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.

13 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

We actually have a pretty good idea how brief, because it is mostly below grade at the other end of Hardy Yards, and the I-45 portions that remain elevated are much less so.  Another thing that isn't in question is that the proposed elevated major interstate highway through the middle of the 4th-largest city in the USA is just a slight relocation of a current elevated major interstate highway.  The suggestion earlier in the thread that this elevated stretch will be replacing a currently-submerged stretch was, as is so much that gets posted about this project, not exactly correct.

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

1 minute ago, Houston19514 said:

 

At that point, you may be right.  But that is by far the highest point and it is brief.

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.

2 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

Then on the north side the freeway, rather than being sunken into the ground as current, it will be flying through the sky at over 60 feet high right by Hardy Yards [I recommend everyone take a careful look at the plans; while it is all elevated at the very west end of Hardy Yards, where it passes between UH-D and the elevated Metro Rail station (a) I don't know that we have any reason to think it is 60 feet in the sky and (b) by the time it gets to the east end of Hardy Yards, most of it is sunken, the small elevated portion is even less elevated, and it is further removed from Hardy Yards]. 

 

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.  

6 minutes ago, samagon said:

I can see it in my mind Timoric, a less than 1 mile stretch of land with freeway removed, and purchased by developers so they can make tons of money, meanwhile, the bus terminals, and homeless outreach centers aren't going to move, so it'll be just as unfriendly as current. Yet on the east side the freeway is going to go from spanning 220 feet wide to spanning 550 feet wide for ~1.5 miles, and local level access to downtown is going to be reduced by about 25%, 19 city blocks with existing businesses are going to be taken, and an entire community will be wiped out. Then on the north side the freeway, rather than being sunken into the ground as current, it will be flying through the sky at over 60 feet high right by Hardy Yards. And if you look at how things are currently on the west side of downtown at buffalo bayou, it's pretty much unchanged.

 

hope that helps.

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.

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?

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.

4 hours ago, LTAWACS said:

So that's what this is going to be? A parking garage? What happened to all the developments???

 Are you new to Houston, LTAWACS?   Nothing gets built here without the parking garage first. The rest of the building will come around it.

4 hours ago, Urbannizer said:

 

 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?

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.

Isn't the Hardy Downtown Extension passing close to this development?

Are you talking about the San Jacinto St. extension? I've seen in other forums that it seems to be up in the air.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Will the Burnett TC have parking for light rail users? There's a pretty annoying lack of spaces to park on this end of the red line.

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.

Odd, according to the recent City Agenda a winning bid has been accepted for construction to begin late August or beginning of November on the actual Residences at the Hardy Yards portion. This construction phase is estimated to take up to 18 months to complete. 

 

Also here is an update on the Hernandez tunnel that was posted last week on District H Councilman Ed Gonzalez's website. Looks like the tunnel itself will be reopening in the next few weeks. I haven't driven by here in a while so I haven't gotten to see the portion of Burnett that opened July 17th.

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.

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.

The KBR sight I was just at yesterday and was thinking you could easy but a city Centre type place on the size of that land

Hopefully next cycle as Midtown and Montrose become too expensive. 

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. 

I didn't realize there was any residential being planned on the south side of the yards other than maybe a small area off Conti St that I thought had fallen through well over a year ago but I haven't gone by back there in a while. Otherwise I don't see it affecting the area very much at all and if anything maybe giving it additional visibility. If anything I think redesigning the clock tower they're putting into the residences should be elevated even higher to make it easily visible to those driving by to see the time. Could be our own Watchtower clock like the one in NYC when you're leaving Manhattan and driving to Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge. Obviously that one is digital and pretty much an american landmark. But it would be cool none the less.

This is Texas doggone it! Make it bigger or we can't be better. 

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.

Has anyone thought of how the recently announced North Houston Highway Improvement Program will affect whats trying to be achieved?  

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.

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.

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.

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

Agreed. Hopefully they'll just abandon it and I think that is actually part of the plan. It looks like they plan to have a new road go from the intersection of N Main and Providence St (At UHD) to N Main and Brooks. It would essentially wipe out a lot of the parking but I think the plan is to build a parking garage. Does anyone know of the document I am talking about? May have even been posted in this thread though I don't the parking garage has been publicly released yet.

 

And yes! The road is in absolutely bad shape now because of all the redirected traffic. The pot holes are tire killers. 

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.