scarface

I don't have electronic access so I can't post the article, but the front page story in the WSJ today is about how Dallas is using tax incentives and grants to attract a base of about 10,000 residents to downtown, especially by redeveloping vacant old office buildings and hotels. So far about 2,400 "mostly upscale" apartments have been created, and another 2,040 on on the drawing boards. One company alone is refurbishing nine downtown structures. Acording to the article, downtown is 5,500 residents away from the city's goal.

DANG! isn't that more than Houston's downtown population?

Houston's skylines have remained much the same since 1986. That's year we got our last highrise skyscraper. It was the Texaco Heritage Building. It' s the tall but stout highrise at the front of downtown. It has a jagged top and an Aztec Temple ontop. It was the building with the giant projection screen on it during Jean-Michael Jarre's Rendevous Houston concert.

As you move from downtown the only other real highrise we've got is William's/Transco Tower.

Actually, that's not true, the Wedge International building was built in 1993. The Reliant Energy Plaza is also fairly high which was completed in 2003

Uhmmm Victory. Since this is a Houston site, probably not the best place to put it for an honest answer.

then could you do me a favor? Could you or some other SSC member start the same thread at skyscrapercity or skyscraperpage? I've been trying to register, but for some reasonm they won't accept my e-mail adress.

But i don't see the members on this site as being biased. Many members here tell it like it is. If there's something that they don't like about a project that Houston's doing, they'll speak on it. That's just been my observation by reading some of the members posts on various threads. But you may have a point!

Now we all know that Houston and Dallas are each supposed to be getting new dowtown jewels. Dallas Victory Project and Houston's still hoping to breaking ground w/ the Houston Pavilions Project in the upcoming months (fingers crossed!)

Dallas is seeing a surge of excitement with the development of the Victory Center with the Victory Hotel to rise along with the retail that's gonnna occur in that little section where Victory Plaza will be.

Houston's Pavilion Project is something that is much needed downtown which could change the site of downtown Houston forever. The Houston Pavilions would anchor Main Street Square and connect to the Houston Center and Hilton America's throughout to theToyota center. It will also be a short walk away from the Park Tower and the new downtown park (that will have 2 restaurants). It is also supposed to have high rise condo's rise above the facility.

Now please note, as we're comparing these two developments, i'm not just talking comparing Dallas Victory development against Houston Pavilions project alone. This includes everything close in proximity to the Pavilions such as: The Park Tower, Discovery Green, Hilton Americas, GRB, Toyota Center, and etc. So this is comparing Dallas Victory and Houston Pavilions and all SURROUNDING DEVELOPMENT

Even though HP may not be quite as fancy as Dallas's Victory (seeing that Dallas is getting large plasma screens and all). the developments are basically similar and i think they will pretty much serve the same purpose to each of the downtowns. What do you all think? Which one will be hotter and have the most impact or influence on downtown?

Hey, whatever you say dude. I really don't care what you say about me.

If there's no movement between now and next spring, don't be surprised, cause I told y'all so. Then you going to see how good Semi really is.

you know semipro, alot of people said the same thing about the Pavilions project in downtown Denver. Many sad and believed it would never happen. But look what happened? It did. The exact same thing is happening in downtown Houston right now that was happening in Denver a while back (At the end of the 90's). Houston is more like a downtown Denver in the making right now.

i can always appreciate pics of Dallas. Dallas is a beautiful city that is booming quite a bit right now.

i wouldn't have a problem with elevated rail. I see the City of Houston is constantly building bridges for more and higher freeways, why can't they start making plans to do something like that for lightrail?

First of all, by my saying that a subway will make a place feel more "urban" was only one of the reasons why i think a subway should be implemented. I think many of you know better to think that's not the main reason why a subway should be implemented. There are several other reasons: It won't slow trafic, it will reduce the number of collisions with car drivers, and it will get a person from point A to point B much faster than having to stop at lights with the cars.

Redscare, you say that a subway is a recipe for disaster when streetlevel can get the job done? Look at the 100 crashes and one fatality metrorail has encountered on street level and the rail has been open just a little under 2 years. If that's not disaster, i don't know what is. This was mainly due to poor designing and planning. I know many of these accidents were by fault of the driver but that's not the point, if the rail was underground or in the air, it wouldn't interfere with street traffic.

I still think a subway or a monorail is not a bad idea. I think some of you are a little hard on Citykid09 when he posts pictures just displaying ideas that have worked in other cities and how it could work in Houston. If subway is a bad idea, then why not monorail? WesternGulf, you mentioned Seattle and they at least have monorail, which is another option from street level! I'm sorry but streetlevel rail will not solve the problem of traffic and mobility that currently exists in this city.

i like the idea of having a subway in Houston. A subway in my opinion, makes a place feel more "urban". I like the way Dallas did theirs but the only thing is in their Tunnel Stop at CityPlace Station, they should open up a couple of underground retail shops and fast food express restaurants in to make it more of a "real" subway, more NYC or Chicago style.

Houston could get a subway and i don't think a subway through downtown Houston is the only possiblility. They can open up one coming from the northside on the way to downtown. No one says it has to be real long, maybe 1-1.5 miles. Or like someone mentioned earlier, they can open up one between Westheimer and Richmond, which would avoild all of that nasty traffic on Westheimer and 610.

