TheNiche

On a related note, who did sell those lots to the city? I can't remember and don't have time to dig up the old article.

Crescent Real Estate Equities Trust, which owns shares of most of the Houston Center buildings and much of the surrounding land. My understanding is that Hakeem, who owns the ground on which the Finger project is to be built, purchased it from Crescent as well...but that was a while back and I could be mistaken. Check the tax rolls if you're really interested.

That is not correct. The underground garage was part of the plan from the very beginning. As part of the original agreement when the city conveyed the land to the park conservancy, the city retained an easement to allow it to build the underground parking garage.

Wrong again. Finger did not own the land on which the park will be built. You really should try not to engage in slander.

I'm a little surprised at all the hand-wringing about the parking garage portion. It is financed totally separately from the park and is most likely self-financing. If anything, it may help pay for the park improvements.

Houston19514 speaks the truth. I wish I could go into more detail on this, but all I can do is provide abstract theories right now:

The city is attempting to stimulate very rapid and very dense growth (especially of a residential nature) in the eastern portion of downtown; that has been a goal for a very long time and has prompted hundreds of millions of dollars of public investment.

This is most likely why a very 'busy' park has been designed as opposed to a more empty one that is more appropriate for employees of office buildings. You don't put in places for people to bring their dogs without people living near by...unless you want people to live nearby. In regard to parks and other public/quasipublic amenities, demand creates supply in the short run, but supply creates demand in the long run. In this case, the long run trend was immediately manifested in the Finger project...but it certainly wouldn't be the last. For this reason, I would support the 'busy' park.

So if we come up short at present to pay for an underground parking garage, what then? If we know that there will be a need for the parking in the future (and I think that the need could be justified 20 years out) then are we willing to accept that either 1) we can tear up the park with all its amenities and mature trees in order to build the parking garage in 20 years, once there gets to be enough demand, or 2) we can build the garage right now and postpone the park a few years until adequate funding can be lined up...and then do it right, have a functioning garage, and a park built for generations that those of us alive today will never have the pleasure of knowing?

Of course, the third option is to build the park well and never to have a parking garage, but that foregoes a major opportunity. See, by building lots of new public parking spaces, the city would force operators of parking lots to price spaces more competitively in order to attract customers, forcing their revenues down. By diminishing the revenue that can be had by operating surface parking lots, land prices can be lowered to the point that (at least on the margin) surface parking lots are no longer the highest and best uses of land. Land prices are the big obsticale to fostering residential development in the CBD...if that problem can be solved, then the eastern district within downtown may very well evolve to the point at which the investment in an underground parking garage not only justifies itelf through the promotion of new developments or by creating more taxable and valuable real estate, but through revenues from providing public parking spaces by itself.

I won't/can't name sources, but I'm hearing bad things about the park development plans...has to do with money. Anyone able to expand on this?

This is another case where you've got to put yourself in the position of the developers of the 50's through 80's to understand why many of those malls exist. They were built in various places at the time that lots of money was found in close proximity to those places. Sharpstown Mall was built in Sharpstown's heyday, not with the expectation that it'd one day be perceived as a crime-ridden slum. The same was true of the original Gulfgate, Northwest, Meyerland, and others. Meanwhile, many malls that have retained a good position relative to Houston's elite (Galleria, Memorial City, Woodlands, Willowbrook, Katy Mills, and Baybrook) have not only done exceptionally well, but have been renovated and expanded.

The business environment of the period in question also provided for many generalized department stores with space-intensive layouts and large customer bases. Since then, those anchors have lost much of their draw and the customer bases have shifted to relatively poorer households rather than solid middle-class households. This is partly a legacy issue, but is also one relating to poor management/marketing. My theory on this is that indoor malls fell out of style not so much because of new urbanism, but because people with money started associating them and their traditional anchor stores with the lower/middle class. New urbanism just happened to be there at the moment that the 'falling out' occurred, so it was adopted.

My point is that Houston was not over-malled insofar as you bear in mind the market conditions at the time of construction. The problem now is that demographics have shifted against them, the traditional tenant base is struggling/failing, and the initial improvements to the property have greatly depreciated.

