arche_757

Better in the architectural sense. That's it. Does that not make sense? Again, my opinion.

Well, 609 Main is a better building than the two 20 floor residential towers proposed over by St Josephs (or thereabouts). That's all I'm saying. Now, 4-5 of those residential towers trumps that lone 50 floor building - in my opinion. I absolutely agree that it isn't the skyline we should worry about - its already great - we need a more liveable central core. Thankfully both can improve with what is currently proposed (and under construction).

I'll say this: 1 - 50 floor tower is better than 2 - 20 floor towers. However, 4-5 - 20 floor towers are better than 1 - 50 floor tower. Infill with these shorter residential will allow more infill and more individual projects versus one really big tower with 500 units (or something like that). Taller buildings do have an impact on the skyline, but the smaller units will fill in the voids left blank since the late 70s/early 80s. Personally when I'm driving (or visitors are driving) through or around Downtown I would rather have most of those empty blocks filled with smaller buildings than with several larger buildings. Besides, the more small buildings the higher the demand for residential will be and that in turn will make it more likely that in 5 years we may get a 60-70 floor (800' tall) residential tower. At least that's my take on it.

^Say good bye to street level pigeons!

This is one of those great buildings that looks so different from so many angles that it's hard sometimes to reconcile one view of it with another. Seen from the Main Street Bridge over Buffalo Bayou, the building appears as a solid brown brick with a single narrow slit of windows across the top. From ground level on Congress Street is looks more like a stately bank with its clock, portal, and reflective glass. The disparity arises from the fact that the building is intended to be the opposite of many other buildings in Houston. Instead of offices supplemented by a meager amount of parking, this building is mostly parking with offices as an afterthought. A full 13 of its 17 stories are reserved for cars. The remaining office areas are utilized by the county court system for jury assembly, a law library, and other functions as deemed necessary. Who the heck did that write-up?

Well, a very large percentage of Austin's highrise growth has been in residential and hospitality. Makes sense then that they would have developers trying to push things by building a 50-60 floor residential building. From a financial sense it is absurd...but then that's Austin. Never really made sense to me.

They always have the McKinney Avenue Trolley!

Well, Downtown employs 150,000 people. TMC has what 85-100k? Throw in Greenway plus all the other stores/shops/businesses inside the Loop and the numbers are probably quite high. My guess is roughly 25-35% of all jobs in Houston are within that area, and another 6% or so in Uptown. I think that's a fair assumption?

Other places (aside from much of the Sunbelt) most of the coastal states in the US have higher environmental standards than we do. That's what I meant when I said nationally speaking. Still, the very idea that we should work to protect wetlands even in this region is big when you think of pro-evironment vs pro-industry.

And I'll still bet that in another 20 years when Dallas has grown by another 2 million it will be more successful. Transit is about offering options to people so cars needn't be the only way to get around. Look, Dallas built a system that it will grow into. They could have done a better job, but in the long run (decades) the system will likely be judged a worthwhile system - not the best, not the worst, but something to help give people transportation options. Transit construction takes time to come full circle - sometimes years, sometimes less. subway - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subway light rail - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/light-rail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_rail_terminology

A subway is just rail running underground.. at least to me. So we can build a LRT line down Westheimer that would work - above ground or underground it would be a successful line. I would also love to see an additional 500,000 - 1,000,000 people inside the Loop. I think we can get to the 1.5 - 1.75 inside the Loop if we develop things correctly, though to achieve that sort of density we would need a lot of additional rail.

The idea is to build where ridership it highest. Also, DART may not be a success right now, but I'll wager in 10 years the number of riders will have increased significantly. Maybe it won't. Maybe gas and cars will continue to be SO cheap that people will simply ellect to spend hours of their day behind a wheel, pay to park in a garage and pay for all the other associated costs of owning a car. The assumption that traveling by car will continue to be really easy is also false. We do know that for all intents and purposes Houston will in all likelihood continue to grow. Maybe something happens and Google invents cold-cell fusion and we suddnely don't need petroleum based products any more for transportation or power - that would make a lot of our local economy useless... but that's unlikely to happen. Even if something that grand and drastic did happen we would probably have diversified enough by that time that we would be ok. Maybe our growth would taper off, but Detroit south we won't be.

