Houston19514

Lower Manahattan.. their skyline district.. isnt exactly right up on Central Park. It is at one end.

I also reazlize as urban as it is, it isnt exactly a "downtown" park

I realize we cant bulldoze 800 acres to put up a park.

I am saying though that we should reazlie we already have it... or at least the great start of it.

We need better access.... tear down that wall, mr mayor... or least the bridges.

We need a plan... thanks to groups like buffalobayoupartnership.. we got a start there.

Once these are done, we should encourage growth along the green spine of the city.

Downtown growth shouldnt just be inside the freeways .... already happeneing with potential projects like Hardy Yards.

Im suggesting we improve the central park we have and encourage higher density growth along its borders.

Im suggesting we not pretend 4 square blocks of grass on the wrong end of downtown is going to make any significant impact.

Have you looked at the plan for the park? It is decidedly not "4 square blocks of grass". In fact, most of the criticism of the plan seen on this board consisted of complaints about how little grass, and, conversely, how many activities were planned for the park. The comparisons to Central Park are tiresome and ridiculous. A more apt comparison is to Bryant Park, which is smaller than our new park and has at least as many activities packed in it. No knowledgeable person would suggest that Bryant Park is unsuccessfull or has no siginificant impact in its area.

Furthermore, if one is planning a park in part to have a positive impact on the development of an area, the "wrong end of downtown" is exactly where one should put it, not in the areas that are already developed.

And honestly, you look a little silly claiming that the park will have no significant impact, when it has sparked one high-rise apartment building soon to be under construction, and plans (and the purchase of property for) two additional high-rise residential buildings, all before construction of the park has even started. If that's "no significant impact," I say bring it on. We need more of that kind of non-impact.

i did a quick search for the thread but was unable to find it. might as well update it here...

from a source that i consider extremely reliable, especially for this deal, the downtown park will have a ground breaking in august of this year. there could be a setback but they are moving forward without a doubt.

additionally, they will have a city-wide naming contest for the park.

finally, and more on topic, fingers deal will break ground shortly after the park does. finger has the option to purchase / lease adjacent land and will if phase 1 performs well. it will not be named the park tower because of a conflict with an existing building with the same name.

this message will self destruct in 5....4....

According to the park's website, groundbreaking and the start of construction of the park is scheduled for October 16.

With what part of my post do you disagree?

If you need further information about my theological studies, please send a PM.

No further information about your theological studies needed, thank you very much. But I do have a question for you. My (Anglican) church just went through the entire Easter season (sometimes referred to as Eastertide) with six candles on the alter (3 on each end). Are we all going to hell? ;-)

Highway 6, there certainly is mention of where the University Line ends. It is planned to end at a new Transit Center on South Rice. There is nothing in the works for it to turn back north after crossing 610.

BTW, I don't currently live in Houston. Otherwise, I would definitely be at the meetings. (I have, however, sent a message to Metro with my thoughts on the Westheimer routing.)

There is no mention of where this line ends.

If it curves south to Westpark at the RR then back up at sage.. whats to say it can't run up to westheimer or san felipe... or sometime in the future, have it cross over to postoack making the university line and the uptown line continous.

Just becasue it crosses 610 not at Westeimer doesn't mean it cant make a small run north and access the galleria just as well.

I do agree with you.. it would be great to have it also access highland village and any new developments... But... on none of metro's maps is a route anywhere on westeimer proposed... even this desirable yet tiny few blocks. For some reason, we don't know why, they have eliminated that as an option.

so.. 2nd best.. i think no matter where it crosses 610, it can still be made to stop adjacent to the galleria directly .. without getting on the uptown line.

I think its we can't assume it has to have a stop on westheimer at 610 to access the galleria.

Go to the meeting.. bring up westheimer.. see why they have eliminated that option.

I'll bring up, as im sure many others will, having it directly access the galleria if it does go richmond or westpark... by having it turn north at sage.

Westheimer does offer potential.. but i'm working with the options they have given us.

