jmitch94

Love when developers come in and buy out a business that adds to the community all to just demo the building and add nothing. Hopefully they sell the land and can bring in a developer with some power to get stuff done. 

8 minutes ago, Valhalla said:

I don't understand how midtown isn't crawling with highrises and young professionals. It's right on the metro and in the geographic center of everything important. It seemed like four of five years ago the sky was the limit, but now it seems like developers won't touch midtown with a ten foot poll. 

It's not the hip cool place anymore, also you'll struggle to got a lot of high earning individuals with the plethora of homeless and that Grey Hound station. 

So cool! Is this your own camera or one that TMC3 put up? 

Looks great. I'd definitely make use of this but people will be pissed when they eventually rip it up. 

36 minutes ago, mkultra25 said:

Hanszen was one of the original colleges when the college system was implemented at Rice in 1957. The building being demoed is the "New Wing" of Hanszen, which was also built in 1957. There is also an "Old Wing", which was built in 1916 and was previously known as West Hall prior to the advent of the college system. 

Residents have long complained about the deterioration of the facilities in the New Wing, so this has been a long time coming. Still, it always makes me a little sad whenever another of the Rice Institute-era buildings that sprung up during the postwar building boom meets the wrecking ball.

Tangentially related: Harry Hanszen lived in a John Staub-designed mansion in River Oaks on Lazy Lane that subsequently became much better known as the longtime home of John Mecom, Jr., until it too met the wrecking ball in 2017:

Storied Texas Mansion Completely Demolished 

Fun story but his brother also tore down a history mansion in river oaks. 

19 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

I wouldn't assume that it's just a slam dunk, there are a lot of politics behind how they use that fund. As I understand it you can't take from the $22 billion, you take from the revenue generated by the $22 billion, which is a lot smaller and many mouths are fed by it.

 

Correct, endowments are very strict and usually only spend around half of the income generated from the endowed money. 

On 6/11/2021 at 9:21 AM, Houston19514 said:

Your post and the prior one rather step on your point.  ;-)

In any event, it's a little short of "welfare" to lease a building out to someone at a price that will fully repay the costs (and at the end of the lease, the City still owns the land and the building).

That’s assuming they stay in business and or hold up their end of the deal or even worse, aren’t granted more tax brakes in the future. 

6 hours ago, tangledwoods said:

Why in hell is the city spending $40mil when this company could easily go out and bank finance the job themselves (or get a developer involved)?  I wasn't aware that our tax dollars are being used to fund commercial development....

Corporate welfare, the only welfare in America that's not demonized. 

God I hope so. The streets and "sidewalks" around site are in terrible shape and there is practically zero erosion control causing the run off to be massive. 

I think most people here are upset with the fact that buildings are just not built like they used to be with more ornate decoration and sturdier and more costly materials. I don't see many fully brick and masonry façade buildings being built here in Houston. On top of that there are literally hundreds of empty grass fields in the core of the city, with ten times that number in asphalt surface parking lots and a hundred times that in shitty decaying strip centers.

Also I don't understand why some people demand that a building needs to be of exceptional historic and personal significance in order for it to be restored. 

Keeping these buildings keeps some character in the city. All the new apartment complexes look the same and get very tedious. I once heard a description of driving around Houston is like those old cartoon chase scenes where the background keeping repeating over and over. 

12 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

What's crazy is that two Urban Genesis reps said they would use the bricks from the building to rebuild the facade. This was from a face to face meeting like 2 weeks ago. 

Business lie, like a lot, like constantly.

11 hours ago, astrohip said:

Sad. I ate there many a lunch. Got a little hot in the summer (no indoors), but the burgers were worth it.

My first job was at the corner of Polk & Dowling  Emancipation (across from the Houston Post bldg), and then Pease & Bastrop.  We ate at a steam table diner called Shanley's (no, that's not right, can't think of the name, Leeland & Hutchins), and Sparkle Burger, and then a Church's opened up. 1976 or so. I'm old. 😁

Love your personal, and for lack of better words, ordinary stories of Houston history. You hear all the big stuff but it’s cool to see a more intimate day to day history of our city.

1 hour ago, Texasota said:

Really? That seems like it would indicate some kind of very serious environmental apocalypse.

Or the worlds tallest landfill, Houston’s only hills. 

God I hope not, this building would look like hot garbage if they left it essentially they way it looks now. 

So are the drive in movie, golf course and icehouse all temporary? Is anyone else a little nervous about them building all of these temporary revenue sources and then scaling back later phases because “this is good enough, we’re making money.”

The silvery black of these bricks remind me of the weathered cedar shingled houses of the north east. 

I live in the apartments just south down Almeda and surprising traffic hasn't been that terrible. 

11 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

That may be the case but you always have to take this with a grain of salt. The normal Houston mentality is that anything old is "in bad shape, falling apart." Up in the Northeast there are brick warehouses all over the place that have heavy wooden beams and they are in use, not dried out and falling apart. You would think a humid climate like in Houston would help this sort of thing. Then again, we do have formosan termites that could have gotten to those beams. But it's just hard to trust when this excuse has been used so many times, and our city has a really low IQ in general when it comes to historic building methods.

Exactly! Pretty sure 90% of the time that line is just BS to get out of any public push back. 

“Hey let’s build in this cool, interesting, and historic part of town and in doing so destroy all the stuff that creates that appeal.” 
 

- Every Houston developer. 

Is there anything that followed up on the stair collapse? Didn’t three people die in a major structural failure? I feel like things got back to business super fast.

On 4/27/2021 at 8:02 AM, samagon said:

is it though? 

heat island effect, non-permeable surface, animal habitat, etc.

Depends on your goals. If you’re for increasing population density and creating a more urban city then yes this is about the bare minimum in regards to working toward that goal. This one project isn’t going to noticeably affect any of the concerns you listed and yes, I know a million rocks make a mountain but this mountain is already built. 

1 hour ago, j_cuevas713 said:

This is so stupid. It's like you fight tooth and nail to see progress and then you see a damn parking lot 

Not ideal but a million times better than an abandoned grass/weed field. 

They seem to just be replacing the bridges, is this going to help with flooding or does is just replace worn out bridges and improve traffic flow?