These renderings of the Marriott Marquis show the shapes of things coming — by 2016, according to current plans — to Downtown. Planned for the corner of Walker St. and Avenidas de las Americas, the hotel will stand facade-to-facade across Discovery Green with its older brother, the Hilton-Americas, doubling the number of rooms that serve the George R. Brown Convention Center.
Morris Architects, teamed up with Rida Development, is responsible for the design of this 30-story tower, which will have more than 1,000 guest rooms and exactly one 40,000-sq.-ft. grand ballroom. On the deck atop that ballroom appears to be some fully realized Texas mythology: the state as an island, surrounded by a chlorinated “lazy river.” Guests will tube around it, enjoying what’s more typically considered a Hill Country pastime.
And this is what the hotel is supposed to look like around dusk:
A reader figures all the Houston Fire Department units and ambulances gathered downtown around the long-vacant former Holiday Inn at 801 St. Joseph Pkwy. at Travis St. on Sunday morning were there for some training exercises: “There was no incident active on the HFD Active Incidents web site, which is just a dump from their dispatch system. I monitored their radio traffic related to it as well. . . . I assume they had permission from the owner. Interesting to see this building getting some attention. I don’t think they were setting it on fire, though.” The 31-story 1971 building was also, for a time, a Days Inn; it was last known as the Heaven on Earth Plaza Hotel, operated through most of the nineties by an organization affiliated with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, though many residents and neighbors referred to it more affectionately as the 
Wrapping up last weekend’s seat-of-the-pants Pan Art Fair, held in a third-floor hotel suite across the street from the massive Texas Contemporary Art Fair at the George R. Brown Convention Center, blogger and fair impresario Robert Boyd notes some successes. Among the sales: A piece from artist Jim Nolan’s drawers-in-a-drawer installation, the process of failure/it’s better to regret something you have done, also known as a pair of underwear displayed prominently in one of the bedside-table drawers. Also, Boyd sold out of the small run of T-shirts he had made to commemorate the event. And he’s glad a number of local artists helped push the exhibition space into some 
Having now sold out all remaining 
Blogger Robert Boyd’s upstart Pan Art Fair — now touting itself as “Houston’s smallest art fair” — has been digging deep into the furniture of its Embassy Suites hotel room venue (Suite 307) to find space for more exhibitors. Added to the showing space for the fair, which runs at the same time as the much larger Texas Contemporary Art Fair across Discovery Green in the GRB beginning this Thursday: exhibits in the end-table and dresser drawers. 
Blogger Robert Boyd is putting on his own art fair to coincide with next month’s Texas Contemporary Art Fair at the GRB. The Pan Art Fair will be housed in a (yet-to-be determined) room in the neighboring Embassy Suites Hotel, across from Discovery Green. Salon des Refusés or after-fair party pad? Maybe a little of both: Individual artists aren’t allowed to set up their own booths at major art fairs — Boyd’s hotel-suite extravaganza has already signed up 2 artists and 2 galleries. “I grew up going to comic book conventions, and art fairs are basically the same thing, except more expensive, more fashionable and less nerdy,” he writes. He’s hoping to drum up more competition: “
Has it been your lifelong dream to develop a quaint little hotel in the town center of a brand-new 1,800-acre “eco-themed” community in the shadows of the formerly woodsy new suburban-style corporate campus of the 
Spencer’s for Steaks and Chops inside the Hilton Americas Hotel downtown will soon feature sidewalk seating and an outdoor lounge area — but not on the hotel’s busy side facing Discovery Green.The improvements are going instead on the west side of the structure, facing Crawford St. (shown above under construction) — and Centerpoint Energy’s showcase full-block electrical transformer farm next door. Crawford St., which is blocked by the Toyota Center one block to the south, will be reduced to 2 traffic lanes, while the sidewalk is widened by 25 ft. Plans for the sidewalk scene by landscape firm Clark Condon Associates show the lounge area surrounded by a low wall closer to Dallas St., a dining area further south, and a double row of sycamore trees that should help shield sidewalk sitters from any sparks across the street. Separately, sidewalks are also being widened along 3 blocks of Dallas St. between Houston Pavilions and the George R. Brown Convention Center. The Spencer’s eating area should be complete by October; drawings of the design are currently on display in the restaurant. Photo: 
The San Antonio developer who recently 
