GovernorAggie

I think the Trinity will be wider by a lane (as part of the I-10 widening) but won't be "aesthectically" pleasing. Just a regular bridge.

Our icon should be the lack thereof. Nonconformity.

Our icon should be the lack of an icon? What are you talking about? The lack of one DOES bring us into conformity. The whole idea of an icon is that it's something that sets you or your city or your business apart. That's why companies have logos. C'mon economist Niche, how iconic would a business be with no logo, generic business cards, and products of all the same size, shape, and colors.

Like it or not, NO icon is what would make Houston like almost everywhere else. No icon is why some people say, "Houston, what's there besides NASA?" Icons are why Las Vegas, Orlando, Washington, New York, and others are set apart from the Charlottes, Buffalos, Tampas, and Phoenixes of the world. No icons is why most of Sugar Land will feel just like Addison, Round Rock, Leander, McKinney, Plano, Metairie, Mesa, Naperville, Scottsdale, and Fairfax. No need of listing the states because you can be dropped in them all and not tell the difference most of the time.

Thankfully Houston was started in 1836 and not 2006--otherwise there would be no Astrodome (thankfully foolish foreign Deutsche Bank saved it from the Houstonian Efficiciency Complex), no San Jacinto Monument, no Memorial Park (an open park as the "highest and best economical use of the land?"), and maybe even no NASA (today's thinkers would probably use a cost/benefit analysis and say there's no future in space exploration if their thought processes were warped back in time)

That, I do not know. It depends on the optimal slope of the outer walls, and that's something that a structural engineer would have to address.

I'd think that the post office site would be sufficient...but it would terribly mar our best skyline view.

Not to nitpick, but I think the best skyline view is from the Gulf Freeway inbound! The western view shows downtowns tallness, but the eastern view shows its fullness.

VelvetJ, thanks!

Well could it be located between GRB and MMP? The CVB seems to think it'd be a great idea according to a separate article in HBJ about the Microsoft convention.

Wasn't there some recent debate on HAIF about how unfeasible downtown is to a hotel of this caliber?

Give me what you would consider the boundaries of Buckhead. I'll then pull Census data and see just how many commuters use MARTA.

I wonder how well the TAZs would match.

For the forum engineers, here's the link to the video of the collapse. It almost collapsed in one piece. Prayers out to those affected as well as their friends, family, and loved ones.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/0...ridge.gary.kare

Glimcher is like the slumlord of malls. If they buy a mall, mark it down--that place will be a dump inside of 30 months.

I'm not opposed to someone building a supertall skyscraper here in Houston, but a 3000 ft. straight-up office tower is just ridiculously stupid. Personally, I think if a supertall is built in Houston, they should build one like the proposed Sky City 1000 in Tokyo. It stands 1 km (about 3280 ft) tall, but doesn't look all that ridiculous. However, something like this would would have to stand on its own, outside any of the existing business districts here in Houston. The old Astroworld site would probably work though. Thoughts? Comments?

Extreme Engineering on Discovery Channel had this building on once. This thing has SO many challenges (including being in an active fault AND typhoon zone), but yet they seem to have factored a lot of features in--counterweights at the top to negate wind effects (the swaying would be so much otherwise that people could get sick!) for example.

Also, regarding the huge floorplates--the building is actually hollow. Those without windows to the outside have windows on the inside, much like many hotels. It's a massive structure that will take decades to build, IIRC. Given the CGI movies played on the show, it looks as if the place will actually be pretty neat on the inside as well.

Here's some links for some more info:

http://www.takenaka.co.jp/takenaka_e/techn..._sky/63_sky.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_City_1000

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/engin...nteractive.html

This thing is bigger than I realized and is actually supposed to be a set of 3 towers connected together! I don't know if it will trully happen, but if anywhere is going to build anything radical, it's Asia.

The base is actually over 1300 feet across.

