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bobruss

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  1. bobruss
    I posted a few weeks ago that they were using the same construction method as the Susanne on Dunlavy, but apparently its not exactly the same, because I noticed the other day and just confirmed by these images above that they are pouring reinforced steel columns and on the Susanne they are using some sort of u shaped steel beams between the metal framed walls. So it is a different method. This seems more traditional and as I stated when I first saw the Susanne going up I had not seen that type of system before.
  2. bobruss
    this initiative was brought together by the Bayou Conservancy under the leadership of Anne Olsen. She has been running this for as long as I can remember. if you go to their website they have all kinds of information and updates. You might find someone to contact about the plans for the eastern side and where they stand in bringing them to fruition. When the coffee building is finished being restored, their office will be housed in the top floor, just on the edge of Allens landing
  3. bobruss
    I believe this "Bayou and Beyond" initiative, was developed about 10 to 12 years ago. Its an amazing plan that is finally coming to fruition on the west side of town unfortunately because of all of the county, city, and industrially owned properties on the east side and just in downtown alone, it will take a lot longer to pull off, but hopefully somehow it will happen. As you can see by the improvements and success already on the western side this would be a great thing to happen for the city of Houston and no telling how it would change both the east side and north side of Houston. I hope they can do it. They have to. The only thing is after 10 to 12 years they are still short $150,000. dollars to finish the western improvements to this date. We need someone like the Duncans, The Lesters, and the Arnolds, the Wyatts, the Cullens, to name a few, to come together and do something special for the city that helped them achieve their wealth as a civic gesture. Now wouldn't that be nice.
  4. bobruss
    Triton, I was worried when they first built the Star of Hope. Like I said we were there for 7 years and I was never approached day or night by one homeless person. Never had anything taken or broken into. Remember this was before the stadium was even built so it was less well lit and the Cotswold project hadn't even started yet, which really changed the feel of the area with lighting, trees, signage and art. Before they moved to the underpass a lot of them had built a makeshift shanty town under the Elysian viaduct on the southwest side of the bayou on Crawford. I would take my border collie over there to exercise and do her business. Not one time did I feel in harms way. Until you are living day to day in this environment you really can't understand their habits. if I was walking down the street and they happened to be on the same side they would usually switch sides of the street. For the most part they were anti social. Now I'm not saying they were all angels, I just think a lot of people judge situations they have never experienced close up from a distance too far away to get the true perspective.
  5. bobruss
    It was a Thursday afternoon when I got a call from my brother in law worried about the red tags that had been slapped to the glass doors by the fire marshall giving us initially through the weekend to be out. There were some tenants who had friends in high places with the city and the owner of the building along with quite a few of the tenants who went to the meeting with the fire chief and chief inspectors attended by a very high city architect who set up the meeting for us. There were several fairly large companies in our buildings including architects design firms lawyers even some downtown cops had an apartment there. Many didn't trust the owner so we all went for our own concerns of hearing the story from the horses mouth. They ended up giving us two weeks to get out but they performed inspections on each space individually and wrote tickets to the owner for any violations. Some disgruntled renter had tipped off the fire marshalls to some exit issue in one of the last building he was remodeling and that set off the alarms. In the meeting the Fire Chief said that even though it was just before christmas he couldnt let us stay since there had been a rash of fire deaths in just the few weeks before this came up. one including 3 children in an apartment fire and over his dead body was he going to let anyone stay there overnight. We could only be in the units from 8 am until 5pm and then the police would kick us out. There was a manned police car there every afternoon and if anyone stayed past 5 he would make them leave. To make things even worse they condemned the freight elevators and all of this was happening in the middle of the Cotswold project and they had just torn out Commerce street behind our building and so you couldnt even park where the elevators were, and due to the construction there was only room on Crawford with afternoon commute over Elysian Viaduct that forced us to cue up with trailers one at a time. You can imagine just trying to find somewhere to live before christmas but also to have to move 30 years of accumulated stuff from a third story loft made it kinda tuff. Fortunately we along with the lawyer below us were one of the last to leave and by the time we were getting out the attorney paid for the inspection of the elevator and it was cleared for service and we used it. The most incredible thing that came out of the meeting was the most damning thing the city building inspectors informed us of. The owner had not ever obtained a certificate of Occupancy which as you can imagine had us all scratching our heads, So for over seven years of working and living in a building not even having a certificate and all of the violations made it very easy for them to kick us out. It made front page of the Chronicle. We still loved the 7 years experience living in an old warehouse downtown. Since we practically paid nothing for the space and built it out ourselves we had an idea things were a little dicey, but when you are adventurous and its on your bucket list you go for it, which is what we did. The short amount of time in December to exit on such short notice was the only aggravating thing, besides dealing with the unscrupulous owner. He was forced to sell and the building is full again. I think Bucek & Sterns offices are still in the Northeastern corner of the block. I would sit in the living room and watch the sunset over the buildings and the sun come up on the east side and just be hypnotized. Great times!
