Kinder High School For The Performing And Visual Arts At 790 Austin St.

[kbates2]

7 hours ago, cloud713 said:

At one point someone on here had a webcam set up in their office at BG Group. Im not sure if its still working though or where the link would be..

 

http://webcam.rechlin.net/811main/

 

Rechlin cam.

[nate4l1f3]

What is the building behind the school site with all the AC units (?) on top ?

[UtterlyUrban]

4 minutes ago, nate4l1f3 said:

What is the building behind the school site with all the AC units (?) on top ?

EnWave USA union station district cooling plant...... That's what the sign says anyway.

[nate4l1f3]

21 minutes ago, UtterlyUrban said:

EnWave USA union station district cooling plant...... That's what the sign says anyway.

But can we put a top golf on top of it?

[cspwal]

On 4/9/2016 at 4:37 PM, nate4l1f3 said:

What is the building behind the school site with all the AC units (?) on top ?

 

From what I can tell, its for the A/C of Minute Maid Park

[rechlin]

On 4/9/2016 at 4:37 PM, nate4l1f3 said:

What is the building behind the school site with all the AC units (?) on top ?

 

EnwaveUSA.  That building provides chilled water for air conditioning for 24 buildings, including Minute Maid Park.  Here's a distribution map (PDF).

[cspwal]

1 hour ago, rechlin said:

 

EnwaveUSA.  That building provides chilled water for air conditioning for 24 buildings, including Minute Maid Park.  Here's a distribution map (PDF).

Interesting

I wonder how much they can handle?  Looks like they have a widely distributed system

[j_cuevas713]

On 4/11/2016 at 11:40 AM, cspwal said:

Interesting

I wonder how much they can handle?  Looks like they have a widely distributed system

The only thing I wish that building would do is updgrade the sidewalks. Those things look hideous downtown. 

[Nate99]

 

[Urbannizer]

IMG_5580 by George Zimzores, on Flickr

[Nate99]

[hindesky]

6/15/18 Finish date.

 

[Urbannizer]

[bobruss]

So nice to see this side of town start to fill in. I did a count and I believe in this construction cycle there have been at least 18 blocks that were part of the parking district in downtown that have been filled in with new construction. This does not include places like The Hilcorp building or the Alesandra, or any of the many new hotels taking over long vacant buildings i.e. the Aloft in the Stowers, the Holiday inn in the old Savoy, the J.W. Marriott on Main , the Meridian, and the Texaco building residences. Thats a whole lot of change for downtown in one cycle.

[j_cuevas713]

On 5/17/2016 at 10:37 AM, Urbannizer said:

Houston is starting to look urban! Holy cow!

[Triton]

3 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

Houston is starting to look urban! Holy cow!

We're already there, man. We're already there. I'm still convinced the turning point was October 2015. That's when the bayou park officially opened, River Oaks District opened, and a good amount of new retail opened in downtown. That's when it hit me that the city had substantially changed and we're heading in a new urban direction.

[j_cuevas713]

2 hours ago, Triton said:

We're already there, man. We're already there. I'm still convinced the turning point was October 2015. That's when the bayou park officially opened, River Oaks District opened, and a good amount of new retail opened in downtown. That's when it hit me that the city had substantially changed and we're heading in a new urban direction.

Lol I agree. You're def right about that. 

[Nate99]

Deep hole is deep...

Edited May 24, 2016 by Nate99

[enriquewx91]

Underground parking?

[bobruss]

Sounds logical since students couldn't afford to park in the parking lots around the area. 

[sdotwill84]

2 hours ago, bobruss said:

Sounds logical since students couldn't afford to park in the parking lots around the area. 

students, parents, teachers, . . .

[cspwal]

Also they are replacing a surface lot so the laws of conservation of parking in Houston demand that parking may never be destroyed, only conserved or created.

[Urbannizer]

http://blogs.houstonisd.org/news/2016/05/26/hspva-construction-project-goes-underground/

 

Construction on the new High School for the Performing and Visual Arts is well underway in downtown Houston, as workers have already excavated 25 feet into the Earth and hauled away roughly 55,000 cubic yards of dirt to make way for the building’s two-level, underground parking garage.

 

“When the weather was cooperating with us, we were running 40 trucks per day, averaging close to 400 loads per day out of the hole,” said Wesley Moncrief, senior project manager with McCarthy Building Companies, the construction manager at risk on the project. “Dirt removal will be finished in the next few weeks and then we’ll install two large tower cranes.”

 

Other activities happening this summer are installation of spread footings, the perimeter basement walls, and subsurface drainage. Barring any major impact to the schedule, Moncrief said he expects concrete to be poured for both levels of below-ground parking as well as the main ground floor of the building by the end of 2016.

 

[UtterlyUrban]

When I see picture like the one above, I just don't understand why Houston homebuilders don't offer basements as an option. Would they need to be more highly engineered and therefore fairly expensive? Sure.  Groundwater issues and gumbo soil.   But, I don't see a river of groundwater flowing thought the picture above either.

[bobruss]

According to a source employed by the school, they thought they had a deal with the adjacent parking garage, that apparently fell through,

So they hadn't planned on even putting in parking. That might explain the real delay.

[kbates2]

Having often parked in the adjacent garage, they were lying to themselves. It is already full.

[jmitch94]

18 hours ago, UtterlyUrban said:

When I see picture like the one above, I just don't understand why Houston homebuilders don't offer basements as an option. Would they need to be more highly engineered and therefore fairly expensive? Sure.  Groundwater issues and gumbo soil.   But, I don't see a river of groundwater flowing thought the picture above either.

I would like to know the answer the that too. They really add a lot of space to a house. 

[mollusk]

18 hours ago, UtterlyUrban said:

When I see picture like the one above, I just don't understand why Houston homebuilders don't offer basements as an option. Would they need to be more highly engineered and therefore fairly expensive? Sure.  Groundwater issues and gumbo soil.   But, I don't see a river of groundwater flowing thought the picture above either.

 

There are basements here and there in older houses, but you nailed one of the biggest reasons when you mentioned the expense.  Those issues aren't limited to just to making sure that the ground floor of the house can clear bigger spans; the basement has to be strong enough and stable enough to withstand gumbo's expansive nature.  Groundwater is an issue as well - there are portions of the downtown tunnels that have leaked forever, and that's where the engineering and maintenance expense is a line item rather than a deal breaker like it would be on most houses.  And then there's flooding...

[bobruss]

I know when they started digging for Enron Field, now Minute Maid, they ran into an underground aquifer and had to get large pumps to pump it out.

Apparently there are several areas on the east side that have underground streams. At least that is what I was told by some people who were working on the project.

[kbates2]

They had to install permanent groundwater pumps for Toyota Center as well.