How to find information about a project in Houston?

[editor]

The last time I lived in Houston, you couldn't just look up city information online.  Naturally, that's changed now.

How does one find out about a project in the city of Houston?  Every time I move, all of the department names and structures change, so I have to go through this every few years.

Starting small — The retail space in The Star (111 Rusk).  There's been a red-and-white sign in the window for months now with some kind of cryptic serial number on it, instead of any actual information that might be useful to the public.  Is there a city web page where I can plug in that number and find out what's planned?  I suspect something is going to happen soon, because the well-dressed people who are leasing that space have been around the building a few times in the last week or so. 

[Ross]

There's the City permitting site, where you can look up issued permits http://www.cohtora.houstontx.gov/approot/soldpermits/online_permit.htm You can look up permits by a number of criteria. You may be seeing a project number. And, it's 1111 Rusk.

The Planning Commission has lots of data, like meeting agendas and such.

[editor]

Thanks, that's a start.  But I'm still not able to find any information based on the address.  Maybe they're going to use the San Jacinto side for the address.  I'll have to write down the number on the sign.

Does Houston have a public GIS site?  Lots of cities added them around 2010, but I've noticed some have put them behind paywalls recently. 

[Ross]

There's a Public Woks site https://www.gims.houstontx.gov/PortalWS/MainPortal.aspx but it's not great and probably won't be what you are looking for. The main application wants Silverlight installed, and that's not going to happen on my PC.