Ross

I saw an article on this building in Laguna Niguel, California and thought others might be interested. It was originally constructed for North American Aviation. The nickname is the Ziggurat. It's being auctioned as surplus by the General Services Administration.

Gallery from Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/resource/pplot.13819/?st=gallery

Gallery from the GSA https://www.gsa.gov/node/147311/juicebox-config/

Best picture I could link to

25 minutes ago, emmanume said:

I heard from one of the developers they’re planning a 20-something story residential tower with cvs on ground floor 

Will there be an HEB on the second floor? 

What easement behind the building? From the aerials and street views, it doesn't look like there is any room behind the buildings.

5 hours ago, editor said:

Isn't mayor of Houston a significant step down from long-term member of Congress?

I wonder what her motivation is.  Maybe she doesn't think she can win another congressional election?  I don't know what her ratings are these days.

SJL is 73, I think, so maybe the travel to and from DC is getting to her. I don't think she would ahve any issues getting reelected to Congress, given she seems to get 75% of the vote every election.

2 hours ago, mattyt36 said:

Based on?

He's less disliked by the majority of voters than SJL, who is popular in her district but is highly disliked everywhere else.

18 hours ago, hindesky said:

According to the job inspector I talked with this water is going to the water storage tanks at Westpark and Newcastle. He said it doesn't feed the neighborhood directly but they do have to cut service occasionally because the local piping feeding the neighborhood is sometimes in the way of installing the 72" pipe.

 

That makes sense, since most neighborhoods are supplied by 8 inch mains. 72 inch mains do not make sense at all for local distribution.

7 hours ago, JClark54 said:

In the current Houston heavy rail environment, that's a tough ask. Even if the railroads granted trackage rights, passenger rail timetables likely would not be reliable with the existing infrastructure.

Since railroads have already given up right of way, as along the Katy Freeway, there's not really enough tracks to support current freight movement, much less passenger, without significant delays. Heavy rail only works if the timetables are reliable.  And Houston has far too many people who are just flat out opposed to rail at all to attract enough ridership to make heavy rail even semi-successful

On 3/22/2023 at 6:29 PM, IWantTransit555 said:

The city (and greater region) has a lot of work to do on this front.

Despite what others may say, I think the greater Houston area (6 million people!) needs heavy rail.

The Washington Ave corridor seems perfect for light rail! I am still mad that it never happened. Maybe it could have been built on center street.

There are some issues with building heavy rail here. First, is where do you run it? I don't think anyone would sell the concept of taking houses and businesses to build rail - there would be torches and pitchforks. The railroads are not going to give up their right of way at all. The only real alternative is along freeways, and that will bring screams from all directions. If you think the opponents of the 11th Street road diet were loud and shrill, it would be far worse for heavy rail. There's also the folks who will refuse to ride rail, because they might have to mix with poor people. I'm not sure where you would start, either, since metro flat out told me that heavy rail can't be built until there is a comprehensive light rail system to connect the heavy rail. And, where does the money come from?

On 3/22/2023 at 9:46 PM, chempku said:

Maybe because local people will get madder if it's built, .. LRT is not a bike lane or a car travel lane, it need to be connected to somewhere, also it need platforms and wider sidewalks. Squeezing in LRTs in narrower streets essentially kills most car traffic. 

Note that some existing LRT segments spread into two adjacent streets where the ROW is not wide enough (e.g. the Green/Purple line in downtown, the Red line in museum district). 

I'm not sure Washington is a good choice. It's too useful for cars right now, and building rail would eliminate a lot of capacity on one of the main East West routes out of Downtown. 

3 hours ago, Firebird65 said:

Wow, what a great shot! 

OK, I hope this isn't a dumb question. It seems more like common sense to me. Why has the Battleship Texas been kept in water? Why couldn't it have been placed in a permanent dry dock for display after the 1989 restoration? Seems to me that the brackish water has been part of the problem leading to its deterioration. Obviously everything is going to eventually deteriorate no matter what we do, but at least keeping it dry seems like it would solve a part of the problem. IIRC correctly something like that was proposed back in 1989. 

Staying in dry dock forever is hard on a ship, as they are designed and built to be supported by water on all sides. Staying in dry dock tends to make them bend, then break. It would be better to put Texas into fresh water.

Our market value went from $414k to $518k in Timbergrove. We'll see what happens. It's the biggest one year increase I've ever seen.

3 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

Obituary:

Mary "Mary Lou" Louise Henry

And a link to 2017 Chron interview, from the VHA website:

Urban density in Houston? Not really  

Love her quote on Cottage Grove. It was definitely crappy.

5 hours ago, emmanume said:

From HPB website https://houstonparksboard.org/5050-park-partners-community-engagement/

Love Park include replacing playground equipment, adding a new exercise station, consolidating picnic areas to create more open space, improving the baseball field, repairing walkways, re-aligning the walking trail, and improved lighting. 

