Daniepwils

There are two Marriott hotels on the same block (Marriott Courtyard and Residence Inn) as well as Humble Tower Apartments (80 units), all three of these are in "The Humble Tower Building". The Tower part is where the actual "residence" live.

For the amount of money I pay to live downtown, I don't want to be kept up all night by neon tv screens.

There is no way I could ever eat at S. Warehouse when only a few blocks away is Mia Bella's.

On saturday there were even kids swimming in the pond! Lots of them!

They eventually got kicked out though when they swam to the backstage area of the Beatles cover band.

why why why would anyone swim in that...I guess the parents don't have common sense to know that it is not a pool...

They were telling me how they have a completely different image of Houston now

What do people think of Houston? I know from past encounters that alot of people think we all have boots and cowboy hats, and ride our horses into work.

I think you do have to get a permit to protest. If I recall correctly when the cleaning people were on strike last year in downtown the police could do nothing because they had a "permit" to gather or something to that extent. As long as they did not impede traffic they could protest (even on residential blocks... which to this today I still a little pissed about). Who really wants to come home and listen to that crap till 10-11pm at night.

It seems the protestors got to the park before the homeless did! Today people walked through the park protesting ARAMARK. As of right now they are still there with their band instruments and loudspeakers.

So much for a park being peaceful!

All this week there have been people at the park at all times of the day. Of course lunch time is when it gets pretty crowded.

There was a Rockets game and Astro's game yesterday which made the crowds around that area even more so.

Yesterday at 4pm after working out, I decided to not take my normal jogging route home, instead I jogged to the new park. WOW is all I have to say. I have never seen that many people in downtown other than the Super Bowl. I thought about doing a few laps around the park, but there were just to many people. I went this morning at 6am and not a soul to be found!

I am not sure if they are building a new Y or just renovating this one. My dad's company put in a bid for a renovation of the Downtown Y.

Did Houston (downtown buildings) even participate in this?

Paddling around in a life-sized boat in a lake that size could get old pretty quick.

I meant renting RC boats not ones to actually paddle in. (I can just see a 200+ man in a paddle boat trying to paddle but not going anywhere because it is to shallow)

Also, the entire lake will not be used for the RC boats, just a section (they actually have a bumper or something that is right under the water to make sure the boats don't go outside of the RC boat area)

The other day it looked liked Buffalo Bayou. Some dirt fell off into the lake, and it was a bit ugly (lol).

There is water in the lake now (not full though).

I think they will have boats you can rent to use, or something to that degree.

The water "shoots" and mist tree have been working for awhile, I think they are just working out the kinks with the water "shoots".

Yes those are the staircases to the parking garage, there is one on each side.

Those stairwells are just, um, WOW. Looking at the park from high above, I can say those things really stick out.

They just landed a 5th one, that is weird. Maybe they are having a Helicopter show at the GRB.

Edited, yes they are indeed having one.

http://www.houstonconventionctr.com/meetin...s/calendar.html

http://www.heliexpo.com/

This morning I noticed helicopters landing in the parking lot on the left hand side of the GRB, it looks as if they turned that parking lot into a Helipad (there is a BIG H painted on the lot). Three helicopters so far have landed, one of which is extremely huge. (They have gone behind the GRB so I am not sure where they are now, but they have not taken off into the air again).

Kind of scary when they come in that fast and very close to my windows.

This is the fourth one:

Also here is a current picture of the "tent" on the new park:

When you're buying a table of 10 for $1,000 a ticket, black tie, you get a tent!

LOL why am I not suprised! This is typical Houston... so backwards...build a park then put a tent on the park for a party...

It is either for the Democratic Debate this/next week or, yes the grand opening of the park.

IMO though having a huge tent cover part of the Great Lawn of the park opening is kind of odd, why not just have it on the great lawn, after all it is a park!

Also,

They are going to start bulldozing another parking lot next to the new park. It will be another office building, right in front of 5 Houston Center facing east.

Are you basing this on recent findings? I ask as it sounds like the quality of food (including produce, of course) is what they aimed to improve upon as part of this grand re-opening. Things might have changed. I don't have enough experience with Specs/Rice Ep. to say anything about them but I can say that I thought the produce at Randall's looked pretty good to me--a person with a suburban HEB background.

I have not been since the re-grand opening. I will have to try it. I too lived in the suburbs and have always liked Randall's but for some reason this one was always sub par. I will go take a look this week and check it out. (I hope they are as good as you say! I can stop going all the way to Wesleyan for groceries now)

Wayne needs a new job imo. The last few "investigative" reports he has done have turned up to be flops!

I miss Marvin!!!!

I was just making sure, because from the view in my office it looks exactly the way it should. (Maybe the structures are taller than you expected, they certainly are taller than I expected)

How do you know that the restaurants are larger? Just curious if they posted anything about the parks dimensions.

I did notice that this Randall's is even more expensive than Randall's out in the burbs (The only thing I compared was canned items, as that is all I really buy here anymore)

Specs and Rice Ep. have better produce than Randall's nowadays.

I did get in the mail a coupon/flyer announcing the re-grand opening of Randall's.

I looked out a window from my office at 5 Houston Center today, and it looked like they planted several acres of sod over the main greenspace recently, although the part of the park closest to the ballpark (north?) is still very torn up.

That is where the lake is going to be

The Marriott has two hotels downtown. The Courtyard and The Residence Inn, both of which seem to do very well during the week.

Currently the only buildings right on the park are: The Convention Center, The Hilton, 5 Houston (my building) and Park Place (new Fingers res. building).

As of right now there are three lots around the new park that have no buildings on them. Two of these lots will be starting construction within the next year or so. One will be an office building the other is the new Embassy Hotel. So that leaves one lot (one huge lot actually).