Twinsanity02

I worked as a biomedical researcher for several years at UT Med- Houston. There are zillions of research labs spread out throughout  the TMC. I am somewhat confused about how this one will be set up.  Are there going to be a smattering of labs from UT Med, MD Anderson, Baylor Med, the Institute for Molecular Med, Texas A&M etc etc? 

I suppose the research will be focused on specific areas. Anyone know?

Is this hotel part of the "five highrises" Caydon has planned?  Anyone know approximately when groundbreaking is to occur.

1 hour ago, Urbannizer said:

Whoops haha. Guess I forgot we're still in 2019 being under the weather and tired at the time. 🙂

 Must be your first time in the Tardis. It can throw your sense of years and even centuries off. Relax, your hypothalamus will reset everything back to "normal".

You are correct TheSirDingle. If The District construction goes according to plan, The Preston will hold the title for a short period of time before it is overtaken by The District at 82 feet greater. The Preston will be the tallest downtown but not in the city. Glory is sometimes short lived.

46 minutes ago, TheSirDingle said:

The word "pulls" scared tf out of me, I thought they were stopping the project all together. Thanks for the clarification though.

Did sound worrisome and confusing since the activity on the site didn't connect with "pull out" which is what I thought when I read the post. 

 My impression is that Houston used to be fairly "recession proof"in years past. We had recessions in the 50's and 70's which did not effect the city much in terms of growth. The Oil bust effected Houston,  but not the country as a whole. I don't believe the national recession of the early 90's had much impact here. My point is recessions can be national or regional, and  in the past it is the regional recessions which have impacted us the most. So I haven't a clue what a national recession would cause here.

Houston. This is one of the few places where one area of the metro ( around Katy) there are still drought conditions and another area ( Northeast) we've had half a foot to two feet of rain from Imelda. Certainly not boring.

1 hour ago, Fortune said:

I wonder why there has not been any formal announcements for this project. 

 

MetroNational is a impressive developer, they are constantly building something new in that area!

Modesty perhaps? 

Was this a worker? 

2 hours ago, texas911 said:

You guys are unbelievable. One, I'm not against UH getting a medical school, I'm a proud alum, so let's get that out of the way. But I'll clue you in on why the Texas Medical Center became the juggernaut that its become. Its because its land locked. All the member institutions had no choice but to build next to each other and that critical mass of sharing, exchanging, pooling of employees, physicians, scientists is why the TMC is so great. Really, others have tried to replicate it but without success. Do you think the Debakey/Cooley rivalry could have occurred if they were opposite sides of town, for example? Maybe, but it sure didn't hurt them being right next to each other. It would have been much better to have the medical school participate in this. That's all I'm saying. But there was a lot of back room politics to get the state to approve the school, so who knows, maybe locating it in an "underserved" area that several posters point out is just minutes form the TMC (where you can get as much underserved patients as you want, I'm looking at you Ben Taub), was the only way for UT the state allow it. 

I worked at TMC for 22 years. One advantage the UH Med School will most likely have in its location, is much better parking. Parking at TMC is expensive and if your  cheapskate like me, a long walk.

1 hour ago, wxman said:

This is much taller than I was expecting. Anybody?

You are right. She is quite taller.

Are they actually going to call it the 13th floor? I know superstitious folks think if  the 13th floor is labeled the 14th floor that magically takes care of the problem. As Spock says "that is highly illogical Captain".

Tonight (August 17th) is  the 50th anniversary of Hurricane Camille, after the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane,  is the most powerful hurricane to strike the United States in the 20th century. Made landfall in Pas Christian Mississippi.  Killed over 250 people of which over 100  people were in  Nelson County Virginia! After crossing the U.S. it reformed into a Tropical Storm in the Eastern Atlantic. It was truly a storm which provoked shock and awe. 

I'll put my two cents in. If the choice is between numerous mid size buildings ( 20 to 50 floors)  to a one or two super (300 meters+) or mega tall (600 meters+), I prefer the midsize skyscrapers. These mid size skyscrapers have done a nice job of filling up our downtown and adding to the skyline. The Hines buildings are wonderful examples of this as are several others.   Nevertheless I would love a few supertalls like One Vanderbilt in the downtown. I understand the market doesn't justify it, but one can dream. 

29 minutes ago, ArtNsf said:

Your ideas definitely make sense if the elevator situation is what sets the limit here locally.  I do recall working in the First City Tower (back when it was known as that) and touring the Transco Tower (way back when as well), and they have multiple elevator shafts that stop going up at various levels, and that also begin at certain floor levels, more than two or three if I remember correctly in Transco, which is 65 stories (and an incredibly beautiful super tall building).  I guess the cost was easier to cover back then before prices for just about everything went up faster in some areas, not so fast in other areas, but still a steady rise overall - over 30 years now, including construction materials and labor.  However, I know for a fact that Houston has some mighty wealthy developers and locals just like any other city, even the 3 larger cities in America that are bigger than Houston, and you know, prestige and bragging rights do come to mind.  In Texas at least, that makes a HUGE difference to most of us architecturally minded people.  It almost becomes reminiscent of a sport - go figure...  I hope Houston will always remain the biggest and best city in Texas as it already is, but adding more taller buildings would be some mighty tasty frosting on the cake, indeed !

