Houston19514

FWIW, here is the entire list of current construction projects affecting IAH's Terminal A, according to the Manager of IAH, Bob White (copied and pasted directly from his e-mail to me): I will give a brief on current construction affecting Terminal A:

Thank you for setting the record straight. (BTW, I think you are waaaayyy too kind in your description of the TV station as merely "overzealous.")

The original plan included a hotel. That's probably what that third tower was.

Maybe, the city could have gotten more in the way of iron-clad guarantees of development in the immediate vicinity of the ballpark. But I think patience is in order. Given the Enron collapse and general economic downturn that occurred just after the ballpark opened, we are perhaps behind where we otherwise would have been. (And add Lofts at the Ballpark to your list, plus the few shops and bar/restaurants right across Texas Ave from the ballpark) And some of the examples of wildly successful ballparks also took a long time to develop around their ballparks. Cleveland, for example. I have no idea what it's like now, but I visited the area around their ballpark probably at least 10 years ago, when the park was still pretty new, and there was VERY LITTLE around it (except, IIRC, they were blessed with empty buildings, rather than empty surface lots.) And I'm not sure what they are talking about in St. Louis. Are they referring to the new Busch Stadium that is currently under construction? The plans call for a Ballpark Village to be built after the stadium is done, but it seems a bit premature to call it a success. If they are talking about the Edward Jones Dome, I am not sure what development arose in its immediate neighborhood. If any, it is, I think quite recent. Another example is Denver. The first time I visited the area around Coors Field, when the stadium was newer, there was very little in the area. That took quite a few years to really take off too. Again, I think some patience is in order for the MinuteMaid Park neighborhood.

Ventana and Calais are not Finger properties. And, Subdude, Finger has already "branched out into highrises" with the Museum Tower. I would be surprised to see a low- or mid-rise development on this property. I would the cost of the land would require building higher to make it work.

They (the Park Shops) will have only themselves to blame. Crescent Real Estate (the owner of the Park Shops) owned the subject block for years and just sold it a year or two ago.

I am totally in agreement - running the Universities Line down Westpark would be a missed opportunity. However, I fear the proposal to run on Richmond to just before the Loop and then switching to Westpark misses some great opportunities as well. I think we'd end up with a much better system (and more highly utlized) if it went down Richmond to Weslayan and then went north to Westheimer, then west through the Uptown area and then south back down to the Transit Center. It would add the whole Highland Village area, the new developments at the HISD HQ property, the new developments along Westheimer between Highland Village and the Loop, the existing properties along Westheimer (eg Hotel Derek, The Grotto) and add East-West service through the Uptown area. I think it might add so much additional benefit, that it might be worth tunneling it to get under the Loop and perhaps part of the Westheimer/Uptown stretch as well (to avoid adding to the existing congestion).

I guess that explains the new Larry North Fitness in the Houston Center Shops and the new Houstonian Lite (I believe it is called.)

Let's not get too carried away with the cynicism. After all, the definition of bayou includes "small river" and Buffalo Bayou runs by River Oaks. And The Heights is so named because it is at a higher elevation than most of its surroundings (at least compared to central Houston... The Heights' elevation is 23 feet higher than downtown Houston.)

The article linked above says that "The grand opening is planned for May 20." I'm guessing that might be when the lighting will be turned on for good every night.

Yea, that was announced on September 27. It's scheduled to open this spring.

I believe the Spires also has 40 floors (but is also shorter in height than the Huntingdon).

Glad to hear about the blue lighting. The Buffalo Bayou Master Plan includes an extensive and interesting lighting plan (part of the Lighting and Public Art Master Plan). The blue lighting you report sounds like the first stages of the master plan being put into effect. http://www.buffalobayou.org/lighting.html

Wow. It's amazing to me that none of the big office-supply chains (Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot) has noticed the potential market of downtown Houston. Sometimes I wonder who is in charge of these places...

My request for numbers was a specific response to a specific statement by banking214: "Dallas has always been a leader in Texas for high rise projects." I am not interested in just current projects. I am interested in the whole market. Is there a listing somewhere of all of the high-rise residential buildings in Dallas? I am not wedded to the 25-story height. That was just a random cut-off that seemed reasonable.