I rather argue to have the two options they have given us access the galleria directly as opposed to argue for a third option they have already taken off the table.

From the Metro news release regarding the Westheimer routing:

"Although Westheimer has been eliminated from further study at this time, METRO would be willing to reconsider the alignment if a large segment of the corridor community were behind it."

Benston Park sounds nice. What are they going to do with La Branch? Will it run under the park or just be stripped up?

La Branch will not be affected. Crawford, however, will be replace with the Crawford Promenade. Here's the Site Plan

No, i do agree with you.. that would be my first choice too.. serves highland village and stops at the front door of the galleria.

But i also really don't see them paying to have half a mile running under ground to not interfere with galleria traffic or the 610 intersection.

so rr to westpark to sage would be my second and more doable choice.

I hate to see them settle for what I believe is clearly a "second-best" routing. It may be more easily doable in the short run, and pretty clearly cheaper. But in the medium and long run, I'm afraid we and metro and the city, etc. will regret a decision to avoid Westheimer. It seems pretty clear to me that the system would have much higher ridership with that routing, as opposed to turning south and taking the westpark route; for two reasons: (1) Riders would be able to get from downtown to Uptown with only one change of trains, rather than two, and (2) The university line would serve the core of Uptown, plus Highland Village, some relatively dense housing areas along that stretch of Westheimer, plus the new mixed-used developments that have been announced along that stretch of road. They need to bite the bullet and make it happen.

This reminds me so much of the discussions about locating the new baseball stadium a few years back. All of the momentum was behind building a new stadium on the Astrodome grounds because it was easier, cheaper, the county already owned the land, yadda yadda yadda. Many of the same reasons we are hearing today for running the rail line along Westpark. Thank God someone (and I'm pretty sure it was Ken Lay) came along with the vision and leadership to say "No, we need to build this stadium downtown. Let's do it right or not do it at all." I keep hoping for someone to pop up in a similar fashion on this rail line issue.

How much do you want to bet they'll name it after some stupid politician. Are they accepting submissions for names? We could come up with something better. Or maybe they will be selling naming rights?

"Gallery Furniture Park at Houston Center"

The park naming contest begins August 21.

The vacancy rate in Class A space in Downtown Dallas is actually pretty low; occupancies for this type of space is in the mid nineties.

Do you have a source for that? Every source I can find says the downtown Dalls vacancy rate for Class A buildings is in the 15-20 % range (80-85% occupancy). Here's one.

I would think that if he paid for an ad in the magazine that a free copy would be coming his way.

Understood, but I also thought Editor might not be aware that out-of-staters can subscribe.

New additions to the downtown park website:

Groundbreaking ceremony and construction to begin October 16, at which time they will also announce the name of the park. The entire park is scheduled to be open January 2, 2008, with the parking garage and main restaurant scheduled to open in the fall of 2007.

Editor, They will certainly be kind enough to send you a copy if you subscribe ;-) A subscription is pretty minimal... something like $15 per year.

Houston19514. About this time last year or earlier in the spring Steve Brown did an in depth story hammering the real estate agency that reports these numbers and the truth behind the numbers. He stated that if these national agencies looked at what downtown actually had available and operable, what has been taken off the market due to conversions the overall vacancy rate would be much less then what they are reporting, and how tight the Class A space market actually is downtown. Neither he nor I dismiss the notion that there is a lot speculative office building. I would look up the story, but I am not that bored for an internet blog. In that break down he talked how the vacancies are scattered throughout downtown making it hard for downtown to attract big corporate relocations to downtown. He ran another report shortly after 7-eleven deciding to move to the Arts District. It essentailly talked about concerns over the vacancies downtown and about how their move will free up much needed whole blocks for Class A space to attract major corporate tenants downtown and compete with the burbs/tollway corridor. One example was when Citi Bank decided to build a corporate campus in the burbs and Flour's relocation from California to I believe Las Collinas. Dallas Business Journal ran a similar report shortly there after. After that story in the spring Steve Brown continues to write stories including information based on the what is being reported by the these agencies including Texas A&M.