I'm not greedy, only want three or four One Vanderbilt Place Skyscrapers preferably in the downtown.

Using an estimate of one floor every 12 days: 26 days for August, 30 days for Sept, perhaps by October 16th they begin on the tower portion. All bets are off if a hurricane sneaks in.

What a unique interstate highway  I-10 is.  Houston and eastward to Florida,  I-10 could be called the Aquatic highway for all the myriad of water ways ( swamps, rivers, lakes, bayous, bays) west of Houston it becomes the Dry highway.

3 hours ago, bobruss said:

I took the Victoria exit off of 288, coming north, just before downtown . I haven't done that in a while and It's always fun to be up there and check on the skyline, and I'm not talking downtown but the overall skyline that spreads west and southwest from downtown to Transco tower, Galleria. I first noticed how the new towers in midtown have made a huge leap towards the Museum district med center, but what is really amazing is how much is in that same view. I wish that one of our drone guys would film this angle because its almost overwhelming. Its like the whole Montrose, Upper Kirby, Museum district, Greenway plaza River Oaks district, Galleria Uptown have finally reached a point where its all starting to look like one continuous skyline. There are so many new high-rises sprouting all over this area. It reminds me of waking up on a damp cool morning and seeing hundreds of mushrooms appear overnight. And what's even more exciting is there are probably ten high-rises proposed or just starting to come out of the ground that will make this an even more unified place.

t'ts so large and spread out, that I don't even have a word to describe it, because I don't know of another city that has such a wide playing field. Maybe a smaller version would be Dallas but it doesn't compare to the magnitude and connectivity of space..

Oh and by the way the new Hines La Colombe d'Or and the Hanover Montrose really look great together and it looks like the new one has just passed the Hanover in height.

There are so many buildings going up its hard to find and drive the curve of the Victoria exit. I had to look hard to see the new Hanover River Oaks and didn't see the West Gray tower going up. 

Too much to see and to big a curve to keep looking if you know what I mean.

Come on drone guys give us a look see, please.

I totally agree bobruss. It is one of the best skyline views in the United States.

The plat was approved without the variance as I recall. 

For us untutored in this business, like me, I take this to mean the builders can still proceed with construction within the parameters of the plat. Just cannot stray from the plat designation. Correct? So I suppose the variance was not essential for the construction of this building.

2 hours ago, Luminare said:

RIP to the great Cesar Pelli. Unsure if he himself had a hand in this design, but his firm Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects are responsible for the design. He was 92. An article about the man below:

https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/cesar-pelli-dies-at-92_o

Sorry to hear this. This is at least the second great architect lost in one year. Loved Pelli's buildings. 

Not familiar with the phrase "transit corridor". Does a  it mean rail or bus, or just rail? Or does it just mean a busy street? Would FM 1960 be a transit corridor even though parts have no mass transit but tens of thousands of cars?  How is the width defined and by whom? Questions, questions. 

I don't understand the basis of complaint regarding this high rise. Aren't there already several high rises in the area? Is there a law which limits the number of high rises in an area? On what legal basis can this high rise be stopped?

9 hours ago, skooljunkie said:

Demographics is a big part of my career (snoozefest), so I did a little typing tonight. First, based on the Downtown District’s list of residential properties it seems as if they are using Census Tract 1000 as the “core” geography. It’s basically the freeway donut hole all inner loopers consider downtown.  As several pointed out, prisons are in fact where the “non-household” population comes into play. Prisons are considered group quarters and are separated from the estimates of households. The 2017 ACS estimated just over 1,586 people living in group quarters in Tract 1000. The DT district estimates a 1,931 non-household population which technically falls within the margin of error. (I believe this a good estimate because the 2010 Census states there were somewhere around 2,400 in group quarters (which likely includes homeless shelters, etc. that may not all be surveyed annually). Hotel guests do not count into population estimates unless the property is something like an extended-stay/rental/RV Park.

 

The Downtown District either creates their own population estimates or hires someone to do it for them since only 2017 estimates exist at this low geographic level and thousands of new units have come online and been leased since.

 

I’m skeptical about the household size multiplier of 1.71. In 2010, this census tract had an average household size of 1.31. In the 2017 ACS, that number went up, but it was still only 1.40. Now, I can’t estimate it without determining how many new units were 1-bedroom and 2+, etc. (frankly, I’m just not going to spend the time to do that for this post!) In middle income suburbs with high numbers of children, a 1.9 to 2.1 avg. HH size is typical in multi-family so I remain skeptical that downtown has 1.71 even with all the new units, but it is possible. If the average household size is inflated and it’s actually 1.40, the total population would be 7,396 + 1,931 for a total of 9,327.

 

As for gender in Census Tract 1000, in 2010 there were 2,283 people living in households. Of these, 1,472 (64%) were male. The prison inflates this stat if it’s not removed from the equation.

 

Sources!!  Table DP1 (2010 Census); B26001 & S1101 (ACS 2017);

Do you know how the estimates on population for the Houston Metropolitan Statistical area are arrived at? I've noticed that the numbers are sometimes revised the year after released.

2 hours ago, thatguysly said:

We always talk about townhouses losing their views but these guys are truly in the shadow. 

That's life in the big city.