The company that’s adding a new hotel to GreenStreet, the renamed and reconfigured Houston Pavilions mall downtown appears to have made some dramatic changes to the design of the tower. Midway Companies first showed off the sleek design by Gensler for the Hotel Alessandra (shown at left) last March, describing a design that featured a top-floor lobby, with a bar on the same floor and a pool under a retractable roof. Renderings of the design are still featured in marketing materials for GreenStreet’s retail redo.
But HAIF user Urbannizer, who’s had a pretty solid track record of discovering renderings of proposed projects if they’re available anywhere, posted a revised rendering to the online architecture forum late last night. The image, shown at right, shows what appears to be the latest design for the Alessandra, which will be operated by the Valencia Group. The Valencia Group already operates Midway’s Hotel Sorella at CityCentre.
Here’s a slightly larger view of the newer, far more rectilinear design:
If you’ve been adding up the new 
Really rich guy and charitable fellow Bill Gates is investing in one more good cause: He’s buying the 30-story Four Seasons Hotel at 1300 Lamar St., announcing yesterday that his Cascade Investments will close on the deal sometime next week. It’s not clear yet whether Gates, as is his wont, will start working to update the operating system of the 1982 hotel, which has 64 rental apartments and 404 rooms and is home to Quattro, the Italian restaurant, though Ralph Bivins 
