porTENT

What does the base look like? That's really the most important issue regarding downtown's urban fabric. It is a shame that this couldn't have been built another block over instead of wasting such a unique parcel on such a boring and cheap design. Hopefully this gets torn down in the long run and we get something unique relative to it's site like the Flatiron building in NY.

/wishful thinking

It looks like a composite manufactured stone and the stucco is EFIS. Nothing wrong with trying to fit in with Houston as we don't take kindly to architectural stand outs and will punish accordingly.

http://www.chron.com...ff/7206728.html

The developer, meanwhile, is pre-leasing another office building it plans to develop in Montrose.

"It's a boutique building in a unique market — one that's been largely underserved," Brinsden said.

Located at the northeast corner of Montrose Boulevard and the Southwest Freeway, the site currently houses a parking lot and a small house.

The new building would be 88,000 square feet in 12 stories.

Yeah, so how does that paradigm mesh with cap rates in 2010?

I am honestly am out of my depth here and am generally hoping your handle-sake of a niche market exists city-wide for this type of office space. Even if this particular project doesn't get off the ground, this site will likely spawn another project of similar height/size later in time.

There's shade along the north side of buildings, so stick to the south side of streets and you'll be fine. ...besides which, nobody of importance to an office lease was going to walk anywhere to begin with.

LOL,not trying to dog pile with the rest of the posters, but what time do you eat lunch?

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Another thing I was thinking in terms of the site is that it will close a cul-de-sac street, meaning less city maintenance and more so that the city will get more taxable property sqft'd in the exchange. I would take the next logical step by closing Woodrow Ave's T-interesection with Montrose, but realistically they will employ HPD to let office workers out. Highway access is a beautifully veiled cinch, with the Richmond exit off the Spur northbound and the Fannin exit off US59 southbound. I'm just glad Ewald didn't get to design this! J/K, Also if anyone's been to the site recently there's a nice quiet niche behind the art gallery with a lofty cantilevered concrete flat roof with 20' bamboo's underneath. I want to say Peter Zweig designed it.. my memory's a little fuzzy but the tactile nature of that space is worth checking out.

I can't wait till they declare the turbines "job" as done and eventually abort the top of this building in some heavy handed haircut job. That's Houston architecture. LOL @ building crowns as PR, seems like a narrow tightrope to walk.

@theNiche:

A Shepard/59 site would diminish the sexy allure the 59/Montrose site has from the auto-motorist's perspective. Imagine traveling down 59 and submerging as a tower rises over the freeway, that is architectural drama. Versus an exposed and oblique POV much like Greenway Plaza's towers. No drama, no value, and in effect blending in with Greenway and eastern ancillary developments.

City wide identity and desirability are the long term goals at play here (which explains the bldg's height & planar slenderness), and if catching onto pedestrian/street retail perceptual inertia in an upscale enclave while providing that enclave with a freeway barrier/visual distraction is what makes this site a shoe-in. Remember how area archipiles wanted to get Santiago Calatrava to design the Montrose bridge, but TXDOT turned a deaf ear? Houston has a long long history for being bad neighbors of those who would try something different, so in this case it makes sense to "get in where you fit in," considering it's contextual neighbors are much more affluent than say Whataburger. Your right that this would not appeal to the group-think of institutional investors, this project is more akin to the wild-catter developments of Houston's former glory days.

P.S. Not to mention mature oaks, hard to put a consensus valuation on shade in Houston. Shepard/59 = no shade.

I was in New Orleans last weekend and went to the St. Mary St. Wal-Mart in the Lower Garden District, although technically it was in the industrial waterfront. Place was packed. The area around it was blighted before and was perceivably still blighted but provides the poorer areas of Central City, the Treme, and anybody else in the city with affordable wares.

I guess the opposition should ask themselves If New Orleans can do it, why can't Houston?

That's an expensive plan. It would require them to acquire the apartment complex on Heights blvd, demolish it, extend Koehler St, & then create a new block by cutting the newly acquired parcels with an avenue. Terminating the axis at the store. Apparently also according to the conceptual site plan posted above, the metal warehouses in the northwest corner of the site are going to remain as existing. I suppose if you were bored enough you could scale a transposition of his plan over an ortho google map.

