Thanks for the updates. Great shots from MainPlace.

How did you manage to get up there on the balcony (if you don't mind my asking)? That isn't open to the public, is it?

^
No, its not open to the public, but I just went and found a manager of the building, told them I was taking pictures for a skyscraper forum and they let me go up to the balcony, which was still a vacant floor at the time.

And it was that easy?

^
I have professional camera gear and for whatever reason most of the time, it makes people take you more seriously, and its easier to get into places you usually cant. I dont understand why, but it just works. I've gotten into a lot of the taller buildings downtown and in the medical district just by being nice to some employee that works there and sometimes people bring me up to their offices to take pictures out their windows. The cops arent usually too fond of my camera gear though when Im taking pictures on the street, and the people in the Chase Tower dont like camera gear either, so I have to hide it whenever I go in there.

http://assets.bizjournals.com/housto...n/12.9.jpg?v=1

Link

Link

Love it, reminds me of The Aqua in Chicago.

I like it.

Dang, I hope that gets built, I love the design. I counted about 40 stories in that render.

New Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan building for personalized cancer care.

http://www.rdmag.com/uploadedImages/...errsonx250.jpg

http://www.rdmag.com/Lab-Design-News...d-Cancer-Care/

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=Qgrd88hYLLY" target="_blank">Video Link

It looks like things are picking up again! Where is that though? There wasnt an address for it. Im assuming its in the Medical Center, but where?

It's at the southeast corner of Moursund St. and M.D. Anderson Blvd.

^
Its really good that are researching pancreatic cancer, my grandpa, great grandpa, and great uncle on my moms side have all died from pancreatic cancer, and once you know you have it, thats it, youre done.

Houston officials will unveil sweeping plan for 'Convention District'
By NANCY SARNOFF, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Updated 11:41 p.m., Sunday, January 1, 2012

The newest vision for the eastern edge of downtown includes hotels and residential buildings in place of what are now parking lots.

Officials also picture a bustling pedestrian scene where shops and restaurants line the streets leading to the city's 1.2-million-square-foot George R. Brown Convention Center, which, too, would grow as part of their plan.




http://www.chron.com/business/articl...or-2434156.php

^
Awesome, hopefully all that gets implemented.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/-1-1.jpg
http://www.chron.com/business/articl...or-2434156.php
Pictures from article. I would love to see all of this built, but what I envision unfortunately happening will be that half of that stuff will get built, the rest of those lots will be turned into parking garages for some of those projects. I hope thats not the case, but developers in downtown Houston love instead of incorporating parking structures into buildings, they just like taking up the lot next to their building with a miserable parking garage.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...herland/-2.jpg
http://www.chron.com/business/articl...or-2434156.php

Render of new convention center Hotel across from the Hilton.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...herland/-3.jpg
http://www.chron.com/business/articl...or-2434156.php

In the above plan it looks like something will be built in front of the Embassy Suites to hopefully cover up a little bit of that disgrace of a building that faces Houstons premier public park.


Seeing all of this new possible developments makes my heart race and I cant wait to see construction start once again!!!! Seeing parking lots disappear makes me a happy man. In that first render, seeing no parking lots is just ah, amazing! The only problem unfortunately right now is that Discovery Green is so packed because there is usually cheap parking available right across the street for the suburbanites to park their cars so they dont have to walk too far. If all of these surface lots get covered up, where will people park? There is some parking under Discovery Green but its like 10 bucks or so, when parking on the surface lots is usually 5 bucks. I hope they at least have a parking garage built into one of these future buildings that has public cheap parking and not just for residents or workers of the buildings and instead for Disco Green patrons. If the parking goes away, so does the crowds. There's always a caveat.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On another note, I was just reading Swamplot and found more info and a more detailed map of what may happen around Minute Maid Park in the future.

City Playing Musical Blocks with Downtown Houses
http://swamplot.com/city-playing-mus...es/2011-11-03/

It's also about time someone cleans up the area under 59, that place is a hot mess and a blight. All around it looks like some amazing things are about to start; very exciting! But all of this could take years upon years to complete, maybe even 2020, who knows? I have been hearing a lot about the new convention center hotel though at least, so that could start fairly soon. The rest of the stuff in the renders is probably just speculation to the best of my knowledge.

This new render just seems to be expanding upon this old render from maybe 3 years ago or so. I guess we will just have to see how it all pans out.
http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...en-embassy.jpg
http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/h...tion-district/

The convention center hotel in this old render seems to still have the same basic design as the new render shows interestingly enough.

And another one right by the new Whole Foods.

http://houston.culturemap.com/newsde...se-in-houston/
http://static.culturemap.com/site_me....800w_600h.jpg

^
Thats pretty puke inducing suburban highway side hotel type architecture right there, but at least its density; wish we didnt just have to settle for crap in order to get density. This city should be better than that.

