Search Results: mainplace

Downtown, Highrises, New Construction, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

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MainPlace, Main and Rusk, Downtown Houston

The new MainPlace website features a bunch of snazzy new and revised rendered views of Hines’s 46-story Downtown office tower. Also included: plans of the building showing 2 street-level retail spaces — big enough maybe for a sushi restaurant plus a small postcard shop for tourists.

Promised to come soon on that website: videos. We hope they’ll play up some of the 1950s-era Japanese horror movie theming going on in a few of the new images.

After the jump: Plans! Sky Gardens! Shiny Glass! Run for your lives!

77002, Commercial Real Estate, Highrises, MainPlace, New Construction, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

Demolitions

08/24/07 7:43pm

MainPlace: Hines’s 46-Story Green Pipe-Wrench Dream

Downtown, Green Design and Development, Highrises, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

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View of MainPlace, Hinesâ€™s Proposed 46-Story LEED Silver Office Building on Main Street in Downtown Houston It rises dramatically from the center of Downtown to face the morning sun. And the renderings sure make it look like a sleek, giant pipe wrench, the business end looking out over Houston’s industrial east side. Yep, there’s nothing the head office won’t be able to fix!

It’s MainPlace, a 46-story, one-million-square-foot green spec office tower, planned for most of the block surrounded by Fannin, Rusk, and Walker, at 811 Main.

The developer is the Hines CalPERS Green Fund, established by Hines and the California retirement fund to develop “sustainable” office buildings around the country. The core and shell, they promise, will be given a LEED-Silver rating by the USGBC. Don’t worry too much about all that, though: tenants will presumably be free to decorate their interiors with the usual endangered rainforest hardwoods and petroleum-based finishes.

That’s a five-story atrium up there on the 39th floor, facing a “sky garden.” Enjoy those trees in the rendering while you can; eventually, the engineers will start to think long and hard about hurricanes. More details and lots more zoomy pics, including closeups of that ~~pipe-wrench jaw~~ sky garden, after the jump.

77002, Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Green Design, Green Development, Highrises, Historic Preservation, MainPlace, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

Adaptive Reuse

03/31/14 12:30pm

Aloft Hotel Will Alight in Stowers Building Downtown

Downtown, Hotels, Renovations

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Stowers Building, 820 Fannin St., Downtown Houston

A website entry noted by eagle-eyed HAIF commenter Urbannizer indicates that Starwood HotelsÂ and Resorts plans to convert the Stowers Building on the corner of Fannin and Walker downtown (pictured above) into an Aloft Hotel. Aloft Houston Downtown will open at 820 Fannin St. in June 2016, according to the company’s listing of upcoming Starwood properties. The 10-story former headquarters of the G.A. Stowers Furniture Company was built in 1913 and renovated for office condos in 2005 by Spire Realty. It’s the only building left on the block now dominated by the BG Group Place tower fronting Main St.— the previously neighboring buildings were torn down in 2008.

Starwood Hotel Directory: New Hotels [Starwood]
Stowers Building [Arch-ive.org]
Stowers Building to Become an Aloft Hotel [HAIF]

Photo: Mike Bloom Jr.

Starwood on Fannin

77002, Adaptive Reuse, Downtown, Hotels, Renovations

Commercial Real Estate

02/27/14 11:00am

New 6 Houston Center Tower Will Put Another Notch in the Downtown Skyline

Downtown, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

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Proposed Design for 6 Houston Center Office Tower, on Block Surrounded by Walker, Caroline, Rusk, and San Jacinto Streets, Downtown Houston

Mimicking the pipe-wrench-jaw-like multistory balcony near the top of BG Group Place (seen in blocky form at right in the rendering above), there’ll a tree-toothed notch carved into the eastern edge of the top floors of the just-unveiled design for 6 Houston Center. But this new $250 million spec office tower won’t just be a little more roughly cut than its neighbor — it’ll be a bit shorter, too. The 30-story structure is planned for the block surrounded by Rusk, Walker, Caroline, and San Jacinto streets, directly north of the LyondellBasell Tower at 1 Houston Center, on what’s currently a surface parking lot.

