Jump to content

Kinglyam

Full Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    110

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Kinglyam

  1. Kinglyam
    I was wondering that myself. Looks like a retention pond going in. Apparently the owner (Kurtz Properties) got the city to sell him right-of-way for most of the streets around there back in March. The limited information on the sale ordinance says: "Kurtz Properties, Ltd. (Kurtz Properties GP, LLC [Robert Kurtz, President], General Partner), the abutting property owner, requested the abandonment and sale of: 1) Burnett Street, from Maffitt Street east to Southern Pacific right-of-way line; 2) Semmes Street, from Burnett Street south to Southern Pacific right-of-way line; 3) Maffitt Street, from Burnett Street south to Southern Pacific right-of-way; 4) Brooks Street, from Maffitt Street east ±417 feet to Chase Street; and 5) Semmes Street, from Brooks Street north to Harrington Street, all located within the S.F. Noble’s Addition, out of the S.M. Harris Survey, Abstract 327. The applicant plans to incorporate the subject streets into the abutting tracts to expand its office space and parking areas." It's some major areas...looks like four nearly full blocks. So I don't think we're talking his personal office space.
  2. Kinglyam
    True, some of it is currently elevated. This proposal basically doubles the elevated portion through downtown, which currently ends at Providence Street. And UHD is probably having a crapfest right now, since this just wiped out their entire expansion plan. https://www.uhd.edu/about/news/Pages/University-of-Houston-Downtown-Receives-Approval-for-Expansion.aspx
  3. Kinglyam
    Perhaps the highest point will be, but without vertical scale on the drawings we have, we don't know how brief. What isn't in question is that there is a proposed elevated major interstate highway through the middle of the 4th-largest city in the USA. Whether it's 60 feet or 20 feet, it's still going to be an eyesore and loud as hell.
  4. Kinglyam
    The bottom of the light rail is elevated at least 20 feet above existing grade. I don't know how thick the beams and rail surface are, but say about 5 feet or so to the top of the rail surface. Then, the top of the electric lines that power the train are another 15 feet above that. You'll need at least 10 feet of clearance (probably more) to install anything over those electrical lines, so now we've got the bottom of the new freeway at around 50 feet just to get over the light rail. The beams and slab to the top of pavement will be more than 5 feet thick, I'm sure, and may be 10 feet given that the entire thing is elevated. If you look at the Appendix G I referenced, it shows a section cut at the other end of Hardy Yards. The I-10 lanes drop to the ground, but the I-45 lanes stay elevated past Hardy Street. So 60 feet is more than a reasonable expectation, and we should be hopeful that it's no more than that. I know I am, particularly, since I've been planning to build a house on Burnett that would have what I thought would be uninterrupted skyline views.
  5. Kinglyam
    Or, you could check out their website. If you look at the 4th public meeting documents, in Appendix G, page 22 has a section showing the 405-foot wide I-10. It's all raised, but with no vertical scale shown. I tried making a jpg of it, but the file didn't work, and the PDF is too big to attach.
  6. Kinglyam
    Well, this is a surprise (to me). TxDOT is planning to get the downtown I-45 cluster**** started by 2020/21, which will run the freeway right between UHD and Hardy Yards. I never expected that to happen at all, tbh. That's going to bite for the value of any skyline-view residential units that will now have a massive freeway right outside their windows. Do you think this will force a change in the layout we've seen?
  7. Kinglyam
    Looks like it's coming. The weekly permit report just listed a new "podium parking garage" (hooray, more wasted ground floor) and "new apartments above podium", along with new shade structure and new fire pump room, all at "299 West Gray", which still maps to the intersection with Taft.
  8. Kinglyam
    Are you new to Houston, LTAWACS? Nothing gets built here without the parking garage first. The rest of the building will come around it.
  9. Kinglyam
    Does this mean they finally figured out how to keep them from getting stolen, and are going to put in the upgrades? Or did they just give up because a few UHD students wanted some H's for their dorm room?
  10. Kinglyam
    I was up there last night to check out the new work, and stepped it off. Definitely 6' wide, like all the stuff they built along Burnett. Easy for two people walking side-by-side, but that's it.
  11. Kinglyam
    Are you talking about the San Jacinto St. extension? I've seen in other forums that it seems to be up in the air.
  12. Kinglyam
    How big would this station be? As long as it can be melded in with the planned mixed use development, great. But if it's going to replace all of it, no thanks. That would kill development in Near Northside if they end up with just a rail station. Looking at the March "Last Mile" report, going into Hardy Yards was rated next-to-last of the options, so I question the likelihood that it is now a top-three. Plus, DH-2 goes down the median of I-10 and over I-45? I don't see that getting approved unless they officially kill the Uber-Alignment they've been talking about. This major piece of infrastructure would have to be torn down and rebuilt within a few years if that went through.