Btw, zaphod, Gulfgate may be "boring" to you, but it has done exceptionally well and is not likely to be "going out of business" anytime soon, as you suggest. Wulfe knew what he was doing--the Hispanic market may be relatively poor right now (although studies show that there is a lot of hidden wealth even at present), but it represents a growing base of wealth and will integrate into the White/Asian income distribution within the coming couple of generations. Many of them will then move to the suburbs, but many will also stay in place, reinvesting in new homes in the same community at about the same moment that new urbanists discover the development opportunities in the east and southeast parts of the Inner Loop.

I drove through this part of Pasadena today and circled this building. It looked like there were another couple of large parking lots up for sale adjacent to the building, and considering the high costs of demolition and what has to be relatively low costs of land, it would surprise me if it made sense to tear the thing down. It's one thing to see high-rise teardowns in the CBD, where land can often go for $60 to $100+ per square foot, but for five acres in Pasadena without an immediately-accessible freeway? Something is very odd about this.

Anybody know what the asking price is?

Is Rainbow lodge just a restaurant ? Seems like some of the Bayou Partnership Canoe tours start from there.

Does anyone know if there is actually a launch and rental facility there ?

I understand that starting out near the Beltway and wrapping up in the East End makes for a good (albeit long) trip. I've also seen that a new concrete landing with stairs has been built along the south bank of the bayou and on the west side of the York/Sampson bridge. Alternatively, the Lockwood bridge is also a good take-out and also provides for shaded parking.

I've never done this either, although I've been meaning to for some time.

Agreed, but only to a point. The complication is that downtown parking doesn't function as a single market, because people are willing to pay more for convenient parking. That means there can still be marginal economic value to developers to put parking in any desirable location, so that parking vacancies increase further away from major buildings or downtown locations, while parking places that are seen as convenient can continue to charge a premium. In other words, increased supply may not decrease average parking prices across downtown, just redistribute them. Of course, the benefit is that the economic value of peripheral parking will fall, perhaps leading to more development, but this has to be balanced against the cost of having downtown flooded with parking.

It is in fact a single market, albeit a monopolistically competitive one. The goods in question, in this case parking at varying distances from destination clusters, are imperfect substitutes for one another. If there is a glut of parking spaces at any distance, say two blocks from a key destination cluster, then the owner of the affected parking spaces will lower their prices to lure in customers from more convenient but more expensive space and from less convenient and equally-expensive spaces, as well as from equally-convenient and now-higher-priced spaces. At that point, in order to compete for customers, the entire market, imperfectly competitive that it may be, will shift its pricing to adapt to the glut. In the end, the relationship between closer-in spaces being more expensive and further-out spaces being less expensive will hold, but the whole market will be less expensive than at the outset.

Development in any given year in an urban environment is more likely to occur on land that is lower in value...at least that seems to be the pattern in Houston. In that way, land is effectively rationed and economically-zoned. By lowering the value of the land for its highest-and-best-use, which may currently be a surface parking lot, the profit margins start looking better for development of all categories of occupiable structure.

There is no cost to having "downtown flooded with parking". In fact, as I thought that I had made clear in my initial explanation, there are benefits to inexpensive and readily-available parking.

Damn, that's some text-book rubbish. Sorry, but it is.

You totally discount the larget number of people who ride Metro.

Not becuase it's cheper, but becase it's easire. Even if I could park for $1, I'd still take the bus most days like I do now.

First, I only wrote in such a technical way because Hizzy and others who fail to understand supply and demand are the types that complain about everything from this to gas prices to insurance rates, and every time I hear their ridicuous arguments, it raises my blood pressure that our education system is so mediocre. I would have PMed him, but figured that someone else might actually agree with him, so I made it public.

As far as riders of mass transit are concerned, perhaps you would not decide to park for $1 less, but some marginal number of people will. Its called a demand schedule, and YES, you are counted.

