Discovery West: Mixed-Use Development Downtown By Skanska

[mattyt36]

On 6/17/2022 at 8:51 PM, scarface said:

It's not even about the niceness of the hotel that I was speaking of. It was the fact that they messed up the urban continuity of Discovery Green by having the butt end of that blank back wall facing the park. That was bad planning to have the back of the structure facing an urban park. 

This Skanska development seems to be minimizing the whole E/S development and all of the design flaws that came with it.

I'm no architect, but it seems like at the end of the day they made a reasonable decision considering they didn't own the entire block.  I believe those windows are at the end of the hallway/corridor between the rooms.  Sure you could've wrapped windows around the entire building to create "corner rooms," but those windows are now not going to have much of a view anyway now.  At least on the southeast face of the building, you do have the pool deck creating space between the hotel and the new building.  But I'm probably giving them too much credit that they even thought about it.  It somewhat makes sense that when they may have been (oh who are we kidding?  I'm sure it's "certainly did" versus "may have been") value engineering that was the logical side to do it on.

Regardless, my point is not to defend the architecture--it's agreeably awful--just saying what's on the inside isn't bad, which should count for something.  I guess the Hampton Inn/Homewood Suites is a bit less awful, but similarly not very inspiring.

[Houston19514]

On 12/30/2021 at 9:54 AM, editor said:

It's about the same as L.A., when adjusted for size.  It's slower than Chicago, again when adjusted for size.  Chicago has been issuing permits for three to five new buildings in the 25 to 115-story range each month of the pandemic.

I read the Chicago permits each month, and this is the first month in a very very long time when there hasn't been a filing for a new skyscraper.  If you'd like to keep up on the Chicago action, this is a good place to start.

Here's what's been moving through the permit process since October:

• 28 story residential   Still Proposed
• 73-story residential   Under construction (as it was when first discussed) 
• 38-story residential   Still Proposed
• 30-story residential   Still Proposed
• 45- and 38-story residential    Still Proposed
• 21-story residential   Still Proposed 
• 26-story office   Major lease signed (for offices relocating from a riverfront location at 300 N LaSalle).  Construction expected to start this summer.

Most of the development in Chicago is residential these days because the city has spent the last decade-and-a-half luring corporate headquarters to town.  A bunch of big-name companies that left the city in the 60's through 80's have moved back, (McDonald's, Caterpillar moving to Texas, Walgreens, Hormel) and it's also bringing in corporate headquarters from other cities (Boeing from Seattle moving to Northern Virginia ).

The influx of corporate headquarters spans multiple mayoral administrations.  It's the result of efforts by quangos with 30-year plans.

About six months in, I thought an update might be in order.   See updates in blue, above.

[hindesky]

[Nate99]

Beginning to get the feel for how DG will look once the ES is obscured. 

[bobruss]

From this angle it will look great!

[Nate99]

17 hours ago, bobruss said:

From this angle it will look great!

 

Agree. It will make a great backdrop when facing south.  The ES was very boring, but being set back as far as it was, you had the gap of the parking lot providing the frame for that side of the park as much or more than the ugly box when you were over there. This parcel and the others immediately across the street really add to the atmosphere of the park. The Avenida promenade, The Hilton, Marriott, Hess, OPP and the new Parkside tower give us a nice scope and scale to round out the field of view.

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

I think is the lobby area.

[Nate99]

[Nate99]

[arche_757]

Some thoughts:

1) the Embassy Suites was absolutely V.E.’d.  The original design wasn’t architectural magic, but it was better than what it became.

2) Don’t thank the developers for not buying the whole block because they foresaw a nice future development taking the other 2/3 of the block.  They simply could not afford it or they would have.  And, if they had, there would have been one of two outcomes: a) a more impressive hotel constructed - think Marriott Marquis or Hilton Americas-esque; or b) a surface parking lot for the current hotel in lieu of parking structure.

3) Don’t hate the rinky-dink hotels too much.  Not every hotel can be a Ritz or Waldorf Astoria.  As great as those brands are, they’re not affordable to most folks, and lacking some more business/family scale pricing helps to draw more people into Downtown.

