tigereye

Yea, what is that?  10 days out of a year?

Not good.

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Imagine the Super Bowl and Final Four coming here every six years.

That's good.

There are a few reason why I love this plan....

On game day for the Texans, I can easily envision this place with retail and eatery's being a hub for pregame and postgame activities.

Furthermore, look past Texans games. Broaden the scope if you will. Reliant Stadium is A facility that can attract Super Bowl's and Final Four's to town easily by itself. With this plan, Reliant Stadium now has an entertainment attraction with over 1000 hotel rooms next door to it. Talk about sweetening the pot....this makes any future Super Bowl bid near unbeatable as this is what owners look for in bids, hotel rooms and entertainment close by. Nothing gets closer then this.

This is what Jerry Jones dreamed of for the Cowboys in his failed JerryWorld proposal to Dallas, and he's NOT getting it in Arlington, only a stadium. This is what Eddie Debartolo tried to build, a mall-stadium for the 49ers at Candlestick Pointe, what Bidwell tried to build, a mall-stadium for the Cardinals at Rio Salado Crossing....i.e. sports and entertainment complex. All have failed in there attempts due to financing. It appears Houston will be the first in sports history to build a true dream sports and entertainment complex.

Even better, unlike the Cowboys, Cardinals, and 49ers unsuccessful plans of adding mall-like development to the stadium complex, the Astrodome/Hotel/Riverwalk project would be a totally different concept. It would be likened to being a "city inside of a bubble" that would evoke memories of the "Jetsons." A bizarre project like this is sure to pique the curiousity of many around the world, making the Astrodome an attraction once again. And if cities in the future try to copy Houston's successful plan of adding enterteinment around the sports venues to sweeten their Super Bowl bid, no city's Super Bowl bid will ever offer a city inside of a bubble next door as part of there package. Its an attraction that will make any future Super Bowl bid by Houston unbeatable.

Its not just about having conventions people....its about making Reliant Park a premier cant-be-passed-up destination for major events like the Super Bowl and the Final Four. If this plan succeeds, which I believe it will now that they have a solid financing plan, Houston can punch its ticket to the Super Bowl rotation. Guaranteed.

I like the current lighting.

I cant believe nobody's mentioned Weiner's, with a weird name like that.

Builder's Square also comes to mind.

a few skyscraper and real estate sites are saying that developers are trying to bring this building back,and that the area where it was designed to be built is still a street level parking lot

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Are you for real....This is the building that would have given Houston its signature tower.

But why would they do this, especially given the lack of demand in the current office market, which still has vacancies.

If they do this though, I imagine they would have to redo the design, as the original Helmut Jahn desgin ended up being the precursor to the Philly's Liberty Place Towers, which ended up becoming that city's signature in its skyline. Building the Jahn designed tower now would be viewed nationaly as an attempt to copy Liberty Place in Philly.

I would love for this to be true, but I just can see it happening for those two reasons.

EDIT: Dominax,

Thanks for the photoshopped pic of our skyline with the two main tower its missing and sadley were never built. I have forever tried to imagine what our skyline would have looked like today with these two buildings included. This really helps me...

Anyone else have anymore photoshops of what this dream skyline could have looked like today, especially the famous views from the north and west of Downtown?

No Probs.

One more thing to add....I was on Main at Grass hopper saturday night. Before I went there, I decided to walk the street. Its has a great atmosphere. I feel within a few years it will rival that of the French Quarter as more and more clubs are coming to Main.

While walking around downtown, I passed by the proposed Shamerock site, which still has activity of some sort. I dont know what's going on but "soil samples" can not take this long. I am convinced the delay for this project is due to the redesign, which was due to its new sight restrictions. Any major overhaul of project will delay it as floor plans, HVAC, Electrical, lighting, plumbing etc would all have to be redrawn. Shamerock was literally sliced in half, juging by the newest rendering. Furthermore, if the 'we've sold %60" thing is ture, this has to be a go because they sold these before the design revision, which probably sliced half of its square footage. With this design revision, that figure is probably at %85-90 percent, beased on the amount of vacant space lost in the revision. ut then again, they might have had to resell the project to those who bought already, as this revision could have reduced the square footages in the dwellings they had bought....which could also lead to a delay.

In any case, "the Sham" to me is not dead by a long shot.....

Hey guys...I have a little info to chime in on....

I usually post at Clutchfans.net. Great site, I'm from New York and it has helped me miss my Knicks less and less and now love the Rockets now more and more. Yesterday I chimed in on a rail spurring development debate with a little info I knew. I got called out for it by someone here, I will not mention who out of respect....

So since "spilt" this info, I might as well share it with you guys. Take it how you want it...every one of the 15,000 posters at CF.net knows me as a reliable source who is rarely wrong. I have already one scoop to my name here at HAIF as I found out about the redevelopement plans of Northwest Mall and it tying into a proposed Soccer Stadium for an MLS team, most likely to be owned by Mexico's Televisia, owner of Club America. But I assume few noticed that as it generated few replies...I guess no one likes soccer here.

I was planning on holding out with this info BELOW until I got more facts to back up what I say as this "my relative is..." source is shaky at best for most to believe. But with me getting 'called out" yesterday, I decided to hold out no more, here it is....

THE INFO: Virgin is coming to Houston. My Cousin is a top ranking manager at the Times Square Store. Sometimes, they have her and other managers travel to stores under construction to help prep new staff with the day to day operations of the business. She has alerted me that she is coming to Houston soon, no timetable has been set. The facts I need to garner is where in Houston. The location is not %100 official but they have scouted downtown and the Galleria. Of Downtown, she said there location would not be stand alone in downtown, rather be incorporated into a new mixed use development, which is a staple of Virgin stores. This leads me to believe that Virgin is looking to be apart of this Pavillions project, the only mixed us project with space downtown. She said she will provide me with more info as it comes in....

