arche_757

^indeed we are!  Amazing just how much my home had increased in value these last five years.  That would be great if we wanted to sell, but we want to stay so the increases aren’t great   

^ back in the old HL&P days.  I suspect the Houston Center development was taken into consideration if the substation was built closer to the later part of the dates @Houston19514  mentioned.  Full build out of that complex would have been something.

A shame the city didn’t have the resources, or clairvoyance to do something better when Toyota Center was built.

13 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

Except of course the substation long predates any of those things.  Probably even predates the freeway.

Does it?  When was it built?

@H-Town Man from all of the articles I’ve read NYC downtown is exclusively the area in Lower Manhattan centered around Wall Street and the World Trace Center complex.  Is Chicago’s “downtown” considered within the Loop, or does that boundary broaden a a tad?

Developments like this are really exciting.  The potential growth we have here for life-science /biomedical sciences is really taking off.

Thanks for the article @Highrise Tower.   That said, the photographer sure captured an unflattering photo of the developer and A&M chancellor!  Yikes!

1 hour ago, j_cuevas713 said:

For sure. While that does suck, I think the good outweighs the bad in this situation. It’s not like they’re building a storage facility. This will have a huge impact on tech for Houston. 

Maybe.   We don’t know.  Rice is in a different universe than Saint Thomas, so I imagine whatever Rice does will be bigger, better.  St Thomas is a quiet, quaint  little school with a small alumni population.   But, they do have a phenomenal location in terms of a “cool/hip” area, this despite the fact Diedrichs has been gone for a decade now.  And this shouldn’t take away from Rice, but Montrose just has a stronger identity as a unique neighborhood.

Maybe this will be the beginning of a “Silicone _____” (what the hell do we call a Tech-savvy Montrose?!)

47 minutes ago, Ross said:

The atmosphere would be one of people rushing past empty buildings. There's a reason there are vacant lots - there's no demand for a building on them.  And, with something like 24% vacancy, it will be a while before demand increases enough to make building anything economic.

Tough crowd at times.  I think the aspiration was “imagine if there wasn’t 24% vacancy caused by yet another tumble in oil prices because of a global pandemic that has fallen directly on our heels just as we were emerging from our previous recession.  Oh, and imagine if Houston had developed like - all other cities - and the downtown was the hub of most of our urban activity, and we didn’t have 4-6 other major urban developed areas spread across 600 SqMiles of land.”

I think that’s sort of what they were going for, as, reality is pretty obvious.

Of course you are correct about the current state of affairs…

1 hour ago, sapo2367 said:

To be fair, electrical utilities are (understandably) very risk averse organizations. Even if it is profitable to move to another block, they might be concerned enough about reliability etc to not make it worth it. You'd probably have to do some work on rerouting the underground wiring that comes into/out of the substation, which could complicate things. 

Of course they are.  But I still loathe dealing with them.

I wonder… how much of this would be an issue if say, Houston had a zoning law?  I know…I know… but maybe there would be better planning to have located this next to the highly undesirable interstate/back-side of GRB, and not …hmm…squints… throws dart arbitrarily at a map of downtown blocks.  There!  Right within view of the big new Hilton Americas and Toyota Center.

I wouldn’t know.  I haven’t read up on what a comparable city would be for us?  Dallas?  Philadelphia?

Based on your statement it sounds like it would be a tough sell to build a new trophy hotel similar to Marriott Marquis or Hilton Americas.  I thought HoustonFirst was trying to do that in the next ____ years?

I’ve been dealing a lot with electrical utilities lately and thoroughly believe they’re not the smartest folks in the room.  So yeah.  I can 100% see them being inflexible even if they could profit.

@H-Town Man I would wager that a group the scale of Skanska has already thought about this possibility.  Whether Centerpoint is clever enough to take advantage is another question.  There could also be something about needing that substation located where it is (or within a short distance of present location) due to the large users nearby: Toyota Center, MMP, GRB etc.?  Perhaps someone with electrical infrastructure expertise could chime in?

Thanks @Houston19514 & @Montrose1100.

I’m a day late and a dollar short sometimes…usually!  I recall now that building being renovated into the Moxy.  Good.  The more places the merrier.  I believe we are still a bit low on the overall number of rooms for a city this size - of course the pandemic has sort of rewritten everything.

A very big change from the early days of this forum, that is certain.

There is a Moxy Hotel listed on CentralHouston/Downtown District list of hotels.  Is that under construction, or just proposed?

15 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

It's pretty safe to say that Marriott actually owns zero hotels downtown.  And by my count, 11 of the 26 downtown hotels fly Marriott flags.  IF they add this one and if the W ever gets off the ground, they would be up to 13 of 28.

Side point:  holy cow!  26 hotels in downtown Houston (and soon to be 27, maybe 28).  It seems like not that long ago there were 4 hotels in downtown Houston.  FOUR!

Apologies for not being more specific:

Marriott is receiving a hefty fee every month in the money from franchise owners who are flying the Marriott branded flags on their hotels.

Saint Thomas is to Houston’s academic architectural progressivism; as Midtown is to Houston’s urban scene.  Resting on a few laurels from yesteryear.  (I know that’s not really fair to Midtown!)

^seems about right.  Heaven forbid public infrastructure not look like hell.

I guess that is one of the positives the Great Depression gave all of us: Public works and infrastructure that is something to be proud of, not only in its design but also the longevity of so many of those old projects.

I can’t see Centerpoint paying the money it would take to construct a shell around their substation(s).  The substation in question is a full city block, and I would think that if they decided to do something like this the best we could hope for is a high wall around the electrical equipment.

Petition your local city council representative.  Agreed these are typically horrid.

They also have a collection of Boutique properties.  Hotel Icon for one example, is one of those.

Flipping Marriott owns… most of the hotels downtown.  Which is good in a way, since this will hopefully allow for greater competition and provide travelers a choice.  Which will mean additional repurposed properties, and new developments.

One positive: the setback from Montrose looks to be decent, which will provide a better pedestrian experience.

There is a medical advertisement for Trulicity (I think) that features the TMC skyline as viewed from Rice.  I just noticed this while watching the Olympics on NBC (not on the other network channels), so I am not sure how long this has been on the air?

[edit: it may not be trulicity?  But definitely TMC skyline.]

It’s architecture like this that makes me wonder if the Menil folks hurriedly lock the doors at closing while casting a distrusting glance to the East.  I imagine a haughty “humph” and a clear look of contempt is included when they spin on their heels towards their parking lot, which -mind you- is actually better design than any of the new buildings on St Thomas’ campus.

Do we know the cost of this land when purchased?

I wonder if it would ever be too much to hope the city would close either Preston and Congress just at the block bordering Market Square?  I know it’s absurd to ponder closing a street to vehicular traffic in Houston, but it would allow Market Square to really become more connected to the surrounding blocks by eliminating thru-vehicles.

4 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

Good news/Bad news:  There has been no shortage of interesting and creative ideas for the use of the Dome.  But none of them have come with a financing plan.

Should have given the entire facility to the TMC and let them run with it.  Problem solved.  They could have built housing, new facilities and expanded the scale of TMC 20+ years ago.  Instead… we got the Texans.