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zaphod

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Everything posted by zaphod

  1. zaphod
    I just hope Houston doesn't lose any tall buildings. Dallas demoed a couple of dead midcentury towers as I understand it, though nothing really big on the skyline. But then lots of great residential conversions happened to some of its worst vacant towers about a decade ago(the atmos buildings, the statler, elm tower, etc). On the bright side, if some of these old office towers turn into apartments/condos it would really increase the liveliness of downtown after hours.
  2. zaphod
    Hopefully they will be able to fill this up post Covid-19. I like this project much more than what's to replace the old Half Price books(which will be missed, no doubt, not all new development is good IMO).
  3. zaphod
    There are a lot of old freeway intersections like that. Kingwood Drive and Northpark both have those empty corners. I believe in the case of Kingwood drive one corner may be gaining a Park and Ride soon with the Metro Next project. On I 45 near Madisonville a few of those junctions are still intact, and they are really scary to drive on. Merging from the farm to market road that goes to Normangee to 45 you have to rapidly accelerate to catch up traffic going in excess of 80 mph on a very short sharply curved ramp. I don't think anyone misses that roadway layout at all.
  4. zaphod
    I mean, they could always improve on it with LED lighting. A nice warm white would look really good at night.
  5. zaphod
    I had this idea the other day, why don't we have a numbering scheme sort of like freeways do but for major bike routes? It's not really that important for wayfinding, necessarily, since people have maps on their phones(though unlike a car you cannot look at gps while riding a bike without some kind of google glass device that doesnt exist. It would rather be a form of marketing. There'd be some legitimacy to being on a bike route that's important enough to have a number. Signs could be made, with a sheild design sort of like the interstate system. It would in some ways be a measure of commitment, to the contiguity of a trail.
  6. zaphod
    Was that always a chase? looks like an old WaMu or Wachovia or some other late 1990s bank that ate it during the recession. That's an interesting location. Being on the feeder road its kind of a crappy spot to put a residential infill building. Seems like a good spot for a two level strip mall full of restaurants or something.
  7. zaphod
    722 units would be a lot for a building like that, unless they are really packing them in? That figure reminds me of student housing developments in Austin's West Campus. College Station also has a couple monster-sized apartment buildings with +1,000 plus 'beds'. Common sense says bedrooms, not units.
  8. zaphod
    It's okay, if we're being honest I don't care for that kind of drab square cladding for residential towers. It's cold and plain yet at the same time not minimalistic and kind of busy. But hey, its a tower, and its happening during these times so good to me.
  9. zaphod
    That's a great pile of dirt, really the best dirt.
  10. zaphod
    It's going up really fast. When is it going to top out, maybe early this summer?
  11. zaphod
    It's starting to look like something besides a post apocalyptic ruin, finally. This reminds me of what they did to the Zachry building on the Texas A&M campus. Complete gut job to just concrete shell, then they put some steel expansions up, and then finished the exterior leaving something totally unrecognizable. At least this project saves some of the historic facade.
  12. zaphod
    I'm curious about what areas within the Houston metro will be affected hardest by an oil decline, or if the whole area will be uniformly? As someone whose job probably won't be impacted by this, my biggest concern is that if there is a local recession, the City of Houston doesn't have a lot of room in its budget. The cuts proposed last time there was a recession would have reduced policing and also shut down parks and library facilities. That's a big dip in safety and quality of life that will drag down neighborhoods. Honestly barring that, a recession would be convenient for the survivors who want to buy houses, etc. On the other hand, a lot of high paid energy workers live in unincorporated areas and shop at stores that aren't in the city of Houston. The energy corridor is in the city of Houston, but those office properties are notoriously under-assessed anyways. If an oil bust hurts Cypress and Klein and The Woodlands then who cares, it won't pose an existential threat to basic civic functions, only stop a fast growing area from growing more in the future. How will these low prices affect downstream projects? Will their be layoffs at the plants on the ship channel and in the eastern metro area? I would be more concerned about that destabilizing vulnerable people and neighborhoods.
  13. zaphod
    It's good to see this living up to its original mixed use potential. I remember originally the Pearland Town Center was supposed to be the center of a bigger development but I guess that never worked out. How is the mall element doing these days?
  14. zaphod
    I don't think METRO would even consider buying that exact vehicle. I'm just saying, maybe someone else could make a similar design for the US market. It's the idea that's neat, IMO, take what is good about trams and apply them to electrically powered buses. With self driving technology you could have a long articulated vehicle intelligently steer around corners and have cameras to show an operator what would be in their blind spots. It could be double ended so it wouldn't have to turn around, and could instead reverse like tram.
  15. zaphod
    Thanks for the picture! I wonder what the long term plan for that shopping center with the Office Despot is? It is in and of itself kind of a classic retail strip center, but probably would be better off as a good 5-8 apartment block with ground floor retail, IMO.
