Big E

1 hour ago, Houston19514 said:

There doesn't seem to be any movement at all on the rail portions of MetroNext. Not sure why they are low on the priority list.  But it is unfair to flatly say they are taking a while to start on any of their projects.  Several of the MetroNext projects are well underway and several of the major (non-rail) projects are moving along about as fast as such things can move. (it's an unfortunate fact of life that anything using federal dollars takes a LONG time to get through all of the federal regulatory hurdles).

We all got to remember that Covid is still a thing, and Covid had led to decreased transit ridership nationwide, and is putting transit agencies in the red. I don't expect much to be done transportation wise, for the foreseeable future other than what has already been started. Federal money from that infrastructure bill will help get things off the ground, but we all know how much red tape comes with any kind of federal money.

56 minutes ago, Twinsanity02 said:

Weren't two more residential towers planned for downtown? One, I believe, was north of Minute Maid Park, the other around Toyota center. A twin of Camden residential.

I wouldn't consider the Camden twin a "tower" really. Camden is a midrise, maybe a small high rise at best. Its twin probably will be designed the same. I would put the Marquette building in the same boat really, but at 24 stories, I would definitely put that in high rise territory. Since the original post asked for "towers", I focused on the tallest buildings, the actual skyscrapers.

13 minutes ago, jmitch94 said:

Other than this development do we have any other towers downtown that are proposed but not under construction yet? 

One Market Square is still, technically, proposed, just looking for a major tenant. I think Hines is handling that one, so with Texas Tower done, that's probably their next major project.

6 Houston Center is still proposed, as of now.

That 50 story Chevron Tower is still technically proposed, but its been on the backburner for years. If Chevron ever finally moves out of California, maybe it will happen. 

And finally there's the W Hotel proposed to be built above the Partnership Tower.

I also think there may be a proposal to redevelop the Bayou Music Center, including multiple towers, but don't know how far along that actually is.

13 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

Very cool. Makes it look like they've acquired/are planning to acquire the piece they didn't own of the southernmost block.

Yeah, this picture surprises me. I thought they had failed to acquire that little piece of parking lot, and had acquired the lot to the west of that one, next to that residential building whose name escapes me at the moment.

13 hours ago, 79ta said:

Does it look like they're going to close down part of Dallas St. for pedestrians?

Looks to me like they are just repaving it and expanding the sidewalk, like the Houston Center did. In fact, if you look at the pick, you can see little cars still using the road. Its just that the sidewalk has been expanded and a lane has been lost.

9 hours ago, mattyt36 said:

Not if Ken Paxton has his say.

(I understand that people can have different opinions over the legal concept of eminent domain, but Ken Paxton’s entire career has been just 100% political theater.  When he isn’t criming, of course. Such a loathsome individual who will probably win another term.)

https://texasrailadvocates.org/2021/12/21/texas-ags-office-now-inserts-into-texas-central-high-speed-rail-lawsuit/

I apologize to anyone here who may have voted for this schmuck, but Ken Paxton is an idiot. My only question is who's paying him off to get involved at this point? Or who benefits from his involvement? Because the only reason I can see him getting involved here is because it benefits somebody he's attached to (or in the pocket of) to stop this railroad. Its the age old question of politics: who benefits? Not him. Not the state. Not Dallas or Houston. So who benefits? His legal argument would, taken at a face value, make it impossible for any brand new railroad to be built in Texas, which was almost certainly not the actual point of the law.

And even more distressingly, why the hell did the Texas Supreme Court even bother reopening this open and shut case?

Edit: Oh, and check this out, in case you needed any more proof this guy is a slimeball.

https://www.gadsdentimes.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/13/ken-paxton-texas-attorney-general-sued-allegedly-abusing-office/6278836002/

6 hours ago, thatguysly said:

Big gap in the middle of the skyline from that angle. Right side needs more density. Cool shot.

That gap is probably right where the Bank of Southwest Tower would have been.

9 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

I don't know why there is even a debate about the Astrodome.