Given that there is even a chance that this thing is built someday in the next, say 40 years, maybe Mr. Younan won't be able to accomplish his dream--at least not at a "measly" 3,000 feet.

I remember seeing a while back that Bill King is really looking at running for mayor. It was part of a Chron article a while back that also mentioned Rodney Ellis and Sheila Jackson Lee as possibilities among others that I can't remember right now.

I was a reduced-lunch and breakfast kid until high school (40 cents and 30 cents respectively back then, too). I can remember my mom filling out forms and not sending in a W-2 or 1040 or anything, but that doesn't mean that she lied, either.

For that matter, I was also a free-breakfast-and-lunch-during-the-summer kid, too. Looking back on it, back then it wasn't bad--a way to keep kids fed during the day when parents had to go to work and no one could watch them but themselves. The food was terrible, but hey--it was free and you usally followed it up with some time at the playground or basketball court since it was nearby.

Everyone's not out to abuse the gov't. Unfortunately it's too easy to stereotype people. I was born to a mother who was still in high school (and was eligible for the Honor Society). And she's been married to my dad for 25 years now. So a normal, two-parent, stable household who had to use the federal programs for lunch for the young-uns. My dad has worked in the same factory for the last 10 years (he was at the last factory for 8) and my mom got her bachelors a couple years ago as the only minority graduating with honors.

North Forest is just like the school district I spent most of my time in--almost totally (95%) black and looking hopeless. However, North Forest's problem is not so much the administrators as much as its the parents (same for Cy Fair, HISD, KISD, and anyone else). Parents solve a school system.

Ok, rant over

Pick your fights more wisely...

ANNUAL EMPLOYMENT GROWTH RATE BY METROPOLITAN AREA, May 2006 to May 2007

Houston = 3.3%

Phoenix = 3.7%

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Developers won't build what people can't afford or don't want. In places like Houston, more people can afford what they want, and so they buy it and developers build more of it to continue the process. It's a beautiful system we've got here. Places like NYC...well they suck. You have to pay people much higher wages for them to be willing to live there.

Why do you think the state gained so many residents last year? Inquiring minds want to know.

Hmmm, the one city with higher growth than Houston...MUCH stricter design standards! Have you seen Phoenix's zoning ordinance? It's hundreds of pages thick and they govern all the way down to the suitable plantings for residential developments in suburban neighborhoods.

Maricopa County will also pass Harris County by the end of the decade in population. It's already closed the gap from 380,000 to 120,000 in 6 years.

Plus, the cost of living in Phoenix is almost 1/4 more than in Houston. The median income in PHX makes up the difference but its negated some because AZ has income tax.

And since 2000, job growth in Phoenix has been roughly double that of Houston--with housing costing almost 1/3 more and just as much of an endless supply of flat land in the area.

Just to underscore KincaidAlum and Subdude's points--Phoenix is growing faster and is more expensive for people to live and employers to pay their workers--yet they are pickier about development there than here. Those "restrictions" also don't seem to be slowing anything down there, either.

I saw one of these in Uptown a couple weeks ago at San Felipe and 610. I couldn't believe my eyes, lol!

Based on many of the replies in this topic, all I can say is that it's a shame that the pioneering can-do attitude of Texas is dead. Texas is last-century's frontier. The pioneering spirit has been inherited by the Arabs. Then when someone wants to bring it back to the Lone Star State, the city with no zoning starts talking about aesthetics and how it will fit in with the other buildings.

And money? Who cares how it gets financed? If the guy wants to bankrupt his company on his way out, that's his business. You can study any large plan to an early grave. The only people who get anything done, especially these days, are the egos and the visionaries. It's not the accounting firms who build the world's tallest skyscrapers. It's the guys with the bad hair and something to prove.