77002, Commercial Real Estate, Downtown, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

Tree-Lined Sky Views

Awards Programs

01/13/14 1:30pm

It’s Development Campaign Season on Washington Ave

Quicklink, Washington Ave

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IT’S DEVELOPMENT CAMPAIGN SEASON ON WASHINGTON AVE Brand strategy outfit Axiom is applying its “creative communication” skills to a campaign to gain recognition for the company’s rehab of the former Fire Station No. 6: A banner now hangs outside the firm’s compound at 1702 Washington Ave (at right), asking passersby for help procuring wider recognition for the company’s multi-year office conversion project. The Fire Station renovation, along with northeast Houston’s James Berry Elementary School, the Heights’s Don Sanders pet adoption center, Dynamo Stadium, and BG Group’s wrench-shaped downtown skyscraper have been nominated in separate for-profit and nonprofit categories in this year’s local Urban Land Institute awards program, but only a group of 3 judges will pick those winners. Separately, though, they’re all competing against each other for top spot in the new-last-yearÂ “people’s choice” category, which you can sway with votes on this website — before January 21st. [ULI] Photo:Â John Luu/Axiom

77007, Adaptive Reuse, Awards Programs, Renovations, Washington Ave.

Apartments

08/30/13 10:00am

Texaco Redo a Go: The Next Residential Highrise Downtown To Begin Construction Soon

by Allyn West

Buying and Selling, Downtown, Highrises, Proposed Developments, Retail

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Provident Realty closed yesterday on the formerÂ Texaco Building at 1111 Rusk, catty-corner from BG Group Place, and says it will begin renovations and new construction on this Hnedak Bobo Group-designed residential highrise just as soon as it can get the permits.

Yesterday’s announcement doesn’t specify how high the new highrise will rise, but info that Swamplot published in May suggest that it could stand as tall as 38 stories. Houston Business Journal reports that the project, on the block bound by Fannin, San Jacinto, Capitol, and Rusk, will tap into the tunnels, and there will be 309 units in all, with a 550-car parking garage and 8,000-sq.-ft. of ground-floor retail.

77002, Apartments, Downtown, Downtown Tunnels, Highrises, Proposed Developments, Retail

Headlines

05/29/13 8:30am

Headlines: Houston’s Bilingual Cinema; Galveston’s Holiday Weekend Crowding

by Meredith Deliso

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Hines Sells Downtown BG Group Place to Invesco Real Estate [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
Stream, Wile To Begin Construction on Energy Corridor Campus-Like Mixed-Use Development This Summer [Houston Business Journal]
Viva Cinema, Showing Movies in English and Spanish, Opening This Friday in PlazAmericas Shopping Center [Click2Houston]
437K Visitors Went to Galveston During Memorial Day Weekend, Up 70 Percent from Last Year [Houston Chronicle ($)]
Insurer Settles 1,200 Hurricane Ike Suits for $135M [Texas Tribune]
Heights Revival Market Owners Annoyed By Repeated Break-Ins [KHOU]
How Topography, Geography, and History Have Helped Houston Become America’s No. 1 Job Creator [The Atlantic]

Photo of ditch near Addicks Dam: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines

Development Strategies

04/10/13 10:10am

City Council To Decide Whether Downtown Hotel Redo Will Receive Federal Dough

by Allyn West

Downtown, Financing, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Real Estate Investing, Renovations