Typical comment with every new development. I think it really is him hiding his excitement. Anyway the business district down south is not exactly at full occupancy right now.

If this is what Coog was referencing, then he needs to remember that an office project with significant competitive advantage over another competitive groups of buildings can either charge higher rents or expect to lease up quickly and stabilize at an occupancy that is higher than the other competitive buildings.

They have the locational advantage and would make for a good investment. If Coog's objective is to further development in a particular place, like the CBD, then this is bad. If you get sexually aroused, as I do , at the idea of a successful business venture (regardless of location or characteristics), then this is good.

Yea, Houston could really use another 50K sf of hard to get to office space.

Huh?

Hey, here's a potential scenario: what if more parking lots were converted to parking garages? I'd imagine the price for parking would go up to help pay for construction costs. With the price of gas also rising, it might have an affect (or is effect?) on how people get to work in that more may start car pooling or taking the P&R.

It doesn't work that way. There is a phenomenon known as 'supply and demand'. The quantity of a good demanded (in this case parking spaces) is dependent upon the price level. If the demand is held constant and the supply is increased by building new parking garages, then there will be greater competition among suppliers for a finite number of customers.

Assume that lot vacancy starts off at 95%, but we add enough spaces that vacancy goes down to 80%. One really large lot owner figures out that he can fill his lot up to 100% by charging $1 less per day than all of his competitors (the market). Suddenly, all the smaller lot owners see their vacancy rates skyrocket, forcing them to lower their prices in order to remain competitive, with their lots attempting to maximize income. The quantity of parking demanded increases because the market price has fallen. Builders of parking garages will take note of the lower revenues that can be acheived by building garages and will not be as likely to invest money in such a venture because attempting to charge more money than the market is would result in an almost completely vacant lot.

This would have multiple external effects on markets beyond that for parking. For instance, by reducing the market price of parking, the quantity of spaces demanded shifts upward (again, holding the demand schedule constant). Having more spaces demanded means that there will likely be marginally less ridership of mass transit and less carpooling because the incentives are lesser, but it will also induce many people to come downtown who would not previously have done so because parking was too difficult/expensive. With more people downtown, retail businesses (wherever they are physically located) will be made better off, creating increased demand for retail space. It is difficult to add new tunnel space, but is relatively easy to add street-level space as part of new and some existing development, so that would be the likely outcome.

A long-term effect of less expensive parking is that companies will be more likely to locate their firms in the CBD because the effective wage (net of parking) that they can pay labor increases when the cost of parking goes down; equivalently they don't have to pay as much to labor in order to make labor feel as though it is getting a fair deal. With more companies located in the CBD, there are more people in the CBD, resulting in greater demand for retail services, and ultimately, for retail space.

I've closely watched the plans as they've unraveled for this site. Prior renderings showed considerably less ambitious plans, but these are completely new, albeit not entirely unexpected. Given the 'Grand Central Station' concept that is planned, there really couldn't be a better spot for new office space than in this development. They will have a serious competitive advantage, and the renderings that they show appear to incorporate a central corridor through the middle of the whole development that could provide a great ease of pedestrian movement. If they work it well, they'll be in an excellent position to capture major office tenants that otherwise would have located in the CBD.

In fact, this is one case where (of all people) Plastic's ideas would be well-suited. The pedestrian transport system that he'd come up with a few months ago could easily connect the transit hub with the further-reaches of this development without the pesky issues related to its implementation in existing areas of the city.

The only downside here is that financing could be difficult to obtain if they were trying to go forward with the whole project at once. From the looks of the renderings, it can easily be segmented into phases, which would likely be built out over the course of many years. Of course, that's just my speculation. If I had a billion dollars to throw around, I'd put it all up at once, betting that I could establish a critical mass of density that would have a synergistic effect on the lease-up process.

As much as I complain about excess parking downtown, I don't think this is really a bad idea. The floors being converted don't have windows, so leasing would be difficult, and the parking will still be a small part of the overall building. This is a better solution than another full parking garage.

