Here’s a second rendering of that new office tower Hines tells the Houston Chronicle it hasn’t announced it will build. Of course, a different story is coming out of this neighborhood near River Oaks, where the 35,000-sq.-ft. property on the corner of Spann and San Felipe, purchased in November by an entity connected to Hines, has been cleared of its garden home and staked with flags, as the photos after the jump show:
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According to the Chronicle, the “boutique” building that might or might not be built will be 17 stories — a bit shorter than the 18 stories a source told Swamplot last Thursday. Neighbors, says the source, “think a few nice townhouses are about to rise from the earth. That is the story that’s circulating the hood.â€
Below: A few more photos of the site as it appeared this weekend.
Below: A photo of the proposed Hines site looking toward Welch St., where construction is underway on Randall Davis’s 10-unit Chateau 10 condos:
Here’s the Chateau 10 site from the corner of Welch and Spann, with the 34-story Huntingdon on Kirby Dr. in the background:
The condos, squeezed right up in there:
- Developer considers office tower for River Oaks area [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Hines proposes ritzy River Oaks office tower [Prime Property]
- Chateau 10 [Randall Davis Company]
- Previously on Swamplot: Hines Plans a Shiny New 18-Story Office Building Across San Felipe from River Oaks
Images: Hines (rendering); Swamplot inbox (all others)
NIMBY anyone?
“NIMBY anyone?”
Yawn….troll
I think Hines has been great for Houston, they get world class architects to design their buildings and Houston owes it beautiful skyline to Mr Hines, but this particular development seems underhanded, it has not been handled well, plus the building looks underwhelming and not up to Hines standards. It’s ironic that this was handled with subpar PR considering that Gerald Hines lives three or four blocks from this development, what a way to treat your neighbors.
Houston’s lack of zoning: always touted as an asset, but probably the biggest source of whining and gnashing of teeth in this city.
I don’t see a whole lot of teeth-gnashing going on, here. It was anticipated but has not materialized.
I find this extremely interesting. Where’s a cultural anthropologist when you need one?
TheNiche: Well, for one thing, you’re talking about intragroup conflict rather tan intergroup conflict – intragroup conflict is harder to spark, but it burns hotter when it does. Some people on here obviously count Hines as “One of Us,” especially since he’ll actually have to live near this development. So it will be interesting to see what happens, and how the reaction plays out. It’s possible that Hines will try to outplay Welch for status on that corner, but then the question is, based on what criteria? Aesthetics, income, scope, goodwill?
Wow! I run by here all the time and it wasn’t that long ago that they did the demo on this place. Although San Felipe is a fairly commercial street, this part of town has a lot of up-scale houses/town homes. I’m really surprised they would propose such a shiny large building in this part of town. Does ROPO have nothing to say about this?
Gerald Hines does (or did) own a house SORT OF near this site, but he lives in London and has very little to do with the company’s operations in the US now.
His son, Jeff, does live in RO, but not especially close to where this is proposed.
Gerald Hines lives on Lazy Lane (back from London) as does his equally wealthy and influential equity partner in this project.
I really like the artist rendering of this project… Sounds a bit suspect though with Hines denying they’re going to launch this project and then they’re buying up nearby land… Hmmm… :)