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CITY COUNCIL TO DECIDE WHETHER DOWNTOWN HOTEL REDO WILL RECEIVE FEDERAL DOUGH Houston Politics’ Mike Morris is reporting that city council will vote today to decide whether it will loan Pearl Real Estate up to $7.4 million toward the $81 million renovation and redevelopment of the 22-story slipcovered 1910 Samuel F. Carter building at Rusk and 806 Main St. What does Pearl have in sight? A JW Marriott. (It’d be across the street from BG Group Place.) Last summer, explains Morris, the city applied for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development money that would be passed on to Pearl and ultimatelyÂ paid back with interest — or that’s the idea, anyway. This kind of deal went off without a hitch in 1998, when the Rice Hotel paid back their $4.8 million right on time. But the city’s been kept waiting before: “In early 2005, it came to light that the Magnolia Hotel (which had gotten $9.5 million in 2002) and the Crowne Plaza (which had gotten $5 million in 2000) had never made a full payment to the city on their loans.” Though by 2012, Morris adds, those loans had been repaid.Â [Houston Politics; previously on Swamplot] Photo of 806 Main St.: Swamplot inbox

77002, Development Strategies, Downtown, Financing, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Investing, Renovations

Commercial Real Estate

03/19/13 3:00pm

Does New Hines Highrise Mean Old Texas Tower’s a Goner?

by Allyn West

Demolitions, Downtown, Land Development, New Construction, Office Buildings, Office Space, Proposed Developments

23 Comments

Hines has confirmed that it will be putting upÂ something new — maybe this glow stick of an office building, maybe not — at 609 Main, just north of the former MainPlace, now BG Group Pipe Wrench. Pickard Chilton, says Hines, will design a 41-story, 815,000-sq.-ft. office tower just as soon as an anchor tenant is signed. This view of the rendering released this week seems to look south toward the Hines-owned downtown block bound by Main, Texas, Fannin, and Capitol. Now, half that block is an $8 a day parking lot. If you look closely at the rendering, you’ll see an Apple logo just to the left of that entrance teepee. Whether that will actually be a new Apple store is not confirmed — and anyway, before anything new can come in, Hines will have to tear down what’s alreadyÂ there: The unoccupied Texas Tower, the former Sterling Building, at 608 Fannin:

77002, Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Downtown, Highrises, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

06/06/11 12:46pm

The Slipcover Is Coming Off: Strip Show Begins on Main St. Corner Downtown

Hotels, Houston Landmarks, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Renovations

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The streetclothes are already being shed from the recently vacated office building at the corner of Main St. and Rusk downtown where a Fort Worth development and hospitality company is planning its next hotel project. Pearl Real Estate announced plans to gut and renovate the 22-story building at 806 Main St. early last year. And now, a reader reports, permits are posted in the window and the paneling and windows in a single column have been removed.

Underneath the white-marble and brown-glass slipcover — installed about 30 years ago — is a stone, terra cotta, and brick building built about 100 years ago and expanded 10 stories skyward in the 1920s. The building is directly across the street from the brand-new BG Group Place.

Upcoming Projects [Pearl Real Estate]
Previously on Swamplot: Slipping a Hotel Under the Slipcover: Plans from the New Owner of 806 Main

Photos: Swamplot inbox

77002, Downtown, Hotels, Houston Landmarks, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Renovations

10/26/10 6:13pm

Some Plans in Their Wrench

Leasing, New Construction, Office Buildings, Office Space, Quicklink

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SOME PLANS IN THEIR WRENCH And who thought a building shaped like a pipe wrench wouldn’t attract a natural-gas firm as its lead tenant? Hines announced yesterday that UK-based BG Group will move its Houston offices from the Panhandle Energy Tower where Westheimer hits Alabama in the Galleria to MainPlace, the Pickard Chilton-designed spec building still under construction at 811 Main St. Downtown. The company will take over floors 29 through 34 in the 46-story tower, but may fill up more later. And it’s changing the building’s name — no, not to Pez Tower — but to BG Group Place. KPMG put dibs on the building’s top 4 floors more than 2 years ago. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Skyscraper Page user Johnme

77002, Downtown, Leasing, MainPlace, New Construction, Office Buildings, Office Space

