Houston19514

From the Metro website: Cities within the METRO area include Houston, Bellaire, Bunker Hill Village, El Lago, Hedwig Village, Hilshire Village, Humble, Hunters Creek, Katy, Missouri City, Piney Point, Southside Place, Spring Valley, Taylor Lake Village and West University Place. Major portions of unincorporated Harris County are also included.

I agree this is really good news

Yes, those are correct. HOK and LaGuarda Low

Excellent pics! Made me "home"sick

I don't believe ANY groundbreaking has occurred. When they announced the project/House of Blues, I believe they said groundbreaking would be in May.

I just ran across this website: DisneySealey.com

That was actually a different project being worked on by Crescent Real Estate and Entertainment Development Group. It would have been called Pavilions at Houston Center. It would have been to the east of the Shops at Houston Center, on land that Crescent has since sold (at least they have sold most of it...) The proposal was very preliminary and (if I may state the obvious) never went any where. One of the renderings earlier in this thread was actually from that proposal, not the Houston Pavilions project which is actually coming to fruition. And Houston Pavilions has a totally different team of architects.

No it does not. Interstate 45 ends in Dallas.

The parking garage already exists. The developers of the Houston Pavilions have leased it for use as part of the Houston Pavilions. As shown in the renderings, there will be a skywalk connecting it to the Pavilions. The tall tower across the street to the south also exists. I don't recall its name, but it is definitely there. Okay, now I see the rendering you're talking about. They have definitely taken some liberties with the heights of those towers in the distance to the south.

So, for those keeping score at home... It is hard to read this any other way than to think that the Cap'n was saying that Terminal A was yet to be redone into banks of gates from the current banjo design. (The word current is key here). This is obviously wrong to anyone who has set foot on IAH property in the last seven years. So, we'll grant that he might have meant that Terminal A is the last, meaning, the final, one that is to be redone into banks of gates (i.e., that Terminal B will not be redone into banks of gates from the current banjo design. Still clearly wrong. Anyone can go to see the IAH Master Plan document, which was just completed within the last couple of months, and, contrary to the Cap'n's claim, is not currently being revised. The Master Plan (which by the way, had not even been thought of in 1997 when the Cap'n claims to have worked on it; he's apparently confused it with the Capital Improvement Program that included the reconfiguration of Terminal A.) clearly calls for redoing Terminal B into banks of gates from the current banjo design. Stubborn facts: 1 The Cap'n: 0 According to the engineering department and manager of IAH, "When the south (and north) flight stations were demolished all of the structure and underground portions of the facilities were removed. There is no basement to the south or north concourse and the flight stations had no basement. Under the construction of the South & North Concourses we replaced all of the conveyor system. Everything got changed and inbound and outbound were relocated to feed from and to under the South and North concourses. None of the conveyors traveled thru the existing tug tunnel." Stubborn facts: 2 The Cap'n: 0 "When the south (and north) flight stations were demolished all of the structure and underground portions of the facilities were removed. There is no basement to the south or north concourse and the flight stations had no basement. Under the construction of the South & North Concourses we replaced all of the conveyor system. Everything got changed and inbound and outbound were relocated to feed from and to under the South and North concourses. None of the conveyors traveled thru the existing tug tunnel." Stubborn facts: 3 The Cap'n: 0 "When the south (and north) flight stations were demolished all of the structure and underground portions of the facilities were removed. There is no basement to the south or north concourse and the flight stations had no basement. Under the construction of the South & North Concourses we replaced all of the conveyor system. Everything got changed and inbound and outbound were relocated to feed from and to under the South and North concourses. None of the conveyors traveled thru the existing tug tunnel." Stubborn facts: 4 The Cap'n: 0 "There is no basement to the south or north concourse and the flight stations had no basement. Under the construction of the South & North Concourses we replaced all of the conveyor system. Everything got changed and inbound and outbound were relocated to feed from and to under the South and North concourses. None of the conveyors traveled thru the existing tug tunnel." Stubborn facts: 5 The Cap'n: 0 "When the south (and north) flight stations were demolished all of the structure and underground portions of the facilities were removed. This included all electrical, plumbing and fuel systems. There is no basement to the south or north concourse and the flight stations had no basement. Under the construction of the South & North Concourses we replaced all of the conveyor system. Everything got changed and inbound and outbound were relocated to feed from and to under the South and North concourses. None of the conveyors traveled thru the existing tug tunnel." and, from the manager of IAH: "I will give a brief on current construction affecting Terminal A:

The RepublicBank Building is a mere 452 feet without the spire. RepublicBank

Only if you are willing to count the spire. . . (and I'm not). Besides which, "the one in downtown Dallas" is probably still nearly a year away from having any residents. Oh, and one more thing: "the one in downtown Dallas" will not even be a condo tower. It will be rental apartments.

