Nate99
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GreenStreet: Mixed-Use Development At 1201 Fannin St.
Nate99 replied to MontroseNeighborhoodCafe's topic in Downtown
Having never been in HoB, I did not realize that it did not somehow occupy the second floor. A 250 unit hotel on that kind of footprint would have to be atleast 8-10 stories, right? EDIT - Just saw the 25 story note. That would be an interesting addition to watch come together. -
It was bunker level substantial. They were working on the Main street side, kind of made me wonder what they might have to do to keep the soil from shifting around under the light rail tracks once that big, heavy subterranian wall was removed, but what I know about soils and construction is limited to knowing that you generally construct buildings on top of soil. It also occurs to me that my metaphorical exagerration of "ton" is woefully inaequate.
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A large portion of it looks like it will be taken up by the stairwell that they are building in top of it, presuming it keeps going straight down. This is a really cool project.
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They are chipping out the below grade foundations currently with nealy all of the former building debris havig been hauled off. Tough to see much, but there wasa ton of steel reinforcing the concrete that made up the outer retaning wall. Maybe what I saw was part of the rumored "fallout shelter".
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We could have perpetual motion machine of building and destroying stadiums. By all accounts, Reliant is considered a good football venue. Getting the SB back makes me think that he NFL owners like it, though they may certainly have their own rather narrow motivations.
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I totally botched the math on the Belgrade comparison, you're right there. It was a significant, though short lived leap. We'll call it a draw between my 27% and your 200%. Aesthetically, everyone will feel the way they feel and none of us will be more right or wrong. I'm definitely more sports fan than architecture critc, so in the design, I see a well executed and novel (at the time) solution to our climate that was compromised by having to accomodate football and baseball. Apart from the functionality afforded by the roof (and pretty design, if you are so moved) it is very similar to Riverfront Stadium, Three Rivers Stadium, old Busch Stadium, Shea Stadium, Fulton County Stadium and other contemporaries that are all gone now. Compared to earlier and later stadiums, these all strike me as very sterile and plain. MMP and Reliant came across as unquestionable upgrades in my mind. It will be interesting to see what becomes of the Superdome an if it continues to be renovated and not replaced. That is the only analog I can think of that has not already been torn down or similarly abandoned.
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Perhaps, but (I'm going off wikipedia here, I could be wrong on the specifics) the Dome beat some hall in Belgrade that was built in 1957 by 86m (27%), so it beat a mark that stood for 8 years, only 10 years later, the Superdome went another 12 meters, and by 1992 the Dome's span was beaten by 147 meters or 152%. I think the marvel has gone out of the absolute accomplishment, but you are certainly justified if to believe otherwise. I doubt anyone has or ever will flock to Georgia Dome, or Bojangles Coliseum. It was a notable engineering and interesting achievement, but one that was not that much greater than what had been done previously, nor did it stand for very long. All these things just take money, it was not some rare confluence of genius that made it happen, just political power to get people to pay for it. Therein lies the rub, who can convince whom to pay for it.
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There is value in continuity and there is value in change. When you are talking about property, you are talking about the rights that are established through the political process to weigh one against the other. Each have mutually exclusive benefits; make your case and may we hope that the political process comes up with something equitable.
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The whole country, and the NYT in particular, has a particular habit of vociferously supporting what they believe to be important so long as it is on someone else’s dime and they can avoid discussion of the opportunity costs. If preservationists without money can not sell their ideas through the political process, then their ideas are out of luck. I wouldn’t begin to try and justify anything that would have occurred to get any large scale NYC project done or undone, nor would I want to follow their model, regardless of the outcome that was achieved. I’m not completely unsympathetic to the value of historical structures, but do you want to spend a half billion dollars on something that looks neat and makes you think of interesting times, or do you want to build a hospital, road, or other infrastructure project? I’d rather have civic pride in a thriving city than a cash hole of a trophy that can’t be accessed because Greenbriar and Fannin flooded again. The previous largest unsupported span set a record too, and the one before that, and the one before that. Archive pictures, stories, plans and ideas. That makes history. Give the government a perpetual license to spend money to preserve something with emotional appeals, and you’re just asking for the next Lee Brown to grease his brother’s bank account with it. My Italian analogy came from a thought of what options they had from the time their ruins first started to decay, Visigoths notwithstanding. They had other things to tend to, and still do, but as you point out, theirs probably turn a profit, as ruins, not as restored structures kept in something similar to the same scope as their original intent. The skeleton frame park always sounded like the best idea to me, must be politically unworkable.
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That's a great looking building. Removing the drunk encampment from the sidewalk in front of it would help too.
