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Nate99

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Posts posted by Nate99

    JPMorgan Chase Tower At 600 Travis St.

    in Downtown

    Posted

    Quote

    Walked a block north on Main and as I passed the Rice, I was struck by how tattered everything suddenly looked. It's sort of the feeling you get in the suburbs when you cross that invisible line between a "desirable" and a "not desirable" school district - the life just seems to get sucked out of everything. I've walked here a hundred times and never quite felt it in this way. Developing the parking lot at Main and Prairie would change this area considerably and extend the effect of the central part of Main Street.

     

    The restaurants and bars up that way were hit hard during all of the shutdowns and the reduced worker traffic during the week hasn't helped either.  The blocks from Prairie to Congress have always been pretty dingy by day.

     If the (State National?) bank refurb to Hotel ever gets going, that could help, and the parking lot could be a grocery store for the three residential towers that are nearby, but dealing with the homeless in the area would be a challenge for any retail. 

    • Like 1

    Adelaide Downtown: Micro Unit Apartment Complex At 1218 Leeland St.

    in Going Up!

    Posted · Edited by Nate99

    The statistical likelihood that you could find 43 people in Houston that would be approved for that apartment that only have 13 cars among them seems rather low. For someone that has a parking spot at the office and wants a place to crash in town to avoid commuting to Livingston, Willis or Columbus every day, I see some upside. 

    It's really close to the law school, maybe some other students would go for that too, don't know. I think there's likely a reason that we haven't seen anyone build anything like that yet, but I could be missing something. 

    Houston Raceway Park At 2525 FM 565

    in Historic Houston

    Posted

    It's a testament to the metro area's growth. The track was way off in the middle of nowhere beyond a bunch of industrial stuff when it was built, but Houston caught up to it.   They could build another strip up 59 in the Earthquest/DinosaurLand zone, it might hang on another 30 years before being overrun. Not sure where else you would put one that could host an NHRA national event, the nitromethane cars make jet engines sound tame. 

    The track in Ennis is off Highway 287, not close to anything.  Other national tracks are similarly located away from most everything else, with the exception of Concord, NC (outside Charlotte), where they love motorsports more than a quiet home and Pomona, CA that has persisted for a long time from the very first attempts at organization of drag racing as something other than an illegal backroad thing.   

    2022 NHRA Schedule & Tickets | NHRA

    • Like 1

    Parkside Residences: 43-Story Residential High-Rise At 808 Crawford St.

    in Downtown

    Posted

    37 minutes ago, Tumbleweed_Tx said:

    there's a sign on this building that says "High Street". Is this a working name, or the real name? All I can think of when they say High Street is the kids from That 70's Show getting stoned in their circle with Hyde talking about a car that runs on water, man.... lol

    That's the development company name. 

    Block 98 | HSR (highstreetresidential.com)

     

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    Theater District Master Plan

    in Downtown

    Posted

    Forgive the dirty lens pano shot, but the view from the new square here is going to be something the crowd around here will appreciate. Calpine has been there a while now, but for those that still have the "seedy as ever" view of downtown, the metamorphosis from this vantage is as stark as from the Market Square side...

    sky.jpg

    • Like 12
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    Texas Tower: Office Skyscraper At 845 Texas Ave.

    in Downtown

    Posted · Edited by Nate99

    17 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

    This picture made my day. I have not generally liked this building so far, as I fear the march of glass and concrete into the Historic District. But at ground level, this is pivotal for downtown Houston. We have not, since before World War II, seen a Class A office building that devoted such attention to the ground level, sidewalk experience. Texas Commerce Tower had ground floor retail as a nod to Main Street, but it was in the parking garage building. BG Group Place turned a cold shoulder to Main. 609 Main has ground floor retail but it's sort of an afterthought architecturally; the emphasis is increasing but it's not really there yet. But this building (1) sharply differentiates the first two floors from the rest of the building, (2) puts the retail on the best street frontage, Texas Avenue, (3) makes the office entrance secondary to the retail - a total revolution for downtown, and (4) adds a canopy as a significant architectural component, in the tradition of the Rice Hotel, acknowledging the climate and the needs of pedestrians, i.e., people who are not necessarily tenants of the building (!). I mean, you literally have to go back to the days of the Gulf Building, 1929, to see this kind of recognition of the street and the public domain in a Houston office building. Obviously the Houston Center reno gives similar attention, but that's a renovation. This is the most premium product from the most premium developer in Houston. A century has gone by and the circle is complete; an era has finally ended, a new one has begun.

     

    Good description. It really fits with the Rice on the next block. It should make the Sambuca space and the open spot that used to be the sushi/Japanese place more attractive. 

    That block had been basically shut off from pedestrian traffic since 2016, with a year-ish in there when it was the surface lot. It's been a long time coming, but the streetscape of Texas Ave/Street is vastly improved. Wyatt square has a year or two to get done, and there's still the lot down by Catalyst/Urban League, but that whole street from the Wortham down to the ballpark is like another city from what it was 15 years ago. 

    Get the MMP mixed used thing up and down and it's a pretty organically done makeover.

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