Angostura

8 hours ago, gclass said:

 

^^^ totally cool INDUCTION HEATING COUNTER TOP at the RESIDENCES AT THE ALLEN.  the state-of-the-art surface only heats the INDUCTION COOKWARE that is placed upon it.  what a cool amenity... wow!

 

 

Don't leave your keys on the kitchen island!

17 minutes ago, CrockpotandGravel said:

Here are a few updated images and renderings of Post Houston ( or Post , Post HTX ). This is the readaptive use of the old Barbara Jordan US Post Office in downtown Houston at 401 Franklin. The project is from Lovett Commercial ( Frank Liu and Kirby Liu ) , possibly designed by Rem Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture ( OMA ) .

These are all from screenshots from a recent video spotlighting Kirby Liu of Lovett Commercial.

These may or may not be updated renderings. It's possible, these could be older, but the video these screenshots were taken from is recent. The video was uploaded this month.

A site model of Post Houston ( or Post , Post HTX ).



 

This is considerably less ambitious than earlier renderings. Some skylights and grass on the roof, but no new footprint, and no engagement with the bayou. 

I think that project is the connection between the bike path on the north bank of White Oak bayou to the MKT trail near Studewood.

The "Future Apartment Development" looks to be where the the warehouse tromp l'oeil painted façade is currently. I'll be kinda sad to see that building go.

On 5/21/2019 at 11:45 AM, CrockpotandGravel said:

• 
  Company of Nomad's response:
  
  The main purpose of this location was to find something centrally located yet underserved and relatively affordable piece of dirt that allowed us to charge the rents we’re able to charge in hopes of attracting mom and pops, local farmers, local artisans etc. When surveying location the behind the scenes numbers play a big part in making sure it’s a viable venture for everyone involved. This location is also actually very bike-able as there is a bike trail and bike station being built under the overpass. It’s an underserved area that has tons of development including over 1000 new luxury townhomes but not a lot of grocery stores, bars or restaurants. It’s centrally located with quick and easy access to Memorial, downtown, galleria, heights, montrose and Washington Military areas important for the guests coming from all over parts of town and beyond.

 

There is an off-street bike trail in the Houston Bike Plan that would run from the current end point of the MKT trail (White Oak bayou near TC Jester), along Southern Pacific right-of-way, past this site, then on to Memorial Park and beyond (the map shows it connecting to a planned off-street trail along Sims bayou, 6+ miles south of this site). While this is in the bike plan for eventual construction, this answer seems to imply it's already underway.

16 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

 

We already have a land-value tax.  Apparently, you want more.

We currently have a property tax, not a land-value tax. That is, we tax a dollar's worth of land at the same rate as a dollar's worth of improvement. I'd prefer we lower the burden on improvement and raise it on land, but keep the total tax the same.

16 hours ago, iah77 said:

Angostura who is the "we" in what we want? I promise you your ideal city looks very different from mine lol. Is the land truly valuable if the owner has decided to leave it as parking? Most of the city I can guaranty you does not want to work in downtown and I'm not even sure the roads can handle more cars into it at peak hours. Real estate is very cyclical and your idea mainly only functions in an up cycle. Your idea might actually encourage the demolition of historic areas as many times the land value is so high to you it might not justify having a nice historic home on the very valuable lot etc but anyways just playing devils advocate since I don't mind either much. 

 

People don't seem to get that taxes discourage everything period. 

I don't think I'm along in thinking that having a lot of vacant lots in the CBD is not ideal. And there have been enough land transactions in the CBD to indicate that land there is pretty valuable. $15 to 40M per block, it seems. Maybe more in some parts of downtown. (The Chronicle building apparently went for north of $50M.)

Our current tax regime has actually been pretty effective at shifting some land in some neighborhoods to higher-value uses. The de-industrialization of the outskirts of the Heights in the last 5-7 years is an example, but the fact that there are so many surface parking lots downtown indicates that we can do better. An office tower on a full city block downtown might be assessed at $300M or so, while the surface lot across the street is assessed at less than a tenth of that. If we assessed both at (the equivalent of) $160M, many of those lots would cease to be vacant.

BTW, a lot of those empty lots are owned by a single entity connected to a Taiwanese oil company that seems perfectly content to sit on the land indefinitely. Click around the HCAD parcel map and look for land owned by "Golconda Venture". It's the equivalent of about 11 blocks, all vacant.

(W/r/t to demolition of "historic" areas... moo. With a few notable exceptions, most of what we currently call historic preservation is really just density prevention by other means. But that's a discussion for another thread.)

From the description, I think this is the 600 block of W 19th. The Greystar project is on the 500 block (former Chase building).

West of the parking lot on the SW corner of 20th and Lawrence (which was part of the Chase property), there are five properties which, together make up just under an acre (39,300 sf): 

• #608: A bungalow (possibly subdivided) with garage apartment in the back
• #616/618: Two bungalows
• #620: A small, older multi-family building
• #624: A bungalow
• #626: A bungalow

#620 and #624 share the same owner, as do #608 and #626. None of the properties are owner occupied. 

The other two proposed Highline-branded projects (one near White Oak, one in Montrose) are similar in size. Both of these were 3 stories over a single parking level, which required a parking variance as the ratio was under CoH requirements. In order to add retail to this site, the developers have three choices:

1 - Double down on the parking variance, requesting a variance for the apartments AND the retail

2 - Go to two levels of parking, enough to accommodate the retail and the apartments without a variance

3 - Use surface parking (like the lot right next door on the corner of 20th and Lawrence) to meet part of the requirement.

I'd prefer #1 (however unlikely it is to be approved), would be happy with #2, but expect #3.

1 hour ago, iah77 said:

 

 

Why should the government be able to force you to develop something?

 

That's like taxing people who don't study for not "developing" the full potential of their mind lmao.

 

It's not about forcing anyone to do anything. It's about aligning the incentive structure to favor things we want and disfavor things we don't.

Taxing improvements and land equally disincentives investment, and encourages land speculation. As long as land appreciation exceeds the taxes, it can be profitable to sit on vacant land. Even more so if you get some parking revenue on it, which is why so much of the most valuable land in the city (downtown) is used for surface parking.

On 5/17/2019 at 12:53 PM, wilcal said:

 

Was curious so had to look it up.

 

HCAD just has 5 years of values... but OUCH.

 

 

2019 is almost $4,000/day in property taxes. 

 

So how much property tax has been "squandered" since 2007? $10 million? 

Apparently they weren't high enough. 

Our valuation system fails to discourage under-development. If instead we had a land-value tax, sites like this would be developed a lot faster (and we'd have a lot fewer surface parking lots downtown).

Also, looking for the parking in the rendering and I can't find it.

On 5/16/2019 at 5:52 PM, Ginger Meyer said:

The demo of this was not even permitted. Nor is their plans for a 75' tall parking garage (I just came from a lunch were they talked about their plans for this). What a shame. Hopefully neighborhood will push back on a 5-7 story parking garage being built on this corner.

The demo WAS permitted, but not as Fitz's original address (2706 White Oak), but rather as 615 Studewood. Permit was issued in April.

Unless things have changed since we went through the process several years ago, siblings of current students have priority for admission to magnet schools (i.e. zoned, then siblings, then lottery). Either way, both schools are fine. 

18 hours ago, Timoric said:

 

8. These places are definitely not as good as having a house and people like me with 25 years before retirement would rather get a beach house say in OBX than one of these - as a second property - I have discovered that is a thing - maybe that will change when all the little people raised

 

Quality can vary widely. I've lived in large buildings (where you can definitely hear your neighbors) and smaller 4 to 20-unit buildings with only one or two apartments per floor. The latter are a LOT better.  Apartments in them can be quite large (1500 to 4000 s.f.) and you might forget you even HAVE neighbors above and below you. Unfortunately not many of those buildings get built any more.

6 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

I'm one of the bigger advocates of urbanism on here, despite my view that most people want a suburban living pattern. If 70% of people want suburban and 30% want urban and your city is 98% suburban, you need more urban.

 

You're probably right (revealed preference, etc. etc.), but I wonder if it's just a reflection of what's available. I mean, do people really love 3-story townhouses with the 3rd BR on the ground floor, or do people buy them because that's the only layout anyone builds? I've found living without a car (albeit not in Houston) to be great, and it's especially easy now that there's ridesharing and microtransport available, but not many people get an opportunity to experience it.

