supkof

I was glad to see that the Southern Decadence Parade prevailed, and a few diehard people, about 24 people kept the nearly 40 year old tradition alive this last Labor Day. If you don

The newest designation is Super Tall

The Burj Dubai

200+ stories currently under consrtuction.

Architecture by SOM.

It's a very impressive building, for sure, but I must correct you. It's 2300+ feet tall, but only 160+ floors.

There is also a building planned for Kuwait which would be over 3,000 feet tall and would literally dwarf the Burj Dubai.

I participated in the 2003 Census check up and Austin's population to that date in the city was already at 835,000 or so. So the 600,000 population is from 1997. I remember that when I first moved here. The current metro population is 1,834,239. that is almost 2,000,000. In 20 Years it is gonna double to 4 million. Fort Worth isnt the fastest growing city. Laredo, Texas is with a population of 297,000 and ten years ago it was 176,000. Laredo's population is expected to be about 650,000 in 20 years. Austin is larger than El Paso and Fort Worth. and Austin is the 13th Largest City in the US.

Actually, according to the US Census Bureau's population finder, Laredo's population as of 2004 is estimated at just over 200,000... not nearly 300,000. It's grown a lot in ten years, but not as much as you're saying it has. It now has about the same population of the city in which I live (Shreveport.)

Does Laredo even have a skyline? I've never been there, but I also can't seem to find any good pictures of the city. Obviously it's growing rapidly, but what is fueling the growth?

Austin

Population in city

.............684,203

1,422,870 in metro

Austin is the only city with a 600,000 to 700,000th residental city with one major interstate of I-35 that people cross through to see and find Austin.

Austin has came over Fort Worth and El Paso Texas with these residents and buildings built here.

Like other cities with these many residents that have more interstates crossing their towns that people visit and live in has not been growing rapidly like Austin, TX.

That must be one BUSY interstate going through a city with that many people.

Looks like a clone of the Dallas center (pictured above the rendering.)

I would guess Target though, for the simple fact that MickeyD's would have been built inside of Wal-mart, if it was coming.

Are they still doing that? All the Wal-Mart SuperCenters here in Shreveport were originally built with Mickey D's inside of them, but they've all been replaced with Subway sandwich shops. Maybe due to the fact that every Wal-Mart SuperCenter here (including the one newest one they're getting ready to start on) have a McDonald's within a short distance. Two of them even have McDonald's right off their property lines.

If I had my choice, I'd go with SuperTarget anyway. I live in the suburbs and I'm so glad they're getting ready to build one within 10 miles of my house. The other one is nearly 30 miles away in the southeast Shreveport area... and I HATE Wal-Mart.

So what's a good substitute for Austin? Where can I go for that small college-town charm these days?

Champaign-Urbana, IL.

If I were willing to give up city life and move to a small college town, it would be that area. It's very cool and has quite a college-town feel, and it's small. Not that I live in a huge city, but I do live in a city of a quarter-million people, whereas they only have about 90,000 in that area. For such a small area, they have a LOT of cool stuff.

the internet is for exploring.

Word of advice: get ona faster server or purchase more bandwidth. I'd love to visit the site, but can't get it to load... and I'm surfing REALLY high-speed here.

I understand your frustration. When the writer talks about how New Orleans residents "bemoan" Houston, that is outright rude.... and untrue. I don't know who she is hanging around with, but it my experience that our neighbors and friends from New Orleans are thankful for Houston - and frankly I've always been thankful that New Orleans was our unique, fun, and quirky neighbor to the east. She (the writer) is clearly aloof and arrogant... sure, I understand her sentiments about New Orleans, but she could have written that article without slamming our town. It is downright tacky to slam a city that has come to the aid of hundreds of thousands of people - whether you like it or not.

New Orleans is a GREAT place to visit. Period. It's not, however, a great place to live. There is no doubt the quality of life in New Orleans royally sucks, but that doesn't take away from the charm of this amazingly historical and cultural city.

I live 5-6 hours north of New Orleans in Shreveport. I'm actually an hour closer to Houston, believe it or not. I've been to Houston many times and love it, because I'm a city boy... I love the urban life. But I also like a city with cool, unique cultural and historical offerings. You'd think, being a poster on an architecture website, you'd love New Orleans if for nothing more than its gorgeous architecture from a bygone era.

New Orleans is a very nasty place, but its architecture is undeniably unmatched in this country. And for that, it's also one of the most beautiful cities in the United States. Go figure. I pray to God that city rises from thie ruins.

Just curious what the heck their employee pricing really is, and if it's any better than what you could negotiate on your own....or if it's just plain ol' bandwagon hype.

Anyone have any info?

I work for a large national home builder, and (with my company at least) the employee pricing is the same as the customer's pricing.