Glad we're in agreement. I'm sorry, but the "Can-Do" spirit that was as much a Texan characteristic along with cattle, horses, cowboys, oil, and NASA has just about withered away and died. Nowadays, when someone proposes a radical idea, even controversial (Trans-Texas Corridor, Dallas Cowboys stadium, world's tallest building, a subway, and underground freeways in Houston, the Olympics, and so on), the main comments are always "why it won't work" or "what's wrong with it" or something of that vein. It's too bad because the old Texan bravado of "watch us do this no matter what you say" what made other states jealous but to me (as a native non-Texan) was the main draw of the state. I don't care about taxes and cost of living as much. I've lived in other places that were more expensive and would have been used to it. But the Texan can-do spirit and Texan pride ("Don't Mess with Texas"; "It's like a whole other country"; "Deep in the Heart of Texas"; "Everything's Bigger in Texas") is unlike any other state in the Union. There is no other state where you can see the shape of the state on almost everything you can think of--phone book ads, business logos, small-town police departments, rural county logos, restaurant signs, and so on.

Whether or not the building happens, I wouldn't mind if this discussion became more about where the "We can get it done like no other because we're Texans" has gone and whether or not it can it come back.

Despite its faults, Texas is the best state in the US, IMO. Not because of its size (it's #2) or its population (also #2) but because of the Texan pride that still exists at least in perception around the US.

Sorry for the tangential rant!

On that note, I'm not sure that he actually can.

Maybe you're not, but it's not really for you to say whether he can or not. Do you know his porfolio? Do you know his level of wealth?

Let's not forget people that the silly $500 million Astrodome conversion project seemed like a white elephant and unfeasible to the "all-knowing" Houstonians but Deutsche Bank (of all entities) saw fit to finance this thing that most everyone just knew would fail.

Is the idea outlandish? Yes. Is it crazy? Yes. Is it unreasonable? Yes. However it begs the question as to why? Is it because we can't imagine something that big and expensive being built in Houston? Is it because we can't wrap our minds around it? If this was Shanghai or Hong Kong or Seoul or especially Dubai, this would be a ho-hum development that would not surprise them as much as it surprises us.

I still maintain that we don't know what kind of "building" he has in mind. Maybe someone can superimpose a 3,000 foot CN Tower or Tower of the America's over downtown and see what that looks like.

Last thing, this is still Houston, and if he buys the land for the building and commits to building it, well there's nothing that can be done to stop him.

As buildings become taller, the general trend is for the cost per additional floor to escalate at a geometric rate. There are a few thresholds where the cost structure changes, but the bottom line is that taller is more expensive. If Younan was talking about building X,XXX number of housing units, X million square feet of office space, X,XXX hotel rooms, and XXX,XXX square feet of retail, and didn't specify a height or site, I'd take him as credible because that kind of a goal can be accomplished within a reasonable cost in any of those markets given a suitable site. But that kind of a plan in such a vertical building is going to be a flop.

I'm not going to shy away from saying it because he's smart enough to know it himself. I'd think that being ingenuine could only possibly be taken as an insult by such a masterful capitalist.

I agree that he likely knows these things. However, like I said--so far he's said nothing about whether or not it makes (dollars and) sense. He wants to do it because, well, he can. It's more economical to buy certain goods or pay for certain services at the lowest cost possible, but we don't always do that, do we? Sometimes we pay for and do things just because we can. His "because he can" is just at a different scale from most of us.

You people are right. The only thing that Houston can hope for--that makes sense--is Hines' 47 stories, but even that's really only 37 stories. Houston is much more sensical than these other poser cities. What do they know?

Seriously, if the guy wants to build the thing in Houston, let him. As you can see, he has said NOTHING in his article about the economics. This is only about status and bragging rights. Isn't that what was said on this very forum about what it would take to have a building constructed here of 800-900 feet or more, like the giants from the past oil boom? If I remember correctly, the forum economists and realists thought that anything taller than 40 stories begins losing its economic feasibility (or something like that). If he's trying to brag, let him brag. After all, that used to be one of the great things about Texas--the ability to brag and then back it up.

