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arche_757

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Everything posted by arche_757

  1. arche_757
    Costs. Nothing to do with being in a hurricane zone - technically Houston Downtown/Uptown aren't in a heavy wind zone - unlike Downtown Miami or South Beach, in Florida - or NYC for that matter. A residential tower over a certain number of floors needs a massive bank of elevators. Imagine having to get off at a skylobby and then board another elevator to get to your home, imagine if you had to do this twice? Residential buildings are limited and smaller than most commercial buildings. You can sell smaller units, but your bigger units on upper floors needn't be too difficult for people to get to. In Chicago, NYC and Toronto these things are expected. In Houston its just silly to do something like that. I mean a developer would have to build a 60 floor tower to claim the "tallest in the state" and what does that do? Nothing. In Austin it means something to live in the Austinian because it is by far the tallest building in town, where as the Austonian wouldn't even look all that big in Houston. I imagine its easier to get financing for a 30-40 floor highrise than a 50+ floor highrise. Plus, I would tend to think there is a limit in height where people would be comfortable, if 40 floors is all that is needed for a spectacular view why then would you spend the additional millions on adding a few floors? What's more important to developers is bottom line - not spectacularly tall buildings that cause you to lose profit.
  2. arche_757
    I've found a significant temperature difference between our coastal areas and more northern parts of the Metro. Atlanta doesn't have anything like the Gulf or the Galveston Bay. Hot is hot is hot is hot. I thought I looked and Houston's average summer temps over the past 100 years indicate its not quite as hot as some think? Sure we have heat waves (no doubt if we landed an Olympics we would surely have one!)... but those aren't quite as common as we think. We've yet to top 95 degrees and its the Middle of July. Which of course means we will have 100s in August
  3. arche_757
    You've got me. Perhaps its gamesmanship of sorts? What does CBRE have in Downtown? Perhaps they're trying to instill some fear among their "lesser" peers who may heed their advice (from afar - if you will), and chase away someone who might add 900k sq ft to the market that would further drive rental rates down, thereby lowering profit for any and all in the market.
  4. arche_757
    He said something like - Getting the superbowl allowed developers to have more confidence in DT. I'm guessing he was talking about hospitality? Not sure. Lack of confidence is in any new spec office building DT. That doesn't meant 6 Houston Center or 609 Main, it means International Tower or 5 Allen Center. At least that's my take on it. These were tweets.
  5. arche_757
    ^Nice find... So in a nutshell: CBRE thinks another spec office tower will happen, but would personally hate to be the lender. They also see historical rental rates for office space in DT. And, more importantly there is little upside to having a "new" or "planned" tower, since much of the existing square footage is charging at or near the same price. They think the Super Bowl bid = confidence in DT Also, that more residential oriented retail will happen to support the growth in that sector of DT.
  6. arche_757
    Well, if its the only option aside from canceling the tower... And Houston12912319823123 could be right in that Hines would simply move forward with it any way. ? Guess we shall see. Of course its not the announcement of work, or even the start of construction, but the end of construction and how soon the tower can start seeing residents. I would tend to think the shorter building by Hines might finish before the taller tower?
  7. arche_757
    Could Hines simply move forward witha Condominium version if this thing slows down their plans? Also, the rental prices mentioned for this tower are..... REALLY, REALLY expensive!
  8. arche_757
    Wait... I thought most people on here didn't like the way this thing was going to look? I mean most of you hated this tower.
  9. arche_757
    The particular renderings here are HOK material. Probably a sealed/limited invite competition that HOK won over Gensler and probably a Kirksey or Page or Ziegler/Cooper or some one else of that scale.
  10. arche_757
    Maybe its the 11th rated museum for AeroSpace? If not, then I imagine the new additions plus exhibits will certainly give it a boost.
  11. arche_757
    Who are the architects? Is that information possible to divulge?
  12. arche_757
    TripAdvisor is not a scientific ranking. Space Center Houston is very popular, and though it has been some years since I've last been - far more of a Musuem than the Davis Mts Observatory. I put very little weight in things rated by: Mens Health, TripAdvisor, Yahoo! among many others. Now, if this was rated by the American Alliance of Museums or some similar - creadible industry related organization - then I would say maybe its not very well regarded (Space Center Houston that is).
  13. arche_757
    The very fact that this building is listed in the HOK Tall Buildings "magazine" gives a lot more creadance to it than it simply floating around on here. By the way good looks at the Chevron Tower + Shell Woodcreek + BP Emergency Respone/Computer Center in that document. Worth scrolling through. That linkedIn profile was for someone who was/had experience as a 2013 Intern for Gensler. It is possible she also worked with HOK at some point. That work presented in Issuu is not an Intern's work. I was an intern for a big name firm once and believe me, while you may work on high profile projects the silly projects they give you after-hours are nothing like designing a multi-million square foot highrise center.