In further e-mails, IAH's manager and HAS engineering department have given me more information that, shall we say, "clarifies" some of the (mis)information posted earlier in this thread regarding the reconfiguration of Terminal A: "When the south (and north) flight stations were demolished all of the structure and underground portions of the facilities were removed. This included all electrical, plumbing and fuel systems. There is no basement to the south or north concourse and the flight stations had no basement. Under the construction of the South & North Concourses we replaced all of the conveyor system. Everything got changed and inbound and outbound were relocated to feed from and to under the South and North concourses. None of the conveyors traveled thru the existing tug tunnel."

It seems like there should be an Interstate Highway connecting Texas' capitol with its largest city. And, after last year's hurricane season, it seems clear Houston needs it for evacuation purposes.

I believe Commerce and St. Germain are both on MLS. But assuming your sales figures for 2005 are correct, your point is still a good one. Where can we see sales figures for 2005? Do you suppose sales will pick up as the park and Houston Pavilions come together? If not, what else is holding back condo sales in downtown? One other thing that may help an absorption time-line for a possible converter... It seems possible they would convert the 394 apartments into some smaller-number of condos.

It seems like putting stations at those 90 degree turns (and both Weslayan-Richmond and Weslayan-Westheimer seem like ideal locations for stations), would substantially ameliorate, if not totally eliminate the slow-down caused by the turns. (Because the trains have to slow down for stations anyway.) I think bypassing Afton Oaks makes a great deal of sense as well, and your points about interconnectivity and future extensions are very wise. However, I think you can achieve that AND have a better system in the second phase, by turning North on Weslayan, instead of South, and then go down Westheimer, through Uptown, then loop back down to the South Rice Transit Center, and then in future expansions, on out Westpark. I'll repeat some of my earlier comments in this regard: I think we'd be missing out on too many existing and future transit-oriented developments by not running through that stretch of Westheimer. Also, I think it's important to be able to get from downtown to Uptown with a maximum of one transfer. And, I think the Uptwon area is plenty big (bigger than downtown Denver, etc etc, etc) to handle service from two intersecting transit lines, both running through the core of Uptown.

What happened to Congress Ave? Oh, the horror of only having 12 streets on which to reach an area! How could a suburbanite EVER figure out how to get over there? ;-) I'm just guessing here, but if a person is so easily confused/intimidtated that they can't or won't venture over a couple of blocks to get around a blocked street, they probably aren't the type to have ever ventured into an area such as the Old Chinatown to begin with. I agree with Red Scare, it's just too easy to blame outside factors for a business's demise. Long before the addition to GRB and the construction of MinuteMaid Park and Toyota Center, the Old Chinatown was struggling and largely unknown to downtown workers and even more so to visitors. If the businesses over there had ever bothered to get together and promote themselves (with even so much as a few signs pointing in their direction), they surely could have prospered, ASSUMING the quality was there.

The "little electric train" is not the entire plan. Next time why not try looking at the Metro Solutions plan before boring us with a ranting paragraph with no point and seemingly no end. Metro Solutions (For your convenience, the plan includes commuter rail.) And, in case you hadn't noticed, Houston already has probably the most extensive and successful system of park and rides/express buses/HOV lanes in the world. No, they are not trains, but they are very effective and efficient mass transit. (and FWIW, no, Houston is not Dallas or Los Angeles... neither of those cities has or had a starter rail line with anywhere near the ridership that Houston's "little electric train" has.

I'm finding it just a little hard to buy the idea that restaurants are closing down in old Chinatown because people have trouble getting there from downtown. A few streets have been closed over the years, but it's not like it's difficult to get over there. (Only 2 streets were closed for the expansion of the GRB; I'm not sure how many through streets might have been closed for MinuteMaid (2 at the most), but since all of Chinatown is well south of MinuteMaid, I can't see any impact from MinuteMaid.) Kim Son may be cannibalizing itself with multiple Little Kim Sons sprinkled throughout downtown, the Medical Center and Allen Parkway, and with another Kim Son downtown (which I guess is closed now).

Really cool shot. Niche, this building is 40 stories high, not 30. And Subdude, I don't think that's Enron I in the background. The building in the background appears to have corners, and appears to be about the same height as Enron II. (Enron I is significantly taller than Enron II.) Which raises the question: is this really a view of west Houston? I think not. I think the shot is taken looking east and the building in the background is ExxonMobil.

Do you have a source for this alleged statement by METRO and STV engineers?

We're trying to build a system to handle Houston's transportation needs for the next 20-50-75-100 years. If it gets us to the best system for the long term, the pain endured during construction will be worth it, and it would be foolish in the extreme to decline to build the best system because we can't handle a couple years of construction.

I believe its most-recent prior incarnation was as warehouse for Herrin Moving and Storage Co, or something like that.

Actually, the long term (20-25 years) master plan calls for an entirely new underground train system, replacing both the current tunnel train and at least part of the current TerminaLink above-ground train.

No. The Hilton Americas is not "suppose to be mixed use". And it was never, to my knowledge, introduced with ground floor retail. Around the time the hotel was being developed, the city acquired the property in front of the hotel from Crescent Real Estate (the property that now is going to be the park). At that time the city said it intended to try to develop retail on that property,to complement the Hilton and the GRB. Perhaps that is what you are thinking of.