Sunstar

Teatherball? No kidding?

I just don't see how any project that invloves building towers downtown could get off the ground. I think a shopping arcade would be sufficient.

From my vantage point at work I can make out bulldozers beginning to move earth on this lot. Not sure if this means the project is in full swing yet, but at least something is going on.

About a dozen times in the last 3 or 4 weeks. I work downtown and like to walk by Main Street Square during my lunchbreak. I noticed the signs about the warranty work, but that was 3 weeks ago.

I've noticed that the fountains at Main Street Square haven't been working for quite some time. I know at one point they were doing some warranty work, but that should be done by now. I was watching Rocket's game on TNT and they did a break away shot of the fountains. National networks are finally starting to show shots of downtown during sporting events and it dissapoints me when things don't look there best. Anyone know what's going on?

Yao has got some great moves, especially around the baseline. If he wasn't so foul prone he would be practically unstopable.

I went and checked out the proposed site today. It looks like about 3 or 4 parking lots starting at Main and running directly back to the Hilton. Aside from that there's good density all around it, so this project would fit quite snuggly into the area. I could definitely see people on their lunch hour strolling through the Pavillion. How it would make out on the weekends is a whole other question. Also, the fact that this would border Foley's (Macy's) and The Shops would pretty much establish a downtown retail district. A well executed project by a recognized developer could help secure some of the high-end retailers that have typically passed on downtown up to this point. I'm not saying it's a slam dunk, but the potential certainly seems to be there.

Now that I'm working downtown, one of my favorite places to have lunch is the little stand at Jones Plaza. Not that the food is so great, but it's nice to sit out and look around at the theater district. I just wish there was something they could do to lessen the latrine feel of the tiled walls. Maybe grow some ivy on them. Might be a nice effect.

In the case of the Mercer, that was actually a good thing.

It couldn't be any worse than this: Two hotels default on city loans Officials hope to clear up downtown dispute by April By JOE STINEBAKER Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Two downtown hotels have defaulted on redevelopment loans from the city totaling nearly $15 million, but Houston officials say they are confident they will resolve these disputes by April. The city intends to "aggressively pursue" repayment by the owners of the Magnolia Hotel and the Crowne Plaza Hotel, said John Walsh, Mayor Bill White's deputy chief of staff for neighborhoods and housing. Walsh and Milton Wilson Jr., the city's new housing director, said Friday the Magnolia and Crowne Plaza are in default on their city loans. Both hotel were opened after costly renovations as part of a downtown hotel building boom aided by city financing that nearly doubled the number of hotel rooms between 2001 and 2004. The combination of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the collapse of Enron, a slowed economy and a glut of downtown hotel rooms has spelled "significant challenges" for downtown hoteliers, Walsh said. As a result, neither the Crowne Plaza nor the Magnolia has had the cash flow to continue operating while paying off their loans to North Houston Bank and the city. Downtown's Hyatt Regency Hotel was recently given back to its lender, though the 977-room property will continue to operate as usual. The city lent $5 million to the ownership of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, at 1700 Smith, in February 2000, but the owners have yet to make a full payment since the first one came due in March 2001. The city lent $9.5 million to the owners of the Magnolia Hotel, at 1100 Texas, in October 2002 but hasn't seen any payments since the first due date of November 2003. Steve Holtze, the Magnolia's owner, said he remains confident he will be able to ultimately fulfill his obligations to the city. "There is no reason on Earth why we shouldn't be able to pay this off," he said. "We intend to, but you have to earn enough money to repay the loan, and we haven't been earning enough so far. We're trying to work out some way to gain us some more time." Clifford Ferrara, the general manager at the Crowne Plaza, said the hotel's ownership is working with the city to resolve the dispute and blamed former Mayor Lee Brown's administration for being unwilling to meet with hotel officials. "We've reactivated the dialogue" with the city, Ferrara said. "Our corporate offices are working with them. Quite frankly, under the former administration it was impossible to get people to the table to talk." Walsh and Wilson said the city would likely not lose money over the deals, thanks in part to federal Housing and Urban Development money that insures the city against major losses on such risky loans. Wilson emphasized that both loans had accomplished their original purpose, which was to spur the redevelopment of two prime downtown properties and to create jobs for Houstonians. The city is somewhat limited in its response. Both hotels took out their primary loans from North Houston Bank, which holds the first lien on the properties. Because the city holds the second liens, it cannot foreclose without the agreement of North Houston Bank. But Walsh and Wilson said the city and the bank would likely agree on how to respond to the hotels' defaulting. Both hotels are current on their payments to North Houston Bank, Walsh said, although he said the Magnolia will likely also default on that loan shortly. Although Walsh and Wilson said they could not predict how the situation would be resolved, they said possibilities include the owners finding financing to begin paying the loans, restructuring the debt or havingthe city take over hotel operations.