Now, we've become *too* realistic here (I personally think that the city is gun-shy from the energy bust in the 80s). Besides, who said that the guy wan't 3,000 feet of office space? 3,000 feet of condo space? Think outside the box fo a moment...maybe it'll be like CN Tower in Toronto or maybe like Freedom Tower in New York (not 1776 ft. worth of usable space).

I think that we should get out of our own way and let the guy take a look at us. If he decides that Houston can't host his trophy building, let him do that--it's his money. But we shouldn't say, "Mr. Younan, you don't wanna look at Houston. You'll just fail here."

After all, who among us would say to a person looking to hire for a job, "Yes, I know that you want me to manage this division in your company, but trust me, you don't want me. All I'm good for is crunching numbers. The increase in pay would be nice, but you don't want me--I'm not qualified." Most of us would at least go for the interview and let the company decide if we were qualified or not.

Sometimes outside eyes can see things that inside eyes can't.

Thanks fernz! Any idea on how it may look at night? I'm just glad a new one is coming, regardless!

People might accept the dance clubs more if they looked better. I agree with the poster above -- many times they look like abandoned buildings during the day.

What would be great is if a place could be a nice average restaurant during the day, and then at night turn into a dance club, or maybe has a dance club upstairs. Obviously, there's something wrong with this idea or it would have been done in the past.

Taco Milagro at Kirby and Westheimer is like this I think. It's a restaurant but pretty known for Latin dancing some nights.

The problem isn't traffic. It is congestion.

Only if by worse, you mean that the additional lanes make it less costly to travel, thereby inducing more trips. I'd contend that traffic volume, all other things being held equal, is an indicator of the public's well-being.

What's the "all-things" that are being considered equal? I say that because New Orleans has HORRIBLE traffic congestion today, has been since Katrina, and some will tell you that it's actually worse than pre-Katrina and the city is half of what it was before. I don't think it's necessarily an indication of that city's "public" well-being because the first thought in one's mind is likely "where the heck did you people come from...and where are you going...I thought the place was struggling and on life support." There's no way that it's all contractors, either.

Regarding "building out of congestion" and using the belt-loosening analogy, I'd say that yes, CDeb, building transit is building our way out of congestion. Building transit would be like loosening your belt at Thanksgiving; building more new travel lanes would be more like putting on a whole new and bigger pants size at Thanksgiving.

I agree - except for the vacant building part. But i think it's important that these spaces don't remain empty and decay. We need something to take the place of those abandoned clubs and keep main street alive.

Yeah, I was exaggerating with the vacant building part--but Houston 19514 makes a great point...they're basically "vacant" during the day and most of the week anyway.

For now, it appears Midtown will be the next place, though things are still pretty scattered there. Sooner or later it will move out of Midtown, too.

One thing that might concern people this time is that, while the observation that the club scene does tend to move around a lot is correct, it hasn't ever seen the investment poured into making it permanent like it did in Downtown. The bars and clubs of Richmond Strip, Shepherd Plaza, Lower Westheimer and such were 1/10 or less of a cash outlay to get going. They were built to be disposable. Owners bought into Downtown to stay there a long time and many lost big. It's not easy to rebound from something like that. HP may be our last chance to see a thriving restaurant, club and bar scene develop in this area and stick. Rather than just dismissing the cyclical pattern as the nature of the business in Houston, perhaps we should look at some causes, to try to avoid this fate in the future.

Metro's lack of vision in destroying the district's infrastructure all at once was a big factor that Downtown just never seemed to shake off. But I believe changing demographics in mainstream clubbing presented the most problems for owners, and will continue to do so, as long as that business continues to be as racially divided as it is. Simply stated, Houston is a town where there are a lot of well-heeled minorities with disposable income for bars and clubs -- more so than many cities, where many of the club-goers at the most posh establishments tend to be white tourists and can recycle. I know there are plenty of notable exceptions to that last statement, but bear with me...