Again, take it for what its worth....if you dont believe me, that's fine. I can understand why. Just know this...when it happens, who know who said it.

they just don't get good press, I suppose.

from today's paper:

But each time, local hip-hop innovators such as the Geto Boys, DJ Screw and South Park Mexican came undone, derailed by infighting, drug use and crime.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/m...politan/3231700

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How many times has this broken up any music group, no matter what type of crowd they played to. Guns n Roses (Axle), Van Halen (Dave), New Edition (Bobby Brown), Jackson 5 (Mike), The BeeGees (Andy Gibb), etc.....I can literally span decades with this list.

All were attributed to either infighting or drugs or both.

In fact, the oly group that has broken up peacefully is Destin's Child....until we start hearing those nasty tabloid rumors about why they split too.

Again the only trend I see is that of bad decisions being made. Music does not cause violence.

But there is a disturbing trend with Rap that you don't see with other music.

Rapper Cassidy turns himself in to face murder charge

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA

Great pics, Tigereye.

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Thanks but there not mine, from a friend.

I though you guys might be interested in this.....

I wonder why they need that if there is a beach right there at the top of the picture.

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I'm guessing you have never been to Japan?

It can get very cold there. Thus some of the waters on the real beach there can get quite chilly. The Waters of the Ocean Dome however are actually heated waters. And naturaly retractable roof lets the locals bath year round.

In the winter time, with the heated waters, you can think of the Ocean Dome as being the world's largest hot tub.

That not the only attraction either.....in addition to some pretty cool rapid rides, it has a fire breathing volcano that goes bizark every half hour. This volcano creates a tsunami...well, the wave pool does its thing.

I don't know, it's somewhere in Asia. I found the picture on ssc and they had Houston vs what ever city that is in, and thats how I found the pictures.

Well the second one is in Japan.

New soccer stadiums generally have seating of about 20,000.  The Dome is way too big, and it wasn't designed around being able to hide seating sections as at the Alamo Dome.  A smaller high school stadium seems like it would be a better place to start for soccer facility.

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Actually, form an engineering standpoint, the Dome would work for serving as a shell for an intimate 25,000 seat soccer stadium.

Back in its hey day, the Dome used to seat 42,000 when one end of the stadium was left open which made room for the scorebaord spectacular. If you subtract the other endzone, you easily shrink capacity to the nieghborhood of 30,000 or less. Open ended soccer stadiums are the popular designs for the MLS anyways. To further shrink capacity, the interior would need to be gutted and the concourses would need to be enlargerd, which would push the seating deck closer to the pitch. Overall, this would eliminate sections in the seating bowls design which could get you to the 25,000 mark.

What I would like to see done is for the the entire reliant campus be sectioned off into three rectulangular blocks. One for Reliant Center, the middle for stadiums, and the last one for parking. the Astrohall needs to be replaced by a Parking garage structure to serve soccer.

The parking lot east of the Dome needs to be raised for in favor of a retractable soccer pitch that could move in and out of the Dome to make it more multipurpose. The Dome's seating bowl needs to be as multipurpose as the Saitima Super Arena in Japan, which can change form a 40,000 seat soccer stadium to a 5,000 seat concert venue in the blink of an eye.

And last but not least...on the North end of the Dome that faces Reliant center, an air conditioned, sheltered walk way with moveable pathways like you find in airports needs to be built to connect Reliant Stadium and the Dome to the light rail line to make it more attractable to use for commuters. No one likes trudging across barron parking lots in the middle of the night to catch a train....wake up Metro.

This needs to be done.....nuff said.

And as for Houston's proposed SSS in the NW side of town.....root for it to happen as it will tie into plans to redevlope the old Northwest Mall into one massive sports and entertainment year round complex.

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Remember when I said this......its now falling into place......that is if they dont use the Astrodome and build at Delmar

NW Mall redevelopment thread

We can still have an MLS team in the near future if San Antonio had a team in '06, but it just wouldn't be in '06, yo. The only thing Houston doesn't have for a team is a deticated investment group and/or ownership that's willing to build or renovate a stadium for primary soccer purpose. We got the fans, yo. We just need a fan that's a mulit-million dollar fan to exist in Houston.

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First post here......let me give you and other a little heplfull info.

There is an investor who has the ball rolling in Houston, hence all the talk aobut the stadium on the NW side of town.

The investor is Club America of Mexico City.

Much like Chivas and there owner Jorge Vergara, they want in on one specific market. For Vergara, it was LA, and he got what he wanted. For Club America, its Houston becuase its a big market with a huge hispanic base that's close to Mexico, just like LA. They do not want to go to San antonio as they feel the market income per household is to low to aqudately support a franchise.

Hence, San Antonio is in negoations with Tigres, another Mexican club for ownership. There Mayor was recently in Mexico to meet with club officals

And BTW....the only reason why SA is in is becuase they gave the "tax-payer-funded" Alamodome away to the MLS by giving them FREE RENT and all concessions, parking. I'm confused.....Mayor Garza was doing this to have a tenant in the Dome to make money for the city of SA. How is SA gonna make money out of this deal?

And as for Houston's proposed SSS in the NW side of town.....root for it to happen as it will tie into plans to redevlope the old Northwest Mall inot one massive sports and entertainment year round complex.