Graystone

They held a press conference later that morning. There was a decent article on it on the chronicles free site. Linked below.

https://www.chron.com/business/bizfeed/article/Iconic-downtown-Houston-office-tower-renamed-TC-14521396.php

PS: The Kolaches were decent...lol

9 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

I am not talking about the whole city shifting from a car-based to a walking lifestyle. I am talking about a walking lifestyle taking root somewhere in our city. I'm thinking that between downtown, midtown, EaDo, maybe the Museum District and eventually Washington Avenue, we can have areas where it's possible to do most things without a car. 

 

Chicago, Boston, D.C., Philadelphia, San Francisco, perhaps New Orleans are good examples of hybrid cities where you have a walkable city within a predominantly car-based city. New York being America's one predominantly walking-based city.

 

Just wanted to add an anecdote on the ability of Houston downtown or east side residence to be car-less. One of the guys I work with (work downtown) lives in The Rice and he doesn't own a car. He gets his groceries delivered, walks most places and ubers anywhere outside downtown he needs to go. So its possible in H-Town today.

Was inside at this building today (Sorry no pic) and the construction walls are down in the lobby and the new interior windows are in. You can see the rough look of what this new space will be. I believe the exterior windows are installed too but didn't go out and look. If someone with some time and a camera wants to check it out!

Sooooo it's going to look like a residential version of One Shell Plaza? Think I like the sound of that.

I agree I think it will look classy. Now we need to see what the heck they're going to do to make that ugly parking garage behind it look better since to me it has been one of the ugliest things about the skyline view of this part of downtown.

Taken about the same time as Nate's picture but from a different angle.

Not many that would be openly accessible.  Public garages would probably be your best bet.  If you get a room at the Magnolia, you could go out on their pool deck, it's at the top. Ditto Hotel Icon.

 

Judging by the google map satellite image, the 601 Travis garage that you mention doesn't look to have anything but the standard roof top mechanical stuff up there as its top few floors are all office space.

Nate is correct. I can see the top of this garage from my office. However there is quite a lot of equipment on that roof and what cannot be seen from street level is that at the center of the garage structure is a smaller oval office/conference room level rising above the last visible floor that could have roof access. There are also coolers for the JP Morgan building in a hidden nook on the northeast portion of the mega garage slash office. As this was a Hines construction I wouldn't put it past them putting permanent railings in simply for safety of workers on the roof.

As a side note for those who don't work downtown there is kind of a parking crunch since many surface lots have bitten it and The Market square garage is not open to daily parkers only contract. This has prompted the Chronicle to open up half their garage to public use for eight bucks a day. Also their is like a seven hundred person long waiting list to get a contract parking spot with the Theater District Parking during daytime hours. If Skanska builds this garage they will get a lot of business to pay for it while they search for a tenant so they can build their tower. Parking rates are rising all over downtown. Last I checked the going rate for contract parking was between $120 and $150 a month for a space. Many of my co-workers are not happy about this for obvious reasons. On a bright note this is causing several of them to consider riding metro. (More parking for me!)

I'd like to point out since no one else seems to have noticed in Triton's last set of pictures that the garage structure behind Franks and the bank building has been demolished this week and they've been clearing sections of ground. If you recall that space will be the buildings loading dock. I have a top down view from my office but keep forgetting to take pictures. I'll try to remember next week!

One of my co-workers relatives is the site foreman on this job for the concrete work. Believe me they are going full out on this project putting in long hours.Getting off the ground floor takes a lot of not so visible prep work. Things should begin to speed up from a visible standpoint now though. Supposedly they are really excited about this job since it is one of the few that is using a mobile jacking form for the center shaft.

This is the picture of the digging mentioned above...It was raining so water on the window

EDIT: This is a different excavator...they took the old one and brought in this one.

Drat! Oh well as a patron of Frank's this will be a nice addition and improve the atmosphere of the area and the pizza place. So its good news just not the news we thought.

I've got this mental image of all of us as little grade school kids bouncing from foot to foot in anticipation of recess as we wait for activity on this site. The anticipations is so thick you'll need a chainsaw to cut through it! lol

Here is an update on the contruction progress or more acurately pit digging. They have a new tracked drill looking thing on site. I don't know what it does but it looks interesting at least.

There is an excavator onsite today, but it's not doing anything.

I can confirm. Here is a pic I took an hour ago.

This is good news! thanks Triton. I will have to get some top down pics when I am back at work.

Another quick photo update. Picture take 8/19. Enjoy!

Guys you should have been at the Houston Downtown Amtrak station in late 2012 and caught this guy passing through!

Hey guys here is a quick update photo of the site as of late this afternoon. Looks like all the old basement walls are gone and getting chewed up for disposal.

As a unapologetic train fan i truly hope this gets the green light. Now if we could create, as others have said, the 'Texas Triangle' route connecting Austin and San Antonio in future expansions I'd be on cloud nine of train nerd heaven!

This is a really great video. I got a lot better feel for the building than from just the static renderings. Makes me wish my company didn't have to move to a different tower before this one was ready. Its exciting to see the changes going on to downtown from when I first started working downtown in 2005. The shift toward having residential downtown I think will also give houston a whole new vibe and a world class feel on top of nice new office towers like this. I know, recklessly optomistic for a forum post!

Thanks, Graystone, for the pics.  I'm your neighbor upstairs.  I was going to report this, but no one believes me without photo proof.   The first few layers of dirt looked like good soil and then it went red.  Where do you suppose they are dumping all of this dirt?

 

Also, Harvey Construction is building out an office space on the first floor of the G-Rodge.  No construction trailers for this site (no room).  Of course, I may be just making this up too.

Howdy Neighbor!

I don't know where the dirt is going though the dump trucks seem to head east out once they leave the site. I've attached the pics I took during lunch. Notice in the last picture it looks like they are doing more soil samples. Enjoy!

Here are some photos I took this morning. You can see the basement walls more clearly than he photos I took yesteday. I have some more I took during lunch that I will post later.

Is that a fence or just bushes?

There is a fence blocking the driveway but the rest is bushes. The two cars in the driveway are I believe Frank's Pizza employee's since the same two are there everyday almost. There is one truck and one work van on the property itself. Pedestrians have been using the lot as a cut from Main since it is not completely fenced.

I posted a few pictures in the other Marketsquare develpoement and felt the Hines project should get some attention too. The picture shows today August 8th. Note that this is the first time I've seen a vehicle on the site since the soil sample work.

Thank you for the pictures Graystone and welcome.  You have the perfect view for this project, keep 'em coming!

Thanks! I will try to post updates as I can. I think its neat how you can see the old foundation walls of the buildings that used to be there before it was a parking lot. There is some cool history up thread on them. Sad that they are gone but I am happy to see something new being built here.