This crosshatched highrise shows up in a recently published marketing video as a potential development to densify the low-slung Uptown Park. The 50,000-sq.-ft. site HFF and AmREIT seem to have in mind for these apartments-upon-retail is right off the Loop, across Uptown Park Blvd. from the Ziegler Cooper-designed 27-story Villa d’Este condo tower — a site occupied now by a 12,000-sq.-ft. 1-story building at the northern end of the low-density Euro-style shopping spread.
***
The video, posted a month ago, says that the property will become available for redevelopment next spring.
- Uptown Park Development Opportunity [HFF via Vimeo]
- Previously on Swamplot: Borlenghi: Houstonians Unclear on the European Concept
More towering pretense.
I thought that Villa D Este had gone bankrupt?? anyone know? If so, why would you build anotherr tower by it?? oh yea, intrest rates are low!!!
That whole uptown site is underutilized. I hope they build it!
Just because you can’t afford it, does not make it pretentious.
I like the design. I like this building. Ground Retail you say? score!
Not being able to afford living in the building doesn’t make the building pretentious, but those domed towers sure do. Roco-whoa.
Villa D’Este is condos, not apartments, and has been sold out for over a decade now. I don’t know where you got your info, but check your facts first.
Yes, Villa D’Este has been a major success–as far as this project goes or anything like it, I don’t pay any attention until I actually see dirt moving –I wish I had a dime for all of the projects announced in Houston that never came to fruition –I’d be a billionaire
Wow, I thought uptown park couldn’t look any more surreal. Lesson learned.
I heard that Gozer the Destructor was shopping for a new place to put his penthouse. Wow!
On first glance, it is so ugly and out of the box for a Houston condo tower that I actually like it. I hope it gets done. It’ll be like our version of Euro-Disney.
The top of that would be a pretty sweet FPS map.
Are you the Gate Keeper?
Looks Atlanta-y (not that it’s a bad thing)
I think it looks great! I don’t think it’s pretentious at all. It’s like saying classical music is pretentious. Classical music is meant for everyone who loves great and intricate music, rich or poor. Formal architecture is also meant for anyone who is willing to appreciate it.
Great looking building.
Highly doubt that what gets built looks anything like that though, if anything gets built at all.
Anyone remember what was at “Uptown Park” before Uptown Park was built? Was that where HPD kept their horses?
I know some really creepy rich haters that
would be perfect for it
Walker- The HPD horses were kept North of Woodway closer to the I-10 interchange by The Houstonian complex.
If I remember correctly, there were 2 old houses buried by the dense growth around the bayou on the land that became Uptown Park. There were never really visible from the Loop nor the feeder and were accessed off of Post Oak Lane.
From commonsense:
Just because you can’t afford it, does not make it pretentious.
Wow. Talk about being presumptuous as well as a couple of other descriptors I can think of.
But back to the pretentious building: 25+ floors of condos topped with Spanish colonial cathedral bell towers in Houston TX is, in a word, pretentious.
Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “Houston is an example of what can happen when architecture catches a venereal disease.â€
This building, IMO, is carrying on that diseased tradition.
I recall that — before Uptown Park — there was a Cadillac dealership on the corner of Post Oak and 610. As far as the rest of the land, I don’t think any development was visible from 610, so I assumed it was still more-or-less virgin land.
I have heard that on Wynden, just to the west, there is an old cemetery from the 1800s where slaves (or former slaves)were interred. I think there is a lot more history around parts of Houston than we think or know about!
The police horsies were formerly kept in the westernmost strip of Memorial Park that was cut off when 610 was built.
Very nice tower!
I like it and the only ground retail I would care about is Spec’s.
The architecture is indeed horrible. I feel that it was conceived of as an aesthetically inoffensive signaling device, meant to convey that 1) there was always something bland for somebody to eat/drink, even for a picky person, that 2) women can feel safe here, and that 3) people with no sense of direction can still find it.
In short, its perfect for enticing even the weakest link within an organization to go ahead and show up at a happy hour.
So yeah, there’s certainly a market for it (which I always felt was bolstered by date rapists and wannabe-high-end prostitutes), but that doesn’t make me feel any better about a highrise that imposes this sort of abysmal taste on the rest of the city’s skyline.
Hopefully this is just a teaser rendering to entice a buyer of the land.
Now I know swampsters went completely off the cliff, when a boring looking building comes up, swampsters complain complain and dog the design, when a building with some visual interest comes up, they still complain and bitch. This only reinforces my belief that developers should not pay ANY attention to anyone’s opinion but their own and their potential customers.
Maybe they can find a homeless hunchback to stand and wave in one of the tower arches once sales commence to give it that authentic touch.
Well, I think Houston has changed a lot since Wrights day considering he died in 1959. However, his point is still relevant in some parts of Houston but things are getting better everyday. :)
It looks like Liberace’s wet dream.
Supernova, if this were Facebook I would definitely be clicking the “like” button.
I was trying to articulate a response to the building, but then I read your description and realized there was no improving it. LOL