One Park Place: Multifamily At 1400 McKinney St.

[N Judah]

Houston's growth expectations would've been more limited. Urbanists would be right to point out that growth is not a goal in and of itself, but it is an indicator of revealed preference.

Yes, Houston would have been the same but with a smaller footprint. Nonetheless jobs are moving to the suburbs and residential in-town is getting denser. Cutting down commute times are a chaser's dream. Subsidized growth reveals peoples' preferences the way a Coke v. Pepsi taste test would always reveal that people will overwhelmingly prefer Coke as long as you pay them $100 to say so.

And I'll take revealed preference over stated preference any day of the week

Nice! Like I said, we can't all make it out to Christmas mountain, but it's nice to dream, and in the meantime that's what suburbs are for

...especially when you're citing a study that you don't even understand. I submit to you this quote from Pew's website:

Er...What is it you think I don't understand about the study? The fact that it shows that many suburban dwellers still manage to be dissatisfied with their heavily subsidized lifestyles?

And if you go to their website, you'll notice in the pie chart near the top that 31% of those polled said that they lived in the city...even though only 23% said that they most preferred living in the city.

There is no connection between the data you just described. 31% of overall respondents lived in the city...and 23% of the overall respondents would prefer to either move to the city or to continue living in the city. That's not the same as saying "23% of the 31% of people who lived in the city preferred living there" or whatever it is you're trying to show. In fact it might not even be the same group of people at all. Do you understand this? Did you even read the study? Anyway, when given the choice, more city dwellers prefer small towns than they do suburbs.

Shocking.

A few trillion in subsidies should make the city dwellers happy.

[TheNiche]

Yes, Houston would have been the same but with a smaller footprint. Nonetheless jobs are moving to the suburbs and residential in-town is getting denser. Cutting down commute times are a chaser's dream. Subsidized growth reveals peoples' preferences the way a Coke v. Pepsi taste test would always reveal that people will overwhelmingly prefer Coke as long as you pay them $100 to say so.

Nice! Like I said, we can't all make it out to Christmas mountain, but it's nice to dream, and in the meantime that's what suburbs are for

Er...What is it you think I don't understand about the study? The fact that it shows that many suburban dwellers still manage to be dissatisfied with their heavily subsidized lifestyles?

A few trillion in subsidies should make the city dwellers happy.

You keep on referring (over and over) to the notion that suburban residents' lifestyles are subsidized. And so far you've only described freeways as the subsidy in question. I have posited that freeways are in fact mutually beneficial to the development of both urban and suburban areas, and you have voiced no objection to that reasoning.

I would concur that there are unequal benefits, and I would concur that transportation funding mechanisms are suboptimal (although I also think that they could be a whole lot worse). But whether paid for in user fees, by an arrangement of overlapping special tax jurisdictions, by gasoline taxes, or out of the general fund you have provided me no evidence to the effect of that suburbs would cease to be a dominant trend among American cities if only the burden of the cost were shifted around so as to eliminate this concept of "subsidies" that you keep throwing around.

If you insist upon continuing to throw the subsidy platitude around even taking into account that I already agree with you that there is unequal net benefit between different populations, I'm going to have to start insisting something equally inane such as that urban areas wouldn't exist as they do or be preferred by nearly as many people if their infrastructure hadn't been subsidized. And I can do it just as often as you can...at least until I get bored of BSing.

There is no connection between the data you just described. 31% of overall respondents lived in the city...and 23% of the overall respondents would prefer to either move to the city or to continue living in the city. That's not the same as saying "23% of the 31% of people who lived in the city preferred living there" or whatever it is you're trying to show. In fact it might not even be the same group of people at all. Do you understand this? Did you even read the study?

I never meant distort the data in any such way, and I'm sorry if I wasn't perfectly clear. I meant to highlight two facts: 31% of respondents lived in the city; 23% of respondents stated they would most like to live in the city.

This indicates two things right off the top: 1) You had said that 50% of Americans would prefer to live somewhere else, and while that much was pretty close to accurate, it does nothing to support your assertion that this has anything to do with "subsidies"; and 2) more of the respondents idealize living outside of the city than are actually living there right now.

