Naviguessor Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 103 acres? How Big is that, really? ExxonMobile is somewhere close to 400 acres, right? "Research and Development Facilities" are not likely to be located in High-rise buildings downtown, anyway." I don't think that this land purchase has anything to do with the downtown campus or tower. If "Shelved" is different than "Delayed" then its a separate issue, IMO. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triton Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 But... wait... weren't we told they were going to build a campus in Conroe? ;-) That was Shell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houstontexasjack Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Naviguessor--I tend to nitpick the verbiage used in articles. I agree with you that it is unlikely an R&D facility would have been located Downtown. My understanding was that the new tower would mainly house corporate employees. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 (edited) That was Shell. We were also told the same thing about Chevron. You remember. . . a very wealthy father of a friend of a friend ... Chevron woke up one day and noticed that Exxon had recently invented the suburban campus, which was already wildly successful months before the first people moved in... In a panic, Chevron shopped their downtown buildings and started plans to move to Conroe. LOL Naviguessor--I tend to nitpick the verbiage used in articles. I agree with you that it is unlikely an R&D facility would have been located Downtown. My understanding was that the new tower would mainly house corporate employees. There is nothing to be gained by presuming that a Houston journalist has chosen his/her words carefully. ;-) Edited June 9, 2014 by Houston19514 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 It seems unlikely to me this will get built.1. Most people and businesses follow a Herd mentality - others (Energy companies around Houston) are building campus settings near where people live so we should too, says the team we have looking at the options.2. Since these companies all compete for talent, that would be another incentive not to build downtown so we can chase the same limited pool of labor the others are going for.3. Pendulum swing? as downtown gains residential that could change, but not for 20 years, I suspect. Houston needs to look at ways of waging a PR battle to get these companies to look downtown again I think. The biggest game-changer to me would be reliable transport from distant points to downtown which takes decades and a visionary leader to accomplish, I haven't seen that except for the glimmer in the Downtown Living Initiative.4. I am sure the campus makes a lot of sense for the folks they want to attract. I would like to compare the average employee demographics at an energy firm in Houston to a technology company in San Francisco. Say compare Andarko to Pinterest. I would suspect there is a one to two decade difference in ages, and that the energy company staff is looking to set up a house in the suburbs near good schools not be a hipster in an urban setting.5. I wish it weren't so, do we really need to recreate Los Angeles and be spread out so much?6. Was the height of the 1980's in Houston an aberration based on ego, optimism, and trophy tower building and now we are returning to what actually fits all the land we have around us, more moderate height buildings? I actually prefer the tall stuff but am not seeing much of it these days. In spite of all that, there is almost zero reason to think this will not be built. Remember, Chevron also recently bought an additional block of downtown land. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arche_757 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 We were also told the same thing about Chevron. You remember. . . a very wealthy father of a friend of a friend ... Chevron woke up one day and noticed that Exxon had recently invented the suburban campus, which was already wildly successful months before the first people moved in... In a panic, Chevron shopped their downtown buildings and started plans to move to Conroe. LOL There is nothing to be gained by presuming that a Houston journalist has chosen his/her words carefully. ;-) You may have been refering to some one else's past post..? I posted (and much fuss was raised over this) that an architect working on a "large" project up in the north part of town reported that he heard directly from his boss about a "large energy company" project also up in the north part of town that would commence when the other "large" project ended. Supposing that was about Chevron/Phillips? Could have been Shell? Could have been Anadarko? I don't know, and my friend did not elaborate further because he was not 100% sure? I then surmised that "perhaps Chevron would scrap the plans for the tower downtown?", to which I added - "I did not know what they planned on doing!" Assuming that maybe they were the "large energy company?" I haven't a clue what Chevron will do, but I think it would be silly to have such big plans announced and then cancel them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mollusk Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 IIRC, there was another thread out there concerning another of the majors doing some R & D rearranging of facilities. Some commenters described why the physical needs of an R & D facility are not particularly conducive to being crammed into a regular downtown office highrise - which sounded sensible to me. Which is a roundabout way of saying that having an R & D campus out in the burbs and a corporate office building or three downtown are not inherently mutually exclusive. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArchFan Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 (edited) Well, I can relate some personal experience, albeit not very recent. I used to work in R&D at Chevron, about the time they were moving people downtown. I think most of the R&D work they do could be done downtown. The most likely exception would be work that requires laboratory equipment, but frankly, most of the work I was close to involved software development and/or field work that involved actually being out where the oil is. Chevron still has a very nice campus in San Ramon, CA. A very nice work environment. But, they have moved most of the upstream R&D people there to downtown Houston (well, at least the ones who didn't quit or retire because they didn't want to come to Houston). I don't have any special insider knowledge, but it seems to me that Chevron would be likely to continue downtown and not build a big suburban campus. If they did, it would be a major course change from the direction they've been going in the last 10 or so years. Edited June 10, 2014 by ArchFan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urbannizer Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoustonIsHome Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 Shut up!!I like it.So wish it was going up now 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxman Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 Hmmm, very plain jane. Glad to see that the effort is still being put forth in renderings which I guess means they're still moving forward with this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloud713 Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 Glad to see that the effort is still being put forth in renderings which I guess means they're still moving forward with this?thats what i took from it as well. heh, hopefully were right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 It looks like they are planning on adding space on top of the parking garage on the right as well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montrose1100 Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 It will be a great addition to the skyline, from all angles. Was keeping my fingers crossed it would have gained a few floors. I think an 850ft skyscraper there could really play nicely with the Wells Fargo & Chase Tower. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H-Town Man Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 Hmmm, very plain jane. Glad to see that the effort is still being put forth in renderings which I guess means they're still moving forward with this?Seems like most of the effort and creativity is going into areas that only employees will see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naviguessor Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 I don't think that this is anything new...just renderings that we haven't seen and a few more details, like the additional space atop the garage. Still looks good to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 It will be a great addition to the skyline, from all angles. Was keeping my fingers crossed it would have gained a few floors. I think an 850ft skyscraper there could really play nicely with the Wells Fargo & Chase Tower. I count 50 stories on top of a 3 story pedestal for a total of 53 stories. Is that what we had with the earlier renderings? I too would love to see it grow to at least 850 feet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arche_757 Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 This is going to be a very big building! It would appear to be quite a bit taller than the former Continental Tower - which is around 740' tall. Probably will be the fourth tallest when completed in 2056. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Owl Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 it's a huge box with a butt crack. Still disappointed with it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metro West Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 This is going to be an awesome tower. People are going to love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houstontexasjack Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 It will have a light up feature on the top. I am glad to see that. The nighttime skyline will continue to improve, albeit incrementally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arche_757 Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 I miss the old Continental lights... for more than one reason. A shame that airline is gone. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky-guy Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 It'll fit in perfectly. Very Houston-ish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purdueenginerd Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 This rendering appears to be more in scale with the surrounding buildings. That will be a dominating highrise on the skyline... especially from 10 and 45. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
htownproud Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 My god. People complain about an old falling down house being town down on this site, as well as complain about a huge 53 story skyscraper going up. Makes me question whether people really want the city to urbanize . . . . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
democide Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 My god. People complain about an old falling down house being town down on this site, as well as complain about a huge 53 story skyscraper going up. Makes me question whether people really want the city to urbanize . . . . You mean the old YMCA? That's been gone a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus Allen Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Best guesstimates as to when it will break ground? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howard Huge Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Best guesstimates as to when it will break ground?I'd say probably as soon as they break ground. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus Allen Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Lololololol! It's late and that's funny. Ok. Got it. Not a done deal yet. Too bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloud713 Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 i believe they vote on the tower at the end of the year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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