King Owl

This did occur at Howl at the Moon. It was a group of Asians that did the stabbing. ******* cowards

Very cool. I actually park on that lot from time to time - it's got that hideous building with the faded Texas flag on it. Nice to see it torn down, hopefully.

I wonder why it's off center? There must be some reason why.

Aggie engineering?

I'm still ok with the building, thinking that the rest of the glass and the finished crown will look good. I'm just happy we have some kind of risk-taking design out there. We've build far too many unimaginative buildings in this town in recent years, and taking a chance like this building is welcomed in my book.

Wow....I love that crown. It makes the building incredibly distinctive. What would be nice would be an observation deck up there where you could take the children in the hospital up for viewing. Nothing is more sad than seeing sick kids in the hospital - taking them up to that observation area would really be a treat for them.

I wish they'd add a crown like feature to the Chase building downtown to make it more distinctive....we could turn that building into a true landmark and "icon building" with an addition like that.

Here's a link from another newspaper that talks a little bit about the tower(s)

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=...32240&rfi=6

I'm actually very interested in purchasing a residence in this development. I emailed the office and they let me know that they will likely have more information in 6 months, but there will be two towers for residences: one a 300 unit building with residences for lease (probably the Hanover tower), and another tower that will have 175 units for sale - this tower will be connected to the 5 star hotel. They will be ready in 2010. Apologies if this was already public knowledge, but it's new to me so I thought it might be new to others.

In terms of height, for comparison purposes, 7 Riverway (also Hanover) is 22 stories and has 175 units. The "lease tower" will have 300 residences, so that would translate to around 37 stories if each story had the same # of units per floor as 7 Riverway. The hotel/condo tower would have 225 hotel rooms (from website) and 175 condos - so for comparison, the W in Dallas is 439 feet high, and has 250 hotel rooms and 70 condos. We'd be looking at something much taller than that, given how many more condo units this tower would have. Maybe in the 600-700 foot range, perhaps? That's a nice sized tower.

Does anybody notice the similarity between this building and the new Turnberry tower? Specifically the corner balconies and the "glass square" near the top? It may be a case that the Titan is trying to beat Turnberry to market. Plus....the Titan added that spire on top which I think makes it a more attractive building than Turnberry. I'm very impressed by the look of the last two Randall Davis properties (Cosmopolitan and now Titan)

The top was lit up last night.

And it looked GREAT!! I was viewing it from the 14th story of The Greenway condo tower, and it really added a lot to that part of Uptown skyline.

Can't wait for the Titan to hopefully provide some additional light. We need waaaaaay more nightime lighting on the buildings in this town!

I love the design. In general, I love ornaments on the tops of buildings. Houston could use a few more spires, so this is a pretty fresh design for our town. I almost wish it were taller, though, to really highlight the spire on top. I wish this were the rendering for Hanover's 55 story tower at BLVD Place instead of this 25-30 story tower.

Fantastic design

There has to be 8-9 cranes in the med center area alone

Just went by the site, and the second crane is now up....so now there are two cranes on the site

^^

It would almost be like.....gasp...Victory in Dallas!

They put those walls with lights around the electrical substation a couple of years ago. At least it somewhat hides it from the street level viewpoint.

By the way - that was the crappiest setting on my camera - I didn't want it to take up too much space on the memory card!

Just got the new Blackberry Curve and I am testing out the camera from my desk at work. Attached is my first photo: a picture of One Park Place, as viewed from the 30th floor of One Houston Center

A significant number of Europeans shop at the galleria with gusto considering the exchange rate of the euro to dollar is 2 to 1 and go with the INTENTION of going on a shopping spree while here on business, for friends and family before they go back home.

The exchange rate is currently 1.4 to 1, but your point is taken. I think it's more Latin Americas than euros, though...by a long shot

Freebird's is definitely an Aggie thing and will totally rock in this location. I can't wait.

...it started in California and there are more locations in Austin that in College Station....yep, definitely an Aggie thing!

I'm at 2222 Smith and it's a good place. We had issues with car break-ins about a year and a half ago, it's been fine since then. Probably the best location for walking to places in Midtown.

As a Rice alum and somebody who spends a ton of time in the area, I have no desire to see this tower built. I'm all for the construction of most towers, but not those that are so completely out of character for the neighborhood. Not all towers are a good thing.

Unless I'm missing something, this would be the tallest hotel in Houston, right? Or at least one of the tallest.

The Hyatt dowtown is the tallest at 401 feet (30 stories). The Hilton Americas is 24 stories. The new ES will probably be just a touch shorter than the Hilton next door

Looks like a great building, but I would prefer it not have the Embassy Suites logo at the top of it. That takes away from the look, in my opinion

...so we may be looking at something in the 500-600 foot range? Outstanding.

Maybe they'll have a rotating beacon that moves in concert with Transco's!

Wow. 55 stories.... That is awesome. This is going to be a tremendous addition to uptown. With the whole foods and the high end retail at BLVD place, we're really looking at something special.

How many stories are the 4 leaf towers, or the huntingdon, by comparison? Just trying to get a feel for the height of this new tower

I have an office in DT Houston and one in DT Dallas. I can say with complete confidence that DT Houston blows the pants off DT Dallas. DT Dallas lacks dining options, retail options, there are many fewer buildings, and it's dead at night. I believe there are more hotels there than in DT Houston, however. DT Houston has so much more to offer, such as the Toyota Center, Park Shops, MMP, plenty of restaurants, etc. Now, if you include uptown Dallas, it's another story, but uptown Dallas is not walkable from DT Dallas and I don't see why you would include that area in the discussion.

It's a two story structure painted a beige-pink color. No windows. Hideous. Glad to see it getting torn down. I would think that block would be the most valuable one surrounding Discovery Green, given its proximity to everything around there

edit: for those following the "excitement" at the site, all the firetrucks are gone, and the earth mover has moved to another part of the building, but hasn't started wrecking anything else. The machine is emitting a white smoke right now, though!

Yes, the gas leak makes sense. The bulldozer likely just hit a gas pipe or something. There doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency amongst the firemen on site. I can see where a gas leak next to an electrical substation could be cause for concern!

Sorry Jax, I don't have a camera. The scene just has the banquet center with half of one side torn off, an earth moving machine that is not currently doing anything, 2 firetrucks and an ambulance.

I saw the rendering of this project this week and it is freaking incredible. Even people in my office who have built all over the world think it is phenom. And it is not a Barney's going in with it.

What is nice about it? The height? The style? The size? The crown? The lighting?