I'm glad I discovered this forum. The purpose of this thread is for any of you readers who have had problems with Lovett and need a place to vent. I also want to warn other readers away from Lovett who are thinking of purchasing a new Lovett Home. My experience with Lovett Homes has probably been one of the worst customer service experiences I've ever had. Since the day we signed the sales contract our sales representative has been unaccommodating to our needs. Every single answer to our question was always "NO" And not a polite no, but an immediate no without even consulting higher ups. Once you have signed the dotted line forget about customer service. In the world of Lovett, the customer is never right, the builder is always right. Anyway, for lack of time I will end this post here, but will follow up later. Please feel free to add your own Lovett experiences.

It's really not fair of you to publicly give this builder a bad name without producing some real examples of what makes them so bad. As someone who works in the corporate office of a large home builder with a sales location in the Houston area, I see the direct effects of such bad publicity all the time. Please, if you're going to publicly denounce this builder, give some examples of why they're so bad to do business with. So the salesman said "no" to everything... what is "everything?" What were your requests? Were you requesting plan changes they can't make? If so, the answer is likely going to be "no." More information is necessary for one to make a common-sense judgement in this matter.

Does anyone have, or know where I can see, pictures of uptown so I can compare for myself?

I love Houston, but I'm 4 hours away so I can't exactly go see for myself this weekend.

How many stories is the tallest building in Houston?

Illinois uses them as well in many of their cities. I just think they're so convenient.

Feeder roads rock. I live in Shreveport, and most of the freeways here are feeder-less. You can drive over to just about any Texas city and see feeders, because Texas knows how to do things. We also have a loop around the city (Loop 3132) but we just call it a loop, not a Beltway. I'm not sure about other cities, but the only cities I can think of who have a loop called a "Beltway" are Houston and Washington D.C. It's a pretty catchy name, though. Our Loop 3132 was renamed the "Terry Bradshaw Passway" the other day. I know they were trying to play on the fact that Terry Bradshaw was a great QB, but come on... passway? Louisiana's a little different, folks!

But back on the subject, I love Texas' feeder roads. In the Houston area, they can get quite confusing to an out-of-towner, but I wish Shreveport (or Louisiana in general) would use them more often. If the politicians would stop lining their pockets with our tax dollars, this state would have a lot more money for our roads.

Go Texas!

Thanks, I did it and it worked just fine. And actually, the store I wanted to compare with is the SuperTarget in Shreveport, and it just so happens, that's the first store footprint that popped up!

Wow, that's extremely impressive. There's an enormous mall/ theater complex with housing directly across the street, and the available outparcels are just huge... big enough to put power centers on.

I'm trying to come up with a basic footprint of a SuperTarget store, not a regular Target. I'm not working on one, I'm just trying to compare the footprint to that of a regular Target store. Anyone have a PDF or JPEG of one you could post here?

Thanks,

Brian

For good reference, here's a picture of the Tyler, TX skyline. Tyler's population is almost identical to that of the city of Midland, but Midland has a MUCH more impressive skyline. Another thing to consider with Midland, however, is that there's a whole other sister city (Odessa) right down the road, adding to the "metro" population.

So, effectively, they're building it as a separate, self-contained city within another city. It does appear to be out in the middle of nowhere, but it IS an urban project. The style is very urban, even if the surrounding landscape isn't.

Even cities the size of Shreveport are coming to bat with these "cities within a city" type of projects, like Louisiana Boardwalk (http://www.louisianaboardwalk.com) and Provenance (http://www.yourprovenance.com.) Although these two projects literally pale in comparison to the project in Atlanta, they are still great projects for the size of area they are in.

Same for Shreveport... Shreveport's skyline, it appears, is about the same height, and the city has twice the population, but Midland's skyline is pretty danged impressive!

Also a 1,000 home project is taking shape on the western side of the city. An 11 story apartment building has just started construction. A massive civic and sports complex is under consruction on the Arkansas side of town. It will have baseball and soccer fields, areas for football and basketball and tennis courts. Also part of the complex will be an arena that will seat up to 6,000 and will be used for concerts, hockey games and more. Taking shape near this facility will be a huge development that will feature hotels, restaurants, retail, apartments and more. Southern Refrigerated Trucking has broken ground on 40 acres for it's new facility that will create more than 1,550 new jobs. Among the many retailers, restaurants and hotels coming to this city include: Ruby Tuesdays, Coldstone Creamery, Talbots Department Store, Travel Inn Plaza Hotels, Goodies, Hooters, Olive Garden, TGIFriday, Ross Dress for Less, Burlington Coat Factory, Gander Mountain, UPS store and 2 new Bank of the Ozarks. The current construction of I-49 from Texarkana down to Shreveport is progressing nicely and is nearly complete to the Louisiana border. The Texarkana Regional Airport is under going a major reconstruction of the terminal and runways with the addition of another airline,Continental , setting up shop. The forecast for Texarkana's boom is that there is no end in sight.

I have heard of many of these projects, but the "1,000 home project," the Hooters, and the TGI Friday's are projects I had never heard of. Can anyone validate these claims online? Thanks.

Legacy Tower will be a mixed use office and retail development due to be completed by 2008

Anyone have any information available online to back up this claim? I work on projects in the Ark-La-Tex region all the time and have never heard of this project. Thanks.