UtterlyUrban

Montrose will always be Montrose. It's just changing. Like it always has been doing. I was born in Montrose in 1943 on Jack Street, near Alabama St. I those days (1940's and 50's) it was simply a family neighborhood. Then in the late 50's and early 60's it became the place for college students to live. Then the late 60's came along. (I like these times the best). Hippy's and a nice time to live there. I moved away in the 70's so I missed the gay times and now it's the yuppies with money. My wife and I met there in 1971 and are content to remember the 60's and 70's. Montrose is what one remembers and liked about it then or what is to come.

This is a good point. Many Houston neighborhoods have changed over the decades. Montrose was one of them. And, I believe that it is changing again. If development trends continue over the next 10-15 years, the artsy hipness that was associated with Montrose over the last 30 years will be greatly diminished in my opinion. It will be replaced with something else. Maybe even all those families with small children like in the 1940's but this time likely more affluent. Or, perhaps it will be just a bunch of young lawyers and singles. Or maybe it will be a bunch of retired baby boomers. We shall see.

But, to the original question: "is Montrose over?" If we define "Montrose" as the last 20-30 years only, yes, it is over IMO. But it will fade away slowly as development and property values take the inevitable toll on artists, hipsters, gays, and libertines.

The paint job is an extreme form of non-skid like on an aircraft carrier.

This is good to hear!

Rendering in the Chronicle today.

Are these shorter buildings the "town homes" that they mentioned? If so, this is an effin homerun!

Would it be possible to ever retrofit the top of the Hess parking garage into additional amenity space for this tower? Or does that run into a lot of engineering limitations?

I always assumed that they would use the ramps in the existing garage and tie each floor in. Likely have a "residents" gate on each floor. But, given the comment directly above, I am not sure I am correct.

If they are unable to use the existing garage ramps, that property is so narrow, would be amazed if they could build a garage! Anyone know how it could be done?

i wonder what the situation is with the contractors of Marriott Marquis using this site as an office area. i assume there would be some contractual agreement to allow them to use that property, and it must be for a certain amount of time?

I assume so, especially when one considers that one of the designs had this tower and the hotel linked by sky bridge. In that fashion, hotel guests would have access to the tunnels via the Hess resi tower, hess garage, hess building, another set of sky bridges and into the parkshops then into the tunnels.

I am sure that the plan was to coordinate construction with the hotel. However, with oil's uncertainty, I am betting that this resi tower will wait.....

I think that this project will wait for the next cycle......

This would probably be the best outcome. The city needs to sell off their complex west of downtown (prime real estate for redevelopment), and this would lock up a significant amount of vacant space downtown. It would help with five houston and the capital tower.

I am trying to thing about downsides to the area around 800 Bell. A few blocks away is a probable large residential area that includes houstonhouse, SkyHouse I and II, block 334, etc. I don't think that the proposed use of 800 bell as a "law enforcement and municipal courts" building would impact that Area. In fact, the extra law enforcement around might actually benefit the area.

So, I think that I agree with you.... This might be the best outcome......

I think townhomes are a great way of disguising a garage. Adds some variety to all the apartment units too. What streets are the historic buildings on? The townhouses only front 2 of the streets.

Will the petroleum building be apartments? I didn't see that in the article. My guess is that you are correct but, I actually hope that they are condos.

I also hope that the townhomes are all brick and attached. Maybe like the back bay of Boston. That would be nice but, my first impression is that they will be "oddly out of place" in downtown Houston.

WOW!

This is GREAT news!

In this great redevelopment news, let's not overlook a new Marquette property too!

It definitely looks like a renovation to me. The new brick stand out, as do what look like metal framed windows and the covered rooftop. Whatever the case, I'm glad to see this spot become something functional, as it still beats a derelict building left overgrown with weeds.

Fully agree. I am very glad something was done here.

If appears that BigFootSocks simply wants to Insult anyone who disagrees with him or her.

That's fine.

Apparently we are too dumb to comment now "before its finished" (I have already explained why that statement on its face is odd for a historic renovation) and none of us should have ANY opinion that disagrees with BFS until the building is finished. Of course, I have made NO comments about the building itself and I have limited my comments ONLY to the difference between a "historic renovation" and a gut job.

Then apparently folks who disagree with BFS are "crying". Again, I really don't care about the project and they could have flattened the building as far as I am concerned.

Now apparently I am a "delicate flower."

In all of this BFS simply doesn't address the fact that a building that was supposed to be a historic renovation, has actually turned into essentially a gut job..... If that were to be the case, they just should have said so from the beginning.....then gut the building and build something nice. Fine with me.

What is most interesting is that apparently, in this town, few folks, including BFS care that a project that was supposed to preserve a little history has actually not done that. Any thoughts about what would have happened if this very same "historic renovation turned gut job" been undertaken in Boston, Chicago or Manhattan? My prediction: there would be a significant outcry from the architecture, history, and political class. Here, likely nothing. Different place. Different culture.

