GovernorAggie

Took these around 7:30 AM today. Didn't want to get too close because workers were looking annoyed at me. They've already got chairs inside and they're building benches. There's a staircase right inside the door that goes to the second floor, so looks like the first two floors will be the market/restaurant.

And there's a new "Byrd's" sign in gold above the entrance.

The crane is now up!

Most of their projects look very similar. I hope they bring something different to Houston.

While I agree that their work all looks very similar, we really don't have anything in Houston besides Mosaic that is of the style they use.

Nice article in today's Chronicle.

The coolest thing I saw aside from the building itself was the fact that they sold the other half of the block to Novare out of Atlanta. They're behind some great residential towers, including the Avenue in Charlotte and 360 in Austin.

A Novare building someday in that part of downtown would add a lot to the skyline and would help the residential component of DT.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/features/6556005.html

www.novaregroup.com

Another Houston sighting, courtesy of the George Lopez show. Wells Fargo Tower and 1100 Louisiana shown as a meeting site from an older (2002-ish) episode.

During the George Lopez mega-marathon on Nick-at-Nite last week, there was an episode where his daughter and her baseball player boyfriend got arrested. When George and his (who might be an epic definition of a woman, IMO) wife went to pick her up, there's a map of Houston can you can clearly see. It's displayed rather prominently and often.

Big Constance Marie fan here

Suprise this has not been posted..

From Swamplot

http://swamplot.com/a-few-reservations-abo...04-06/#comments

Maybe not bad news. At first, we had "2009", now we have "September 2009" as a possibility.

First crane is up!

FWIW, the bases for two cranes were installed a couple weeks ago. The work is moving along very quickly as well!

Yes, two thumbs up for KeyMaps! I have GPS on my phone too, but to look something up quickly, KeyMaps is the way to go. Besides, sometimes the GPS likes to take me on the "MapQuest" route--if you know what I mean...

Just watched Smallville Season 7 on blu-ray with my fiancee. In a scene near the very end of the season finale, Downtown is featured pretty prominently.You can easily see Wells Fargo, Chase, part of Bank of America, and Heritage Tower. If you'll remember sometime last year, Heritage Tower's lights were on in the shape of a seven. I guess they did that b/c they were included in season 7's finale.

I think the ground breaking for today. At least a special tent is onsite like there was or will be.

They've had heavy equipment on-site for probably a week or so now doing some drilling and other things.

I agree, I think we need to give HP time.

I wasn't impressed with the Denver Pavilions when it opened, and frankly, I'm still not all that impressed.

However, downtown Denver has gradually gotten better and better over the years since the 16th Street Mall opened. So much so, that the DP is just another part of the whole scene, not the focal point.

My sense is that the redevelopment of the LoDo area has been the biggest positive force in downtown Denver. Unfortunately, Houston doesn't have as big a reservoir of interesting 100-year-old brick-or-stone-clad buildings downtown. Despite that, I think if we continue to get a variety of interesting redevelopments downtown -- not necessarily all big ones -- I think Houston will do well.

I think Houston has a decent stock of historic buildings on the north side of DT, but even moreso, a TON of parking lots available (read: blank slates) to make something great. I personally see either the far southeast corner of DT near St. Joseph's and/or the far northeast corner around MMP, Irma's, etc. more of a mid-rise (4-8 floors) mixed use residential retail area. Downtown already has the bones--great street grid, very wide sidewalks in many areas, plenty of vehicle movement capacity, and up-to-date infrastructure--to be a really great blend of uses. It will take time, but it will happen I'm sure. Throw in the influx of hotels between MMP and GRB, and maybe around Toyota Center, that could be spurred by the city's rebate of hotel taxes and there could be a lot of stuff going on.

For some reason that link wont open. What is it?

It's a link to the leasing information site (Lovett Commercial).

He has a ROSS identifed on the site plan also:

http://www.lovettcommercial.com/index.php?...mp;listingID=19

New Developments:

it looks like its up to Larry Catuzzi and Gene Locke for their recommendations on the proposal

"The Dynamo want to know if the stadium project is going to go forward by the end of the year."

Article from Fox News

i dont know guys, we'll see

I don't understand what's so hard about this. Not one but TWO county commisioners passing the buck. Worthless. Garcia wants to know how her constituents feel? Hello! Many of your constituents are represented by the organizations at the press conference. And Lee's getting people to look at the project in order to tell him whether or not its a good deal? Is he afraid to make a decision?