  6. bobruss
    When we lived in the building across the street known as the wagon works complex, I used to walk our dog around the area and always thought that this would be the perfect place for residential growth. We were there for 7 years and got to watch Minute Maid get built. We actually lived in the Pittsburg Plate Glass building on the south side of the Wagon Works, and I can tell you our view to the west was incredible especially at sunset. Sure we did have a jail one block west but big deal. We had the top floor of the building and fifty feet of eight foot windows to the west. The 14' ceilings made it difficult to keep the space cool with the summer sun. I eventually put up some thick opaque vinyl that I salvaged, over the windows during the summer months, which helped the heat factor, but during tropical storm Alison, when we got 35" of rain we were awakened by our downstairs neighbor at about 2:30 in the morning, complaining about water leaking through a hole in our utility area into his apartment. When I went in to check I found a waterfall cascading down the entire southern brick wall, flooding our kitchen and living room area. When he saw the situation he realized it wasn't our fault and we all started bailing. Apparently the flat roof became a retention pond and it decided to drain through the inside of our loft. Fortunately they were concrete floors and we just mopped until it quit. The funny thing is I was more worried about the rising water of Buffalo bayou flooding our car and instead it came through the roof. I imagine the building which is being torn down to the north is not nearly as sound as ours was. Although I love to see quality old buildings saved, sometimes its best to start over. I know there was a restaurant in it for a while. The most amazing space in the area was the top floor of the National Biscuit company building a couple of blocks to the east and north. That building is now lofts I believe. It was being remodeled when we were there and I was able to get inside of it. It was one large floor almost three stories tall with amazing steel beams and brick walls. You could have put a gymnasium in there. A beautiful space. Apparently they had large ovens or some kind of equipment which required the high ceilings. I don't know what happened to that space but it was remarkable. Unfortunately everyone that lived and worked in our buildings were forced to leave in less than a week by order of the fire marshall, and the city inspectors, two weeks before Christmas. Now that was a nightmare!
  7. bobruss
    Here's a shot from Thursday. I don't think they could get me to do this! I just happened to be at the light and took a quick pic with my phone from inside the car. Sorry about quality.
  8. bobruss
    Okay, I agree with the green space and since the arcade is already there and it doesn't really work that well I'll give you that, but I think the little mom and pop stores and the way Main street or Rice feels should remain the way it has always been. I think that part of the special qualities that have made the village so popular is its quaintness. They really do need to figure out a way to create a nice size park now that residential has come in. Probably somewhere between Rice and Sunset are the only logical areas left to be affective for all of the residential. The village association is not the Upper Kirby District however and I don't think they are driven as is UKD.
  9. bobruss
    I don't think anything should be done to what is arguably the most urban area in Houston and now that residential has been added its almost complete. The only thing that is missing and sorely needed is a small grocery store along the lines of a Trader Joes or something like it. It would definitely be used by Southampton and wet U. I don't want to see a Kroger or HEB flagship though. That would be overkill. Then you would have the perfect place to live. Everything is at your footsteps. I walk from my office over to Jasons, Potbelly, or Local, several times a week although it's starting to get a little more humid and I work on Sunset, so not as much but if I chose to live in Hanover I could walk to anything I needed.
