Big E

On 12/28/2020 at 11:36 AM, Houston19514 said:

IIRC, Innovation Tower was originally presented as a two-phase project, with the upper, second phase, portion to be built depending on market demand (and could be residential or additional medical lab/office space).  This latest rendering looks quite similar to the Phase 1, Parking/lab structure in the original information.

Nice information, though add the requisite "Don't give me hope" here.

18 minutes ago, arbpro said:

You guys sure like to tell other people how to spend THEIR money. Maybe they should do a critique on where you choose to spend YOUR money? 

Nobody is telling them how to spend their money. Expressing disappointment is not "telling people how to spend their money". Not like anyone here is contacting them to lecture them on their desire to downsize this project.

6 hours ago, Urbannizer said:

Website updated to reflect current plans.

https://www.medistarcorp.com/in-development/

This is even worse than what Paco showed. They might as well not even build it. I mean, what's the point? Another glass box. Leave the parcel for someone else to develop. Medistar chickened out. Its honestly kind of embarrassing.

10 hours ago, august948 said:

 

Wouldn't most of those folks already be flying, then?

Depends on if they'd rather pay for the plane ticket or just drive the distance. Either way, the train would be good third option, and probably cheaper than both in the long run.

On 12/1/2020 at 7:38 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

I'm not talking about an immediate presence downtown. But considering the move along with the development of the Innovation District, as more and more "cool" companies start to move here, I could def see offices downtown or something in the future. 

Doubtful. The "cool companies" (I assume you mean hip Tech Companies like Twitter and Google; I wouldn't exactly put an enterprise business like HPE in that group) generally put their biggest offices in large suburban campus locations even now (Google is based out of Mountain View, California, Microsoft is based out of Redmond, Washington, Apple is based out of Cupertino, California, etc.). Even if they did move to Houston, for lower taxes and such, they would move to the suburbs, maybe as close in as Westchase or the Energy Corridor, not to a huge skyscraper downtown. The only company I could actually see doing that would would be Amazon, since they are already headquartered at a huge skyscraper in downtown Seattle, but we all saw what happened with HQ2. Also, maybe Twitter, since they are actually based out of San Francisco, but even Twitter is not based out of large skyscraper.

20 hours ago, august948 said:

 

Is HSR really oriented towards eliminating car trips? From what I read, they are going to try to be competitive with air on ticket prices and transit time.  Unless the ticket prices are going to be way lower than airline tickets, most people opting for the train would have been considering flying, not driving.

For people who drive between Houston and Dallas regularly, we're talking daily or weekly, it very well might be better for them overall than loading up a car, driving the long miles, on their gas, to do whatever is they got to do, then driving back.

12 minutes ago, Texasota said:

Under the freeway will be a lot more pleasant place without cars driving above at speed. I have mixed feelings about converting the Pierce Elevated, but I would find the argument for removing it completely a lot more convincing if there werent plenty of vacant lots nearby. I'll take the shade over another surface lot any day.

When the freeway is removed, it will raise land values and encourage more development in the surrounding area. Might get some more residential. Plus, one could build a park on some of the vacant land without having to worry about maintaining the existing freeway structure (or maintain it as an eyesore).

On 11/19/2020 at 2:44 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

It wouldn’t be dead at all. If anything it would create an even cooler area for food trucks, park space and green space in general, along with the opportunity to build great walkable areas for shade etc. I mean it gets hot af here

I mean, they can park food trucks and such under the freeway as it is now, and not do anything to the freeway. They could do all kinds of things with the space under the freeway, but it still wouldn't be the best usage of that footprint. 

@@editor The activity stream no longer has the option to go to the first unread post and there is no option to go to the first unread post in the threads themselves. What's up with that? Was that broken by the update?

Edit: Scratch that. I just found out you buried this in the user settings of all things.

59 minutes ago, clutchcity94 said:

They have really started to clean this area up. No homeless congregating around the PPS agency. I know the tents are gone from the 59 south ramp on Montrose side, but how about from the 59 north offramp just west of the Shipley Donuts?

When the money flows in, the homeless must flow out. Wonder where they will migrate to next?

Come on guys, leave Randall alone. Its not his fault he was born without taste. Its a very terrible, serious condition!

On 8/28/2020 at 10:16 AM, Naviguessor said:

Sam - True that blocks will be lost in Eado and a few of those blocks are presently built upon.  But, East End isn't an ultimate looser in the deal.  EADO will lose the barrier of an elevated Highway and most likely gain significant green space and build-able real estate, as envision in the latest plans.  The cap-park, could be a real connector and it also appears that the GRB, would now have an East Facing entrance on the north end, further connecting the east to downtown/convention distinct.  Regarding Clayton Homes, most of this was deeply flooded in Harvey and the units are planned to be replaced in the area.  

