jhjones74

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

Hmm this thread is interesting. I have some questions as this hasn't been clearly stated, and we probably don't have enough information, but what is actually happening here? Is it a hotel as someone mentioned? Was the property purchased by someone else? One post says the law firm is now in Uptown?

I don't think anyone actually knows the answer to this besides the property owner 

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

No. No. No. No. I remember thinking this way a long long time ago when I was at university. It doesn't work. Wonder why its incredibly difficult to develop in San Francisco, or New York City? This is why. Why is it incredibly difficult to develop in a lot of European cities...this is why. You being overly focused on dis-incentivizing one use will affect the ability to do other uses. This line of thinking has had a lot of unintended consequences in clients abilities to build. It just does. It simply doesn't work. Clients are always going to look for the most direct way to redevelop, and any scheme proposed like this lends to exponential costs to redevelop a property...period.

Interesting you'd use these cities (NYC, San Fran, EU cities) as examples  - all of them are objectively more aesthetic cities that people actually want to visit and stay in. There's a reason leisure trips to NYC, London or Barcelona are common and trips to Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta are not. And before you say all of these cities are more expensive - we can have both. We have the space in Texas to have ample cheap, suburban living and have a metropolitan vibe in our central business district

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

Well it wouldn't be any better if the building was abandoned and left to stand. At that point the building becomes a HAZARD to pedestrians. No replacing this building with a surface parking lot is not "catering" to cars, its "catering" to what the client wants and will make the property useful, until they find a better use for it.

I don't disagree that having rotting, abandoned buildings in any city is worse than having even a surface lot. My point ultimately is just that it still seems entirely too easy, with no consequences, to end up turning our central business district into 75% surface parking lot, as it was in the 70s. We're still at 25% now (Axios Article) 

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

Each and every person that owns a property that is a surface parking lot right now wants something else to be on it.

Disagree with this. As an example, CPC corporation, the Taiwanese oil conglomerate, owns many lots around the Toyota center. These lots are an amazing way for any big money/institutional investor to store cash, with an average 8% essentially risk free return, while covering property taxes with parking fees. The current tax/parking fee schemes allow for good money to be made off parking, ultimately pushing offers above available bids for developers actually wanting to develop 

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

The only question is, what should it be? With a surface lot you know exactly what you can make, and get out of it. A building? Way more complicated, and more expensive. These decisions come down to costs, not greater ideals about pedestrian experience, or heat island effect, or whatever buzz word someone wants to use. I don't like surface lots either, but its what the economics in our time has deemed the default use if you don't know what to do with the property. At some point lets hope that a clever individual with capital can build something nice here.

In general your viewpoint is much more sympathetic to the individual property owners, which at some level I can understand since these are the people taking the commercial risk to own the land. "These decisions come down to cost" is exactly what I'm talking about though. Change the cost structure to reward property owners for developing land in a way that doesn't exclusively benefit their bottom line, to create a built environment that people actually want to be in

They had the money to knock it down but that’s it 😂

6 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I get that point but with the new hotel going up, I think it will help this corridor aesthetically. Texas Ave is slowly shaping up really nice with high quality developments. 

Do we even know whether that hotel is actually going to be built? I know there's another thread on the topic, but just because they got the permits doesn't mean they secured construction financing. I'm no expert on construction/property development but interest rates are a lot higher now than when they would have filed those permits.

12 minutes ago, strickn said:

It certainly looked from the demolition photos like the midcentury modern / late streamline moderne brick architecture of 1300 Texas was still standing underneath the pebble concrete slipcover.  Not sure why you were sure it couldn't look like the above rendering and be aesthetically pleasant to the pedestrian

I'm reacting to hindesky's intel that the lot will just become surface parking. I'd love if the rendering actually ended up happening. Surely not the best design, but better than leaving it as a parking lot.

21 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

It's not affecting aesthetics much when the building wasn't even much to look at. I didn't even know this building existed until I heard about it being demolished. Now losing that small aesthetically pleasing little building next to it would have been a major loss. This just lays the groundwork for a better building in it's place. And we'll have the new hotel up the street going up to replace this "loss". 

I don’t disagree that the building itself was not worth saving. My only point is that walking up Texas Ave, the experience as a pedestrian will now be worse off than it was before. At least personally, there’s nothing less appealing than walking alongside a flat, completely vacant surface lot. Not to mention the heat island you create from all that unshaded pavement.

20 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I'm ok with it being a parking lot as long as that little historic building is saved. I see it as a win in my opinion. The building wasn't very appealing to begin with. 

