jgriff

I worked for a client once from Saudi Arabia that was obsessed with showing his structure in cities around the world to compare it’s height to landmarks. He had me place it next to the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, etc... wasted thousands of dollars of his company’s money. The running joke around the office of course was that he was obsessed with it for anatomical inadequacies.  He was a smart man and very nice but had such a childish attitude about height of buildings.

You CANNOT get accurate height data or compare heights with a reasonable degree of accuracy from a rendering. Perspective matters too much. With the right perspective you could make a 2 story house look taller than Chase Tower.

1 hour ago, ekdrm2d1 said:

Steak 48

What’s happening there?

I’m not sure that just because the dog park floods that it is in the wrong location. The entire park is where it is because it’s a huge area of land that’s not developed and is not privately owned. Think about the reasons for that. Could we have a park this size in another location? How about we move it 1/4 mile South into an area that floods much less often and buy 124 acres there? Kick all the people out of their houses and pay several million per acre. I think cleaning up the flood debris will be cheaper in the long run.

The flooding is not a suprise. The park was designed to flood. The dog park was redesigned this time to be more resilient.

The fire destroyed my wife’s nail shop. She’s not happy. It also damaged the Steinway store.

On 6/20/2018 at 9:29 PM, ekdrm2d1 said:

This shopping center had a fire a few days ago. Does this effect the planned tower at all?

I wouldn’t think so. The fire was not near this construction site. It was across the street and a block West.

Looks like the appraised value is about $4 million. I bet it will go for more. If we want to see how much people really care about this building someone should start a fund raiser to buy it. That’s the perfect mechanism for finding out if people really care or if they just like to b**ch.

The Kirbys took in a cousin of mine that was abandoned by her mother and raised her as their own. If I owned this place and could make more money by pushing it down and building a high rise or selling it to someone else to do the same thing I would. Keeping this building is going to cause someone to lose a lot of money. I wouldn't sacrifice a few million for other people to be able to drive by and say "Neat... an old house."  You'd have to pay me for that luxury. 

20 hours ago, Reporter said:

And NYC could get hit by a giant tsunami! 

 

I'm not saying that I think diversity is bad or that Houston wouldn't be a better place with a brighter future if it was less oil dependent. I'm just saying that I've been hearing that Houston has no future unless it changes it ways for my entire lifetime and the glass towers are still rising and the people keep moving in for some reason.

 

Anyway, I'm not losing any sleep over it because if things get too bad, Houston can always annex Austin or something.

Those predictions came true in the 80s. Many lives were ruined. If you happened to be the wrong age it would have seemed to you like Houston crashed and never recovered. My grandparents bought in the wrong neighborhood and lost a lot of money.  It could definitely happen again, in fact I'd say it's almost certainly going to happen again. Choose where you buy carefully, think about how the neighborhood would look if Houston had 15% unemployment. 

The company I'm working for is currently in the process of sending all our work to India and China. We are literally training our replacements and handing over our technology to them. Another company just down the street is so desperate for work they are designing a facility for a Chinese engineering company who will then take the design and compete against them with it. Their choice was "take this project or shutdown the company". They'll do this last project and then shutdown. 

Other countries we work with have protections in place to keep this from happening. Saudi Arabia absolutely does not allow this. When we do work for them we have to buy into a local company, use local staff and train them. We are so fascinated with "free trade" that we don't even make an attempt to get a fair deal. The rest of the world just screws us over again and again.  

1 hour ago, Reporter said:

That's right. The last 100 years of having an un-diversified economy has been very unhealthy for Houston. If we don't diversify soon it will only be a matter of time before everyone moves away and they take all the high-rise towers with them.

You are correct. We're already losing much of the petrochemical industry to India, China and South Korea thanks to people in our government who believe in the free market so much that they don't even want to negotiate on trade, they just give it all away. Electric cars will ruin the rest. Fortunately this will happen after I'm retired or dead. If I was in my 20s I'm not sure I'd invest too much of my life in Houston. I might rent instead of buying. If there really is a switch to renewable energy Houston will stagnate, house prices will drop and crime will rise. I love the city and it's been very good to me but I'm not sure about it's long term future. It could easily go down the same path as Detroit.

1 hour ago, corbs315 said:

Little bird says it's either going to be a Hungry's or a wine bar.

Which is at least kind of a shame. Why are the Houston gay bars all closing?

Maybe because we don’t need them anymore. People can be gay in any bar now and not get punched in the face, for the most part anyway.

You can get a 12kw generator that runs off natural gas for around $3k. Figure another $3k at least for installation. It will run the central a/c in your house as long as you still have gas service. When a hurricane comes and you’re without power for even one night all you will care about is a/c. 

I can see the need for a grocery store downtown. I don’t see a need for Target. Target is the store I would go to if I went to a big box store. I’m not going to Wal-Mart or Costco. I now only go to a store like this about half a dozen times a year. I get almost everything that’s not perishable from Amazon. I don’t care if it’s more expensive, it’s more convenient.  I’m not sure how stores like Target are going to survive much less expand. I have 1-4 packages from Amazon delivered everyday and almost never have to visit a store.

