bach

...IMO though having a huge tent cover part of the Great Lawn of the park opening is kind of odd, why not just have it on the great lawn, after all it is a park! ...

When you're buying a table of 10 for $1,000 a ticket, black tie, you get a tent!

When the project was first announced, it was said that they had a lease signed for office space for some sort of medical clinic. Has that lease been canceled?

The medical clinic tenant has dropped off the rader, is no longer a component of the project.

No, I'm pretty sure the 65% figure was only relating to retail space.

EDIT: I just looked at the article again. One can't actually be certain what the writer meant to say. It reads as though the overall project, retail and office space is 65% leased. Who knows? (Typical incompetent journalist, sorry). However, I see no reason at all to think that the retail is 100% leased at this point.

The 65% is the retail/restaurant part of HP only. The office space so far has no leases signed. The official word is that they have proposals out for more space than they'll have (200,000 square feet), but that's typical of any new or existing building.

LOL!

They've announced a "Groundbreaking date:" February 7, 2008.

Not sure when the bulldozers arrive.

I got a job downtown and I am now trying to get away from the suburb commute asap. I've checked out the Heights, Midtown, and now I'm checking out Downtown. I love the idea of walking to work and, admittedly, I'm kinda embarrassed that it took me so long to look into DT.Anyway, there is a loft on St. Germain that fits within my price range without a really high maintenance fee.

Is St. Germain a good place to be?

Are the walls too thin?

Is the 4th level a bad level (the one I'm interested in is at that level but so are most of the available units)?

Any unusual reason for the "market adjustments" that have caused the reduced prices of many of the lofts there?

Any thoughts, really, that would help in considering st. germain?

Is DT still an up and coming place or is it fading (I hear both sides on this forum)?

I know there was a thread on st. germain but it was awhile back so I'm hoping to get the latest views. I also don't expect every question answered but any new information definitely helps so...thanks!

I looked at the St. Germain ~2001, didn't choose it because they were only rental. But I liked the interesting (but not over-interesting) floor plans, and especially being so close to a lot of things -- restaurants (Flying Saucer!), theater, clubs, rail, bus, freeway, sports -- but you're not right in the middle of the party. And the building has a great look from the outside.

How cool is that?!! Great!

Yes, it's illegal to bicycle on the sidewalk, even though the police do it, but I haven't heard of tickets being issued.

Every time I've been in Specs (and I won't say how, um, frequently that is ) there's a uniformed HPD in front. could that be the deterrent?

I like having the security guard at Randall's. The other night I went to the Midtown CVS, and a guy was right outside their doors asking for $. I told the woman at the checkout counter, and she knew who I was talking about. She said she didn't know why "they" didn't take care of the situation. Then he came inside, hung around. Doesn't CVS do anything about this? Maybe it was just that one time.

Randall's takes care of this issue.

The Ritz-Carlton deal fell through ~2000/2001. Kimberly Clark purchased it (they or the previous owner removed the asbestos), took down the 1960s part of the structure, and they were going to make it a Marriott Renaissance hotel possibly with residences, but then the hotel biz went soft. Then they decided to make it residential, and then backed off. It is on the market and would most likely become residential apartments, condos, hotel or a mix. A beautiful building, and in a much better neighborhood with the removal of the Montagu, "food store" and West Building.

The owner is a bank in Ohio or something. The seem to want more money than listed. I basically told them they would not get it!

This is not New York... it is Houston, everyone has a car.

There is no parking for the building. Which still wouldn't be a problem really except most of the parking garages in downtown actually close in the evenings. So if you did "rent" a parking spot in one of those garages, your car would be stuck in the garage or you have the chance of being locked out of your garage after a certain hour.

Even then if you could live with that, trying to sell these down the road is going to be very hard.

Thanks for the update. Do you know what the price per square foot was, and if anyone else is buying?

Does anyone know any reputable architecture firm with experience on converting old Houston downtown office buildings for alternative uses (hotel, loft, etc.)? I have an out of town developer friend who is looking at a couple old office buildings in Downtown Houston and asks me to make some recommandations.

PageSoutherlandPage is one. Has been the architect on a couple of downtown buildings, and just look at their (almost) new office space in 1100 Louisiana, where they converted a former bank lobby into really cool office space.

And I believe it was Gensler that restored the building that now houses Holy Cross Chapel on Main.

Randall Davis did the Rice, St. Germain, and was the fee developer for Kirby Lofts.

It would help if the current owner, whoever that is, would come out/surface, give the public a little confidence that the place is going to work.

