac is more reasonable use of space than that drive through. But I know it had been discussed to death on here already

Awesome progress. I wish the Pappas would move to this building and allow their current site across the street to be developed. A drive through Pappas downtown is such a poor use of space

It's not that the current population can't support a vibrant shopping scene, its that the current population has more options. Back then the focus was downtown, what is hindering downtown down is the 25 other options available to city residents. The inner loop residents back then lived in much denser situations back then. The inner loop pretty much was built to surround the city but the city want built out to the inner loop like it is today. Yes there were parts outside the loop, but the loop want even built put back then so not as much of the 94 sq miles was used back then as is used now and yet it supported more people. Also remember, Houston did have those street rails before. Had it kept it's public transportation it would have been easier to add on than start from scratch. As for daytime population by numbers yes, the inner loop has a massive population but as a percentage I would think it would be actually less than 1960. Think of it. Almost every job back then would have been in the loop, but today we have uptown with about 100K jobs, the EC, greenspoint, the Woodlands, sugarland, the port, IAH, plus the hundreds of thousands of retail and other service jobs outside the loop.

Yep, that's what I was referring to. At 493k, i think that was about 85% of Houstons population at the time living in the loop. If 85% of the current city population still lived in the loop I think the calculation was about 1.8M people. Can you image the loop being 4 times as dense?

Well the west side of main is more highly developed than the east side. From Commerce to Alabama there are only about 6 blocks that are not developed. On the east side it is more like 20 totally empty or partial blocks. It is amazing how much space there is still. The inner loop still has not caught up to its 1960s population. In fact if the percentage of people who lived in the loop in the 60s relative to the city population as a whole was still the same, the inner loop would be about 1.8M people. That is hella crowded