A major downturn in the economy tends to make it a bit easier to happen upon images of developments that have been planned in secret — though finding them can be somewhat less exciting than unearthing plans that are actually likely to happen. A tipster reports HAIF user lockmat’s discovery of two images of Brookfield Properties’ planned Five Allen Center office tower Downtown. We saw one hazy picture of this building back in June. But is there any more to it now than just a few pretty pictures?
Five Allen Center is marked “pre-development” on the Brookfield website: a 50-story, 1.2-million-sq.-ft. office tower planned for a 2.5-acre site at the northwest corner of Downtown — at the northeast corner of Houston Ave. and West Dallas. That’s a rather prominent position:
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Here’s that fuzzy image leaked last June:
Where did that top image come from? That same .pdf?
Oops, yes it is. Nevermind. Cool!
Do we really need a Five Allen Center? One Allen Center is about to have a lot of vacant space after Hess moves out.
The Vacancy rate in Downtown Houston is less than 5%. Nobody is’nt moving out of Houston. Sometimes office space is hard to come by in Downtown. I think they should build this One Allen Center will be full of tenants again soon.
Actually, this a great to time build new space. With construction pricing fairly deflated, these projects came come off much cheaper to build.
And as Darius mentioned, with our downtown vacancy rates as low as they are, it’s hard for Houston to attract out of state companies to move here without adequate contiguous office space.
Another boring design, typical of Houston’s new architecture. Why are most of our new buildings so boring? Hardly any are cool moderns.
And why isn’t the skyline lit up with cool lighting at night? It looks so average and generic. Although, it has much potential.
I agree with Tasha. In the 70s and early 80s Houston was known for its architecture. This building is just another nondescript glass box. In fact it would be an eyesore.
Eyesore? You don’t think the skyline needs a drab mailbox parked out front?
Considering Tasha and Lou have no idea what the building will eventually look like… I’d suggest they hold fire until then.
It looks like the ground level image is from the southeast side looking northwest because you can tell towards the botton of the building it’s curving back towards us.