I wouldn’t say this is a win - even if the building was less than appealing, swapping it with a surface lot negatively impacts the urban aesthetic of downtown and detracts from the area’s walkability. It’s depressing being a pedestrian in an area catering itself to cars

God I hope this isn't true. The city should really disincentivize creating surface parking lots like this, one way could be by taxing them at a higher rate than land with buildings. Because the free market really breaks down here - the owners of the land likely will make enough money on parking (particularly with the Astros season starting up) to justify destroying the building that was there, and not developing anything else.

It's interesting that Gulfstream Legal Group, the tenants that were previously in the demolished building, now list their headquarters at 720 N Post Oak Rd. I was hoping that was just a temporary space while they were constructing a new headquarters, but it seems likely now that could be their new home.

1 hour ago, editor said:

I think Downtown Houston is more than 10,000 people.  I think there was a newspaper article in the last couple of months that put it at 20,000 with a goal of 30,000.  But my memory on that topic is weak.

Below two links put the population at 10,000 with a goal to get to 20,000. And yeah thinking about all the other restaurants in other parts of downtown, imagine a town of 10,000 having two chick-fil-a’s…

https://www.downtownhouston.org/resource/residential/

3 hours ago, nate4l1f3 said:

I wonder what The Shops at Houston Centers hours will be once they’re fully open. There needs to be some signage or something to let people knows what’s inside that building. 

While I’d love more of the restaurants to be open later, I doubt there’s enough traffic yet for Potbelly or Chick-fil-A as an example to stay open later past the lunch rush. Around 10,000 people live downtown, plus let’s say on average another 5,000 visiting downtown each night (might be generous). Would any of those restaurants, let alone all of them, be able to thrive in a city of only 15,000 people? Because likely nobody from outside of downtown will come to grab something to eat there unless they’re visiting for some other reason, especially if it’s just chain restaurants that exist elsewhere. Will be interesting to see if Puttshack brings in more people, I have yet to see anybody using Immersive Gamebox, though I haven’t been on a weekend night

12 minutes ago, editor said:

I've seen plenty of nights when Main Street has a good number of tourists wandering around looking for something to do and somewhere to eat, but everything is closed or hard to find (underground, unsigned, scary looking).

This is a great point I think most people don’t realize. I’ve sat next to a number of people from Europe and Australia visiting Houston for business or just to explore. One guy from London just came to Texas to explore around, started in Houston. After chatting a bit we went to a few more bars downtown, but I ultimately ended up taking him to the heights. He was shocked by how far we drove, and basically the suburbia we got to in order to find the most popular bar spot. Bottom line is that any visitor is organically going to stay downtown not only because that’s where the hotels are, but that’s where the action should be. I hope Houston 5 years from now is more like what most visitors imagine it to be

34 minutes ago, nate4l1f3 said:

Love this and was excited the first time they did it but I got an ask— does anyone actually use the outdoor dinning space? It always looks like no one actually uses the pace when in drive by. 

During lunch when it’s nice out there will be people working downtown who use the space. On weekends it makes complete sense to have the roads shut down as people bar hop, some get used more than others. But at night during the week, I hardly see them being used at all. I reckon at least partially because it’d be impossible to have any kind of experience there without including 2 or 3 homeless people in your plans

I noticed that portions of the lot at 1319 Texas had recently been repaved. Seems weird to repave a lot that's going to be demolished soon. Wonder if things have gotten delayed significantly

This is interesting - looks like 1300 Texas isn't owned by the group building the hotel, unless it changed hands recently. The address listed on property records is a home in tanglewood. Seems like the building is vacant, with gulfstream legal having moved offices. Could the builders of the Holiday Inn have worked out a deal with the property owners to demolish and use the site during construction? Hopefully this doesn't end up turning into another surface lot that the hotel will be replacing.

On 2/11/2023 at 2:20 PM, hindesky said:

I stopped to talk with the workers who said they were repaving the parking lot for the building next to it which is owned by  Harris County and is the Domestic Relations office.

Yeah this was a major bummer, love to see Harris county spending taxpayer money to replace a surface lot.. with another surface lot. 

In all seriousness though, the pictures you sent got me interested in that building Harris County occupies, the Anderson Clayton Building. I couldn't find any real info on here, but I'm curious of what the details of this building are. It's clear it was the headquarters of Anderson Clayton and Co., who were at one time the largest cotton traders in the world. Though the building has two entirely different facades when looking from Caroline St or Austin St. Does anybody know if this is how it was originally built? Or is there some separate reason the building is this way?

I get excited about the prospects downtown from threads like these, then I see comments like below that unfortunately represent a very large part of the growing Houston population. From today’s chronicle article on I45 expansion:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/articleComments/i45-rebuild-conroe-beltway-8-17716104.php

50 minutes ago, Naviguessor said:

The location can be a challenge to get to from downtown, Eado and East and 5th Ward, due to multiple & Problematic rail crossings, lack of direct streets.  If you’re coming West from I-10, from east down Navigation or Clinton, or down Jensen you’re good.  From elsewhere (where most of the money is)...I just gets complicated.  In the end, I just don't think that the demographics/average income levels are there yet...especially to justify a full scale HEB. It's all changing, and lots of roof tops are under construction or planned...connectivity issues are supposedly being addressed...but, for now, we wait.  I hope not for much longer.  I want it as much as anyone.  