I actually think the forumers on this site are very objective when it comes to Houston, and are not a bunch of zealots as you suggest, Danes75. If that's the impression we've been giving to outsiders (outside of Houston that is) then we need to do a better job of expressing ourselves. None of us are blind to Houston's many problems and this forum gives us the pefect outlet for expressing our frustrations and explaining how things could be done better. In the end we want the same things that people in Dallas do, more urban environments with easy access to mass tranit, and more thought put into how our neighborhoods evolve. In Houston we have more obstacles to overcome because of the lack of zoning and the strong anti-rail movement. Nevertheless, I think this city has made some strong progress in the last five years, but there is still plenty of work to do. I think when a critical comment is delivered on this site in the framework of "Dallas has this, it's way awesome; Houston doesn't and therefore sucks." it will tend to ruffle a few feathers and start a flame war of the type that keeps popping up from time to time. It's a very predictable pattern, but it's not the main focus of this site.

It's getting pretty big, the interactive and movie parts are a big deal as well. BTW, do they still have the Houston Press Music awards? I thought that was a pretty cool music showcase for Houston.

I think that if they really wanted Gehry they could get him. It's not like they don't have the money. But so far the MFAH has chosen to go conservative on their expansions. The Mies van der Rohe addition to the Law building is also unremarkable in my opinion. Gehry is a bit extreme for the museum district, but it would definitely be fun to see a bit of whimsy this time around. I personally don't think it will happen.

Yeah, they're not bad. The Bebe brothers pretty much dominate the Continental club's lineup during the week. The El Orbits play on Mondays and Lightrock Express on Wednesdays. They're all cover bands, but the atmosphere is great, admission is free and drinks are cheap. I wish there were more places like the Continental Club in Houston. But luckily we're only a few hours from Austin and SXSW is coming up!

The reason that the cover was $15 last night at Continental was that Dave Alvin was playing there. He is a Grammy award winning artist and is nationally known from his days playing with The Blasters, one of the original southern California rockabilly bands. Great show by the way, definitely worth the price of admission, even though it was very crowded.

I would actually like to see them pick a lesser known architect that will give us a memorable building instead of letting some A-list architect build an unmemorable box. I like the interiors for the Beck Building a lot and it's a first-rate space for viewing art, but the outside is staid and unremarkable. I'm not a big fan of Gehry, but I would like to see something a bit more organic. Along with this endowment, a great building could really push the MFAH into the world spotlight, something that it truly deserves. A boring box will just make it another also ran.

So you see this as a bad thing? Interesting...

Wow, that guy really doesn't like the Med Center. The "vast blandness' seems a bit harsh.

