Headlines: Protecting TxDOT Workers; Showing Off New Metro Rail Station Art

Photo of Alabama at Main: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

8 Comment

  • Quick question:
    Did they ever settle on what the new central station downtown is going to look like.
    There was that big campaign with multiple designs and everything, but I can’t remember a winner ever being named.
    Anyone know?
    http://swamplot.com/5-designs-for-houstons-new-main-st-central-station/2012-02-01/

  • Aw hey look, it is 1980!

  • Instead of just waiting, I actually just did old fashioned research and started cold calling numbers on the Metrorail site.
    Come to find out, the winner hasn’t been announced. (FYI, if you introduce yourself on the phone firmly as if you’re important, people give you all kind of info.)
    There is still ‘financial issues’ being hashed out between design teams and METRO. All the foundation work / pillar work that can be used by any design is currently being done.
    Before any announcement, the project has to go before the METRO board for approval.
    Asked when this would happen, I got the answer: “Soon”.
    If I had to read between the lines, I would say that we’ll be getting the cheapest design at the latest possible time. But that’s me just being the jaded Houstonian that I am.

  • DNAguy, They’ve got to save money somewhere, they need it to help pay for that 47 million dollar railroad crossing on Harrisburg.

  • Regarding the ‘move over law’, why doesn’t this law apply to anyone on the side of the road, are emergency responders at greater risk than folks with a flat tire?

  • I really hope we don’t go thru this very bullish building cycle with not one building making an impact on the skyline, I’m taking 60 plus stories –this will probably be out last chance in a generation to really change a skyline that’s not changed in a significant way since the boom of the eighties

  • The 80’s downtown skyline turned out to be pretty much awesome as an aesthetic composition. I would hate to transform its character too terribly much.

    I’m much more pleased to see skyline infill in Uptown and the Medical Center, and also in between there and downtown proper.

  • Agree, Niche. I think the planned buildings will fit nicely.

    But I’m not going to lie and say I wouldn’t be way too excited about a supertall masterpiece right in the center!