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fernz

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Everything posted by fernz

  1. fernz
    Thtat's right. I was on 15th just South of P street. That Safeway was known as the Russian Safeway because it was small, had a poor selection, things were regularly out of stock, and always had long lines. But it was much cheaper than Whole Foods!
  2. fernz
    Fat chance, unless it's mixed used....and still not looking very likely, IMO. Yes, there is a Houstonian condo high rise, next to the Houstonian hotel. http://www.har.com/highrisefinder/dispHirDetail.cfm?building_id=14
  3. fernz
    I agree. When you say marginal at best, you're being kind.
  4. fernz
    There you go; thanks Houston 19514.
  5. fernz
    I read somewhere that 85% of this building will be diverted away from landfills; which means they will be salvaging much of the materials. Which also means the demo will take longer than usual.
  6. fernz
    Like Astro World, which was redeveloped into a Rodeo parking lot!
  7. fernz
    As much as I hate most his work, Randal Davis came to Downtown a long time ago, before anyone ever thought Downtown living could be cool. He developed the Dakota lofts and the Rice Lofts (there may be others I forget) about 15 years ago. And both of those are actually great projects, from RD, believe it or not.
  8. fernz
    Probably a traffic engineer from A&M.... In all seriousness, one of the biggest problems is the closed neighborhood and cul-de-sac development pattern that kills any type of grid layout. Think about all the people that work inside the loop, including galleria area, and live west of the galleria (from the villages all the way to Katy) There are only 6 roads they can take. (westpark, Richmond, westheimer, SF/briar forest, memorial and I-10). In a non suburban model city, all the streets in between would run full length, and the traffic load would be shared by 50 streets instead of 6.
  9. fernz
    This one has land around it, Astoria is using the entire plot. That makes logistics much more difficult.
  10. fernz
    EB5 is an immigration visa that pretty much allows wealthy foreign nationals to "buy" a green card, by investing in a job-producing commercial enterprise. In can be anything, doesn't have to be real estate, doesn't have to be condos - it just needs to be for-profit and create jobs. From a RE perspective, I do agree with Mr. Contreras that it makes more sense for condos, since traditional financing is so easily available these days for apartments. Condos require pre-sales, and that's where the foreign investors come in. The big news flash to me was that this is a Randall Davis project. It could be possible, that after his Galveston and South Padre projects were foreclosed, he is having a hard time getting bank financing for these apartments, so he is using this creative alternative which he already knows how to navigate.
  11. fernz
    That is hilarious.
  12. fernz
    Exactly!
  13. fernz
    You can't compare with Belfiore, which is a condo. Unlike apartments, condos require a high pre-sales percentage (would guess in the 40's or 50's these days) to get their construction financing; so developers spend a lot of money in pre sales before breaking ground. On the other hand, apartments typically start preleasing only a few months before opening the first phase. In my experience, 25% prelease is actually quite high. Most apartments open with only about 20-30% of units available, so at 25% they are pretty much "sold-out" for phase 1.
  14. fernz
    They don't need any drones. Developers have been using blimps for a long time. http://www.blimpphoto.com And you bet Hines did something of the kind; it's one of the best tools during preleasing.
  15. fernz
    Yes, we get news from Urbannizer before they're are published in the chronicle's website!
  16. fernz
    I really like that the garage is lined with units (or at least pretending to be) so it doesn't loom like a big parking garage at the base. These developers know what they're doing.
  17. fernz
    This is the same site of the Buffalo Lofts condos that were proposed over 10 years ago. They were ready to start construction, even had a mockup built on site. I guess their pre-sales never materialized. http://www.fmgdesign.com/uds-portfolio/buffalo-lofts-houston-texas/
  18. fernz
    If it's a mesh, instead of solid material, like in this case.
  19. fernz
    Considering what most of the mid rises being built look like, will all that eifs and crown molding cornices, this is actually a really nice mid rise apartment building!
  20. fernz
    It's called perspective. There are special camera lenses designed to correct it, otherwise pictures of buildings (especially tall ones and/or if taken up close) will always angle towards the vanishing point.
  21. fernz
    IIRC it's 10 feet, but I'm not positive. Unfortunately I have no longer access to building codes so I can't confirm.
  22. fernz
    Yes, and these are two towers plus a parking garage. Also, it sometimes makes sense to add a crane if you can speed up construction. It is not uncommon for the skin to start going up before the structure is topped-off; and having two cranes means not having to share between two (or more) contractors. Sometimes it makes sense to pay for the additional crane, sometimes it makes sense to extend the construction for a few more months - each project has unique financial considerations.
  23. fernz
    This tower is turning out to be one of those rare cases where the building looks better than the rendering!
  24. fernz
    I would imagine that the deal with McDonalds also included some air rights or height restriction easements. Otherwise, you risk having a tower 10ft away from your expensive condo windows. If I was going to purchase a unit there, I would make sure some agreement of the sort is in place.
  25. fernz
    Just looked at the pictures of the model. There is a small setback. On top of that, the widows could be recessed to allow for the openings to be further back from the property line. You can get away with small setbacks as long as you limit the percentage of non-rated openings. But you cannot have any openings at all on the property line (unless they are 2hr rated, which makes them both ugly and expensive). This is from the building codes, and the city would never give exemptions to this since it's a safety issue.
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