Anyway, when given the choice, more city dwellers prefer small towns than they do suburbs.

If you look only at those respondents living in cities or suburbs that would prefer to live elsewhere, 41% of city dwellers would prefer a small town and 35% would prefer a suburb, whereas 42% of suburbanites would prefer a small town and 36% would prefer the city. The difference in preference between these groups are statistically insignificant. So...what's your point?

Actually, now that you've drawn my attention to that set of data, it bears pointing out that 54% of suburbanites considered the suburbs the ideal place of residence, while only 44% of city dwellers considered the city the ideal place of residence.

Back in post #49, you stated:

People with real options never choose the suburbs, except as a compromise.

And in post #51, you stated:

People who live in the suburbs are people who had a dream of living somewhere else but couldn't execute.

The data from the study that you have introduced me to would seem to contradict your earlier statements, and would also seem to settle the greater part of the premise of this long drawn out tangent of ours.

[N Judah]

You keep on referring (over and over) to the notion that suburban residents' lifestyles are subsidized. And so far you've only described freeways as the subsidy in question. I have posited that freeways are in fact mutually beneficial to the development of both urban and suburban areas, and you have voiced no objection to that reasoning.

The urban areas did not need freeways to be successful. There were thriving urban areas before freeways.

But without freeways, the mass-produced homes popping up in the middle of the prairie 50 miles away from downtown would not be worth very much. In fact they probably would not exist at all.

you have provided me no evidence to the effect of that suburbs would cease to be a dominant trend among American cities if only the burden of the cost were shifted around so as to eliminate this concept of "subsidies" that you keep throwing around.

Ugh. I never said they would "cease to be a dominant trend." In fact, if you've been reading, I've even admitted that I don't disagree that anything can snowball into a negative feedback loop once you've dropped a few trillion dollars to incentivize things in a specific direction.

I'm going to have to start insisting something equally inane such as that urban areas wouldn't exist as they do or be preferred by nearly as many people if their infrastructure hadn't been subsidized. And I can do it just as often as you can...

Actually, that's exactly what I want you to do. in fact, I specifically asked you to come up with a multi-trillion dollar lifestyle subsidies specifically targeting urban areas and not suburban areas.

Actually, now that you've drawn my attention to that set of data, it bears pointing out that 54% of suburbanites considered the suburbs the ideal place of residence, while only 44% of city dwellers considered the city the ideal place of residence.

For a few trillion dollars, the suburbanites had better be nothing short of euphoric. Apparently you can pay them off and they still wish they were somewhere else. Kudos to the city dwellers for sticking it out.

[TheNiche]

The urban areas did not need freeways to be successful. There were thriving urban areas before freeways.

I guess that's going to depend on your definition of successful or thriving.

I can guarantee you that city streets alone could not possibly support an urban core of the size that we know today. They would be a severe constraint not only to the number of households that could reasonably commute downtown, but to the population of Houston altogether. And to that end, a smaller region cannot support as many regional amenities such as bring urban areas to life...for instance, operas, ballets, orchestras, major league sports teams, etc., much less the broad labor demands of dozens of headquarters to major corporations.

Of course, if your definition of successful is that of the fickle architect, and all that it takes is for people to walk around on the streets so that they can be seen from your passing car--which creeps through bumper to bumper traffic--then yeah, I guess that might be successful. Even then, I sort of doubt it. The suburban trend had already begun before we even got our first freeway, and with gradual advances in telecommunications equipment there's not much of a compelling reason to believe that office jobs wouldn't have followed the affluent populous out into the suburbs, abandoning the CBD in droves.

Either way, I invite you to offer a scenario that differs...and to be clear, that's going to take more effort on your part than just repeatedly throwing out another vapid platitude out there.

But without freeways, the mass-produced homes popping up in the middle of the prairie 50 miles away from downtown would not be worth very much. In fact they probably would not exist at all.

You're right. Houston would be a much smaller city. Demand would be insufficient to justify such extensive suburbs, much less thriving urban areas.