So to sum up your whole argument: Houston isn't dense enough for anything aside from Light Rail. We should build Light Rail in as many areas as possible (that make sense) inside The Loop? I agree with that stance. My point - in regards to transit in general - is Houston's growth rate is high enough to consider building rail connections to the suburbs now. The construction of said rail lines will take years. So we build now (or at the very least set aside ROW) and in 2019 or 2021 when these first lines open we will be close to - maybe over the needed number of potential riders in some places. Maybe not all, but some.

1. TW density is dropping even though its population is booming because even TW is sprawling. Actually "The Woodlands" is a controlled area defined by borders. 2. Houston was never a singular city surounded by sprawl. Houston was built in between preexisting small cities. It grew out to them and swallowed them in. Harrisburg, Acres Homes, and countless others were separate cities. Now if these had remained separate and each developed into individual dense pockets then yeah, all of these would simply be connected by rail. But there is no difference in density between the center of Cypress and the area between cypress and Houston. Oh come on! Acres Homes was never a big town. Galveston and maybe I'll give you Conroe. Everything else was small up until the mid-century. You know what I meant - Houston (unlike Dallas with Fort Worth and Arlington, or LA with Long Beach etc.) is pretty much the only major city in this metro. Sure Pasadena is big but its just a bedroom community, hardly a model city, hardly worthy of being mentioned as a sizeable town. 3. I never said a grade separate rail down wherever would be out of the question. Nor did I say it didn't be fantastic. Stop painting me out to be a rail hater. I never said "you're anti-rail" I said you sound like you are anti-rail. 4. We have different definitions of commuter rail. Apparently? 5. I disagree that any line connecting a person's work to his job us useful. Useful to him but to who else. The red line is great because it is fed by 75% of metro bus lines and it connects to important business centers. So... ugh... we should build rail between other important business centers! Light Rail, Fairy Rail, Heavy Rail, Floating Rail --- SOMETHING RAIL. Again, I've said it before, rail of any kind takes years to plan and build, so lets start thinking about it now - build it in 5 years and in 10 years it might be open. That's 2024. 6. Our density has not changed much in the last 20 years. In the loop the gains made on the west were countered by the loses in the east. Overall as a city the density went from what 3800 to 4000ppsm? In the next 20 years don't expect anything different. Families are fleeing the loop for the burbs and singles are taking their place. simple math, you buldoze a single family home that housed 4 people, you put up 4 town homes. Each one gets occupied by a single person. On first glance you say write this area got dense but truth is The building density change, population density stayed at 4. Families fleeing the loop? Not what I've seen. Yes single family homes are being torn down and replaced by 4-6 townhomes. Yes some of those buyers are singles. Some amazingly decide to find someone else to live with, and even eventually start a family. That adds density. What areas "in the east" have lost population? Pasadena? Baytown? We've added 3 million people in what 15-20 years? Something like that? Sure, the metro has sprawled, but there are neighborhoods that are now denser than before. Midtown. Rice Military. The "greater" Heights. Uptown. TMC area. Maybe the net gain hasn't been so high its off the charts, but growth has occured.

Yes, but UTMB was/is the "medical" school of the University of Texas. It was the first. Any way... good to see new school construction in Texas regardless.

Perhaps it was a bad reference? I didn't know what else to call it... since it is at the buildings "crown"? I always thought it was a bad immitation of the KohnPedersonFox building in Frankfurt, Germany (my referenced link in my above post).

^Austin also has a major university forming the northern edge of "downtown" as they would call it. That helps to increase residential population.

Every transit agency has problems - no one has a perfect solution. MARTA was just an example because it still has riders and isn't a total failure. I wonder what the percentage of jobs are inside Loop 610? Would be interesting to know. I would think the total percentage of all workers in Houston is quite high inside the Loop. So the need to connect the work zones together via alternative means over the next 2 decades is there - and will continue to grow.

