Mister X

Actually, from the description, it sounds like the snow will be on the inside of the mountain. Which means the outside would probably be painted white or something. It's really hard picturing this thing. They might be better off building a large building over the whole mountain and complex so that it doesn't look too weird from the street. Or hide it behind a lot of trees or something so it doesn't look so unnatural.

Sounds like things are moving right along. Here is a link to a new Chronicle article regarding Earth Quest Adventure Zone. It seems like every time there is an update the park's name changes a little. With each new report, the park sounds more likely to become a reality. I can't wait to see some detailed renderings of this place. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nb/hum...ws/5012480.html Here is a Fox 26 news report that was done back in June. The guy being interviewed said that one of the park's roller coasters will go into a volcano. And there will be "numerous" rides as well. There's even a shot of an aerial map that shows the exact location of where the park will be in New Caney. http://www.myfoxhouston.com/myfox/pages/Ho....1.1&sflg=1

Maybe Forbes takes certain key locations within a city (like hotels and such) and the total number of people that actually visit those locations and counts them up to get their information. What a radical concept. It's called "tourism". BTW, tourism IS a business, so why shouldn't a business magazine's rankings be valid. BTW, I'm still trying to figure out why your criteria for judging hot spots is superior to a business magazine or any magazine. At least Forbes explained how they came up with their rankings. I think you are going by something you heard in high school. The stuff you mentioned in Dallas is closer together than in Houston, but I don't think that is a significant way to measure tourism and obviously neither do the experts. I think I prefer Forbes method of gathering data better.

How can they be so sure this Minnesota bridge collapse wasn't terrorism. It fell with no warning at rush hour. Makes me sick to think about this disaster. Bridges always make me nervous anyway. Extremely minor point here but - the 1994 Northridge quake effected the L.A. region specifically the San Fernando Valley - I was 12 miles from the epicenter when it happened so this info is permanently etched in my brain forever. The 1989 Loma Prieta quake effected the S.F. region and was responsible for the Bay Bridge section collapse.

It doesn't matter what kind of tourism it is. Houston came in at #9. Dallas came in at number #10. I guess you are just going to have to live with it. What makes you think you know more about tourism than Forbes anyway? And why should anyone believe you? NMM, If you think Dallas is some kind of tourist mecca, you are delusional. Tourists hate Dallas. There is nothing significant to do in Dallas that can't be done in any other city in America. It's just as corporate as Houston. And it doesn't even have a beach near by.

I'm not sure what you are griping about anymore, Baywatcher. Your original post made it sound like there was something wrong with living in Kemah. It sounded like you thought people at this website should have some sympathy because the Kemah folks were being deprived of "quiet enjoyment of their homes" and being displaced. But now you make the town sound fantastic and that everyone should be jealous of you because you live at party central. Make up your mind. Is it good or is it bad living near an amusement park? I could relate to not wanting so much traffic and people walking around near my home although I don't really care about Kemah home owner's problems in particular. And yes, if I had my way I would dismantle the entire town so that the boardwalk could be better. Sue me. It's not likely to happen anyway. I think you are jumping to some unjustified conclusions. I don't know why you would think that I am jealous of people with bay front homes. I know that many are, but I can assure you that I'm not one of them. Bay views are fantastic. I had one myself for 8 years when I lived in the San Francisco area (a much nicer view than anything there could possibly be in Kemah). Please believe me when I say that this is not about me wanting revenge on people with bay views. And it is certainly not about me not being able to own a bay view home if I wanted one. It's about weighing the pleasure of many vs. the pleasure of a few. My only point was that I have no genuine sympathy for people in Kemah who are annoyed by our area's only amusement park when there are thousands of other places to live without amusement parks next door. And I would rather the masses be able to enjoy the views from Kemah than a few people who live on the waterfront. Plus, I was just kidding about the spit - I don't do that. You seem rather quick in defending the rights of people who live in expensive homes, and as one of them I won't argue that point. But, I would not expect other people to worry about my or my neighbor's problems - especially when most people probably don't have it as nice as I do. Most people can't afford to have a great view in Houston, so I wouldn't expect the masses to care if a few lose theirs' - like you seem to think they ought to care. Dream on. I would not be expecting too much support for your cause (whatever that is).

Hey, Houston beat Dallas in this catagory remember? Houston-9th Dallas-10th. So much for that brillant analogy. Besides, things change. Houston may be too serious now, but it's not like there are any laws or 10 commandments from preventing the city from becoming more of a recreational tourist destination in the future. Maybe that Astro Dome project will make Houston climb all the way to number 8 on the list in a few years. Public transportation isn't exactly dead here, so maybe there's some hope here afterall. It's so nice having a little imagination. BTW, I wouldn't want to rely on getting around without a car in Dallas either for a few more years. It's more barren on it's fringes than Houston. Not that I understand what that has to do with tourism. Especially since Houston is obviously attracting more tourism than Dallas is (according to Forbes).

