01/22/15 3:15pm

Second Proposed Design for Hotel Alessandra, GreenStreet, Downtown Houston

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:

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Straightening Up GreenStreet
01/16/15 11:00am

Proposed Hotel Alessandra, Dallas and Fannin Streets, GreenStreet, Downtown Houston

If the giant 25-story-tall question mark built into the profile of the Hotel Alessandra — the Modern tower pictured above, planned for a spot directly behind the XXI Forever store along Fannin — spurred any of you to wonder when or whether construction of the promised residential expansion of GreenStreet (formerly Houston Pavilions) might begin, here’s an answer: Next Monday, MLK Day, workers will begin blocking access to the urban mall’s center court at 1201 Fannin St. and other areas to begin demolition work. Their target: The much shorter structure that once housed the Houston Pavilions’ Yao’s restaurant, owned by family members of Houston Rockets star Yao Ming, which stands in the way.

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Clearing Yao’s Away
09/26/14 10:00am

HOUSTON’S HOTEL BUILDING BOOM Proposed Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites, Crawford St. Between Capitol and Rusk, Downtown HoustonIf you’ve been adding up the new Embassy Suites planned for Hughes Landing in The Woodlands, the 14-story combo Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites now beginning construction on Crawford St. between Capitol and Rusk downtown (illustrated at right, directly behind the Marriott Marquis going up one block to the south), and other recent reports of new hotels coming to town, keep counting: Arch-Con’s Michael Vaughn tells Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon that 66 new hotels will be built in the greater Houston area over the next 2 years, and “that’s mostly just the major brands” that he knows about. [Houston Business Journal; Real Estate Bisnow] Photo: American Liberty Hospitality

09/11/14 12:00pm

Proposed Development at 1600 West Loop, Galleria, Houston

Proposed Development at 1600 West Loop, Galleria, HoustonLandry’s is planning a multi-use development including a 30-story hotel, a parking garage, and a conference center for a site adjacent to the restaurant and entertainment company’s headquarters on the Loop 610 feeder road in the Galleria area. The proposed address for the new structures is 1600 West Loop, but the tower, conference center, and garage would be tucked back from the freeway toward Hollyhurst St., according to a site plan (above, tilted clockwise 90 degrees) submitted to the city. Along with it, the developers have submitted a variance application asking for a reduced setback for the development along Hollyhurst.

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1600 West Loop
09/03/14 4:15pm

Demolition of Greenway Inn and Suites, 2929 Southwest Fwy., Upper Kirby, Houston

Demolition of Greenway Inn and Suites, 2929 Southwest Fwy., Upper Kirby, HoustonLike the Houstonaire Motor Inn, the Colonel Sanders’ Inn, and the Ramada Inn before it, the Greenway Inn and Suites on the south side of Hwy. 59 between Kirby Dr. and Buffalo Speedway is only a memory now. But it took more than a name change to off it: This redo is final. Thanks to a reader, we have these postcard-ready images from the final checkout proces over the weekend to remember it by. The buildings at 2929 Southwest Fwy. were built in 1965.

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Chickening Out
09/03/14 11:30am

Former Heaven on Earth Plaza Inn, 801 St. Joseph Pkwy., Downtown Houston

Former Heaven on Earth Plaza Inn, 801 St. Joseph Pkwy., Downtown HoustonWill all the gawkable dark mystery disappear from Downtown once the last few long-abandoned towers standing get cleaned up or knocked down? Maybe, but in the meantime we have these latest events to consider, around and about the former Heaven on Earth Plaza Inn at 801 St. Joseph Pkwy. (at Travis), which was operated by an organization affiliated with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for most of the nineties (before the city shut it down, in 1998).

A couple of readers have reported seeing some recent activity in and around the 31-story building, which was built as a Holiday Inn in 1971 and later converted to a Days Inn — before taking a different spiritual path:

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Falling to Earth from Heaven on Earth
08/13/14 12:30pm

Proposed Office Building and Parking Garage for Greater Houston Partnership, Avenida de las Americas at Capitol St., Downtown Houston

Proposed Office Building, Hotel, and Parking Garage for Greater Houston Partnership, Avenida de las Americas at Capitol St., Downtown Houston

Earlier this month, Houston First showed off renderings of the office building it’s planning to build for itself and 3 other Houston-boosting organizations (top), headlined by the Greater Houston Partnership, one block north of and linking to the George R. Brown Convention Center. (A massive attached 1,900-car parking garage would share the skybridge to the George R. Brown and fit between the building and the Hwy. 59 overpass.) Yesterday, the operator of the city’s performing arts and convention facilities pulled out an additional pic (above), highlighting another aspect of its plan, and showing how the same building would look with a 15-story add-on perched on top of it. The rendering of the tower portion by WHR Architects, the same firm that’s designing the office building and parking garage, is meant to be “conceptual”; Houston First announced it will begin taking proposals for the hotel from developers, who might choose a different design team.

