Houston19514

That is not 6 Houston Center. It is Discovery Tower.

Well, there are plenty of options in between those two choices. I have no idea if they will dedicate the street to the city. I would doubt it. The important point is, it will provide vehicular and pedestrian connectivity through the development from Post Oak Blvd to Post Oak Lane. Furthermore, if you look at the renderings you can also see a couple other places where there will be at least pedestrian connectivity from Post Oak Blvd through the development to Post Oak Lane as well, and possibly some further vehicular connectivity as well.

Christof didn't get it quite complete (which, unfortunately, is not as unusual for him as one might hope). They actually are doing better. The article in today's Business Journal states that in addition to the streets shown on Christof's map rendering, they will "establish a new street called Boulevard Place to cut east to west through the project". This new street can also be seen in the renderings on the BLVD Place website.

I'm afraid it's just wishful thinking. I believe they also show a DeBeers store, which recently opened in The Galleria. There will not be two DeBeers stores in Houston any time soon, much less within 1 mile of each other.

Brasfield & Gorrie of Birmingham, Alabama,

What's even more sad is that some architectural enthusiasts cannot look at a rendering and see that it clearly does provide a pedestrian-friendly environment, incorporating most of the components they claim to favor... the garage does not front on main street... Retail fronts on Main Street... The building actually "juts out" at about the 3 story level in the retail section, giving it more of a pedestrian scale... It appears to have a little bit of inset at the 1st story level, further increasing the pedestrian scale effect. Moving the tower to Main Street instead of Rusk (as some have suggested) would have the exact opposite effect, by creating a monolithic structure towering over the entire Main Street block, the antithesis of pedestrian scale. It's entirely possible they positioned it the way they did in order to create a better Main Street pedestrian environment. And here's a news flash: 1 MSF office towers are going to have large lobbies. Pretty much a fact of life. For starters, you're going to have at least 2 and possibly 3 banks of elevators, security/information desks etc etc. This building is so unlike the typical 1980s anti-urban architecture, it's a little astonishing that an architectural enthusiast would even make such a comparison. 1980s towers were trophies built in the middle of the block with little or no interaction with the street, no street level retail, surrounded by beautiful plazas and landscaping. This building, on the other hand, fills the block to the sidewalks, at least makes an attempt to create a pedestrian scale on Main Street, with the structure jutting out at the 3rd floor level, includes street level retail on Main Street (the full extent and type of which of course none of us yet know; but it could add a LOT of vibrancy to this block.) Certainly throwing around the "catch-phrase" ground level retail is not the solve-all to downtown urban pedestrian life, and of course we all know that nobody said it was. But, while not sufficient by itself, it certainly is a necessary element. This building adds to ground level retail inventory in a very crucial, central block, and it does so with a reasonably pedestrian-friendly design. I hope the floor plans include large enough retail spaces that we might have some restaurants with outdoor seating, which of course would add to the vibrancy created. Whether that is possible is something none of us yet know and may depend on what kind of tenants the building can snag. A couple years after this building opens, these predictions that this building will be bad for pedestrian activity (or at best do nothing to improve the pedestrian vibrancy downtown) will look just as foolish as the earlier predictions on this forum that Houston Pavilions was not going to be built, that Discovery Green would never happen, that multiple downtown hotels would be close...

Yes, it happened more than once. And on other occasions, the trains had to slow to a crawl to get through that area. Insanity to intentionally promote street parties and clubs on the street where the backbone of your rail system runs.

LOL Oh, I get it. I assure you, I understand you completely. ;-)

So you've concluded that two mixed-use (and predominantly retail) developments will have a different pedestrian environment than an office building with ground level retail? Very insightful. Thanks for posting. To say this building will do "squat" to make walking downtown a more pleasant experience is just, well, ignorant (sorry, but I can't think of any more accurate word). ANY activity on that block (and a 1 MSF building with retail will add a lot of activity) will be a huge improvement over what is there now and will add significantly to make walking downtown a more pleasant experience. That would be true no matter the location, but even more so in this particular block right in the middle stretch of Main Street, which is currently something of a black hole.

Ditto. Also, it was insane to have the club district around the backbone of the rail system (the Red Line), requiring them to actually shut down the rail line at times of high use of the club district. That was just not sustainable.

Roll your eyes right on out of their sockets to avoid actually looking at the renderings if you want. The part that juts out towards Main Street is the retail portion of the building. People other than I have also asked you what it is about the building that should be different in order to produce better pedestrian life, and all you can come up with is, well, nothing. You complain about recessed entrances and then post a picture of a building with recessed entrances as your model of what could be done. (and of course, so far as we know, the Main Street decide doesn't even have the pedestrian-life-destroying recessed entrances) Then you tell us the good thing about your posted building is that it "juts out" at the lower floors, somehow thereby creating a friendly pedestrian atmosphere, but conveniently ignoring that the retail area along Main Street of MainPlace also "juts out" from the rest of the building. Do you actually have anything constructive to say or any actual reason for your criticism?