Because most people in Houston don't give one whit about the Astrodome. It was Emmett's pet project, but nobody else cared and just want it torn down because it serves no purpose, which is why every attempt at a referendum to spend money on the thing failed. Texas Stadium and the Georgia Dome were torn down with no fanfare at all and nobody misses them. Hidalgo just had the issue thrown in her lap because Emmett went to the level of getting the thing declared historic on his way out the door.

15 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

FWIW, HCAD shows the property is owned by UWS Post Oak LLC, which is affiliated with UWS Developers.  (Not real encouraging)

https://uwsdevelopers.com/

 

Just to clarify, is that the PNC Plaza site where the high rise is supposedly planned, or the shopping center?

3 hours ago, Naviguessor said:

It's (practically) only just begun.   Main lanes of 610 still need to be reelevated and realigned...It'll be the best part.  

Oh joy. Can't wait.

Is this project still going and they are doing designs for it? I'd imagine they wouldn't just post these pictures up years after the fact. Their last pictures, posted some years ago, stated that the deal for the Loews Hotel fell through. Is it back on?

On 12/13/2021 at 10:16 PM, Ctaf said:

Is TMC3 being built all at once, or has it been divided into different phases?

Its being built in...like 3 phases if I'm not mistaken. However, all of Phase 1 hasn't started yet. The hotel and convention center is supposed to be Phase 1.

19 hours ago, mollusk said:

Rebuilding the Southwest Freeway interchange just might have a little teensy bit to do with congestion on the West Loop, as well.

Oh trust me, it was just as bad before said construction and will be just as bad afterward (also, pretty sure most of the construction is done at this point, at least as far as lane closures and such are concerned; the South Loop-288 interchange has multiple exits that they were working on and several are outright closed now, and neither road was ever that bad)

22 hours ago, JLWM8609 said:

Who's to say 610 wouldn't still be suffering if they'd gone ahead with the project? The project was killed in the early 90s. Had 610 been expanded as planned in the mid 90s, its not unreasonable to think it would be congested again 25 years later in 2021. Just look at the Katy Freeway. 

The Katy Freeway is nothing like it used to be. The old freeway was a mess damn near 24 hours a day. One can actually drive on Katy Freeway and get somewhere now, including the off hours and weekends, and its only full of traffic during rush hour. West 610 damn near unusable most of the day and to be avoided at all costs, whether its Rush Hour or not. Even as I type, right now, its 11:09 on a Friday night, and 610 south bound is backed up to full stoppage. Its literally the only freeway that's backed up.

15 hours ago, samagon said:

as for any previous projects to make 610 west loop better, I'm not aware that they acquired any land for those projects either. is it because TXDoT can't afford to buy this expensive land, or is it because they get cow-towed around by the rich people in the area who influence their decisions?

I already told you why. Its because they ran into massive opposition from urban interests, as well as pro-park interests who opposed even taking a small sliver of land from Memorial Park, even though the land lost would have been negligible compared to the total size of the park.

15 minutes ago, mattyt36 said:

Seems strange that that would be happening now.

Yeah. Land acquisition is currently frozen, and I doubt those apartments were bought by the state prior to the freeze. Its weird that they would be asked to move at all, let alone get any assistance.

5 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

Aside from the fact that this is one woman's testimony, thus can must be met with some skepticism without additional proof this happened, the fact is "Go 1-45" is a private group, and has no bearing on the project itself. So trying to lump this all in with the project as if the it was TxDOT itself that paid this woman to lie, is asinine at best, and targeted character assassination at worst. Even better, this seems to be coming from an anti-NHHIP group, who would be just as suspect as "Go I-45". In other words, take this with a grain of salt unless some official investigation finds anything. They probably won't because there is probably no proof of this accusation. Also, I'd like to know if she did take the money and give fake support. I'm willing to bet she did, which would tell me that her voice is "for sale" to whoever is willing to pay her.

1 minute ago, mattyt36 said:

Maybe others will have better luck than I, but I can’t find a Twitter account @mynameisjasmineg.

