Post Oak Central Campus At 1990 Post Oak Blvd.

[gene]

driving past this morning while still dark, you could see the ground floor of all the building lit up and it seems about 75 percent is unoccupied...they need to just add a retail and/or restaurant element to these...there were rumors for awhile that a popular independent cafe/restaurant chain was eyeing the old Tommy's space...so that would be a good start. It will be interesting to see their ideas and what developments come about

[strickn]

Interesting.  I always associate them with the chunkier Hines trio project at The Lake(s) at or on Post Oak  -- 3000, 3040, 3050 Post Oak office towers, from the 1970s and early 80s, by 3D/I and forest water landscape by Edward Durell Stone Jr & Associates (son of the NYC modernist architect) per Stephen Fox's guide to Houston.

Not just because of the owner involved, the neighborhood, office usage, three phases and their overlapping construction eras, but for a quietly quirkier reason.

 

In the 1980s and 1990s driving up the Loop through Bellaire to take his son to school at River Oaks Elementary, my uncle James noticed that one of those Lakes trio cut off your view of the lower floors of Post Oak Central, leaving only a geometric facet and a few floors showing of the background towers.  The unintended effect was of an American flag perched behind the Lake at Post Oak.

[strickn]

Obviously in that day and age you didn't try to frame a picture from behind the wheel, so I don't know if we ever got a photo before towers have filled in some more of the space between them and blocked it.

[Beau11b]

I work in these buildings. I've thought even pre-covid that the parking garages need to be consolidated. Now the garages are 80% empty at any given time. 

It would make a ton of sense to tear down the garage on McCue and build apartments. That's my guess as to what happens. 

[swtsig]

Building 3 and garage will get demolished. They'll convert that space into a "City Centre" type development. No idea if a denser component like hotel or multifmaily will be a part of that but it didn't sound like it. Taking a surplus of obsolete office space and converting it to walkable retail is definitely the play.

[houstontexasjack]

On 10/17/2023 at 1:07 PM, swtsig said:

Building 3 and garage will get demolished. They'll convert that space into a "City Centre" type development. No idea if a denser component like hotel or multifmaily will be a part of that but it didn't sound like it. Taking a surplus of obsolete office space and converting it to walkable retail is definitely the play.

I guess demolishing Building 3 frees up a lot of space along with the garage. I think there was once a Loews hotel planned nearby. That would be cool to shift over to this site but that’s just me being wishful.

[KirbyDriveKid]

Very sorry if I missed it, but has anyone posted a site map with the buildings labeled? Such as... which one Building 3 is?

[Urbannizer]

Building 3 is the one in the center, furthest from Post Oak Blvd.

[Houston19514]

I remain skeptical of this plan. I feel like a semi-creative architect could incorporate the lower levels of building 3 in to a City Centre-type development, converting the upper floors into hotel and/residential. A City Centre-type development will require some hotel/residential space anyway.

[Texasota]

I do wonder about floor plate dimensions of these buildings, and building 3 does look like it probably has the deepest cross-section right there at the center.

That's one of the big things that kill office to residential conversions. You get to the center of building with no way to provide natural light and there's not a whole lot you can do with it. 

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, Texasota said:

I do wonder about floor plate dimensions of these buildings, and building 3 does look like it probably has the deepest cross-section right there at the center.

That's one of the big things that kill office to residential conversions. You get to the center of building with no way to provide natural light and there's not a whole lot you can do with it. 

That’s actually one of the things that makes this building a strong candidate for conversion.  Its floor plates are relatively small. Their website says their “typical floor plate” is only 18,183 RSF (which appears to be the measure of the size of the lowest bank of floors.) The uppermost floor(s) are only 12,795 RSF.  The next group of floors going down are one 15,279 square feet.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Houston19514

[Texasota]

But the actual depth of the floor plate matters, and building 3 looks maybe as much as 50' deeper than the other two buildings at center. 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Texasota

[Houston19514]

10 minutes ago, Texasota said:

But the actual depth of the floor plate matters, and building 3 looks maybe as much as 50' deeper than the other two buildings at center. 

