Nate99

If we worried about our visual image as much as SF, we wouldn't be Houston. I choose to see that as a good thing. Nothing comes for free.

I'm curious if the building that sits on the corner of that lot would come down or be built around ala the Stowers building. It looks like it has been empty for a long time.

Down to a floor and a half above the concrete part.

Agreed. I'm not too fussed over the ugliness in any case.

I've always found the feeder roads with cheap strip center real estate to be, for the most part, unsightly. But at least you have you pick of adult bookstores at every exit between the loop and beltway. I'd not expect Houston to rank too high on any list put out by "Travel & Leisure". Neither of those are our specialty. As long as we beat Camden, NJ, I'll call it fair.

Houston to Dubai is one of the longest as well, if I remember correctly.

That terminal was strained way beyond what is normal in this day and age. Maybe they'll build restrooms that you can actually pull your carry on bag in to and have a weatherproof structure.

By my count, that's 7 floors gone in less than a month.

I'm guessing that the entire league probably had an exclusive deal with some beverage company.

Non-returnable $15 million grant? I'm sure there are thousands of groups eager to gobble it up, but in the grand scheme of transit issues in Dallas and Houston, getting to a more or less central location in one city from a more or less central location in the other is not a problem currently. Trains to and from the respective 'burbs and other lines connecting the business districts would seem to help more people, but when it comes to spending tax $ it's who you help not how many.

Everyone else would show up late and sweaty. How about this:

From earlier today - April 26th.

I didn't see anyone working on the exterior, but I didn't look to closely for signs of anyone coming in/out of the lobby. I was across the street when I walked by.

Here's a shot of the cladding removed from a strip of the facade. It looked to me like it must have been held on by a thick black adhesive (tar, maybe) that pretty well entirely covered the brick underneath.

Apologies for the size, here are a couple of shots from an hour or so ago. Looks like all of the glass is out.

They have a crane up now and most all of the windows are out. The lower concrete floors are exposed through the hole they punched in it to install the tower crane. It will be interesting to see how fast it comes down.

This "catwalk" (for lack of a better descriptor) seems like an awful lot of work for an empty property. It's hard to imagine a circumstance where an owner would be able to put that kind of money in to something that has no indication of an ability to generate revenue for them at the moment, so that was why I suspected that, perhaps, something might be in the works for the whole site. Maybe the code violation penalties were severe enough that condemnation and seizure of the property was threatened, form my non-real estate background, that would seem to be the only reason an owner would be motivated to do this. There is an old RV trailer there to the left of the hole in my picture that I think someone lives in to serve as a security guard for the building, but that has been there for a long time. The hole in the street might have something to do with the new light rail lines, one of the workers was wearing a hard hat with the HRT logo on it.

Took this pic today. Doesn't look like anyone is working on anything else at the site. I guess they were just building a workable sidewalk.

Chronicle Blog article A few pics, more in link.

I went back and looked again, and if I had to guess, I would say it looked like they were putting in a permanent walkway where the hole in the ground encroached on whatever right of way is required for the sidewalks downtown. I know that there had previously been a wooden structure there that is now gone, replaced by the steel structure that is now being built. The construction company is GT Leach. Based on their website, it doesn't look like they would just be doing remediation of an abandoned site to keep it from being a code violation, but who knows. The structure looks like it would be permanent, something along the lines of what you would see supporting a steel stadium bleacher.

I'm trying to imagine the underground parking being retained without the structure on top of it. Seems a bit odd, but what do I know. If I had to guess, I would think that building a new attached parking structure to Total Plaza might bring them higher rents.

Posted in Downtown forum also, but thought I'd put it here as well... I walked by there yesterday and noticed that there were some welders constructing what looked to be steel catwalks (not sure what you would call them) along one side of the big hole in the ground next to the old abandoned Texaco building at Fannin/Capitol. Anyone know what is going on there? It is the first activity that I have seen there in years. A construction company had its banner sign on one of the chain link fences, but I don't remember the name.

I walked by there yesterday and noticed that there were some welders constructing what looked to be steel catwalks (not sure what you would call them) along one side of the big hole in the ground next to the old abandoned Texaco building at Fannin/Capitol. Anyone know what is going on there? It is the first activity that I have seen there in years. A construction company had its banner sign on one of the chain link fences, but I don't remember the name.

Did they dig tunnel access from the garage under Bagby to the Heritage Plaza building? There have been metal plates on Bagby for a while now running from one to the other, I presumed that was what they were up to, unless it was just the utility connections.