And that is exactly what we have in the MainPlace design for the Main Street facade. The lower floors are "jutting" out, at least in the garage segment, which appears to cover 1/2 or more of the block. Again, your problem with the MainPlace design is what, exactly?

Does anyone know the details of this? Will it be a scheduled common carrier, or charter-type? And, more to the point, will it be available for booking by anyone or just by oil industry folk (like the flights to Africa)

But the entrances appear to be recessed!! OMG, that's not good for pedestrians (or at least it wasn't in your prior post.) I don't think we have seen any detailed renderings of the Main Street street level facade. They may not even exist at this point, pending what kind of retail they sign up. Frankly the first four floors being different from the rest of the building doesn't really do much for the pedestrian on the sidewalk either. I'm really not understanding what your beef is, other than to find SOMEthing, ANYthing to complain about. (BTW, perhaps you should look at the MainPlace rendering again... the Main Street facade indeed has a setback at about the 3rd floor level along where at least most of the retail will apparently be. So it looks like the architect perhaps did indeed consider the streetscape in his design.)

Where have you seen a rendering showing the lobby entrances on Main Street recessed from the facade? Are you sure you aren't looking at the renderings showing the Rusk Street facade? Not that a recessed entrance would in any way destri ir even discourage pedestrian life.) And FWIW, a 46 story office building with street level retail will clearly encourage pedestrian life. First, we obviously have no idea what the retail tenants might be, but even if they are just fast food, fast food customers are pedestrians too. And to the extent they are restaurants of any type, they may very well have sidewalk dining areas. What exactly is it that you want in a building?

Yeah, I see it's back. Apparently it was stuck away in the Archives for a while...

It probably does not include electricity. I think it's fair to say that almost no recently constructed buildings include electricity in the HOA fees.

Yes, HOB will be at the corner of Caroline and Dallas.

Downtown Houston has well over 50 Msf of built and under construction/development space, even without prisons. As you said, that 37Msf number excludes all of the hotels, retail, residential towers and conversions, education institutions, city hall and other city buildings, court houses, police hq, or new developments in the pipeline. Also excluded are baseball stadiums, basketball arenas, , performing arts halls, churches, or convention centers (GRB alone adds 1Msf+). ALSO probably not included in that 37Msf are owner-occupied buildings, such as the Exxon tower, and the Chevron Building at 1500 Louisiana. (I cannot find Collier's explanation of their numbers but I think most of the office market reports do not include owner-occupied buildings.) Add in all of the small buildings and I'm pretty sure we'd get over 50Msf. Collier's Office Market: 37.1 Msf GRB: 1.2 Toyota Center: .75 Civil Justice Center: .6 Criminal Justice Center: .75 MinuteMaid Park: 1.25 Hilton Americas: 1.3 Hobby Center: .27 Wortham Center: .44 Bayou Place: .13 Houston Pavilions: .55 MainPlace: 1 Discovery Tower: .6 + Police HQ: .6 Metro HQ: .3 Old Humble HQ (Marriott) .5 Houston Public Works Bldg .7 Federal Courthouse .5 Mickey Leland Fed Bldg .35 Magnolia Hotel .25 Shops @ Houston Ctr .2+ One Park Place .5+ That already gets us to 49.84Msf. It's safe to say that the rest of the downtown structures not already counted would far exceed 160,000sf to put us over the 50Msf mark. It seems pretty likely we're closer to 60Msf. Here are just a few of the missing relatively major structures: City Hall City Hall Annex Central Public Library (2 buildings) Hyatt Regency The rest of the County Courthouse complex Inn at the Ballpark Sheraton Hotel/Omni Hotel Crowne Plaza Hotel Four Seasons Hotel Downtown Club (Houston Center, Plaza, and The Met locations) multiple churches and associated buildings St. Joseph's Hospital

I like the new direction. Seems MUCH more appropriate.

11:37 PM and they are still working. I would guess they are making up for lost time. Maybe a combination of making up for the time lost due to weather this summer and the time lost due to the delayed start of construction on this project.

Sorry for the confusion. Never trust a headline. ;-)

As usual, HAIFers focus on the negative. 6 months later, one of the three vacant hotels is about to be re-done into an Omni, which will be a 4 or 5 star hotel and a beautiful addition to downtown Houston.

Wow, what an uninformed debbie downer you are... From the Chron blog on this topic: "The project also includes burying the utility lines underground, widening the sidewalks from four to six feet and replacing 143 trees with 250 to 300 new trees."

Perhaps so, and paid for through usage fees and ticket taxes, just like with the airlines... PERHAPS that could make it feasible. The point is, it cannot be done by private investment alone.