Alley Theatre At 615 Texas Ave.

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

The staging is a theater techs dream. There are no dedicated pipes for lighting, any pipe can be a lighting pipe. There are 4000 dimmer circuits for the ultimate flexibility.

[tigereye]

The exterior got the LED treatment

https://twitter.com/thachadwick/status/653003580325036032

[Bebop]

Except for powerwashing the outside. Surely they are going to do that, right? Anyone? They can borrow mine.

It sure does need a washing. Bird stuff left all over the steps

[largeTEXAS]

I don't understand this renovation at all. While the interior probably improved, the exterior is way worse! Still can't believe how horrible Studio Red's addition is to the building. So out of scale, such bad material choice. Add colorful LEDs to the mix and you have yourself and hot mess!

[samagon]

Odd, I was thinking the opposite, not necessarily that the exterior change was exactly what the space needed, but that it blends in well enough to not be a distraction, and ends up just being another element of the building. That and the lighting helps the place out at night.

[Montrose1100]

I don't understand this renovation at all. While the interior probably improved, the exterior is way worse! Still can't believe how horrible Studio Red's addition is to the building. So out of scale, such bad material choice. Add colorful LEDs to the mix and you have yourself and hot mess!

I like the LED, softens the concrete. The Box on top was a poor choice.

[Nate99]

The fly loft box does stick out like a sore thumb, but so does the whole building. It's a "double or nothing" kind of design choice to my untrained eye.

 

Seems like the place will be a whole lot more functional now.

[Naviguessor]

How should have the Sky Loft been handled? 

[rechlin]

I wish they had covered it in concrete (even a thin layer) so it would have at least fit in with the Brutalist style of the rest of the building. But there's really not much they could have done to make it not look out of place.

[Houston19514]

I don't think it is nearly the obtrusive sore thumb some are making it out to be.  I have passed by the renovated Alley any number of times, in car and on foot, and not once have I even noticed the fly loft structure.

Edited October 13, 2015 by Houston19514

[(Otto Mation)]

Patrick Feller has added a photo to the pool:

The Republic Bank Center is now the Bank of America Center

View the full article

[BeerNut]

Alley Theater Lower Level Flooded  

[H-Town Man]

That's a tough read. Feel bad for them. But why would they have stored all that stuff down there after what happened in Allison? This is below street level, correct?

[bobruss]

 

There's been talk of rebuilding Jones Hall, which has flooded in the past. The Wortham, the Hobby, and the Alley have suffered several serious flooding events and now Harvey has left its mark on them all again.

We  will see more flooding in the future. Its just a matter of how long before the next.

Houston First has been working on a plan to reshape the theater district with landscaping, signage, and lighting.

Perhaps they should consider a move to the southeastern side of downtown farther from the flood zone. Somewhere between the Marlowe and the Catholic Cathedral, and not far from Root Park. It could be designed around a large public plaza. All great cities need a plaza or mall. 

It would be a great use of the east side parking district. Not only would it alleviate the stress and trauma of having to deal with flooding every other year, but it   would give Houston First a clean slate to create a new theater district with all new concert halls designed by world  class architects.

This would create a buzz for Houston's performing arts groups.

Houston would garner all kinds  international  press, the east side would get a huge shot in the arm, and downtown would have an opportunity to reconsider the area the Jones, Hobby, Wortham, and Alley have sat for the last fifty odd years. The Buffalo Bayou is not going to go away.

The old location could become part of a new park that would help to alleviate and create a little more retention for the bayou somehow.

 

 Don't get me wrong, I love the theatre district and its proximity to the historic district but sometimes you just have to do something bold. 

 

Just a thought.

 

 

 

[HoustonIsHome]

I have been saying we need a central plaza for years, but wouldn't the new build option be super expensive in the short term? It may save money in the long run by not having to rebuild every few months, but people hate to pay for things up front.

 

I do love the theatre district but this flooding has me thinking. 

 

Wasn't the River Walk idea supposed to mitigate flooding? It looks like the entire drainage system in Houston needs work. Retention ponds seem like such an antiquated fix to me

[bobruss]

If we really want to talk about flooding the real problem is all of the development on the western and northern outlying areas. The city and now the county have never been opposed to development and now it has come back to haunt us.

