toxtethogrady

Currently estimated to break ground on January 4th, 2015.

That makes two residential highrises breaking ground in the first week of the new year.

1111 took a while to get started but is moving up smartly. Same thing will probably happen with this one.

I'm sort of hoping the pullback in oil prices will put a hiatus on the "there is a shortage of everything" problem that Houston has had for the past year. It will be interesting to see how significant the impacts are from there...

Don't feel bad about the slowness. Fort Worth has been working on the downtown courthouse for more than two years.

HSPVA doesn't have cranes yet.

 

What is the obsession with the W brand?

I was in one of the first W Hotels when it opened in San Francisco in 2000. Very hip, very cool, very much ambient music and subdued colors. The problem is everyone else has seen what was done with the W and is imitating it. I'm guessing the ZaZa and the Sorella have the same stylistic points, and I'm anxious to see what the Indigo offers. The Derek is good, but very hip-hop. You almost expect to see the visiting teams that are playing the Rockets there.

"It would be only the second Alessandra brand. The first is under construction in Houston."

Do they know something we don't?

I didn't know Ruggles had inserted itself into the ground floor of this building. Progress of a sort. 

LOL - I love how in the pic the guy's right blinker is on in a left turn only lane, smh. 

It wouldn't be Houston without it.

That's pretty massive for what looks like a wood-frame apartment complex. I guess they tried to make sure this one wouldn't burn down.

They moved fast. It got to the top floor in about half a year.

It's got farther to rise, but the building has a bit of a wide base.

I did not take pics over the weekend, but the crane is definitely up and the project is moving ahead. I hope the Colombe d'Or isn't too badly disturbed.

Looks like the Exxon Mobil buildings are just about done.

My god that's massive! I thought they were working on 2 buildings at best.

I think they are only building the two, but they're large floor plates. The additional buildings are going to be more warehouse/industrial, as far as I know.

Government more visionary than private sector? Uh, no thanks. Obama didn't make electric cars work, Elon Musk did. NASA can't take us to space without blowing up every fifth time, but the private sector is figuring it out on 1/1000th the budget.

Actually, that's false, as the last couple of private-venture rockets blew up on launch. Government seems to be ahead in this race.

Also, while you're hating on government, I hope you're appreciating the government-created internet that's allowing you to do so here.

Water wall, eh? Because Hines liked the one out at the Galleria so much...

In other words, typical for Midtown.

I will be moving to a far less exciting, but far more widely affordable boulevard - Winrock. 

You see, this is where the oil bust is supposed to help you out. But I think Houston's affordability days are over.

The picture of the apartments seems to indicate they're not all that old and not all that decrepit. Seems they should have had a few more useful years left in them.

Fitch worries, but cites factors that are 1) not unique to Houston, and 2) more likely to have prevented a bubble from forming.

http://swamplot.com/tanking-oil-prices-place-houston-second-on-fitchs-overvalued-housing-market-list/2014-12-23/

So now we know more than we knew. Given recent hikes in rents, rail-served affordable housing is going to be very much in demand. 

This hotel just broke ground. I think it was announced earlier in the cycle; the rendering looks familiar:

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2014/12/shenandoah-to-welcome-its-first-full-service-hotel-in-2016/

The lag implies that the drop in real estate activity will be delayed 6-12 months, and when it happens, the next uptick will be delayed by 6-12 months.

A possible cushion is Houston's buoyant housing market, which has fewer "underwater" mortgages than all but San Francisco and San Jose (and we have the merit that our football team may yet make the playoffs).

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2014/12/19/fewer-homes-underwater-but-foreclosures-rising-in.html

But things continue to move in this town. HBJ has a story about a halal franchise from New York moving in with plans for ten stores. Of all the places in Texas, it could only happen in Houston.

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/morning_call/2014/12/nycs-halal-guys-chain-coming-to-houston.html

The problem is oil markets turn on a dime. At least analyst at Bloomberg thinks oil will be back to $80 by Q4 of 2015. Al Naimi is an absolutely unflappable card player.