largeTEXAS

You don't know what you're talking about. 1) The extent of the City limits largely preclude the possibility of new greenfield development except in areas that have been stunted by blight for decades. 2) It is the City's effective policy to annex any commercial property that gets built in their ETJ, but not residential neighborhoods; this is to tax non-voters on the value of the property and to obtain sales taxes from residents to whom the City is not required to provide services. 3) Furthermore, when a developer comes along with a plan for a decent-sized subdivision in a part of the incorporated City that does not have infrastructure, the City's policy is to make the developer form a new in-City municipal utility district. In so doing, the City taxes the new subdivision to pay for everyone else's infrastructure, then makes them also pay for their own infrastructure on their own.

Man, TheNiche, you must be buds with the good 'ole Billy Burge and all his associates that developed Cinco Ranch; former Mayor, Lanier; the Grand Parkway Association; Texas State Highway Commission; Ed Emmett; and the North Houston Association, just to name a few, to believe all that. I wish that were the way it worked. Sadly, our tax dollars (a little under $10 Billion just for a few of the major projects) have gone into road building and all sorts of other infrastructure improvements that, in turn, fund private suburban and greenfield development. You are correct, the City is not responsible for all of it, but it all comes out of the taxpayers pockets, whether it`s the City, the State, or Federal Stimulus money. Imagine what $10 Billion could have done for Houston inside the Beltway:

1. Entire Buffalo Bayou Master Plan, estimated $5.6 Billion

2. Entire light rail system, estimated $3 Billion

3. City-proposed Astrodome renovation and redevlopment, estimated $1.35 Billion

The Houston Pavilions is a monumental disappointment, in my opinion. The architecture is weak, the orientation backwards, and the public subsidies mostly wasted. I have to admit, though, I was excited and hopeful before it was built that it would make a sizable and positive impact downtown.

Even though it was the mid- to late-2000's and investing in bad real estate finance was en vogue, I don't believe the City (or County, in the case of HP), should have given any subsidies to a shopping complex with a very suspect, at best, pro forma, without, at the very least, tying them to certain performance, i.e. outward-facing orientation of retail storefronts, especially along Dallas St., the use of standard retail window glass that's much more transparent, and more and better landscaping. 

My point on the PPP/public subsidy issue is twofold. 1. Houston needs more public sector involvement to adequately transition to being a denser 21st Century city. But, 2., our current planning department and other governmental agencies that have been in charge of making decisions on the use and conditions of the public's money in regard to development projects have been pretty impudent.

RedScare, you're probably right that we likely won't be seeing many new public-backed projects in the near future. 

Inevitably, though, Houston will need PPPs and public subsidies, as any major city has and does, for many of the large-scale projects it wants to build so that Houston can "transform into one of the next great global cities of the future." I would prefer a department of qualified planners informing those decisions rather than what we've had, which has given us El Mercado, HP, and all the soon-to-be built communities along the Grand Parkway. 

No government agency can be perfect, and there will always be mistakes, but a better, beefed-up planning office with actual powers and cojones and the legislative ability to help create and plan strategic city-benefiting projects is far better than an anemic department, like the one we have now, that has been given close to no official authority over how the city takes shape. 

It's an interesting and challenging time in the city's development. Houston is evolving from a place with almost endless land and a laissez-faire attitude towards development and policy to a city where density is starting to demand a different way of thinking, planning, and building. I think it's time to start acting like a big city where transparency is required for the public sector's involvement in development. I applaud Mayor Parker's efforts with Metro. I believe a similar standard should be set for the planning dept.

As for lighting, I think it's pretty straightforward. Map an area where certain signage and lighting would be allowed (the zone in downtown and Midtown where parking isn't required makes sense) and let the landlords do the rest. If a building owner wants to put an electronic billboard that reaches above 40' off the ground, let them. The market will dictate to them what works. And, I still think neon is cool, no matter how unpopular it is on this board. The no-neon ordinance evolved out of fear of sex businesses having neon legs flapping all around, etc. If you don't want pink neon legs, just restrict sex businesses from using neon, or something like that..

To your comment, TheNiche, about suburban developing receiving no help from the city government. The City is indeed involved with each and every greenfield suburban development, mainly through new and costly infrastructure, which is a heck of a lot more than is given to most infill developers.

