ArchFan

I used to bike in Barker Reservoir and -- now having looked on historicaerials.com -- am surprised that there used to be more roads there than I suspected. At first, I thought you were referring to Barker-Clodine, which has been converted into a hike & bike path. According to Louis Aulbach (in the section entitled "Families of Barker Reservoir", http://users.hal-pc.org/~lfa/Buffalo.html), this path lies "near the ruins of the Habermacher Settlement". He describes the Habermachers as a family of Germans who immigrated to the area in the 1830's. From your description, there must still be a bridge across Buffalo Bayou for the old Addicks-Clodine Road, as there is for Barker-Clodine. On the other hand, the bayou there is quite narrow, so far upstream, so perhaps it wouldn't be difficult to cross over by foot. In the 70's I hiked up the bayou there (from Hwy. 6) and was surprised to encounter bow-fishermen shooting gar several feet long in such a narrow stream.

It is fun seeing these pix, especially since I don't pass thru that area much. Its nice to see some things that look a little different than what we've seen going up in the rest of Houston for the last few years. (Anyone who follows "medical center architecture" elsewhere, feel free to point whether/how much these conform to formulas seen in other cities.) I'm old enough to remember that, as a kid, I always thought the area around the Shamrock Hilton and the Prudential Bldg. had a different feel from the rest of Houston. However, despite the construction boom in the med center, commercial development has followed design templates used elsewhere in Houston. E.g., the huge, bland, apartment complexes that house med-center employees in the midst of enormous gated parking lots, in walking distance of almost no retail services. Anyone I've ever talked to who lived in one couldn't wait to leave Houston whenever they finished whatever they were doing here. Is there any hope the the total built environment around TMC will every get to the level of design and lifestyle quality that people will want to stay instead of flee Houston?

Very nice pics. I like this building a lot, even tho' it doesn't have a major impact on the DT skyline from most angles. I think most of us expected that, anyway. In another location, away from so many other tall buildings, it would really stand out. I'd like to think that the parties behind this building will be rewarded for their willingness to invest in good design ... which might motivate others (when the market improves) to take that into consideration, as well.

Turns out it's a parking garage. Unless the other structures abutting it were torn down, the only access would be from the Hilton Inn parking lot. So ... my guess is it's additional parking for the Inn. Are people aware that The Mens Club used to be a bowling alley? Some buildings in Houston actually do get converted to other uses instead of being torn down!

From what I can see in the initial rendering, if you were to take away the decorative Moebius strip, it would look like just another graceless concrete bridge-on-stilts. I.e., the typical Houston bridge-over-the-bayou or freeway overpass. (The only exception I can think of is the Main Street Viaduct.) It would be more interesting if the bridge supports mimicked the curvature of the superstructure in some fashion.

I agree, I think we need to give HP time. I wasn't impressed with the Denver Pavilions when it opened, and frankly, I'm still not all that impressed. However, downtown Denver has gradually gotten better and better over the years since the 16th Street Mall opened. So much so, that the DP is just another part of the whole scene, not the focal point. My sense is that the redevelopment of the LoDo area has been the biggest positive force in downtown Denver. Unfortunately, Houston doesn't have as big a reservoir of interesting 100-year-old brick-or-stone-clad buildings downtown. Despite that, I think if we continue to get a variety of interesting redevelopments downtown -- not necessarily all big ones -- I think Houston will do well.

Yes, very nice pics, thanks! I've always enjoyed the old Gulf Building, but from seeing ChannelTwoNews' pic from a window there, I hafta wonder how long it will be before chunks of mortar and/or masonry will be raining down on the sidewalks below! That stuff's been up for for, what, almost 80 years now?

Sounds like the folks who bought north-facing units at The Cosmo will soon be looking out at a wall of glass, instead of the panoramic views they have now. But, I guess that should be no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention to all the projects proposed in this area. On the plus side for those folks, tho', I imagine 5 Oaks will increase demand for condos nearby. Not having to fight the traffic makes this a much more enjoyable place to live and work.

Some parts of our city have terrrific old live oaks that really lend character to their setting. There are also a few (much fewer, actually) places where palm trees do too, but provide a different feel. Highland Village is a nice example. Some palm varieties planted here are aren't that attractive, though. Those are often the kind installed as lonely sentinals in the middle of vast concrete wastelands. In general, palms here seem be be more susceptible to poor planting and lack of maintainance. I'm seeing more really attractive use of cypress trees here. I think they're pretty cool-looking even when they're bare in winter. For the city as a whole, I agree with urban foresters that warn against cultivating an oak-tree monoculture (for one thing, because of the possibility of losing them to a species-specific disease). Spreading live oaks are beautiful, but not so much when Centerpoint or CoH buzz-cut the ones too near power lines and roads into weird topiary shapes. A lot of those were planted as small trees in inappropriate places, without any foresight as to whether they had room to grow. I'd vote for having a variety, with some thought also put into planting stuff that's most well-suited to each location.

Awhile back, people commented on the big, blank concrete walls enveloping the garage at the base of this building. After regularly walking by it during construction, I was also getting the feeling this would be another unfriendly neighbor to passers-by. Today I was happy to notice a metal framework going up on the east side of the garage wall facing Post Oak. So, perhaps the water feature indicated on the earlier renderings will finally make its appearance. Hopefully they'll also do something (ivy, at least) about the south side, which has a bigger blank expanse of concrete. Otherwise, the tower seems to have come off well. The area might seem a little crowded once the proposed office highrise goes up just north, where the health club is now located ... and The Titan goes up across Post Oak.