Agreed. Perhaps more importantly, by increasing the inventory of available parking spaces, they are cannibalizing demand from the market for other parking spaces. With less demand, the revenue stream from parking lots on vacant blocks is reduced, which makes surface parking more difficult to justify as the highest and best use of land in the CBD. It also removes a substantial chunck of vacant office space from the CBD market; a tighter market makes development more palatable.

The bottom-line result is a higher probability that nearby blocks will be developed in the nearer future.

http://www.har.com/search/engine/indexdeta...=0&backButton=Y

This is different. Looks pricy though! If I had 750K, I wouldn't want to live right on a highway!!

do you thin they will sell?

I like the design a lot. Its imaginative and unique, plus it fits the site in a well-thought out way. Perhaps there's a niche market out there, and I hope it does get built, but that price is not going to make it easy.

As much as I like it, I'm sure the developer paid a 'view premium' for the land, and that building won't come cheap. I can't imagine their margins being significant at all at the end of the day, and that's even after taking a big risk with the uniqueness factor. Not a good financial deal, but I'll sure appreciate the building.

This pisses me off! BizJournal

Why can't they develop a similar mixed use here!

If the shops fail to maximize their visibility to freeway traffic and are not accomodative to that traffic by having readily-accessible parking, then the shops will likely underperform. Residents of the area don't have much in the way of a choice except for non-new-urban retail, so this site stands to lose nothing from being like the others, but to gain everything from staying accessible to the highest traffic sources. The developers, in a nutshell, are trying to maximize rents by accomodating as many people as possible, which is what makes business viable and keeps our economy from enduring socialistic stagnation, like in France.

Seems to me that if Houston's large ethnic-Mexican audiences were really that concerned about naming issues, then they wouldn't live in Houston. After all, what could possibly be more insulting than living in the very city which was named after the general that defeated their beloved leader?

Perhaps Houston should just change its name completely. In an attempt not to offend anyone, we should rename our whole city. Lets see, calling it just "City" would be ok, but that's English, and might be hard to learn if you don't speak English, so that's a no-go. Remember, we've got to be culturally-sensitive at any and all costs...because that is the mark of an advanced society.

How about "1837", the year of our founding? No, founding wouldn't have taken place without the revolution. What happened in 1837 was a consequence of the revolution, and that is bad. So how about "2006", the year of our city's renaming? No, 2006 is the year in which the idea of naming the team "1836" was floated, and that had the effect of insulting a fringe minority of people, and that is bad.

So how about just calling it "9"? Its a number that has absolutely nothing to do with either "1836" or 1837", and also isn't part of numbers leading up to 1835, when the revolution began in earnest, so who could possibly complain? Oh, that's right, Russian communists used to name new cities founded in Siberia numerically. Surely there is a "9" somewhere, and since communists slaughtered more people than Hitler, that's bad...or is it? Some of those numerically-named Russian cities are the most polluted on earth. Houston could capitalize on the public misperceptions of it being intolerablly polluted and associate it with those same Russian cities. And the best thing of all is that no one can direct any civic pride toward it...that would be bad because pride makes people feel really good, and that might offend off-kilter religious groups, whose opinions are just as valid as yours or mine. I think we have our new name - "9".

I actually blame it on the Pierce Elevated.

It's Hobo Haven under there.

The elevated may be a popular gathering place for vagrants, but the real problem is still with Greyhound. We've got a lot of elevated freeways, and if you transplant the source of the vagrants nearer to other prospective gathering places, like Interstate 10 and the Buffalo Bayou, they'll be more likely to gather en masse in those areas.

Sure, there will always be a population of them in Midtown, but at least the concentrated nature of the problem will be solved. Moreover, a lot of the retail and car rental businesses that cater to low-income travelers that come in via Greyhound will move elsewhere, freeing up new retail space in northern Midtown for upscale yuppie businesses.

So perhaps it's just a useful rumor for those seeking to move units at 2016 Main?

Even if it was torn down, it wouldn't decrease the number of homeless people. The root of the problem is not that there is a derelict building nearby...it's the number of vagrants, and especially those that are very aggressive. Make no mistake, Greyhound is responsible for that. Central Square, if anything, is a victim of the plight rather than a contributor.