I bet when all is said and done, there probably are plenty of people who don't mind living in that area even with all the intrusions. I really don't think Tillman is going to drive that many people away. In fact, I bet a whole lot of the neighbors figure out ways to capitalize off owning land in such close proximity to the park.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying word for word. They can find another ugly house anywhere. The rest of us have no other roller coaster options at the moment. I will ride it 2 times a year (probably more) and a couple of million others will be riding it 2 times a year also. I can't wait to give my money to Tillman for building this awesome coaster for Houston. Since I like his restraunts just fine, I'm sure I and my family and friends will be eating at the boardwalk a lot more than we used to because of this coaster. Tillman can charge whatever he wants, he's still my hero for bringing something fun to Houston for a change. We have plenty of factories and warehouses around town. I'm glad some people can still make a buck in Houston by providing some joy. I'm sure the folks that live in those homes in Kemah could care less about my personal happiness and enjoyment. So, why should I care about their's. They can live on the street for all I care. I can say this because I know it won't happen. I know the property values have gone up in Kemah so boo-hoo if a few people choose to move down the bay a bit to get away from the noise- or God forbid, have to move into a normal home not built on stilts. They will survive. Just be glad the city of Kemah didn't allow a big ugly, smelly, refinery or power plant to be built in that spot instead of an amusement park, like so many other bay side towns have done in the past. For what it's worth, Kemah would not have been my first choice of places on the bay to put the boardwalk park at. I love the bay setting but, there's not enough room for it to grow easily. The Boardwalk is already pretty small and it will have a hard time becoming too much bigger than it is. I can't imagine the roads in that area will ever be adequate to handle the traffic the park brings. And Kemah does look a little trashy for my taste. I wish Tillman would have picked a more secluded spot on the bay, away from so much build up AND HOUSES, but he didn't and I am prepared to live with it. Perhaps if Houston gets at real theme park again (hopefully Earthquest will happen) then the Kemahns can have their weird little town back. But for now it's all we have and your neighbors on the bay are in the way of progress. It's really no different than people trying to stop the Grand Parkway from helping the rest of us move around town a little easier. Or the anti-rail folks trying to make the rest of us go the long way. Power to the People, baby! It's all about making the Houston metro a better place for EVERYONE to live, not just folks that wrote too many 0's than they should have when they bought their homes. And a little amusement park on the bay helps a little. Not a lot, but again, it's all we have for now. It's no more Kemah's responsibility to provide the rest of the metro with an amusement park any more than it is Galveston's responsibility to open up the beaches to the public, but everyone has to chip in to make the metro the best it can be. And as far as providing a place to scream, it's Kemah's turn. I think the days of writing too many 0's on your morgage payments than what your house is worth will soon become highly unfashionable in Kemah. If you ever hear some extra obnoxious screaming in your neighborhood in the middle of the night, it will probably be me and my friends riding the bullet and spitting on the stilt houses below. > And sorry about that trash in your yard, but that wasn't me.

Too hell with them. (Just kidding) I'm not saying that I'm getting any pleasure knowing that anyone's neighborhood is being changed out from under them or people are being squeezed out. But afterall, what is the Houston area? Answer: Houses, houses, and more houses. Endless sprawling suburban neighborhood after neighborhood in every direction for miles and miles. How many roller coasters do we have? Until this one opens, ZERO! How many amusement parks do we have today? One very tiny one. Like I said earlier on this thread, I may not be saying this if AstroWorld was still around. But it isn't, and I think it is very selfish for anyone in Kemah to do anything to try to stop millions from enjoying the one place we have for this kind of entertainment. There's always another house and neighborhood down the road. Too many people in the Houston area are only concerned with whats going on in their own back yard without much regard for the greater public interest. (Hear that Afton Oaks?) Amusement parks and roller coasters may be a silly thing to have in the first place but, I think it's time there was a little more attention paid to provide the greater Houston area with some more recreational options for the masses of this city, instead of worrying about whether a few privileged people can enjoy their views of the bay in peace. People work hard all over town, why should recreation near the bay be something only Kemah residents should be able to have. As the area's only amusement park, it serves the greater good and the public interest. It all comes down to the personal happiness of a few hundred people vs. the occasional happiness of 5.5 million people. And I'm one of the 5.5 million without a view of the bay - so guess who's side I'm on? Just go buy some ear plugs before the Walmart runs out and you'll be fine.

