UrbaNerd

My Exxon stock suggests otherwise. The tax breaks in question total $2.8 billion for the entire industry over a period of several years. Exxon alone will post a profit of $40 billion THIS, after posting $36 billion in profits last year, and $32 billion the year before that. While any corporation (or individual, for that matter) seeks to minimize its tax liability, to suggest that eliminating these tax incentives during a time of record profits will somehow hurt the industry is laughable in the face of these numbers.

There are far bigger factors at play here than those tax incentives.

Just like this summer, and the ultra high oil prices; they will make ANY BS of an excuse to raise prices.

Sad, but, true.

Great. I am with those Dems. I read an article in the Chron that Houston, in 2008, will be blue as well. I think people realize that Republicans are neither Religious nor Right.

At this rate, we might be seeing massive party realignments/GOP reform/third parties rising, etc.

There is also a building off 59 near Shepard (across, and on the same side of 59, as Freebirds) that has several levels of parking with office space above it. It's probably a 12-15 story building, does anyone know about that one?

Yeah, the Wachovia/SouthTrust building thingy. That one has a neat parking setup.

Kinky!

Otherwise, moo.

Kinky!

^^^

Well, from what it looks like so far, the entire development's name might have been changed. We'll see. However, this change of info may be a good sign regarding this project.

Oh, and I missed Kinkaid's post earlier:

Last I heard, the condo towers were dead. Instead, they were going to build apartment towers and had lined up Wood Partners out of Atlanta to develop the buildings. Wood Partners is part of the team on the Mosaic project and they just recently completed a project on Almeda (rehab of a 10 story building and new buildings around it) under the name Alta Lofts. The Alta brand is what I heard was going to be rolled out for the Pavilions project.

So, it is indeed renamed to Alta Pavilions.

According to Emporis, the development has been renamed "Alta Pavilions"

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/cx/?id=houstonpavilions-houston

Furhtermore, according to Emporis, it seems that Wood Partners is indeed involved in this building. Perhaps we'll get those apartment towers, after all, instead of condos.

Well, at least they have some nice(albeit not green enough for my tastes) hills, and terrain. Not too horrendous, although, I do notice a lot more of the more "tract house sprawley" stuff that we'd see in our "black hole" type of areas(KB, lower end Beazer, etc). I did not really see anything in the true McMansion, upper middle class type of housing.

Still, sprawl is sprawl.

Houston Garden Centers is having their annual 70%off Fall Clearance sale. Get em while they're cheap.

Isn't the new Faculty Center tower going up somewhere in that vacinity, as well?

I think my post was pretty clear. The building going up on this lot seems way too big for even a "grand" sales office. Therefore I have doubts that it is a sales office that is being built. Can anyone confirm what the structure they're building really is?

Perhaps this project is more grand than most of us think, then. That piece of land is far too prime(next to the fountain, acorss from the Williams Tower, etc) for a small building like that, unless our friends at Zone D'Erotica have finally decided to expand and relocate their store.

Just kidding, of course

What about Rice? How is their program like? I'm going to try to get in there, after I finish another semester of these basic classes.

Uberslummification!

Personally, I preferred the Kohn Pedersen Fox variant of the BOSW tower better than the Murphy Jahn one. perhaps we should give the ol KPF a call regarding that one...

Just a question: Just how many buildings can be packed into the TMC?

Just wait til they start building them over each other. (Like that building in Indonesia, or something)

Nice pics, BTW...

Someone posted this in another thread here

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4291118.html

"Atlanta is grappling with its biggest commercial real estate slump in 10 years, according to broker Cushman & Wakefield. The downtown area had a vacancy rate of 29 percent in the second quarter, the nation's highest. In the third quarter, the number improved to 27.2 percent. Only Dallas was worse off, with 28.1 percent vacancy.

Houston's downtown office vacancy rate is 15.7 percent, according to third-quarter figures from CB Richard Ellis."

Yes, it would be ironic, considering the Downtown Park has already begun construction and Houston Pavillions has secured financing and will break ground in 3 weeks.

Well, at least we DO know that for sure now! When I posted, we did not see the "official" groundbreaking date yet

Heh, it would be ironic if THIS was the lot that would kickstart DT development, and perhaps even the Pavilions project itself!

It's the wrong side of Downtown, as well. The Pavilions are closer to the Toyota Center/GRB area.

But, yeah, all of those surface lots, for future construction...(we hope)

Wells Fargo in GMAX, with plywood covering the broken windows (old model of mine, lol)

W00T! Represent!

Yes this was around 1996 fir $80,000. This guy was telling me that for $90,000 you could get a new house in Katy.

Yeah, just like how you could buy a large home(Newmark, Village, perry, etc) in any good subdivision for about 170,000 in 1996. Today, the same home goes for about 320,000.

Sheesh, that's about 1.6 million sq ft of retail space right there!

Hey plastic, When you get moved in plant some pear and apple tree's they grow good out there and bring your harvest to the next H.A.I.F. get together.

Yeah, and for the next HAIF get together, they're renting the Astrodome, and putting a big disco ball in it.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Houston burn all of its garbage? If that's true then with a contraption like this, Houston could make money taking in garbage from other cities and making it go away.

Just like Sim City.

And yes, in Sim City, you can download a Plasma Trash thingy, as well!