King Owl

Wait, they haven't even officially signed a lease and she's saying that they'll be open by APRIL? No. That's ridiculous.

My office window looks out over the pool construction. The pool will be amazing. It's really huge - it spans a good portion of the width of the building. I'll try to get a picture of it this week and post it here

Surely the February HBJ rendering isn't what they plan on going with there. That rendering is Deyaar's Burlington at Business Bay project in Dubai. Would they just copy another project and plop it in Houston?

Really? It always looked to me like it points fairly straight out... must be just a slight angle.

I think that if a building was built close enough and high enough that it was being hit by the rotating Williams Tower beacon, they would probably just turn the beacon off.... maybe put a beacon on the higher building.

I can see the beacon from my roof-top deck, and it points up at a decent angle. I noticed it last night as I was watching the fireworks over uptown. Might even require more like 120 stories to be hit, given the fact that the Deyaar building would be along Richmond

If you notice the Transco beacon, it points up at an angle. It would probably take a 100+ story building to be in the path of that light, given that the Deyaar land is a little ways down Post Oak from Transco

here's hoping this thing starts looking better...quick. The garage looks like a steaming pile of poop

I hope the hotel is a Peninsula. I stayed in the one in Chicago and it's simply awesome. Either that or a Mandarin Oriental. I stayed at theirs in Miami and thought it was incredibly nice, also. I wouldn't call the Ritz a "very, very high end" 5 star hotel. Simply a 5 star hotel. 4 Seasons is in the Ritz category

Maybe a Burj-Al-Arab - Houston? Now that would be cool

the current renderings of the gateway building (5 allen center) would be a stellar addition to downtown's skyline. i dont have any confirmation on whether or not it's gonna happen, but somebody gave me a "90% chance" that it gets built. better than nothing.

if we could get Discovery Tower, MainPlace, 6 Houston Center, Hines North, and 5 Allen Center all built w/in the next 5 years.... i'd say that's pretty damn impressive.

What does the gateway building rendering look like? Hopefully it has a lighting element at the top. I'd also like to see an "Atlanta-style" cheat on the height by doing the build-up or crown on top

It looks like Deyaar's CEO was arrested for a "financial irregularity", and they're in the process of finding another CEO and shuffling around board members. I wonder if that will have any impact on this project in Houston or not. They don't talk like it will impact their profitability and there's no mention of how it would change their strategy going forward.

anyone heard anything new about this development?

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle...siness&col=

anybody heard anything new about either the Ritz tower(s) or the Hanover tower? I noticed that Emporis just updated their site for the residential tower.

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=blvdpl...-houston-tx-usa

They've always had a policy not to allow it, but nobody would ever tell you not to run the stairs if you were out there. I used to run them all the time when I was a student there. If the gates were open, I'd go right in. The gates aren't always open in the football off-season, though. The only time people will yell at you is when you take a dog down on the turf (idiots....).

The tunnel system isn't a factor in the Houston Center area. I work in One HC, and the skywalks are nice to be able to walk over to the Park shops to eat or shop, and to the parking garages, but if Discovery Tower has a skywalk to their parking garage, then all people would need to do is walk to 5 HC to get into the skywalks to make it over to the Park shops. Not that big of a deal, in my opinion. Plus Discovery tower will have retail, so maybe there will be some dining options right there in the building without having to leave

This board gets excited when a new H-E-B opens. I think this is more interesting.

I'm a little surprised mainly since I tend to associate La Quinta with freeway/suburban hotels, not so much downtown. I wonder how it will look.

Probably will look like the La Quinta in downtown San Antonio...I don't have a picture, but they keep the traditional la quinta look with the beige color with the la quinta sign on top of a ~20-25 story building

No, I'm pretty sure we knew about it's exact location. The Hotel-convention that is. But there's another hotel on there that I don't think we knew about.

