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Nate99

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Everything posted by Nate99

  1. Nate99
  2. Nate99
    They're not perfect with the big seams, but the decorative whatever around stadiums doesn't concern me much one way or another. I am coming around to the idea that a pure steel and concrete "Death Star" type approach would have been kind of cool.
  3. Nate99
    I doubt that anything was specifically mentioned about how the exterior would be refurbished. The only real indications of intent that I saw were the renderings, but there may have been some description along with one of those presentations at some point. The original facade did not look capable of being restored. The mastic that was applied over the brick pretty much ruined it. There were strips taken out of the 60's curtain wall for a long time prior to the restoration work being started, which I took as a sign that they were evaluating their options there. Short of re-bricking the whole thing again and doing new stone work around the details, what they used is probably about as good as you can get. Who knows how the economics shake out, but I would imagine that there was no one willing to pay for new brick/stone. It took a city backed loan to get this to happen at all. As it sits, I wonder if similar square footage could not have been constructed on an empty lot for less from scratch. It is a compromise to be sure, but I don't think it looks bad, just not as good as it would have with real masonry. Judging by the new scaffolding, I am guessing that real brick might be going up on the bottom 3 floors.
  4. Nate99
    It is part of the hotel. Monarch just asked the same question. Post #456 above, to which I responded:
  5. Nate99
    I think what he meant was, looking down South Blvd, you wouldn't see it. Like this: Can you convert your house in Southampton to a Barber shop with a striped pole the size of an oil drum or pave the yard for parking? They did that years ago right across the street. Scale may be your thing, but what if I liked grass in front of every house like structure I see and the absence of red, white and blue spirals? Restrictive boundaries have to end somewhere, when your property abuts (or is within sight of) that boundary, you take your chances with what might happen with the visual aesthetics around your property. Either that or you pay lawyers to find some way to effectively extend that boundary through any means they can come up with. All fair game I suppose, those attorneys can get quite creative when billing by the hour. It would be nice if we could all respect our neighbors' every wish, but it would also be nice if we could do what we want with the stuff that we own, sometimes the two niceties collide.
  6. Nate99
    Directly across Bissonnet from this project are a couple of houses converted to businesses with the front yards paved in to parking lots. There were crappy apartments there before. This seems like a visual net plus to the neighborhood to me, unless you just don't like tall things.
  7. Nate99
    They just shifted their construction walls around to reveal the escalators from the tunnel up to the lobby. They are reconfiguring the space in front of Schlotzky's now with new temporary walls up in front of it. The two Asian food places reopened with a more food court-esque design, perhaps they will be adding more slots in where that seating used to be.
  8. Nate99
    Jax beat me to it...
  9. Nate99
    Late summer or early fall if memory serves. You can check the Marriott website and see when they start to allow reservations. The restaurants may have a soft opening prior to that, maybe it would be worth asking around.
  10. Nate99
    Once again, great pics Scotch. Thanks.
  11. Nate99
    I went back and walked across the lot today. There are upwards of 20 holes that were drilled. Like mollusk mentioned, they probably have to do quite a bit of inventory work to see what they will be dealing with. In any case, I would imagine that they will be digging out to a level well below anything else that was in the vicinity, but keeping the buildings that will remain on the block from being impacted by excavating around and very near their foundations is probably fairly delicate work.
  12. Nate99
    They have added a few more supports to the highest portions SEZ upper deck, including the sections that appear to have stubs for mounting the new Gigantortron that will go in the center.
  13. Nate99
    From the street: Cutting a line down Walker Bad light, but on the Walker side sidewalk it reads "SHORING". Oh, and the fence is here...
  14. Nate99
    I walk by there at least twice a day. This makes for an interesting diversion. As for timing of the last two updates, that was dumb luck.
  15. Nate99
    Are they going to change the federal guidelines that makes the feedstock for high fructose corn syrup a costless byproduct of federal agriculture subsidization? Nothing is so dumb as a good intention.
  16. Nate99
    The dug some piece of equipment (a boiler or something) out of the basement. I caught the excavator making short work of it.
  17. Nate99
    Down in the tunnels, Skanska moved their construction office from the old parking office closer to the main corridor down toward the connection with the JP Morgan Chase building, presumably under the new garage section. I thought I heard at one point that the tunnels would close in April, obviously I was either wrong, or that was a softer date.
  18. Nate99
    Close to Main, there is a spot where there are new supports for the bulkhead wall of the crater. Near the middle of the block, one of those sections has the supports splayed out around a hole that looks prepped for something. I wouldn't be surprised to see another crane go there.
  19. Nate99
    FWIW, they drilled a lot of holes. When I have seen this on other lots (like the one next to Hess) there are maybe a couple drilled in one location. These guys had probably 8-10 holes drilled when I walked by, and they were fairly spread out. I'm close by, I'll keep you posted on developments.
  20. Nate99
    I'd guess the opponents have spent more than $1.2 million fighting this thing. Given what interest rates have done recently, the delay might have actually saved the developers money on net. Also, if that is split among 20 neighbors, for that neighborhood, you're talking peanuts in relative value of the property. Tend to agree that this neighborhood will not decrease in value, though perhaps it will be lower than it would have been otherwise. So, if this is the last of it, it seems that you can squeeze money out of developers of nearby property if you have a good enough lawyer is the lesson of the Odyssey of the Ashby Highrise.
  21. Nate99
    Game on.
  22. Nate99
    Garage looks sharp now, totally killed the third world vibe that thing had developed.
  23. Nate99
    I took ClutchCity's post as a tease, as if to goad Houstonians in to doing something faster out of competitive impulses against Dallas.
  24. Nate99
    Yep. The last upright piece was the frame of the first floor that paralleled Fannin. They cut the beams and pulled it over either yesterday late or early today. Also - this may be the new crane pad
  25. Nate99
    I'm not an economist professionally, but watch the more theoretical ideas with interest mostly in retrospect. My job very much involves untangling the wreckage of Grand Ideas, though. Predictions of economists have been spectacularly wrong too often to put much stock in them. You can find always someone to produce a study to make it easier to believe as you want to believe. That they use numbers gives their results just enough of a veneer of objectivity to keep those that received D's in math (like politicians and journalists) from asking too many questions on the way to something that sounds good. I think we're programmed to want to believe in something we can't understand.
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