Now I have worked personally with UCR urban division on some projects. UCR urban is UCR's division which specializes in leasing in downtown/uptown. Their outlook is that numbers are not reported accurately taking into account all the construction and buy ups in downtown for conversions. Building owners are offering a lot less to attract tenants, rents are increasing, and buidlings are trading hands with out-of-town investors which has not seen this much trading since the 80's. UCR are the ones that were able to put together the scenario needed to bring Forest City to downtown. Forest City had no interest in downtown Dallas because they thought it was dead. UCR showed them the tunnels and the numbers that are changing in the positive direction for downtown Dallas.

I am aware that a lot of Dallas chamber of commerce types have been trying for many years to get the national agencies to change their rules just for Dallas, because they didn't much like having vacant buildings being included in the office vacancy reports... The national agencies apply their methods consistently to every city; if they do otherwise, their reports would be worthless. And whether you acknowledge the existence of empty office buildings or not, the fact remains, they exist, they are empty and they are available.

All that being said, even if we take out all of the empty space for which there are even vague plans of conversion to lofts or whatever, none of that is going to effect the Class A vacancy rate (because Class A buildings are not sitting empty or being converted to lofts). I have seen no evidence anywhere that downtown Dallas has anything near a 5% vacancy rate for Class A space. (See the Dallas Business Journal figure quoted above)

You can toss out "doom and gloom" office vacancy rates inside Dallas' traditional downtown loop as much as you'd like, the truth is there hasn't been this much exciting activity in the core in decades.

Huge residential retail, and office projects are popping up all over downtown. Just the projects currently underway include the massive Mercantile redevelopment, Fidelity Union Towers (Mosaic), Joule' Urban Resort, The Metropolitan, Republic Tower I, One Arts Plaza, Third Rail Lofts: [Gulf States Tower, 1414 Elm, 1407 Main], Hunt Tower, Corgan HQ Bldg and The Dallas Roof Gardens (no doubt I missed some). Approved and soon to begin are the Winspear Opera House and Wyly Theatre for the Performing Arts.

A plethora of additional projects are in various stages of planning. At least some of those will ultimately be completed.

I wouldn't seriously regard any area with that much current and future activity as being "hollowed out".

There are indeed a lot of exciting things occurring and "hollowed out" may be overstating it. But the fact remains, that the CBD has a seriously high office vacancy rate and it appears that it is about to take another jump, when the tenants/owners start moving out of their current spaces into the new buildings being built.

There used to be Ruby Tuesday's here...I thought they still were here. I've never tried it.

I know Rally's used to be here too -- late 80s, I think. I thought it was lame.

As far as the limited menu at In-n-Out goes, once you've tried the burgers, why would you want anything else? So good. So fresh. I'm glad you got to try the fries, though. They are the best in the world.

Perhaps I was too subtle in my previous post. According to their website, there is a Ruby Tuesday's at 17117 Tomball Parkway.

Definitely In and Out, even though its not a chain. Really missed it. Trader Joe's, not my thing even though I shopped there for a year because it was the only grocery store in my area.

And I can't believe we are all talking about wanting more burger places when there seems to be one at every corner.

Why do you say In and Out is not a chain?

Ruby Tuesdays.

17117 Tomball Parkway

Again that 19.1 vacancy comes off of a general vacancy including all classes of buildings. Dallas Business Journal, Globe Street, and Steve Brown with the Dallas Morning News have done a break down of what that number represents. Class A and AA remains in the mid 90 % range depending who is reporting it. All of them reporting the Class A and AA remains at a shortage for the downtown market when comparing to the developments in the suburbs. Thus making downtown be at a disadvantage when luring big corporate tenants. I forget the agency who reports the vacancy nationally, but in the DMN reported the organization as admitting they include all vacant office buildings that have proposals or are under conversion. Its is not until those conversions are complete that they will no longer count them as leasable vacant office space.

