roadrunner

There's a bar going in here. Should be successful once the Pavilions opens up. good news

Word is that there will be wind turbines on the top of this building.and no street retail, which sucks

That building looks great. I really wish Davis would try to put a new luxury condo tower in DT, though.

Drove by today. There were a bunch of workers there putting materials at the site. Can't wait til this is done.

I love that this is going up in one of the densest areas of downtown. Main St. will be very active in the next few years.

It's a marble looking frame that they are putting up. It looks like it will be a good looking retail spot, which is funny being right next to that disgusting corner store. This is great, though. The retail holes are starting to fill in on Main St.

I was at the meeting when these plans were unveiled. Most of the images at your link depict land that is not owned by Frank Liu. Duany and his firm are overly ambitious in projecting or suggesting that a street grid system will be implemented in this area. It is only wishful thinking, and land ownership is so thoroughly divided in this area that even if a grid system were built, many blocks would contain parcel/ownership configurations that are essentially useless. Duany made a point that recognized this problem, but presented this rendering anyway.

The roundabout that is shown was to be paved at grade level, and the Almeda and Bellfort overpasses would be retained as they are at present. The railroad tracks would not be relocated or buried. Duany made comparisons to DuPont Circle in Washington D.C., though I think he's absolutely crazy for having done so. If he has altered his plans since then, then he is crazy for thinking that such a massive public works project is going to be undertaken by the City of Houston. The mechanisms behind public finance of such a project would not be very forgiving. It'd be all locally funded.

The development that was sketched in that is along Fannin and north of Holmes is what he proposed that METRO have built. None of the land is owned by his client.

Too bad. This would be a great living option for Med Center employees and students.

I like the design. I hope there will be ground level retail facing the park.

Now if we can just get a 40 story condo tower on the northern end of the park, that area will be ready to roll.

I've driven by this a few times over the past month or so. Is it just me or does it look like they have stopped construction?

On the northwest corner of Main and McKinney it looks like that retail space is being developed right next to the McKinney tunnel entrance. Anybody know what this is?

I wish this park was there during the Super Bowl.

It will be there for the Final Four in 2011. As well as the Pavilions, Regent Square, Blvd Place, and hopefully the University Line (although I wouldn't put money on that one).

Yes, TMC garage #19 to be exact, however, there will be some retail on the ground level to support the Meyer Building and TMC parkers taking the shuttle buses.

That's great news about the retail. That stop is always extremely busy in the morning from all of the Med Center employees. It will also do well with the Lanesborough and Greenbriar apartments right there within walking distance. There seems to be activity along the Red Line in every part of town.

Any other ideas about other tenants that could sign on?

I feel like a Banana Republic, Express, and Sunglasses Hut would all do well here based on the business crowd alone.

I've been down around the construction of the park a lot lately, and I figured I'd just post some thoughts I've had about it.

- It will be really exciting/interesting to see what ends up at the block adjacent to the park towards the north. I'm hoping a large residential project that mirrors the Hilton well. By the way, the Hilton will look great over the park. That building looks better and better everytime I see it.

- I think One Park Place's ground floor market will be very pivotal in attracting more downtown residential projects.

- One of the best and probably most overlooked things about the park is the fact that it's on the east side of town. In the late afternoons and evenings it won't be hit directly by the sun and will be a nice place to be before Astros/Rockets games.

- I would love it if the city tried to promote the northeast side of downtown as a "Ballpark Village" with the empty blocks for developers. I don't really know how exactly the city can partner with developers, but it would be great for the 3 blocks from MMP to the park to develop with some 10-20 story mixed use developments based around the future light rail line (hopefully) running along Capitol. It could even extend out to the Ballpark Lofts and the new Dynamo Stadium. More of a dream, though.

The Main Street Square Red Line Station is pretty scary on a weeknight. Hopefully when the Pavilions open the city will do more to make this an attractive area.

Like everyone, looks better than I was expecting. Where is the retail? I assume it will be facing the park.

It's too bad a parking garage is being built on one of the blocks caddy-cornering the park. You would think that could turn into a better result once that area gets going.

One of the park and ride lots at the smithlands light rail stop has been closed off for construction. Does anyone know what project is going on here?

I'm wondering, too. Two large cranes are at the site now.