People moved to the suburbs in the 20th century because cities were loud, filthy and dangerous (they've since gotten better), and stayed there because city schools got terrible. Currently, if you want decent schools and enough living space for a family on a middle class income, I'm afraid you don't have a lot of choice with respect to lifestyle. 

On 5/7/2019 at 12:58 PM, H-Town Man said:

 

It is true (and nice picture) that these are the places most people like to visit, but the places most people like to live (including Europeans, when they can afford to and govt. restrictions permit) are something more like our suburbs: a detached dwelling on a piece of land with a place to put a car or two. In Siena, most people live in a flat of under 1,000 SF on a narrow, noisy street with no green in sight and no place for a car. If a relative from out of town comes to visit and wants to drive a car, they must park it on a narrow, steep road outside the city walls and hike in (I've done it). Kind of hard to visit the grandparents with the baby. It would take some remarkable social engineering to force Houstonians other than young singles into this lifestyle.

 

Last I checked, square footage in European city centers was still a lot more expensive than square footage in suburban areas. 

That said, you can do car-compatible without doing car-centric. And if a place isn't car-centric, you can get away without needing a place for a car. And it's perfectly possible to get around with a baby without a car. I know because I've done it. My son's first car ride was coming home from the hospital. His second was 7 months later to go the airport for our flight to Houston.

Anyway, not saying that we should re-make Houston into Siena. But it's nice to see at least some developers re-discovering traditional forms of urbanism.

21 hours ago, samagon said:

 

these days, we still get master planned communities, we just call them 'city center' instead of suburbs. they are far more dense, but still are iterations of the previous MPCs, and actually the MPC developers use market research to know what people want. in the 60s, 70s, and 80s it was suburban sprawl. in the 00s and 10s it's density closer in.

 

Yes, but these developments (East River, City Centre, Woodlands Town Center, etc.) are closer to traditional development patterns that pre-date the automobile: self-contained dense, walkable places. 

When you drive around Europe (and other places developed prior to the 19th c.), you mostly see really dense towns and villages, surrounded by very low-density uses (farms, vineyards, forests, mountains, etc.). Here's Siena, in Italy:

All mid-rise mixed use surrounded by (basically) farmland. 

The places people tend to like to visit are either very high-density (be they big bustling cities or small Italian hill towns) or very low-density (mountains, forests, vineyards, islands), whereas our suburbs tend to be somewhere in that mushy middle no one really finds beautiful. (No one shoots their engagement photos in the suburbs.) Maybe developers have started to figure this out.

13 hours ago, thedistrict84 said:

I know the initial speculation was that the automated garage would go where the current 10-stall, sorry-excuse-for-covered-parking lot by Christian’s Tailgate currently sits, but the updated brochure puts it on a larger lot further east towards Studewood and White Oak, where a few older homes currently sit.

 

Since there is more land area to work with there, it looks like the automated garage will not be as tall as we initially thought.

100-ft of frontage instead of ~60-ft. The original spot would become new retail.

A couple other observations from the images:

- Moku (Poke place, currently operating in Conservatory food hall downtown) was already announced, but it looks like it'll be sited to the rear of Lucky food store, and take access from the side parking lot. The front half of Lucky's space is currently labeled as "occupied but available".

- It shows a stop light at Granberry. At the very least, a pedestrian crossing wouldn't be a bad idea.

On 4/30/2019 at 10:10 AM, innerloop said:

 

They tried it in Rio de Janeiro, but some people say that was just a vanity project for the Olympics.  They built a 2.2 mile line and they say it cost $70M.  The trip took 10 minutes, I couldn't quickly find any information on capacity/hour.

 

There were two, but the more important one links the Complexo de Alemão favela to a station on the suburban train line, a total of 6 stations over 3.5 km. Theoretical max capacity per hour was 3000 passengers (152 gondolas, ~30 minute round trip, 10 pax per gondola). For obvious reasons, it's very difficult to achieve this capacity. In practice the system had about 10,000 passengers per day (article in Portuguese from 2012).

