UPTOWN TRAFFIC GRID “As we all know, traffic is incomparably worse in Uptown than it is in Downtown. Downtown has more of everything: more streets, more freeways, more transit, more pedestrian use. The most important part, though, is that Downtown has the grid, and Uptown does not. Uptown is a lot less dense than Downtown, and yet it’s reaching a breaking point. There are critically few ways in and out, and even though those are mega-roads, they concentrate traffic BY DESIGN rather than diffusing traffic as the grid does. If Uptown had a fine-grained local street grid the traffic there would be a fraction of what it is today, but it’s too late to put in a grid now. The best we can hope for is for benevolent developers to include new connecting streets to break up some of the super-blocks when they come up for redevelopment.” [NeoHouston]
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Galleria
TAKING A BITE OUT OF WHOLE FOODS That new Whole Foods Market coming to Post Oak Blvd. in the Galleria may not end up being quite the giant originally envisioned, says Nancy Sarnoff: “Developer Ed Wulfe, who’s building the BLVD Place mixed-use project where the Whole Foods will go, recently said the parties are working on amending the lease to reduce the size of the store, originally planned for 80,000 square feet. Put in context, the Kirby Whole Foods is about 40,000 square feet and Central Market is about 75,000 square feet. An 80,000-square-foot store would have been on par with the company’s flagship market in Austin, where customers can eat at mini-restaurants, chose from hundreds of varieties of beer, cheeses and a seafood counter that smokes, slices and fries to order. In a related move, Whole Foods recently announced that it was keeping its store on Woodway and Voss open. The plan was to close it when the Post Oak store opened. [Houston Chronicle; previously in Swamplot]
Some fun recent pix from around town!
Above, from this weekend: the Williams Tower just moments before liftoff, as captured by Flickr user Bokeh Down.
Oh yes there’s more:
This weekend’s Galleria-area bank implosion won’t be televised nationally, but you should be able to watch it happen live if you wake up early enough on Sunday. Preparations for the dynamite-fueled takedown of the Compass Bank building at 2200 Post Oak are just about complete.
A notice sent out last month to area businesses by Cherry Demolition says the implosion is scheduled for approximately 7:45 am on March 15th — which happens to be the 2,053rd anniversary, give or take a calendar adjustment, of the Julius Caesar demo. A few details:
Adjacent streets will be closed at approximately 6:00 am and re-open at 9:15 am. Streets to be closed are Guilford and Post Oak Boulevard between Westheimer and Ambassador Way.
So where’s the best vantage point for viewing this cathartic form of timely public theater gonna be?
From the New York Times website this morning:
Shortly after 10 a.m. Central time, about 40 police officers and other law enforcement officials simultaneously entered Stanford Group’s two office buildings in Houston. Many of the law enforcement personnel carried large black briefcases. Stanford group’s headquarters are in two offices in Houston, one within a tower of the Houston Galleria shopping mall, and the other across the street.
Photo of Stanford Financial Group Offices, 5050 Westheimer: Stanford Financial Group
“Ronald McDonald will soon have all of his parking spaces back,” writes Swamplot tipster Michele, who also sends in these photos from yesterday. They show the sales office for Randall Davis’s canceled Titan highrise — which hung out in the McDonald’s parking lot on Post Oak for many months — boarded up and readied for its next location and rebranding assignment.
POST OAK LANE PARK DOLLAR TIMELINE: ALL THE OFFERS AND COUNTERS Following up on the overview of the controversy he and Carolyn Feibel published last week, Bradley Olsen provides this updated summary of all the offers made for James and Jock Collins’s 7,230-sq.-ft. property at the the corner of San Felipe and Post Oak Ln., adjacent to Boulevard Place: “In April 2002, the Uptown Development Authority offers the Collins brothers $289,000 for their property to widen San Felipe and for other purposes (they bought it for $363,750 in 1982). They declined. In February 2004, Uptown offers the Collins brothers $398,035 for their property. They declined. Wulfe & Co. begins negotiations with the brothers to buy the property in 2004. In early 2006 (one side says March, the other says May), Wulfe and Co. offered the Collins brothers $1.985 million, which included a $1.46 million cash offer plus financing of $525,000 over five years. The brothers declined that offer, both sides confirm. The brothers counter-offer by asking for $1.7 million in cash, according to Cary Gray, their attorney. In June 2006, Wulfe and Co. responded with a $1.46 million cash offer, which they withdraw in July, according to both sides. In October 2006, the city notifies the Collins brothers of its intent to seize the land through eminent domain powers. Before filing its eminent domain lawsuit, the city gives the brothers a final offer in May 2007 of $433,800. They declined. In February 2008, a panel of special commissioners appointed in Harris County Civil Court voted to award the Collins brothers $723,000. They declined. The legal proceedings between the city and the brothers are still ongoing and are in the discovery phase.” [Houston Chronicle]
Swamplot mentioned the cancellation of Randall Davis’s Titan condo project in passing yesterday, announcing at the same time that the project had scored the first-place spot in the hotly contested Most Grandiose Development category of the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. But really, if any 2008 event in Houston real estate deserves its own separate post on Swamplot, this is it.