30 minutes ago, thatguysly said:

 

The solution in complicated. You can hope people will want to improve their lives and not live on the streets but that doesn't just happen. There has to be better mental health care, substance abuse programs, education systems to lower dropout rates, and so on. There is no one magic bullet. Even police can only throw them in for a short time and they are back on the streets. They need programs to improve prison systems to give those who a released a step up to get back in the community and not back on the streets. But at the end of the day even improving all those and there are still people who are okay with that lifestyle. All development does is push them to a new area to hangout. 

Sounds expensive. To tell you the truth I'm more inclined to make the drugs legal and give them all the money that we'd spend on these programs. Then the problem will solve itself.

58 minutes ago, cspwal said:

Real question: what steps could be taken to improve that area

How do you make people who sell drugs and/or beg for a living and live on the streets go away? The cops don't care about this area. I've seen drugs being sold with cops sitting in a car just a few yards away. The cops will care when the people in the neighborhood care. That might happen if more people who have standards and don't believe standing on a corner and drinking from a brown bag are valid lifestyle choices move to the area.

1 hour ago, samagon said:

there are few better views of the pierce elevated.

 

and it has an unrivaled view of the greyhound station.

 

If you get a balcony facing east and if it is high enough up so you don't smell the Mc Donalds, or their patrons, it would be a great viewpoint to watch all sorts of interesting things happen.

You're just an elevator ride from the illicit drug bazaar that surrounds the bus station too.

16 hours ago, Twitter1 said:

Display at Highland Village!

Edit: I did not see The Post Oak in the reflection

 

That doesn’t look like highland village. Looks like you’re on Post Oak near Whole Foods.

There is a fence around the site and demolition of the building is underway.

I’ve just decided to stop getting out of their way. I’m also not walking single file to make space for them anymore. They have brakes, not my problem if they go over the handle bars. If they insist on riding at top speed on the crowded sidewalks in BBP they can just run right into to all 210 pounds of me. We’ll both get hurt but so be it. 

1 hour ago, IronTiger said:

I'm almost convinced that bicyclists in public streets are trying to run some sort of insurance scam (I won't get into when some jerks forced me onto the opposing traffic lane at Houston Avenue about a month ago, as that would require a few MS Paint diagrams just to show what was going on), but if you actually follow the rules of the road, congratulations, you are in the minority. It often begs the question of what painted bike lanes are for if not just a way for water to collect without splashing cars or passerby--"real" cyclists don't use them and they're fairly limiting and dangerous for what they are.

Bike riders are so obnoxious, pompous and self un-aware. I used to ride a bike. I wouldn’t get near one now because I don’t want to be associated with those kind of people. I genuinely think many of them are bad people and their attitude is bad for society.

5 minutes ago, IronTiger said:

Bicycles for most of the 20th century (basically from the 1920s to the 1970s) were considered for children, at least in America and not taken seriously as a way to commute. As for small businesses, most of the grocery stores back in the late 19th/early 20th century weren't much larger than your typical convenience stores nowadays, and unless you live in a nest of single family houses, there's bound to be a convenience store/actual grocery store/drugstore with a halfway decent food section within walking distance.

I’ve been almost run down, had bells rung at me and heard “on your left” so many times now from bike riders who refuse to slow down when they are around people that I now have an unreasonable hatred of bike riders. I’m lumping them all together and making a blanket statement. If you ride a bike you suck, every one of you are guilty.

On 4/20/2018 at 10:53 AM, gmac said:

 

You're a liar, apparently, since you did just call me a name.

 

Look, I know you probably are deeply in love with your idea of a perfect "downtown" filled with soaring skyscrapers, etc. It's also possible for others, i.e. me, to prefer development to go in another direction. Architecture isn't just about BIG buildings. I find great joy in a perfectly designed farmhouse and well-thought-out neighborhood of affordable homes.

 

I wish the city government had spent as much money on revitalizing areas where poor people could still afford to live, but that's never going to happen when developers are the ones keeping the politicians' pockets lined with cash.

He’s right. I’m rich and live near downtown. I sure appreciate all the tax money making my property worth more. All those incentives go to rich developers who build luxury apartments

for the non-poor people. If we can get more rich people living downtown the property values will

go up more. It’s a win-win for rich people.

Rich people pay almost all the tax though so we deserve to reap more benefits.

I’ll be the politically incorrect person who tells the truth. There’s a low income housing complex called Allen Parkway Village holding this area back. No one wants to live near it. I think the area still has a good future but it would be a lot better if the low income housing was torn down. I’m not saying that should be done, just stating the truth.   

The brick street political battle is an obstacle too. Who wants to get involved in a neighborhood with an issue like that? You could have protesters and TV news crews in your front yard. You also might get blamed for “gentrifying” the neighborhood if you are white. 

Well, there goes 5 minutes of my life wasted reading about palm trees. Thanks.