"Again," no it does not come off a general vacancy including all classes of buildings. Texas A&M Real Estate Center quotes a 19.1 percent vacancy for Class "A" space in the CBD, and again, that is "direct vacancy" (not including space available for sublease.) FYI, the Class "B" direct vacancy rate is 27%. Here is the link

And this from Steve Brown in the April 4, 2006 Dallas Morning News: " Downtown – which lost about 175,000 square feet of tenants in the first quarter – is about 28 percent vacant."

And while we're at it, here's a quote from the May 19, 2006 Dallas Business Journal:

"various redevelopment projects and new headquarters buildings for Hunt Consolidated Inc. and 7-Eleven Inc. -- is generating positive buzz about the downtown market.

But few are talking about the gaping holes relocating and consolidating tenants are leaving behind.

Here's the situation: a dozen Class A buildings in the central business district will soon have vacancies totaling more than 3 million square feet. All will have openings of 130,000 square feet or more. Over the last five years, the overall vacancy rate for downtown Dallas has hovered between 27% and 31%. But the Class A buildings have performed much better, with average vacancies of about 15%." (and soon to take big jump due to the new construction)

Now class A office space remains at 95% occupied and out pacing the other submarkets in the metro for Class A and AA.

Source?

According to the Texas A & M Real Estate Center, Dallas' CBD had a vacancy rate of 19.1% at the end of 2005, and that's just direct vacancy (not including space available for sublease).

Yes, Rip van Dallas is coming out of a twenty year nap.

and I guess Rip is waking up in a new location. Did he roll over while he was sleeping?

That's an inaccurate way to view the current commercial and residential construction occuring in Uptown Dallas between Routh/Good Latimer and Houston Street. An expansion of downtown is more accurate as the urban density grows from the historic downtown (Commerce-Main-Elm corridor) into a contiguous environment to Reverchon Park. It's even more inaccurate to state the old downtown continues to hollow out. But whatever.

Really? What's the office occupancy rate in downtown Dallas, while office buildings are popping up all over Uptown. What's the hotel occupancy rate in downtown Dallas, while hotels are popping up all over Uptown? Why would anyone be interested in geographically expanding downtown when downtown itself is full of underoccupied office buildings and hotels, and for that matter, vacant real estate.

Another vote for Steak n Shake and White Castle!

(Carl's Jr and Hardee's are now the same thing, only the name is different)

I've never been to a Trader Joe's, but I've heard they are great!

I hate to say it but the Dallas uptown (like our midtown) is years ahead of Houston. I still would rather live here but they have done a fantastic job building up the near town areas. Their downtown still leaves a lot to desired IMHO

I don't think it's really fair or accurate to compare Uptown Dallas with Midtown Houston. The only thing they really have in common is the fact that they are just across a freeway from their respective downtowns. I don't see Midtown Houston ever being much like Uptown Dallas, with all of the very high-end projects, and big hotels and office buildings. Houston has that type of development mostly in Uptown Houston (and hopefully will have more in Downtown Houston.) I wish we were further along on it, but I like the general direction of Midtown Houston better. I don't want to go the route that Dallas is taking of developing essentially a new downtown while continuing to hollow out the old one.

Agree with you gnu. Went by Almeda yesterday, I will say that the Foley's was in the best shape i've seen it in quite a while. Merchandise was organized well, plus i got a good deal on some sheets! It is unfortunate that Penney's is closing. I think it will hurt the mall. Almeda was always good because Baybrook didn't have the Foley's nor Penney's.

Foley's might be starting to look better because Federated/Macy's knows how to run department stores MUCH better than May Co. ever did, IMO.

I'm a little confused about your reference to Baybrook. Baybrook has both Foley's and Penney's stores.

I knew your legal research skills would finally pay off for you in this thread. Good job, counselor!

Not to take anything away from Redscare's legal research skills, but it really wasn't very difficult to find columns criticizing Cuban. They were indeed all over the country.

Is it really that different from any other home-buying transaction, where realtors place "sold" signs atop their signs as soon as a contract is signed and deposit put down? MANY "sold" houses never get to closing.