Fares were heavily subsidized by the state government. Residents of the favela (a majority of users) could ride twice per day for free, while everyone else paid R$1 (about US$0.30) each way. To break even on operating costs at 10,000 riders per day, the fare would have needed to be about 7-8x higher, and paid by all passengers. (Other public transportation modes in Rio generally operate without subsidy.) Given the precarious financial situation of the state government after the Olympics, the operating subsidy was cut off and operation suspended in late 2016. 

The construction cost per mile is definitely at the low end as compared to light rail, average speeds are only a little slower, and grade separation is built in. It helps if you have the right topology, and you still have to work out the rights of way.

Chick'ncone is a small chain serving chicken-nuggets-in-a-waffle-cone, with locations in NYC, Dubai, Colorado and the Woodlands.

Light googling didn't turn up anything on Karne, but one assumes it's a steakhouse of some sort.

If you don't count assisted living, that sounds about right. And most of the existing ones are relatively new. I think only 4th & Oxford and 21st & Yale are over 10 years old. 

On 4/17/2019 at 11:10 AM, texas911 said:

Self driving cars will help traffic because they won't be a-hole drivers cutting in line or running red lights or cutting people off or swerving 3 lanes to make an exit or turning left from the right lane or blocking an intersection. All these things add up to make traffic terrible in Houston. [...] I for one can't wait for self driving cars to get these terrible drivers from driving! 

Self driving cars will obey the speed limit and stop at yellow lights. They will slow down or stop for any object they recognize as having the potential to enter the roadway. People are going to hate getting stuck behind a self-driving car.

Looks a little like GFR along one side...

I can't think of anyplace in the Heights where that much empty grass would be feasible (physically or economically). It looks a little like that project on 34th, but the renderings don't match.

The transformation of this godawful stretch of 19th St from semi-industrial wasteland to thriving entertainment* district has been... unexpected.

(*Entertainment in this case = drive-to alcohol consumption.)

1 hour ago, CrockpotandGravel said:

From the leasing materials for 7800 Washington Ave from Levcor, the restaurant Porta'Vino may have been shelved for this property. A restaurant space is up for lease.
 

Floyd was a pioneer when he opened Reef with a wine list priced pretty close to retail (<2X wholesale). The theory is that you sell more volume (both # of bottles and price per bottle), turn inventory faster, and ultimately come out no worse off, but the customer gets a better deal. Going 100% BYO means zero inventory cost (other than glassware), and the corkage fee is 100% profit. BYO places tend to also get away with slightly higher food prices than restaurants of comparable quality.

17 hours ago, Timoric said:

If 1/4th of cars become a service instead of owned that would require less cars (an analogy would be music subscription services vs .99 iTunes purchases access instead of ownership)

 

A well blanketed 5G infrastructure has the bandwidth, storage and speed to theoretically manage traffic for self-driving cars within centimeters vs yards with 4G and one guy can install a small box on an existing pole to implement it fast.

 

 

Skeptical.

If a significant fraction of current single-occupancy vehicle miles shift to a model where they're purchased as a service, the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) necessarily increases, since those self-driving cars need to get to the pick-up point and from the drop-off point. And since most people still want to drive at the same times, congestion will get worse, not better. (And the fleet size probably doesn't change that much, since it's determined by peak demand.)

There are two cases in which self-driving cars can reduce congestion. The first is that the technology allows better traffic management, closer following distances, more efficient intersections, etc., which would mean self-driving cars would need dedicated rights of way to segregate them from human-driven cars. So there is potentially a future where we have a dedicated right of way, maybe grade-separated, where a series of vehicles travel in close proximity to each other. It's basically a train, without the last-mile problem. It's also very different from what most people think of when they think of how self-driving cars will work. 

The second way self-driving cars can relieve congestion is that they allow cities to de-couple construction and car storage. It's no big deal for a self-driving car to store itself at a parking facility a mile or two away from it's last drop-off. If the existence (or potential existence) of self driving cars convinces cities to do away with parking requirements for every development, then cities will become denser, since people aren't separated by all that parking. The average destination gets closer, so VMT decreases, and eventually, a larger and larger proportion of trips can be accomplished by modes other than single-occupancy vehicles. If a city continues densifying, mass transit will start to make economic sense. 

Both of these will take a long time to materialize, and require a lot of investment to get there. In the near term, the most we can hope for are slightly cheaper Uber rides.