The communities that were built directly behind the two dams should not have been built there. The army corp of engineers did not want those built, but

they were allowed to through  one of those good ole boys deals. I have heard arguments from people on here about retention ponds that were built to mitigate the concrete but those don't work. They hold a small amount of water and then the rest just is supposed to run off. 

 

I attended a lecture sponsored by the R.D.A., several years ago presented by a Texas A&M, hydrology professor, who has written many books about the subject and the affects growth and the concentration of building in the low lying prairies has on metropolitan areas like Houston. The  Katy prairie used to help slow the drainage of massive amounts of water. He spoke about how important it was that we develop some kind of controls over outlying growth so we wouldn't be faced with these exact problems.

I have lived in Houston for 65 years and the flooding that has occurred in the last 15-20 years has been so much worse than what we use to see. 

Most of it is from runoff that used to sit on those prairies until it either was absorbed into the ground, ran off, or evaporated. Ever since they built over the Katy prairie and the northwest  part of the county things have gone to hell in a bucket.

Unfortunately theres not much that can be done to change the current situation except tear down some of those neighborhoods.

The city of Houston  has no control over growth out there now because its not even happening in our county any more.  Its now in Ft. Bend, Waller and Montgomery counties, control and they don't give a dam if we flood or not.  it has more of an effect on us than it does those outlying neighborhoods.

I think they should be paying a drainage fee, a worker tax, if they live outside the city and work in side the city.

Its time that all of the people that take advantage of the economical opportunities that Houston provides but choose to live outside its jurisdiction should pay their share. 

I did think of something that might be explored. I just don't know what the logistics, costs or government regulations would be.

My thought is a very large drainage canal on the order of lets say L.A.'s water canal that brings the city its water from the mountains.

Start it out in the northwest with a huge sunken reservoir to hold a large capacity of runoff water. One that would be near the area of flooding along cypress creek, Buffalo Bayou and Brays. Catch the water out there and move it in a straight line directly to the gulf.

Run it down through the western side of barker and all the way to the coast. Don't allow drainage from other areas into the canal. It would only be a runoff drain for the northwest and southwest parts of the Waller, Katy, and Ft. Bend watersheds. Your not going to get all of those neighborhoods torn down and I just don't see any other way to mitigate the flooding that has been exacerbated by the huge amount of growth that has spread out all over the counties. 

 

[gmac]

20.6" in 35 hours over Westfield, TX. Houston reported 5.52" of rain. Satsuma in northwest Harris County had 16.49" of rain. Bayous were 52 feet above normal. The city's pumping station was unable to supply water for a few days and the city had no protection against fire. Buffalo Bayou at Houston 54.4 feet with 40,000 cfs. Buffalo Bayou at Addicks 85.6'. 2/3 of rural Harris County was flooded. Halls Bayou was over its banks. Spring and Cypress Creeks were out of their banks.

 

This was in December 1935. Not a helluva whole lot of concrete to the west and north of Houston then, as far as I know.

 

30"-50" of rain is going to wreak flooding havoc on ANY city.

[samagon]

1979 saw the same thing in Alvin. It was a rural community then.

 

Look at all the monsoon rains in India right now, the flooding in all of these cases aren't caused by development (there isn't any).

 

They're just caused by insane amounts of rain in a short period of time and the places that the water would normally go are just overwhelmed, so it backs up and doesn't go anywhere.

 

it has nothing to do with the katy prairie, or even Katy Perry, most of this flooding was a result of the amount of water overwhelming drainage. It's really that simple.

 

I agree with Bobruss though... downtown needs to be addressed around buffalo bayou, or this will keep happening.

 

the way my eyes see it, buffalo bayou park, and areas upstream (west) of downtown can handle more flow than through downtown. the channel for the water gets so tight once it crosses i45 the water can't go through the bayou's channel fast enough so it backs up into the park, and once it backs up enough, it goes over the banks and into downtown and goes through the streets to get downstream (east).