 

Is there anything in there on death rays to take out the owners of unleashed dogs? No use improving the baseball field if stupid morons with unleashed dogs continue to allow them to run all over. That was one place where one of the teams my kid was on had dogs come up and grab baseballs. We didn't think that was nearly as cute as the owners did. 

34 minutes ago, 004n063 said:

Forgive my ignorance, but aren't churches generally neighborhood things? I always assumed they were meant to be village centers, so to speak. Do a lot of people go a long way to go to church?

Sacred Heart is the Co-Cathedral for the Houston-Galveston Arch Diocese, ie one of the two main Catholic churches for a 10 county area of Southeast Texas. There's a map on this page showing the boundaries https://cabrinihouston.org/archdiocese-of-galvestonhouston

It's a major church for Catholics.

3 hours ago, 004n063 said:

I mean...isn't ineffectually opining on the development of properties we don't own pretty much the whole point of HAIF? 

We all know that there's nothing we can do about this abomination, but why should that stop us from calling it out as such?

Lots of discussion like that, and I occasionally just become a grumpy old man and point out that sometimes there's nothing you can do if you do not own the property. And the Catholic church is less worried about what anyone thinks than most developers.

5 hours ago, HouTXRanger said:

I'm really proud of what Houston has done over the past decade or two, but this is a stain on the transformation of Downtown. It's honestly pathetic. If they can transform a freaking post office into a mall and it works great, y'all really don't think they could do something amazing with this site? All for a goddamn parking lot. Two blocks from the Downtown Transit Center! Outstanding. Even better when the pierce elevated comes down, and more prime real estate is eaten up by a surface lot.

Their property, their choice. If it bothers you that much, make an offer for the property and develop it as you wish. You will fail, because the Catholic Church doesn't care at all what you think.

7 hours ago, steve1363 said:

I'm guessing none of you HAIFers are members (or attendees) of Sacred Heart!  🤣

My wife and kid go there. I recall hearing about the old building being slated for demolition before the new building opened, along with a history lesson on how Italian immigrants to Houston did the finish work inside. The Catholic Church doesn't care what anyone else thinks, it will do what it wants and never look back.

9 hours ago, mattyt36 said:

Well METRO (aka the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County) certainly does, and at the maximum rate allowed by State law, which I assume is what he was referring to. Anything else? 

Harris County does not collect sales taxes.

1 hour ago, mattyt36 said:

@Amlaham several things:

1) You are indeed correct on State/County funding being key to any major expansion of transit infrastructure.

2) In theory, absolutely you can reprogram State transportation funding away from highways and towards transit like commuter rail.  However, doing so would require legislative action.  So, with this in mind, how likely do you see the current State legislature voting to do such a thing?

3) The County's main source of revenues are property and sales taxes.  Any additional County contribution towards transit would be subject to a bond referendum that would require voters to agree to increase property taxes to pay for such infrastructure.  For the type of comprehensive system that people typically think about when they get all dreamy about these things (e.g., the immensely expensive "must-have" rail to the airport, which passengers DO NOT use widely in the U.S., with few exceptions), we're talking multiple billions of dollars in investment and probably a minimum of two decades' worth of construction.  Do you see Harris County voters volunteering to increase their property taxes to cover the multiple billions of dollars of investment in addition to the probably additional multiple millions of dollars for operating expenses?

 

Harris County does not collect sales taxes.

Time for some traffic police to sit there and write some $200+ tickets.

On 2/20/2023 at 3:46 PM, Powermac said:

Been lurking on HAIF for years, but decided to finally get my first post in after viewing this thread...

The Rice campus has really become, and is becoming a jewel for this city. Just a beautiful campus with great architecture.

I preferred the Rice Campus as it was around 1980. But, I'm just a grump old man. The new buildings are very nice, but I dislike the loss of open space. I also disliked how Leebron remade the school.

7 hours ago, bobruss said:

That water looks pretty nice and the color almost resembles green.

We haven't had much rain, so there's not a lot of silt in the water. The next time it rains, it will be brown again.

On 2/18/2023 at 7:53 PM, hindesky said:

I've seen Junior Brown at many venues in Houston and at the Continental Club in Austin, always a fun concert.

 

That's a great song, along with My Wife Thinks You're Dead.

The hospital closed in 1985 or so, and it looks like the whole thing moved to West Houston Medical Center on Richmond near Dairy Ashford

New owner convicted of exposing workers to asbestos https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Houston-man-sentenced-in-asbestos-case-2011159.php

Mentioned here https://www.chron.com/news/article/Area-medical-lab-to-honor-employees-1836171.php

McIlvain died in 2015 in Los Angeles. He was an investigative reporter here in Houston for nearly 20 years, working for Channel 11

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-deaths/article/McIlvain-longtime-Ch-11-reporter-dies-at-73-6126072.php

Live ammunition is not a hazard during a fire unless it is confined. Ammunition that goes off during a fire has very little energy.