......

Those other names are mountains and other geological features in West Texas. Candelaria is a small town in Presidio County.

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...in-worlds.html
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http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/pr...-not-much.html

I love themed street names for neighborhoods. A famous artists and a famous composers one would be cool.

Mozart
Beethoven
Bach
Strauss
Brahms
Holst
Mahler
Verdi
Wagner
Copland
Gershwin
Sibelius
Liszt

those could all be cool names. Then you have

Cezanne
Monet
Matisse
Braque
Mondrian
Rubens
O'Keeffe
Whistler
Da Vinci
Picasso
Renoir
Bernini
Degas
Klimt

and so on

Yea, Piedras Blanco is great, really, what dumbass came up with that.....anybody who has the slightest clue about Spanish knows those 2 words go together like that. Piedras Blancas would have been correct. However, hands down the best street name in town is Cockburn. hahahaha

After having lunch today at Hecho en Mexico, which is at the intersection of William Cannon and Escarpment, I headed east on William Cannon and saw a street called Hitching Post and another called Fence Line. These streets are in a beautiful neighborhood and the street names don't even begin to match the neighborhood. Really silly names.

Best street name I've ever come across was in Hilton Head, SC. Check this out:

Ghost Crab Way

Hands down, the greatest concentration of stupid street names I've ever seen is browsing the exurb subdivisions of Las Vegas on Google Earth. The developers there clearly didn't try to pretend they weren't fresh out of normal names after a point.

Real examples: Remembrance Hill Street, Raindrop Canyon Avenue, Pewter Pheasant Avenue and Antique Sterling Court (both in the same subd.), Homerun Champ Drive (among a subd. full of baseball themed streets), Rustic Galleon Street, Briney Deep Avenue, Spindrift Cove Street....these developers should stop building houses in Vegas no one is buying and start writing fantasy novels.

Sorry for derailing this thread for a minute there :P Who's got a photo update of something!

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...th-beyond.html
PDF file of slide presentation:
http://assets.bizjournals.com/austin...h%20Summit.pdf

Graph images:
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...=image_gallery

Conversely, wish we had Pearl and Museum Reach, and a Tobin Center, Western Art Museum thang happening. The historic re-use in SA is simply brilliant! It is the only large Texas city that hasn't bulldozed most traces of the past. And I hope it keeps what's left.

Soon any address bordering the Broadway neighborhood will be a very urban one, as desirable as any further north. Am loving watching the changes on google maps, and of course right here.

I think your "height phase" is about to hit downtown too. It's all about to connect up (only my opinion). Texas 2 cool cities. Cheers! :)

Wanna hear a strange street name? Try Jinx Ave. The street I live on...

If only Austin had done the same thing.

Marriott: Looks like they've reached the bottom in parts, rebar for large columns are on site, appear to be drilling.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8065/8...103bff48_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8487/8...a6a4497a_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8205/8...e59a8bcd_b.jpg


Federal Courthouse: All the fences around it have been removed; walked by the other night you could see office furniture inside. Looks like it's close to being done. This one has grown on me over time, but the big plastic walls on top ruin the whole thing.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8488/8...02d2e4e4_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8199/8...a2dab07f_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8207/8...d28305e3_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8204/8...da48a601_c.jpg

The courthouse turned out way better than expected.

Yeah, I'm liking the texture of the facade. It's interesting, and it reminds me of the limestone cut-outs along Loop 360.

My understanding is that the original developer was enchanted with all things Hawaiian. Unfortunately the Lost Pines area of Bastrop does not have a damn thing about it that is remotely Hawaiian. I always thought the that the neighborhood suffered in terms of property values because of the cheesy Hawaiian theme. It is (or was before the fire) an area of nice hills and dense pine forest adjacent to the Colorado River. It always reminded me of areas outside of Atlanta or somewhere in the deep South.

Unfortunately, though, the courthouse is like a nice little gem surrounded by a giant turd - the building is absolutely hideous when you are walking by on the south side of 5th Street. I actually really like the design of the main building, and the pavilion in front of Republic Square park is very nice. However, walking past the building on 5th Street all you can see are those giant, barren concrete slabs - it looks like something out of Iraq. The walls are so tall that near the west end of 5th street you can't actually see the building at all. During construction I thought those "holes" in the wall (you can see them in priller's last picture) would serve some purpose, like having panels installed or something. When they took down the construction fences and those walls were left like completely bare like they are, I got really sad. It looks like unfinished construction on that side.

I could be wrong but I believe the walls are a safety barrier. One reason why San Antonio Street stops at the courthouse is regulations since 9/11 in protecting federal courthouses from a terrorist attack. I would assume those walls are designed to deflect anything from the 5th street side.

I personally love the finished courthouse a ton. I've been using the San Antonio portion as a coffee spot. I recommend it.

I think this is right, except I'm pretty sure the regulations came after the Federal building was bombed in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh.