Houston19514

You would be wrong about that. Every company I am aware of that analyzes and reports on office markets considers Uptown Dallas (including Victory) to be a separate market from Downtown Dallas. I thought the Victory rail stop was only for special events. Has that changed? While you personally may have walked from Crescent Court to downtown "all the time" for lunch; I cannot believe very many people would do that routinely. There is a reason transit planners only count on people being willing to walk 1/4 mile to get to a station. And you're telling me that people will walk a MILE to get lunch? It appears that it will be 1/4 mile walk just to get to the other side of the freeway from One Victory Park. I think you're kidding yourself if you think any great number of people will be walking from One Victory Park to downtown Dallas for lunch. Your statement that "most of downtown's vacant space is in much older buildings" is one of those chamber of commerce spins Dallas has been trying for many years. The last I saw, Downtown Dallas still had a vacancy rate in Class A buildings in the range of 15-20% and it has been at least in that range for what, 20+ years? So, what is it that would give you no doubt that the vacated space will be filled? If it's that easy to fill vacated class A space in downtown Dallas, why the high vacancy rate for two decades and counting?

The track record of the Holiday Inn/Days Inn some 20 or years ago is hardly relevant. One might instead look to the track record of the currently-operating Holiday Inn Express, or even the Crowne Plaza or Doubletree, or Courtyard.

Apartments, condos, and lofts. I'm still hoping they'll replace one of the deleted apartment towers with a boutique hotel. I think the timing is right to start construction on some new hotels in downtown Houston. Would also like to see the Texaco Building go back to plan A, which was a Ritz-Carlton Hotel with condos.

Congratulations are in order: the prestigious law firm of Haynes & Boone has announced they will be moving into 175,000 square feet in One Victory Park. Where are they relocating from, you ask? Why, they will be vacating 216,000 square feet of space in Bank of America Tower in downtown Dallas. Another net loss of 216,000 square feet for the downtown Dallas office market, and another 400 employees who will no longer be walking to lunch spots etc in downtown Dallas. Can someone please remind us again how the Victory project is good for downtown Dallas?

What do the fees typically run in Washington DC?

Doesn't the city (or the Sports Authority) already own that land (where the surface parking lots are)?

Jason, Jason, Jason... Zebra was certainly incorrect in his statement, but you know very well that the Houston and D-FW MSA's are almost exactly the same size, within a rounding error of each other. (We just covered this in another thread recently; wasn't there something like a 5 square mile difference?) And any judgment of "sprawl" has to consider the "urbanized area" and density. D-FW has a larger urbanized area and lower population density (i.e., greater sprawl). (not by a huge margin, but there you have it.) As to "gobbling up" Sherman/Denison", what is the organized effort on the part of city councils? How would that work? I mean, they are either in or out based on Census Bureau definitions; I don't know what a city council could do to change that (and as we have discussed before, they HAVE already been added to the D-FW Consolidated Statistical Area).

Oh, good; another 4-year-old on the board. Just what we need.

Very interesting, but you got some facts wrong. The tower and roof were not even built in time for the Olympics. The roof that was intended to be retractable was not completed until 1987. It didn't work so it remained permanently closed. In 1998, the "retractable" roof was replaced with a permanent "non-retractable roof. In any event, I think it's fair to say that the first "attempt" to build a retractable roofed stadium was Stade Olimpique. But since it failed, I don't think it's fair or accurate to call it the first retractable-roofed stadium.

Yea, that much I knew (and I think that was also mentioned in Dbigtex's helpful post, above). What we have not found (and does not appear to be easy) is an explanation of where the basic dividing lines are (acknowledging that there are the exceptions to the rules caused by the various former entities now being part of the city).

Oops. Sorry about that. Let me try again. Street Naming Procedures Gotcha.

Just as I thought, nothing to back up your statement. I have done my homework, and the 2003 study is the most recent one done.

Is it "officially"? With no groundbreaking announcement? That would be a little surprising.

Unless, of course your "address on Alabama" happens to be on W Alabama, which is, after all Alabama Street as well. Gee, how have people ever been able to locate the Alabama Ice House or Alabama Theater? With names like that confusing them, one would think they would be wandering around over there somewhere east of Spur 527. ;-) btw: I am aware of the distinction between Virginia and West Virginia. States are quite different things than city streets; perhaps you've noticed that. I'm not sure how we got to this particular tangent. My initial point was and remains, that the W on street signs merely indicates you are on a street with an east-west bearing and you are to the west of the dividing line. That applies to Alabama Street as well, and I imagine that east of the dividing line, which for Alabama appears to be at Spur 527, there are "E's" on the Alabama Street signs.

I finally found SOMEthing on the city's website addressing this. It's not much, but it's somthing... They have a page named Street Name Change Procedures and Standards. Included in the standards: "Street name prefixes such as North, South, East, and West may be used to clarify the general location of the street. However, such prefixes must be consistent with the existing and established street naming and address numbering system of the general area in which the street is located."

VERY interesting. I had never noticed that. Within those pockets (e.g., The Heights), the same rules apply. For example, East of Heights Blvd, 9th Street is E. 9th Street. West of Heights Blvd, 9th Street is W 9th Street, but it's all 9th Street. I've been searching, so far in vain, for a source that explains where the dividing lines are... and how the numberings work :-(

Good grief, man. I did not say all streets with the designation of "W" were "just to the west of downtown." I merely said that the dividing line between east and west apparently runs just to the west of downtown, rather than on Main Street as I had presumed. The dividing line runs throughout the entire city. So, of course there are E and W Little York and Orem and Bellfort, etc etc etc. Any street running in a generally east-west bearing will have both an E and a W version, if it runs on both sides of that dividing line. Look on a Google Map and you can find exactly where Little York switches from E to W. It's still the same street! The E and W just indicate which side of the dividing line you are on.

Then I'm sure you'll be posting a more-recent one for us??

Not odd at all. W Alabama is STILL Alabama.

A LOT closer to the 22% end of that range..., but perhaps that is what Dallasboi meant. A little misleading, to say the least. It's a shame he won't answer a simple question.

If so, they didn't do a very good job. Dallas' Lincoln Plaza looks more like SFO's BofA than does 1100 Louisiana.

This Residential Study is chock-full of information I think you will find interesting. (It's 3 years old already, but should still be applicable.)

You'll notice that the transition from W Dallas to Dallas and W Gray to Gray is at the same point; this is perfectly in concert with my "theory" (and the "W" in "W Dallas" obviously does not mean one is going due West, because then the other side of the street would have to be named "E Dallas"; the "W" in "W Dallas" just inicates that it is a street with a generally east-west bearing and you are to the West of the dividing line). In Houston, as in many cities, there is a sort of "default" whereby streets to one side of the dividing line are stated without stating the direction. So, when you see "Dallas", the East is implied. (BTW, I got the East-West dividing line wrong, it is not Main Street, but somewhere just to the west of downtown.)

Oh, sorry. When he said "street signs" I thought he meant, well, street signs, in the traditional sense, meaning those (usually green) things on the corners of intersections. You're talking about the big "way-finding" signs?

Yes, and I'm quite sure you also "knew" that the Mosaic would not be built and that the downtown park would not be built and that the Cosmopolitan would not be built, etc etc.