Pleak, if Tokyo or Hong Kong had the sign ordinance Houston has, it still wouldn't have any lights or billboards on its buildings, no matter how many gazillions of people on the streets.

A strong public and private sector are not mutually exclusive. Conversely, well-planned city building is almost  always reliant on the heavy involvement of both.

Houston has just long done a poor job implementing public private partnerships, I agree. Instead, and worse, in my opinion, our city has acted as though the public sector were't involved and struck all sorts of backroom and closet deals - see all Wulfe deals, especially both Gulfgate and BLVD Place, just about every ex-urban master planned community, etc. 

Instead of turning a blind eye to the fact that major projects almost always rely on public sector involvement, let's give the planning agencies more visibility, and, therefore, scrutinize them better.

Houston's poor track record of PPP in the past should be acknowledged and learned from. This does not mean we should simply turn against them. Instead of shunning the public sector's involvement, let's make it more official, accountable and better scrutinized, and we should see better results. 

Name any successful major real estate project in the world that hasn't relied on the public sector's involvement to some extent. 

If downtown is ever going to successfully build the types of projects we've discussed on this board such as the Buffalo Bayou "river walk," major TOD, or any other major mixed-use projects, the public sector will have to be involved. Mind as well acknowledge its existence. In the past couple of years, Houston has started to kind of get it, I feel. See Discovery Green and Marvy Finger's One Park Place, Market Square Park, and the soon-to-be, I hope, IAC arts complex in Midtown. 

Pleak, I can't believe you don't think Houston is as dense as Hong Kong or Tokyo! But, what does density have to do with lighting? Im missing your point.

TheNiche, what type of lighting do you consider "gimmicky?" By Houston standards, it seems as though any lighting that is more involved/thought-out/decorative than the barest of bare-bones utilitarian falls into the category of "gimmicky."

In my opinion, add a little strategic lighting to a few key buildings, bridges, and landscaping, and all-the-sudden Houston is a much more attractive and inviting city.

I'd like to take a page from places like Singapore, New Orleans, Tokyo, Sapporo (in the winter), Montreal, Miami, Paris, or, even, Hong Kong. When can we get over comparing ourselves to Dallas all the time?! Houston should stop restricting landlords and let the market downtown dictate the lighting. If a building owner wants to sell space to an electronic billboard company, let them. Variety is a good thing (or, the spice of life or whatever). Blocks and blocks of blank walls is a bad thing. Or, even better, create a initiative with Central Houston and key landlords and encourage more and better lighting implementation.

Houston, especially downtown, needs more PPPs. A stronger and better-informed, well-traveled public sector should be able to guide our center city towards becoming a more visually-interesting, unique place - gimmicky and all.

samagon, I too have been lobbying Critical Mass to ride through the Galleria area. PM me an let's join forces in persuading them.

How nice would it be to ride with 2,000 other riders down Westheimer to Post Oak, stop for a moment, and then head north on Post Oak!

I agree with Nick_G that downtown has an issue attracting a large segment of Houston's population and visitors in part because of the percieved dominance of the homeless in certain areas.

I don't agree that the City or any other governmental or planning agency has the right, should, or even could do anything directly to remove these people from downtown.

In my opinion, the real issue that many attribute blanketly to homelessness, is actually the continued blight of certain key properties/places and the lack of activity by non-homeless people in these and other certain areas. Renovate or replace derelict properties with well-designed, pedestrian-oriented buildings/spaces and, all-the-sudden, you have nice, active places where homeless don't want to congregate.

The market downtown is moving in that direction, albeit slowly. Abandoned buildings, parking lots, underutilized properties, etc. have and will continue to be replaced by (mostly) better buildings/places.

What the City, planners, and powers that be should and continue to do is add vitality to the public areas like sidewalks, parks, and its properties, to slowly surround and drown out the problem areas with nicer surroundings.

A few other thoughts:

1. Revamp the sign ordinance to allow traditional and electronic billboards and signs in downtown proper. Also allow neon once again.

2. Allow property owners adjacent to proposed rail stops the opportunity to work with the City in designing and paying for rail stops. Certain stops could be built inside or connected to structures like the Houston Shops. You want TOD, then partner with landlords to build it.

3. Give tax incentives to developers/landlords that create public spaces, add public art, add vertical gardens to blank walls and parking garages, and/or do extensive landscaping. Embrace how (sub) tropical Houston is with plants everywhere!

The Astrodome needs to house a new, gigantic Art Car Museum. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of art cars that have been retired and are sitting rusting in fields and garages. Art cars are Houston's folk expression known worldwide. The Astrodome is a bit of a folk icon at this point. Combine the two and you have an outstanding destination.

I went to the event yesterday and was blown away by the plans. I hope they upload the renderings soon, but, essentially, they are treating this as Houston's "Central Park." The amenities the newly-redone park will have combined with the expanded and dedicated wilderness areas will create a truly beautiful, usable park.

In short, there will be:

- at least 2 opportunities for restaurants/cafes

- a formal dog park with a small pond for the dogs

- another pond for kids and people who casually want to interact with the water

- new wetlands

- thousands of new native trees

- the removal of exotic-species plants

- a sizable budget for ongoing maintenance of the bayou and its surroundings

- 2 concert venues, dozens of art spaces

- dozens of canoe launch sites and rentals

- new trails including different types of trails through different parts of the park

- better connection to the surrounding communities

- 3 new pedestrian bridges, etc.

Since this city will not get itself together with a comprehensive plan, let alone zoning, projects like this will become the rule, not the exception. Residents have voted down zoning numerous times, but when projects like this sprout up, they cry. I have no sympathy for a place that refuses to think and plan long term. That regressive thinking will continue to pit neighbor against developer and prevent this city from developing into a well-planned "utopia" where both single family and multi-family residences co-habitate peacefully.

And, since there is no plan, I see developments like this as god-sends. At least terms such as "walk-ability" and "density" are being discussed while Houston crawls towards being a place that resembles a smarter, more sustainable, transit-inclusive, viable, post-1950's-era city. Yes, developments like this would be better placed where other, similar buildings were being built and amenities such as wide sidewalks, stores, and markets were within walking distance. But, that would suppose a lot more changes that this city has not made and will not make anytime soon. So, in the mean time, we get developments such as these in "random" places. Welcome to Houston.

It's a mistake to not include a more significant residential component to this. The current renderings are a far cry from what the market could support. I would be upset, to say the least, if I were an investor. I hope they at least build this with the ability to add density later.

There is a law that you can't build within 15 feet of the property line along a major road. That's the reason the Perennial Post Oak development two lots down from BLVD Place filed a variance request: so they could build 1 foot from the property line and not 15 feet.

Exactly, that's all - a variance request. Had Wulfe wanted to built to the curb, he could have, almost without resistance. No one in the city would have protested. A development of this quality and scale should not be allowed to add a row of parking in the front. Houston needs to get its act together.

It is pedestrian friendly. It's just a small strip of parking. I believe it's because of the restrictions against building too close to the properly line along major roads.

Not true. If the developer had wanted to develop to the sidewalk, aka zero lot line, it could have. The developer caved under pressure from some of the retailers, especially Whole Foods. It's a shame. Such a great-looking and permanent-looking project except the dang parking strip in front. Too bad.

Wow, it looks really boring!

In fact, it is not only not a flaw in the rendering, it is considered quite a dignified artistic choice for a modern architect to make. If a boring box has confusing windows, it is NOT to be confused with a shoebox. On one hand, shoebox towers are so discredited in the '00s that architects are falling all over themselves to be the authors of blobs and twisted prisms, yet when the building linked below opened in 2003 and was met with horror in citizen opinion, some architects went on to call the people conservative and phobic for disliking it:

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=79175784&size=o

Architecture is disciplinarily obsessed with forward progress. Perhaps this is the form that the urge to be a great author most readily takes when applied to built environments; maybe it is primarily the thing which they consider integrity, based on the idea that past solutions are not suited to our world today; or maybe playing with exciting new structural and technological possibilities is the most inexhaustible trick up architects' sleeve in a generation where architects are getting unprecedented public attention and acclaimed commissions which lend them freer rein or discretion than was common in the long years of post-Urban Renewal backlash, but don't actually have very much to offer up as a justification for why their particular ideas are helping the world in a compelling or conscientious way. Regarding the last, I have been expecting the discipline to seize on environmental 'sustainability' as that [enabling] rationale when technological glory whiz-bang gets unconvincing amid a rising tide of problems; regarding the first, there are always more than enough people lining up to be authors of objects, and what we need more of is people thinking regionally, and thoughtfully training and acting accordingly. The second, based on the premise that a heady but alienating new age needs an architecture that cannot draw very directly from the human thought-& life-style in past ages, is less immediately important than the other two.

(Yet only *immediately.*) It does bear some good discussion. The Renaissance was very much a child of Medieval work, and the Enlightenment likewise of the Renaissance. The Industrial Revolution gave rise to a revaluation of rationality, and Romanticism, Realism et al. were in turn eschewed by Modernism's abstracted ordering. Modernism had some faith in Enlightenment ideals, and you can see, as you look at the detailed organizational strictures of Modernist structures, that the original postmodern text, "The Dialectic of Enlightenment", was right as it claimed, "enlightenment is totalitarian." It sought to impose its worldview on everything it could touch, right down to gridding inhabitants' worlds in machines for living. Deconstruction was to break down the hierarchy and pretense to authority that totalizing worldviews are built upon. It would reassert "the 'fragmentation' of narratives and the individual's ability to be 'the artist of his own life'", as an article last year on common strands linking postmodernism and modern commerce put it. The individual standing out against the grid. In the hands of Robert Venturi, Michael Graves, and the former Modernist Philip Johnson, among others, Postmodernism hit architecture with a wave of reference and diversity. Architects today largely distance themselves from these aesthetic solutions as being tacky and undignified. If they were considered self-indulgent, well, self-indulgence hasn't stopped. Another wave of Postmodernism had the likes of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi have taken architecture's role after modernism to be that of recognizing and portraying the disorientation of life with all of previous human existence's higher narratives undermined. The Wikipedia page on Tschumi says, "Responding to the absence of ethical structure and the disjunction between use, form, and social values by which he characterizes the postmodern condition, Tschumi's design research encourages a wide range of narratives and ambiences to emerge and to self organize. Although his conclusion is that no essentially meaningful relationship exists between a space and the events which occur within it, Tschumi nonetheless aligns his work with Foucault's notion that social structures should be evaluated not according to an apriori notion of good or evil but for their danger to each other." This disturbance and alienation of certitude and self is present in the Wexner Center at Ohio State - considered by its architect Eisenman to be a very didactic work, and you'll have to see for yourself what he means: http://www.desi.../eisenman/1.jpg

In this building at Rice, deliberately acknowledging but then thumbing its nose at a standard grid as it does... I think it's fair to suggest that, precisely along the lines of mls' comment regarding workplace window disputes, it may be that the staggering slots have been substituted for uninterestingly legible treatment of the facade as a way of asserting the individual against the modernist high-rise heritage of non-unique cubbyholes, within the ideological history described above. [Whatever is up in Spain,] SOM just doesn't succeed in making the inhabitants' cellular role less architecturally anonymous or any more meaningful by doing so here.

...In forward progress, I can't say this design has anything real to offer Houston. Not beyond an imitation of the newest status quo. As we look at those windows on the rendering, the final word on the off-balance attitude expressed in the design aesthetic and in Postmodernist theory (not just of the built environment) goes to Ravi Zacharias, a Christian speaker who, when walking around the Wexner Center, asked with a smile, "I wonder if they used the same techniques when they laid the foundation?"

This design a result of the new status quo? Acknowledged. But, for the most part (except for the western-facing curtain wall), I think the design works and offers the Med Center an exciting and much needed bit of design freshness.

These are pics of one particular bit of (amazing) Spanish architecture that I think SOM clearly references:

Moneo's Murcia Town Hall Extension

http://www.jaunted.com/files/admin/murciaextension.png

http://www.arikah.net/commons/en/b/bc/Murc...dralSquare1.jpg

It's too darn bad the freakin' Calais built that goofy "ground" floor parking garage. That sure was some forward thinking...

It's about time. Note the only decent place to buy athletic shoes anywhere near downtown is the Village.

In about 3 weeks you'll be able to buy some really friggin' cool athletic shoes across the street from the Pavilions at Main and Polk. The Tipping Point, in my opinion, will be cooler than anything in the Pavilions.

Rather a creative idea, feufoma.

