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^^^ hey my good pal HTXUSA, i cannot help but ask if whether or not if you are hearing anything regarding our new and forthcoming luxury hotels??  i just cannot wait to feast my eyes upon the newly prospective renderings of the RITZ CARLTON projected towards ROD.  i am praying that this happens...  

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People please. If you can't find something negative, pessimistic, whiny or b*tchy to say about Houston at HAIF, please post elsewhere. If there is one thing we don't need around here, it is any of those 'glass half full' types. ;)  

 

HTXUSA and Slick Vik seem to represent two extremes. I don't particularly care for the excessively negative outlook of some posters, such as SV, who get a thrill out of posting gloom and doom with regularity. I do, however, ask that you be realistic when evaluating the local economy. Don't try to portray it as an unassailable paragon of economic fortune and then deride anyone who points out that the economy may have some short-to-mid-term issues by calling them "Houston haters" or concocting a fantastical situation in which said haters are conspiring to bring down Greater Houston. Houston will have its share of struggles in this depressed-price environment for commodities. That cannot be overlooked or ignored. However, the region should continue to grow during the downturn (though at a reduced pace) and will most definitely accelerate when things pick back up again in the energy sector. 

 

As for 609 Main, I am glad to see its progress. I cannot wait to see the finished product as it will be a stunning addition to the downtown skyline.

Edited by The Pragmatist
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You sure make it sound like doom and gloom. ;-)

And fwiw, the I think the tenant being "poached" is also roughly tripling their square footage, so it actually is a bit of a sign of strength. I know of situations in another major city whose economy is generally perceived as firing on all cylinders where all of the new construction center city class a office space is being filled by poaching, and in almost all cases the poached tenants are reducing their square footage in the moves.

Interesting. Dallas?

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The only way they are bigger is that they are taller. The floor plates of 609 Main @ Texas are about 28,000 square feet. Wells Fargo Plaza I think is about 25,000 sq feet. I think 600 Travis (the former Chase Tower) is closer to 22,000 square feet.

And 609 Main is supposed to be only 24 feet shorter than Bank of America Center, so it doesn't exactly pale in comparison.

Ummm, isn't total building square footage a bit more relevant?

JPMorgan Chase Tower - 1.98 million SF

Wells Fargo Plaza - 1.83 million SF

609 Main - 1.05 million SF

The fact that taller buildings had smaller floor plates actually indicates more boldness, since the smaller floor/greater height trade off is less economical in high rise design (but looks more architecturally dramatic).

Edited by H-Town Man
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I do know from my contacts in NY that Brioni is having second thoughts about missing out on ROD and is reconsidering, and that Stefano Ricci is thinking about ROD, as well.

^^^ well just FYI, ST. BERNARD SPORTS out of dallas is coming on down to ROD.  we are talking about HIGH END sports and ski apparel / shoes / accessories.  yes, they are coming... 12,442SQft of store space.  logo.png

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Ummm, isn't total building square footage a bit more relevant?

JPMorgan Chase Tower - 1.98 million SF

Wells Fargo Plaza - 1.83 million SF

609 Main - 1.05 million SF

The fact that taller buildings had smaller floor plates actually indicates more boldness, since the smaller floor/greater height trade off is less economical in high rise design (but looks more architecturally dramatic).

Ummmm, square footage is just a result of height, width and depth. The post to which I was responding stated that the older towers were not just taller, but bigger as well. Since height was already mentioned, it seemed he had to have been talking about the other two dimensions. I just pointed out that in fact the only sense in which they are bigger is height. That's all.

But thanks for providing the square footage information.

Edited by Houston19514
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Slipping off topic again, but Thirteen Pies, de Boulle Jeweler's, American Food + Drink, Toulouse and soon St. Bernard. However, to make it relevant, some of these could make good gfr for 609...especially the restaurants and a high end jeweler.

 

Oh, restaurants. I thought the topic was stores (not restaurants).  did not realize de Boulle was from Dallas.

 

Speaking of the restaurants, it will be interesting to see how they fare.  Historically, Dallas-based restaurants have not tended to fare very well in Houston.

Edited by Houston19514
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Slipping off topic again, but Thirteen Pies, de Boulle Jeweler's, American Food + Drink, Toulouse and soon St. Bernard. However, to make it relevant, some of these could make good gfr for 609...especially the restaurants and a high end jeweler.

