King Owl

It's completely retarded the way the system is set up. It keeps buyers' agents in business. If you have time to go around and find the home you want to buy, basically the only good reason to hire a buyer's agent for new construction is to get comps in the area. I just finished buying a townhome (without a buyer's agent), and the comps were the one piece of data I would have liked to have. I ended up getting them through the seller's agent, but not without some negotiating. The process needs to be improved...a lot.

No posting, you tease?

sorry, somebody had to do it...

Thursday, January 31st, 2008 @ 9:41am Post #232

Guys, need I remind quite a bit of you to take the information as its given to you and let it go? As I've said before on other posts, the people that post here are usually just the people privy to some information that isn't widely known and they could burn themselves or their sources if they give out too much info.

Let people share what they want to share, this guy has cred.

bigdig....you're such a tease!

come on, give us internet geeks a hint of why you think it's a vast improvement... Do you like the height? Is the top still innovative like the previous rendering? Retail? Give us something to hold us poor schlepps over

I like the height....looks to be significantly taller than 5 Houston Center. This tower is going to have a PRIME location right on the lake portion of the park. It could fetch some of the highest rental rates in Houston

I'm really excited about this building. My Rice baseball season tickets look straight out at the Med Center skyline, and I counted 9 cranes visible last June. Now it may be even more. Many out of town visitors get a picturesque view of this skyline while attending Rice baseball and football games. Amazing amount of activity over there, and my guess is that it they will continue to build up as land runs short in that area.

The med center is probably the 3rd best skyline in the state, now!

Reading back through some of the press releases, it looks like Boymelgreen may be trying to sell part of the land they bought (specifically at Richmond and Post Oak). http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories...ry2.html?page=1. Perhaps it's not Boymelgreen who is considering this big project.

Also, referencing Houston Development's post around the McCue site, I'm guessing that's Faulkner's project which was rumored to be a 40 story condo tower...

Houston Development, are you in a mood to share any info with us?

I drove by the BLVD Place construction sight the other day, and on the sign it read 400 residential units, instead of the mentioned 500 units. So either the 3 buildings will not be as tall as originally planned, or there will just be 2 highrises. I am not surprised at the scaling down - typical Houston.

Who said there would be three towers? Are you referring to the very first rendering that came out? -typical n00b

My guess is that it would either be a Marriott or a Starwood (likely Westin or Sheraton). Downtown desperately needs a Starwood property - they are BY FAR where business folks prefer to stay. Their points program is head and shoulders above the rest.

But What is close to the Williams Towers......

The Corner of Richmond Ave and Post Oak blvd north to the Lakes on Post Oak.

I think it was a 9 acre tract to be developed by Boymelgreen with 2 condo towers, 222 unit , The San Felipe ??

Yeah if I had to make a guess it would be the Boymelgreen development. It's in the right area as described by ENGcons and we know that Boymelgreen has the financial capacity to put something like this together. I thought I had read that initially they were going to do two 30 story condo towers on that Richmond/Post Oak property. Perhaps they're reconsidering.

Here's the thread from when they bought the property... http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...lgreen&st=0

An astute colleague of mine at work (and lurker on this site!) noticed that there were no cars parked today on the site of 6 Houston Center. I believe today is the first day that it hadn't been used as a surface parking lot. looks like they're up to something.....

If memory serves, that's a pretty small plot of land, correct. 90% chance of townhomes would be my guess for its use.

I think BLVD Place is clearly the superior development, given what we now know. Two tall towers, Whole Foods, dense shopping, etc. Pavilions will be great, but not on the scale of BLVD Place.

I'll personally probably enjoy Houston Pavilions much more, though, since I work in Houston Center and it's very close

They wouldn't put stucco on a Ritz....would they? Maybe a Holiday Inn, but hopefully not a Ritz. It's probably just polished marble imported from Italy.

I have another question, if they built a tower in Uptown taller than the Williams Tower, would Williams have to turn off their lighthouse light? Hope not

I thought about that one time, but if you notice the beacon's angle, it points upwards, so you'd need something a lot taller to get hit smack on by the beacon since the light is angled up.