 

I will wager the big oak will get moved into the location (near) the southern most tower crane?  Seems like a big corner and that makes sense.  I could be mistaken, since the base for the crane is a hefty construct itself and removing that might be cost prohibitive?

Edited July 5, 2022 by arche_757

[cityliving]

[hindesky]

[phillip_white]

22 minutes ago, hindesky said:

That pool deck has to be constantly covered in a layer of cement dust.

[j_cuevas713]

On 7/7/2022 at 11:32 AM, cityliving said:

Wow great shot of a lot of the change that has happened over the past few years. I count 13 buildings that have been added downtown in this pic. 

[urbanize713]

[hindesky]

[tangledwoods]

I was not expecting Skanska to bring out curtain wall with that much detail, depth and down right beauty!!!  Their past projects have all been a fairly conservative and simple facade designs but this is amazing.  It looks like they finally decided to build themselves a trophy tower.

[samagon]

On 7/7/2022 at 11:32 AM, cityliving said:

4.5 blocks of surface parking lots in this photo. I wonder how long they last, and what will go in their place?

[X.R.]

2 hours ago, tangledwoods said:

I was not expecting Skanska to bring out curtain wall with that much detail, depth and down right beauty!!!  Their past projects have all been a fairly conservative and simple facade designs but this is amazing.  It looks like they finally decided to build themselves a trophy tower.

Tangled, I think I've seen you reply to construction questions in the past:

Don't they typically test the glass before putting it on the building? It seems like they are moving fast, doesn't it?

[jmitch94]

4 hours ago, samagon said:

4.5 blocks of surface parking lots in this photo. I wonder how long they last, and what will go in their place?

Two are future phases in the Skanska project if I’m not mistaken. 

[sapo2367]

On 2/25/2022 at 9:34 AM, BigFootsSocks said:

Indeed -- here are their preliminary plans.

[toxtethogrady]

Who's the hotel? Some player we don't yet know about?

[Triton]

4 hours ago, sapo2367 said:

Indeed -- here are their preliminary plans.

Wait, does the bike lane currently keep going up Polk St. and connect to Austin St.? This might be something new I hadn't seen before.

[sapo2367]

9 hours ago, Triton said:

Wait, does the bike lane currently keep going up Polk St. and connect to Austin St.? This might be something new I hadn't seen before.

There is a temporary bike lane there at the moment -- orange traffic barriers to separate it from the road. They added it b/c the section on Lamar is closed during the construction work.

[tangledwoods]

Quote

Tangled, I think I've seen you reply to construction questions in the past:

Don't they typically test the glass before putting it on the building? It seems like they are moving fast, doesn't it?

Long story short, yes the unitized system is always tested before getting installed.  What typically happens is you have a base system that has been lab "chamber" tested to perform to the required strength and water infiltration requirements.  Then as each project comes along and the gingerbread stuff like fins, extrusions, etc gets added the client can then decide if they want to pay for a whole new chamber test.  

The full pull lab test is VERY expensive and time consuming, most developers try and avoid it by using previously tested systems.  Not sure whos curtain wall this is (there are only 5-7 companies that do this kind of work).

They will also do in place performance testing to make sure things arent leaking.

[sapo2367]

[Big E]

On 7/18/2022 at 8:29 PM, toxtethogrady said:

Who's the hotel? Some player we don't yet know about?

They've never specified what hotel is going there. All we know is that building is mixed hotel and residential.

[wilcal]

On 7/18/2022 at 10:44 PM, Triton said:

Wait, does the bike lane currently keep going up Polk St. and connect to Austin St.? This might be something new I hadn't seen before.

On 7/19/2022 at 8:29 AM, sapo2367 said:

There is a temporary bike lane there at the moment -- orange traffic barriers to separate it from the road. They added it b/c the section on Lamar is closed during the construction work.

North Houston Line and Pole, hired by Centerpoint, keep parking their construction equipment in it. It has been very frustrating. I think the city is planning on keeping this connection after the project ends. 

[HoustonMidtown]

The bike lane is open back in it's original location now - no detour needed

Edited July 21, 2022 by HoustonMidtown