Tag: Downtown

02/29/08 3:50pm

Discovery Tower: Yep, They Are Wind Turbines

Downtown, Green Design and Development, Highrises, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing

Top of Proposed Discovery Tower, Downtown Houston

From our email comes a message from a reader who has heard from someone involved in the project that the white poles shown at the top of the new Discovery Tower drawing are . . . indeed, wind turbines.

So . . . if they do end up being put in, how much energy will they bring to the building? And . . . how many tenants?

Discovery Tower [LoopNet]
Discovery Tower: Ready for Closeup? [Swamplot]

77010, Commercial Real Estate, Discovery Tower, Downtown, Green Design, Highrises, New Construction, Office Buildings, Office Space, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing

02/28/08 5:13pm

Discovery Tower: Ready for Closeup?

Downtown, Green Design and Development, Houston Architects, New Construction, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

Rendering of Discovery Tower by Gensler, Downtown Houston Thanks to an alert poster on HAIF, we now have a more up-to-date and better view of Discovery Tower, Trammel Crow’s 30-story office building — designed by Gensler and planned for a perch on the north side of Discovery Green Downtown.

Other HAIF participants have been speculating whether the shorter white poles at the top of the image are supposed to be . . . wind turbines!

Well, are they? Scrutinize a larger version of the rendering and judge for yourself . . . below the fold.

77010, Discovery Tower, Downtown, Green Design, Highrises, Houston Architects, New Construction, Office Buildings, Office Space, Proposed Developments

02/07/08 4:54pm

Discovery Tower: Ready to Climb

Highrises, New Construction, Office Buildings

Drawing of Discovery Tower, Downtown Houston Here’s a small discovery from today’s permit report: Work on the site and foundation of Discovery Tower — a 30-story office tower developed by Trammell Crow and designed by Gensler — has been approved by the city. The tower is planned for a block next to Discovery Green downtown, at 1501 McKinney St.

The tower will have retail space at street level and will reportedly tie into the tunnel system . . . by skybridge. A new parking garage will go up one block north.

The tiny image above shows the view from Discovery Green. Discovery Tower is at the far right. (The hazy image in the background to the left is the Finger Companies’ One Park Place, which is now under construction.)

Got any better images of Discovery Tower you’d like to share? Send them in!

Trammell Crow planning for early 2008 start on CBD tower [Houston Business Journal]
Hines project hits home [Houston Chronicle]
Discovery Tower [LoopNet]

Photo: CBRE, via HAIF user lockmat

77010, Discovery Tower, Downtown, Downtown Tunnel System, Highrises, New Construction, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

Attractions

01/21/08 10:21am

The Downtown Boom: Reader Photos and Videos from the Montagu Hotel Implosion

Demolitions, Downtown, Hotels

Implosion of the Montagu Hotel, Downtown Houston

Updated with more videos below.

If you didn’t hear about the implosion of that 11-story building Downtown last weekend until after it happened, you weren’t the only one. It’s just that battle-scarred Cherry Demolition was a little gun-shy about publicizing another hotel demo in advance. Fewer spectators means less chance a blurry video or two will turn the company from rubble removers to crime-scene investigators.

Fortunately for readers, nobody informed Swamplot about the media blackout. After the jump, reports, photos, and videos of Sunday’s big bang!

77002, Attractions, Demolitions, Downtown, Hotels

Attractions

01/17/08 8:34am

Downtown Demo Party: Montagu Hotel Implosion This Weekend

Demolitions, Downtown, Hotels

The Former Hotel Montagu, Downtown Houston

Update: Photos and videos of the implosion are here.

Another Houston hotel implosion? So soon?

This one will be downtown, and everyone’s hoping it doesn’t make national news. But that doesn’t mean this weekend’s big bang won’t be another early-morning citywide block party. And so much to talk about since the last one!

Cherry Demolition crews have been chipping away at buildings on the block bounded by Main, Fannin, Rusk, and Walker since October, to make room for a 46-story pipe wrench. And everything is set for Dykon’s implosion of the 11-story Montagu Hotel (originally the Hotel Cotton, built in 1913) at the corner of Main and Rusk at 7 a.m. on Sunday, January 20th.

Streets will be shut down at least a block in each direction. But with the Crowne Plaza final-mystery-guest hullabaloo fresh in everyone’s memory, maybe this time there won’t be so much jockeying for the same “best” camera and video angles. Everyone spread out in a big circle, and send us your unique photos and videos. First person to spot anything fishy on the scene wins a special report on Inside Edition!