Of course the actual depth of the floor plate matters.  Again, this building has small floor plates, hence the depths are also relatively small.

Take a look at the floor plate layout in the attached (and this is one of the largest floors). It looks pretty ideal for residential or hotel conversion.

https://www.postoakcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/POC3-Suite-950-10992-SF.pdf

[Texasota]

The triangular floor plate definitely helps, but you still have an oversized service core for a residential building which means unleasable space. 

That said you brought floor plans to an architecture fight and I always appreciate that.

It remains weird that they're keeping two towers and tearing down the third. Why? If not floor plate differences, why tear down old triangley? 

[houstontexasjack]

30 minutes ago, Texasota said:

The triangular floor plate definitely helps, but you still have an oversized service core for a residential building which means unleasable space. 

That said you brought floor plans to an architecture fight and I always appreciate that.

It remains weird that they're keeping two towers and tearing down the third. Why? If not floor plate differences, why tear down old triangley? 

Just looking at the site, Building 3 sits in the middle of the garages and demo would free up a large rectangle of space to develop. 

[Houston19514]

32 minutes ago, Texasota said:

The triangular floor plate definitely helps, but you still have an oversized service core for a residential building which means unleasable space. 

That said you brought floor plans to an architecture fight and I always appreciate that.

It remains weird that they're keeping two towers and tearing down the third. Why? If not floor plate differences, why tear down old triangley? 

I'm not seeing the over-sized service core you are seeing. A new-build residential building will also have elevator shafts and stairways.  Presumably, the service core bathrooms would be taken out and the space converted to leasable space.

[Houston19514]

39 minutes ago, Texasota said:

The triangular floor plate definitely helps, but you still have an oversized service core for a residential building which means unleasable space. 

That said you brought floor plans to an architecture fight and I always appreciate that.

It remains weird that they're keeping two towers and tearing down the third. Why? If not floor plate differences, why tear down old triangley? 

More weirdness:  Per their website,

• Post Oak Central I remains 100% empty.
• Post Oak Central II is about 66% occupied.
• Post Oak Central III is about 71% occupied.

[Houston19514]

Apologies, I reversed the occupancies of Buildings II and III in my prior post. Since we are inexplicably no longer able to edit our posts after a few minutes, here are the correct numbers;

More weirdness:  Per their website,

• Post Oak Central I remains 100% empty.
• Post Oak Central II is about 71% occupied.
• Post Oak Central III is about 66% occupied.

[rechlin]

4 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

Since we are inexplicably no longer able to edit our posts after a few minutes

I believe it actually was explained.  Spammers apparently discovered they could edit old posts (that were not spam) to insert spam at a later date, getting around the spam filter.  This is apparently difficult to detect with the moderation tools, so the ability to edit posts after more than a short time has been removed.  I wish a compromise could be made, like allowing edits but requiring moderator approval for any edits to go through, but perhaps the forum software does not support that.

[strickn]

I would slot a new H-E-B (yes there are two on Fountain View already, but the next nearest is over at Weslayan & Westheimer, so this would fill quite a gap) into the surface parking moat and dedicate the ground floor of the existing garage to it. Make its rooftop a POST-style walkable lifestyle retail City Centre deck which connects to storefronts inserted in the side of tower 3 and into the upper floors of the north garage.

[strickn]

Correction-- the one at Weslayan is a Central Market.  
 

Dominion Post Oak treated Guilford like it's going to be an urban living lane someday, and all that that will require is for Post Oak Central's 600-foot wall of parking to go the way of the dodo and receive a new set of properly designed buildings and ground floor connections.

[MidCenturyMoldy]

23 hours ago, rechlin said:

I believe it actually was explained.  Spammers apparently discovered they could edit old posts (that were not spam) to insert spam at a later date, getting around the spam filter.  This is apparently difficult to detect with the moderation tools, so the ability to edit posts after more than a short time has been removed.  I wish a compromise could be made, like allowing edits but requiring moderator approval for any edits to go through, but perhaps the forum software does not support that.

That explains all the black “Imgur” rectangles that remain in a number of threads. Certainly would be nice if some moderator would do something about those.