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Launch Pad
04/11/14 1:45pm

Proposed Marriott Marquis Hotel, Downtown Houston

A groundbreaking ceremony today is marking the construction start of the new $335 million Marriott Marquis hotel on Walker St. and Crawford next to the George R. Brown Convention Center downtown, which will face the existing Hilton Americas hotel across Discovery Green. The newly updated rendering shown below confirms that the hotel will be the first institution anywhere to sport an island shaped like Texas in one of its lower rooftop pools:

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On Discovery Green
04/09/14 4:01pm

Proposed Hotel and Apartment Tower at 6750 S. Main St., Texas Medical Center, Houston

Update, 9:30 pm: It appears the new hotel tower will fit entirely on the lot directly to the south of the Best Western Plaza Hotel at 6700 S. Main St. We’ve updated this story accordingly.

Medistar and an affiliate of the Redstone Companies are out today with this rendering of the 22-story hotel and apartment tower the firms are planning together for the west side of S. Main St. across the street from the western campus boundary of the Texas Medical Center. Unlike the 40-story hotel and condo tower Medistar had proposed for S. Main across the street from the Texas Medical Center back in 2008 — which stirred up a bit of a fuss with neighbors in neighboring Southgate — this new building, designed by HOK’s Roger Soto, will be set away from the neighborhood’s entrance. It’ll sit next to the Best Western Plaza Hotel, on the 1.35-acre lot at 6750 S. Main St., on the southern end of the block bounded by S. Main, Old Main St., and Travis St. The taller tower Medistar planned in 2008 was intended for a site one block to the north, at the corner of S. Main St. and Dryden.

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The Latest Medical Tourism Hotspot
03/31/14 12:30pm

Stowers Building, 820 Fannin St., Downtown Houston

A website entry noted by eagle-eyed HAIF commenter Urbannizer indicates that Starwood Hotels and Resorts plans to convert the Stowers Building on the corner of Fannin and Walker downtown (pictured above) into an Aloft Hotel. Aloft Houston Downtown will open at 820 Fannin St. in June 2016, according to the company’s listing of upcoming Starwood properties. The 10-story former headquarters of the G.A. Stowers Furniture Company was built in 1913 and renovated for office condos in 2005 by Spire Realty. It’s the only building left on the block now dominated by the BG Group Place tower fronting Main St.— the previously neighboring buildings were torn down in 2008.

Photo: Mike Bloom Jr.

Starwood on Fannin
03/26/14 3:30pm

Proposed Hotel Alessandra, Dallas and Fannin Streets, GreenStreet, Downtown Houston

The lobby for the new 25-story luxury Downtown hotel announced yesterday — an add-on for the GreenStreet conversion of the former Houston Pavilions — will be on its top floor. A pool and bar will sit above it on the roof level. Its highlighted contours tracing a giant question mark, the sleek modern 225-room tower will be planted on top of the remains of former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming‘s flopped restaurant. It’ll sit back from Main St., behind XXI Forever, hugging Fannin on the block also bounded by Polk and Dallas. But the Hotel Alessandra isn’t meant to spike the retail flow in the failed-mixed-use redo project — instead, it’ll include 7,000 sq. ft. of retail and restaurant space on its bottom floors, and connect to the project’s Main St. shops and Fannin skybridge.

Here’s a view from Main St., looking southeast along Dallas:

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25 Stories
12/13/13 1:15pm

Construction at Galleria Plaza, Sage Rd. at West Alabama St., Galleria, Houston

A fence is up and some demo work appears to be beginning at Galleria Plaza, across Sage Rd. from Galleria III. The mixed-use site, which stretches between Westheimer and West Alabama, is indeed the planned location of the new Hyatt Regency hotel that Swamplot reported on last month. The 14-story hotel, which was designed by Gensler and is being developed by Songy Highroads and the Carlyle Group, will fit into the surface parking lot at the northwest corner of Sage and West Alabama shown here:

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Making Rooms
11/19/13 10:30am

Northeast View of Planned Hyatt Regency Hotel for Songy Highroads

The Mathis Group will be starting construction later this month on this 14-story Hyatt Regency hotel designed by Gensler for Atlanta developers Songy Highroads, according to a post on the construction company’s Facebook page. The post and mid-August rendering don’t indicate the project’s location, but commenters on HAIF are noting that the alignment of the building jibes with possible additions to the 425,000-sq.-ft. Galleria Plaza office complex immediately west of the Galleria — which Songy purchased last spring. Back then, Songy’s CEO hinted the company might try to fit more buildings into the complex fronting Westheimer, Alabama, and Sage, which includes the Telecheck Plaza and 5333 Westheimer office buildings, a shopping center called Sage Plaza (not to be confused with another shopping center and office building of the same name nearby), Michaelyndon, and a standalone bank building: “The seven-acre site allows us to develop another project while sharing existing parking.”

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Galleria Plaza
09/26/13 11:05am

BILL GATES BUYS DOWNTOWN FOUR SEASONS 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 speculates that he will. [Culturemap] Photo: Klik To Go

09/26/13 10:00am

Here’s a concept that HKS came up with for a site just behind the Hotel Granduca, Montebello, and Villa d’Este towers in Uptown Park. The concept shows how it might go if you wanted to build a conference center and a combo hotel-condo tower on 14 green acres between Tilbury and N. Wynden off S. Post Oak, just west of the Loop. This rendering shows the boxy exterior of what appears to be the conference center flanking a linear park shooting off from the banks of Buffalo Bayou.

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