07/15/10 10:57am

Helping CEOs with That Vision Thing

Highrises, Leasing, New Construction, Office Buildings, Office Space, Quicklink

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HELPING CEOS WITH THAT VISION THING The head of the giant monkey wrench is still under construction Downtown, but already Hines has lowered rents and begun looking for smaller-scale tenants at MainPlace, Nancy Sarnoff reports. And now . . . they’re staging it! “Hines has built out mock offices on three floors so prospective tenants can get a better idea of what their offices may look like. Depending on the audience, the models can make an impression. ‘If you bring over a CEO, it registers with them a little more,’ said Chrissy Wilson, vice president of leasing for Hines.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Skyscraper Page user Johnme

77002, Downtown, Highrises, Leasing, MainPlace, New Construction, Office Buildings, Office Space, Staging

07/02/10 2:01pm

The GSA’s Curious Houston U.S. Attorney Office Leasing Deal: Higher Costs, Double Rent

Leasing, Office Space

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A Swamplot reader who has some familiarity with the terms of the deal has expressed surprise at the 10-year lease the federal government’s General Services Administration recently signed for 132,539 sq. ft. of office space Downtown. The arrangement appears to leave the GSA paying rent on 2 separate Houston office locations for the U.S. Attorney — for 2 years. The U.S. Attorney’s office, located in the office building at 919 Milam since 1994, will move early next year to offices on the 23rd through 27th floors of Wells Fargo Plaza at 1000 Louisiana St. — space formerly occupied by Dynegy, according to a report in Globe St.:

The GSA . . . considered more than 40 potential locations before touring seven buildings and then narrowing it down to four final buildings. Wells Fargo Plaza stood out because of its location, which is two blocks from the federal court building, along with its access to the downtown tunnel system and its 25,000-square-foot floorplates.

The GSA was represented in lease negotiations by the Houston office of Jones Lang LaSalle. Bruce Rutherford is a managing director in the office:

â€œThe building is a short walk to the federal courts, and when itâ€™s really hot or raining, the lawyers can use the tunnel to get there,â€ Rutherford says, adding that Wells Fargo Plaza is also a â€œstraight shotâ€ by cab if necessary.

But the reasons for the move cited in the article — which include an impending lease expiration, proximity to the federal courthouse, desire for a more efficient use of space as well as enhanced technology and security, and tunnel access — “just donâ€™t add up” for our source, who notes that the Wells Fargo Plaza location is only one block closer to the federal court building at 515 Rusk than the Attorney’s current offices, which also have access to the underground tunnels.

77002, Downtown, Government Agencies, Leasing, Office Space

02/08/10 2:21pm

Slipping a Hotel Under the Slipcover: Plans from the New Owner of 806 Main

Hotels, Houston Landmarks, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment

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The Houston Business Journal‘s Jennifer Dawson is reporting that a hotel developer out of Fort Worth is purchasing the 22-story office building at 806 Main St. Downtown with plans to gut it, renovate it, and reopen it as a hotel. The building is approximately 100 years old, but its top 10 floors were added in the 1920s. The stone, terra cotta, and brick structure was dressed in a marble-and-glass slipcover about 60 years later. Directly across the street from the tower is the construction site of Hines’s MainPlace development.

The city has designated 806 Main as a landmark. It’s connected to the Downtown tunnel system, but has remained mostly empty in recent years. The last of 40 recent tenants is scheduled to move out this week. Building manager Betty Brown tells Dawson that only the Christian Science Reading Room and Domino’s Pizza on the ground floor will be left — their leases run out in 9 to 12 months.

With the exception of the Embassy Suites in downtown Fort Worth featured prominently on its website, Pearl Real Estate has built or redeveloped mostly suburban-style hotels. The 10-year-old company typically operates its own properties and serves as its own general contractor.

What kind of hotel is Pearl planning underneath this slipcover?