Tag: 77030

Crime
03/04/08 9:01am

Mecom Fountain: Nighttime Photo Opportunities Return

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Hermann Park, Museum District, Nightlife, Public Art
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Mecom Fountain, Main and Montrose, Houston

If you’ve been waiting for your chance to take the perfect dramatic nighttime photo of the Mecom Fountain, act now! The fountain at the middle of the five-way intersection of Main, Montrose, and Hermann Dr. is currently bubble-bath-free and lights up properly at night, thanks to a more-than-$100,000 renovation effort approved by City Council back in November and completed last week.

Back in the fall of 2006, someone had stolen the 264 bronze canisters and light bulbs that lit up the fountains. After staying in the dark for months, it got some help more recently . . . with floodlights from high atop Hotel ZaZa. Maybe now those floods can be turned into motion detectors!

Security measures to protect the Mecom Fountain lights will include additional surveillance by the Houston Police Department, the Hotel ZaZa and the Houston Parks and Recreation Department.

After the jump, photos of the fountain lit up the way it was and how it’s supposed to be, plus a view of the Hermann Park beauty taking a bath.

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Condos
02/29/08 3:30pm

Live on TV: New Med Center Hotel-Condo Tower

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Highrises, Hotels, Neighborhood Associations, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southgate, Texas Medical Center
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Screen Capture of Planning Commission Discussion of New Medistar 40-Story Condo and Hotel Tower at Dryden and Main St., near Southgate, Texas Medical Center, Houston

Thanks to some intrepid reporting lazy online-video scanning over here at Swamplot, we now have more information about Medistar’s 40-story hotel and condominium tower planned for the corner of Dryden and Main St. in the Medical Center.

Yesterday, the Planning Commission voted to defer any consideration of Medistar’s request for a lot-line variance along Main St. But the president of the Southgate Civic Club voiced his objections to the variance — and other aspects of the project — anyway.

After the jump, more stills from the civic-club president’s presentation to the Planning Commission, plus a few bits of armchair analysis from our crack crew of expert TV watchers.

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Commercial Real Estate
02/28/08 10:26am

Newest and Tallest: The Texas Medical Center Goes Condo

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Condos, Highrises, Hotels, Malls, Medical Buildings, Proposed Developments, Southgate, Texas Medical Center
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Here’s what we know so far about the new 40-story hotel-and-condo tower Medistar Corporation is planning for the corner of Main St. and Dryden, between Rice’s new Collaborative Research Center and the Baylor Clinic on the west side of Main: not a whole lot.

But at 40 stories, the new building would likely be the tallest tower in the Texas Medical Center. (The new Memorial Hermann Medical Plaza is only 31.) That’s taller than those twin hypodermics, too.

A lot-line variance for the project is item number 111 before the Planning Commission this afternoon. And the request provides a few clues. Medistar wants the same 10-foot setback along Main St. that the Baylor Clinic has, so the new building can have a similar passenger dropoff and a “pedestrian friendly” entry on that side. The building’s longer axis will be perpendicular to Main. The arguments imply Medistar intends to have “ornamental decorations and balconies” on the Main St. side, and that the tower will be linked by skybridge to the Medical Center main campus across the street.

According to the Southgate Neighborhood Newsletter, the tower will include a 1200-car parking facility.

This isn’t the only new building type Medistar is planning to stir into the Medical Center mix. A block down the street, just south of the company’s Best Western Hotel at 6700 Main St., Medistar is planning a 600,000-sq.-ft. medical mall. The Houston Business Journal reported on that project late last month:

The high-rise would house offices and showrooms for companies that sell equipment, supplies and pharmaceuticals to Texas Medical Center institutions. Tenants could also include organizations working to develop new medical technologies and treatments.

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Braeswood
12/04/07 12:51pm

Million-Dollar Teardown: Under Market on Underwood?

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Buying and Selling, Demolitions, Land Prices
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2335 Underwood St., Braeswood, Houston

This house in Braeswood looks like a million bucks! And it sold back in August for just over that — $1.1 million — after lingering on the market for just over half a year with an asking price $400K higher.

And it’s featured in today’s Daily Demolition Report!

Below the fold, photos of demolition-ready interiors, plus some quick math.

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Attractions
11/15/07 12:42pm

CSI YouTube: The Sliding Door, the Elusive Shadow, the Last-Minute Runner, and Other Clues from the Crowne Plaza Demo

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Crime, Demolitions, Texas Medical Center
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Sliding Door Closeup from Crowne Plaza Hotel Demolition, Texas Medical Center, Houston

So professional and amateur detectives have huddled over the Crowne Plaza demolition videos and what have they come up with? Here are the rumors . . . er, clues!

