strickn

But I'd also be sliding at a big discount into the shell Whole Foods has vacated prematurely out at the great Brazos-Bagby at Elgin-Westheimer street grid collision

@HoustonIsHomeYou had me at Aldi on the previous page of this thread.  Their cost is all in the refrigerated distribution center capacity, which they have in Rosenberg already, so the marginal cost of trying a lease in 800 Bell would be far less than a big box grocer would face

If I'm a manager there I'm reading your proposal and thinking with a favorable lease agreement I could be looking at a promotion for inventing us an urban hermit crab business case we didn't know we had

Isn't numbing spectacle and distraction the only stock in trade?  I don't see the Rockets' owner being able to compete with the new Fontainebleau (67 floors, three or four thousand rooms, 36 restaurants etc) that is about to open.

Don't know what the shelf life of the average hotspot would be, though

The design of this proposed garge is kind of random vis a vis the other phases of the project.  It's like they are going too far into novelty for an urban city block in order to balance the "over-bland-sameness for any actual future urban neighborhood" vibe on the institutional side of the scales

But it does look to me like that garage roof could fit at _least_ four more tennis courts on the top level without breaking a sweat

Has a Fort Worth vibe but if trees and vines could be trellised over the parking lots it could provide some starter urbanism without breaking the bank

2 hours ago, Highrise Tower said:

 

If by 'life science' you mean A Whole Flock of Astroworlds, then yes, that sounds like an idea whose time has come.

Apparently the first substantial stretch of city street was only in 1914.  Will have to go check it out next time I'm that way, Lord willing.

https://www.worldcement.com/the-americas/22062016/texas-oldest-concrete-road-is-celebrated-316/amp/

(In a Texas city that is)

A little fact checking amends Detroit's claim a little bit but they were still the first network of more than just a couple miles of modernish concrete and they reached 60+ miles of it during the early years of that decade.

Their famed first milelong stretch of Woodward Avenue between Six Mile and Seven Mile was done in 1909.

But I haven't sought any similar archives about where were the very early driveable parkways in Texas.

On 10/17/2022 at 1:23 PM, Highrise Tower said:

What were the roads and freeways like back when Pierce Junction was booming? I would like to take a look back at the life style back then.  I know a few key roads were Almeda and Holmes.  Were there any other big roads around back then? What about Airport Blvd? I believe West Bellfort/Willowbend/Buffalo Speedway wasn't even constructed yet. 

I did hear about a fatal car wreck near Pierce Junction, on the San Antonio Highway.  Where exactly was that? Modern day Highway 288?

By our standards no freeways in 1920s Houston.  Not sure when Wayside Drive was completed but that was neither a road to another part of Texas, nor a regular multimodal city street, so it may have been viewed as the equivalent of a strange traffic bypass — even though development including single family homes still occurred along it in convenient areas.

My guess is that San Antonio Highway was our Old Spanish Trail, and got there via two-lane asphalt at most.  Remember that the first mile of concrete pavement in the world, in Detroit, was completed in the 1910s.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/blair-kamin/ct-biz-one-bennett-park-reveiw-kamin-20190731-qnrzqs4vrfabfnculy2k4lv634-story.html
 

a serious consideration of the merits and consequences of RAMSA's design decisions and a critique of their One Bennett Park for Related in Chicago, too

I could see this particular condo complex proposal's design belonging in either Germany or Indianapolis, but not too many other places.

and I hope you don't take anything I've said as a character criticism because I have plenty of flaws in terms of wishing for the recognition of the value of my contributions.  I'm not throwing stones.

You're here like you hope it's your career.

It does change your tone regardless of what you do or don't add to a discussion in informative terms.

Chat room participants don't want to be part of anyone's job to do list,

17 hours ago, Naviguessor said:

...and Yuck.  Looks like something you'd see in Cape Coral or Lake Charles (if it had a Casino).  This will trash up the Woodlands, real good.      

