MaxConcrete

Some comments on the points of discussion: Houston vs. DFW: DFW's big advantage is a much larger information technology and software development job base, which is one of Amazon's top priorities. I work as a software developer, and every time I compare DFW to Houston, I find the DFW has about four times as many job postings in software development. I just checked again and came up with about the same results. I don't know what technology stack Amazon uses, but anyone who knows can do the same exercise of Houston vs. DFW. Dice search for .Net Developer: Dallas 1403, Houston 381 (3.7 ratio). Dice search for MVC (a type of programming skill): Dallas 212, Houston 61 (ratio 3.5). Dice search for Java developer: Dallas 1509, Houston 398 (ratio 3.8) DFW has vastly more potential sites for Amazon, whereas Houston appears to have only the KBR/East River site and maybe 800 Bell. Of course, there could be other sites in Houston which have not been publicized. But DFW appears to have many viable options downtown, in the mid-burbs and outer suburbs. Neither DFW nor Houston is going to score high on the image or "coolness" factor as compared to some competitors. The DFW virtues of orderliness, high quality standards, uniformity and better planning appeal to many companies, especially companies with family-oriented workforces (e.g. Toyota, Liberty Mutual, State Farm). But DFW's virtues do result in a mostly sterile environment (as some have noted), which could be a negative for them in terms of Amazon. In terms of incentives, I'm expecting Houston to be lower than DFW, and there will be cities with much richer incentives than DFW, such as the well-publicized $7 billion for Newark. Assuming Amazon picks one winner (not multiple winners for different business units), every city except one is going to lose, which means that even cities with good proposals and rich incentives are going to lose. And I'm expecting Houston's proposal to be in the middle of the pack in terms of competitiveness and probably below average in incentives. About KBR site: Has everyone who promotes or defends this site actually given it a close inspection on the ground, and not just looked at Google maps views? I did a complete inspection including the roads in the interior of the site, and I was totally unimpressed. The east end of site is surrounded by warehouses and industrial properties. These are not quaint old red brick warehouses, but modern unattractive steel structures. The north side is mostly modern housing, not suitable for redevelopment. The neighborhood along Hirsch between the site and the East Freeway is an older, lower-income neighborhood. You get a good view of the bayou from the Hirsch and Jensen bridges, and the bayou waterside is unattractive in my opinion (it is nothing like the bayou west of downtown). Finally, the site is not convenient to the core of downtown, and also not convenient to EaDo since there are only two access points (the two bridges), and the bridges are fairly long. Even if the site were available for free to Amazon, I think it would be a nonstarter. But of course it is not free. About Amazon's priorities: Amazon's wish list is seeking a fantasy land which does not exist anywhere. So they'll need to make some choices about their priorities. I don't think anyone outside of Amazon's top executives (and maybe only Bezos) knows what is going to drive the decision. So all assumptions about what Amazon really wants is speculative, including widely held views that they want to be in a "cool" city, that they want a transit-oriented city, or that they have a fixed idea of a Seattle-like quality of life. The actual requirement emphasizes the site, incentives and workforce.

As JLWM8609 noted, the 59/69 SB to 610 NB ramp is staying as-is at one lane. All other ramps are being rebuilt, some with major realignments. I don't know the reason for leaving the 59/69 SB to 610 NB ramp as-is, but I think lane balance is a factor. The west Loop northbound cannot absorb another lane of traffic, so the ramp is maintained as 1 lane and traffic will continue to back up onto the Southwest Freeway.

I immediately dismissed the Astrodome idea in the RealtyNewsReport link, mainly because the Livestock Show and Rodeo needs to take over the whole NRG complex for around 6 weeks each year. But then I thought about it some more. Harris County is already slated to spend $105 million, and that money (plus some more) could applied toward an office transformation. Once the Dome is reduced to a shell, you could build multiple levels of offices in a ring around the perimeter inside, potentially getting up to 1 million square feet of offices overlooking the field area, creating one of the most distinctive offices anywhere with myriad possibilities for the center field area. Somewhat like a smaller version of the Apple headquarters inside a dome. Potentially multiple millions of square feet of more office space could be attached, just not inside the dome itself It would take some serious will to make it work with LSR, mainly all the employees needing to use the distant parking lots during the rodeo. Also, getting that office space built is probably a minimum of 2 years once construction begins. Of course I have no idea if this is the location with "interesting things happening". I think both 800 Bell and River East have big negatives. 800 Bell is a 55-year-old building which will be difficult to modernize. River East is disconnected from downtown and currently just too early-on in its development, with the surrounding area unattractive and definitely not vibrant. And both are privately owned, so the land won't be available for free (unlike NRG where the county owns most of the land and could offer it for free). As I've mentioned previously, I still think Houston's chances of winning are basically close to zero due to hurricane risk, workforce issues, quality of life issues (whether actual or perceived), and likely massive incentive packages from competing cities. UPDATE: In Dallas Ross Perot Jr.'s Hillwood Urban and numerous partners including Hines have released their plan to put Amazon in Victory Park, just north of Downtown Dallas. Apparently at least one building was already in the planning phase before the Amazon solicitation went public. My take: The available land is scattered around the area and about half the parcels are non-prime and jammed up against the railroad and Stemmons Freeway. If Amazon prefers an urban location, this site could be in the running, but I can't see it as being a top contender. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/real-estate/2017/09/27/details-victory-parks-bid-amazon-hq2