Oooo the convention area looks awesome. It would be insane to see that stuff get built. Hope it starts soon. Very Kewl...

:cool:

Anyone?

I will make a list later tonight.

That convention district would be amazing! Sure would love to see that done. Get rid of the parking lots. =)

The Problem with the convention district is the convention center itself. It, along with the freeway, cuts off access to the rest of the city and creates really bad dead zones which will choke development of retail. the Convention Center along is a huge space with a single use that becomes an albatross when empty.

While the discovery Green is an Improvement over the sea of Parking in the past; I think how the whole downtown is designed is going to hold back development in the future.

Houston is not alone in this problem. The area around McCormick Place is dead because of the same issues. Even the Javits Center in Manhattan makes it's surroundings suffer the same fate as the rest of them; proving that almost no concentration of density and land values can salvage the dead zones the crop up around convention centers.

New downtown tower could take shape

A new skyscraper in downtown Houston could be announced this year, a sign of strength in the local property market, real estate executives said Thursday.

via the Houston Barnacle...


http://www.chron.com/business/articl...pe-2444724.php

^
I also read in that article that the Houston Club building next to the Chase tower had been sold and possibly demoed. Houston has no respect for its older stock of buildings. Hopefully they dont do that and just restore it, but thats doubtful.

Gray: Prudential building scheduled for implosion Sunday

By Lisa Gray, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Updated 05:53 a.m., Friday, January 6, 2012

http://www.chron.com/life/gray/artic...on-2444072.php

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3189/2...22d8d06857.jpg
Freelance by RJarrin, on Flickr

Why doesn't Hines propose a mixed use office/ residential building for the Texas/ Main site? It is a very historic intersection, it would continue he residential presence of the Rice Hotel, and I believe Hines have these type of projects in their portfolio.

I really Hines considers thinking outside of the box for this project. They talk a big game about caring about Houston's urban future but continue to give us pedestal skyscrapers. While Mai9n Place was an improvement (from the street level) let's hope they take it to the next level.

I hate articles like that. When you read through it, you find out there are no announcements, just a vague speculation that "downtown is ripe for new skyscrapers". Disappointing. Will wait for some real news.

What a shame. That is a beautiful building.

Here are some photos of my recent excursion downtown on my bike to grab lunch at the Phoenicia market at the bottom of One Park Place. OPP place isn't too bike friendly, I had to park my bike in DiscoGreen and walk.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7152/6...8111a11264.jpg
DiscoGreenBuildings by dv1033

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7168/6...9cc37f8e8c.jpg
One Park Place by dv1033

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7031/6...60738d2124.jpg
HessDiscoGreen by dv1033, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7175/6...7382810559.jpg
Phoenicia by dv1033, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7155/6...1c22b7b60c.jpg
PhoeniciaLine by dv1033, on Flickr

Some of BG Group Place (Main Place)

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7022/6...b3160a3f80.jpg
MainPlace by dv1033, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7020/6...48e3365404.jpg
MainPlaceTrio by dv1033, on Flickr

So did all or most of Discovery Green's trees survive the drought so far? I was in Houston recently and was shocked to see that Memorial Park has very few living trees remaining. I'm hoping that the trees in Discovery Green were watered.

Discovery Green wasn't really effected by the drought I believe. Btw anyone have any recent news of 5 Allen Center?

Yea the trees in Discovery Green were watered. Hermann Park was hit pretty bad as well, but Memorial Park is definitely the worst.

Update:

Went on a bike ride through Hermann Park and they've cut down the dead trees...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7171/6...ec6ba5aa6f.jpg
HermannParkDrought by dv1033, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7156/6...d309de816c.jpg
HermannParkDrought2 by dv1033, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7166/6...565f111d3d.jpg
HermannParkTheatre by dv1033, on Flickr

Took some pictures yesterday of new stuff going up.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/co3.jpg
The Dynamo Stadium.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/co4.jpg
The new lightrail line expansion of the east end line and the southeast line. I asked a guy when they are laying track and they said in June, so well see how that pans out. They are just expanding the streets and doing wiring work right now. On the north red line expansion there is going to be an elevated station, didnt know that. Heres a link to metrorails page on lightrail updates if you are interested.

http://www.ridemetro.org/CurrentProj...Expansion.aspx

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/co2.jpg
The 22 story BBVA Bank building being built near the Galleria, it will be completed in 2014.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...herland/co.jpg
Same building

If anyone forget or never saw it, heres the render for the building.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...ndering280.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&s...1t:429,r:0,s:0

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/co7.jpg
This has been completed for a little bit, but never saw any pictures of it, the new M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center in the medical center.