I mean, the biggest barrier between downtown and EaDo isn't the freeway (which, like the Pierce elevated, is a viaduct that doesn't impede the street network), but the Convention Center which causes a major break in the street network, and the convention center isn't going anywhere.

On 8/28/2020 at 8:49 AM, samagon said:

the city/state has already started the process of moving Clayton homes.

I mean Clayton Homes was probably on its way out regardless. The area was an inundated disaster area after Harvey, and, from what I understand, only like 20% occupied, if that. The rest was a mold infested wreck. So moving the homes away from the bayou probably makes sense.

9 hours ago, JLWM8609 said:

 

Or rebuild the Pierce Elevated where it is.

 

I imagine in an alternate universe where the fortunes of Midtown and the East End are reversed, TxDOT is planning a double decked and cantilevered Pierce Elevated to carry 59/69 around downtown and along I-10 to reconnect the East End to Downtown. 

While rebuilding the Pierce Elevated is not something I'm opposed to, that ship has probably sailed. The city and community seems personally invested in the idea of tearing the thing down wholesale or converting it into a park. Freeway tear down seems to be all the rage among the urbanist city planner set these days, even if the "tear down" really translates to just building an entirely new freeway somewhere else to carry traffic more efficiently, or tearing down an old freeway spur that was supposed to be part of a larger freeway system that never got built, and if you actually look into most examples of tearing out freeways in the U.S. that is exactly what has generally been the case.

I-30 through downtown Fort Worth. Yeah they tore the freeway down...only to build a newer, wider, better designed freeway a few blocks further south. Same with I-40 in Oklahoma City. Tearing down old I-5 in Portland. Yeah they tore down the freeway portion the passed through downtown, but they just rerouted I-5 across the river, and the reason they tore down the old freeway was because it was old and out of the date, and the newer, wider, better designed I-405 had already been built to the west of Downtown Portland, and could carry traffic much more efficiently than the old freeway.

And what of the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, the example to end all examples of freeway tear downs? The Embarcadero Freeway was supposed to be part of a much larger freeway system that would have followed The Embarcadero all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. That freeway system wasn't built, leaving the small section that was a truncated spur that served no real purpose. Destroying it was no big loss because it was overbuilt for the traffic it carried and carried no thru-traffic anyway. The Park East Freeway in Milwaukee was the exact same situation: a short freeway spur that was supposed to be part of a larger freeway system that was never built. The spur was thus overbuilt for the traffic it served, so destroying it was justifiable.

While replacing the Pierce Elevated with a tunnel or adding a second deck maybe feasible or even preferable, the TxDOT won't do it. They've convinced themselves that the first option is too expensive, and everyone else has convinced themselves that the second option doesn't solve the problem of Pierce Elevated being a "barrier" (though it isn't a barrier in any way except psychologically; the entire street network passes unimpeded underneath). Thus, the push for another "freeway removal" which isn't a removal at all but simply moving the freeway a few miles away.

On 8/19/2020 at 1:20 PM, samagon said:

but moving 45 from the current alignment on the rich side of downtown to the poor sides of downtown, all that does it benefit the rich people at the expense of the poor people.

I mean what would you rather they do? Try to tunnel the whole freeway? Talk about Houston's Big Dig. The guys at TXDOT have long ruled out tunneling any portion of the I-45 rebuild as either unfeasible or, more than likely, too expensive, though it would make more sense to do that if the goal was to affect the least number of people possible. And I'm talking about a full bore tunnel, not the cut and cover tunnel they are planning to do here with the freeway caps

8 hours ago, kennyc05 said:

I know this question has probably been answered but are they building every building in the renderings or in phases?

I think everything is being built in at least two phases. The retail pavilion and Hotel/condo tower are phase one. The rest of the midrises are future phases.

10 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

 

So empty.

 

Yeah, a pandemic will do that to you.

47 minutes ago, phillip_white said:

 

You think people are excited a business (that is surrounded by empty parking lots) is closing because it has a parking lot? If this was 5-10 years from now when Rice has completed developed every other phase of construction, I could see that. This closing will only add to the emptiness in the neighborhood and remove an affordable grocery option for a large swath of central Houston. I understand that negotiations were not successful, but this is not a good turn of events for any stakeholder (Rice included).

Isn't there another grocery store near Midtown? Pretty sure there is. Maybe they are doing more brisk business?

On 6/30/2020 at 11:23 AM, samagon said:

 

as I was browsing the going up section I saw in the Gillette mixed use building thread that there are Houston Housing Authority buildings that are disused and boarded, and windows broken out.

 

it got me to thinking maybe the answer isn't some city wide solution that mandates each builder make accommodations. maybe there's other possibilities?

