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Nate99

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Everything posted by Nate99

  1. Nate99
    Saving the click for everyone... I'll be damned. I guess they took them off when they did the re-skin.
  2. Nate99
    I didn't know what they were called, thanks. You can see what the structure looked like from the earlier pictures, there does not look like there was much of anything apart from the plain brick.
  3. Nate99
    They are clearing out the innards of the Houston Club building. Of course that's a much longer critical path to building a new structure, but Skanska is spending money on it now.
  4. Nate99
    "Texturing" going on the corners kind of, sort of matches the rendering...
  5. Nate99
    They also look to be framing up walls around the now abandoned Skyline deli in the tunnels. Not sure what to make of that.
  6. Nate99
    Demo of the daycare playground in action. I reached up and snapped one of these pics over the wall.
  7. Nate99
    Looks like they are taking out the lower level brick altogether... Edited to add big version, you may be able to see the new "brick" pattern to the left of the construction elevator on the 4th floor.
  8. Nate99
    More like paint, I would say. If I had a decent camera with a zoom, I'd take a shot of the (small) part that they have done this way on the Main side. Since you can not get closer to it than across the street, it's tough to say for sure, but based on the varying coats of stuff around it, I'm guessing it is just a pattern painted/applied on top of the sheeting.
  9. Nate99
    Cherry has been gutting the place for at least a month now, I guess it is all a matter of timing.
  10. Nate99
    So, it looks like they are filling in the joints of whatever the exterior covering/sheeting is. Perhaps it is not so temporary as I thought. There were also workers working on putting a brick pattern on to a section of it. Without knowing exactly what every step has been, it is tough to say definitively, but it looks like it will be faux brick exterior.
  11. Nate99
    That was some high quality snoopage nate, if I do say so myself.
  12. Nate99
    For this building, I can’t really think of anything that would be worth any extraordinary effort to save for aesthetic reasons, apart from the mural, but that’s just my opinion. It seemed like a perfectly usable building, but rather plain externally. I figured that it must need some fairly heavy retrofits in the infrastructure in the near term for it not to bring in good money as it sat, as compared to what the cost of a complete tear down and Class AA rebuild would net back to a developer like Skanska, but I have no more insight in to the particular economics of this project than my dog does, so take all that for what it’s worth. I’ll take pics once they get going, I walk by there fairly regularly.
  13. Nate99
    Interior demolition is definitely going on. They are filling up and switching out dumpsters on the Capitol side with what looked like metal bits. Many upper floor windows are open as well. Interior demolition is definitely going on. They are filling up and switching out dumpsters on the Capitol side with what looked like metal bits. Many upper floor windows are open as well.
  14. Nate99
    Three dudes in Skanska hardhats were out by the corner of Milam and Capitol around lunch today. I walked by to eavesdrop, but all I could make out was something to the effect that the city rent-a-bike rck right there would have to stay due to a 30 day notice requirement. From that I would guess that they are about to start clearing out the area. There were guys clearing out some interior stuff too.
  15. Nate99
    Swamplot linked to an article that mentioned the Spencer's in the Hilton Americas will soon be a Pappasito's. That is going to do very well. I'd like to see something similar at the new Marriott. Goode Company perhaps?
  16. Nate99
    Now that's some marketing synergy right there. Plus, we all know how conventioneers like gift shops and peeler joints
  17. Nate99
    I think the green is paint, or at least some kind of self adhering coating.
  18. Nate99
    I'm guessing the 767's and the few 747's they still have will be sold off as soon as they get new 787's and A350's in the door. Taking a perk away from your good and frequent customers is not something people are going to receive warmly. But it's not like they have the financial health to hand out perks, so if it is the differnce between etherial travel rewards and a plane that works, I guess I'll take the latter. $15,000 is roughly 40 average domestic fares. Unless you are travelling very expensive routes it looks like they only want First Class customers to get the elite treatment. If it's on time and they have a space for my bag in the overhead, that's all I hope for any more.
  19. Nate99
    The white stuff is not paint, but some kind of sheet/board covering maybe 1/2" thick. It looks temporary to my untrained eye, but it could be another base/backer layer.
