Nate99

oh no! those prefabbed brick sections look terrible...

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. 

Facade still looks pretty cheap--did they actually say, by the way, that they would "restore" the facade or just resurface it as something similar before the first resurfacing?

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.  

That skinny building, is it a separate building or is it actually part of the Marriott?

It is part of the hotel. Monarch just asked the same question. Post #456 above, to which I responded:

It was being renovated concurrently. I don't think anyone ever figured out if it was previously internally contiguous with the 806 Main building (or if they did, I missed it), why it was clad in a different curtain wall than 806's 1960's reskin, or really what it's deal was in any respect. Its mystery was always part of its charm. 

 

They added a new stairwell up out of its roof to the top level of the 806 Main building, and there are new interior walls being constructed in it, so it's part of the hotel, not sure if there is any real difference at all, apart from the exterior.

 

I think they should make it a separate Super Secret Exclusive Black Label Executive Club hotel and keep with the building's obscure history. 

Wait, what?

 

In what world will you not be able to see a 260 foot tower from 100 feet away? Do you know where South Boulevard is located? There are houses on South with backyard fences lining Bissonnet on the 1700 block...yeah, the very same block. But, you wont be able to see it or it wont be any "worse" than the Maryland Manor, a complex that was lower than the dozen or so trees that were clear cut for this proposal?

I think what he meant was, looking down South Blvd, you wouldn't see it. Like this:

Of course this is about height. The Deed restrictions on either side of this project limit structures to 35 feet. The scale is part of what makes for such a great area. 

 

You can't even build a full three story house in Boulevard Oaks (historic district) or Southampton. Third floor living space has to look like it was converted attic space. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Jax beat me to it...

My wife and I will be there the week it opens ...... Anyone know when that might be?

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. 

Once again, great pics Scotch. Thanks. 

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. 

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. 

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...

Geez Nate.. All these updates make me wonder if you're camping out on top of that garage to get these awesome action shots. Next time I'm in downtown in keep an eye for a tent and/or campfire smoke.

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. 

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. 

The dug some piece of equipment (a boiler or something) out of the basement. I caught the excavator making short work of it. 

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. 

is there a 3rd crane pad site or is it just an extension piece for one of the cranes?

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. 

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. 

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.

The revised plan was approved last week by the HAHC.

Game on.

Garage looks sharp now, totally killed the third world vibe that thing had developed.

We need one of these things to grow some legs! Dallas is about to beat us to the punch haha

?? What do you mean? I don't know of any supertalls planned for DFW. 

How so?

 

A 70 floor residential tower is hardly a supertall.  I think Austin has a 60 or 65 floor tower.  And the developer being foreign doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.  Besides that Dallas has A LOT of housing next to Downtown (more than Houston) in the adjacent Uptown area.  Why would you want to be in a big tower Downtown when the amenities are so much better just a few blocks away?  Houston is a different animal than Dallas - both can handle a lot of development - but neither town is going to build a supertall just for hospitality and residential.  It will take a large office portion too.

 

I took ClutchCity's post as a tease, as if to goad Houstonians in to doing something faster out of competitive impulses against Dallas. 

Just checked the webcam.   Texas Tower is completely gone, down to the ground.  (And there is definitely some sort of activity on the Marriott Marquis site... can't identify what's going on, but it's towards the center of the property, so I don't think it's related to the Metro Rail construction.)

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

I don't deal with such things and don't pretend to understand them.

But the economists - right and left - are always united in their rosy optimism: they insist that the debt doesn't mean what we think it means, that we don't understand fiat currency, that growth is inevitable and means the bill will never come due,  and moreover that it must never come due, or the result would be disastrous.

We think we're so over religion ... but they're like any other priestly caste, and we the laity are not expected to understand, but only have faith.

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.