Here are just some extra photos I took downtown last night.
http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c.../h5beforrw.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...3beforrw-1.jpg
Oh and Im going downtown to watch them blow up that building in the medical center, cant miss that. I dont know if there are any plans to replace it, but I hope it becomes something more than another parking lot.

Also rode by the Natural Science Museum Expansion. If you didn't know, they are building ~115,000 sf of new exhibit (mostly dinosaur exhibits) and classroom space, which is set to open late 2012:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7153/6...f5647c37fd.jpg
NewMuseum by dv1033, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7012/6...c179ae6bcc.jpg
NewMuseumCorner by dv1033, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7172/6...c05bba0cb8.jpg
NewMuseumWidth by dv1033, on Flickr

All in all, at two stories it is a pretty modest expansion with not much flare.

^
I just drove by that last night, its a pretty boring exterior and not very inviting, oh well.

Personally, I wouldn't go that far, although it is pretty conservative. It fits nicely with the current museum exterior in my opinion, but could have used some more glass.

I believe they have said 3-10 years until they develop something on that land. There were two more buildings from a ten year old master plan that included the Mays Clinic and the Cancer Prevention buildings to the East and South of the Prudential building. Those buildings would have gone on the lot that contains the Prudential building. Of course, since then they have done the Alkek expansion and recently started on the Khalifa building. They also built the new Administrative building (to replace Prudential), and a new Faculty Center tower.

So while they have still been doing tons of construction, it's hard to say when they will get to this site.

It's really sad about the trees at Hermann and Memorial Parks. I hope this damn drought is over soon, and the trees are replaced as soon as possible.

I realize that Memorial Park was too large and too dense with forest to prevent the damage from a practical standpoint, but it seems like Hermann Park trees could have been saved. I keep wondering why the huge corporations in Houston couldn't have paid for the water to save those trees. It would have only taken periodic watering of each tree to keep them alive. They wouldn't have looked great but could have survived.

On my last visit, I also noticed that the younger trees along the medians all over Houston didn't survive in many places. Again, couldn't the corporations have paid for some water? The cost of replacement, if it ever occurs, will be much greater. From what I've read, the East Texas lakes supplying water to Houston received pretty good amounts of rainfall, so were not dangerously low like those near Austin. If there was enough water to allow residents in Houston to water their lawns once or twice per week, then it seems that there was enough water to keep the trees in public areas alive.

Since I don't live there, I may not have entirely correct information. Houstonians please correct me if any of my assumptions are incorrect.

With fog and low cloud cover the implosion tomorrow should break almost every window around it.

they blew up the old Prudential Building at 11:15... I watched the streaming video of it :)

Well I went down to see the demolition. There was quite a large crowd. Here's a short video of it. Unfortunately I wasn't expecting them to be so punctual after it being delayed so many times, so I wasn't quite ready for when it started.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10liimeD7qU

^
I was there too, I was up on the Holiday Inn roof but they kicked me off. I must have walked past your like 10 times trying to find a good vantage point. I eventually gave up and tried to get on other roofs and The Medical Science Building manager let me get up on their roof where there were a couple other people. You guys down there got smothered in dust pretty quick, I could see everyone running from where I was.

I have a bunch of pictures from todays demolition, so sorry for people who have slow internet speeds.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...herland/de.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/de1.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/de3.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/de5.jpg''

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/de6.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/de7.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...erland/de9.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/de10.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/de11.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/de12.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/de14.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/de15.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/de16.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/de18.jpg

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/de20.jpg

Hi,
I'm a long time lurker in this forum, and I've noticed that some of you have posted links to my Flickr photos in the past. I thought I'd post my own YouTube video of the implosion here.

http://youtu.be/6Tvn9yY2BWY

What a fucking shame...

Hard to believe people applauding something so sad. But then again, most of them weren't around when this building was actually appreciated for it's architectural style.

Must have been really healthy for the people who inhaled the asbestos dust from the building.

Thats Houston for ya. Weve lost a couple of good buildings in the last year. Obviously the one today, the old YMCA building, the gutting of the amazing interior of the deco Alabama Theater; Ive never been in there but heard that they had gutted it or are gutting it. Im sure Im missing a few others, not to mention the daily demolition of old houses in the Heights area.

Well Houston isn't NYC or similar city where space and land values are high enough to justify pouring the money into restoring older buildings. This building, along with the old YMCA were simply way too expensive just to bring up to code. Far cheaper to just demo and rebuild here.

I don't really think most people in Texas really give a crap about architectural style in all honesty, especially when you consider they're very fiscally conservative and don't want to waste any "Taxpayer" money on restoring some old building.