That's the La Quinta that's been discussed, I believe

I like the design! I guess I'm a sucker for crown lighting, and I also like the way it has the curved pieces at the top. I think this will be a nice addition to the area. I look forward to watching it go up from my perch in One Houston Center

My source is telling me that the Ritz in in the works but is more than likely not going to be 66 floors, it is probably going to be two 30 story towers, one for hotel, and one for condo.

That's really disappointing. Sounds similar to what the Ritz did in Dallas....not really a meaningful addition to the skyline. I think we'd all have preferred the taller, single tower. Any idea why they would change it up? Just too expensive to build one single tower?

Ok, that explains the stage looking thing that's on the site right now. I was wondering how that stage thing was going to fit into the construction plans. I can see the site from my office, so I look forward to watching the progress. Actually from where I'm at in One Houston Center, I have a birds-eye view of the construction at One Park Place, MainPlace and 6 Houston Center (and soon to be the LaQuinta, Embassy Suites and the parking garage of Discovery Tower...can't see Discovery Tower due to the Fulbright tower being in the way)! Quite entertaining.

Is there anything special with 6 Houston Center? I've heard 10 floors parking, 19 floors office, and that they're going for some kind of LEED certification, but I haven't really heard any distinguishing features of the building (like Discovery Tower's windmills or MainPlace's terrace). Is it just going to be a boring box? Why would any tenant choose the box over the more interesting MainPlace or Discovery Tower?

I just bought a 4 story townhome with a full floor rooftop deck just off of West Gray near Waugh. The views of downtown and uptown are awesome!!! I highly recommend the deck - I sit up there and read the paper and get on the internet and stuff when the weather is nice. It's pretty relaxing. I haven't had any issues with the flat deck and water problems, but then again, I just bought the thing, so maybe I should report back in a year or so

The thing is...with few exceptions, most folks on this forum are relatively young and not at all cancer-prone...in fact, many of them haven't yet had the opportunity to figure out that they aren't immortal. They don't know much about the cancer treatment process beyond, possibly, what they've picked up second-hand from their older relatives, and even their cancerous relatives don't have the total picture of what is going on behind the scenes as they are being treated.

I'm one of the exceptions! I'm extremely interested in what's going on in the TMC and at MD Anderson. I was a cancer patient there a year ago and they cured me! MD Anderson is one of the absolute finest hospitals with some of the absolute best doctors in the world. We're (especially ME) are EXTREMELY fortunate to have such amazing care at our fingertips here in Houston.

edit: by the way, I'm 29 years old, so I would hope that younger people (yeah, I still consider myself young at 29...) would be aware they they are not immune from cancer. Skin cancer and testicular cancer are especially possible for men in their 20s. I would hope that everybody on here would be aware of that.

Looking at the little awning / front covered entry way thing out front of Discovery Tower, it sort of reminds me of the look of the Apple store that's just Southeast of Central Park in NYC. How cool would it be if they incorporated something like that out front of Discovery Tower? For those of you who haven't been to the Apple store in NY, it's a big glass cube that has an elevator that takes you below ground to the actual store - visually very cool

http://picasaweb.google.com/federicoer/New...472207761388002

Probably a 40 story hotel/condo project...

FYI, I talked to the money taker on the parking lot where 6HC will be built, and they said that tomorrow is the last day to park there. Sounds like construction is right around the corner...

I think there actually may be some wind turbines in the top. There's some short little white poles that appear to have a spinning blade (very hard to see, but it looks like they're there....)

...and by the way - my office is on the 30th floor of One Houston Center, and there is a lot of wind at that height. You can hear it zipping between One HC adn the Fulbright tower almost every day for long periods of time

memebag - what is your solution? Can you offer up something instead of picking at everybody's else's ideas? Thanks.

looks almost the very same to me

I like the top - something unique, that's for sure

Step one is increased police/security presence (sounds like it's going the other direction)

Long term solution includes nuking the bus station(s)

I've lived in Midtown for 5 years and I constantly am looking over my shoulder when I walk to places like CVS, Randalls and the Chevron station. It's ridiculous how many beggars and bums are around. I can't believe people have put up with their presence for this long.