I’m not surprised.

Neither am I.

30 minutes ago, dbigtex56 said:

Why the dismissive attitude towards renters? Are they not worthy of your attention?

Because they can rent somewhere else? There are plenty of places to rent in the city. This isn't San Francisco where there is a lack of places to go. And being renters, they won't experience the same level of loss as landowners and homeowners. Thus I have much more sympathy for the homeowners (taking into account that they will actually get compensation), than renters.

30 minutes ago, dbigtex56 said:

The increase in rents in Houston is accelerating, and it's increasingly difficult for low income people to find affordable housing.

The increase in rents in Houston is nothing compared to the insanity that is other coastal cities, and rental prices are still low because of the rising housing supply. These renters may not find a place in their preferred area, but they will find a place.

30 minutes ago, dbigtex56 said:

Further, the costs of physically packing and moving possessions, paying new security deposits, and transferring utilities can easily wipe out or exceed a renter's savings.

The cost is not something I've overlooked, but the actual losses are minimal. And moving, while difficult and expensive, is not prohibitively so. In any case, this is something that's been in the works for years; the onus is on the renters to prepare ahead of time for this situation.

30 minutes ago, dbigtex56 said:

Likewise, lower end hotels and motels exist because there's a market for them - but it's unlikely that someone is going to construct a new building to cater to people with a modest budget. 
The small business owners who may have spent years building up a clientele will find themselves starting again from zero. 

Most of these businesses are not your classic small businesses, but major chains. They are franchised, and their owners probably have numerous other locations that they franchise and are millionaires. And I guarantee you, that when the freeway is rebuilt, newer, probably better businesses will come to replace them, because freeway frontage is prime real-estate. While you may feel for the owner of the Chevron station, fact is its one of a million, and easily replaceable. And one more thing; I guarantee you that all of these business owners are well aware of the plans for this freeway. In fact, most of them are probably counting on it, so they can sell the land then move in to the newly cleared areas that become the freeway's new frontage and make a killing.

30 minutes ago, dbigtex56 said:

I believe that the people I mention deserve to be treated with dignity and not ignored, dismissed, or otherwise devalued.

I agree, but we also have to be objective and logical here. Fact is, these businesses are nothing special and will be replaced before the project is even done. And, if they were being destroyed for, say, a new office building or apartment building, nobody on HAIF would shed a tear for them. In fact we'd be cheering, because nobody here really cares for this kind of car based development. Most probably want to see it gone. They just don't want to see gone for a freeway. Anything but that! Have you been along I-45 lately? I was just going down that freeway last week. It looks awful, and this is one of the main entrances into the city. Low rent business, old stores, strip malls, loan shops, car lots, etc. When people say Houston is ugly, I have a feeling its this stretch of I-45 that everyone is talking about, because it looks terrible. And the sign blight is something to behold. No other freeway looks this bad. The Katy may have looked this bad in the past, but its expansion has taken car of that. The owners of these businesses will not be set back on iota; they'll rebuild like nothing ever happened. The people who work in these places will find new jobs since there are plenty of openings (or not; a lot of people are leaving the workforce these days), and we'll look back and say, "Man, why did anyone even oppose this?"

1 hour ago, samagon said:

610 is a great example of TXDoT being forced to fit within the existing ROW by rich people who fought back against TXDoT. it's actually a very good example of the exact injustice, the reality is that it is not racial, but socioeconomic injustice, and it just so happens that the poor people that live in those areas being run roughshod by TXDoT are minority in addition to poor, a double whammy. 

It wasn't just rich people though. Many of the exact same urban interests, including the infamous Sheila Jackson-Lee, opposed 610's expansion and killed that project. Saying it was just "rich white people" who opposed it is simply not true. And 610 has suffered for it ever since.

7 hours ago, samagon said:

you don't fix traffic by creating more space for more traffic. you fix traffic by providing viable alternatives to what induces the traffic.