First, mysterious Flickr member txrice123 writes:

the police are investigating a report that there may have been someone inside the structure on the fifth floor in the middle. a video taken from the face of your side (from St. Luke’s) apparently shows this person run to the edge, then run back. if you have any shots from before, you may like to look closely and send them to hpd.

The photo txrice123 is commenting on was taken from the west side of the building, and St. Luke’s is to the north, so the comment is a little confusing, no? And, uh . . . which fifth floor? The hotel had a podium.

Next, KPRC-TV keeps talking about a “shadow,” but isn’t shedding any light on the subject:

The home video showed a shadow inside the building moments before it was destroyed on Sunday.

Who knows what lurked in there?

And of course there’s the mysterious sliding door, shown enlarged above from the video in Swamplot’s earlier post. ABC13 hypes this part of the video, but neglects to point out that several gust-inducing dynamite blasts have taken place and the building has already started to rumble by the time the door starts “sliding.” Hey, isn’t a fire door supposed to close in a case like this?

After the jump, the door slides shut!

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Attractions
11/15/07 12:05am

Remaking Blow-Up, or Was Everybody Out When the Crowne Went Down?

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Crime, Demolitions, Hazards, Hotels, Texas Medical Center
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[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=3dkfv0e2GCk 400 330]

Watch this video very closely. Do you see someone entering the building before the demolition begins? Maybe on the left side of the screen?

No? Well, keep looking. How about enlarging the video — or breaking it down frame by frame — so you can examine it more carefully?

Apparently someone who shot a video of the same event from the same angle saw something in it so disturbing that he brought the footage to the attention of the Houston Police Department. And officers found the evidence credible enough that they spent the greater part of Wednesday searching through rubble to see if maybe someone got into the Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Texas Medical Center shortly before it was imploded Sunday morning.

KHOU-TV reports that police are focusing their search on the Fannin side of the building, which would be the street on the left. The station also says that the video used as evidence was in fact taken from the St. Luke’s Medical Tower — the same vantage point as the YouTube video above.

So is the video above the same one the police are studying?

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Demolitions
11/14/07 4:24pm

Why It Might Be a While Before Houston Implodes Another Building

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Hotels, Texas Medical Center
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Here’s an awful thought: Was someone inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel when it was imploded Sunday morning? Channel 11 News is reporting that police received a tip earlier today “about a possible death on the site during the implosion.”

According to the tip, there may be video showing the person inside the building when it went down. It was unclear who had the video.

Police have yet to determine if the tip is legitimate.

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Attractions
11/05/07 3:31pm

Make Your Reservations Now for the Crowne Plaza Implosion

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Demolitions, Hotels, Texas Medical Center
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Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Texas Medical Center

Update: Demo pics, videos, and more are now here.

Who says real estate isn’t a spectator sport? There’s nothing that brings out crowds of dedicated fans early in the morning like a good ol’ fashioned Houston building implosion.

This weekend, you’ll be able to combine your demolition obsession with a romantic weekend getaway at the Medical Center Holiday Inn — where, from the comfort of your own room (if you can reserve one facing north), you’ll be able to start your Sunday morning with a bang.

At 7:10 on November 11th, the Crowne Plaza Hotel across the street at 6701 Main will come down in a cloud of dust, to the cheers of onlookers able to sneak into prime viewing areas — such as the south side of the soon-to-be-the-former John O’Quinn Medical Tower. If you’re an explosives fan but don’t have that kind of access to medical-office space, you can try the view from Southgate, east of Travis.

Fannin and Main Streets will be closed from Dryden to Holcombe starting at 6:30 a.m.

What’s the best spot for viewing the Cherry Demolition job?

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Demolitions
10/05/07 9:16am

St. Luke’s: We’re Selling So We Can Renovate and Demolish

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Highrises, Institutional Buildings, Medical Buildings, Office Buildings, Renovations, Texas Medical Center
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The O’Quinn Medical Tower at St. Luke’sWhy did St. Luke’s decide to sell the Texas Medical Center’s most recognizable building?

Once the tower sale goes through, St. Luke’s — which plans to lease back its current space on floors nine through 12 for continued hospital operations — plans to extensively renovate and update the 27-story patient tower, which opened in 1971. The original seven-story hospital building, built in 1954 and now used for administrative functions, will be torn down, and new facilities will be built on that space as well as possibly on other nearby undeveloped land owned by St. Luke’s, according to [St. Luke’s senior vice president David] Koontz.

“That is the ‘why’ behind the move to sell this medical building,” he says.

For sale: The Madonna tower. Designed by Cesar Pelli. Officially named only a couple of years ago for donor and breast-implant litigator John O’Quinn.

After the jump, a picture-postcard-perfect view of the original 1954 St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital building, not long for this world.

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