Here's some more. Yes. I'm just THAT bored. I doodle skyscrapers when there's nothing on TV. Besides, if I keep guessing maybe someone will post the real rendering just to shut me up. Basically this is the same thing I posted before only made simpler by making it a 6 sided outer walled structure vs. an 8 sided outer walled structure. Forgive my ignorance of proper architecture lingo. I crank out thumbs for a living and speak graphic design lingo, but I don't normally draw buildings except for fun. Please don't take all these off-the-clock thumbnail doodles as my idea of great architecture or what I necessarily want to see in downtown Houston. I'm trying to stay within the parameters of what has been revealed so far about Hines 47 with the hopes that people who have seen it will give me more info so that I can make the necessary revisions - or better yet someone post the real renderings. ...So, we know that looking down at it, it's longer on one axis than another and has horizontally angled walls similar to the Pan Am building. All glass. No strong horizontal or vertical lines. Flat roof. Interlocking volumes (whatever that is) and a ~5 story terrace 2/3rds up. BTW, Great Hizzy, it looks like the AIM building was to have slightly vertically angled or tapered sides near the top of the tower. I have heard no mention of that being applied on Hines 47 before on this website, but I think it would be awesome if it used a similar effect.

Thanx. I hope the real tower looks better than that too. And that someone who's seen the actual rendering can use my guesstimation renderings to give us a better idea of the real deal. The whole terrace thing 2/3rds the way up has me a bit baffled. As does the "interlocking volumes". I based the overall look on the Pan Am building, but who knows. Anyone have an idea WHEN the actual renderings will come out?

I sure wish the people who have seen the rendering had some basic drawing skills. Drawing rectangles isn't too hard. Just think how cool it would be to reveal the first rendering of this tower to the public (HAIFers), even if it's only a simple home made doodle. You would be a hero around here. Besides, it would give the person who did this an undisputed reputation of being one of the most reliable sources at this website. An instant STAR! People are getting so anxious to see a rendering of this tower that they are starting to crack. I'm so cracked I've desided to post my own rendering based on all the descriptions I've heard. Sort of like a police sketching of a crimal suspect. Someone who has seen the real rendering please let me know if I came close:

I'm surprised that Houston was so high on that list too - concidering that Houston is the largest metro in the nation not being served by a major theme park at the moment. Not that regional theme parks like AstroWorld were a huge draw for out of towners, but they help. All the recently proposed family attractions should make Houston be even higher on that list in few years (if they happen). HP might even help a bit. I wonder if Galveston is counted in with Houston when they made this list. I don't know how it would effect it, but an awful lot of Galveston vistors are from Houston. In that respect, the Houston metro area is feeding on itself for tourism. Drawing folks from one side of town to visit another side of town. I guess thats the advantage of having a place like Galveston just 50 miles away. It can be a daytrip or a weekend getaway depending on what you're in the mood for.

It's modern, it's urban, comes up to the street, sidewalk cafes - I like it a lot. Give me more of these in Midtown.

I reallly don't know how I'd feel if this thing actually came to fruition in Houston. On one hand the whole idea seems kind of gaudy and ridiculous, but on the other hand, my inner childish bastard would love to be able to permanently stick it to our Dallas buddies when they come poking around looking for trouble. You know - since all us Texans have size issues and all. But the single best thing about a 3000 foot weiner in Houston would be that they would probably be able to see the Houston skyline from Dallas. How's that for a 4 billion dollar "screw you"? Sure, it would ruin the downtown Houston skyline, but at the same time it would put Houston on a whole new level of international recognition. Whether all that new attention would be good or bad is debatable. If this thing were built in Dallas, I would probably be a little jealous but at the same time glad our skyline was more visually appealing. (just like it has been for the last 35 years). But at this point, we might as well be talking about Captain Janeway vs. the Borg because this proposal sounds more like entertaining science fiction and fantasy than a discussion about architecture.

Are there no height restrictions anymore?

O.K. I'm convinced now. Bring it on.

Williams is no joke. It may be purposely out of scale for uptown but it doesn't exceed into cartoonish levels. Maybe I would change my mind after I saw it for myself in real life, but as a concept, a 3000 ft tower just seems ridiculous.

I usually think that nay sayers are just losers with no vision, but this idea is really off the charts wacko. I want Houston to have nice tall skyscrapers as much as anybody, hopefully some higher than what we have now, but a 3000 ft. tower would look like a joke in this or any city. It sounds so completely pointless, not to mention the fact that it would throw our beautiful downtown skyline all out of balance forever. There would never be another nicely composed photo taken of downtown again. I don't believe this idea will ever even be mentioned in public again after today, let alone be built anywhere, but if somehow it is built in Houston, I would hope that it is nowhere near downtown. Anything this freakish would need its own district because it wouldn't fit in anywhere. It should be built next to a tourist attraction like NASA or Reliant Stadium or something, because it would be more of a spectacle than anything usable. Who would want to work or live on the 300th floor?