Our security people told me this week that I can expect to see Central Square demolished in approx two months [Mar 06?] but don't quote me! I'm going to try to find out if anyone knows any facts in that matter.

I have confirmed through sources in the know: there are no current plans to demolish the building. The activity that has been going on is also not part of any redevelopment project. The building's status may or may not change in the near future, but I can say nothing else, so don't ask.

Another thing. Why couldn't these same developers spend that same money from land for a townhome park on a high-scale looking skypark apartment complex with two-story spaces within and a affordable price? In Houston, something like that could be affordable. If it were, say, New York, the land prices would make this type of place unrealistic to invest in. It could be a way for Houston to have yet another style of housing dedicated to this region. Just imagine an apartment/loft that's the same style as Museum Tower, but you'd have two-stories of it, plus it'd be in a 15-story building within a sky community with 19 other buildings just like it.

Think it's impossible? I'm staying at a complex in Korea (luxury style), with 60 20-story buildings (yes, 60 buildings). All one story, of course, but the place is making mad profit and is the hottest trend of living in Korea. MAD space inside, as well (1000 to 4000 sq ft per apartment is available at that complex). NOTHING is impossible. Take it to the limit. These developers need to stop with their mediocre townhomes and start thinking quality and making $4 over normal and making $5. THEN their property will be something to talk about.

I'm not sure that I'm following you..."high-scale looking skypark apartment complex"? "Two-story spaces"? Got any photos or renderings?

Btw, bear in mind that land acquisition anywhere that's already built out is extremely difficult. Building that many buildings in any concerted pattern is damned near impossible unless you're talking about The Woodlands or on a large tract of green space.

Sort of OT, but I wish the City would do more to encourage development in this area. Once you get past Lofts at the Ballpark, the streets are a complete mess, and I imagine the sewer and other infrastructure is just as bad. I realize there are limited resources to go around, but IMO if anywhere deserves a TIRZ, this is it!

A TIRZ is in place. It is the 'East Downtown TIRZ', aka TIRZ No. 15. It was put in place a few years ago when a high-priced research firm with offices in every glitzy, uppity, planned city (not Houston) around the nation forecasted massive growth for the area, largely the result of all the planned stadia and convention center expansions. For a while, land prices and interest for lots in the area spiked, but the projected development was way off. Lofts at the Ballpark had a really tough time filling up the complex, as I understand, as did the Alexan Lofts, further north. For a while, the Alexan was giving away free plasma TVs and several months of free rent for a 13-month lease.

So now, the TIRZ is on Mayor White's hit list, as per a Chronicle article from a ways back. Its not surprising either. The tax base is extremely limited anyway--they couldn't possibly be pulling in enough revenue to get anything really significant done in any short period of time. The other thing is that TIRZs are most effective when there are extremely few that are active.

The optimal approch to implementing them is to have one within each of your core urban areas using very strict definitions as to what is urban. In other words, have one Downtown, another in Galleria/Post Oak area, and another in TMC. Then create one or two that are in underdeveloped and lower-income neighborhoods that are directly adjacent to higher-income areas. Its ok to create large ones, but they need to create a sense of continuity of growth. I'd like to have seen Midtown's extended up through Fourth Ward, Sixth Ward, and First Wards, then up the Washington Avenue Corridor, and that be the end of it. All other TIRZs should be eliminated until the active corridor has been well-established. And just because the area is looking nice and infrastructure is updated, doesn't mean that its time to back off, either. To continuously promote a lot of development in the short term, public art projects, neighborhood parks, a district police force, and elaborate economic development efforts need to be constantly active. Then, all the peripheral TIRZs need to be axed, at least for the first decade, so that TIRZs aren't competing with one another. That's how to make them work.

On the one hand, I wouldn't want to go through zoning boards to have to pick my paint color, but on the other hand it would be nice to have assurances that a Walmart SuperCenter isn't about to locate next to my house or that I'm not going to have some tacky billboard built across the street from me. Also, it would be nice to have reasonable assurances that 100 year-old landmarks won't be destroyed with little or no public warning.