 

I was thinking about TIRZ at the same time. I know the midtown TIRZ has been buying land in 3rd ward (and it sits idle). if they can buy land, and all that stuff, why can't they also be in charge of ensuring low income housing in the areas they manage? TIRZ do a really great job of uplifting an area, or gentrifying it, or whatever word you want to use, but this often has the negative effect of pricing poor people out of the area. 

 

why not put the onus on the TIRZ to maintain, or grow low income housing in an area? a TIRZ basically sets a 0 point at a specific time. the taxable value of real estate at the time goes to city/county/state. for a period of 30 years, every cent that the area of that TIRZ that goes up in value over that original 0 point, the extra taxable money goes to the TIRZ. 

 

so, what could potentially happen, is if the area that the TIRZ covers doesn't have a minimum percentage of low income housing, they get less of those tax dollars. if the area that the TIRZ covers maintains a percentage, then they get what they are owed. if they go above the percentage, then they get more tax dollars (potentially from the tax dollars that were not paid to the TIRZ that don't maintain the minimum percentage of low income housing).

That's largely just shifting the burden from the city to the TIRZ, leading to a more patchwork situation. Now this could theoretically be better: rather than a city as geographically large as Houston trying to push a one size fix all solution, each TIRZ would be in charge of making things work in their own neighborhood, which they understand much better and more intrinsically than the city ever could. But it wouldn't fix the fundamental issue regarding affordable low income housing. It would force the TIRZ to push for low income housing in an unnatural, artificial way to meet a quota, irrespective of the wants of the community its serving or the actual economic conditions supporting such, rather than allowing the market and natural evolution of the neighborhood to dictate where said housing goes and if it goes there at all.

12 hours ago, gmac said:

And so it begins... private tentacles reaching into the public trough.

They're looking for loans, not handouts. Nobody could have predicted the damage the Coronavirus has wrought on society economically. Unfortunately, massive infrastructure projects like this are going to get squeezed and that's unavoidable. 

On 5/27/2020 at 11:02 AM, samagon said:

All Segments:

TxDOT, H-GAC, and the City should join together to evaluate the best ways to accommodate freight demand throughout the corridor. This should include all available capacity (both road and rail) and management techniques, with the express objective of shifting through-truck volumes away from downtown unless destined for downtown and out of the heaviest rush hour traffic flows.

The thing is: Does the city actually indicate how it intends to shift truck volumes away from downtown? The only option to do that would be to reroute all truck traffic along the Loop, which is already a backed up mess most of the day, especially the west loop. It would also increase travel times to force everyone to go around the city. If the city is planning to prohibit all truck traffic within the Loop or some such thing, it would probably cause more problems than it solves. What would help traffic would be to setup a Local–express lane system for through traffic on 1-45 and direct all through traffic on to it, but that would still require a massive expansion of the freeway right of way. Another option would be to expand the loop to handle the extra traffic load, but that would just move the burden of freeway expansion to another freeway (that and the park lobby would have a field day opposing any expansion of the west loop through Memorial park).

On 5/27/2020 at 11:02 AM, samagon said:

just so I'm following you, we should remove people from their homes and communities so we can plant some trees so the people visiting the city don't have to look at the communities that the freeway is impacting?

Come on dude. You know that's not what he's saying. From an objective standpoint, the areas along I-45 look terrible, and its not because of the poor neighborhoods it goes through. Its because the massive amount of billboards and low end businesses (plus their signs) that front the freeway. The freeway itself is nothing to write home about, just a slab of concrete, and the area around just contributes to a run down look. Now you may like that Frye's Electronics, but I think Houston can survive without it.

8 hours ago, samagon said:

land area in and around Houston, compared to these other cities is absolutely far greater. it is pretty inaccurate to suggest differently. 

That might be true in absolute terms, though even that is debatable depending on what you are actually measuring (MSA for example). What is also absolutely true is that Houston itself is geographically larger than any of these cities. However, that doesn't affect the point really. There are still plenty of suburban and rural areas outside of these cities for people to move to and live in. And honestly, in an era of skyscrapers and dense development, geographic constraint probably shouldn't play as much of a role. The fact that it does speaks to my wider point about how government laws and interventions are largely constraining development.

8 hours ago, samagon said:

the real reason areas east of Houston aren't developed quite as much as the west and north, and even the south is for the same reasons it is kind of silly to consider some of the places you mentioned above as viable solutions for housing. they are geographically hard to access. getting from areas east of the San Jacinto river into Houston are very limited, just like areas east of the SF bay area. there's 1 or 2 options for getting from one side to the other. it is not desirable.

Well that doesn't actually weaken my point that Houston has geographic constraints to development. Also, despite the geographic constraints, the eastern side of the SF Bay is just as developed as San Fran's.

