Subdude

In the pictures it does look tacked on, like it was found somewhere else and just shoved up against the Chase Tower.

There was briefly rail service from the downtown Amtrak station to Galveston in the 1990s. Unfortunately, it seems that demand wasn't there since it didn't last too long. 

On 6/21/2021 at 4:28 PM, tangledwoods said:

here is the problem with 800 bell:  no one wants an old 1.3 million SF building with low FF heights and extremely old infrastructure.

The "sell" from Shorenstein is that you could deliver a "reno" of this building to market faster than a new tower but there are not a whole lot of anchor tenants looking for the kind of SF they would need to kick this into gear.  Even with top tier renovations this will never be able to compete with new construction Hines or Skanska buildings.... 

It's interesting. Low ceiling heights have also been given as an explanation for why the old Holiday/Days Inn could not be renovated, and the Sheraton-Lincoln before that. It must be that people in the 1960s were tiny, compared to the giants that walk among us today. 

Wow. This brings back a lot of memories. Some of us are still hanging around from HAIF v1, before the great hack brought that down. That was a sad day. 

Wayne, thanks for all your support on HAIF over the years.

12 hours ago, tangledwoods said:

here is the problem with 800 bell:  no one wants an old 1.3 million SF building with low FF heights and extremely old infrastructure.

The "sell" from Shorenstein is that you could deliver a "reno" of this building to market faster than a new tower but there are not a whole lot of anchor tenants looking for the kind of SF they would need to kick this into gear.  Even with top tier renovations this will never be able to compete with new construction Hines or Skanska buildings.... 

What does FF stand for?

I'm not sure it was "legendary".

3 hours ago, august948 said:

I was under the impression that the 2001 project was more of a renovation/modification than the total redo they're proposing now.

It was a pretty major redo that supposedly would make it better for gatherings, but it was poorly reviewed from the start.

I think they got as close as possible to the original interior, bypassing some unfortunate 1960s redos. 

8 minutes ago, Texasota said:

They have the River Oaks Theater targeted for one of the tower locations. The other three locations are fine, but that theater is not replaceable. 

I think it is unfortunate, but probably inevitable. They've had their eyes on the theater site for many years now. 

6 hours ago, hindesky said:

Do property owners get to decide what the street is named? The name was removed because it was named after a losing officer from the conquered confederate army. The confederacy lost the war to hold slaves and this is a largely black neighborhood, I think they should have a choice in the name of their streets vs. some racists rednecks from the suburbs. Since when do losers get to have stuff named after them? Lol, back at you racists POS.

Let's be careful on using terms like "racist". That is going to start fights pretty quickly.

Thanks.

Me too, but I would imagine that no one is going to be jumping into any major construction like this until the economic situation is more clear.  

Inevitable one supposes, but I'm always sorry to lose some of these older buildings.  

Those bring back memories - thanks for posting!

20 hours ago, ChannelTwoNews said:

 

I remember that as well - and I think at least once when they made a run for the playoffs in the 2000s or early 2010s. 

 

And confirmed...

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2000/12/18/newscolumn2.html

 

 

That basketball dome still sticks in my mind.  

WTI went negative this week for the first time.  I'm hoping and praying that this doesn't impact Houston like the crash in oil prices in the 1980s, where pretty much all construction stopped.  Right now of course it is too soon to tell, but a large amount of drilling activity has already been halted.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/business/stock-market-live-trading-coronavirus.html

The thread seems to have veered away from the original topic so moved to the Off Topic area.

As a reminder, please keep political discussions out of the primary topic areas.  We have a space for those, so use it.

Thanks for the link.  Call me a Philistine - you wouldn't be the first - but the Rothko Chapel has never done much for me.  I much preferred the Byzantine Fresco Chapel as a semi-religious place.  Anyway, I'm curious to see this when it is done.

1 hour ago, wxman said:

Why don't developers plant a landmark here that would be a draw for the downtown area? An example would be a observation tower similar to Tower of the Americas or CN Tower. Maybe a large, world-class museum? 

My fondness for observation towers notwithstanding, it's been done.  Remember the one that was proposed by the downtown aquarium?  People hated it. I think a landmark would need to be sufficiently unlike other landmarks to stand out.  

On another bent, reading the Skanska article I can't help but wonder how much retail can really be supported.  Right now one hears mostly about retail chains closing.  I would think the retail element would need to be limited to be viable.

It's just a generic structure.  It's an example of construction, not architecture.

A reminder might be in order here to refrain from name-calling and personal attacks and keep it on-topic.

On 1/13/2020 at 12:27 PM, samagon said:

 

uptown is a TIRZ. it was created in 1999.

 

the Galleria area is what it was called before the TIRZ existed, and I call it the Galleria area, but I know where someone is talking about when they say Uptown. 

 

there's really no reason you should be peeved by the colloquial names used for an area. if anything you should be peeved that someone's taxes went to some marketing department so they could spend it on a renaming convention. when someone calls it the Galleria area all it shows is that someone has lived in Houston for more than 20 years. 

 

As another example, I grew up in Alief, it will always be Alief, it will never be the International District, but I'll still know what you mean if you call it the International District.

Before the Galleria area was Uptown, "Uptown" was the area around Main and Holcombe, which was a rapidly growing part of the city.  There was kind of a line along Main St:  Downtown, Midtown and then Uptown.  

1 hour ago, Angostura said:

Helvetica wine!

 

 

 

 

 

I drink Comic Sans myself.

On 1/29/2020 at 11:34 AM, Luminare said:

 

I love 700 Louisiana, however, just because something is "iconic" doesn't necessarily mean its "timeless". I personally think it 700 Louisiana is a great work with elements that make it both "iconic" and "timeless". I also think your opinion is more popular than you think or at least more than you make it out to be.

I'm not even sure what "iconic" means.  How does one assess iconistatisity?  Is "iconic" famous, beloved, an archetype, or what?  The problem is that "iconic" has been over-used to the point where it has very little meaning remaining.  Ranting aside, I think 700 Louisiana and Pennzoil could be considered the two most "timeless" Houston buildings. 

23 hours ago, CaptainJilliams said:

Yikes, good thing this one got ditched.

 

Looks like a combination of everything awful from the 2000's. 

Looks like something from Arhitectonica from the 1980s.

7 hours ago, monarch said:

^^^ "unfortunate"?  not in the least.  this particular edifice was probably constructed during an era, whereby, smoking was all the rage.  well, let us fast-forward to 2020.  aTm HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER, is probably going to be a non-smoking facility.  therefore, those SMOKER'S RAILINGS are no-longer necessary.

People can actually step outdoors for a few minutes and enjoy it without smoking.