Tag: 77002

Downtown
12/03/08 1:56pm

Dance, Building, Dance: Houston Ballet Makes a Downtown Debut

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Houston Architects, Institutional Buildings, Proposed Developments, Theater District
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What’s the Houston Ballet’s new $53 million, 120,000-sq.-ft. Downtown headquarters building going to look like? Two renderings of the 6-story building planned for the block between Smith, Louisiana, Congress, and Preston Sts. have appeared on an architecture website based in the U.K.

A connecting skybridge would prevent tutus from wilting on the long journey between the new ballet practice facilities and the Wortham Center, which is catty-corner to the site. The new building will also house the ballet’s offices and wardrobe shop, as well as the the Ben Stevenson Academy.

The two views of the building don’t exactly gibe — a likely sign that the design is not final:

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Downtown
11/06/08 12:20pm

Alamo or Modern: Which Way for the San Jose?

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Institutional Buildings, Medical Buildings, Midtown, Proposed Developments
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Rendering of Proposed Family Health Center, 2615 Fannin St. at McGowen St., Houston

The Christus Foundation for HealthCare appears to be hawking two distinct visions for the family health center it hopes to build at the corner of Fannin and McGowen in Midtown. That’s the same location where the complex that contained the Fu Kim Grand Palace Restaurant was torn down last year. On fundraising materials for the San José Clinic — a charity clinic that currently operates across the street from Minute Maid Park Downtown, and which will move into the new center in Midtown when it’s completed in 2010 — there’s a rendering of what looks like a 3-story stucco Alamo-meets-UT mini-resort building set behind a parking lot.

But the Christus Foundation’s website features something entirely different on its Living the Legacy fundraising page:

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Art
10/30/08 11:46am

Notsuoh Covers Its Naughty Storefront Bits

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Downtown, Nightlife
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Naked Mannequin and Dead Flowers, Notsuoh Storefront, 314 Main St., HoustonA red sheet now covers the more lurid portions of the shocking window display including naked mannequins that had apparently distressed some passersby of Jim Pirtle’s Notsuoh on Main St., John Nova Lomax reports:

The work, by local artists Shawna Mouser and Jennifer Pod, is called VaginArt. One half of the piece consists of the lower torsos of two shop mannequins with flowers between their legs, along with a pizza-sized paper wall-hanging with a suggestive slit in it.

The other half, and the one far more likely to have caused a ruckus, consists of a blow-up doll backlit by a sleazy strobe light, parading before a background of medium-raunchy centerfolds with black electrical tape concealing their naughty bits.

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Downtown
10/17/08 9:20am

A Soft Opening for Houston Pavilions

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Malls, Mixed Use, New Construction, Nightlife, Office Space, Openings and Closings, Retail, Shopping Centers
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House of Blues at Houston Pavilions, Downtown Houston

Walkways at Houston Pavilions, Downtown Houston

At the new House of Blues last night: Jay-Z. And three blocks away, Books-A-Million and a roman-numeral flagship version of Forever 21 are now open! But between them in Downtown’s brand-new mixed-use street-hovering mall? Not much going on . . . yet:

The developers of the three block long Houston Pavilions said the pavilions will be the place to go, but for now it’s mainly a lot of space.

“It’s different because you don’t have a lot of nightlife down here. But with the restaurant, the Foundations Room, and the music hall at the House of Blues, we are going to bring people to the Pavilions,” [said] Deb Eybers, President of the House of Blues.

They won’t just bring people. Tenants will also be coming to the area. But for now there are just a handful of businesses.

More are slated to come on line in December and even more in the spring. Then the complex will be at 60 percent capacity.

The complex extends from Main St. to Caroline between Dallas and Polk — only a few surface-parking-lot blocks from the Toyota Center and Discovery Green.

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Downtown
09/18/08 4:37pm

Coming Soon to Houston: More of the Pitter-Patter of Little Pita Pits

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Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Sugar Land
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Pita Pit, 3303 C Highway 6, Sugar Land, Texas

Sandwich franchise Pita Pit has a store tucked inside a Greenway Plaza office building. Two more locations debuted recently: one at Highway 6 and Williams Trace in Sugar Land (opened in May) and another in the tunnel beneath McKinney St. Downtown (opened in July). A new store in a strip center at Westheimer and Fountainview is listed as “coming soon” on the company website.

Now a source reports that a total of 10 Pita Pit franchises are planned for the Houston area — including one in the shopping center at 3939 Montrose Blvd., just north of the Hurricane-Ike-swept Diedrich’s Coffee, near Marble Slab.

Photo of Sugar Land Pita Pit: Pita Pit

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Downtown
09/03/08 11:55am

Discovery Tower Discovery Green Discoveries

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New Construction, Office Buildings, Parks, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing
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Aerial View of Discovery Green and Discovery Tower, Downtown Houston

Never mind the virtual obstacles: The website for Discovery Tower has a new promotional video that pays silent homage to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Also: more fancy renderings of the office building, now under construction.

More interesting to Discovery Green fans, though, will be a few new aerial renderings that depict the Downtown park in urban glory, surrounded by a crowd of real, planned, imagined, and soon-to-be-axed new projects. But . . . uh, which is which?

That orangish tower perched on Discovery Green’s southwest corner: the stalled 22-story Embassy Suites hotel. That sorta-identical but mirrored Hilton Americas on the north side of the park? The Convention Center Hotel Part Two!

So . . . what’s going on behind Discovery Tower?