8 hours ago, samagon said:

so, even without IZ, home prices go up?

 

Not necessarily. In a bad or stagnant economy, they may stagnate or go down. Even in a decent economy, home prices may remain relatively stable if demand isn't overtaking supply. Houston's home prices are a fraction of a city like New York's or San Fran's, even with its booming economy (pre-corona). Prices in some areas were probably stagnant, even before the corona virus hit. Depends.

9 hours ago, samagon said:

however, I will agree, that placing the entire burden of cost on builders may have a negative effect. there should be offsets in place that doesn't saddle them with the entire burden. basically, when they build, it should cost them nothing to have x percentage of the sf dedicated to low income. so basically, if the government requires that 10% of the building be used for low income, then the government should pay 10% of the cost, or give tax abatement equal to 10% of the cost, however it would be done. 

That...isn't a poor idea on the face of it. As the articles I linked above pointed out, when you get right down to it, IZ is more of subsidy program than anything else, and its success seems to be tied to how much the government is willing to subsidize to prevent rents and housing costs from going up. The problem is whether or not the government is willing to subsidize, how much, and whether or not IZ is better than other forms of government subsidy.

8 hours ago, Luminare said:

 

Did the city actually put forth alternate proposals for the Katy Freeway, and Hardy Toll Road? I don't know of any actual alternate proposals put forth by the city during those times. There might have been opposition, but its not like the city actually did anything to change TXDOT's mind in those instances.

 

What we also need to understand about this project is that what TXDOT initially released was after years of discussion behind closed doors with the city already. Everything from the reroute, to the park deck in EaDo, etc... were all initially part of this project before any opposition, or before any publicity. These two entities have to work together for it to get done. TXDOT can't just simply do what it wants. Most times in only looks like it can because most times TXDOT and the city have historically been in general agreement with what is being done. This time around the city is asking TXDOT to do even more than previous instances. Yes TXDOT does have the final say on matters, but burning bridges doesn't exactly build good future relationships. People think that all our highways were built by some kind of authoritarian TXDOT regime, but that just isn't the case. At every step the city had to sign off on everything that TXDOT has done up until now. They will have to do the same this time.

The city wanted the Katy Expansion (or accepted that it was necessary) and pushed it despite opposition. The design phase was a little long, but that was mainly due to the fact that when they started, TXDOT had not yet bought the old railroad tracks next to the freeway. Once that was taken care of, everything went relatively smoothly. The tracks' removal allowed the expansion of the freeway without building costly elevated structures or as much right of way acquisition, so the city never really pushed for an alternate proposal. All of the Katy's opposition were from private groups, but the city solidly backed the freeway, and the opposition was ultimately defeated. The city never backed the Hardy Toll Road and in fact was hostile to it, which is why the county judge at the time basically single-handedly had to push it through on the county's end. He effectively personally championed the project. There were no alternate proposals because the city simply didn't want it built.

8 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

 

You're doing a little cherry-picking of the history.  Did the LaPorte Freeway get built inside the Loop?  Did the original above-grade expansion plan for the inner Southwest Freeway get built?  Did the West Loop get double-decked or expanded into more of Memorial Park as TXDOT once proposed?

The Harrisburg Freeway was not a major priority for TXDOT, nor the city government and took years just to get consideration. Its development was further complicated by the new federal laws at the time that was mandating all kinds of things the older freeways didn't require. What really killed it though was that it came at a time when TXDOT were massively strapped for cash and resources with huge funding shortfalls (which had already delayed the freeway), and had no stomach to push through an "unpopular" freeway given the current situation when the resources just weren't there. The West Loop Expansion ran into unique opposition in the form of the Park Lobby, which is very strong in Houston. The Park People organization in particular, mobilized to kill that plan, with the help of certain friendly city council members who were vocal anti-freeway people. Truth is, nobody who uses Memorial park would have noticed the 3.5 acres that would have been lost to the expansion. However, I think in the case of the West Loop, it was more like everything just seemed to align in that one moment to frustrate that particular plan. The planets sure haven't aligned that way since. Both 290 and the Katy ultimately got widened, barreling over any opposition.

The whole Skypark thing I can take or leave. They could just give the land to development and it would work just as well. As for their proposals, I'm not sure how much TXDOT will consider them. Adding capacity was a major focus of the project. I doubt TXDOT will actually walk away from that. They may scale the project back, but I'm not holding my breath. History has shown that when a freeway project is seen as a pressing need, it will get done in Houston and everyone will ultimately get behind it. The Katy expansion moved forward despite opposition, the Hardy Toll Road happened despite opposition, and this will ultimately do the same. The city will get behind TXDOT in the end and just tell everyone "Well, we tried".