 

they could move the theater district to the opposite side of downtown, or they could make the channel through downtown larger to handle more flow. Fertitta wouldn't like it, but they could take the aquarium, parts of the post office site, the spaghetti warehouse (RIP ) to make the channel wider. Then build those canals around the jails that they proposed, that would at least get water east of downtown via a means other than overflowing the banks and into the streets.

 

but what happens next? does the east end and lower 5th ward now get flooded? does the upper portion of the ship channel now have to deal with it? Imagine that Valero refinery taking on water and having to shut down? What kind of chemicals might they potentially release that would make the city need to evacuate a few miles of homes downstream?

 

Maybe it's easier to rebuild those theaters where they stand, but the first floor or two has to be parking?

[Houston19514]

Hopefully, they will proceed with and accelerate the planned North Canal bypass channel.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Houston19514

[Ross]

On 9/5/2017 at 3:36 PM, bobruss said:

 

My thought is a very large drainage canal on the order of lets say L.A.'s water canal that brings the city its water from the mountains.

 

 

 

The LA Aqueduct carries less than 1,000 cubic feet per second. You would need something far larger. The Barker and Addicks dams are releasing 14,000 cfs, Lake Conroe at the peak was releasing 80,000 cfs. Lake Houston at the peak had an estimated 400,000 cfs inflow. That's 9+ acre feet of water per second.

[KinkaidAlum]

LOL that overdevelopment, overpopulation, and deforestation are not part of the flood problem in India. You might want to try google. 

 

[UtterlyUrban]

23 hours ago, gmac said:

20.6" in 35 hours over Westfield, TX. Houston reported 5.52" of rain. Satsuma in northwest Harris County had 16.49" of rain. Bayous were 52 feet above normal. The city's pumping station was unable to supply water for a few days and the city had no protection against fire. Buffalo Bayou at Houston 54.4 feet with 40,000 cfs. Buffalo Bayou at Addicks 85.6'. 2/3 of rural Harris County was flooded. Halls Bayou was over its banks. Spring and Cypress Creeks were out of their banks.

 

This was in December 1935. Not a helluva whole lot of concrete to the west and north of Houston then, as far as I know.

 

30"-50" of rain is going to wreak flooding havoc on ANY city.

And the totals with this storm were much higher and the flooding, while huge, was actually "not that bad" (my apologies to anyone who was flooded) considering the rain that we received.  My point is that with 30"-48" of rain, the infrastructure actually did its job.  While the infrastructure unfortunately flooded many, it saved most.  Again, I apologize to anyone who had to evacuate or flooded or both.  I am not trying to belittle your struggle.

[bobruss]

Its a tragedy that this happened I really feel sorry for any one who has suffered any problems during Harvey. I agree with the statement that 52" of rain over this area would cause any city to flood.

However those first numbers from 1935 were before Houston had Barker and Addicks reservoirs. Thats why they were built. It was one of the worst floods in Houston history. Its worked well for decades until they started building west and north of them.

14 hours ago, Ross said:

 

The LA Aqueduct carries less than 1,000 cubic feet per second. You would need something far larger. The Barker and Addicks dams are releasing 14,000 cfs, Lake Conroe at the peak was releasing 80,000 cfs. Lake Houston at the peak had an estimated 400,000 cfs inflow. That's 9+ acre feet of water per second.

 

Well Ross, I don't see you even suggesting any solutions. Of course the amount of water was huge, but we have to start trying to come up with some solutions because whether or not people on this site believe in global warming or not the weather patterns for the past ten years show that it is creating more intense

and active storms. Our sea level is rising and the coasts are getting closer every year. Unfortunately they have filled in the only protection we had to slowing down the rush of water by building out west to the extent that there isn't a Katy prairie any more. No canal would alleviate the flooding but it would help in diverting a portion of the floods.

I don't know what it takes for people to see the forest for the trees but Houston has a development problem that some have been talking about for a while and it only gets worse with every warehouse, freeway, parking lot, shopping center and neighborhood that gets built on the western and northwestern side of town.