You seem to ignore that the viable alternatives can include building an alternate freeway to carry that traffic and splitting the capacity. In any case, the NHHIP isn't entirely, or even mostly about improving actual capacity. The mainline freeway lanes are not going to see new lanes added though like 90% of the project.

For Segment 1, the most controversial segment, there will be no mainline freeway lanes added at all. They will add a lane to each frontage road, and they will add three managed/express/tolled lanes in the middle of the freeway, to have two express lanes going in each direction, like with the Katy freeway. The main lanes will be mainly reconstructed because of their age.

For Segment 2, they will mainly be rebuilding this portion because of how old it is, and fixing some of its design flaws, like low bridges. They will also add a lane to segments of the frontage road that aren't three lanes already, and I think add maybe one lane. they will also extend the four managed lanes to this segment.

For Segment 3, most of this segment adds no lanes at all, but constructs all new freeways to replace older ones that will be demolished. Only the part of Segment 3 that includes the interchange of 288 and I-69 will see any lanes added (it will be expanded from eight to twelve.

7 hours ago, samagon said:

and if the goal is to fix crumbling infrastructure, then they should be working within the ROW they have to correct the issues

What if what they are trying to correct can't be corrected within the ROW they have?

7 hours ago, samagon said:

when Afton Oaks successfully forced TXDoT to compromise their designs by not taking ROW from their neighborhood where were you all complaining of the greater good for the rest of the city?

I wouldn't have been old enough to care at that time, but had I been? Yeah, because its stupid that one neighborhood can stop a major regional project. 

7 hours ago, samagon said:

to pull a fast one has nothing to do with speed. the idiom simply means they are trying to gain an unfair advantage, or to deceive.

Except you really haven't explained how they are trying to do that.

1 hour ago, samagon said:

i10 the ROW already existed, they took over land from the RR that ran right alongside the freeway. that was convenient and why there wasn't a lot of fighting about the ROW expansion. 

And yet there are still people who opposed even that freeway expansion, because the issue wasn't (just) the ROW acquisition; they just didn't want to expand the freeway because they opposed freeways in general. And, as has been elucidated, there was indeed ROW acquisition that effected residential homes.

14 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

10 years ago we didn’t have half the bike lanes we do, we didn’t have Buffalo Bayou Park, etc. So the mindset of Houstonians has changed too. The desire for a better quality of life has become much more apparent. The Kinder Institute even did a study that shows Houstonians want better transit, more walkability, etc.

This project does not at all affect Houston's transit situation. That is handed by Metro, not TxDOT. In fact, this rebuilding of I-45 is supposed to make room for new transit infrastructure in the future, so this project actually helps Houston's transit situation. Transit and freeways can and should coexist. Not everyone in Houston will use transit (in fact most won't) and this freeway doesn't just serve Houston traffic, but regional, state, national, and international traffic.

14 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

TxDOT is finally being cornered and they aren’t showing their good side. You’re def seeing how entitled and spoiled they are.

How are they being entitled and spoiled?

14 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

My buddy works for TxDOT in Midland and he tells me all the time how much TxDOT outsources so many costs that balloon the cost of projects like this one all in the attempt to ask for more and more money.

And? That's basically how the government works. You don't think Metro or the City of Houston itself doesn't do the same thing when a major project happens? I'm more surprised you think this is some major revelation.

14 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

We have every right to question the true motives of these guys. Especially when it affects people and they livelihood.

I think their motives are pretty transparent. This road is a mess, preventative maintenance to keep it running is becoming prohibitive, so they want to fix the issue. They figured adding managed lanes, burying freeways, and removing the Pierce Elevated would get them in people's good graces. Boy were they wrong.

14 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I know this forum is all about development and our love for this city and seeing it grow for the better but at some point you have to ask at what cost are we really doing all of this?

That's a perfectly reasonable position to have. I'd say the cost is low for what they are actually doing with this project.

14 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

It’s easy to say oh this needs to happen because it won’t affect me, but say that to those in 3rd Ward and 2nd Ward.