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I do not think that the Stowers building in integrated in to BG Place apart from perhaps the exteriors physically touching with the new building "bracing" the old. Stowers is vacant, BG is fully leased. Heritage Plaza has some of the old building remaining in it. It is certainly interesting to re-use the old structues, but allowing them to come down is part of the trade off you get for cheaper sustained growth, something many cities would give all of their rotting landmarks to have.
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I'm sure anything is possible with enough interest, but I think the public viewed this election as a demolition referendum, and the county sure seems to agree.
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I like Texas St. too. There is a narrow vacant building next to the Magnolia that seems to have uncertain value, but apart from that, it is pretty great. The Federal prison building is fairly unobtrusive, but it always gives me a depressing vibe. I like the juxtaposition of the church across the street though, it is well kept and very peaceful. After 609 Main gets built and if Finger's ballpark place ever goes, there would only be 3-4 surface parking blocks to build on before you had attractive, complete urban development from the Bayou all the way to MMP. Skip a block over to Prairie though and it is quite a bit rougher, but still improving.
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This is such a huge upgrade over what was there before. Between BG Place and this, that block of Main will have one from extremely sketchy to fist class. Now they just need to do something about Battelsteins and the one block over $.99 store.
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Sad to see it go, but it was sad to see it sit there and rot. Had it been made in to convention space, it would sit there empty while the newly installed equipment rots away or soaks up cash to be maintained. I would like to see the operating cost/revenue numbers on the GRB and Reliant Center while we are at it, but as far as I can tell, they were never put forth in this discussion. Pointless now, I suppose. No one could think of a good use for it that did not involve public funding, and the public doesn't want to fund it. I did not think that any plan involving public money would be executed faithfully anyway, nor did I think preserving an expensive historical structure was a good use of public money. I personally think that retaining tangible pieces of history is a diminishing return type proposition. The bigger you have to go, the less you are going to ge out of it. Italy could bankrupt itself restoring its history that is far more significant and rich than a professional sports stadium. They tore down Yankee Stadium, Texas Stadium, Three Rivers, etc, we can't pretend that the Dome meant more than that.
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It's an interesting dynamic. You have buildings being torn down when empty lots would be available. Getting a building that has been neglected for so long has to be incredibly expensive, perhaps more so than tearing it down. I'd be curious to see the numbers ether way. My guess is that nearly no one wants to repurpose old buildings, and the owners of vacant lots are keeping their asking prices way up. The old buildings sit neglected for long enough that they become a huge liability to the owners as opposed to a fairly stable asset that is a surface parking lot, thus the price differential for new developers. 1121 Walker is another one that I keep wondering about. It is interesting that the Savoy and 806 Main are being rehabilitated (as well as Rice, Icon and Magnolia), the hotel/residential business model must work. The only office/commercial space that I can think of that went that route downtown are the Stowers building (BG Place block) and the building at the corner of Fannin and Prairie, both of which are still vacant.
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It would be interesting to see how they make the call on deconstruction vs. implosion. Cost aside, I would guess that it involves height, inward implosion space/ability, and distance from surrounding structures. All that energy from falling debris has to go somewhere.
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20 years vacant would indicate to me that it is likely something less than perfectly nice. For usable square footage, I'm sure rehabbing that property would be significantly more expensive than tearing it down and adding that space to the new building, tosay nothing of having a less desirable and more difficult to lease property when you are done.
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I talked briefly to the guy in the picture. He seemed pretty excited. Demolition would be fun work.
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Demolition of the old building on the site has begun:
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Not bad at all.
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Milk cartons - Pennzoil Really tall one - TCB/Chase Tower Awesome - Williams/Transco Tower Cute gingerbread - Bank of America (I think) Pez - BG Place It would indeed be quite a coup to get Whataburger to move their HQ from Corpus Christi.
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Fast Food Places Downtown
Nate99 replied to Nate99's topic in Houston Area Dining, Shopping and Entertainment
The one next to Beck's is, but the one under the Chase tower is still there, as is the on in te Houston Center shops, and Centerpoint. Seems like there are more than that even, but I could be wrong. -
For those of you on Facebook, I highly recommend that you look up and "like" Traces of Texas. They post a fairly high volume of old photos from all around Texas. I ran across it a week or so ago. Here's one of Gulfgate ~1958:
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Fast Food Places Downtown
Nate99 replied to Nate99's topic in Houston Area Dining, Shopping and Entertainment
Types of fast food, yes, but not the paticular and otherwise successful brands. I just thought that there would be more, all else being equal. There are more Jason's Delis ans Otto's BBQ's than there are Wendy's and more Beck's Prime (just the one) than there are Taco Bell and all of the fried chicken franchises combined. Ninfa's express and Alonti have the business model nailed, whatever it is.