MainPlace to be completed in 2010 [HAIF]
Daily Demolition Report: Three Buildings That Will Go Down in History [Swamplot]
Why It Might Be a While Before Houston Implodes Another Building [Swamplot]
Crowne Plaza Demolition Party Report: All Your Pics and Videos [Swamplot]
Remaking Blow-Up, or Was Everybody Out When the Crowne Went Down? [Swamplot]
MainPlace: Hinesâ€™s 46-Story Green Pipe-Wrench Dream [Swamplot]

Photo of Hotel Montagu: Jeremey Barrett

77002, Attractions, Demolitions, Downtown, Hotels, MainPlace

Air Quality

01/16/08 5:52pm

Living the High Life at Live Oak Lofts

Crime, Hazards, Lofts, Neighborhood Disputes, Warehouse District

Live Oak Lofts, Houston

Residents of the Live Oak Lofts, you have been warned! Whoever among you has been smoking weed and stinking up the whole joint, you must cease immediately — the Live Oak Lofts Homeowners Association is on the case!

Don’t want to get all up in your business and all, but now that this has happened, the Association will not fail to contact the proper authorities if anything incriminating is further sniffed — or if you are caught doing anything illegal whatsoever!

After the jump, the scathing marijuana memo distributed to all residents of the Live Oak Lofts!

77003, Air Quality, Crime, Downtown, Hazards, Lofts, Neighborhood Disputes, Warehouse District

Attractions

01/10/08 4:24pm

The East Downtown Sports and Convention Complex

Downtown, Reliant Park

Reliant Parking

Chronicle reporters say they know where the new Dynamo Stadium is going . . . and it’s on land the city itself will buy:

Earlier this week, city officials signed letters of intent to buy parcels of land just east of U.S. 59 and the downtown business district . . . City officials declined to identify the location, but a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed reports that the parcels are in a six-block area between Texas and Walker avenues and Hutchins and Dowling streets, just southeast of Minute Maid Park near the northbound side of U.S. 59.

This all sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it? Within a few acres, there’ll be stadiums for three big-league sports teams, a convention center, a hotel, and a freeway overpass. Once the Dynamo stadium gets built, if this new growing complex really wants to be able to compete with Reliant Park, all they’ll have to do is wrap the whole neighborhood with a wide ribbon of surface parking lots!

City signs letter of intent for soccer stadium land [Houston Chronicle]
Stanford Lofts: Your Parking Lot Is Safe from the Dynamo [Swamplot]

Photo of Reliant Park parking lots: Flickr user scalpelorsword

77003, Downtown, Dynamo Stadium, Minute Maid Park, Reliant Park

Condos

12/06/07 10:54am

Stanford Lofts: Your Parking Lot Is Safe from the Dynamo

Downtown, Lofts, Parking, Proposed Developments

Balcony of Stanford Lofts Unit 409

A resident of the Stanford Lofts just east of Downtown writes in to make sure everyone knows, after all, that the building’s view of Minute Maid Park is not going to be obstructed by . . . a view of a new soccer stadium for the Houston Dynamo directly across the street.

No, no official deal’s been announced. But this tidbit from a Chronicle story has allowed condo owners to breathe a sigh of relief:

The Dynamo first set sights on land owned by the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority just east of Minute Maid Park and U.S. 59, but have since decided against the property, which the Astros lease for stadium parking.

“We know for a fact (the property) is no longer being considered,” said Sports Authority head Kenny Friedman, who added that the Sports Authority is not actively involved in the negotiations.

The team might be looking to purchase private land near the same general area as the county-owned property, although Luck declined to confirm or deny it, saying only that a downtown venue is still planned.

So where will the Dynamo stadium go? Keep reading below the fold:

77003, Condos, Downtown, Dynamo Stadium, Lofts, Minute Maid Park, Proposed Developments, Stanford-Lofts

12/04/07 11:04am

Hearsay: Market Square Gastropub Rehab . . . and More

Historic Preservation, Midtown, Renovations, Restaurants

Former Twelve Spot Bar on Travis Street, Downtown Houston

Former Ibiza and Catalan investor Rhea Wheeler and two partners have bought the shuttered Twelve Spot bar on Travis St. — just around the corner from Market Square downtown — and will be turning it into a gastropub called Hearsay.

218 Travis is Houston’s second-oldest building, and originally served as a Confederate Army munitions depot. It’s a dramatic space inside: There are three stories, but the upper floors have been removed and a mezzanine placed in the back.

Wheeler told Jennifer Dawson of the Houston Business Journal he’ll open the new restaurant in the first half of next year.

After the jump: More Wheeler restaurant plans! In actual old buildings!

77002, 77004, Downtown, Historic Preservation, Midtown, Renovations, Restaurants

10/11/07 11:28am

Downtown’s New Tower of Parking

Highrises, New Construction, Office Buildings, Parking

Heritage Plaza, Downtown Houston, Texas A new multistory parking structure is about to go up at the northeast edge of downtown, across the street from Heritage Plaza. A building permit for the parking garage at 1200 Bagby, which is classified as a “high rise” itself, was approved by the city yesterday.

“We’re going to offer suburban parking ratios in downtown Houston,” Russell F. Read, a principal at Goddard Investment Group, told the CoStar group two years ago. “That will be hard to beat.”