  14. arche_757
    It was hot in Greece too. The "summer" games were pushed to September for the Sydney Olympics, and Beijing has so horrible air quality that the officials scrambled trying to reduce the air pollution. Oh, there is a current World Cup taking place in the tropical rain forests of Brazil. Hot is hot anywhere. The idea that Houston's heat is unbearable is overblown. And my post about Houston not being 20 years away from being able to host the Olympics was meant to indicate that indeed Houston has a better road and freeway system. It is simply our rail transit system that is behind.
  15. arche_757
    ^Looking at the above pic by Urbannizer - I recall when that 5-6 floor condo project in the upper right-hand side was big news on here! How times change.
  16. arche_757
    Don't want anyone to be put out of business, though I would prefer the Dome to survive another 50 + years. While the Rodeo will likely survive as long (if not longer), who knows how long the Texans and the NFL will survive? NFL owners are quite fickle. I'm just irritated that the Texans, and the Rodeo (both make a lot of money) want to destroy a piece of Houston history at the expense of others. Yes Houstonians are paying for the Astrodome either way, I'd rather my money go towards saving/repurposing something than destroying it. At least the Rodeo is not a professional sports team owned by a billionaire... I'll give them that. The Dome can be saved given the right backer - I truly believe the county/sports authority is not/has not been open to all options. At the end of the day it will be what it will be. I honestly believe its best use is for some sort of mixed-use facility incorporating some TMC members and some local university. My guess is either that idea has been quashed completely, or, the right plan hasn't been proposed yet. Either way it seems a shame to waste a perfectly good building with that much space for use. And I never said I didn't think the latest proposal was awful, I just really don't like that silly "mini-Astrodome" its tacky.
  17. arche_757
    Yet they considered an offer. What does that say?
  18. arche_757
    Let me rephrase that: "Allow taxpayers to adequately explore alternate uses for the existing domed structure in NRG Park, rather than these half-a***d county proposals we've seen so far." Also, it is likely this is "the" proposal that will end up being implemented. Not like the Texans and Rodeo have hidden their hopes to bulldoze this thing. I kind of want to stick-it to the Texans and Rodeo. Which means I don't care if the Astrodome outlasts both organizations - personally that would be a grand accomplishment!
  19. arche_757
    Who makes the cars/trams?
  20. arche_757
    Don't like the "minidome" That's as third rate as things get. I mean... no! Just don't! Turn the whole damn thing into a dump before you do something like that. Also, I'd love to see the Rodeo and Texans EAT every cent of the cost of this. They're big money makers, and have people with deep pockets, let them pay for this. Otherwise leave it alone and let the taxpayers figure it out if they taxpayers are to spend their money on it. Oh, and "Gameday" unfortunately is only for College Football... sadly the NFL can't find anyone as competent or entertaining as the College Gameday people ESPN has.
  21. arche_757
    Good to know! I wasn't too thrilled to see them sell to the company that was offering to buy them.
  22. arche_757
    Could be quite drastic! The company making the offer for AmReit is a grocery/lifestyle center developer out of Jacksonville, Fl. Unless they're looking to start doing some bigger developments then this will probably scale things back considerably. I'll doubt much more will happen to Uptown Park than something like Boulevard Place (not that that would not be a big improvement). Though I'll admit an HEB there - would suck.
  23. arche_757
    I find myself wondering how the cops - in this particular situation - who knew this guy (not someone else) shot and killed execution style a family of 6... how they couldn't then shoot him? Talk about restraint. I mean it would have been simple for them to say "he reached for something that was a gun, so we shoot him" But then, I guess most of us are not animals. I read that he collapsed in the courtroom today. I'm sure the DA is going to give this guy the death penalty, and I really doubt its going to take much to convict him. If it goes to trial... I would HATE to be on that jurry!
  24. arche_757
    If the students stopped paying the money for the tickets, the school would probably drop the ticket prices. But they haven't stopped buying the tickets, so they won't drop the prices.
  25. arche_757
    Quite a few universities award their students free passes (or greatly reduced rates) for sporting events. It has to do with getting bodies in the seats, and its an easy perk to give a student who is shelling out thousands of dollars anyway. Just a quick glance through: Notre Dame - $240 Michigan - $240 Alabama - charge packages of $40 (for 4 games) and $30 each (for three games) USC - $175 Ohio State - $144 to $250 (depending on how many hours and what games you'll attend). I'm guessing other sporting events for those schools aren't nearly as coveted and probably something like $5 at the gate for students? Or some other such amount. UH is doing fine. With the new stadium + added victories and more on campus housing they will eventually need to charge to prevent 29,000 out of the 41,000 seats being students and sold at lower costs than regular seats.
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