There's definitely construction a few blocks north from that intersection (I live in the area and I checked it out today), but there's nothing on Fanin / Binz / San Jacinto. I saw construction near Prospect and San Jacinto. Actually that's where the "Museum Place" is supposed to be so I bet that is what this thread is supposed to be about.

The apartments look nice, and the location is great. I'd love to see lots more of this style of mixed use apartments lining the metro rail.

Here is a photo from my bike ride:

Maybe we should move this to "going up" and change the title to "museum place apartments".

That's the site I'm talking about. I got my streets mixed up. I was riding the light rail when I saw it so I wasn't really aware of what streets I was passing.

I think those apartments look great, though. Any development along the Red Line is good development IMO (even the CVS).

Does anybody know what's going on here? It's right on the red line and the block has had some activity recently.

I think the best part of this might just be the street level retail. If Hines is serious about getting the Shamrock site built up, too (say a condo tower), then we could have solid street life on Main from Franklin all the way to the Pavilions by 2012.

By then, hopefully the East End Corridor Line will be under construction (the part that runs through northeast downtown) and some development will start occurring in that area towards MMP.

Always hopeful...

Metro has two east-west lines proposed in the current phase and the next phase which gets them through 2025.

One is the Universities line running on Richmond and Westpark connecting the RedLine to the Uptownline and Hilcroft TC.

The other is the InnerKaty line... which runs Washington and then Hempstead connecting DT to the NW Transit Center...though how the 290 commuter line will affect this remains to be seen.

See this link ..its non-metro and not 100% current.. but does give the general gist of Metro's planned rail phases.

So.. decent proposal.. but you'll have to hold on to it until 2025ish

I've never seen the InnerKaty line. Thanks for the link.

It's looking more like September. I have a meeting this afternoon to talk about the groundbreaking.

I think your idea is interesting. What if the rail connected to Memorial. Like from downtown/midtown up through Dallas and connected to Memorial then to Uptown? Interesting thought. What a nightmare though construction wise.

My proposal would be putting a line down Dallas (maybe even start at Hilton downtown) west to Dunlavy. North on Dunlavy with it rising above Allen Parkway. Across the bayou to Memorial. Along Memorial to Memorial Park and then just shoot it straight through Memorial Park to connect to the Uptown Line. I don't know how they plan to do the Uptown Line, but I'm sure the actual connection around the West Loop would be a construction nightmare. Unless they made it a sub-connection (which is what Uptown needs anyways), but that is extremely wishful thinking.

Is this still on schedule for groundbreaking in August?

I don't know what the traffic is like on W Dallas, but the city/Metro should really look at putting a LRT or BRT line down Dallas. That is probably the most urban area in Houston with all of the townhomes and restaurants around. Then if they could figure out how to connect it to the Uptown line, I think the amount of riders would be substantial considering tourists would probably use it to go from downtown to the Galleria.

Of course that is all very wishful thinking.

I used to have to go to St Louis on business trips. Their downtown used to be a lot like Houston .. When the sun went down, the streets emptied. Some older buildings have now become lofts and you can really feel the difference. It feels like a community... No real retail to speak of except the big old Famous Barr (now Macy's) store. The big suprise was this wonderful little grocery store I found in the middle of downtown. It was like a mini "Central Market" called City Grocers. It is strongly supported by the local loft dwellers and downtown hotel guests, but not nearly the amout of people living in downtown Houston.. Here is a link to their site.

http://www.city-grocers.com/show/Home

I could easily see this surviving in downtown houston. It may not be needed but sure would be nice.

How many residents will downtown have once One Park Place is complete?

Oh, I heard about this thing. I made a thread on it (it might have been at my Atlanta board's Houston section).

I'll post what I posted over there, here:

City Centre: Houston

This development is where the old Town&Country mall was. Website is here: http://www.citycentrehouston.com/citycentre/index.php

Total Retail Space: 560,000 sf

Total Surface/On-Street Parking: 344 Spaces

Total Garage Parking: 3,577 spacess

Some renderings:

^^New Residential^^

More:

More: Town & Country Redevelopment

That one picture looks like it has a Z Tejas (www.ztejas.com) in it. Anyone have any confirmation on that? That place started in Austin and is awesome.