Golyadkin

I've not heard anything about exact numbers for this building, but given that companies are moving into the Houston and this area in a big way, and that current numbers for office space in Uptown is 90%+ occupancy, and the fact that they've said the next phase will begin when this building is fully leased, I suspect we'll be hearing an announcement regarding the next phase by the end of the year.

Having had to see it everyday since construction began, it's actually grown on me, and I quite like it. I don't like that they left the garage overlooking the Centre at Post Oak bare, but apart from that I like it. I think we should hold final judgement on it until the rest of the site is finished. It looks awkward on its own right now. When the property is fully built up, I think we'll all like it.

How big is Apache Tower supposed to be? 30 stories?

So far the only information I've seen about it is on the BLVD Place site map where it calls it a "33-story office tower." I suspect we won't hear more for a while. Last I heard, Apache's lease next door at Post Oak Central is up in 2018, so working back from that as an end date for construction, and a tower of that size taking around 2-3 years to build, that gives a start date around 2015-2016, so we might not hear anything concrete until next year or later.

The first one was from yesterday. The rest are from this afternoon:

 

They started putting up the "BBVA COMPASS" sign along the top today:

J.J. Abrams style:

Had to angle this last one oddly so I didn't get the sun completely in the shot making the building just a silhouette. Also, notice that the white wall that surrounded the construction site is mostly gone. They took down a good portion of it yesterday:

They've also started repaving Guildford Ct.:

Some shots from today:

Some concrete pillars have been placed in the Hanover tower:

And that most certainly is the base of the tower crane:

These guys were out drilling something in the field that will eventually be the Apache tower today:

Currently, there's now what looks like a small pvc pipe with a bit of ribbon around it poking out of the ground there.

Unfortunately there wasn't anything out front of the site apart from the normal construction paperwork. 

Almost finished. They're just finishing up the final interior work:

All kinda bad pictures. Sorry about that. I was a little rushed (and the last one I was actually driving and trying to take a picture with my DSLR, so it came out kinda wonky):

My car is totally not conspicuous in that picture, is it?

They're starting to make some progress:

A few days late, but here are the promised pictures. Only two, because there's only really three angles to photograph this thing from, and one of them is just covered in a black tarp:

From earlier today. They were disassembling some of the scaffolding while I was walking around taking pictures:

Also, I noticed some bare wood down the side street I parked on, and found this little thing going up in the neighborhood behind the Highland Tower (here: http://goo.gl/maps/3DbNe):

From earlier today. Very little change since lockmat posted his pictures:

There are signs up on the outer wall along Westheimer. No visible demo work yet:

As seen from across the freeway:

From around noon today:


I'm going to try to get out tomorrow and get some shots from the other side of the building. My time only allowed for me to quickly stop and grab a quick shot from across the freeway.

Site from ground level earlier today:

The sign on the sales office still says 30% sold.

I'll vote San Felipe.  The one over there is just waiting to die.  Swing by and check out the business at the Rice Epicurean... I'll spoil the surprise and say it's underwhelming.  Also, except for the Chase bank (as noted in the West Loop thread... one of about 7 banks inside one mile along San Felipe), it's pretty much a dead zone.

That Rice is dead because it's closing and being replaced by a different store.

Which shopping centers are for sale ?

None of them are, but they are both suburban style shopping centers on a lot of prime land on Post Oak. Eventually both will be bought up, demolished, and replaced with much higher density urban fill. What I'm guessing ChrisPHous is talking about is which will go first.

Personally, I hope the Westheimer one, for the simple selfish reason that anything that gets built over the San Felipe one will block my view.  

I thought so too, but I checked back and it turns out that you can see that this section is going to be 6 stories in two of the renderings:

The building at the south end of the site (Phase 2 in the site plan map - at the future corner of Post Oak and Blvd Place Dr.) has started to grow to its final height. First bits of steel started going up today for the 5th and 6th floors:
 

Sorry, fates, unfortunately it looks like I won't be able to get by until later tonight after it's dark. :/ I'm going to talk a long walk around the area this weekend and get everything properly documented - including one or two places we seem to have forgotten completely about. I'll be sure to get quite a few pics of it then.

Didn't get any pictures, but saw a concrete pump crane, well, pumping concrete. Only saw the top of it over the fence while driving by, but it was definitely in an active pouring position.

The garage is almost completely finished along the freeway side, meaning it's about 2/3 finished overall. They've also got all but a few floors left to fill in the small gap in the glass that was left by the construction elevator:

It appears they are building a stage in the corner of the park area in front of Cougar Village (sorry for the poor image quality - it was a cell phone pic through a dirty window with lighting my phone disagreed with):


They have a good deal of steel up for the UC expansion:

The former UC Underground is now completely filled in and support pillars have been laid in place (picture from last week):

I'll go by tomorrow and get some.