Now, let me ask this question: does anyone know if the color of the brick at least matches the Original facade? Did they actually remove all the crud from all the years and match the original brick color? Or, did they just pick something that will look "nice"?

The building isn't done, yet you and so many others are crying like its the end of the world. IronTigers pic doesn't help your argument when it looked like crap to begin with. The history behind the original building is what's important.

I am not "crying" about this building as I could care less if they bulldozed it, historically renovated it, or simply gutted it like they did. What I care about is calling something in the press a "historic renovation" (as I recall) when it is not.

The picture above of the "before" image shows a badly worn building. While it is possible that this is not the original facade, my bet is that it is. Notice it also shows a building with a specific set of window placements of a specific size on one facade. That has changed.

The brick is all new. It seems that no effort was made to conserve any of the old brick above the "urine line". My further guess is that this brick is also totally modern brick. It likely has a different chemistry and look from brick of 1900.

The windows all appear to be new but appear to have the same design. That's good.

The final building might look great and be very functional but it will not have been "historically" renovated. Rather, it will have changed in a material ways. I am totally and completely fine with that change. Bothers me not. But, the press before construction should have been accurate and simply said that the building would be stripped bare and renovated to fit modern uses.

How about we hold judgement until the finished product yeah?

The very fact that we should "wait for a finished product, yeah" is indicative of the fact that this was not a "historic renovation" as described in the press prior to work starting. Rather, it seems to be a complete gut and rebuild job.

If it was a historic renovation, we would KNOW what it was going to look like, right?

Personally, I am fine if they wanted to bulldoze the thing and build new. But let's not call it a "renovation" of a historic building when it is not.....

With such a radical change of, well, everything.....

Why bother to save anything......

They should have bulldozed it and built a modern structure from scratch. The entire purpose of historic renovations is to renovate historic buildings (often at significantly more cost than new). But, if they were essentially going to create a new building, why bother to do anything but bulldoze?

This is cool. Hope that paint isn't too slick when wet.

My thoughts exactly. I was really surprised when I saw the paint job. I really hope that this is paint specifically for bike lanes. If not, it could well be an ice skating rink in a light rain. Surely the city has worked with the bike community on this one though and figured this out, right?

i apologize if this is common knowledge, but have we reached capacity for the per unit incentives for downtown? i'm curious if the business plan for this next tower benefits from the incentives.

I am uncertain if we have reached the cap. But I am fairly certain that Novarre received DLI incentives for this project.

I wonder how leased tower 1 is. Since they are building another one next to it. I only saw two yelp reviews.

Several months a go I read somewhere that it was something like 45% leased and that number was well ahead of predictions. If that trend has continued, they may be upwards of 65% now. I also seem to recal that a building in the 85% range is considered "fully leased" and anything above that is just icing on the cake. At one a year or so ago, One Park Place was reported in the news to be 94% leased (if I recall correctly).

Is it just me or does this building no longer feel "historic"?

Noooooo! Say it ain't so. All we need is better bus service and good marketing? All that money wasted on rail.../EndGloat

Do you ride the metro bus to work?

Do you take a metro bus to specific activities on your leisure time? Like, say, the Rodeo or an Opera?

If you do, how do you like the experience? If you don't, why don't you?

It is suppose to be 14 stories, Hampton Inn 168 rooms and homewood suites 132 rooms with completion date September 2015

Woof.

This fall?

No wonder they are moving so fast. But, it is only one hotel, right? The other one bailed as I recall.

This building is flying upwards. Can someone remind me how tall this will be?

I am very excited about this one. My company currently has "deals" with about 8 of the downtown hotels for room rates. This hotel's price point should beat them all and save us lots of money. Best still, it is also very convenient to our office.

That block was dead, yo.

I know.

But, cities are generally loath to close a sidewalk for "no reason". If this is only related to this Hines construction project, what would be the reason? There seems to be no pedestrian safety concern related to the construction. What would be the reason to close the entire block? Just because there are "no" businesses on that block does not mean that a sidewalk can be randomly closed as there is a public conveyance issue.

If there is nothing else going on, I wonder what Hines used as the reason to close the sidewalk to pedestrians (not even cover with a pretective scaffold but, to close)?

Something is weird here. I just can't see why the city would allow the sidewalk for an entire block to be closed. It doesn't seem like that is necessary for construction of this building..... Is there something else going on too?

Why are they blocking pedestrian traffic on that entire block on main? I don't understand.

Oil appears to be up again today. WTI is over $53 a barrel. It means gas at the pump is starting to move back over $2 a gallon. Oh, well, it was a fun party while it lasted. Now, can someone tell this to the banks that just redlined Houston?

Also today, Citi analysts, if I recall, called this a "head fake" and are suggesting oil at $20-ish per barrel this fall.....

OPEC suggested today that demand this year is actually going to be 400,000 BPD more than estimated last fall.

The only thing that is certain is uncertainty and that will keep the "redline" in place for now.