Its a fair point to say that Houston is fairly consistent in our sprawl... True. However we're also seeing for the first time (excluding Galveston) the rise of higher density and larger suburbs: The Woodlands/Spring and Sugar Land (for example). Cypress is an unincorporated mess and who knows what/how that area will change over the years? No clue. The point is - Houston has always been a singular city surrounded by sprawl, we're now seeing the rise of suburban hubs and employment centers. Perhaps a city-wide commuter rail line is out of the question? At least for now. Still, I would tend to think a grade seperated Light Rail running from points inside the loop to the suburbs wouldn't be out of the question. I still will make the argument that LRT down Westhiemer all the way to Westchase and back to Midtown would be fantastic and would have a lot of riders. I tend to blend the terms commuter rail and light rail together. I guess there is a difference between them, but commuter to me = a person moving from home to work or vice versa. So a rail line (any rail) that runs between those points of growth will be useful. BRT and LRT are probably the future. In 2025 or so (when a commuter rail line that's not even planned would open from say Hobby or Ellington Field to IAH and the Woodlands) we would I'll bet see a much higher density inside the loop. Look at how much it has changed since 2004 or 1994! The change has been huge and will continue to see that change. I've said all along that Rail isn't the only way to go. It is only an additional way for people to commute. It will not end freeway congestion, it will merely allow people a way to commute that doesn't leave them stuck in traffic for 1 hour on a 24 mile commute into town. There will come a time in 2030 when we have no other options. Rail will have to be constructed and probably will be constructed.

To your first point... yes, additional tourism and visitors from out of town will be great. Think of needing an additional 5,000 hotel rooms in downtown and midtown. That's more development; so for me - an architect - that's great! Second point: Yep. There is an image of a wrecking ball I posted on one of the Downtown residential threads... we could use something like that. Obviously an improved self image might make potential start-up companies want to locate here for the pro-business climate and the quality of the city (as a whole), more small businesses equals more taxable incomes, equals more taxpayers, equals more money for the city. I don't want Houston to cost as much as San Francisco, but I do want it to have a better self-image to the average guest or average American looking here be it for a place to live, work, visit... whatever I just want them to spend money. More money = a good thing.

If you claim "Texas as a country" then no. My point was that today we are much, much more environmentally conscious than ever before.

1) You did just type "rail" so I thought you meant that in a blanket sense. 2) I've not looked at a map of 290 and the feeders so I can't say right now - but I never said you said we would need 30 stops. Just generalizing on that statement. 3) That is true about DC's burbs. DC metropolitan area is quite large though... spread out, and there are rail lines running all the way to West Virginia and central Maryland that bring in commuters to DC daily. 4) But then what is the point of the density adjacent to a commuter rail station if its not for walkers/bikers? Provide parking areas and people can drive there too. Actually Los Angeles the city is quite dense. Much denser than Houston. Of course it wasn't always that way - it grew into it a bit over the past century. Houston will continue to infill and then the need for additional transit options will be there.

^ha! Indeed it would probably be a good idea. Baja Oklahoma... never heard of that. Love it!

^UT has a medical school: UTMB Sealy Smith Foundation bankrolls much of its existence (and owns the land/buildings etc). This is Austin's way of trying to get ride of the Galveston school through attrition. Rice, UH or A&M should look to aquire it in the years to come.

The point of the article (old or not) was that globably people view SF as an innovator, home to creative people and a city you would want to live in despite how expensive it is. Houston on the other hand, while also innovative and home to creative people is viewed as dirty/polluting/ugly and far less desireable. Fair or unfair, Houston is viewed globably - and more so nationally - as a backwards town with a dirty/everyone hates oil economy. People HATE the oil business. Universally. Except of course the people who make a living through the oil business. People LOVE tech companies even though businesses like Twitter and facebook don't better our lives in any way - plastic/oil/petroleum products make our day better and even make it possible in some instances. Tech companies are purely extravagance. Houston has the best economy now. Yet how long will that last? We're successful, yes, but everyone can always be more successful. Why not! If Houston's image is improved nationally then it will be to the cities benefit.