I noticed that the parking lot across from Arabella is not being used, so I walked to the lot to investigate. It turns out this lot is for the Harris County offices at 2221-2223 West Loop South. The District Attorney is moving in due to Harvey damage at their normal location. (Other Harris County functions have already moved in, mostly filling the parking garage.) The land across from Skyhouse now has an aggregate base and is being readied for paving. I don't know how long the District Attorney will be here, I'm thinking 6-12 months. So there will be no development of the parking lot property as long as Harris County DA is here. There is no activity at the newly cleared lot on Westcreek across from the Wilshire (and directly east of Harris County), so new development on that property could begin at any time.

The express lanes are definitely not starting construction. There is a long way to go in the pre-construction process, including more public meetings. However, the bus lanes structure from Memorial to Post Oak (north of San Felipe) is scheduled to receive bids in December. The tree removal could be related to the bus lanes, or could be unrelated to highway work. http://www.dot.state.tx.us/insdtdot/orgchart/cmd/cserve/let/2018/harris.htm#027117163

The vacant lot across from Arabella has been paved with a parking lot. I'm thinking this is a temporary lot for construction workers, since they were parking on the street north of Harris County Annex 85 (street is in the foreground in the photo), but recently the street was posted as a no parking zone and one side is now a tow-away zone. The field across from Skyhouse has been graded, but there is no evidence of paving right now. There is no construction activity today due to the muddy conditions.

Amazon is open to anything and everything in terms of real estate. So yes, maybe they would be willing to have a starter building or buildings of 500k square feet and then acquire or lease nearby properties, or construct new buildings, as needed. My interpretation of the requirement is that they prefer to have a predefined, predictable and affordable plan to reach their potential full buildout. There is a long paragraph about sustainability and LEED standards for buildings. That's definitely a priority for them, and it will likely knock out many older non-LEED buildings from contention, probably including the Exxon building if it is not LEED certified. (Or, it would have to be renovated to meet LEED standards) From the Amazon requirement

In the downtown areas of leading candidates (Boston, Denver, Chicago), having downtown property readily available for acquisition or some kind of firm commitment by the October 19 submission date will be a big challenge. When dealing with multiple properties, there are negotiations needed for each property, with each property looking for the best deal they can get. Even rounding up 10 or more of those parking lots or vacant lots south of Toyota Center would be a challenge in just one month. Amazon would need to be flexible and take some risks in certain cities if they can't secure the long-term need right away. So given the short timeline, the cities which will be in the best position are ones which have sites meeting Amazon's requirement which are under single ownership or government ownership.

True, but if you look at the Amazon requirement, the only mention of public transit as a requirement is on page 2, and my interpretation of the description is that bus routes alone will suffice. There is no mention of public transit in the "Key preferences and decision drivers" section, but highways are mentioned in the "logistics" section. In the "information requested" section, they ask for public transit and bicycle information, but highway details (including congestion) is the main focus of item 7. I think one item which has not received much attention is the difficulty in achieving the real estate requirement. Amazon occupies about 12 city blocks in downtown Seattle, although they may share some of those buildings. See this nice map. The requirement calls for 500k square feet available very soon, and expandability to 8 million square feet. That's around eight 50-floor skyscrapers in a downtown setting, so let's assume you need a minimum of 10 city blocks. Greenfield/redevelopment sites must be around 100 acres. How many places in a downtown or near-downtown setting will you be able to find 10 city blocks readily available, or 100 acres? Even in suburban settings, 100 acres readily available is difficult to find. To be near downtown areas, they'll need to look at distressed and blighted areas or string together a mix of existing buildings and buildable lots, which will be especially difficult in places like NYC, Boston and DC. For a close-in but non-downtown site, I'm thinking they may be able to work with something like 40 acres. Here are some numbers for comparison Houston downtown post office site: 14 acres, equivalent to around 10 city blocks All of Greenway Plaza, Buffalo Speedway to Weslayan, including land used for streets: 102 acres Chevron site at 610 and Fournace: 30 acres Northwest Mall (excluding land designated for future Hempstead tollway): 41 acres Greenspoint Mall: around 115 acres Austin Camp Mabry site (owned by State of Texas east of MoPac): around 65 acres (but you could never get approval for 8 million square feet, or bring in 50k workers) North Texas Las Colinas: Largest unbuilt contiguous tract is around 46 acres Downtown Dallas Perot land (parking lot Woodall Rodgers @Griffin)) 6.5 acres Downtown Dallas Reunion site: around 30 arcres, much of it slated for Texas Central, probably only 13 acres available North Dallas Valley View Mall site: around 97 acres Texas Stadium redevelopment site: 452 acres of buildable land, probably available very cheap since a lot of the property is owned by the City of Irving or Univ. of Dallas Plano Legacy: largest unbuilt tract is around 80 acres