For Houston to get a subway, things like ridership and cost should be of no concern. The developers have to be innovative and forward thinking for the future. Houston is only gonna get bigger and as the city grows, there will come a time when a subway or monorail will need to be implemented. Afterall, Dallas's DART's ridership is no bigger than Houston's. They ran a portion of their lightrail underground for about 1-2 miles because they wanted to do it to look more "touristy". I think Houston can do something similar.

i voted no simply because Houston is larger and has more areas to work with as to where Dallas is slightly more compact in size (i.e its downtown and uptown areas).

What i don't get is why everyone is so impressed with Dallas's uptown area that shows so much pedestrian friendly areas. Even though TMC might not be as close to the downtown core (like uptown dallas), Houston has similar urban developments and activity at the Texas Medical Center.

The Texas Medical Center is probably one of the best urban areas in Houston. It even contains a few shops right off the railline such as Chipoltle, Starbucks, and a Sushi Bar.

So if we draw comparisons, we could say that Dallas's downtown is comparable to Houston's downtown, Uptown Dallas is comparable to Houston's Texas Medical Center area. Uptown Houston could hold its own against downtown Fort Worth as far as skylines go but it lacks the urbanity and pedestrian friendly areas that Fort Worth has.

That's my humble take on it. No one city is newer, it's just the two cities are different sizes so therefore the developments are on different scales.

OYE I'm looking at Houston's skyline during Game 3, and I'm thinking of how quiet our city looked in the background. Why do we have to have casinos on a strip to have our lighting downtown shine like Las Vegas's Strip? We're trying to showcase a vibrant downtown, not try to be like any other quiet town.

our skyline does seem dull and tacky. I wish the building owners would take more note of how they're giving a poor appearance of the Houston skyline at night

i was just driving by downtown tonight and noticed that some of the downtown buildings haven't lit up their rooftops with the different colors that they did last year in honor of the Astros. This year they made it to the World Series. I wonder why they didn't do it this year?

the best way to sum up Houston and Dallas comparison.

Houston is more "city" while Dallas is more "metropolitan" or suburban.

Both places have their own unique attributes but having lived in both places, i found Houston to have a little bit of everything. If you want a beach, although not on the top choices of beaches, Galveston is a short drive away.

In Dallas, if you want a some downtown excitement (or nightlife), then Fort Worth downtown is about a 30 minute drive away. While Dallas does have some interesting projects going up around it's central core, it mainly caters to the business crowd. In Houston, if you want nightlife, you have the newly developed Main Street downtown with more entertainment projects to come! Also you can find pockets of activity when you drive through Montrose, Westhemer and Richmond Strips.

Both places are great but it depends on what you're looking for.

I was surfing the net when i came across this and i had to post this? Could some of these convicted Murderers be lurking around here in Houston. This article kind of scares me!

By Jennifer Latson, Knight Ridder Newspapers

Mon Oct 17, 5:27 PM ET

NEW ORLEANS - Nearly two months after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana's largest criminal justice system is still in ruins.

Murderers will probably go free in New Orleans, admits District Attorney Eddie Jordan, the head of a criminal justice system that's in such chaos that court is held in the Amtrak station and inmates are penned up in an outdoor bus bay.

Trial dates come and go while defendants sit in crowded prisons as far away as Florida. Criminal trials are on indefinite hold.

Jordan faces two formidable obstacles: Witnesses who've scattered with the winds and evidence vaults scoured by flooding.

Before Katrina, 3,000 accused criminals were awaiting trial, including some 200 facing murder charges.

Evidence in many of those cases - authorities are still assessing the scope - has congealed into a sodden mess in the boggy basement of the Orleans Parish Courthouse.

"The rooms are in chaos," Jordan said. "It looked like a hurricane had been inside the evidence room. The stench was overwhelming."

Guns, drugs and paperwork stewed for days in putrid water.

"There's certainly the potential for a case as serious as a murder case to depend on physical evidence we're not able to produce," said the district attorney. "If that happens we won't be able to prosecute it."

Craig Famularo, the prosecutor in charge of handling the city's 300 or so annual homicide cases, fears forensic evidence he depends on has been corrupted or purged.

"If we had blood, we lost that," he said. "There's videotaped confessions - hopefully those can be reproduced."

Lawyers said some defendants will benefit from the upheaval but others will suffer.

"I have some drug offenders who will probably get lucky and go free," said prominent defense attorney Frank Desalvo.

LINK TO FULL ARTICLE:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/krwashbureau/20051...torms_justice_1

i thought it was said they were supposed to be closing the greyhound statiion on Main sometime ago, earlier this year? Whatever happened to that?

Not only did the City quickly vote on a TIRZ for those 3 blocks (which is somewhat unprecedented), the county and city kicked in another $16M for the project. If it doesn't get off the ground, it's not the City's fault.

The one thing that is lacking downtown at this point is incentives for residential projects. I personally believe the City should give incentives to projects that include affordable units. Downtown needs density and the best way to do that is building moderatly priced units. With the price per sq ft of the land, though, it's almost impossible without incentives.

why wouldn't something like this get off the ground? The demand for something like this in Houston is relatively high. I agree, they need to create more affordable housing downtown to generate a more mix of different people, culture to give downtown more character and to increase density downtown.

The Pavilions project in Denver proved to be nothing but success by increasing shopping, dining, and entertainment. It was implemented in 1998. Denver's downtown was in a similar shape as downtown Houston is now in the 1990s. In fact, i think Houston's downtown is better off now than Denver's was so why wouldn't it get off the ground?