UtterlyUrban

I seem to recall Ric Campo as being loosely quoted as saying that he successfully does GFR in multi-family residential projects elsewhere, but not in Houston because it doesn't work here. I'm not sure how accurate that quote is, but -- if true -- it would be interesting to know why Houston would be so different.

I remember visiting Dallas in the mid 70s and seeing GFR in an apartment building there for the first time ... and saw many more gradiose examples pop up in later years. Not long ago, I mentioned this to someone who does multifamily here and he said he had also noticed that GFR seemed to be more established there.

My assumption has been that for a long time, the few attempts at it here were so poorly done -- and therefore unsuccessful -- that local developers have tended to shun it, implicitly assuming that there's little demand to support it. Now, it occurs to me that perhaps its a sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy: too many on both sides (developers and consumers) expect it to fail.

Hopefully ROD will be a big success and demonstrate that, if well done, it can be successful here.

There is a GFR space in one park place at the corner of La Branch and Lamar that has never been leased since the building opened 5-ish years ago...... Trillions of visitors to the park every year and 300 units above..... No takers (at the price being asked).......

If it takes a crane to build a crane, where did cranes come from?

Answer: aliens.

This thread is now over 10 years old.

Best economy in 30 years in this town and,,,,..... It still ain't built.......... And here comes the crunch......

Perhaps they will start or perhaps they will wait for the next cycle.....

Ya gotta give this developer some credit. No hoopla. No big promises. No grandstanding. No "here is a rendering" only to find out a year later that the project never gets built. Nope. This guy buys, stays quiet. Builds. I wish them success. He has purchased a property that I would not have considered good for resi. That may mean that the rents might be a tad more affordable for a young office worker or tradesman. I hope so.

Serious question, but why do you think that?

The original plan called for a mid-range hotel and an apartment tower. Those apartments, judging by the downtown market, would have been full, especially with the loss of the Humble Tower units just down the block. Additionally, the hotel would have beaten the Embassy Suites, Homewood Suites, and Hampton Inn out of the ground. From everything I've heard, the Embassy Suites has been happy with the market.

Additionally, I cannot imagine having 200 hotel rooms and 150-200 apartments would have done anything but HELP the rest of the development.

I tend to agree, unless it was a timing issue. When did the Pavillions "start" to fail?

Since around 2010, downtown hotel occupancy rates have been very high and got even higher each year. Hard to find a room many times. Since around 2010-ish, downtown resi rental has really taken hold and gotten better each year too.

But, Greenstreet was built earlier than that and we would have to look back and see what residential occupancy rates and hotel occupancy rates were at that time. I don't know but the environment was likely not as conducive to resi and hospitality success as now.

Check out the first couple of pages in the original Houston Pavillions thread.

Edit: sorry I'm on my phone or I'd post a link.

Found them..... Halfway down page 7

http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/1851-houston-pavilions-now-green-street/page-7

So, let me get this straight: somebody proposed buildings like the renderings and ended up building the current Pavillions? Lord.....

I too have been asking this question. There is a ton of money going into buffalo bayou trails and structures which WILL go underwater at some point in the future. I am wondering if that is somehow accounted for in the building design and construction. Then there is likely millions of dollars in landscaping and such..... Will that all not be ruined under 20' of fast moving, muddy, water?

Did I just read in C2H's post above that the original Houston Pavillions concept had included a residential component? Wow! Cn anyone enlighten me? What was the original, never built, plan?

30 pages for a building that doesn't exist yet?

While they are at it, how about a pedestrian/bike bridge (or three) so we can cross safely from south of Allen Parkway to the newly renovated Bayou parks.

May I ask a question? I honestly don't know the answer......

Why would not only minor pedestrian improvements to the existing overpasses be sufficient?

While not always true, "homeless-ness" is often a euphemism for "mentally ill".

The fact that we have a number of non-violent, mentally ill people on the streets who are capable of "surviving" on their own is a product of the Burger court.

An academic and research focused college is going to spend $30m on a weightlifting facility?

Dunno - they're acting a bit entitled. Last weekend they had the sidewalk completely blocked and roped off, and they've repeatedly hijacked what are public street slots for their valet. They were about to tow my car a few weeks ago, even though it had been there well before the valets set up and no signs were posted (as is required), finally "allowing" me to park in their lot for only $5. I only found out because a passer by walked into Carafe to tell the bartender that his car was about to be towed. Perhaps such things are appealing to the doucheoisie.

