Here’s a view from 2 Houston Center onto the construction site where a new 13-story precast-concrete parking garage is in the early stages of assembly. The site is the west half of the block bounded by Rusk, Fannin, and Walker streets Downtown. On the eastern half: The newly opened Le Meridien hotel (partly visible in the right foreground), built in the renovated former Melrose Building; and (hidden) behind that, the 11-level 1110 Rusk parking garage. On the opposite side of Fannin St. is another recent Downtown hotel: The Aloft, at 820 Fannin (in the left foreground of the image), with BG Group Place directly behind it.
The new parking garage going up on Downtown’s Block 94 appears to be an accessory to another development not visible in the photo, however: It’s a project of developers Lionstone and Midway, to go with the companies’ Jones at Main redo of the former Gulf Building and the adjacent Great Jones building at 712 and 708 Main St. respectively, both 2 blocks away to the northwest.
The parking garage site has been a surface parking lot since not long after Memorial Day 1986, when the retail building on the site was decimated by a natural gas explosion. The replacement structure is expected to be complete by the end of next year.
- Houston: 13-Story Parking Garage Being Drawn for Federal District [Virtual Builders Exchange]
- Parking Garage to be built next to the Le Meridian [HAIF]
- Montrose Voice, No. 292, May 30, 1986 [University of Houston Libraries]
- Previously on Swamplot: Downtown To Get A Second Food Hall, This Time Above Ground; Former Gulf Building Jonesing for Throwback to the Sakowitz Days on Main St.
Photo: Eric Ramon
Walkability blah blah, ugly architecture blah blah, carcentric blah blah, will cause more flooding blah blah, Houston is backwards because European cities are better blah blah blah.
FAIL