Mosque set up by Olajuwon reportedly gave money to terror groups By MATT KELLEY Associated Press WASHINGTON - A mosque established and funded by basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon gave more than $80,000 to charities the government later determined to be fronts for the terror groups al-Qaida and Hamas, according to financial records obtained by The Associated Press. Olajuwon told the AP he had not known of any links to terrorism when the donations were made, prior to the government's crackdown on the groups, and would not have given the money if he had known. "There is no way you can go back in time," Olajuwon said in a telephone interview from Jordan, where he is studying Arabic. "After the fact, now they have the list of organizations that are banned by the government." A Treasury Department spokeswoman, Molly Millerwise, declined to discuss Olajuwon's contributions but said, "In many cases donors are being unwittingly misled by the charities." Federal law enforcement officials said they were not investigating Olajuwon, a 7-foot center born in Nigeria who played 17 seasons for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association before retiring in 2002. Olajuwon, who became a U.S. citizen in 1993, was known as "The Dream" and won the NBA's Most Valuable Player award in 1994, when he led the Rockets to the first of back-to-back championships. The Olajuwon-founded Islamic Da'Wah Center gave more than $60,000 in 2000 and $20,000 in 2002 to the Islamic African Relief Agency, the center's tax records show. The government shut down the relief agency in October, saying it gave money and other support to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. But the agency and its possible ties to terrorism had been in news stories years earlier, before Olajuwon's contributions: --The U.S. Agency for International Development cut off two government grants to the Islamic African Relief Agency in 1999, saying funding the group "would not be in the national interest of the United States." --A former fund-raiser for the relief agency, Ziyad Khaleel, was named in a federal trial in 2001 as the man who bought a satellite telephone that bin Laden used to plan the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. --Numerous news organizations reported shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks that the relief agency was among more than two dozen Islamic charities under scrutiny for possible terrorist ties. Olajuwon also participated in a 1999 celebrity bowling tournament for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which the U.S. government shut down in 2001, accusing it of sending money to Hamas. The Islamic Da'Wah Center gave more than $2,000 to the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation in 2000, according to its tax returns. At the time, Olajuwon was vice president of the mosque -- which was named after him -- and provided more than three-quarters of its money. Olajuwon heads the separate foundation that now controls the Islamic Da'Wah Center. All the donations came before the government designated the Holy Land Foundation and the Islamic African Relief Agency as terrorist fronts. Vipul Worah, an accountant for Olajuwon's charities, said U.S. authorities have never asked about the contributions. Olajuwon, who is married with four daughters, became a Muslim during his professional career and was known for playing in key games while observing dawn-to-dusk fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Tax returns for Olajuwon's Islamic Da'Wah Center show it gave the Islamic African Relief Agency $61,250 in 2000 and $20,000 in 2002. Those donations accounted for 2.2 percent of the $2.8 million the Islamic African Relief Agency received during 2000 and 1.4 percent of the $1.4 million it raised in 2002, records show. Olajuwon said the donations came after fund-raisers from the Islamic African Relief Agency visited Houston. He said the group told him donations would help the needy in Africa. "They came and approached us and everything was legitimate. I had no knowledge of their activity," Olajuwon said. The Treasury Department alleged in October that several top officials of the group's branches overseas are al-Qaida members or associates and the group gave bin Laden hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1999. The federal government says the Sudan-based Islamic African Relief Agency's U.S. branch is IARA-USA, based in Columbia, Mo. That group has challenged the terrorist designation in court, saying it is separate from the Sudanese group. Shereef Akeel, a lawyer for IARA-USA, acknowledged the U.S. group and the Sudanese group "may be in a partnership together" and some people with links to IARA-USA have terrorist associations. "Just because someone traveled in the same circles, just because one employee was at the same conference as someone who supported terrorism, doesn't mean the organization sponsors or condones acts of terrorism," Akeel said. The Holy Land Foundation was shut down in December 2001. Federal authorities say it was the main U.S. fund-raiser for Hamas and sent $12.4 million to the Palestinian terrorist group from 1995 to 2001. Hamas has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings in Israel that have killed scores of people, including Americans. The Holy Land Foundation and several leaders are awaiting trial on criminal charges of supporting terrorism -- charges they deny. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler rejected the group's 2002 lawsuit challenging its terrorist designation, ruling federal officials had "ample evidence" of financial support for Hamas. Attorney General John Ashcroft said in July that an indictment against several officers was "neither a reflection on the well-meaning people who may have donated funds to the foundation, nor is it a reflection on the Muslim faith and its adherents." In 2000, the year after Olajuwon participated in the Dallas bowling tournament for the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Da'Wah Center gave the group $2,430, tax records show. That money was a tiny fraction of the $13 million the foundation raised that year. Olajuwon said the bowling tournament was one of many charitable events he has attended. "I get all sorts of requests from charitable organizations," Olajuwon said. "It was a bunch of kids and I gave them autographs."

One of the biggest challenges is going to be tying North Main to Main Street Square. Once you get south of Rusk, things change quite a bit. The redevelopment of the West Building as well as the new CVS pharmacy and the businesses in Commerce towers should help quite a bit (has Stallone's opened yet?).