I don't think most other cities lack for choices in living arrangements and a modicum of control wouldn

We don't have townhouses here in New York, so I just don't get it. No one here, in their right mind or not, would tear down an old brownstone or prewar apartment building to build something new. Ever. As for landmarked or historically significant buildings, the zoning codes and community boards are such that you would have to mount a real campaign just to change the paint color.

I personally like the notion of adaptive reuse, but I'd hate to live in a place as restrictive as New York.

What do people want in a home? A nice place to live and plenty of time to enjoy it, right? Houston's free markets are a vast experiment in which individuals are allowed to reveal their preferences. And if individuals desire to be located near their place of employment, that's reasonable. And if individuals would prefer to spend less money by buying a 3,000sf corrugated steel box than they would have had to spend to restore a 1,200sf bungalow, well that's reasonable too. And if individuals would prefer to have homes that aren't in constant need of repair and landscaping, that's reasonable. And if individuals would like to express themselves artistically by, say, repainting an older home or designing and building something entirely unique, isn't that reasonable as well?

Non-Houstonians seem to have all these romantic notions of how cities can 'live'. I submit to everyone here that a city's capacity to live is determined by its citizenry's freedom to live as the citizenry sees fit. Cities don't have a beating heart, people do. In Houston, if you want a steel cube, you can live in a steel cube. If you want an old bungalow, you can have it. If you want a highrise condo unit, you can have that too. And you can have all of those things everywhere at once, all mixed together, precisely as the populous determines. And if you don't like it, well then move to The Woodlands or don't even bother coming here--we don't need another outsider voting for the subjugation of Houston's local culture into an era of zoned predictability.

We need bumper stickers that read "Keep Houston Weird". Austin lost its battle--look at it--its just a cheap yuppified corporatized knockoff of San Francisco...boring.

Our security people told me this week that I can expect to see Central Square demolished in approx two months [Mar 06?] but don't quote me! I'm going to try to find out if anyone knows any facts in that matter.

Can you get your building's security folks to tell you their source on this information? I'm having trouble confirming it.

I don't think getting a Whold Foods in Midtown is realistic for at least another couple of years as more development ensues. But I think it's possible long-term, especially along one of the major downtown-midtown roads like Fannin, as it could get a lot of rush hour traffic plus pedestrian traffic from the rail and area residents. The problem might be the lack of business during the weekend.

Also, I've noticed the quality at Midtown Randalls has increased quite a bit lately. Their fresh bakery breads are awesome, and they started carrying a lot of house-brand organic products. They still need to offer more organic produce however.

Yeah, barracuda is on the mark. Midtown lacks the necessary residential population density. I've been in the Randall's a few times and it looks pretty barren. Perhaps its just that they sell lower quality products at higher prices, but its already-low sales volume would probably just serve to scare off other grocers. Why compete in a market that's already beyond the saturation point? Even if you're in a slightly different product class, its still difficult. Also bear in mind that areas like their Alabama location draw from all the wealthiest neighborhoods in a 3 to 5 mile radius. In Midtown, 3 miles takes you into 3rd Ward and 5 miles might take you into the east end, 5th Ward, and Near Northside areas. Few Whole Foods shoppers there. Also remember that even though the downtown population is increasing in number, a very large segment is made up of convicts in the county jail. Few Whole Foods shoppers there.

Also factor in that grocery stores have a razor-thin profit margin. This isn't the kind of thing where you plop down several hundred condos, and if they don't sell as quickly as you thought, then you divest the remainder to vulture investors and take a slight hit. Grocery stores are frequently proprietary and are hard to get rid of if you've got to vacate and sell them. So you'd have to be really certain that the market exists before you dive in. Midtown's going to take a while and may see another few CVS's before it sees something substantial. The best we can hope for is that a set of small specialty food shops can pick up the slack with quality goods, though I'd expect the prices to be ridiculously high.