Mainstream club owners open up with the goal of attracting a mostly white audience and build their ambiance to that crowd, as that's how its generally thought money can be made the fastest. Then, about a year in, long before their seven-figure investment is paid off, Houston's small number of tourists and the "Fickle 500" have moved on and are replaced by local, often monied, Black and Asian patrons. They only stick around for a short time, as the atmosphere is slow to change, while the club owner resists re-tooling, in a desperate attempt to save his sinking ship. I've known a few of these guys and they all say the same thing -- they believe as soon as the Black or Asian crowd moves in, the club is done. It's racist and wrong, but it is the prevailing attitude.

So, this club can't support the minority audience that wants to go there and it repels the white audience that no longer finds it relevant. White people in Houston don't feel comfortable around large groups of minorities. Many club owners actually try to push away the paying customers they have to lure them back, but it's too late by then. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the club owner is left scratching his head and looking through the help wanted section of the Chron.

I believe that's the reason for the transient nature of Houston's club and bar scene. It's like that in some other cities, too, but not really to the degree we see here. Most other places have a steady influx of tourists that can keep hospitality industries a little more consistent. Here, it's all about the locals and Houston is a diverse city. I hate to say it, but perhaps we should look to Atlanta for some ideas on this matter.

What does this have to do with Houston Pavilions? Well, the local bar and club districts that have bucked the trend I describe above, like The Village, Clear Lake and the 1960 North Side have done so because they have been largely insulated from minorities and have kept their operations quite small, attracting more of a local, neighborhood clientele. There just isn't enough going on in The Village to make most people of color want to drive half-way across town to try it out. HP will be different, though. They will be on people's radar -- everyone's radar. Bayou Place's failure to really take hold should be of prime interest to the developers of HP. I believe it suffers partly from the condition I describe above, as it cannot exist independently from the prevailing Downtown vibe.

It will be an interesting experiment to see if Houston has reached the maturity level to put its racist ways behind it. Because, in order to be successful, HP will have to attract locals -- there aren't enough tourists to keep it going over the long term. I hope, for our sake the club owners have learned, because this time, we're talking nine figures.

I say good riddance, anyway. Clubs (specifically nightclubs/danceclubs) are the biggest waste of space on the planet next to crackhouses. I can't stand them. They're good for nothing but noise, drunks, and fights. Give me a restaurant anyday--something that anyone can go to and feel comfortable. Something that will be open in the daytime during the week instead of only late at night. Or if it must be a club, make it a jazz club. If I can't have that, then just give me a vacant building instead.

Dalparadise, people may not like what you've written about the nightclub scene, but I can totally understand what you're saying. I actually hope that HP avoids filling itself with nightclubs like the plague. I detest the nightclub-going scene much like TheNiche seems to not like yuppies.

Sorry for the rant. Nightclubs are just a waste. A complete and total waste. Now jazz clubs--different story.

Just wanted to say that I drove through Afton Oaks a few months ago for the first time and gotta say it's a pretty nice 'hood. The nicer parts are of course away from Richmond, north of it and south of Westheimer. However, I'll also say that it's character is going away pretty quickly with a lot of tear-downs and replacements with McMansions.

So Afton Oaks is gonna change with or without LRT.

They try to seperate LRT vehicles from traffic except at intersections, but it 1) takes away lanes from drivers, and 2) disrupts the grid.

So you would rather there be no separation, with the LRTs sharing lanes with motor vehicles? Because if so, that's not what the Portland and San Diego systems are. IIRC, they are still separated, they just have almost an "understood" separation (some of Portland's system has similar buttons to Houston). You don't drive on the tracks--so drivers still lose a lane, it's just not really marked off as much.

If you go to www.lightrail.net and look at the photos, you'll see that Houston's system is not much different than other American applications at all. Then maybe your problem isn't with Metro's application of LRT as much as its the American interpretation and application of LRT.

Personally, I like their way and the completely grade-seperated approach. Our in-between approach is something I don't care for.

What's in-between about Houston's?