You're quite the bossy little guy today, aren't you? ;-) ummmm... because I didn't feel like it? ;-) Someone posted a comment that highrises hadn't caught on in Houston to the extent they have in Dallas, which led to something of a side conversation exploring whether that was in fact true. Should that initial comment have been in another thread? Should all responses to that comment have been in another thread? At what point is another thread required? I suppose it is slightly off the topic of this thread, but only very slightly. The thread has been a discussion of the Dallas, and tangentially, the Houston, high-rise market. I don't see why an objective comparison of those markets cannot be explored within this same thread. Or are only posts that mention Donald Trump and words like "pizazz" and "terrific" allowed in this particular thread?

Okay, I'll go ahead and start. I have counted 20 existing high rise residential buildings in Houston that stand at 25 stories or more (and there may well be more). Included in that number are: -- three 40-story buildings -- one 35-story building -- two 34-story buildings -- one 33-story building -- two 31-story buildings and -- seven 30-story buildings, for a total of 16 existing buildings of 30 stories or more Banking214 (or anyone else familiar enough with Dallas to respond), how many such structures are there in Dallas?

and it proved to be just as ignorant and pointless as your segment about sprawl. *Quote deleted. No flame wars allowed.

And look up any objective study of sprawl... you will find that Houston is definitely NOT the capital of sprawl.

Banking214, how about if we try to get to the bottom of this, so to speak? Help me out here, if you can,... how many residential buildings are there in Dallas that stand at 25 stories or more? A list of buildings would be most helpful. I'm just not familiar enough with Dallas to know.

... and agree or disagree, the stadium financings were put to a vote of, and approved by, the citizens of Houston.

Bland, maybe, but uncreative? It seems someone is actually being quite creative to come up with a name like "Boulder Creek" for an area with nothing larger than a pebble... perhaps too creative. ;-) Now let's just imagine the uproar on this board if they had named it "Pebble Creek"

Thank you for the info on your "other source". I'm sorry I had overlooked that link. I see they came up with their metro estimates by adding up the Census Bureau estimates for the component counties. I do not understand why it takes the Census Bureau many months to perform that mathematical exercise. ;-) As to the CSA's, you are quite right that they are officially termed "Combined Statistical Areas". Nevertheless, they are often, one could say, routinely, referred to as metropolitan areas (perhaps not with a capital "m" and capital "a") and a reference to a CSA as a metropolitan area did not justify the hostile reaction it received earlier in this thread. As to Fort Worth or Tarrant County meeting the "official classification of a 'suburb'": Of course, it seems rather obvious that parts of Tarrant County would be considered suburban (whatever that "official classification" might be; I'm not actually aware of any offiical definition of "suburb"), but it is equally obvious that not all of Tarrant County would be considered suburban. On what are you basing your conclusion? Your understanding of Metropolitan Divisions appears to be incorrect. The definition of "Metropolitan Division" is: "one or more main/secondary counties that represent an employment center or centers, plus adjacent counties associated with the main county or counties through commuting ties." A county qualifies as a "main county" of a metropolitan division if 65% or more of its employed residents work within the county and the ratio of the number of jobs located in the county to the number of employed residents of the county is at least .75. A "main county" automatically serves as the basis for a Metropolitan Division. There is also a "secondary county" category. Then all other counties in the MSA are grouped with the Main County or Secondary County groupings with which they have the highest employment interchange measure. Sounds like commute patterns to me... As someone said earlier in this thread, "Please educate yourself on the topic." ;-)

I was just looking through this thread and noticed the dispute over the 2004 estimates. The problem is that your 2004 numbers are taken from the "American Community Survey" which "is limited to the household population and excludes the population living in institutions, college dormitories, and other group quarters." Thus it is not really comparable to the "census" numbers or census estimates. The 2004 Census estimates are: Chicago: 2,862,244 Houston: 2,012,626 The Census Bureau has now released the 2004 estimates for metropolitan areas: Houston Metropolitan Area: 5,180,443 Houston Combined Statistical Area: 5,280,752

Have condo highrises really caught on more in Dallas than in Houston? Are there really that many more of them in Dallas?