  13. Kinglyam
    As long as they don't do This Way and That Way, but since it's not being developed by Dow engineers, we're probably good. I thought it was a promising, ahem, sign, that the developers see this as a destination development, and will put a lot of effort into making it worthwhile.
  14. Kinglyam
    Interesting that it stops at Chestnut. They've done the sidewalks from Chestnut to Freeman, and conduit is in place, but no landscaping whatsoever. It's still a muddy, weed-infested mess along that area.
  15. Kinglyam
    Poor management wouldn't surprise me in the least. They've run the site shoddily since the start. Bailey Street was torn to heck, and they were blocking it regularly without any street closure permit. They used to put up road closure signs during work hours, but then take them down on the weekends, despite there being a sinkhole about 2 feet deep in the middle of the road. Doubly good at night, since they knocked the street light out early on. It's been a half-arsed job all around.
  16. Kinglyam
    I'm pretty sure it's not. It's always been described as a "kiss and drop" location, and this far in town, land is too valuable to spend on parking. It's not like it's easily accessible from the freeways, anyway. Clearly this is intended as a true urban location, which means you ride transit, a bike, or walk there. What the Hardy Yards developers do is a different story, of course.
  17. Kinglyam
    I didn't realize it was two different contractors doing the work. That might explain why they are working on the south lanes to the east, and on the north lanes to the west. The portion of the road done by Metro appears to be about finished. They had poured what appears to be the last strip of concrete in their section earlier this week. The lines are already painted on the north lanes from Freeman east. The tunnel work does appear to be about finished. The concrete work looks like it's pretty much finished, anyway. I only drive by, so don't linger long enough to get the details.
  18. Kinglyam
    Take it for what it's worth, but I spoke to a future neighbor of mine on Everett, who said he had talked to one of the architects that was working on the Hardy Yards design. According to this AOAA (acquaintance of an acquaintance) news, Phase I of the Hardy Yards project is supposed to start in about 18 months. The guy showed me some images he supposedly was directed to by the architect, but they were those old "Hardy Yards Plaza" renderings that were posted here in 2013, including the miniature Eiffel tower. Since I can't find anything current, I take the construction start with a big grain of salt.
  19. Kinglyam
    I wouldn't count on KBR before Hardy. Hardy Yards is already remediated and approved for construction, with nothing (known) near it. I'm not sure KBR is. Plus, KBR is right next door to the MDI site. While it's down to ground water monitoring only, I'm thinking that's going to put a damper on expansion. And don't forget, light rail. Not anywhere near KBR.
  20. Kinglyam
    It's mixed use, so unless they build it all office on that side (which is possible, of course), there would be some residential. I've not seen any detailed layouts discussing where things are supposed to go in the development, only sketches.
  21. Kinglyam
    I didn't realize until today that they were planning to reroute the spaghetti bowl to north of UHD. Right now, the plans show it going along the south side of the UPRR track, through UHD's surface lot off Daly, with an entirely elevated structure.It will probably cut the value of any residential planned for the south side of the yards, since they'll have that massive freeway right outside the 3rd floor, but overall I doubt would have a huge impact on the whole project.
  22. Kinglyam
    They've torn up the road and are working on the subgrade on the north side of Burnett, now. The project manager says about 3-4 weeks (weather permitting, of course) for that side of the road to be finished. Looks like they're not dropping the grade like the foreman told me a while back. That roller-coaster ride they put at the new Main-Burnett intersection gives them all the grade change they need. I don't want to think what that intersection is going to be like during a toad-strangler.
  23. Kinglyam
    A temporary road with all that asphalt seems pretty wasteful, but I suppose that makes sense with what the foreman told me ages ago, that they were going to start the work by redoing the north side of Burnett first. The rain must have really put a crimp in their schedule.
  24. Kinglyam
    I suspect here's not a lot more in that article than in this one from Wednesday: http://www.bxtx.com/construction-preview/22439-hardy-yards-springs-back-to-life.html
  25. Kinglyam
    I haven't seen anything, but I just noticed a thread a little bit down the forum about a residential construction ("The Lofts", so creative) planned for that triangle of land across the tracks from the warehouse.
×
×
  • Create New...