The Pragmatist

I grabbed a photo of this as I was walking by yesterday afternoon.

I liked luna pizzeria and little pappasito's

Luna is some tasty stuff. Echoing the sentiment above, I just hope some of these places can relocate nearby. 

I say that a developer should buy the garage on the block bordering BG Group Place to the west and build an even taller wrench. The collection could be called "God's tool set."

It went from a brownish color to black.

From an old street view image: http://goo.gl/maps/ppdxb

Here's some background on Houston Center from the book, Houston: Lost and Unbuilt.

http://books.google.com/books?id=UfjlqsiC-4cC&pg=PA137&dq=Houston+Center&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3uV_U9mSGcPjsATI1YGwDQ&ved=0CEYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Houston%20Center&f=false

Heh. I think I've managed to collect most of the changes here in this post. It was interesting to see the rooftop (and pedestal) design change over time. 

Here's a photo of the area from yesterday. Excuse the poor photo quality of my cell phone.

It's a little difficult to see, but it's on the right, just above the AT&T building.

This seems way faster than the Sheraton. Granted, that was a larger building. Out with the old, in with the new.

I could see this in a cool blue color as well as white.

Sorry for the ugly photo, but here is a shot over the area.

The construction company that restored the building moved its headquarters here after the renovation was finished, so it's not like the building isn't being used:

http://www.fretzconstruction.com/

Odd that they use European cars in the rendering (Peugeot, Citroen, Opel).

It's so they can throw around buzz words like "cosmopolitan" in the brochure. 

It reminds me very much of BG Group Place with the sky terrace. Not a bad thing at all.

It looks like 1 Allen Center.

The streets are pretty bad, but apparently not bad enough to get people to slow down over said potholes. 

Heck, I won't drive in the right-hand lane on either side of Westheimer in the area around Lamar High School due to the agglomeration of 6-inch to foot-deep potholes that just keep multiplying over there.

It's funny that you post that. I was driving by that site this morning, and in my head I was thinking, "I wonder what will eventually happen there in the future."

For those who don't know/remember what the store looked like, this can be added to this thread.

Driveway: by the people who brought you Terminal C.

Lol! You're spot on with that.

If it's like the other half, it will be brick and wood.

Sorry for the poor quality. Snapped this sitting at the stoplight. 

There is an overlap between retail that residents would want and that visitors would want. It doesn't all have to be chic boutiques and Texas souvenirs. That said, and understanding that some things need to be practical to support residents, I don't think Home Depot would work. Unless they have some urban format that I'm not aware of, the price per sf of land downtown is way too high for them, a 250 x 250 block size is too small, and imagine people buying lumber downtown. Maybe a small Ace hardware would suffice, and if people need more they can drive out.

Here's one I saw a couple of week ago while I was up in the Northeast.

http://goo.gl/maps/5devI

YESSS!!! about time downtown gets a 40 story residential tower.. 

will the garage be torn down, or just built around/maybe enlarged a bit, and reworked to connect into the new tower? if the garage will only be on half the block (and not enlarged to become a podium taking up the whole block or something), i wonder what will be on the lower floors of the tower that are butted up against the garage. should be interesting to see what they do with the garage..

Well, according to that PDF, it says "...and renovation of existing garage." While it doesn't answer much, it would seem that they do plan to keep it and change it. I'd assume that they would try to make it mesh well with the tower portion.