Not a proper representation? I'm sorry what angles do you approve of?

The police intimidate me all the time, it's best to just avoid them at all costs. If you are detained, confronted, or arrested don't do anything that could make it worse. Eventually, if you are in the right, you'll have your day in court.

Do you really think that Wal-Mart is only trying to do this in Houston?

Isn't that just plain old vanilla capitalism? We see Home Depot opposite and adjacent to Lowe's locations all the time. I don't understand your argument against Wal-Mart.

Is there a negative connotation to the term Montrose? Why say "Midtown" ?

Can you cite any examples of WalMart complying with local interests in such a way? Or will the Heights be the first instance?

If so, lucky us!

link

Several years ago, McDonough was asked to help build a WalMart store in Lawrence, Kan. He declined. His other projects--a high-end men's store in New York City, the Environmental Defense Fund's corporate headquarters, an office building in Warsaw--were for companies who marketed themselves as ecologically aware. He didn't think he could work with a retail giant with a reputation for gobbling up mom-and-pop stores in small towns and driving out competitors. Then he realized that if environmentalists don t win over corporate America, the chasm between them will grow wider, benefiting no one.

So McDonough took on the Wal-Mart project but insisted on doing it his way. His Wal-Mart store was built with wood instead of steel, thus saving thousands of gallons of oil just in the fabrication of the building. His firm used only wood from forests that had been managed sustainably and was constructed with specially engineered beams, which experts estimate saved the equivalent of 87 trees, 120 feet tall and 18 inches in diameter. They also arranged for no CFCs to be used in the store's construction and for the building to be converted into housing when it is no longer used as a retail center.

Walmart has done some pretty interesting things in the past and since this is they're first inner city store it would benefit the community to be aware of what they've experimented with in the past.

This site has nothing to do with the Astrodome.

This site is only connected to the Astrodome in nostalgic imagination.

What will become of the pedestrian bridge that connects to this site?

I love that dimension of the city. Seeing it from an open balcony 4+ stories. The enclosures of the observation decks in other towers feel too alien to appreciate.

I believe the architectural term on HAIF is "bloated."

The brown panels are "bronze-colored aluminum."

No info on last tenets, or how long it's been neglected..

The gnome hats are up. The trees do look good as a natural loggia screen.

I've always kinda liked this building, it needs some love as a candidate for renovation.

How long has it been vacant? Interior conditions.. etc.

Shawarma.

Originally Phoenicia was just a deli and it's still in operation across the street from the big warehouse store.

The owner's wife runs the deli. The deli is going to eventually be moving across the street into their grocery complex in the western anchor site behind the retention pond. It might already be under construction but as of last year plans were shelved. The deli is to have a drive thru and also provide catering services, so it's quite a large expansion in terms of space and services.

This OPP location is good news and I hope it works out for them.

http://www.sfgate.co....SPR21D732S.DTL

The study, the first of its kind, assessed a variety of blog posts and comments, message-board chatter and tweets from April 4 through April 25.

The formula relies on automated screening for a variety of words that could be construed as positive (good, great, like, love, well) or negative (hate, ineffectual, poorly). The method also takes into consideration whether, for example, the word "not" appears in conjunction with the word "good." A positive or negative expression about a particular team had to occur within six to seven words to be counted as a plus or minus.

The company concedes that misspellings, emoticons and nuanced sarcasm cannot be taken into account in the analysis.

At least make up some names for it like:

The Lone Star State Building

XOM Tower

...

Hey - I used to carry a couple hard hats around in my car! (never know when they'll come in handy!). Maybe I should toss em back in there

Don't forget an indian headdress, police officer helmet, and a cowboy hat

It seems to me that the city would get a better deal to offer them the 30 year extension and then in 2060 to sell. By then the building will have outlived it's former life and there is no guarantee that Lakewood will even be an operating church or moved on by then. It is likely that by 2060 that the site will be primed for redevelopment. The City is either in dire straits now or there is some kind of sweet heart deal going on under the table.