While I feel for the people losing their homes, I in no way believe that that's enough to stop or delay this project further. Most of the losses are rental apartments (where the renters can just rent somewhere else), housing projects that will be torn down anyway, and the types of freeway focused business nobody will miss (your gas stations, car lots, lower end hotels and motels, restaurants, big box stores, etc.).

35 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

They’re really trying to pull a fast one on minority communities.

They aren't trying to do anything of the sort. This project has been in the works for the better part of a decade now, and has probably been in planning and back room discussions for longer. Nobody is getting blindsided by this. There have been multiple meetings and comment periods. This will ultimately benefit the city, and either replace or retrofit crumbling infrastructure that is decades old and well past its functional use limit. This small group of "protestors" isn't doing anything particularly laudable in and of itself.

A double post technically, but since its been like a month since my previous post, I believe its okay; CityNerd just did a video comparing differences of a trip between Dallas and Houston, in terms of time and cost, if one went either via, car, airplane, or the proposed high speed rail:

Besides being a good video that really elucidates the actual benefits of high speed rail vis-à-vis air travel and auto travel, it also further shows how good the station placement is for the train stations. High speed rail's main competitor, outside of the car, which it would beat handily, even with the station placement, is the airplane. All of Houston's (and Dallas's) airports are even more remotely located than the rail stations, making the stations more convenient than air travel. Also, the station is actually closer to the true geographical center of the metro area, considering that Houston is sprawling northward and westward.

18 minutes ago, rechlin said:

Of course, that also means it has dampened the need for any more office buildings (and hotels, for the time being) when the ones that are already there are underutilized.

New office buildings will also have to be built like Texas Tower, or that building that they are building between the park and the Embassy Suites. They will need a large marquee tenant to sign on who offers to lease most of the building immediately and is constructing the building to their specifications. That's what One Market Square is waiting on. Any future office buildings won't be speculative, at least not for the time being.

6 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

Given that more than 2 years have passed, and all references to the parking garage seem to have been removed from the participants' websites. . . 

Yeah, that's what I pointed out. The webpage for the garage is gone, so its probably been cancelled. In any case, the pandemic and subsequent economic fallout have probably dampened the need for anymore parking garages when the ones that are already there are going underutilized.

On 11/15/2021 at 10:09 PM, hindesky said:

Half that block is supposed to be the automated parking garage.

 

First of all, does downtown really need another parking garage, even if it only takes up half the block? There are literally two more parking garages in the blocks adjacent to this one, one of which takes up its entire block. Second of all, the Mathis Group page that this post points to, which I assume is for the garage, no longer points to anything, so maybe the garage has been cancelled? In the wake of the pandemic, and the large number of people who no longer drive to work, building yet another garage probably made no economic sense.

5 hours ago, cityliving said:

 

 

Now if someone could only buy and develop that huge parking lot behind this building, and Six Houston Center can get off the ground, this would be an amazing series of blocks. That parking lot is big enough for a massive 50+ story tower.

2 hours ago, Ross said:

The Downtown segment needs to be killed. It's useless, and does nothing to improve the City, in my opinion. It wipes out one part of the city and a bunch of businesses for alleged "improvements" to another nearby area.

Are you serious? That's literally the only segment almost everybody WANTS to happen and agrees would actually be GOOD for downtown!

4 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I find it hilarious that these Republicans want to speed up the process of a civil rights investigation calling criticism of the project “disingenuous” while Dan Crenshaws district looks like a kid scribbled on a map. And none of them represent those affected by the project. 

Do they have represent the area to criticize the hold up? The interstate is a major project that effects the region and state. Everyone who uses that freeway or has constituents that uses it will be effected. Also, not sure what his district's appearance has to do with anything.

2 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

It seems just perfect for someone to downsize from 400,000 to 250,000 SF and knock one of our 80's-era buildings into Class B/high vacancy status. 

 

I hope not. The last thing we need is a mostly empty skyscraper just sitting downtown. In this, we should not try to copy Dallas.