  20. Nate99
    They will have to do some serious restoration of the brick right above the first floor. You can see on the corner how torn up it is with big chunks missing. Maybe they have saved some of what they tore out to replace it, but I'd bet for the work around the lower level that will be most visible that they will go back with new brick. Going off of my pic in post #162, it looks like they mocked up the base coats and finishing on a small section to either follow the original brick pattern or just replicate a new one. The black coating that was on there under the now removed curtain wall was really thick. I'm guessing removing it was prohibitively diffcult. The brick up on the upper levels was coated over with the green base coat stuff, none of that was torn out. I guess we could go by the rendering, but there will also need to be accomodation around this area for awnings/entrance coverings and signage. That may be the last area tobe completed.
  21. Nate99
    Ae they connected internally, or do you mean for construction staging/storage?
  22. Nate99
    If you just want to be pissed off, that's your choice. I'm trying to figure out what works, but there are so many failures down in the tunnels, it's not like people haven't put a lot more thought in to it than any of us ever will and not failed anyway. Recognizing that isn't keeping it down, it's growing like a mofo, and people like sammiches, apparently. Failures I can think of off the top of my head; Bewiched Soup Cowboy Howdy Burger Thai place under FirstCity Everything after Droubi next to Benihana Burger King Bennigan's Longhorn Cafe The Asian place that was where Tejas Grill is now Other burger place between Becks and Rajin Cajun Several places where Prince's/Brooklyn Meatball are now Restaurants are an extremely tough business in the best of circumstances, when you try to make a go of it against a ton of competition with very limited hours, you have to find a great combination to make it work. If someone had an established name like Niko Niko and Barnaby's have, I think that helps, but Kolaches that no one knows about for 50% more are going to be a tough sell. McD's has some fairly iron clad franchise restrictions. Getting around those might make another DT location fairly difficult. That might be holding back another Whataburger too. If the franchisee of the existing shop doesn't want to open anohe location, other franchisees may be geographically restricted out of DT. But I'm just speculating.
  23. Nate99
    I have seen them mocking up rooms inside thenarrow Rusk side building, so it is involved, at least somewhat. Not sure why they haven't stripped the facade there too. The Battelstein's building is wide open on the ground floor. That would make for great meeting space if it is that way throughout, I have not seen whether it is involved in the project at all and only started speculating about it when they covered over its entrance with the plywood construction fence.
  24. Nate99
    Large seating areas are going to be more expensive and not appeal to that many customers, especially n the tunnels where a good chunk of your business is grab and go. Fast food @ street level = bum magnet = people with money repellant. The guy that ran the BK in the Houston Club building told me as much. Chinese food that people will pay for in America is bulk stir fry. I think quality is something of a secondary issue and would just lose money. Maybe a Pei Wei would do well because people know the name, but I don't see myself eating there every week, and that's my gut measure for what I guess would work in a DT lunch only place. Not sure what a lounge style barber shop would do, but there are plenty of fairly conventional shops that have been around for a long time, they seem to be the best in terms of not going out of business, but I go to Supercuts, so what do I know. 4-6 are suggestions for higher quality more niche focused stuff, which means more expensive stuff. For the day in/day out traffic you need to survive, you're going to have a hard time pricing above your competitors unless you are offering something almost completely different in terms of quality. I don't think you can go from Wendy's to Beck's Prime in the donut world. If it were good enough, it could catch on, but the market for premium food seems pretty shallow downtown. A second Whataburger seems more than reasonable. The one under 1000 Main does killer business breakfast and lunch. I agree that we're at Subway (Alonti, Murphy's, WhichWich, etc.) saturation, but that kind of proves the point about what the market supports. People go with cheap commodity food if they are buying it 200+ times per year. I've seen so many shops try and fail in the tunnels and downtown, it's hard to see what might be left to exploit that has not already been attempted. I'm really hoping Phonecia holds on (no reason to think they won't), but apart from them, I can't really think of anything new and different that got any traction recently.
  25. Nate99
    More exterior work progress. The lower floors have significanly more damage to the bricks than the uppers. They look to be treating them differently.
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