talltexan83

Very exciting news.  I'd love to see them turn 1/2 this block of Times Blvd into some kind of pedestrian mall/green space.  Something like that and boutique hotel will continue to push the Rice Village in an exciting direction.

FWIW, this approach does work in Australia.  In every major city in Australia, it's not uncommon to find Coles and Woolworths within a few hundred feet of each other.

There is a construction fence up around the entire old Gorgeous Gael property on Morningside and active remodeling going on.......food hall or not, I'm very curious to see what they do with this space.  It'd be great to see them re-purpose the adjacent parking lots for some public shared use or patio space.

Do the plans still include a pedestrian bridge over Allen Pkwy?  I think that would be a cool feature.

They need to carve out more green space wherever possible.  Or create a pedestrian mall by converting one of the shorter blocks.  The upgrades thus far have been underwhelming.  

This is very helpful.  It looks like they are planning to extend Colquitt St to Yupon.  I also like how they plan to turn the parking lot for the Flavin installation into green space and turn Loretto into a walking path only.

Does anyone have insight into how the Menil plans to use the open green space between Richmond Ave. and the Menil?  Are they going to leave it "as is" and leave it open to the public or is there going to be a material investment in landscape design, new plantings, etc?  Thanks!

Its probably just a placeholder, but Little Creatures is an amazing brewery based in Perth (Fremantle), Australia.  Would love to see them come to Texas!

https://littlecreatures.com.au/agegate/

Between this and the Block 98 tower, all the more reason now to develop the parking lots that sit between them.  There is real potential to make this a cohesive district all the way to Minute Maid.

+1 vote for an HEB....

I think its a plus that the lightrail moves efficiently through Midtown.....really from Rice U to the Downtown Transit Center.  It'd be great to see further work done to improve transit times between Med Center and downtown through road abandonment, below grade crossing (I'm probably dreaming...) and a conversion of more blocks of Main St into linear parks with bike paths, etc.  Even just converting Wheeler and McGowan to below grade would be a huge improvement.

This is great news! I applaud them for taking the chance now.  As others have mentioned, this area can feel overrun with homeless at times, but things can turn around quickly with a few more developments like this.  

I like that it can also function as an informal extension of the Museum District less than a mile away.

just wait until they put in that new Rice Opera House across the street from this!

Thinking more about the Buffalo Bayou Master Plan....if they are able to complete a full scale park and trail restoration from Shepherd all the way to the turning basin on the East Side of downtown, complete with new residential along the park, how would it compare to other urban parks around the US?  My view is that it would be truly unique in its scale and connectivity, but I'm admittedly limited in my awareness of comparable urban parks.  

long story short, I hope it happens, and I hope it is awesome.

Have all the new bayou improvements been holding up well under these recent flash floods?  I'm sure they are using landscaping/concrete, etc that is designed to handle the occasional drowning...

this is probably mentioned elsewhere, but won't many of those new windows (covered in light blue/turquoise) eventually be staring right at a parking garage and/or new tower?  Am I missing something?

I've asked this in the past, but why would developers demo cash-generating properties until the construction is 100% certain to go forward?  Or does that 100% assurance never really happen? This site has been an empty lot for 2 years, and if I recall, the old apartment complex here had high occupancy rates.  

Regent Square is another example.

even opening up that one corner shows the missed opportunity with the original GreenStreet/Pavillions design.  It would have looked so much better if more liight/access would have been opened up to the street.

oh well.  The new hotel will be great start in a new direction.  

I was curious about the plans for the hotel along Crawford St. I was walking by today, and it appears that the new hotel is being built beyond where the old sidewalks used to be.  So are they going to eventually take out a lane of traffic on Crawford when the put in the new sidewalks?

The first picture shows a linear park (across from the new convention center garage/hotel) all the way to Minute Maid.  Any chance that could actually happen?  That would be another great addition to the area...

100% agree. What can we do to help get this ball rolling?

So it's a go? It is proceeding?

Those effin residents ... we should start a fund to assist with the developer's legal fees. In return the developer can name a floor or a park bench in honor of the largest donors.

They should add 30 stories for the hell of it.

They should add 20 more floors to this thing just for that.

Count me in!

the taller the better.

I just hope there's a bar included in this supposed street-level retail. This way everyone who drives by can see the bar patrons drinking and getting plastered. Cool.

I'm trying this "MultiQuote" feature for the first time. Pretty cool.  I wanted to test my theory that little can be done to change a HAIFer's views on a particular project.  LTAWACS has been consistent....

Would it be possible to ever retrofit the top of the Hess parking garage into additional amenity space for this tower?  Or does that run into a lot of engineering limitations?

Can anyone shed some light on how the relationship with the general contractor works on a project like this?  Have the labor/material costs been already been pre-agreed to?  The reason I ask is that I imagine these kind of projects have very detailed ROI models.  Does every month of delay mean that the labor and material costs are also rising given the shortages we are hearing about on other projects around town?

On the flip side, I'm assuming the future rentals rate projections ($/month/sq ft) are probably rising as well.

soil testing today.......or they are drilling for oil.

Parking lot is closed and construction fence is going up right now.  With port-o-potties.  The fenced-in portion of the block seems to match exactly with the recent Downtown Development Map.  Can anyone confirm that this hotel is officially breaking groud as well?