The microwave structure was entirely removed, and no traces remain. It was a distinctive structure in the Greenway Plaza area for around 50 years. It wasn't attractive, no doubt, but it was interesting and different. Now we're left with the unattractive building.

Realistically, I don't see HQ2 coming to Houston. The competition will be great, other regions will offer huge incentives (including probably Chicago), we have the hurricane risk which has been poignantly publicized by Harvey, other regions will score better in the education category, other regions will score better in the mass transit category, other regions have more software developers in the workforce, and other regions will have politics more suitable for Amazon. And one more time: the hurricane and flooding risk! That being said, it appears that the Greater Houston Partnership will submit a proposal. I don't see any sites in Houston that ideally meet Amazon's wishful wish list, although I don't think any city will have a perfect site. Here is my analysis of the official request for proposals The site can be a greenfield suburban site up to 30 miles "proximity to population center", a collection downtown high-rises, or anything in between. For existing buildings, there must be space for expansion for the long term potential build-out. The document really does not give any preference to urban or suburban, but my interpretation is that they would like plenty of land to build exactly what they want. Greenfield sites must be approximately 100 acres and "pad ready, with utility infrastructure in place". Also on page 5: "sites with the requisite access, utility infrastructure, and zoning are critical". This seems to preclude an all-new site starting from scratch, and would probably preclude the KBR site (or is it already ready for development?). A greenfield site would have to be an existing corporate park with plenty of land available. The requirement is "Within approx 45" minutes from an international airport. It is unclear if this applies during rush hour. If so, for Bush airport that would seem to exclude anything south of downtown and Interstate 10. The transit requirement is vague, just stating "Direct access to rail, train, subway/metro, bus routes". I read this to mean that bus routes alone could satisfy this requirement, and transit seems to be a lesser requirement. Even so, that could knock out many suburban campus sites. Page 5 says "finding suitable buildings/sites is of paramount importance." The word "paramount" is the strongest adjective they use in the document, so that suggests to me that they want a signature office property. I'm thinking that a greenfield site to build an all-new campus in a close-in location may be most competitive. Page 5: "A highly educated labor pool is critical and a strong university system is required". While Rice and UH are solid, many competing cities will score better than Houston. The Cultural Community Fit section on page 5 once again emphasizes "excellent institutions of higher education". It also seems to emphasize a good pro-business climate rather than liberal government policies (e.g. Chicago, NYC). I view this as the most favorable requirement for cities like Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta. Community/Quality of Life section on page 5: This is vague and seems to be not as important as press reports have suggested. Page 2: "The jobs will likely be broken down into the following categories: executive/management, engineering with a preference for software development engineers (SDE), legal, accounting, and administrative." If this campus will cater more to the executive, legal, accounting and administrative needs, then being in a tech hub becomes much less important and being in a regional business hub (Chicago, Atlanta, DFW) makes more sense. Observation: Nowhere in the document is there a mention of affordable housing, ability to construct new housing, or low-to-moderate cost of living. This of course is a quality of life issue, but does not seem worthy of specific mention. So that seems to work in favor of the high-cost locations (e.g. Boston, NYC) While I view Houston as highly unlikely, DFW and Austin may be contenders. Las Colinas in Irving or the Texas Stadium redevelopment site come to mind as strong potential sites for DFW. The Texas Stadium site has 452 acres of land, including 77 owned by Irving which could be offered for free. It is on a light rail line, 7 miles to DFW airport, 5 miles to Love Field, a major freeway hub with expansion in progress, 7 miles to Uptown Dallas (urban living), and 7 miles to Oak Lawn (rainbow community). But I don't know if the infrastructure is ready yet. Nearby Las Colinas has plenty of shovel-ready sites, although I don't know if it still has 100 acres available. A probable weakness for Texas will be lack of subsidies from the State of Texas due to Governor Abbott's distaste for corporate welfare. Of course, Governor Perry was just the opposite, throwing all kinds of money at incentives (and achieving many successes). I'm also thinking that Amazon may already have preferred sites in mind and is running this competition to maximize the subsidies and incentives to be offered. I'm thinking most communities will be wasting their time with a proposal. I'm also thinking we many have 2 or 3 winners, since it would make more sense to create centers of excellence in logical locations. For example the software hub in Boston or Austin (in addition to Seattle), logistics in DFW or Atlanta, and business operations in any number of cities, probably the one with the best incentives (potentially Chicago).