This makes me wonder again why we have the county commissioners (other than the whole state law thing ). Make a decision already! These negotiations have gone on for almost 3 years!

Reading the above quote again brings about a sheer irony. Garcia wants "the constituents" to tell her what they want (seems that they already have). On the other hand, Lee wants 2 people to decide for him.

Am I reading this right? Two people (who we have no idea where and what they're connected to) could decide this project?

This really is a distinct possibility. Even major retailers aren't as sophisticated as you might think, and the third-party demographics that they're using don't account for a lot of growth that I know has already occurred around downtown. And to the extent that growth is accounted for, it basically assumes that existing households only mature and that new households are similar to existing households. I can think of at least three zip codes that are going to look on paper like they transformed overnight.

Well to be honest I must give you credit Niche. Your previous analysis about retailers and the Census vs. the changes we know are happening and lax Claritas data is how I understood the significance of the 2010 Census.

As to the three ZIPs--this could be fun...my guesses would be 77003, 77004, and maybe 77023. As much as I pull for 77002 and 77011, I just don't think they're there yet.

Unfortunately, I agree with this. If HP fails, which I think is definitely a possibility after seeing the finished product, it would be because the developers played it too safe. It tries to be all of the things above, but it comes short on all accounts.

I disagree that this is the finished product. It's still got a ways to go. Even when all the known tenants open, it will have 40% of space left to lease. I see that as a ton of possibility for approximately 120,000 sf of retail that's available. In fact, it would not surprise me that HP would be on a lot of retailers' radars after this economy hopefully straightens out. And if it straightens out round about the same time that 2010 Census numbers come out, we could be in for a construction frenzy in HP, the rest of downtown, and adjacent areas that could rival some of the go-go days of the past.

It looks like the landscaping has been installed around the new parking garage at Bagby and Allen Parkway, so I am wondering if there won't be any additional work done on the design or facade of the structure? I read that a Heritage Plaza parking garage design received an architecture prize, but obviously what now exists isn't distinguished.

A few months ago, I saw a contemporary, organic-looking grid piece that was probably 20 feet square hoisted up to the 3rd or 4th floor. Obviously, the grid was taken down and wasn't put back up, but it sure would be an improvement over what we see now.

Anyone with a better clue out there?

Good question. I was wondering the same thing last night when I was driving by it. There's a rendering of what it was supposed to look like here on HAIF, but I (or someone) will have to search for it. Or better yet, the mods can merge this topic with the existing one.

Back on point, I would not want to be staying in the Doubletree across from this thing. It would be WAY too bright at night, a la the Hines garage downtown.

I've noticed it too. I like it much better! It definitely has more impact on the skyline.

What are the hours at this place? Is it open later than 5 pm or on weekends? If so I might ride the rail down to check it out tomorrow evening after I finish my take home exam in solid state physics!

Books-A-Million is open to 11 pm everyday except Sunday, which is when it closes at 9.

Just drove by again tonight... they have been putting trees in, no palm trees thankfully. They also put in the House of Blues sign... and lit up some of the blue lights. Looks good... of course they are opening in 4 days.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the palm trees are already installed in the middle block courtyard area. They reach to at least the second floor and it looks to be at least four of them.

Other than that, M&S looks good, and there's more signage--Forever 21, M&S, and some place on the second floor of the easternmost block (can't remember the name but it had the look of a temporary sign) as well as HOB.

While i'm excited about this development, I'm very disappointed in the architecture and the miniscule lighting effects so far. I thought this thing was supposed to be ornamented with video screens?

I'd say give it time! It's October but they haven't even put the signs up yet. I think that the finishing touches will compensate for the yawn architecture of most of the place. At least I hope so. FWIW, I saw wires hanging outside the building at the Main/Polk corner, so there should be some sort of electrical something going up there.

By the way, though the development looks underwhelming in pics or driving by, it still is impressive when walking along all three blocks of it.

If not the oz-like nightscape, then what is it?

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I love the look of the Ship Channel at night! From the 610 bridge it reminds a little of the Machine City from the third (awful) Matrix movie that Neo "saw" while he was blind.