Exactly. The adjustment that the urbanist must make with regards to new urbanist type projects in rapidly growing metropolisis in the Sunblet is that these urbanist projects will typically make a quirky concession to the traditional autocentric sensibilities of a significant portion of its clientelle. Even so called urbanists in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, etc will behave in a more autocentric manner than would someone from a traditional urban locale (SF, NY, Boston, Chicago, etc). Anyone who is being honest with themself as a developer and wishes to have a (financially) successful project understands this.

As for 2727 Kirby... I'm with Complex. I'm really anxious to see the building rise. Not just for the sheer energy it will bring to the Kirby Corridor but because I really dig the way the building looks.

What do you mean by the westheimer tower?

Exactly...Better yet, why is it taking so long to build out the other proposed rail/BRT lines? I know they've changed some of their plans and there's been some resistance along Richmond, but can't Metro start building somewhere? I mean, didn't we decide to do this over three years ago?

Construction on the proposed lines (particularly the BRT along the North Main and Harrisburg corridors) is tentatively scheduled for 2009. The hope is to have the Richmond E-W corridor ready to go by then as well.

It's not just up to METRO to start building like they did with the Red Line. This time, they'll have to receive federal financial support for these projects, and up until last fall, they didn't exactly have anyone in the federal government on their side.

The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, I guess. It's amazing how they can fast-track something like the I-10 expansion but not light rail for the city. I bet this project would move way faster if it got the same level support from John Culberson's office as the Katy Freeway did...

Anyway, this topic is probably better addressed in HAIF than here, but it is a hot button of mine.

Driving up 45 today and saw a huge area of land cleared at the Beltway and the N. freeway across from Greenspoint Mall. Anybody have any idea? I believe it's a big warehouse, but I'm not sure. I caught a glimpse of the sign and only caught "...business park..."

No idea but they have been working on it for quite a while. You're right, its a huge stretch of land. There has been a great deal of expansion on the beltway between 290 and 45 as well as that stretch right there.... business parks and warehouses going up everywhere.

They are pretty close to finishing the new 5 story bank on 1960 close to Humble. Looks pretty decent so far..

I thought the Houston area taxpayers were paying for METRO Solutions. I thought the only federal funding issue at play was whether or not we would have the opportunity to upgrade the Bus Rapid Transit systems to light rail as was proposed by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and has as yet not been able to recieve support in Congress.

I thought the only work going on right now is designing the system and garnering whether or not there is political support and approval for the design of the system.

O'Connor and Associates came out with their first quarter 2007 office report for the city of Houston. There's plenty of good news...

2,100,000 square feet were absorbed in the first 3 months of 2007.

Class A office space is running a 91.7% occupany rate. That is VERY healthy and indicates we should be hearing about a few more big developments soon from the likes of Hines (on Main St. downtown), Brookfield (Allen Center Garage tower maybe?), Crescent (a 6 Houston Center), and Linbeck (mixed-use for historic area downtown). It's also good news for the people building office space in places like Regent Square, The Oaks District, and BLVD Place.

Things are getting very tight around town. It appears that downtown might see more cranes than she has since the early 1980s.

I love the new news.

as do I. :)

When can we expect renderings or news on any of the planned towers DT? I've heard them proposed, but that's it. I hope the others turn out better than Discovery Tower will. I really expected more out of that building. What a pity.

The Chronicle mentioned today that the island in South Shore Harbour (League City) will be renamed Beacon Island and it will have 800 residential units added (including 180 in twin twenty-five story condo towers).

With these twins, the 2 proposed for Kemah, The Endeavour, The Endeavour Parkside, The 2 Endeavour Loft towers (at the Marina), the Apollo Marriott and a few others, the Clear Lake area is really starting to take off!

Yeah, a new skyline is rising in Southeast Texas!

Another new tower!
 

Moody National purchased land at the corner of Cambridge @ Woodbury near the Texas Medical Center and they plan to put up a residential tower.

CAMBRIDGE TOWER will have 200 rental units and break ground in early 2008 with an opening set for 2009. Total cost of the build out will be $35 million. The location is near the VA Hospital as well as the area Baylor Med is planning on building their own teaching hospital.

No news yet on architecture firms or height...

Don't you love how "inactive" Houston is. LOL!!!

Ho hum...

compared to the early 80's and mid 90's it kinda is.

The Houston Dynamo will be building their stadium downtown. Pearland and Sugar Land dropped their bids.

Mid 90's? :stunned:

I don't think there is a city in the US currently except for NYC and maybe Chi that could compare to Houston's scraper boom of the 80's. No, but Houston has never been this economically healthy in years if people are actually paying attention.

I agree with you about the economic health of the city. We have diversified beyond energy to a great extent and have a great airport and seaport and a huge amount of immigration to boot... Houston is expected to grow its population much more than many large US cities. Thinks can only get better and better. Exponential growth...

Here's the first rendering from the University of Houston's master plan. This is the 1,000 bed and mixed-use graduate level housing that should start construction soon.

http://athena.divshare.com/s03/files...0/Picture6.jpg

Is that at the main campus?

famous last words!

Thanks for the rendering Shasta. The design was very expected IMO but still nice.

Yes. It will rise near the Law School and Bauer School of Biz.

A second garage with ground floor retail is also due to go up near Robertson Stadium later this year too (the first opened near the Moody Towers earlier in the school year).

In 15 years, the main campus will look nothing like it currently does. Plans are for almost every surface lot to be replaced by garages, green space, and new construction.

Any information on the University Rail Line? Do we know how close the rail is going to campus? I can envision UH being one of the most cutting edge urban campuses with the plan and rail.

Here is some more info on the master plan:

http://www.advancement.uh.edu/masterplan/

Here is the power point. The only info on rail connections is slide 44

http://www.advancement.uh.edu/master...ps#533,1,Slide 1

UH is going to look good in ten years.

i remember the 80's...downtown looked like dubai.

when i first moved (back) here in 1997, there was a lot of construction going on. not downtown (except for enron II) but other areas all over the city. now the construction has been concentrated on residential and the medical center. back then it was predominantly mid-rise office buildings.

If we are talking about high rise buildings or anything noticeable, construction was pretty much non existent in the 90's. Know that two of the three high rises that I can think of that were constructed in the 90's were prettty much leftovers from the 80's boom. St Lukes in the TMC and some building out in Westchase. There was one building built downtown and that was the Harris County Criminal building. To say what we are experiencing now does not compare to the 90's is kind of a stretch.

Houston must have been insane back in the late '70's and early '80's. I keep trying to find photographs of the city from that period, but have never had much luck. I've found lots from the 50's and 60's and then again in the '90's, but I would love to see what the city looked like when its skyline was rising up.

the first pic is from "the mid to late 1970s." 2 houston center was completed in 1974 so the pic its at least that old
the second is obviously from 1979
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...59/aerial2.gif
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...khotel1979.jpg

i live in the galleria. many of the residential high-rises were built in late 90's apart from dominion and the new one where coney island was. 9/11 quashed the momentum and only now is it rebounding.

like i said, a load of medium sized buildings (5-6 stories) sprung up all over town in mid the 90's..the kind you drive by and don't give two thoughts about. the 3 new BMC buildings as well as briarlake plaza were just a few of the dozens of buildings to popped up in west houston then. today there are more high profile projects but still at a lower frequency. at least that's my impression.

Yeah, Uptown was getting big in the 90's, while Downtown was stable.

Thanks for the great pictures. Looks like DT was pretty much dominated by Shell, Exxon, and Houston Center back then. I can't believe all the open space to the east of Houston Center...it's almost 30 years later and we're still trying to fill all of that in!!

I'll have to look around. It seems that someone in my family once had a framed picture from about 1982 that was taken from I-45 looking south. I remember that Wells Fargo (Allied Bank Plaza) was still under construction in the picture and the Bank of America tower did not exist. Pennzoil pretty much dominated the center of the skyline between Texas Commerce (Chase Tower) and the Allied Bank construction. I'll post it if I can find a copy to scan.

that sounds pretty cool. i hope you find it.

Yeah...I'll ask around to see if anyone still has it. Meanwhile, I was Googling for images and ran across this article. It's loaded with pictures and it's a fascinating account from that time period. I wish they had gotten around to building the Bank of the Southwest before everything fell apart. That thing had to have been a good 1300' tall!

Thats a great article.

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare...5/bankofsw.gif
If only it were built...

/\ NO kidding, what a tower. Chase should have 5 extra stories but it hit height problems from approaches to Hobby.

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, A Houston tradition since 1975

Does that mean there is a CBD height limit in effect?

Most likely.

I've heard that about Chase. However, this article says that Bank of the Southwest was planned for 83 stories, plus a spire. I wonder why would there have been a height limit for Chase and not for this building?

chase tower was planned in late 70's while BSW was planned in early 80's so i would imagine the FAA changed their policy.

Good point. You know, another thing about that article that caught my eye was that DT office vacancy in 1981 at the height of the boom was at around 5%, and towers were going up despite the high interest rates at that time. Aren't we at 5% vacancy now? The overall business climate also seems more favorable as compared to 1981. Why aren't we seeing more DT offices going up now?!!

Great find with that article, RocTX! What a fascinating "recent historical" perspective to read. I had to laugh out loud at her assertion about the tall buildings precipitating cloud formation, though!

Fun stuff :tup:

I know the vacancy rate is low but I don't think its as low as 5%. I thought I remembered the number being discussed here but I went all the way back to the 13th page and found nothing. From my memory (and I could be wrong) the vacancy rate was somewhere around 9-12%.

I remember an article stating it is lower than 10% now.

Here are more photos of One Park Tower (from HAIF):

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...rkTowerCon.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...kTowerCon2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...kTowerCon3.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...kTowerCon4.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...kTowerCon5.jpg

right across from the new park and the hilton

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/2372/whatse6.jpg


http://www.westaveriveroaks.com has new images
pavilions, what could have been.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4060/gallery5ko3.jpg

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7...etlevelxw6.jpg

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/1...celevelkm2.jpg