HoustonIsHome

Why can't we get better designed buildings IN DOWNTOWN OF ALL PLACES

When are those going up? What part of town

Never. Those renderings are from developers who build in Houston but these are for other cities.

We settle for less than we could get so that's always what we get, less.

Im with lockmat, why should there be any poorly functioning side. Further, this side is only slightly better. Still stand offish. Still fortresslike.

THIS is what I want I want to see moreof in downtown and midtown

This exactly what I was trying to say.. We always do this on this tread , calm the F down and wait for more info.. sheesh

Im with lockmat, why should there be any poorly functioning side. Further, this side is only slightly better. Still stand offish. Still fortresslike.

^ The 2,500 units/5,000 residents was not fairly accurate. I apologize for having not previously disputed it. ;-)

The total population at the time of the 2010 census was 14,342. But that number includes a large number of "residents" of various jails and also includes "residents" of homeless shelters, group homes and the like.

The total number of housing units and residents living in housing units in downtown Houston as of the 2010 census (and I don't think any housing units have been added since then) was:

Downtown Houston: 2,409 housing units/2,520 residents. 1.046 people per housing unit.

More fun facts from the US Census: 73.5% of downtown households had only one occupant.

We are setting ourselves up for disappointment if we build up expectations of a downtown population of 14,000 living in the hoped-for 7,500 or so housing units. As I said above, areas such as downtown Houston are likely to have an average occupancy in the neighborhood of 1.2 people per unit. Even once we attain 7,500 units downtown, we will probably still be a little short of the much-desired 10,000 residential population.

How do you pull up census figures per zip code.

I found info for the city and metro but not zip directly from the census.

The city website lists the downtown pop at 19k and lists a 1miles radius of greenstreet as having a pop of 23k

http://www.downtownhouston.org/retail/demographics-reports/

Downtown is made up of four zip codes

77002 (including some of midtown)- 16,793

77010 (tiny area near disco green)- 400

77003 (more areas around disco green)

77020 (small area on the north end of downtown)

All of 77010 are in downtown, most if 77002 is in downtown. 70003 and 77020 barely make it into downtown. If this info is correct subtracting the area of midtown from that figure I would say the downtown population including the jail is about 14k. Looking up the population of the jail in 2010 I found 8200. That would leave about 6000 as a figure for downtown people outside of jail.

Heck going just by 77002 there were 8500 people living in that zip outside of jail. Throw in all of 77010 and whatever 77003 and 77020 contributes and you can see that the 5000 figure the poster gave was not far fetched.

Again these are not directly from the census so...

Very exciting indeed.   But let's not get carried away with our expectations.  Downtown multi-family residential is likely to have an average occupancy in the neighborhood of 1.2 per unit.  Even at 1.25 per unit, with 7500 units, we're still talking only 9,375 total residents.

No one is getting carried away, im just following the thread:

  

if 10,000 is the tipping point, we are well on our way to passing that figure. before the residential initiative there were ~2,500 units in downtown, and close to 5,000 residents i believe.

No one disputed the 2500units/ 5000 residents figure so I took it to be fairly accurate. That's all

This is getting exciting

While common for condos (such as Astoria), it does seem unusual to have an off-site preview center for rental apartments.

Maybe this is just temporary. Might be shut down once the building is complete.

Wow, I didn't see the fingers project in the spreadsheet. So in just a few years downtown is going from 2500 units to 5600 units. That's huge. Cant imagine a market being flooded with that many new units.

5000 is just crazy fast. That would mean 7500 units or over 14,000 residents.

My mind is thinking of all sorts of weird stuff like does that mean downtown is getting 15,000 new parking spots? That's not even counting the new commercial buildings with parking, or the 16floor parking structure. I hope the surrounding hoods don't get plagued with new gas stations.

Something is telling me that someone needs to take jumper cables to downtown to jump start development of other amenities.

The next superbowl here is going to feel soo much different from the last one.