Atlantaâ€™s Goddard Investment Group Buys Houston Landmark [CoStar Group]

Photo: flickr user Corrine Martin

77002, Downtown, New Construction, Office Buildings, Parking, Parking-Garages

08/27/07 8:34am

Houston Pavilions: Woulda Coulda Shoulda

Condos, Development Strategy, Downtown, Mixed Use, New Construction, Nightlife, Office Buildings, Parking, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers

Houston Pavilions Aerial View, Downtown Houston

If you’re curious why the developers of Houston Pavilions, the $70 million mixed-use development under construction downtown, decided not to mix anything other than office space with their 360,000 square feet of retail and “entertainment” space, you’ll be interested to read the comments L.A. developer Bill Denton made to the CoStar Group:

[Entertainment Development Group] put the site under contract in January 2004, then three surface parking lots and a multi-level parking garage sitting on just over 4 acres, and the project has evolved ever since. “We originally planned for a hotel/condo component, but at the time, the city was just finishing off convention center hotels and hotel occupancy was only 52%; now its difficult to find a hotel room in Downtown Houston. So, we changed the plan into two residential towers, which stuck until 12 months ago. Demand on the residential was tremendous, but because of the mixed-use and density, we would have had to do subterranean parking, which blew the economics of the residences out of the water. So now its 200,000 square feet of office space, and based on demand for that so far, I wish we could do 400,000 square feet.”

77002, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Development Strategy, Downtown, Houston Pavilions, Mixed Use, New Construction, Nightlife, Office Space, Parking, Proposed Developments, Retail

08/06/07 10:39am

Downtown Rents: Going Up

Downtown, Leasing, New Construction, Office Buildings

5 Houston Center Leasing rates at Five Houston Center downtown have reached $30 a square foot triple net, reports Globe St. That’s quite a jump from the building’s $18 rate a year ago. Other Class A buildings are not far behind.

Will prices stay high after all those new downtown buildings get built?

[Transwestern senior vice president David] Lee points out that when newer product comes on line, older buildings will work to catch up by making rates competitive. But with new buildings still 18 months to two years from completion in the CBD, current owners have an interesting advantage, he adds. “The guys that got their stuff in the ground a year and a half to two years ago and before are in great shape now,” he says. “In a two-year period, rates have essentially doubled Downtown.”

Houston CBD Hits New High for Class A Rents [Globe St.]

Photo of 5 Houston Center: HKS

77002, Downtown, Lease-Rates, Leasing, New Construction, Office Buildings

07/31/07 12:03pm

Eye-Opening Parking Garage Design

Lofts, Neighborhood Disputes, New Construction, Parking

Hines Parking Garage at Walker and Main downtown

Hines’s new parking garage at the corner of Walker and Main downtown features an innovative lighting design that delivers benefits to neighbors. The problem: drivers parking at night in the unscreened 14-story garage might shine their headlights across the street, directly into residences in the Commerce Towers building across the street. The solution: flood the garage with so much light that cars won’t need to use their headlights at all.

Unfortunately, Commerce Towers residents don’t seem to appreciate all that attention to detail:

it is an extravagant eyesore that expands from Travis to Main (ironically, grossly overshadowing the light rail) and right on Walker. There is no skin on it, and so sits a concrete skeletal nightmare.

Not only is this grotesque structure visually nauseating, it also is a seizure-inducing brightly-lit nightmare! The structure is fleshed out with intensely BRIGHT floodlights on each of its 14 floors, including the roof, that release their ungodly glow (24/7) without obstruction into the living and bedroom units of the Commerce Towers Condominiums!

Hines vice president Clark Davis told the Chronicle two years ago that the garage, which sits on land cleared by demolishing the San Jacinto building, would be “architecturally significant.” Hines developed the garage for the company they sold the property to, Sunbelt Management of Florida.

Well Lighted Parking Garage Keeps Neighbors Awake [MyFox Houston]
Parking Garage To Go Up On Main [HAIF]
Parking garage to go up on Main [Houston Chronicle]

Photo: HAIF user sevfiv

77002, Downtown, Lighting, Lofts, Parking-Garages

07/26/07 8:05pm

The Beatles Slept Here

Downtown, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Renovations

Sheraton-Lincoln Hotel

And so, apparently, did Jack Ruby. The 28-story former Sheraton-Lincoln Hotel at 711 Polk downtown, vacant for more than 20 years and asbestos-free for almost nine, has a new suitor, reports the Houston Business Journal:

Omni [Hotels Corp.] said it and Atlanta-based Songy will transform the Houston hotel, near the George R. Brown Convention Center and what will be the new Houston Pavilions project, into an all-suites hotel featuring more than 400 suites, 30,000 square feet of meeting space and multiple culinary venues.

Other amenities will include a 13,000-square-foot wellness center with outside accessibility for nearby office workers, a fitness area with a Mokara Salon & Spa and personal trainers and nutritionists on staff to assist with creating customized wellness and fitness regimens.

After the jump, swank pix from the Sheraton-Lincoln’s sixties heyday.