The South is the most populous, most industrialized and fastest growing part of America; the East is where most of the country's concentrated, stratified wealth, power and learnin' were still comfortable when the people who needed economic opportunity began to look elsewhere. Cities of the Southeast have some of the advantages of the Sunbelt and South while providing East Coasters, whether college grad or midlife, not just retiree, with some feelings of safe familiarity and nearness to friends and relations back North. Many who feel like Florida is too far end up being "half-backs" and move up to the Carolinas. North Carolina and urban Northern Georgia presently have an economic turbocharge from the Midatlantic and Southern New England population just as Phoenix, Denver, Portland et al. got and get from overpriced Californian urbanized regions. The South Central states, for all their wonderful characters and the down-to-earth unselfishness they sometimes instill in people brought up in their way of life, don't build in any such advantage for Texas.

Texas is still Texas, not any national confluence of proximity and whatnot. There are heavy flows of people, talent, and money between East and South, so the short answer, for Atlanta, to all this is the same simple reason Hartsfield is such a trafficked airport. The long answer, for Texas, is that it's not even clear yet that urbanism is compatible in a positive way with the Texan ethos; so we shouldn't bawl too many tears over towers foregone, but instead wonder and work - informed by the growing pains and excesses the Twentieth Century put across the bodies of Dallas and Houston and San Antonio - on whether there are new types of built environment, buildings and landscape, that maintain what is good about the impressions Texanness makes on a person without distending it through interminable expanses of horizontal boxes *or* vertical anonymous window cells [for Atlanta, in the long view, it cannot even be said that it is making great strides amid all these projects unless they contribute to creating something much greater than a generic hybrid of L.A. and Eastern city - if that's the "New South" which Atlantans like to forget Houston and claim capitalcy of, then please *do* count us out]. And maybe spend some more time in the site's busy (and typically much more informatively thick than Going Up! threads) 'historic Houston' forums, learning and fixing more explicitly in our heads what it is that we ought to map all this thought onto.

This is my favorite post in a LONG time! Thanks strickn! You put forth a very fresh and informed perspective....one of which we should all take note.

If this will indeed become their "Galleria" area, I think this is far better than a mall to work around. But, in my opinion, this development - like many New Urbanist developments - looks cheesy and faux. I really hope these types of developments evolve into "real" cities over time because they look and feel so Disney-fied. Kudos to Austin though for planning! The Houston Galleria area is such a clusterf$#*; we seriously need to employ some of these New Urbanist principals to combat the total lack of planning and serious traffic issues.

Things are moving along with this project. No tenants to announce just yet though

Is confidence high with respect to BLVD Place? Source?

I'd tell you but I'd have to kill you

my guess is that its probably doing as well as any other fine silver retailer is doing who leases a place in a neighborhood setting...i think there is a slight diff. for some though between selling forks/knives vs. an art gallery.

This sure looks like forks an knives to me!

http://www.finesilver.com/

"Finesilver is committed to bringing work by Texas artists to the national and international markets. The formal program includes works exploring the manipulation of materials, new media and inventive processes of painting and sculpture. This portion of the program holds the practice of inventive materials as a counterpoint to the tradition of the figure within the vocabulary of contemporary art. "

oh i enjoy reading this stuff. next we will hear about a race to the Galleria Mall amongst grocery stores. they have the demographics for a grocery store in their high-end retail location certainly. i am surprised that nobody else thought about it . yeah-right !!!!!

Well, the city that invented the mall, Milan, sure thinks grocery stores are good anchors.

Milan Elan

Shopping Centers Today, January 2007

MILAN

The only thing that I'd be concerned about is whether BLVD Place or the Oaks District is able to break ground first. The one would likely negate the other. ...but right now, my money is on BLVD Place.

Oaks District is nowhere near ready to break ground while BLVD Place is very close. To me what is really interesting is what will happen if and when all these developments are complete. Since they all want to create Houston's version of Rodeo Dr. or 5th Ave., one or more will likely have to change scope (unless this city can all the sudden supports multiple high end districts). I think West Ave has the chance to be the most accessible of the developments, simply because the mix of tenants will likely be less couture-only. While I'm excited I might finally be able to buy a pair of Miu Miu's or Paul Smith shoes here in Houston, being able to walk around and hang out without getting hit by a car (hopefully) is what I'm most excited about.

If all goes as planned, construction should start in the next few weeks.