What benefit does a high end jewelry store, Louis Vuitton, or Tiffanys, provide to downtown Houston and Hines tenants? An Apple store I agree would be awesome, and you can't go wrong with a solid restaurant. Maybe after all the new residential towers fill up with wealthy residents the market will warrant some high end retail, but don't those kind of retailers generally prefer co tenancy? They'd be better off at GreenStreet or along Dallas Ave than segregated in the ground floor of an office building.

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DT Houston is missing major retail $$$$, because its retail is mediocre at best.

 

If they can secure Bloomingdale's (to the old Sakowitz building), bring Macy's back (at the base of the Marlowe), and add a Nordstrom (at the base of a tower further down Dallas Street), all the other retail requisites will fall into place along the corridor. DT Houston would never be the same, and this retail catalyst would cause DT to erupt into a new wave of development that would make this most recent/current boom look tame. If they can get this underway, there wouldn't be one vacant lot left in DT Houston...every one of them would be under development.

There you go bashing on Houston again you hater!  

 

But I'm sure all this retail will happen in downtown if we can just get the people who are trying to destroy the US and Israel out of office.

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The only way they are bigger is that they are taller.  The floor plates of 609 Main @ Texas are about 28,000 square feet.  Wells Fargo Plaza I think is about 25,000 sq feet.  I think 600 Travis (the former Chase Tower) is closer to 22,000 square feet.

 

And 609 Main is supposed to be only 24 feet shorter than Bank of America Center, so it doesn't exactly pale in comparison.

 

Interesting, I really would have thought that Wells Fargo had a much bigger floor plan. I stand corrected. 

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Ummmm, square footage is just a result of height, width and depth. The post to which I was responding stated that the older towers were not just taller, but bigger as well. Since height was already mentioned, it seemed he had to have been talking about the other two dimensions. I just pointed out that in fact the only sense in which they are bigger is height. That's all.

But thanks for providing the square footage information.

I think you are confusing square footage with cubic footage.

Most people in the real estate world as well as the skyscraper enthusiast world measure a building's size by its square footage. jmitch's "bigger as well" point captures something that your response to him ignores, which is that the degree to which those older buildings are bigger than 609 is even greater than the degree to which they are taller.

Edited by H-Town Man
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There you go bashing on Houston again you hater!  

 

But I'm sure all this retail will happen in downtown if we can just get the people who are trying to destroy the US and Israel out of office.

Yeah because the administration has so much control over what buildings and department stores come to Houston...

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^Chase and Wells Fargo cover almost the entire block where as 609's tower portion is only half. 

 

If you look at the Chase Tower it actually has a significant set back on Capitol and Milam. I would say its probably only built on half of the block as well. I have actually always thought that the plates of chase Tower were rather small. I imagine as someone metioned earlier they did this to go higher. Wells also has a pretty big setback on Louisiana and and is by no means built to the edge on the other sides.

 

I do agree with you on the beefier comment thought. For some reason those towers just seem huge. I think its probably just perspective. I was just admiring the dominant presense of Williams Tower in the Galleria yesterday but if you dropped it in downtown it would be ther third tallest and just look like one of the other towers in downtown. By no means am I diminishing Williams either just saying there is something to be said about perspective.

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What's the total square footage of Wells vs Chase? I would figure Wells is significantly more. The Capitol/Milam setback of Chase is pretty significant. Wells feels fairly "centered", offset toward Smith a bit, but pretty equal in the other direction.

 

Chase - 1,980,000 SF

Wells Fargo - 1,833,760 SF

 

The plot thickens...

 

(I'm not sure if that's TOTAL sf or just usable - My calculations were based on what I could measure on foot  :ph34r: )

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Chase tower - 1,656,529

Wells Fargo Plaza - 1,721,242

Thank you.

So with 71 floors, Wells Fargo has a floor plate of approximately 24,242 square feet.

600 Travis, with 75 floors, has approximately 22,000 square foot floor plates.

609 Main @Travis floor plates are 28,000 square feet.

Simple math tells us the 609 Main tower takes up more of the block than either 600 Travis or Wells Fargo.

I can't account for peoples' (mis)perceptions, (except to remind once again that 609 Main is far from complete), but the fact is, the 609 Main tower is bulkier than either of the tall boys.

Edited by Houston19514
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