  10. bobruss
    I happened to be driving East on Hawthorne yesterday and noticed that the lot is cleared and they left the basement wall that parallels Montrose up to level with grade. This wall has a ten foot hole the length of the old building behind it and steel beams supporting this wall. I'm sure this is to insure that Montrose doesn't start falling away and into this hole. My question is due to the proximity to Montrose Blvd. and hidden behind a hurricane fence with a banner hiding the hole. what is the over and under that a car ends up in the hole before the building gets out of the ground.
  11. bobruss
    I'm not sure what Swtsig does but his information along with the Urbanizer always seems to be well founded and solid so I always look at their info as,as close to the fact as anyone who I have read on here.
  12. bobruss
    I think that this is what they had in mind when they came up with the overall plan. I know they talked about creating some kind of an art space also at one point during the conversations, to help create more of a walkable area around the convention center to capture some of that market. Obviously once those sort of venues appear, they'll attract more retail and one will feed off the other. That's also why they are building the Nau history museum in that area. This area will continue to become more of a magnet with Toyota Center, Minute Maid, BBVA Compass stadium, Discovery Green, and the convention center. I'm surprised one of the oil companies hasn't put in a really nice convenience store and gas station yet. Surely there is a need and plenty of cars in the area to make it work. I know when we lived in the Wagon Works building a few years back there was nothing in the area. They were just breaking ground on Enron Stadium.
  13. bobruss
    I think you got it.
  14. bobruss
    I like the interplay between the building and the garage! Nice edition to that part of town.
  15. bobruss
    Patience please. Hines is very solid and I don't think they wouldput so much work into a project and make an announcement unless they were going to build. Just give them time to get it right. Remember the old saying measure twice cut once.
  16. bobruss
    I cant remember what it was called when buitl but the Wells fargo building was built out of steel. With its rounded corners it had a very organic look coming out of the ground. I remember the patina of the steel was quite beautiful . I actually did a series of drawing back then of the city of all of those projects going up in the late seventies and it was my favorite.
  17. bobruss
    I sure hope Apache and the Perennial projects go as planned. They would sure fill in the gap nicely.
  18. bobruss
    Skyline View great pictures as always. Its a shame that your about to lose your view to a Randall Davis tower. Maybe you should join the crazy guy in the Cosmo. Just joking!
  19. bobruss
    I sat in the parking lot across the street from this yesterday and watched as the caterpillar, I'm not exactly sure what they call it destroyed the ramp while on top of it working its way down the ramp. Lots of clouds of dust. By the way, they are really making headway on the hole for the hotel. It also looked as though they were tearing down another building between 59 and the B.U.S. Probably in preparation for the Historical Building being developed with John Naus' support.
  20. bobruss
    I'm sure Jackson's Watering Hole has to love the thought of all these new units and walk up drinkers.
  21. bobruss
    I was talking with a PHD friend who works at UT in the med center and he said that the original charter for the med center stated that only charitable institutions could be in the boundaries of the med center north of Holcombe and maybe east of Fannin. that is why most of the for profit projects were south of Holcombe. I wasn't aware of that and still not sure how accurate that is but it is interesting if it is true. maybe someone who has the answer to that can verify this.
  22. bobruss
    I can see Russia from my front porch!
  23. bobruss
    This is one of the most recent images of the construction. 5/28/14 I'm having trouble with image sizes . Hopefully I can get this other a little smaller. Its better
  24. bobruss
    I'm sure they also plan on people parking there for rodeo, texans games and other big events at nrg, since it's right at the rail station. It's easy to access from midtown and montrose for people wanting to park and ride.
  25. bobruss
    I spoke to the someon on site today and just like the Suzanne this is the only crane and it's sole use is for putting up the garage. They're using the same construction methods as the Dunlavy project.
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