  16. zaphod
    nice hovering yellow camaro But yeah, looking fancy
  17. zaphod
    Didn't a big chunk of pavement fall out of the 610 bridge once? I just wonder how they would possibly replace it without having to close the freeway for years. I guess use eminent domain on the surrounding waterfront industrial properties? I guess underwater tunnels aren't as popular as they used to be and cable stayed bridges are the standard for large spans now? A tunnel would be advantageous because they could build it while the existing bridge remains in place and then after the tunnel is done they could disassemble the bridge.
  18. zaphod
    Apparently in China they have created battery powered buses which have the same form as trams. To charge themselves they have pantographs and there are small sections of overhead power conduit along the route or at stations, but for the most part all they need is a conventional street to drive one.They use markings on the pavement to drive themselves. Wouldn't this be cool as hell to upgrade our BRT corridors with? Not really much of a difference between light rail and bus. However with fixed service I think steel rail may offer superior ride quality and not wear out as quick as pavement and tires, especially if these vehicles still operate along the same route in the same position on the street. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_Rail_Rapid_Transit Photo Credit: N509FZ. wikimedia photo page.
  19. zaphod
    The good news is that midtown now has a beach-head of sorts with the two highrises in place. So whatever happens, it is established as a busy area now.
  20. zaphod
    Being medical offices would this one have a better chance of making it given current events? Can existing office space get easily converted to medical use, or is it more economical to build it new?
  21. zaphod
    If we are being brutally honest, I think that proposed tower in Austin is ugly. It's all the stuff I don't like about modern architecture trends. It's weirdly eclectic and blocky and asymettric and dysharmonious. A generous take would be that form reflects function and that some mixed use areas need different floor plans, but then why arrange it in that particular way? Big towers should have more grace since they are going to be a huge landmark that's going to stick out. It's like if a bunch of kids had access to infinite legos and decided to build a skyscraper.
  22. zaphod
    I hope this doesn't get harmed by the inevitable recession we are about to have and the city needing to cut spending. Though after reading more about this project, it sounds like the funding is money that was saved or collected from different sources for several years prior. That is going to be an awesome park for people in that part of town. This makes me happier in some ways than seeing whatever new plans for Memorial Park are being released since this facility seems more about active use. I won't ever use this park but its a worthy use of tax dollars I think. Speaking solely on the grounds of the site, that pool should be a model for the aquatics facilities the city runs. The new trend among cities is to have a smaller number of very large public swimming complexes rather than many small neighborhood pools. The bigger facilities can host more programs, they can be open for longer parts of the year, etc. The small square pools have a hard time attracting visitors, have very limited hours, and are just underutilized. Also in a city like Houston many neighborhoods have private HOA pools, so the purpose of having publicly funded aquatics facility is more about ensuring everyone incl. those in neighborhoods without pools has access to the programs(kids lessons, adult fitness classes, etc) and consolidated sites work better for that. The city of Dallas sold some extra land it owned for about $30 million and is building 6 or 7 big pools in geographically logical locations so the whole city is served and will then go back and fill in the tiny old ones in neighborhood parks. I think they've managed to build most of the big facilities by now, so it has been a success.
  23. zaphod
    The California project was a lot different from this one too. It was supposed to traverse extreme terrain with tunnels dozens of miles long. It was also supposed to go through some of the most expensive real estate in the world. And California has a well entrenched NIMBY force which was set out from the start to sue the project into the ground. Assuming Texas Central can get off the ground, it will have a much easier time building an at-grade route with no major bridges or tunnels across sparsely populated rural areas.
  24. zaphod
    I would never fault a parent with a child with a disability for feeling like they have to fight for their kid. I suspect that if parents were passive and nobody ever demanded video evidence or inquiries, that the subsequent lack of accountability would indeed lead to students being abused. I understand that teachers have to put up with a lot. But compassion burnout is real, and so you cannot assume all teachers are good at their job or that they care about your kid's interests at all. And people do have high expectations for public school districts. They are huge, omnipresent things that we all had to spend 12 years attending, then we we grow up they become a huge component to the average person's tax burden.
  25. zaphod
    Sort of unrelated, but Taco Cabana's quality has dropped off. Last time I went there I ordered fajita tacos. I got a plate with two tortillas with a wimpy portion of super salty rubber-like cubed beef and a gloop of canned refried beans and some rice for $10. I went up to the counter to ask where my guac and lettuce was and why there weren't tomatoes in the rice. That's what I thought they served . They told me it didn't come like that. What a disappointment. I noticed that several locations have gone out of business in the last few months. If I worked there I wouldn't be able keep doing my job, too sad and cringey. That chain will be gone in 2 years, I'm calling it now.
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