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MD Anderson Mid Campus 1 Building At 7007 Bertner Ave.


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This is a massive building.

Citizen was talking about similarity in buildings a few posts back. Keep in mind that the building pictured first is the Alkek Building and is not new. Additional floors are being added and you can't very easily change the design of the addition.

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I was thinking the same thing when I saw it last night. Don't you think it looks a lot taller than it really is, too?

It's not topped out yet, is it? I've not had the opportunity to see it for any length of time in person, so I can say about the height appearance.

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It's not topped out yet, is it? I've not had the opportunity to see it for any length of time in person, so I can say about the height appearance.

I'm not sure if it's topped out yet. The thread says 20+ but to me it looks closer to 30 at least. I didn't count the floors when I saw it.

anyone?

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Every weekend I ride my bike down Brays Bayou but yesterday I decided to ride my bike to the building itself. So far, it's only at 23 floors. The bottom 4 floors have massive heights I guess for the grandeur? I'm sure if their heights were cut in half or the floors were the same height as the rest of the floors, then you could probably add another 4 to 5 floors. The bottom floors are that tall! That causes the count to only be 23 instead of 27 or 28, for instance. Im thinking, in the end, the tower may very well be taller than Hess Tower or OPP.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Ugly? Thems fighting words! Hate to get off topic (BTW thanks for the shots), but I thought they were tearing up the concrete in Brays project.

Haha... sorry! I am actually starting to like Braes slightly more than I used to (biking along it is making it grow on me a bit), but it will forever be known to me as the ugly bayou until they do something about the concrete (which may be never).

Now back on topic...

Edited by Jax
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Here's a quick question for all of you...

What is being built on the other side of the Bayou Ditch from this project? I assume it's an MD Anderson build because of the location. It is right behind the Pickens Tower and adjacent to the odd water towerish looking building. At first I assumed it might be more parking, but now that I can see it is being supported by steel rather than cement and the floors plates appear level rather than ramped, I assume it's another bldg. Any ideas?

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Haha... sorry! I am actually starting to like Braes slightly more than I used to (biking along it is making it grow on me a bit), but it will forever be known to me as the ugly bayou until they do something about the concrete (which may be never).

Now back on topic...

Yeah, riding the bike down Brays is something I like to do too. The only part I hate so far is the bike detour near TMC. It throws me off everytime so I just take the roads until I can get to the part where the construction ends.

It's not that far from MD Anderson so I guess I'm kinda on topic. lol

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Yeah, riding the bike down Brays is something I like to do too. The only part I hate so far is the bike detour near TMC. It throws me off everytime so I just take the roads until I can get to the part where the construction ends.

It's not that far from MD Anderson so I guess I'm kinda on topic. lol

Yeah that was annoying. I was on the lower path for a while even though part of it was "closed", but eventually it was totally blocked by construction and I had to return to street level. At least the traffic wasn't bad - my favorite thing about biking along the bayou is no cars. Yeah, back on topic - I have no idea what that construction is on the banks of the bayou or at street level near T. Boone Pickens Tower. I'd like to find out though if anybody knows.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's a quick question for all of you...

What is being built on the other side of the Bayou Ditch from this project? I assume it's an MD Anderson build because of the location. It is right behind the Pickens Tower and adjacent to the odd water towerish looking building. At first I assumed it might be more parking, but now that I can see it is being supported by steel rather than cement and the floors plates appear level rather than ramped, I assume it's another bldg. Any ideas?

The construction site has a completed layer of girders at about the sixth floor level of the Pickens Tower. I had guessed that that would be the end of it, but there are, so far, two posts continuing on up beyond a likely parapet height. I asked the ladies at the dental oncology desk and they had no news on what it all will be. But I'll take a crack at it. First observation: from today's top-floor-or-roof it is thirtysome feet down to the one below, but between that and the next lower it is only eight or nine feet, less than an office floor. The second reasonably related observation is that MDACC has to recruit faculty over job offers from other hungry academic groups in fashionable areas of the world, so that, even though this spot is right next to some physical plant operations, they're not entirely likely to put up a new AAA faculty office block and then proceed to start blocking several floors' bayou vistas unless the new project is some kind of amenity for the faculty there. So I think it will make the most of bayou views instead of filling some function more technical. There are probably enough conference areas at hand for faculty in the Med Center without budgeting one more: these ceiling intervals, specifically, make me wonder if it won't be a convenient natatorium with a couple storeys of related stuff at the bottom of the building, underneath the floor of a swimming pool. If there is a swimming space in the Houston Main Building from its Prudential days, then this could be another stage of outsourcing its roles before obliterating it.

http://www.tradelineinc.com/reports/915B6407-2B3B-B525-8CF1351CFC31EAD9 does not answer any questions but it's a very worthwhile scrap of knowledge to have. I'd be glad to know of any writings similar to it that you've read.

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Odd that they put one at the top of the second prow as well as atop the highest... would have felt like a backhanded honor putting up the hand-me-down tree. Even ironworkers get carried away this time of year. It wouldn't cost them anything now to have one on every floor.

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  • 4 weeks later...
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It is fun seeing these pix, especially since I don't pass thru that area much. Its nice to see some things that look a little different than what we've seen going up in the rest of Houston for the last few years. (Anyone who follows "medical center architecture" elsewhere, feel free to point whether/how much these conform to formulas seen in other cities.)

I'm old enough to remember that, as a kid, I always thought the area around the Shamrock Hilton and the Prudential Bldg. had a different feel from the rest of Houston. However, despite the construction boom in the med center, commercial development has followed design templates used elsewhere in Houston. E.g., the huge, bland, apartment complexes that house med-center employees in the midst of enormous gated parking lots, in walking distance of almost no retail services. Anyone I've ever talked to who lived in one couldn't wait to leave Houston whenever they finished whatever they were doing here.

Is there any hope the the total built environment around TMC will every get to the level of design and lifestyle quality that people will want to stay instead of flee Houston?

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the huge, bland, apartment complexes that house med-center employees in the midst of enormous gated parking lots, in walking distance of almost no retail services. Anyone I've ever talked to who lived in one couldn't wait to leave Houston whenever they finished whatever they were doing here.

I guess that's why I decided to live in the Museum District, walking distance of rail, hermann park, all museums, and a few restaurants. I recommend that every new researcher in our lab move into my hood but they all move into apartment land (south of the med center) and then complain about how much they hate Houston because they can't walk anywhere. I don't blame them for finding their neighborhood boring but I am always surprised that they chose it above more interesting parts of town that are also convenient to the med center.

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I have lived both north and south of the medical center and without a doubt - north/museum is the much better choice exactly for those reasons you mentioned. (and the "apartmentland" is affectionately regarded as the Reliant ghetto..)

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