Agreed, living downtown it’s not exactly easy getting over here, like 10 min drive even though on a map you’d think less than 5 min. And transit isn’t really an option. Selfishly I’d rather see a bigger grocery store come to downtown before other areas, and I would argue Houston should be focused on creating density within downtown and other existing neighborhoods first. I’m worried Midway will just turn this development into another citycentre, furthering the patchwork of sprawl that is Houston

22 hours ago, Brooklyn173 said:

According to documents recently filed to the Harris County Clerk's office, the parcel where JW Marriott Hotel Downtown Houston is located has been sold. The building is also known as S.F. Carter Second National Bank Building. 
     
    Documents indicate SWVPHouston Hotel LLC  acquired the hotel property at 806 Main. SWVPHouston Hotel LLC is an entity of Southwest Value Partners, a San Diego-based real estate investment company. 
     
    A termination agreement was also filed this month between Marriott Hotel and AVR Houston 806 Main Street LLC, a JW Marriott franchisee and previous property owner of 806 Main St.
 
https://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/22874-jw-marriott-hotel-downtown-at-806-main-st/?do=findComment&comment=667033

Does this mean that it won't be a JW Marriott anymore or will the new owners keep that brand?

15 hours ago, IntheKnowHouston said:

Vietnamese eatery Drunken Pho is relocating to Bravery Chef Hall in Aris Market Square. Bravery is the Company of Nomads food hall concept at 409 Travis St.

The food stall recently closed its location at Railway Heights Market. I this is replacing Christine Ha's the Blind Goat.

The Blind Goat's downtown location closed over the weekend. Last month, CultureMap reported Ha plans to close the Blind Goat at Bravery in preparation for the restaurant's full-fledge restaurant the Spring Branch Village development :


"...they’ll move The Blind Goat from its original home in downtown’s Bravery Chef Hall to its new Spring Branch location. Expect the current location to close in November to facilitate moving equipment and staff training at the new location."

https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/houstons-masterchef-champion-and-husband-plan-new-spring-branch-gourmet-sandwich-restaurant/

 

Bummer they're leaving downtown, that was the one spot I'd go out of the way to get lunch at Bravery for. Hopefully the new spot is good, would be good to have a Banh Mi place downtown now the S&T closed

Saw this posted at the property when walking by today. Alpha Hotel Management/Neway Hospitality are the guys behind the adaptive reuse of the Stowers Furniture building into the Aloft downtown back in 2016, only 5 blocks from this lot. They sold the Aloft to MCR earlier this year. Excited to see this get off the ground in 2023.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/Downtown-Aloft-hotel-trades-hands-16830373.php#photo-21987651

1 hour ago, staresatmaps said:

Oh thank god. I refuse to go to places that have terrible hours as well. The place it replaced was never open.

Very much agree with this, though unfortunately it looks like this place is only open until 6 PM Mon - Thurs. Tried to grab some beignets after seeing the review around 7:00 and they were closed - this more or less rules out dinner for me during the weekdays.

9 hours ago, IntheKnowHouston said:

Photos of new food stall Island Vybez Bodega. The restaurant opened over the weekend at Post Market, 401 Franklin St (food hall in downtown Houston).


From Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjgvukbM18B/











 

Is this an addition to the food hall or have they taken over a stall from another concept? It seemed like all the stalls were full last time I was there, curious whether there’s already been turnover

1 hour ago, editor said:

Happy to hear about the Lyric option.  What's the one on Main Street?  That one is probably closer to me.

They’re calling it Little New Orleans, under the Binz building. You can see beignets listed on the window - I was too disappointed to find out S&T had closed to give it a try.

On 9/18/2022 at 2:50 PM, downtownian said:

I had it at 2am on Friday and it was pretty good for a pizza ATM.

I’ve had it twice now past 3 AM when it’s the only option downtown. While I’m happy there at least is an option now that late, I have to say it might be the worst pizza I’ve ever had. Couldn’t finish more than a slice either time

On 8/11/2022 at 11:53 AM, editor said:

As long as they don't mess with the Shipley's in the basement.  It's the only place to get beignets downtown.  And beignets aren't as easy to find in Houston as they once were.

There are now two other spots downtown to get beignets, one on Main St where S&T used to be (bummed they closed) and in the new Lyric Market that just opened today there’s a po’ boy shop that also sells beignets