The good news is that they at least fixed the roof to where it no longer sends a waterfall to the sidewalk during every rain.

"they've repeatedly hijacked what are public street slots for their valet."

1) what establishment are we talking about here?

2) can you explain your statement? Are you saying that public parking along the street has been blocked off or forbidden (in some manner) by whatever establishment you you are referring to? I did not know this was a legal practice! Please help me understand.

I'm not so sure. A quick glance at Emporis reveals that..

Atlanta has 366 buildings over 12 stories

Dallas also has exactly 366 buildings over 12 stories

LA has 636 buildings over 12 stories

Boston has 318

Philly has 461

You know how many buildings over 12 stories Houston has? 615. The only city comparable in that list is LA, and I think it's safe to say they have their fair share of boxes too. IMO its definitely easier for "unique" buildings to stand out amongst a small(er) skyline.. See Frost Building Austin. Houston just happens to have one of the biggrst skylines in the country. i noticed you didn't complain about the number of boxes in Chicago or NYC...

Not trying to start a flame war here....

But, do consider that the City of Houston is probably 5 times bigger than the City of Atlanta, 10x bigger than the City of Boston, and much bigger than the City of Dallas or Philly.

While Houston may have many more tall buildings, they are spread out.(but still inside the sprawling City limits).

Will all these places have rules about what you can put on those balconies?

Depends on what you mean.

They won't let you put out a fire pit or something. But, are you asking if they will restrict the type or style of deck chairs and stuff? Probably not.

The lower floors were scheduled for move-in in a few months as I recall. I wonder if still on track?

It's two different types. Sometimes you drive them, sometimes you drill them. It probably has to do with site and soil conditions.

Looks like we have a totally plausible hypothesis!

Thank you!

It's possible they are drilling the piles for the hole's retention wall

I know zero about construction. So, to me, this sounds possible but, I think they just pile drive those, don't they?

Thanks for the photo updates guys. Quick question from an out-of-towner, is the lane the train is on separated from traffic at all like the Main street line, or can you drive on the tracks when the train isn't there?

Wide open to drive on.

As such, I think that metros biggest challenge to running the trains on time will initially be the number of car-train collisions. I expect the learning curve for houston drivers will be higher than on main (which, as I understand, had a "lot" of accidents initially).

Ok, here we go.

Courtesy of Marc Longoria (Triton), you can see over at The Catalyst by Minute Maid (28 floors), they are both drilling:

and digging up the foundation at the same time:

Yup. But, I think there was at least a couple of weeks of digging before the crane showed up. I may be wrong on that though. I just remain surprised that the crane showed up in the first wave. I don't recall seeing that before.

It's very interesting though.... A 40 story building across the street excaves a huge hole and then starts building. This Hines structure of 30-ish floors seemingly will not (or maybe they will?). Fun to watch the differences in construction techniques (and equipment staging!).

With the improvements to Buffalo Bayou Park and the increase in visitors, this makes sense. I'd love to see Allen Parkway become more of a street and less of a high-speed thoroughfare. We already have Memorial Drive for pass through traffic.

But given the connectivity of downtown to buffalo bayou and onto memorial park, if one of the two thoroughfares was going to turn into a slower speed street, would not memorial drive make more sense?

Memorial drive is a straight shot to memorial park and already has lots of signals on it. Slowing it down east of Shepard would not be a big deal.

Allen parkway, east of Shepard has large office tower complexes that likely need less lights to move traffic.

If one or the other was to turn into a street, to me, it would be memorial.

Additional traffic signals?

They will need to rename it "Allen Street"

Wow!

No digging at all for a 30 story building? Holy moly!

Has anyone seen a project that skips site work and goes straight to pile driving?

I have limited experience but I have not.

Opened in 1953? Wow! Quite a run!

This is a crawler crane, like the Link Belt on site:

A "crawler" is just a crane on two tracks, like a tank.

This is a tower crane:

A tower crane is used to erect tall buildings.

A crawler had various uses, but as far as why there is one on site this early, I dont know. They may use it to move equipment around the site, they may be using it to build other equipment.

This part I understood -- I know that there are tower cranes and all sorts of mobile cranes. What I don't understand in my original post was why the crane (any crane) is there so early. A poster above suggests that it could be for drilling pilings .... Could be but it still seems too early. Isn't their at least a few weeks of excavation or grading to do?

Its a crawler crane buddy.

Errrrr. What?

For the uninitiated among us....

What does a crawler crane do and how is it involved in the excavation?