I'd love to see some kind of lighting element to it. Maybe a stripe as along the side where the curved part is or something towards the top (other than the Ritz Carlton is neon letters....)

I like it, though. Definitely something different.

For clarification's sake, I thought that 6 Houston Center was supposed to be on the block (San Jacinto/Caroline/Walker/Rusk) surrounded by the Melrose Building, The old Federal Reserve building, 1 Houston Center & one of the HC Garages...

Also, the domain 6houstoncenter.com has been reserved by the firm that has designed the websites of Crescent's other properties.

Actually I think you're correct. Sorry if I was the source of the confusion. For some reason I had in my head where it was in the picture I took...

Can't say I'm too overjoyed by the design, or the fact that this presentation shows the building at only 29 stories as opposed to the 31 we had heard earlier. However, I do like the fact that they appeared to make the new building something of a hybrid between 5 Houston Center and 3 Houston Center (now the Fulbright Tower, formerly the Chevron Tower). ....assuming this rendering is still what they intend on building.

I heard 6 Houston Center will begin Feb 1 2008 and finish before the MainPlace and Discovery Tower

That's great that they're going to start on Feb 1. To my knowledge, nobody has seen a rendering of 6 Houston Center. I'd love to see it, since my office view looks right at the property. I've read in the Chronicle that it will be 31 stories (21 office space, 10 parking) and around 600,000 sq ft. It doesn't surprise me that it would be finished before MainPlace and Discovery Tower, considering those are going to be larger structures (Mainplace 46 stories and Discovery Tower ~800,000 sq ft). Here's a picture of the site where 6 Houston Center will be, if I'm not mistaken (right north of 5 Houston Center). It's the shaded block in the picture just to the side of the Fulbright Tower. That area will be quite busy in the coming months, as the La Quinta will be built on the block with the Texas Flag building, the Discovery Tower garage will be on the block just east of 6 Houston Center, and then Discovery Tower will be just south of its garage. Plus One Park Place and the Embassy Suites are right next to the soon to be complete park. Whew, a lot going on right outside my window!

They are not in Dallas, presently, so I fully expect a shouting match to ensue.

lol this is funny. I always joke with my Dallas friends when they try to pull the "oh, we have a W and a Ritz and Houston doesn't". Of course they have those hotels, you better have a nice place for us to stay when us Houston folks are in town! It's not Dallas people staying in those hotels, it's us Houston peeps, and we demand nice places.

I have seen the renderings they are phenominal. This project won't dissapoint.

And this project is for real and for sure. The property is secured, the financing is in place, the preconstruction budgets, schedules, and drawings are currently being developed.

What is holding back an announcement to the public?

The four other buildings (aside from MainPlace) that Nancy Sarnoff referenced in her article were

1) Brookfield site near the Continental building

2) 6 Houston Center

3) Discovery Tower

4) Possible Hines tower site on Main (again, not MainPlace). This one is in the same location as the City Center that this thread discusses.

Folks, go onto citysearch and read the reviews of a few of the well known midtown places. You can figure out who lets in who.

baggy clothes, another form of ID, inappropriate shoes....you can always just make up some excuse to keep somebody out....and the police are right there and won't do a thing about it.

Sure hope you are not giving the club legal advice, because your knowledge of the law is about 40 years behind the times.

link?

if they can prove they are keeping out people just because they are asian....i would say a lawsuit would be warranted.

Yeah I think anybody's personal morale code would say the same thing, but unfortunately that's not the law.

This is unimaginable. Lawsuits will abound. Whole new topic.

I have to laugh though, so if I were of half Asian descent I could only set one foot in the door, etc.

That lawsuit would be unfounded, considering a private establishment can let anybody they please inside, and keep anybody they please outside. Like I said, there are places in midtown that have been doing this for years.

and all this time we thought that was the nice part of Midtown. Cowards is right.

Sadly now this place will have the bad stigma due to this one stupid/senseless group of idiots.

That is actually the nice part of midtown. I don't think the place will see too much less traffic. They do great business and they're a known commodity through their other locations in other cities. I think what will end up happening is that Asians won't be allowed into bars in Midtown, something that has already been happening for years at several of the midtown bars/clubs. It's sad that the actions of a few end up hurting the larger group.