A little more background from June 20th of last year: Two developers face off in battle across the street By NANCY SARNOFF Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle ON a busy strip of Post Oak Boulevard, a retail war is taking shape. A pair of developers has purchased rival shopping centers on opposite sides of Post Oak at the San Felipe intersection. On one side of the street is Fashion Square, owned by Wulfe & Co. The 42,000-square-foot strip mall is home to Eatzi's, Cafe Annie and a few small boutiques. On the other side is Levcor's Post Oak Plaza. Tenants include Linens 'n Things, Luby's and California Pizza Kitchen, to name just a few. The developers are planning to overhaul their centers in an effort to spiff up the properties and draw more big-name tenants. Currently these centers, just a few blocks from Houston's ultimate retail landmark the Galleria, are low-slung and forgettable. While the developers are not showing all their cards, speculation is that both centers will be turned into multilevel structures with parking garages. When renovations are completed, the centers' new designs could mark the beginnings of a major shift in the way shopping centers are built in Houston. Historically, Houstonians have shunned multistory strip centers with parking garages. Most of us are used to parking and walking just a few steps to our destinations without having to climb stairs or wait on elevators. But land prices have reached a point in this part of town where developers can't make much money if they build just one level of leasable space and a huge parking lot. Scott Shillings, vice president of Staubach Retail, said multistory retail developments with structured parking are the wave of the future. "In your very urban areas, that's what life is all about these days," said Shillings. Competition promises to be lively between the developers, who have big reputations to live up to. "We're probably both talking to the same people," said Joan Collum of Levcor, which just bought the 128,000-square-foot Post Oak Plaza. Levcor is meeting with national tenants about leasing space in a newly renovated Post Oak Plaza, which "needs some updating," Collum said. Indeed, the center was built in the 1960s, and its design is, well, uninspired. Some of the larger tenants have good frontage on Post Oak and San Felipe, but most of the stores sit back from the street, hidden by a sea of cars. Collum said parts of the center could be torn down to make way for a multilevel retail center. A parking garage also could be in the mix. But such changes will be tricky. Many of the tenants at the Post Oak center have leases that don't expire for a while, so it would be difficult to make wholesale changes. "There are a lot of moving parts in that center," Collum said. But the project across the street is primed for a change. Houston retail developer Wulfe & Co. bought Fashion Square earlier this year. And unlike Post Oak Plaza, tenants are said to have cancellation provisions written into their leases. Without giving specifics, president Ed Wulfe said a plan to redevelop the center is in the works. Sources familiar with the project say the existing property will be torn down and a two- or three-story center built in its place. Wulfe is said to be acquiring additional land along the street behind the center to make more room for a larger project. Other developers are finding alternative ways to provide more parking without asking customers to change their habits

Wow, 28 months to complete! This is going to be some building. I hope the city follows through on their idea to build a diagonal boulevard that runs from the Cathedral to the convention center. Diagonal boulevards always elicit interesting architecture by necessity (Flatiron Building).

THE 'WOW' FACTOR New branch library has contemporary cool cachet By CLIFFORD PUGH Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle When John Middleton recently led a tour through the new John P. McGovern Stella Link Branch Library, a high school student enthusiastically compared the entrance, with a wavy gold plastic awning that floats over large glass doors, to the hip Ikea store. Middleton smiled. That's what he was hoping to hear. "We wanted a 'wow' factor," says the Houston Public Library's project manager for design and construction. Coolness is elusive, as companies can attest. Apple has it right now; Microsoft doesn't. With the new $5.6 million Stella Link branch, library officials have captured a cool cachet by busting the notion of what a library should be like. In the old days before the Internet transformed information-gathering, libraries were often dimly lit places where beverages were banned; and if you spoke above a whisper, a librarian would quickly "shush" you. But now, with competition from bookstores where comfy chairs, coffee bars and wireless Internet access invite lingering, libraries across the nation have to keep up or lose their relevance. In Seattle, the $165 million Rem Koolhaas-designed central library

Associated Press The University of Texas Health Science Center has received $5 million for cardiovascular stem cell research, the institution announced today. The gift will be split evenly between the health science center and the Texas Heart Institute to establish stem cell research endowments. Dr. James T. Willerson, president of the health science center, said the gift would help broaden basic stem cell research as well as develop treatment efforts for patients with coronary artery disease and severe heart failure. UT-Houston received a separate $25 million gift for stem cell research last year, making it the state's leader in that research field. UT-Houston is the only institution at the Texas Medical Center working with stem cells derived from human embryos from the existing cell lines approved by the federal government. Stem cells, which can come from adults and donated embryos, could potentially be used to repair spinal cord injuries and reverse effects of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. But research involving destruction of human embryos has generated heated debate over possibilities of stellar medical breakthroughs versus immoral or unethical sacrifice of embryos for studies that may or may not produce results. In 2001, President Bush restricted use of federal money on embryonic stem cell research to existing lines. Privately funded research is ongoing. Willerson and Dr. Emerson Perin, director of new interventional cardiovascular technology at the Texas Heart Institute, lead one of the first FDA-approved clinical trials to treat end-stage heart disease patients using stem cells derived from their own bone marrow. "Through our investigations, we hope to make a significant contribution in the battle to transform the future of medicine and to prevent and conquer cardiovascular disease," Willerson said. Link

This newsletter reminded me that the Houston Technology Center is going to have an expansion this year.