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Downtown
08/20/08 2:37pm

Where To Surf for Free Downtown: Houston Wi-Fi Map

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Online Resources
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Houston’s Downtown wireless-access experiment is now up and running, with a network of 20 free hotspots, identified in the city’s interactive map above. The hotspots offer download speeds of up to 2Mbps and uploads of up to 1Mbps, which is in the ballpark of cable and DSL service. Brave iPhone tester (and Chronicle Tech columnist) Dwight Silverman reports coverage is pretty spotty between Wi-Fi hotspots:

I’d get a decent signal on my iPhone in one block, then turn a corner and get bupkis. But if I walked a few more feet, I could usually get enough of a connection that I could check e-mail.

Silverman also offers this tip:

If you want a good connection and you’re not near a hotspot, look for one of the dual-antenna access points mounted atop street lights. Get close it for a stronger signal.

Map: Houston WiFi

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Downtown
08/18/08 12:24pm

Downtown Tunnels for Wheelchairs

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Quicklink
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DOWNTOWN TUNNELS FOR WHEELCHAIRS “Eighteen years after the Americans With Disabilities Act became law, several spots along the 6.5-mile downtown tunnel-skywalk system, used by more than 150,000 downtown workers, remain blocked or altogether inaccessible to those in wheelchairs. These areas haven’t been made ADA-compliant because it would be difficult or impossible to put in ramps and still leave enough headroom for pedestrians, said Bob Eury, director of the Downtown District, a public-private association that promotes and manages downtown development.” [Houston Chronicle]

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Attractions
07/31/08 11:50am

Engine Room Shutdown

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Downtown, Openings and Closings
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Engine Room Sign, 1515 Pease St., Downtown Houston

The Downtown music venue is giving it a rest on Pease St., according to the club’s official MySpace page:

Hey everyone Yes the Engine Room is closed down now. All dates have been canceled. We know it’s frustarting to some but we are doing our best to let everyone know who has a date booked with us. We are having a hard time getting a hold of everyone who has a date booked here so please spread the word. We apologize for the inconvenience and any confusion this may have caused anyone. The Jet Lounge will remain open. Once again the Engine Room has been closed down and ALL DATES HAVE BEEN CANCELED!!!

Photo: Flickr user Stacy Davidson

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Commercial Real Estate
07/29/08 10:28am

Enter the Pipe Wrench: The MainPlace Movie

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Downtown, Highrises, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments
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All hail MainPlace! All hail mighty MainPlace! Your towerishness is so . . . smooth and strong!

Videos of Hines’s new office tower at Main and Walker Downtown and its 10 lower molar-and-bicuspid trees are out. If you can’t hear the John-Williams-for-Real-Estate soundtrack, you’re missing half the fun.

When you’re done munching on popcorn and watching the movie above, be sure to catch the slightly more sober second feature, which includes actual information about the building.

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Commercial Real Estate
07/10/08 1:12pm

Mainplace: The Pipe Wrench That Ate Downtown Houston

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Downtown, Highrises, New Construction, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments
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MainPlace, Main and Rusk, Downtown Houston

The new MainPlace website features a bunch of snazzy new and revised rendered views of Hines’s 46-story Downtown office tower. Also included: plans of the building showing 2 street-level retail spaces — big enough maybe for a sushi restaurant plus a small postcard shop for tourists.

Promised to come soon on that website: videos. We hope they’ll play up some of the 1950s-era Japanese horror movie theming going on in a few of the new images.

After the jump: Plans! Sky Gardens! Shiny Glass! Run for your lives!

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Buying and Selling
07/07/08 2:00pm

Heaven on Earth Being Reincarnated

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Commercial Real Estate, Downtown, Hotels, Renovations
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Former Holiday Inn, Days Inn, and Heaven on Earth Inn, St. Joseph Parkway at Travis, Downtown Houston

“A group of doctors and entrepreneurs” calling itself New Era Hospitality is the mystery buyer of the long-abandoned 31-story former Days Inn-former Holiday Inn-former Heaven on Earth Plaza Hotel on St. Joseph Parkway between Travis and Milam, reports Nancy Sarnoff in the Chronicle:

. . . demolition has already started on the interiors, which are being gutted and will be replaced with 340 modern suites, 60 standard guest rooms, 32,000 square feet of meeting space and a swimming pool and bar on top of the attached garage.

That’s down from 600 rooms in the original structure. New Era is hoping either Sheraton, Marriott, or . . . Holiday Inn (again!) will operate the property when it’s finished, in January 2010.

Photo: arch-ive.org

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Downtown
07/01/08 1:46pm

The New Downtown YMCA Replacement: When?

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Institutional Buildings, Proposed Developments
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Proposed New Downtown YMCA

Forwarded by a helpful reader: an email from the Downtown Y that includes the above image of the new Downtown YMCA. The new building is planned for a site that’s just a knight’s jump away from the current 1941 building on Louisiana St., which is now slated for demolition.

The new site is on the block bordered by Travis, Milam, Pease, and Jefferson — currently a surface parking lot. However, the YMCA email says “a new location has not been purchased.” So can y’all please keep quiet about this so the sellers don’t raise their price and ruin the whole deal?

The image comes with a clear message about the building’s schedule, too! The email has a slightly looser concept of “now”: “Doors are scheduled to open,” it says, “by the end of 2010.”

After the jump, more images of the proposed new building . . . from Kirksey’s website.

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