The construction permit for the Medical Clinic of Houston’s new six-story building on Sunset Blvd. in Southampton has been approved by the city. So up it goes! Behind the new building, facing Rice Blvd., will be a new seven-story, 600-space parking garage.
After the jump, a view of the new garage from the adjacent alley.
Read more about: 77005, Medical Clinics, Neighborhood Disputes, New Construction, Parking-Garages, Rice-University, Southampton
If you’re curious why the developers of Houston Pavilions, the $70 million mixed-use development under construction downtown, decided not to mix anything other than office space with their 360,000 square feet of retail and “entertainment” space, you’ll be interested to read the comments L.A. developer Bill Denton made to the CoStar Group:
[Entertainment Development Group] put the site under contract in January 2004, then three surface parking lots and a multi-level parking garage sitting on just over 4 acres, and the project has evolved ever since. “We originally planned for a hotel/condo component, but at the time, the city was just finishing off convention center hotels and hotel occupancy was only 52%; now its difficult to find a hotel room in Downtown Houston. So, we changed the plan into two residential towers, which stuck until 12 months ago. Demand on the residential was tremendous, but because of the mixed-use and density, we would have had to do subterranean parking, which blew the economics of the residences out of the water. So now its 200,000 square feet of office space, and based on demand for that so far, I wish we could do 400,000 square feet.”
Read more about: 77002, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Development Strategy, Downtown, Mixed Use, New Construction, Nightlife, Office Space, Parking, Proposed Developments, Retail
Hines’s new parking garage at the corner of Walker and Main downtown features an innovative lighting design that delivers benefits to neighbors. The problem: drivers parking at night in the unscreened 14-story garage might shine their headlights across the street, directly into residences in the Commerce Towers building across the street. The solution: flood the garage with so much light that cars won’t need to use their headlights at all.
Unfortunately, Commerce Towers residents don’t seem to appreciate all that attention to detail:
it is an extravagant eyesore that expands from Travis to Main (ironically, grossly overshadowing the light rail) and right on Walker. There is no skin on it, and so sits a concrete skeletal nightmare.
Not only is this grotesque structure visually nauseating, it also is a seizure-inducing brightly-lit nightmare! The structure is fleshed out with intensely BRIGHT floodlights on each of its 14 floors, including the roof, that release their ungodly glow (24/7) without obstruction into the living and bedroom units of the Commerce Towers Condominiums!
Hines vice president Clark Davis told the Chronicle two years ago that the garage, which sits on land cleared by demolishing the San Jacinto building, would be “architecturally significant.” Hines developed the garage for the company they sold the property to, Sunbelt Management of Florida.
Photo: HAIF user sevfiv
Read more about: 77002, Downtown, Lighting, Lofts, Parking-Garages
A Woodlands developer has decided its latest creation—a not-yet-opened shopping center in Katy—should be replicated statewide and beyond. Marcel Inc. CEO Vernon Veldekens told GlobeSt.com that
the concept behind Villagio involves smaller, mixed-use centers in neighborhoods rather than fronting freeways or interstate highways. “This gives a more intimate relationship with the community, similar to a European town square,” he says. “We feel like we can put these all over town in mid- to high-end areas and have the same success as we have in Cinco Ranch.”
The Villagio at Cinco Ranch, a boutique lifestyle center slated to open this fall on a 12-acre site at the corner of Westheimer Pkwy. and Peek Rd., is almost three-quarters leased. The center combines 112,285 square feet of retail and office space in a parking-lot-like setting. The developer’s marketing director told the Houston Chronicle that the Villagio will have a “Tuscan look and Tuscan feel to it.” Many of the cars in the 307 spaces surrounding the buildings and the 225-space garage will likely be European as well.
The project is a departure for Marcel Inc., a property development and management firm whose base portfolio includes more mundane shopping centers and a gas station and convenience store, and which previously developed a motorcycle superstore and a handful of Family Dollar stores. Already, the firm has plans for Villagios in north Austin and The Woodlands, and is contemplating additional locations in Round Rock, San Marcos, New Braunfels, and Dallas, according to Globe St.
After the jump, more views of the expanding Tuscan landscape, including the Tuscan villas on the lot!
Read more about: 77450, Cinco Ranch, Katy, Mixed Use, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Parking, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers, Town-Squares, Townhomes
One of the more frustrating obstacles to paving more of this city is Houston’s little flooding problem. If we didn’t have so much damn water to get rid of, there’d be a whole lot more room here for basketball, high heels, rollerblades, and parking.
Tests now being conducted in a Rice University parking lot may change that soon. A segment of sidewalk is being built with pervious concrete, a not-so-new building material with the texture of Rice Krispies:
the product allows water to drain through rather than run off the surface. Environmental benefits include allowing water to percolate back into the soil or be detained rather than being channeled directly into storm drains; a surface that isn’t slippery when wet; and a brighter surface that helps reflect heat.
But there’s more environmental benefit here than just allowing parking lots to drain faster. Using more pervious concrete may allow us to get rid of those annoying green spaces developers are now putting in within larger developments:
The biggest cost benefit to using pervious concrete, said Max Amery, senior facilities engineer and project manager, is that it reduces or eliminates the need for water retention areas to contain run-off, which can be quite expensive in space-limited areas like a city or campus.
Next step: Revising city building codes so everyone can use it!
Photo: Portland Cement Association
Read more about: concrete, Flooding, Parking, Retention Ponds
Here it is: The mixed-use giant about to plant itself at the northern edge of the Rice Village, at the 2400 block of Bolsover Street, between Kelvin and Morningside. “Abandonment proceedings” for the property have already begun. Say goodbye, Nit Noi!
It’s about 250 residential units perched over high-end retail and office space, all wrapped around a parking garage with a pool on top. Lamesa Properties vice president Julie Tysor tells the West University Examiner that construction is to begin early next year, and that the retail will likely consist of “a boutique grocer, a bookstore, and several upscale restaurants and shops.”
Tysor goes on to say that “nothing is defined or set in stone yet,” but Ziegler Cooper Architects features these drawings of the project on its website.
One question: will all that head-in parking along Kelvin have signs in front of each space that say “Parking for Bailey Banks and Biddle only“?
Read more about: 77005, Commercial Real Estate, Mixed Use, New Construction, Parking, Retail, Rice-Village
