16 Comment

• NotCommonsense February 11, 2015 at 10:46 am

  Im glad the flower row is gone now. Anything to stop the malicious, “flower power” is good with me. Part of the Veggieterrorist sleeper cells if you ask me.
• Houstonian February 11, 2015 at 11:01 am

  I thought data centers got put in areas other than prime real estate. Must be a sign that downtown office real estate is cheaper in comparison to competing areas that are also desirable as employment centers.
  –
  Could the boom in building at same time as drop in oil prices lead to companies moving here to take advantage of cheaper office space? And, give us a more diversified economy as a side effect?
• cm February 11, 2015 at 11:33 am

  That’s life Metro? Or are you just planning to fail ahead of time so we all expect it to happen?
• commonsense February 11, 2015 at 11:35 am

  I believe many data centers are located downtown because of the relative safety during natural disasters, hurricanes and floods. You’re elevated above floods and sheltered by other large building. Plus downtown has a priority on restoring the power grid after an event and major data trunks run right through there.
• Old School February 11, 2015 at 12:24 pm

  @Houstonian: 1301 Fanin already has 400k sq ft of data center space. The buyer is just adding on to an existing facility. There is also some deal about urban colocation in the tech world that means something.
  As someone who’s employer is at the end of a lease downtown and looking around, I can tell you that there are no bargains . . . yet.
• Eric February 11, 2015 at 12:36 pm

  Houstonian, my company got rid of its data center and colocates in the 1301 Fannin building mentioned above. It’s convenient having it near the office. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a briefcase full of hard drives (to paraphrase an old aphorism).
• HeyHeyHouston February 11, 2015 at 12:39 pm

  @NotCommonsense
  I see it didn’t take you long to adopt the term Veggieterrorist into your satire repertoire. Is it hard spending hours a day trolling a blog commentor and still unable to come up with all your own material? Must be a hard existence.
• htownproud February 11, 2015 at 1:21 pm

  Shame about the Montrose Funnel Tunnel. If Art League Houston paid for it, I don’t understand why the City is giving it away to New Orleans.
• NotCommonsense February 11, 2015 at 1:31 pm

  @HeyHeyHouston You think I’m the satirist!? Veggie-terrorists are a real thing, totally warranting credibility in any debate or argument. Commonsense is the one ridiculing me, downplaying the threat of veggieterrorists by stating they want a garden to grow veggies. If only their evil demands were so simple. If you spent a few hours, looking at what veggieterrorists do instead of criticizing humble old me, its obvious that that veggieterrorists deserve to be associated with Terrorist groups that USA is fighting abroad: Such as the diabolical Ar-ugala, Kal-e, Al-Maize, Al-Azuki, and of course, the sleeper celery groups. My existence isnt hard. I fight for ‘traditional values’ on a real estate blog by providing well-reasoned, logical, ad-hominem attacks against inner city hipsters who try to improve their quality of life. That is my passion.
• JohnQ February 11, 2015 at 1:48 pm

  Regarding METRO: I’m looking forward to the “reimagining”. I just hope they update their livery at the same time. How ugly and 90s the buses look is certainly not helping their ridership. Also, it’s a shame all the flex zones weren’t put in as you can tell just looking at a map how sparsely populated those areas are. Money will be wasted driving around vacant buses on fixed routes.

  Offices: The chart in the article is stunning — Houston is building 3x as much office space as any other American city, including New York. Which to me, really begs the question, even beyond the oil crash issue: who gonna use these offices? Most office jobs either a) don’t need to exist in the first place or if they do, b) don’t need to be performed in the same room at the same time every day. Basically, all these billions of dollars of construction are funded by the remnants of some weird 20th century Taylorism where nothing would get done without a boss counting bodies in chairs and the Internet doesn’t exist. Sidenote: if management can’t determine if someone who frequently telecommutes is productive, what are they (middle management) good for at all?

  Regarding another $769 million of new apartments: I would experience the most joyful schadenfreude if every single one of these developments went bust tomorrow. Yes, it’s true that Houston needs more housing, but the architecture of these “Texas donut” style buildings (which I assume most of the developments will be) is straight up inhumane. The dark, weaving, maze-like halls crush any hope of neighborly contact — just jump in your rathole, lock the door, and fire up Netflix. Compare this to a garden style apartment with a courtyard, where everyone can generally see what’s going on, who the neighbors are, if there are any strangers around etc. This keeps crime down and when the rent and tenant quality inevitably decrease at these new buildings it will be a problem. They won’t all go bust, but it makes me glad I’m renting, since they’re all going to turn into slums in 10 years and I’ll be long gone.

  And a tip for real estate people: any fixture or interior style found in one of these beehives is immediately passe by association the moment it’s built. At least that’s the way I see it. Try to stay a step ahead of them.
• I.P. Freely February 11, 2015 at 4:04 pm

  I’m going to steal the new St. Vader candle.
• Robert Boyd February 11, 2015 at 4:13 pm

  htownproud, I think the Art League essentially leased the sculpture–it was never intended as a permanent fixture on that median. That arrangement is actually not uncommon–many of the sculptures in Hermann Park have an end-date. In this case, I believe the Funnel Tunnel stayed up far longer than was originally planned because it turned out to be very popular.

  I’m glad Patrick Renner (the sculptor) will be able to show this fun piece of art elsewhere–his work deserves to be seen. And I hope the next piece of art that the Art League puts on the median is as delightful–admittedly a tall order.
• Local Planner February 11, 2015 at 9:26 pm

  @JohnQ: Tell the folks in Inwood or southwest Houston how garden apartments “keep crime down.” I guess all the folks living in NYC, Chicago, SF in non-garden-style apartment buildings are living inhumanely.
• Honest Truth February 12, 2015 at 10:04 am

  Re: Falling Oil Prices Threaten Houston Building Boom, Where One-Sixth of U.S. Office Space Is Under Construction [Wall Street Journal]

  Poorly written article, by someone who doesn’t know Houston very well. Perhaps a Houston hater, wishing (like other Houston haters) for a 1980’s oil crash redux. Unfortunately for them, the Houston economy of 2015 is a beast, and isn’t the oil dominated Houston economy of 1980. There’s a whole lot more going on in Houston besides oil…I mean really, a whole lot more. Houston is twice as large as it was in 1980, and its dynamic economy is now twice as diversified. Also, the oil industry has fortified itself since 1980. Houston now boasts 11 major economic sectors in its massive economy. The temporary oil matter (although its most prominent sector) is of concern, but its other 10 powerhouse sectors continue to roar and boom, as they absorb the jolt of the oil matter beautifully and continue to produce robust jobs numbers and unprecedented economic development. Houston is still on course to produce 65K jobs in 2015: remarkable, considering. Houston is still booming during the so-called ‘bust.’
• JerseyGirl February 12, 2015 at 11:29 am

  @JohnQ
  “…just jump in your rathole, lock the door, and fire up Netflix.” Thank you for the tear-enducing belly laugh!
• ZZzzzzzzz February 12, 2015 at 12:11 pm

  NoCommonSense- Your tired schtick is way past old, troll.