Davis told the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff that slow sales convinced him to shut down the 25-story highrise project. There’ll be no rearranging of the deck chairs, no putting the project “on hold,” no “My Heart Will Go On.” It’s all over.
But the Titan will be sorely missed.
Today’s as good a day as any to highlight the work of YouTube user hcp051000, aka Senior Airman Pan, who has compiled an impressive array of videos documenting the performance of some of this city’s finer vertical conveyances.
What’s it like to ride in these Houston elevators, really? Now you can find out — and shop for your favorite — from behind the comfort of your own computer screen.
Here’s S.A. Pan’s ride in the colorful cab of a Dover elevator at the Kemah Boardwalk Inn Hotel:
If the purchase deal can pass City Council, the Water Wall next to the Williams Tower will go from developer amenity and vacant-lot placeholder to actual Galleria public park:
The seller is an affiliate of Houston-based Hines Interests LP, which originally developed the Water Wall and adjacent Williams Tower along with Transco Energy Co. in the 1980s. The skyscraper, Water Wall and green space have changed hands over time, but went back under Hines-related ownership earlier this year when they were acquired by Hines Real Estate Investment Trust Inc.
The city is expected to pay $8.5 million for the Water Wall and the three-acre park where it sits.
How good a real estate investment was that fountain back in 1985?
The land was most recently appraised at $3.8 million, according to Harris County Appraisal District records. But [Mayor] White and [Uptown TIRZ administrator John] Breeding said the $8.5 million price was well below market rates, which occasionally have gone as high as $200 per square foot, which would have amounted to a $24 million selling price.
- City makes splash with Water Wall [Houston Business Journal]
- $8.5 million deal assures Water Wall will survive [Houston Chronicle]
Photo: Dave Thomas
From the Swamplot mailbin, questions about the tower Randall Davis got up:
I would like an update on the Cosmopolitan. I drove by and it looks like barely anyone is living in the building. Roughly 20% of the units are either for sale or lease in the building. Given the problems the Titan is having in sales, can anyone provide insight into the viability of the Cosmopolitan. Does anyone live there? How is it?
The last time Swamplot posted a reader’s questions about the Cosmopolitan, the response was . . . underwhelming. Anybody home?
- The Cosmopolitan: Is It Flipping Time Yet? [Swamplot]
- Head of the Titans: Cosmopolitan Pissoirs on Post Oak [Swamplot]
Photo of Cosmopolitan Tower: HAR
The rumor Swamplot reported late last week has now been confirmed from multiple sources: The 34-story Turnberry Tower luxury condo palace planned for the Galleria area — yeah, the one with the tombstone-shaped silhouette — is officially dead.
- Turnberry Tower: Turning Away? [Swamplot]
- Nine and a Half Bathrooms: The Turnberry Tower Penthouse Evacuation Plan [Swamplot]
- The Turnberry: More Wiping, in More Places, than at Any Other Condo Tower [Swamplot]
- Tune In to the Turnberry Tower [Swamplot]
Rendering of Turnberry Tower Galleria: Robert M. Swedroe Architects and Planners
From Jennifer Dawson in today’s Houston Business Journal comes confirmation of part of Swamplot’s report earlier this week on the two highrises planned for Boulevard Place. The Hanover Company’s planned 37-story apartment tower isn’t moving forward anytime soon:
Construction was supposed to start this month, but that’s not going to happen because it’s too difficult to get a construction loan right now, says Hanover President John Nash.
He says it would be impossible to predict when the credit market would allow the project to move forward, but it could be delayed as much as a year.
- Tight money postpones plans for residential tower [Houston Business Journal]
- Putting Off the Ritz: Boulevard Place Towers Stalled [Swamplot]
- Hanover Apartment Tower at Boulevard Place: 37 Stories [Swamplot]
Tower rendering: Solomon Cordwell Buenz, via the Houston Chronicle
From the Swamplot rumor mill comes an unconfirmed and second-hand report: that the team behind proposed Houston Turnberry Tower — the 34-story luxury highrise planned to rest just behind the Williams Tower — “officially pulled the plug on their galleria deal yesterday.”
Could this be true? A lot of hard work — and a lot of plumbing design — has been poured into that project. It would be sad to see it all go down the toilet.
Late Update: The rumor has been confirmed.
- Nine and a Half Bathrooms: The Turnberry Tower Penthouse Evacuation Plan [Swamplot]
- The Turnberry: More Wiping, in More Places, than at Any Other Condo Tower [Swamplot]
- Tune In to the Turnberry Tower [Swamplot]
Rendering of Turnberry Tower Galleria: Robert M. Swedroe Architects and Planners
Remember the two 30-plus-story towers planned for Boulevard Place on Post Oak — the Ritz Carlton Hotel and the Hanover apartment tower? How have they been surviving the rumbling credit crunch?
A HAIF user last week
got slight confirmation that both the hanover tower and the ritz are going to be delayed at least slightly… they still expected both to happen, but they will be phased in.
Then yesterday came another comment:
i can confirm this in regards to hanover.
dont expect their tower to be built anytime soon.. i would consider it postponed indefinitely rather than slightly.
Followed by this:
As a sub on this project I will also confirm this. We have been told at least 6 months of delays.
But they still look great on paperscreen!