Discovery green is going to be key, and with all these residents who are going to be walking distance away plus the 2000 new hotel rooms on the line that is a huge potential for pedestrian activity. I guess we can fill the void with street vendors during the day, but oh man we need more evening options

This is nice. It would have been really grand if it was about three floors taller

I agree. So much snapping lately. Someone asks a question or gives their opinions and people just jump on them lately.

If you don't like the question no one forces you to answer. Remember mamma said if you can't say anything pleasant don't say anything at all.

Anyway, I hope the poster`s concerns do not come true. I hope the building is built soon after thus one comes down

Yeah it looked like they wanted to give a full view if two sides.

But any way, my point is the area from Jackson to Fannin (apart from the pappas bbq) is going to look really built out. The built out feel dropped a lot going from the hospital to that glass shop on one side and the drive through restaurant on the other.

Im glad that this development is meaty. At least that side will make the drop off not so steep.

I didn't realize the Catholic church owned so much land in the area.

With the area growing and the businesses in shorter buildings like the glass shop going out, how long do you think others like the u haul, the book shop and others will remain?

I know the Bbq place is new.

It would be nice if the law school expanded in the area

It doesn't matter if they are short residential complexes. Revisions still take place all the time. It's better to wait for the final design closer to groundbreaking day than to fret over a conceptual rendering.

I asked cause I didn't know. I have seen it for towers but don't know much about apartments.

They made the gap between the belltower and the rendering look so big, but it really isn't that far from the corner. This area is going to be more built up than the rendering suggest

I guess we should all not care if they decided to go with Pepto Bismol pink

It's an opinion, get over it already

My point is paint color is a quick fix. Its nothing structural.

Lots of cities have jails downtown. Where would you put it? The way Houston is built the jail will be surrounded by high priced property just about anywhere you put it in the core.

NY county jail is right smack in the middle of lower Manhattan in the financial district.

Tmc had far to go to catch up to downtown.

Tmc is about 40M sq feet of total floor space. Downtown is about 55M of office space not including residential, retail or education.

The lower values posted for downtown is the total office space minus vacant buildings. In other words its the office soace for lease or already leased.

It doesn't make sense to compare all space in one district to just the space with offices in another while ignoring all other buildings

It's only one rendering, one that is not finalized. I think everyone's trying to say its best to reserve full judgement until we see more, and learn more.

How often do plans drastically change?

I know back in the day multiple versions of proposed buildings were put out before done thing is settled on, but is that still done?

Do they spend as much time on these short residential complexes as they do on signature tiwers?

Who is hysterical? Just stating opinions on the architecture. If you like it fine, if you don't fine. This is what the forum is here for.

If we get something better, I will admit I was wrong (I will gladly welcome being wrong) but what's the problem in some of us being very disappointed with THIS rendering?

Cities need boring buildings too.

Houston already has this covered.

I agree that getting a building is good, but a little effort could be better.

Do things right the first time so we won't be worried about correcting it later. Why can't they fake a facade?

I don't know, but this is pretty obviously the back of the building. There has to be a door for people somewhere. If nothing else there will be a rental office.

How is it obvious? And who says the pedestrian entrance has to be at the front? I would think the building would have multiple front entrances with the lobby of both buildings facing each other.

But still, there is no reason to build an ugly side.

Yeah, that makes sense, spend money to give people a teaser of the worse view of a building.

That will build confidence. Let's put our worse foot forward.

I don't see any situation where these "other three sides are better" are plausible.

That's like applying to a modeling agency with a donkeys arse as your head shot.

Sorry Nate, I think that's BS. They don't need to make functional store space but they can fake. They could have parking with glass fronts like Sakowitz that can easily be converted down the line to actual stores.

Building a fugly building because the area isn't all that is just silly

It's on two separate blocks, but it does not necessarily mean they are shutting down the street. Considering this is Leeland, they won't.

The two wings doesn't look big enough to be separate blocks, and the entrance in the middle has a ramp so that would mean the middle street would be closed off. I dunno, I hope the rendering drastically changes.

Well this is an architecture forum.