Ugh. I never said they would "cease to be a dominant trend." In fact, if you've been reading, I've even admitted that I don't disagree that anything can snowball into a negative feedback loop once you've dropped a few trillion dollars to incentivize things in a specific direction.

Actually, that's exactly what I want you to do. in fact, I specifically asked you to come up with a multi-trillion dollar lifestyle subsidies specifically targeting urban areas and not suburban areas.

For a few trillion dollars, the suburbanites had better be nothing short of euphoric. Apparently you can pay them off and they still wish they were somewhere else. Kudos to the city dwellers for sticking it out.

Go back and re-read the post to which you just responded. If there's something you don't understand, ask.

I thought it was plenty clear, but maybe I'm wrong.

[DrLan34]

So I checked out OPP over the weekend (the A floor plan) and they are all leased up until the 17th floor. They lady also said that the entire building is about 30 percent leased so far which is pretty good. She also confirmed that there will be a specialty grocery store (central market, whole foods) that will likely open up by about April which is when the pool area will open up too.

The building really looks amazing and I think it will be a huge hit downtown... too bad it's more expensive the higher up the apartment is, I guess I looked too late.

[N Judah]

Of course, if your definition of successful is that of the fickle architect, and all that it takes is for people to walk around on the streets so that they can be seen from your passing car--which creeps through bumper to bumper traffic--then yeah, I guess that might be successful.

I can no longer take you seriously. Sorry!

[TheNiche]

She also confirmed that there will be a specialty grocery store (central market, whole foods) that will likely open up by about April which is when the pool area will open up too.

Wait, they haven't even officially signed a lease and she's saying that they'll be open by APRIL? No. That's ridiculous.

[TheNiche]

I can no longer take you seriously. Sorry!

I win.

[N Judah]

Awww...poor Niche

Don't worry, you'll be OK.

[TheNiche]

[totheskies]

It's certainly incentive enough for some people. In fact, I'm banking on it. Nearly all of my personal assets are now tied up in urban real estate. But urbanists seem to believe in some kind of an overwhelming transformative upwelling of preference for urban areas, and I'm observing that the demographics of urban areas are indeed changing very quickly, but that there is not any sort of paradigm shift in progress as it would apply at a regional level. ...at least not of a sort that we haven't already been observing for over a decade. I'm just trying to be realistic--that, and I don't want to deny someone their preference, however they may achieve it.

But downtown employs closer to about 140,000 people [source: Central Houston, Inc.] and the Texas Medical Center employs about 73,600 [source: TMC, Inc.].

Employment at the universities isn't anywhere remotely close to 60,000. You're talking about student enrollment, but most students either cannot afford living nearby, or in the case of UH or TSU have a strong aversion to living nearby. A whole lot of them live with their parents, and my understanding is that Rice strongly prefers that their students live on campus. Out of those students, how many are full-time status? How many of them are employed elsewhere, especially in the suburbs? As it pertains to economic development, students are not the same thing as employees. And as for employment at those universities, how many professors are there 40 hours per week? How many of them come in fewer than four days a weeks? How many of them hold full time jobs elsewhere? Professors are also not the same thing as employees.

Looking at downtown and TMC employees, the 213,600 of them represent only about 8% of the regional employment base [source: BLS]. I need to re-install my MS Office software, but maybe you can open and look through H-GAC's estimates of employment by zip code. Pick out what you believe to be the urban core and figure out what percentage of people actually work there. To be fair, I'd suggest that you include Greenway Plaza and Uptown.

No... the student population of UH Central is 35,000... the residential population is less than 5,000. The employee count for UH Central is close to 15,000. That includes faculty, which on average report to work 4 days per week. Keep in mind that this varies greatly depending on one's discipline. In a department like English, you may hardly ever see some of the faculty, otherwise in a music or theater, you've got faculty working 50+ hrs. per week. They may as well be staff members. HCC Central campus (and to be ridiculously technical, HCC Southeast Campus) is also in Central Houston. So that's another 5,000 in employment numbers. To be fair, a LOT more people at HCC are lecturers, which means that they spend very little time on one campus or at one job. Texas Southern easily has another 5,000 employees, Rice would be close to 4,000 just b/c they have a lot of special positions. St. Thomas would be 1,000, and UH-D would be close to 2,000.

