Sunstar

found a pic and little blurb, guess it was a 'yarn bomb'

http://www.chron.com/life/article/Yarn-bomb-hits-Buffalo-Bayou-Park-6339450.php

 

Vandals! 

I don't know how it's going to work when everything is done....but you can see the terraced area at the far end of the water....it looks like it might be fed from there.....there is also the big round "tube" in the first pic...not sure how it's all going to work...

I figured the round tube would be for overflow, which would run through to other side of the curved wall. 

I can't quite make out all of the far end of the lake on the second photo, but is it fed by a storm drain, or just stand alone?

^^^^^ An iconic tower would be awesome right there on that parking lot ^^^^^

I always thought this lot would be the best for a 90+ iconic tower. You would have a huge central tower with smaller ones "cascading" down  around it:

So it's going to have a running stream? That's some trick!

I thought the plan was a fall 2015 opening anyways?

It was originally targeted to open in April, and finally scheduled for June 20th. They sent out a note today stating that it would be rescheduled for the fall, thanks to the heavy rain we've received over the last few months.

Did anyone else see a Minotaur at approximately 3:00? What the hell is that in the middle of the screen?

Do you mean Minotaur or Centaur? 

It looks like the park's grand opening has been pushed from the end of this month to some time in the fall. The new date hasn't been released yet. 

It doesn't surprise me, flood or no flood, they seemed really far behind on some of these projects for a June grand opening. At least the weather will be cooler then. 

It's interesting that this project is as far along as it is and we only have basic line art renderings to go by. Meanwhile the Hines building across the way has plenty of sexy renderings that came out before the building even broke ground. I would assume these are essential marketing aids. 

If I had the option to live and work downtown, I would do it without a car. In theory, everything should eventually be either within walking or biking distance, or accessible by bus or rail. Outside of that I would Uber it. The savings in car payments and gas would be well worth it.

With all the new residential developments in downtown and midtown, the new light rail extensions, and better bike access to downtown, I wonder if we'll ever hit a point where new parking garage construction will start to taper off. 

I found this on Swamplot this morning. I don't believe it has been linked here yet.

http://urbanland.uli.org/industry-sectors/bayou-city-reclaiming-houstons-signature-waterways/

 

It's an interesting read.

Another great article! Thanks for finding it. This confirmed what I've heard in the past, that the 2020 initiative will begin to remove the concrete channels on some of bayous, which will enhance their natural beauty and provide better protection from flooding and erosion. 

Took this picture of the Sunset Coffee Building this past weekend. I'm kind of surprised they haven't started working on the plaza yet. I believe the plan is still to open in June.

 

the dutch country amish, would love that beautiful new museum rendering.....

 

"'Tis a fine barn, but sure 'tis no Museum, English"

Good win last night against last year's AL Cy Young award winner. Who got it started? None other than your AL Batting Champion Jose Altuve. Keuchel looked great with 7 strong innings. Naturally my expectations are heavily tempered again this year, but for once I think the Astros have really made some moves to be a competitive team. 

I'm still impatient for Correa and Appel to come up, but maybe they'll be promoted to triple A ball this summer. 

Here on the 1891 map you can see more residential density in that area. Plus you can see Block 334 has clearly broken ground 

Much of the area used to be Quality Hill which was a residential neighborhood. Think houses like the Cohn House and the Foley House which were going to be part of the Nau Center.

To the extent this map from 1873 is a accurate depiction of downtown at the time, you can see the Annunciation Church and the area that is currently Union Station and MMP (click to zoom). Quality Hill would have been slightly North of here. 

In the second image, we can see the modern boundaries of downtown. As you move South from Annunciation into the area that is highlighted in the 1970s photo, you can see it becomes quite a bit more rural, maybe even farmland. Although this is well before everything was paved over, it's unlikely that this became a dense residential neighborhood at any point. 

While I have no evidence to back it up, my assumption is that this area was never really densely populated prior to that infamous photo and probably contained some private residences and mostly undeveloped land. Had this photo shown a bunch of grassy fields it would have been less jolting. It was the decision to just pave it all that is the disturbing part. But I've never seen any evidence demolitions of priceless architecture on a massive scale to get it to this point. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken. 

In regards to the block in question, it does appear there were some previous older structures that were demolished. I would like to try to find a close up picture that shows a close up of the site with all the original buildings.

The city will probably keep this site reserved for a future hotel development, but based on the location I think another cool idea would be something like the Sports Legends Museum next to Camden Yards in Baltimore. Not this architectural style per se, but the lot's proximity to MM Park and the Toyota Center make it a good candidate for a Houston sports museum. 

Streams change course over time.  That's just what they do.

 

Most of the rainwater runoff goes into the bayous eventually.  That runoff includes fertilizer from lawns plus all sorts of other organic materials like leaves and bird dookie and what have you.  All that stuff feeds algae and other suspended microbes that get together with some suspended dirt (and tire dust and whatever other nasty stuff washes off the roads) to cause turbidity.  Sure, the bayous were kinda clear 100 years ago upstream of the sewers.  But their clay bottoms have since been destroyed by the Corps of Engineers channelization projects that are now slowing getting undone, and we have about five or six million extra people in the watersheds.

 

tl;dr:  No, the water's not going to be even somewhat clear without some sort of miracle.

The original master planned included adjoining wetlands that would serve as natural filtration for runoff. These didn't make it into the final design for some reason. As the park extends to the east side, they envisioned transforming industrial sites into wetlands and nature preserves that would significantly lessen the impact of runoff. I don't know if that is still the plan. As far as I know, there are only two examples of this to date: Buffalo Bend Park way out by the turning basin, which includes 3 storm water retention ponds, and Japhet Creek, which is one of the last natural tributaries to the bayou. It is currently protected as part of the Federal Green Fingers initiative. All the others have presumably been paved over.  

I think the work they've done so far is great, but without the ecological aspects, the project will fall short of it's ultimate vision.

Any one want to wager what the next downtown residential project finished for move in will be? I had always assumed this one, but now I'm thinking either Crawford or the old Texaco building. I wouldn't totally count out the new Sky House at the rate they slap those things up. I don't have any visibility into the Hamilton apartments to know where they are on that project.

Great photos! I love how the path runs right under the old Magnolia Brewery foundation.

It's interesting that they never dug a foundation for this development, which explains why it's going up so quickly. Compare that to block 334 where they dug out a huge foundation for a 5 story building. 

They have a webcam for this project like they did for the first one?

They still have the old one up, but it stopped showing live images since 7-2-14.

http://oxblue.com/open/SkyHouseApartments

Seems like they just need to turn it back. As you can see, Block 334 has added a whole floor since then!!!

Frankly, I think this design fits in well with the already boxy Green Streets. Plus it will breathe some life into that development, which is still looking for a raison d'etre.