Sunstar

That's Beaumont.

I think the problem they run into with that is getting permission from the railroad (UP?) to use the tracks.  It could be done but would probably require major schedule changes for freight traffic.  With the new panama canal expansion and the expected freight traffic bump to Houston, there may be a lot of pushback on using existing lines.

 

I remember the original proposal to run commuter rail out 290 that had Culberson's support, as not surprisingly it ran through his district. Which just goes to show that Congressmen aren't against proposals on their merit, they're only against them if it doesn't benefit their constituents. But I digress.

I can't remember if that proposal was suggesting to use the UP tracks and ended up being a no go, or if they were suggesting a separate ROW. With all the road construction on 290 now, I'm surprised they didn't try to work in some kind of rail element. In fact, if we're going to be doing these multi year, tens of millions of dollars freeway expansions, there should be a requirement to at least add a ROW for rail transit, even if they don't build it as part of the initial  project. 

It sounds like the Gulf Coast Rail district wants the station downtown.  I don't know if they can do much though - what do they currently do?  There's no commuter rail right now, and I don't know of any plans to make any except for Metro's deal with Culberson

 

http://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2015/12/08/130355/study-would-look-at-new-options-for-high-speed-rail-in-houston/

If they go with the Commuter rail option, could they use the existing rail lines that run along Hempstead, add a stop by the HSR station, and continue on to the Amtrack station or other location downtown? I assume those lines already carry freight and passenger trains. Could they also accommodate commuter rail cars that run all the way down from the Cypress Park and Ride?

Thank you for sharing. GRB looks so much better!!

It really does. Are those red air vents on the top actually functional, or just mere adornment? If you're going to go with a ship motif, go big or go home. Make the top look more like the deck of a real steam ship, or don't do anything at all. 

Yes, but this is Uptown we're talking about, so it's pretty much par for the course. 

No, he means because the Hampton Inn/Homewood Suites was developed by (and are owned by) the same developer as the Embassy Suites (American Liberty Hospitality).  None of the three hotels were developed or are owned by Hilton (as is the case with the vast majority of hotels; the hotel brands rarely own the hotels).

 

There is something I did not know. 

This is the same developer that gave us the Embassy Suites letdown, so I'm not sure why people would be surprised that they did the same thing again. I don't know if they've ever done a building that isn't the color of human skin.

Do you mean because Hampton Inn, Embassy and Homewood are all Hilton brands? Do they always use the same developer?

The building appeared to be in reasonably good shape, why did it need to be torn down?

These days, I don't see a Macy's anchoring anything new.  What they are today is losing value, what they might be in the future is not yet known.

Something like a Crate & Barrel might make more sense. 

Just a bit more scaffolding to take down

Honestly, now that it's nearing completion, this building does nothing for me, even if that's an unpopular opinion on here. It replaced something that was still fully functional and fairly profitable with another cold, sterile looking office building. Too bad Macy's wasn't incorporated into the base of the building as was originally planned. A renovation of the existing building or a complete demo/overhaul, downsizing the store would have been ideal. Very bad move especially with all the surrounding residential developments coming in. The nearby "Retail District" plan now just appears to have been a knee jerk reaction to the loss of Macy's, since not many (if any) retailers have bitten. Without Macy's or some other large chain anchoring the area, retail confidence went rom being on life support to plummeting to zero and will probably stay as such for the near term. Woulda, shoulda, coulda, I know...oh well.

The Sakowitz building is the best bet for getting a large anchor store downtown. I never liked the old Foley's building. It was nothing to me but a boring brick facade with no windows. It had zero charm. I can't say I will miss it at all. This new building has something unique for downtown, namely a skyscraper with ground floor retail. Much better than looking in on a massive empty lobby. I'm very interested to see it after all the outside landscaping is done. 

I think the retail district will be a minor success for downtown. It is a nice coincidence that this is all happening as we're adding a significant amount of residential to downtown, as this will be critical for maintaining any sort of retail presence.

For completely selfish reasons I'm glad to see it at the Northwest Mall site as I live just on the other side of the freeway and it would be within walking distance. Of course I almost never travel to Dallas, but I have this notion that it will raise property values in the immediate area. If I lived anywhere else in the city I'd be outraged. 

Best angle of downtown imho

In reality, the next SkyHouse will probably be the next major project to finish downtown, which is amazing since they started so much later than some of these other projects. 

All I really want is the dope-af upgrades that were shown in The Martian. Call me when we've got Neo Space Age architecture

Baby steps.

 

Houston 10.28 by Chris Rojas, on Flickr

Houston 10.28 by Chris Rojas, on Flickr

Whoa, it looks like you're headed into oncoming traffic!

I don't know how many there were. All I know is that photo is looking down Rusk from Main towards Travis, and there is the Second National Bank and Majestic Theater on the left side of Rusk there. The Chronicle building is 2 blocks to the right of that photo.

Glad we still have it then. I was afraid that was what was under the cladding of the Houston Chronicle Building. 

So there was another Majestic there too?

I would be surprised to see work starting up again by November 3rd. I assume there needs to be a full incident investigation first.

Whoa!

 

 

 

 

The side facing Crawford will be just as bad. The developer released a pretty nice rendering of this and the final product comes out bland. This is a lower-market hotel yes, but it'd be nice if it didn't look like it was cheaply built in the 90's. Wasn't hoping for a masterpiece, just what was shown to us.

 

Here's a few pics of Hampton Inns/Homewood Suites in other cities from the beginning of this thread. Most are more pleasing to the eye than ours.

 

One planned for Chicago:

 

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/realestate/20140513/CRED03/140519952/hotels-are-in-office-is-out-for-proposed-west-loop-high-rise

 

Hamilton Canada:

 

https://developmentduffett.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/homewood-suites-hampton-inn-near-completion/comment-page-1/

 

Interesting, this wasn't a cow reference, it was a Cupertino

The ones inside existing structures are nice. The others, moo...

Ours, double moo...

lol we should be happy that a prime location looks like a jail house? Our standards are so damn low in Houston, zomg a building has a curve BUILD IT! It helps create density so its great! We need to higher our standards and challenge the status quo, this building looks AWFUL. No ifs buts about it.

So should we start dictating architectural guidelines for developers downtown? If every new building has to meet some sort of aesthetic ideal we'll be stuck with a sea of parking lots forever. Plus, as has already been mentioned, we need cheaper hotel rooms downtown as well so everyone can come here and enjoy it. 

And yes, density is important in a market such as downtown. 

I'm going to look at the bright side of this as this will add more needed hotel rooms to downtown. We're going to get some first rate hotels and we're going to get this. At least this one is in a somewhat inconspicuous part of downtown, as opposed to looming over Discovery green. 

One crazy thought, since the Bayous span out all over Houston, would it be conceivable to start using them as a means of transportation via water taxis? I think it would be cool to jump on a taxi downtown and ride it out to the Galleria, although you'd have to use some other form of transportation to take you where you need to go. Some considerations:

1. Are the bayous navigable throughout Houston?

2. Would the "commute" time be reasonable compared to other available forms of transportation (my guess is no)?

3. Would it be cost efficient?

I wouldn't consider this to be a major transportation option, but would it be reasonable to have a small fleet running throughout the week?