The highest rainfall totals occurred on the east side of town and if we had seen those totals on the Brays, Buffalo, and Cypress creek watersheds everything would have been flooded and the two reservoirs would have probably been destroyed along with everything in those streams way. All of downtown would have looked like Spaghetti Warehouse and the destruction from a wall of water created by those two reservoirs demise would have been unimaginable.

Look at what the runoff has done below Lake Conroe dam again on the east side.

So again my point is come up with some solutions or discussions instead of just making light of suggestions.

Again I feel terrible for anyone that has faced flooding . My anger is with the developers who continue to ignore nature and city and county officials who keep allowing these developers to make things worse. Greed is a terrible thing.

We should be making a smaller footprint instead of sprawl.

Thats what the hydrology experts all agree on for Houston. Unfortunately no-one is listening.

[samagon]

14 hours ago, KinkaidAlum said:

LOL that overdevelopment, overpopulation, and deforestation are not part of the flood problem in India. You might want to try google. 

 

 

https://socialistworker.org/2017/09/06/floods-are-devastating-south-asia-too

 

Quote

 The rains submerged roughly one-third of the entire land mass of Bangladesh.

 

I've never been to Bangladesh, probably will never go, but I assume that they are very similar to other southeast Asian countries I have visited with densely packed population centers, yet the rest of the country is extremely rural, and exceedingly poor, with lots of rice fields and other agriculture that has been this way for centuries.

 

Imagining the southeast Asian countries I have visited being 1/3 under water doesn't add up to development, overpopulation, or deforestation.

 

Unless you're talking about the entire world and referencing anthropogenic climate change. In which case, I absolutely agree, warmer oceans as a result of climate change mean more energy, more evaporation of surface waters as a result and we are going to see more of these torrential downpours. It's not a direct result, but it is all related. 

 

All of that aside, when you're talking about 9" of rain in 90 minutes it doesn't matter what kind of surface you're dealing with, concrete, semipermiable asphalt, dirt, clay, sand, the ground cannot absorb water that fast. it will runoff the surface, and when it does it will overwhelm the storm sewers, and when it does it will flood homes.

 

I'm not saying that concrete and development didn't exacerbate the problem, but in Pearland they had verified reports of 9" of rain in 90 minutes. this resulted in flash flooding that inundated houses. development in the katy prairie and in other northwest areas of town was not in any way related to this flooding.

 

The majority of the flooding was caused by this being a frog strangler of a storm. That being said, there is flooding that was contributed to by development, and I also suspect that there are mitigation steps that need to happen that will still allow development, but also serve to protect the city and dwellings in the city, things like the bypass canals through downtown, buying property along bayous to create larger storm channels, more detention ponds around town, and certainly new regulations that force new development to take certain precautions. I'm certainly ready to pay higher taxes so this can be done.

Edited September 7, 2017 by samagon

[gmac]

2 hours ago, bobruss said:

Well Ross, I don't see you even suggesting any solutions.

 

I believe he was just pointing out your faulty assumptions, not making light of anything. Don't get wound up about it, just come up with something more accurate.

[bobruss]

4 hours ago, gmac said:

 

I believe he was just pointing out your faulty assumptions, not making light of anything. Don't get wound up about it, just come up with something more accurate.

My whole point with using the LA canals as an example was that it was man made. No, I didn't do the research on cfs. Sure it would have to hold a lot more water. It would have to be as big as one of our bayous, and that wouldn't solve the whole problem

It wouldn't be the total solution but it would be one of many things to help mitigate the amount of water coming into the city.

Since no-one is really going to tear down all of the house out on the prairie we need alternatives because this is going to continue to get worse.

Sprawl is what causes the quick runoff. I didn't come up with that assumption. Hydrologists and urban planners will tell you the same thing. As a matter of fact there have been multiple articles written this week about our lack of a development plan, and how it exacerbated this problem.

Lets be clear about something else. The figure about Lake Conroe, Lake Houston and the amount of water that fell in those two watersheds, was much greater than fell on the west side of town in the Brays, Buffalo Bayous and Cypress creek watersheds. The heaviest rains fell on the east side of town which don't have anything to do with the west side runoff. I also know and stated that  the amount of rain that fell in such a short amount of time would cause serious flooding in any city.

