jgriff

Acute labor shortages. It's already a given that you have to clean up their addictions, but that would be true whether you put them on a rig or left them on the street. Getting them a steady income and a skill makes it worth their while to go straight. And maybe they'll become reliable tenants, which is what anyone who owns apartments wants.

Very few of them have the life skills to handle having a job that requires showing up everyday on time, not doing drugs and getting along with others. If they had these skills there is a good chance they wouldn't be homeless. Putting them through some class isn't going to solve these problems. It's very difficult finding dependable people even among the population that isn't homeless.

I've always wondered why we didn't do launches from this location. It's just about as far South as you can get in the U.S. and the further South you go the less energy you need to get to orbit. 

The launch site needs to be as close to the equator as possible to use the rotation of the earth for a boost. 

Often I don't agree with architectural criticism that happens on HAIF. Sometimes people want things that the market just doesn't allow. In this case I completely agree. This building is awful. I hope it looks better in person. 

That's the first Mexican food I remember having. We ate at the one in Beaumont in the early 70s about once a month. My brother didn't like the "exotic" Mexican food so he would go next door and get a burger from Burger Chef.

assuming this is cuurent i guess this piece of property was not acquired by midway.... their CityCentre North campus is much more modern and substantially larger. i believe Munoz is the architect.

http://www.munozalbin.com/29-city-center-north.html

Where is this one going? This looks a lot like some of the renderings for Citycentre 5 but that's listed as a seperate project on the Munoz website.

It is an amazingly large garage... looks like it could support another large tower.

The garage is for Bechtel tower. I worked there until recently. We heard that it is actually still undersized for the building. 

There was a concrete pour on the site this morning.

When I used to walk in downtown daily I just chose the side of the street that had shadows from the surrounding buildings. If there are enough buildings around you can walk a long distance almost never being exposed to the sun.

Trees are much better than no trees though.

you'd rethink that when the birds roost in the evenings.

damn grackles.

Is this a problem that's unique to downtown? I've never had it anywhere I've lived. There are huge trees right outside my window right now. Yes, there are birds in the trees sometimes but it doesn't bother me. I did have a bird living in a dryer vent oustide an apartment window once. That was annoying.

Oh nevermind those are definitely too big and blocking all of that view from the 2nd/3rd floor. 

If I was on the 2nd or 3rd floor I'd rather have the view of the trees.

There's a great view of this tower from the Williams Tower-Galleria skywalk. Next time I'm there I'll try to get a pic.

I've heard that the 3000 Post Oak and 3040 Post Oak buildings will be for sale also. This will all take place when the garage you can see under construction directly to the South of the site that's for sale is completed.

There's another big concrete pour going on this morning on the site.

This makes me lose faith in our developers and engineers who can't fasten turbines to a building so that they won't fall during normal operation.  Now them falling off due to a hurricane is understandable and acceptable, but on a typical windy day?  We've tackled much greater challenges than this, this is just pathetic in my opinion.

I'm sure they could be engineered to not fail. There is no reason to spend the money required to do that. Wind turbines like this were just a stupid stunt designed to impress the gullible.

Sage is blocked off today for tower crane erection.

It was briefly mentioned via the link in the BLVD Place thread 

in December by the Midway Co's CEO that they would be announcing a residential component to Greenstreet downtown and this Memorial Green development not too far from City Centre this month.

 

He started to speak in depth about upcoming mixed-use developments around Houston at the 12:45 minute mark and specifically mentioned this Memorial Green project (a joint venture with Methodist near Lantern Ln and Memorial Dr.) around the 15 minute mark.

If he mentioned Lantern Lane then it is definitely the lot across Memorial from Fresh Market.

I think this might be on Memorial Drive directly across from Fresh Market. I think Houston Methodist owns the empty lot there and this matches the description I've heard of what will be going on that lot. This is almost pure speculation so take it with a grain of salt.

I don't intend to be anything but peaceable about it, but we are just continuing to disagree at length. Writing "essays" tests my understanding about how I think through stuff and finding a contrary opinion gives me a chance to walk through my logic. Sometimes I change my mind as a result, so far I haven't here. 

 

Allowing people to do what they want with their property is really important to me, as is our right to criticize.

 

If someone wasted as much space talking about a project as we have here, I'd probably read what they have to say, so maybe you'll clue them in. At the end of the day, you're idea probably would make the area better even in my opinion; if changing it would be worth it to them, only they can say.  

Allowing people to do what they want with their property is really important to me, as is our right to criticize. +++

This is much more important than having "public spaces".

There was a big concrete pour going on this morning at this site. Three pumper trucks.

But they don't shop, it's been proven. Look at what happened to the shopping center at Houston Center, all their brand-name retailers left. And look at what happened to Foley's. And Houston pavillions couldn't get any retail other than restaurants and entertainment. Retail follows rooftops, it's an old adage, it's tried and true.

No, they don't shop. They mostly are going to eat.

I did walk to the midtown Randall's for Groceries about once a week.

I worked downtown for serveral years. On weekdays that the weather is nice the streets are crowded with people. It's not dead. A LOT of people come out of the tunnels.

I'd love to have this house and keep it as close to original as possible. Unfortunatley it's about $900k out of my price range.

i understand, and i should of reworded my post, because frankly i wouldnt care if they built a tower on this plot in the energy corridor, it would just be more visually striking to see a skyscraper out there than a cluster of 12 story boxes that blend in with everything else.. even a couple neat 20 something story buildings with a few skybridges, but i guess they didnt want to make a statement. ah well, the walk across campus is better for the employees rather than taking an elevator in a tower.

sorry, i let my skyscraper aficionado mentality take over in my posts sometimes.. i realize we cant have skyscrapers everywhere.

A group of small towers costs less than the same amount of square footage in a tall one.

The buildings are actually being developed by Metro National, a developer in the business of building buildings than can attract top-dollar rents. So making the buildings attractive is an easy part of the equation. Of course they also have to be efficient, in good location and so on, but aesthetics are important, ask Hines.

The tenants are ultimately paying the bills.

In the office moves I've been involved in the attractiveness of the building never came into the equation. People care more about ease of access, where they can get to for lunch, quantity of parking and building amenities. This is a company involved in a low profile part of the energy industry, flashy architecture is not something they are going to be interested in.