Work is in progress on the distinctive structure on the top of the AT&T building on Weslayan at West Alabama. So far the top "layer" is almost totally dismantled. I always assumed the large structure was some kind of microwave transmitter and receiver. It's been there forever, and I was always intrigued by it as a kid in the 1970s. More recently I've wondered why a 1960s-era radio structure is still needed. Maybe it's just a shell, and the electronics have been kept up-to-date. So far it looks like the work may be a removal job. Maybe the new tower across the street had a negative impact on its operation. Anyways, we'll see what happens to the structure in the next few days.

I've worked at 2223 West Loop South for the last two years, and for the last two years during the day there was always a security vehicle and guard on the east side of the property. So yes, they spent a fortune on security guards. Since the teardown and cleanup will take around a week, the cost should be low. It does make me wonder why they waited to demolish the building.

The building is gone. The surrounding area smelled like a lumber yard today. The cleanup remains.

Demolition was proceeding at full speed today. Tear-down is in progress on the Westcreek (east) side and also on the southwest side.

Air India is a mess and the Indian government is trying to sell it, but analysts say it will difficult to privatize due to all its troubles. So I would be cautious about being excited about the possibility for new service. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-11/air-india-s-salvador-dali-ashtrays-and-surreal-debt-cloud-sale

Bids were opened last week for the expansion to 6 lanes from FM 359 (or wherever the current 6 lanes is reduced to 4) to the Brazos River. Williams Brothers was the low bidder, but for some reason the results are no longer on the TxDOT bid results site. I don't know if the absence of the results means anything. The next 10-mile section from the Brazos River westward is slated for bidding in August 2018, with an estimate of $233 million. http://www.dot.state.tx.us/insdtdot/orgchart/cmd/cserve/let/2018/austin.htm#027102055

About five years ago, someone in Sharpstown claimed that John Glenn once lived in the neighborhood. (not true). But having heard the stories about the astronauts and the 1962 Parade of Homes, I decided to find out what really happened and posted my findings on my web site. You can find out the full story here http://houstonfreeways.com/Home/Sharpstown_History

It looks like the interior of the main factory building is being gutted with numerous broken/removed exterior windows. It appears demolition is imminent. Some of the mature trees on the property have been chopped down, some are protected with fencing (presumably to be preserved), and some are intact without fencing. The warehouses on the eastern edge of the property are complete and appear to be occupied.

I admit that I'm somewhat biased because I lived on Roseland Street (near (Richmond @ Montrose) once upon a time, and I'm thinking in terms of people who live west and south of Midtown. The San Jacinto on-ramp and Fannin off-ramp are the access points for a large area to the south and west, and population is increasing due to the large apartment buildings being built. But yes, your point that there are plenty of alternate options for people in east and north Midtown is valid. In terms of people making the weave from the 45-northbound-to-69-southbound ramp to the Almeda exit, I'm speaking in terms of northbound traffic on Interstate 45. The 45 downtown Spur is not a reasonable option for those folks.

I just posted my updated analysis of the project using the May 2017 schematics. http://houstonfreeways.com/analysis I still have 12 concerns, varying from minor issues to larger concerns which could impact operations. While TxDOT made numerous improvements in the latest schematics, some of my concerns are unchanged since the last version, so prospects for fixing the issues may not be good.

Taken Friday 5/5/2017. Construction appears to be around floor 29.

That's an obsolete schematic. See the most recent (which was posted a year ago) at http://www.ih45northandmore.com/docs5/20160428_NHHIP_Seg3_Project_Updates.pdf The latest version still has the entrance/exit ramp configuration that you are concerned about. However, it is impossible to eliminate all weave and merge situations from a highway project of this scope. The designers had to accept some non-ideal situations.

Taken Friday 3/17/2017 5:30PM.The construction appears to be on floor 25.