 

[Joke]

6 hours ago, samagon said:

 

https://socialistworker.org/2017/09/06/floods-are-devastating-south-asia-too

 

 

I've never been to Bangladesh, probably will never go, but I assume that they are very similar to other southeast Asian countries I have visited with densely packed population centers, yet the rest of the country is extremely rural, and exceedingly poor, with lots of rice fields and other agriculture that has been this way for centuries.

 

Imagining the southeast Asian countries I have visited being 1/3 under water doesn't add up to development, overpopulation, or deforestation.

 

Unless you're talking about the entire world and referencing anthropogenic climate change. In which case, I absolutely agree, warmer oceans as a result of climate change mean more energy, more evaporation of surface waters as a result and we are going to see more of these torrential downpours. It's not a direct result, but it is all related. 

 

All of that aside, when you're talking about 9" of rain in 90 minutes it doesn't matter what kind of surface you're dealing with, concrete, semipermiable asphalt, dirt, clay, sand, the ground cannot absorb water that fast. it will runoff the surface, and when it does it will overwhelm the storm sewers, and when it does it will flood homes.

 

I'm not saying that concrete and development didn't exacerbate the problem, but in Pearland they had verified reports of 9" of rain in 90 minutes. this resulted in flash flooding that inundated houses. development in the katy prairie and in other northwest areas of town was not in any way related to this flooding.

 

The majority of the flooding was caused by this being a frog strangler of a storm. That being said, there is flooding that was contributed to by development, and I also suspect that there are mitigation steps that need to happen that will still allow development, but also serve to protect the city and dwellings in the city, things like the bypass canals through downtown, buying property along bayous to create larger storm channels, more detention ponds around town, and certainly new regulations that force new development to take certain precautions. I'm certainly ready to pay higher taxes so this can be done.

 

This is exactly my thinking on the situation as well.

 

In the wake of Harvey, there has a been a lot of talk about Houston's development and the loss of permeable ground. I think it's an important discussion, but it really has very little to do with the damage form Harvey.

 

That loss of permeable ground is what makes us more susceptible to flooding from "normal" rain events; it's the difference between no flooding and some flooding for events that are right on the edge. Harvey was so extreme -- so much water came down so fast -- that the water that could've been impounded by permeable ground was basically negligible.

 

That's my guess. I'd like to hear an expert opine.

[H-Town Man]

6 minutes ago, Joke said:

 

This is exactly my thinking on the situation as well.

 

In the wake of Harvey, there has a been a lot of talk about Houston's development and the loss of permeable ground. I think it's an important discussion, but it really has very little to do with the damage form Harvey.

 

That loss of permeable ground is what makes us more susceptible to flooding from "normal" rain events; it's the difference between no flooding and some flooding for events that are right on the edge. Harvey was so extreme -- so much water came down so fast -- that the water that could've been impounded by permeable ground was basically negligible.

 

That's my guess. I'd like to hear an expert opine.

 

Exactly. The difference made by our supposed "overdevelopment" is seen in normal large rainfalls, not Harveys. A Texas A&M study apparently concluded that we have lost 4 billion gallons of rainwater absorption due to development since I think 1990. Harvey dropped 12 trillion gallons on Texas, probably at least two trillion on Harris County alone. (Average depth across the county was 25 inches in two days, so do the math.) 4 billion is a pretty small percentage of that.

 

[Joke]

41 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

 

Exactly. The difference made by our supposed "overdevelopment" is seen in normal large rainfalls, not Harveys. A Texas A&M study apparently concluded that we have lost 4 billion gallons of rainwater absorption due to development since I think 1990. Harvey dropped 12 trillion gallons on Texas, probably at least two trillion on Harris County alone. (Average depth across the county was 25 inches in two days, so do the math.) 4 billion is a pretty small percentage of that.

 

Thanks for that. I've been looking for any hard numbers, and that's the first I've heard.

[Urbannizer]

Found this image on Flickr, the building next to Alley Theatre was demolished for the parking garage.

 

 

And some history on the Alley Theatre