RAMSA barfs these things into every city who will think they need them, like a law firm printing off forms.  Bob Stern loves NYC and its prewar architectural history and is an expert on them in addition to his service at Yale but at this point I'm not sure why even he doesn't quit messing up the limestone prewar building heritage of Manhattan and other cities by doing condo projects (30 Park Place, 3041 Broadway, 520 Park Avenue, and many equally gangly designs now populate his portfolio https://newyorkyimby.com/2021/03/renderings-reveal-ramsa-designed-residential-tower-at-14-16-fifth-avenue-in-greenwich-village-manhattan.html ) that dilute and distort the fossil record for those who like urban architecture like he does.

Clockwise from left, that's Fulshear, Pinehurst, Splendora/New Caney, Mont Belvieu, Dickinson and Iowa Colony (since nearby Manvel Town Center has its HEB and CVS now) that are the tentpegs of some giant tent nobody really wanted to build if there were an easier way to get indoor space and an easier way to make money.  Those folks need some lower hanging fruit so they can stop chewing up Texas' physiocultural possibilities 

seventy billion square foot tent per freemaptools.com (though I exchanged Dayton from the previous post for Mont Belvieu for the purpose of 2023-era accuracy)

New Caney, Pinehurst, Fulshear, Iowa Colony (since nearby Manvel Town Center has its HEB and CVS now), Dickinson and Dayton are the tentpegs of some giant tent nobody really wanted to build if there were an easier way to get indoor space and an easier way to make money

On 10/16/2023 at 8:14 PM, __nevii said:

They could at least make the garage less conspicuous, if not drastically reduce/eliminate it outright.

Am considering taking X Houston private at pennies to dollars.  Funding secured.

Speaking of those last couple of floors' worth of construction, if I know HAIF at all I bet a little of the hand-wringing and schadenfreude would both turn to self-congratulation if that flat top just turned into something more architecturally exciting next year.  X Houston needs to team up with X "the everything app don't call us twitter anymore mom" and put some cross promotional fantasy on the roof.

"Several floors into the air" seems like lazy journalistic work.  I haven't been by there to count them but I'm estimating they have poured 30 out of a total 33.  While it might make sense to remove the concrete pump for a bit, I don't see them throwing in the towel.

A number of fiercely competing scrubs outlets

even if owning 800 Bell would pwn ChevronTexaco’s main domestic E&P rival,

and demonstrate their commitment to quote carbon footprint sensitivity unquote vs killing the planet building new construction, 

and accentuate both the 1400 Smith and 1500 Louisiana towers Chevron owns outright, whose sleek blue and white bands both pay discreet homage to their architectural forebear 800 Bell

Of course, the sassiest move would be to renovate 800 Bell 🤤

but I don’t think it’s in the cards 

I was thinking the same thing today when I heard it: except more along the lines of, “Well, sounds like ChevronTexacoHess has its new office block, without ever building 1600 Louisiana, after all.”  
Others had noted in the Hess Tower thread that Hess leased, and did not own, that office space and its associated parking.  
One forumer is now speculating that headcount reductions and offshoring are coming, in which case a new tower’s floor space is not necessary.

OK, but even if they are correct, and even if you are correct that a HQ relo is finally inevitable, Bridgeland demonstrates that Chevron bureaucracy obviously still think that R&D and laboratory experimentation benefits from a separate environment.

Therefore these same senior execs could still think this way about their own HQ culture as well (à la the former Exxon God Pod up by DFW), opting for a physical plant in which management, engineering, and back office are all kept separate from the “high-ups.”

• One scenario is that they move the HQ to Austin to hang out with their Californian c-suite golf buddies from Oracle, Tesla, et cetera — maybe even bail Google out of its empty riverfront “sail” office tower, finished but not moved into yet.
• One scenario is a pod close to the airport — either IAH or AUS or another Texas airport one with better connections than AUS (meaning most likely DFW again).
• However, a third scenario would be to use newer leased space by Discovery Green for that purpose, staying close to their big campus downtown but still not on campus.  That would be a good middle ground, no matter whether they use Hess Tower itself or the new Skanska spec spaces nearby.

https://therealdeal.com/texas/houston/2023/10/22/houston-architects-name-their-favorite-least-favorite-buildings/