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mollusk

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Everything posted by mollusk

  1. mollusk
    Old lore I heard was that Jesse Jones built what is now the Houston Club building (for the time being, at least) in part to house back room functions of what was then the National Bank of Commerce, the main part of which was housed in what was then the Gulf Building across the street - hence the flat tunnel. I've been a mole person for decades and have also enjoyed the organic growth of the tunnel system. Way back when, the tunnel level under 919 Milam was not a food court, but instead went past the building's boilers and mechanical systems, with big windows to allow spectating upon them. The last vestige of that particular kind of archaeology is under Neils Esperson, on the way to 801 Travis. BTW, back on topic - the temporary garage ramps also cause me to add credence to the idea that the Capitol Tower will be built. I don't have any way to know the numbers, but logic dictates that mothballing the rest of the building and just operating the parking garage could likely be done economically on its own, without the added drama of demolition.
  2. mollusk
    Esperson, Pennzoil, and Chase Tower are all roughly six feet lower than the current Houston Club tunnel level - only the old Chase Building (Gulf Building if you're old enough) is at roughly the same level (Pennzoil has a gentle ramp). With Houston Club's current low ceiling heights, I'd be more surprised if they didn't dig it down further. ADA compliance is just a (required) lagniappe.
  3. mollusk
    well, IT, at least you nailed it down to being indoors...
  4. mollusk
    The window washers are out on Chase again today.
  5. mollusk

    METRORail Green Line

    mollusk replied to a topic in Transit

    These curves are immediately adjacent to stops (since it is between the GRB and the baseball stadium, after all), which means that the train wouldn't be going all that fast in that area anyway.
  6. mollusk
    You are correct, lockmat. When I return to the stadium I plan to site my seats to use it to block out the derivative banality of the civil courthouse.
  7. mollusk
    Maybe they are trying to market their downtown project to people coming from Dairy Ashford, who would otherwise be skeert of all the "yucky" (i.e., somewhat different) people they might otherwise feel that they would have to interact with. cf., some of the trolling over at Swamplot anytime rail gets mentioned.
  8. mollusk
    Though I still refer to the AL as "The Commie League" because of the DL (oh, that would have been handy back in the Carlos Lee days), with all the interleague play I don't know that it makes a nickel's difference any more. We're just traded obnoxious Cubs fans for obnoxious BoSox fans.
  9. mollusk
    ^^ That is much better. Now if we can just see a commensurate improvement in the team, and in our ability to pick up a game on TV...
  10. mollusk
    I'd add Shade and Zelko.
  11. mollusk
    I don't recall ever setting foot in the joint when it was Sakowitz (that was before I became such a snappy dresser), and I know I never parked there. However, from the looks of things I would put it at four floors of retail space, plus a basement (most likely used as a stockroom), plus a top floor with a less grand ceiling height for offices and the like (since it was the mother ship).
  12. mollusk
    I hadn't wandered through that section of the tunnels in the last week or so, but today I noticed that the giant "SKANSKA" signage and some other artifacts are now removed. See ya, pretty much the last stairs in the tunnels that can't be easily bypassed. IIRC, that will leave only Two Houston's spiral connection to 1001 McKinney and 801 Travis to Pearl's JW Marriott a-birthin'.
  13. mollusk
    Seeing the frame for the parking garage that will be there for a year or two go up, I must now accept the "parking contract that can't be broken" theory posted a couple weeks ago. That must be one insane (and very carefully assigned) contract for the buyout numbers not to work, given that they were able to buy out the Houston Club with its nearly Panama Canal lease term at a rate set when Ike was President.
  14. mollusk
    In the early '80s, about five minutes before the end of that particular boom, I worked for a property development company that also had the bright idea of doing an office condo conversion. It didn't work out then, either. With 20 - 20 hindsight, I think that most office based businesses prefer the flexibility for expanding and shrinking space to meet current and short to mid term projected needs that a lease offers, and that isn't really practical with an ownership model. In addition, the tax treatment is just easier. Finally, people who are interested in investing in real estate are more likely to go toward transactions that are more clearly geared to being an investment for its own sake, rather than as an operating adjunct to their primary business.
  15. mollusk
    Gorgeous, and should help the retail component of the center as well. I can't help but notice that the rendering still has the Ghost of Foley's there.
  16. mollusk
    I dunno about that. Just because the final responsibility may not be fully allocated doesn't mean that an upstream party won't pony up and seek contribution. As a nearby example, the apartments on the NW corner of the Waugh/Memorial cloverleaf burned to the ground while still being framed, but ultimately didn't get set back that far on their timeline.
  17. mollusk
    Short answer: Yes. Projects of this size will usually have a significant chunk of the contract documents devoted to specifying how the insurance plan is laid out and apportioned among the various players - GC, subs, etc. With a loss this big there's usually going to end up being a fair amount of time and effort devoted to sorting out who ultimately ends up writing what checks for how much.
  18. mollusk
    Given the current state of the market I expect they will hit the "reset" button, and yes, there ought to be insurance in place to cover it - typically a "builder's risk" policy.
  19. mollusk
    Part of an email I got yesterday: Please be advised that beginning Friday, 3/28, at 11:00 pm through Sunday, 3/30, Rusk between Main & Milam and Travis between Walker & Capital will be closed due to the JW Marriott construction at 806 Main. Considering that the building itself is at the corner of Main and Rusk, whatever it is that they are planning to to ought to be interesting.
  20. mollusk
    The Handy Andy at Memorial and Dairy Ashford was the first (I worked there in high school), followed by Woodlake, then Voss at about the same time as one up on 1960 around Champions, and perhaps a couple others. They even had their own store brand of beer - Kassel - that was brewed by Pearl IIRC. One of their big deals was that the bag boys would walk the groceries out to the customers' cars, and we were NOT allowed to accept tips.
  21. mollusk
    The building (or rather, its site) is now under the eastbound Katy Freeway.
  22. mollusk
    The scaffovators are now just above the 12th floor.
  23. mollusk
    Those items being framed up may be pedestrian walkways for the sidewalks so that people don't have to detour across the street.
  24. mollusk
    All three have been down for decades. The 1000 block of Main now contains a building named (of all things) 1000 Main, IIRC built for Reliant right before deregulation and breaking it up into three components. 908 Rusk was replaced by 801 Travis, built about 30 years ago to house Allied Bank of Texas' (eventually, Wells Fargo's) back room operations, and now just a nice, low key building with multiple tenants, mostly small companies and professional offices.
  25. mollusk
    In my experience, renovations and remodels invariably have all sorts of surprises, most of which end up costing money. Lots and lots of money. There are two ways of dealing with it: Handle the problems on the fly and hope that the contingency reserve that you thought was huge when you set it up is adequate (this is what usually happens in a commercial context, since time = money), or do a thorough gut and survey before preparing the plans for going forward (example: the 1910 courthouse). (edit: spelling fixed)
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