So I stand corrected... we're probably looking at something closer to 30,000 people that actually show up to work on a predictable basis. But the student population would be much higher than 60,000... probably closer to 80,000. I agree most of them don't live in the Central City, and most of them probably don't work in the city either. Student work demgraphics are about random as their residential demographics.

But considering that I did grossly underestimate the downtown employment, and grossly overestimate the university employment, it's still going to come out to the same figure I would have guessed... 250,000 inner loop jobs that aren't readily duplicated in other areas of the city. By that, I mean that Sugrland is going to have Target, P.F. Changs and Home Depot, but they don't have the Baylor College of Medicine, the MFA or Minute Maid. I would love to know the employment numbers for places like La Canterra or Pearland Town Square, as that seems like they would be one of the highest single employment concentrations in the suburbs (besides a large hospital facility or an industrial plant).

[King Owl]

Wait, they haven't even officially signed a lease and she's saying that they'll be open by APRIL? No. That's ridiculous.

My office window looks out over the pool construction. The pool will be amazing. It's really huge - it spans a good portion of the width of the building. I'll try to get a picture of it this week and post it here

[DrLan34]

Wait, they haven't even officially signed a lease and she's saying that they'll be open by APRIL? No. That's ridiculous.

I'm just repeating what she said... She seemed really sure of it too.

I'm just repeating what she said... She seemed really sure of it too.

Maybe it's because they are going ahead with developing the space/infrastructure for the grocery store so that there won't be much the client has to do with the place once they sign on...

Anyways, I kind of agree that it seems a little quick to happen that early

[Pumapayam]

My office window looks out over the pool construction. The pool will be amazing. It's really huge - it spans a good portion of the width of the building. I'll try to get a picture of it this week and post it here

Sweet, I wonder if anyone will forgo wearing a top at the pool, to get that perfect tan and stimulate the neighboring offices. . .

[King Owl]

Apologies for the truly awful quality of this picture (hey, today's weather didn't help any, either!), but here is a picture of the pool that's under construction. Yeah, I think I'll definitely have the binoculars handy in my desk drawer...

[Triton]

Apologies for the truly awful quality of this picture (hey, today's weather didn't help any, either!), but here is a picture of the pool that's under construction. Yeah, I think I'll definitely have the binoculars handy in my desk drawer...

All I can see is Cloverfield in the picture.

[uhlaw09]

Introducing.....

The Uterus Pool.

[ricco67]

Introducing.....

The Uterus Pool.

Oh.My.God.

I about died.

That might be an appriate name on so many levels.

[brian0123]

Not sure if this has already been posted... but OPP now has some listings on HAR.

Listing 1

Listing 2

[KinkaidAlum]

I am underwhelmed by those kitchens. Bleh.

[houston-development]

Introducing.....

The Uterus Pool.

: standing ovation :

[rsb320]

I am underwhelmed by those kitchens. Bleh.

The cabinetry is quite bleh. I don't like the color of the stain at all.

[Jax]

You can see one park palce in this photo on the right side. I think it's cool seeing a new building as part of the skyline from a different angle.

[rsb320]

Wow. You can see four cranes in that one shot. TMC is still hopping.

[Jax]

And there are a few cranes that got cropped out. I've got a wider version where you can see more.

[UrbaNerd]

Heh....

Finger helped mayor write marketing letter

White offered support instead of tax abatement for apartments

By BRADLEY OLSON

Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle

April 26, 2009, 10:43PM

Apartment developer Marvy Finger helped Mayor Bill White craft a letter that promoted One Park Place, Finger

[lockmat]

to continue confimration, many of the lower level apartments on the east side were lit up last night and some people were out on their balconies. I didn't see the west side of the building

[totheskies]

Any more news on the grocer?

[Houston Texan]

here's a view of the pool from my company's IT department's window. note....that is without any zooming!

i'll post an updated pic once it's completed.

[fatesdisastr]

here's a view of the pool from my company's IT department's window. note....that is without any zooming!

why is it noted that the picture is taken without zoom?