The people at the Downtown YMCA told me that they have bought a lot a couple of blocks away and will move locations in the next couple of years. It will be nice to have a newer, updated YMCA, but I wonder what will happen to the old building?

The old building will come down, as what is the financial value of that building? The Y can't give the land away -- they need to sell the block to have $ to put into the new building. Someone could come in and buy the block, but the highest & best use is office space or office-related use.

Would be great to use it for residential, but residential can't compete with office space -- especially in this market. You'd have to have a lot of people willing to pay big bucks to live there, in the middle of office towers. A lot of engineer-types there -- KBR, Chevron -- and they're not your typical high-dollar inner city residential demographic (hey, love those engineers, but they're just not the demographic). You'd have some view, but not like many other locations.

The sign on the building still says:

Kirby Lofts on Main

65 Units

Now Leasing

713-752-0917

Anyone know who the real owner is? Tracy no longer has it, it was for sale, but I don't know who really owns it.

Important in buying: who is the owner of the property, parking. Probably 8 units occupied (leased) right now, if that many.

It's a fairly new concept, but one that has been highlighted/written about in US mainstream business mags. Not sure how it'll start out, but if it can make it that long, it'll be a perfect fit with Houston Pavilions and Macy's.

Would HAIFers prefer that the building top lights be on all the time, or that some of the buildings have them on all year, but have all the buildings turn them on for holidays and major events (like Superbowl)?

I can't find the URL, but the Zone 10 Chronicle This Week section yesterday had an article: "Midtown - Residents have issues with new CVS store."

Midtown Mgmt District and others tried, and it'll help people understand why we might want a few incentives and code changes.

I was out there last night (7-11:30 pm), and it was quite lively, active.

Anyone work for or know anyone at Hines? Since they own, manage and/or lease One Shell, 2 Shell, BOA, 1100 Louisiana, Chase Tower, Chase Center, Chase Bank and the old Bank One, they could make a big dent in the complaints here. Surely someone in this forum knows them -- or even someone within Hines who can tell us what the deal is.

Hines had their topping out ceremony last Thursday, May 3.

No tree on top, though.

What number is it that people throw around here for how many people are needed in a community to support a grocery store? Is it like 30,000? I forget.

While residents within 1-2-3 miles are what retailers count, I've heard retail brokers say it'll take 20-25,000 people living within the elevated freeways. Right now there are about 4,000. Marvy's project, when fully occupied, should produce almost 500 more. And when the Old Texaco Building project is eventually converted, that'll add another 500 or so. We've got a way to go.

Retail follows people -- residents, workers, visitors. We've got the workers. Can we really bring retail without enough residents and visitors?

5:00 traffic on Travis will get slower with all those outbound buses and commuters.

Ingress/egress on Travis is only for 30 parking spaces or so that are at street level -- the highest rent spaces. And it's on the left side of the street -- opposite of buses.

Ingress/egress on McKinney is for the rest of the almost 300 parking spaces -- and it's on the left side of the street, too.

All spaces are reserved. The top floor provides a fantastic view for a parking garage -- windows, locked-off balcony. So, the best spaces are at the top of the parking garage. And direct access to the building's elevators -- no need to transfer from garage to building. Garage has the very high-speed garage doors.

Opened April 2.

They've done a terrific job with the lobby and escalator to the tunnel. From the Tunnel it looks like the sun is shining in.

Short-term closures this weekend for construction or maintenance - In the 1000-1200 blocks of Polk (Main to Caroline) and the 1100-1200 blocks of Fannin (Lamar to Polk) the Pavilions contractor will close all lanes to install a tower crane for a portion of the Pavilion's construction. The closures will begin Friday night at 8 PM and last until Monday morning 5 AM with one exception.

source: Downtown District's weekly street closings e-mail

Leasing at Pennzoil is probably more attibutable to a strong local economy than this.

I haven't been downtown for a long time. So is this "architecturally significant" parking garage completed, or nearly so? Is it truly "architecturally significant" as Hines promised?

The parking garage isn't finished -- I don't think they've topped out.

It's a Hines garage being built for Sunbelt, the owner of Pennzoil and the parking lot in front of 1 Shell and 2 Shell. Hines never released renderings of the garage, but it was supposed to be sleek, and one of those garages that typically gets written up in Cite. Just like the Catholic Co-Cathedral, it has been value-engineered, and they're going in the direction of not including a skin -- just the metal cables going across, with maybe 3' of coverage on each floor. Ouch. Ugly buildings aren't illegal, unfortunately.