There are so many things wrong with this discussion. First, this thread is supposed to be about the Snow Mountain fake ski resort project called the Great Texas River Walk, NOT the Earthquest dinosaur theme park project on hwy 59. Second, the comparison of Hanna-Barbera Land to Earthquest isn't a fair comparison at all. HBL was a 30 acre park designed for small children. When HBL opened, AstroWorld was at the top of it's game in Houston and provided more attractions to small children than HBL as well as rides for older kids and adults. AW had nightly fireworks, ski shows, highdiving shows, and song and dance revues. HBL could never compete with AstroWorld. By comparison, Earthquest (if built) has zero competition in Houston. At 250 acres, it is at least 5 times bigger that HBL was. It will have a museum, theme park (with rides) a hotel and spa, and a waterpark. The plan is on a much grander scale that HBL or AW combined. As far as people not being able to find it because it is to be 30 miles north of downtown Houston, I want to point out that Great America is 40 miles from Chicago, Magic Mountain is 35 miles north of Los Angeles, Great Adventure is 50 miles from NYC, and Discovery Kingdom is 40 miles from San Francisco. These parks have been around for decades. Almost all major theme parks are built many miles away from the center of the metros they serve. AstroWorld was not typical. In fact, AW's centralized location ultimately worked against the park. The park was closed because the value of the land was thought to be worth more than the value of the park and the company that owned it (Six Flags) was (and is) billions of dollars in debt and needed quick cash. As far as $600 million not being enough to build a park - check out the renderings and models to Hard Rock Park theme park. It is currently under construction on 140 acres in Myrtle Beach and is costing $400 million. If we can go by their plans to get an idea of what to expect from Earthquest, then I would say $600 million is plenty of money to start a new park from scratch. It will take at least 3 years to build a park on this scale. The articles I've read say that they want to start construction in 2008 and open in 2011, 2012 at the latest - 3 years worth of rain delays and other unforseen problems could add on another year of construction. This is not an unreasonable amount of time to build a 250 acre theme park. It probably takes at least a year just to design the park. I bet we see renderings and models before the end of the year. Third, HBL evolved into Splashtown and not only is it still standing, it's is doing well. The owners recently said that they want to add amusement park rides to the park. Splashtown has changed owners several times and has been completely changed from a kiddy ride park into a water park, but some of the same buildings are still there from when it was HBL. So in a sense, it out lived AstroWorld. I'm not saying that I know that Earthquest will be built for sure and that it will be a success, but it has a lot more going for it than Hanna-Barbera Land did in 1984. On top of all the other advantages that Earthquest has, there will be at least 3 million more people in the Houston metro in 2011 than there was in 1984. And unless Kemah builds a 250 acre peer over Galveston Bay or Splashtown adds a resort hotel or the Snow Mountain thing gets going soon, Earthquest will have no competition. There is another thread at HAIF discussing Earthquest in some detail. Now back to Snow Mountain. I haven't heard anything since that original weird article appear a few weeks ago.

Drew Carey sounds like a good choice. He seems likable and familiar. I've been tuning into TPIR on and off since I was a kid and I never had any strong feelings toward Bob Barker, one way or the other. But, it always seemed so unfair that the female models like Janis Pennington were fired at the first sign of a wrinkle and Bob was allowed to stay until he was a walking corpse. I have more respect for the producers of Wheel of Fortune because they are allowing Vanna to turn letters and age gracefully at the same time.

Thanks for posting that photo. I was expecting something much much worse from all the negitive comments. I think you guys prepared me for something so incredibly bad that this garage just couldn't live down to it. Don't get me wrong, it's not pretty, but I can handle this. This sinks into the background at least. It could have been much worse, it could have been ugly AND stood out from a distance. It's so boring, I'm very surprised it's getting this much attention. Must be because of the hype.

So is it official now? The W is going to Highstreet/Westcreek/River Oaks District? And BLVD Place is getting the Ritz? With all the guessing and speculation about the W, I'm surprised no one posted a link to that website sooner.

Hey - is it too much to ask to be able to go to a place that isn't too square, isn't too hip and just caters to normal people that can just get along with one another without being mushy or fanatical about it? Besides, I wasn't talking about just amusement parks, I was talking about the entire world, shopping, public transportation, movie theatres, ect. (just kidding) - But seriously, sometimes I would really love to eliminate everybody, yes. > Other people's personal expression gets on my nerves. Only I should be allowed to fart in elevators. The rest of you should be restricted and do as you're told. Heil! (kidding, kidding - don't break out the noose)