ToryGattis

I am unaware of any city that has done this. Perhaps you could give us some examples. I do know that several of Houston's closest competitors as far as population have NOT done this. Dallas, Atlanta and Miami have numerous districts with midsize office buildings similar to Houston's Galleria, Greenspoint and Westchase.

A quick look at the location of the Houston HQs reveals that 15 of the 27 F500 companies are located in downtown. There is no rational argument that they would not be there if Houston had 'forced' everyone into one downtown. They choose to be downtown regardless. Of the other 12 HQs, 4 are in the Galleria and 4 in the Energy Corridor. 4 are located next to their manufacturing plants, such as on Hardy Road or NW Beltway 8. None of your arguments applies to these companies.

Frankly, it sounds like you simply chose this topic to tout more freeways and no zoning, when they have little or nothing to do with it. Even your aggressive annexation argument is weak, as no F500 companies are located in Kingwood, Clear Lake or even Greenspoint. The locations of all of Houston's HQs appear to have been Houston addresses for decades.

EDIT: The F500 HQs in Sugarland and The Woodlands moved there after the freeways were expanded. That being the case, how is this an argument that aggressive freeway expansion kept them in Houston?

I think Dallas' and Atlanta's relatively loose/easy zoning - including allowing multiple business districts - is also part of why they rank so well. I'm not arguing the 15 downtown would not be there, but that might be all we'd have - about the same as Dallas, coincidentally. As far as annexation, I am including the many decades of expansion, including the "freeway arms" that have protected the ETJ. Otherwise, I think we'd have our own equivalents of Plano, Richardson, Las Colinas, etc. relatively close-in that would have attracted multiple HQs, just as they did in Dallas. Freeway expansion didn't stop all from going to Sugar Land, The Woodlands, etc. - but it kept most.

In most cities, zoning CREATES these business districts. Interesting that you think that Houston's lack of zoning did it. As for strong freeway construction, I fail to see how the West Loop and Katy Freeways kept any corporations in the Galleria and Westchase/Energy Corridor, considering those were our two most congested freeways until a year ago.

I think I would chalk it up to our energy capital status myself.

In most cities, they create one major biz district - downtown - and try to push all skyscrapers there. If a large employer doesn't find that convenient, they often will move outside of the city limits to find or build the building or campus size they want (as I noted in my previous post: most are in the metros, not the core cities - NYC and Houston being major exceptions). Without zoning, we ended up with multiple large job/business centers to choose from within the city limits. If we had gone with the typical 'one downtown' zoning approach, I believe a lot more of our F500 HQs would be in Sugar Land and The Woodlands.

The West Loop and the Katy Fwy have been major problems until recently, as you point out. But before them were the 59 expansions (north and south) and the Hardy and Beltway 8 toll roads (not to mention multiple 45 widenings over the years), which substantially improved accessibility to the core and the major job centers from the far suburbs.

The energy capital status gives us the F500s in the metro, but doesn't force them to be inside the city limits. Most auto companies/suppliers are not inside the Detroit city limits, nor tech companies in SF, nor entertainment or aerospace companies inside LA city limits.

It is an impressive margin, but it's a city-limits game. Note LA+SF=13, but there are 51 in CA, almost all of whom are in those two metro areas. Houston+Dallas=41 out of 64 Texas, and most of those missing 23 are in the Metroplex, including #1 Exxon (although I think Houston metro still comes out ahead overall).

But Houston does deserve a lot of kudos for managing to keep almost all of its metro F500s inside the city limits and contributing to the tax base. I think that can be chalked up to aggressive annexation, no zoning (allowing multiple skyscraper job centers, inc. dt, uptown, TMC, Westchase, Energy Corridor, Greenspoint, etc.), and strong freeway construction/expansion allowing employees in the far suburbs to have reasonable commutes to the core.

See http://wwgc.org/

How did Candelari's not make the short list?

Long live King Mike's!

http://www.candelaris.com/

While we're on the topic, can anyone confirm/deny the urban legend that the wall is part of the Williams Tower's HVAC system? My suspicions are that it's not, but every once in a while I hear someone say this.

I'm almost certain it's not: they turn it off much of the time, esp. during droughts.

I would guess homeless tend to congregate where the panhandling opportunities are good. In Houston, that's at major street intersections - especially along freeway frontage roads - and not so much downtown where workers often stay in the tunnels.

Are you talking about the new flood control drainage park by the westbound 610 loop feeder, across from the Metro park and ride?

Well, I went to the TXDoT public meeting on this, but I don't have any links other than my own blog post on it. They had comprehensive drawings, including some innovative entrances and exits near the Medical Center. The 4 lanes will be a congestion priced toll road. Current plan is construction start by 2010, with completion in stages between 2012 and 2014

I once heard they had a goal of 10,000, but were quite a long way from it.

OK, here we go. 4,600. See here.

I usually pick the best coupon deal I can find here

http://www.airportdiscountparking.com/

or here

http://www.longtermparking.com/texas.htm

or here

http://www.airportparkingreservations.com

The shuttles all seem to be pretty prompt.

These guys were great with the coupon last time - very affordable and fast shuttle service:

http://www.fastparkandrelax.com/fprelax/houston.aspx

I think the new collaborative research center building with Rice - at the corner of University and Main - is supposed to have a large first-floor food court.

This press release says "10,000 square feet of retail space for a restaurant and shops".

OK, here's more.

You know, I think I remember reading something once about a mega-food-court in the works for the TMC, with a more upscale sit-down restaurant on top. Can't remember where I saw it though.

Here is the AP story on it:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5321166.html

There is more construction going on at the medical center than the rest of Houston combined, with about 60 percent of the construction cranes in the city at the world-renown facility.

It ranks 17th on a list of major downtown business districts nationally, just below Los Angeles, and would shoot up to seventh with all the planned construction, said Richard Wainerdi, the president and chief executive of the medical center.

Ahh, I get it now. I think they're ranking based on square footage - not jobs. And, of course, with all the space for patients, medical facilities will tend to have a higher ratio of sq.ft per job than a typical cluster of office buildings.

Here's the Fox News version of the story.

7 years

30,000 new jobs on top of the 73,000 already there

Doubling the land area

$7 billion investment

Unfortunately, if you check out this ranking of CBDs on p.11, with 103,000, it looks like it would ranked around #13 - similar to Minneapolis or Cleveland. And that's without considering non-central business districts, like Uptown/Galleria, which is still larger.

Still very impressive. Hope the LRT picks up a lot of that, because I'm pretty sure the street grid can't handle it.

Here's a post I did a while back, showing the combined job growth forecast for our core triangle - downtown + uptown + Greenway + TMC - would put us just behind NYC and Chicago if it were considered a single CBD.

Actually, I believe the translucent roof will let in real light. The question is whether they will clear the roof panels or not. I think they will have to if they want the plants to grow. The panels originally allowed for natural grass for the baseball field, but the sun blinded outfielders, so they darkened the panels. That killed the grass, and Astroturf was invented...