Nate99

I am really interested to see what they do around the lower three floors, it could end up really cool. 

Now if someone could figure out a use for the old Battelstein's building. 

They are taking windows out of the top floors now. They are going to need some serious logistics to get the rubble out once the walls start coming down. This is a big building. 

Maybe Nate can get a photo of it for us, but on Travis, they have put up a very very long black net on the outside of the entire scaffolding line.

Here you go...

and a bonus...

So here's a bit more about the parking contract story. This was posted on the door to the old garage down in the tunnels. It must be Chase (712 Main is the cool old J.P. Morgan Chase Building) that has the ironclad parking contracts, everyone else was booted at the end of February. 

Maybe Chase is ponying up for the new ramps, who knows. In any case, this makes a bit less sense on the economics of the temporary retrofit, at least as I have been theorizing. 

I would have just turned and pointed a single finger silently. A helpful downtown direction giving version of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.

 

Walking to the Dynamo stadium is super easy. 

"Head that way between the ballpark and convention center. Go under the freeway and you will be there in two blocks; you can't miss it."

Now telling a driver how to get to a particular freeway out of town, I could do the point and shrug. I do that by feel and intuition. 

yea you are .. I am not talking about DT themsevles rather the sense of it that people get( While DT L.A is similar to Houston, the feel is this is L.A something that Houston seems to lack. rather that because we lack some Identiy or were just hard to define dependes on who you ask

I see what you mean. Tough for me to say personally though, I've lived here my whole life, so to me, it feels like "default city" and everywhere else feels differently in one way or another. 

It will be what it will be, Other cities have much more history of being a substantial urban center than we do, I think that drives the "feel" of those cities as much as anything. 

LA is very unique. Huge in terms of people and area, nearly perfect climate if you're by the coast and interesting history of being big, but remote from the rest of the country's powerful cities. 

It takes all kinds, Houston will and should be different. As it grows, I suspect the "feel" will change, but that will be dependent upon many perceptions that were cemented in a past that was objectively worse than our present and future. 

There is a reason why places like NY and L.A nd even chicargo have such pull to people the DT are 90% of the time the only experince most out of towners will have with your city

I'm probably missing your point, but I've been to downtown LA a couple of times for business, and while not exactly comparable to Houston, they're pretty similar and I think we've got the better of the two. 

Their "old historic" section is larger and sketchy as hell. Their newer skyscrapers are very comparable in look and feel. The do have hills though. 

You can kind of see it in Nates picture but they are starting to wrap the building in metal framing that looks like scaffolding. I can't tell what it is though, because even though it was about 10 floors up on the Travis side it didn't have any decking for workers to perch. This is such an interesting development due to the wacky way they are going about it!

I'm guessing that we will see some kind of fabric or mesh covering over the scaffolding framework soon as a debris catcher/dust abatement measure while they knock down the building from the top. 

This building is pretty big, and while that might allow for more equipment to do the job, I still think taking this one down floor by floor will be a long process compared to what we see at the 609 Main site. But given that they are building a whole ramp system for the garage, it seems to me that this whole process is planned to take quite a while anyway. 

The speculation among my coworkers and me is that the "STOP" line means that they can't lower the scaffolvator (lol) on that side any more past that point because it will hit things on the building, so at that point they either need to stop lowering the mast climber or remove it altogether.

That's my guess too. By the time they get that low, they will likely be able to reach everything from the ground level with the heavy excavators, which can tear up a structure with amazing speed. 

The garage doesn't appear to be open to the street though.  Notice the sliding metal doors at the garage entrances.  I'm not sure what the green is.  Certainly not live vegetation.  Painted fence?  

I'm with Triton, I assumed ivy. 

There's a parking garage under Discovery Green? Gee, I don't even see where the entrance is. Now can I see why, at least, a lot of the existing park was ripped up instead of added to.

At least they saved most of the trees.

Not to get off topic but is it just me or are the "seven office projects planned for downtown are expected to be completed in time for the big event." an overly optimistic number? I can think of 5 which is already a staggering number but does the Chron actually have any concrete information 5AC and IT will get built?

I would not count on Chron knowing anything special. The folks around here generally figure stuff out before they do. 

In the spirit of going head to head with the Hilton, they should put a Lupe Tortilla in this one. 

Eight floors gone in a month. In one more, this thing will be but a memory. 

From March 4 - 

From today (April 3) - 

OPP was formerly a one block park. Privately owned IIRC, but there was not much to it (some landscaping and a sculpture). It smelled of urine most of the time. 

DG was parking lots and some grassed over lots with minimal features. I don't know who owned them prior to the park being built. 

http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/4811-discovery-green/?p=118895

brick?

Well, cinder blocks anyway. 

Bricking up the new ramps...

From the 33rd floor of 1 Houston Center/LyondellBasell.  Hard to tell from the pics but they had a crew going nonstop with a bobcat and all sorts of machinery up on the top floor they were tearing down.  Really interesting to watch.  Sorry the pics aren't better (iphone).

Thanks for the pics, I like potatoes. This perspective will be great for watching the new building go up. 

I happened to walk by on Fannin just as they pushed a big pile of debris down the elevator shaft and it scared the crap out of me. They've stepped up their speed on the demolition lately. 

I seriously thought that pic of Chicago was Houston for a sec

I clipped it from Google Street View. This is ~ 180 degrees flipped from the same intersection

Looks like a government bureaucracy designed something artistic. 

It does not offend me, but I'm not picky. 

Esperson, Pennzoil, and Chase Tower are all roughly six feet lower than the current Houston Club tunnel level - only the old Chase Building (Gulf Building if you're old enough) is at roughly the same level (Pennzoil has a gentle ramp).  With Houston Club's current low ceiling heights, I'd be more surprised if they didn't dig it down further.  ADA compliance is just a (required) lagniappe. 

Maybe I have it backwards. I thought that you had to go up a few stairs to get to Esperson (through the really narrow corridor) out of HC, perhaps it is down.  I never noticed the slope down to Pennzoil, not that I doubt you on that, I can't even get the direction of stairs correct.