Edited October 20, 2023 by MidCenturyMoldy

[rechlin]

On 10/20/2023 at 3:58 PM, MidCenturyMoldy said:

That explains all the black “Imgur” rectangles that remain in a number of threads. Certainly would be nice if some moderator would do something about those.

That's a separate issue.  At least in the most recent case of that happening (affecting dozens of threads), it turns out those were actually intentionally done by the original commenter for reasons unknown.  But yes, I agree, a moderator should delete all those comments so they don't keep polluting those threads.

[Skyboxdweller]

I think Philip Johnson deserves an award for selling the developer on keeping so much of the space open and inserting the fountain , which appears to be about the size  if not larger than the one he designed for Lincoln Center in NY.  I stopped by yesterday  after visiting Marshalls for a pair of comfy pants to wear during  my drive to Palm Springs next week . It's a  lovely neighborhood amenity that is underutilized.  The ground floor areas need to one remodeled and should include restaurants, event venues ( what as nice place to have a wedding on a weekend when the parking lots are empty), local services and even a satellite campus for a business program of a university that would bring people to the area in the evening  An office park where used five days a week 9-5 is passe given the work from home situation and the level of vacant and unoccupied space in Houston overall. 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Skyboxdweller

[Urbannizer]

[Montrose1100]

8 hours ago, Urbannizer said:

Looks like I & II ground floor renovations. Interesting to get rid of the bottom two floors on that corner and incorporate larger stainless steel columns. Would flow with the infamous Post Oak arches. 

[IntheKnowHouston]

On 12/6/2023 at 2:05 AM, Urbannizer said:

Proposed renderings @Urbannizer posted are from Parkway corporate brochure:

https://issuu.com/midway2/docs/231103_pky_corporate_brochure_-_online/26

 

[MidCenturyMoldy]

On 10/3/2023 at 12:12 PM, MrFubbles said:

If I'm not mistaken, these towers are Philip Johnson originals (Rothko, Williams Tower, Menil House, Chapel of St. Basil, Penzoil, etc.)

Would be a shame to see them go

Philip Johnson really shouldn’t get credit for the Rothko Chapel. Definitely not sole credit. Johnson was basically fired by Rothko who, from the beginning, didn’t want Johnson involved, but aquiesced to the de Menils’ desire to use Johnson after he had designed their home and the UST campus. It has been claimed by Rothko associates that he was appalled by Johnson’s earlier support for Nazism and Fascism. Local architects Eugene Aubry and Howard Barnstone were brought in to finish the project.

[strickn]

On 1/13/2024 at 12:32 PM, MidCenturyMoldy said:

Philip Johnson really shouldn’t get credit for the Rothko Chapel. Definitely not sole credit. Johnson was basically fired by Rothko who, from the beginning, didn’t want Johnson involved, but aquiesced to the de Menils’ desire to use Johnson after he had designed their home and the UST campus. It has been claimed by Rothko associates that he was appalled by Johnson’s earlier support for Nazism and Fascism. Local architects Eugene Aubry and Howard Barnstone were brought in to finish the project.

After Aubry left the firm [Barnstone & Aubry] in 1969, he finalized design on three of the partnership’s most important buildings: the Rothko Chapel (1971) and the Rice Museum and Media Center (1969 and 1970, respectively), all commissions received from John de Menil. Philip Johnson was the original architect of the Rothko Chapel but resigned the commission because Mark Rothko objected so strenuously to Johnson’s design of the skylight. It was Aubry who worked out the skylight design to Rothko’s satisfaction, obtained the artist’s concurrence on such details as the interior floor surface, and surreptitiously consulted with Johnson to organize the chapel’s site plan.

 

-- Stephen Fox

https://www.archpaper.com/2024/01/eugene-aubry-an-architect-of-late-modernism-in-texas-and-beyond-dies-at-88

[Beau11b]

Rumor as of this morning, Building 3 (the one in the middle/back) is going to be demolished for a high rise. One tenant was told they have to be out by Sept 2025. Can anyone help me confirm this?