HOUSTON | Development Thread II

[Urbannizer]

From one of our great sources over on HAIF:

I expect several as of yet unannounced projects to become public in the near future including hotels and multifamily high rises in uptown, a couple office/mixed use projects along the Allen parkway/memorial corridor, a perhaps some additional condo high rises which are picking up serious steam in Houston.

[Dale]

I fully expect the lid to blow off of downtown Houston shortly. No inside info, just that Houston is the It City.

[toxteth o'grady]

Sarnoff's column has a quick list of the residential projects taking advantage of the downtown incentive program.

Downtown towers abound





That's about 2300 units. The incentives are up to 5000 units, so that means a few more towers could still be proposed.

[toxteth o'grady]

Originally Posted by Dale

I fully expect the lid to blow off of downtown Houston shortly. No inside info, just that Houston is the It City.

That's about what has happened in New York and Miami. Given Houston's shortage of developable lots, that seems to favor more residential highrises.

[N90]

#110 TMC hotel and residences
#111 Memorial Hermans 16 floor outpatient center
#112 Camden's 21 floor phase 1
#113 Skyline North
#114 Camden's 21 floor phase 2

[toxteth o'grady]

From the Chronicle article:

"Update: A Houston lawyer who lives in the neighborhood near Rice University, which is at the center of the Ashby high-rise battle, filed a “friend of the court” brief in support of the residents’ cause to stop the construction of the 21-story tower.

Hugh Rice Kelly, general counsel for Texans for Lawsuit Reform, who lives near the site of 1717 Bissonnet, submitted his amicus brief to the court Monday evening..."

Unbelievable. Hugh Rice Kelly should be thrown out of the courtroom on his ear for rank hypocrisy. You want tort reform, don't bring lawsuits like this.

[Clev]

Originally Posted by Dale

I fully expect the lid to blow off of downtown Houston shortly. No inside info, just that Houston is the It City.

I hope you're right. Downtown Houston needs to build more and densify.

[timoric]

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[Urbannizer]

JW Marriott / 806 Main: 4/22 by Nate99





The Sovereign: 4/22 by Triton









4306 Yoakum: 4/21 by Jax



The Susanne: 4/22 by Triton





Chateau Ten: 4/21 by bobruss



San Felipe Place (2229 San Felipe): 4/22 by Cloud713



Phillips 66 HQ: 4/22 by Cloud713



Air Liquide Centre: 4/22 by mikehouston



Energy Tower IV: 4/22 by cloud713





Energy Center III & IV: 4/22 by Cloud713

[toxteth o'grady]

Originally Posted by timoric

I wonder where Houston will end up on this list in 10 years, would love to see 3rd place behind Chicago and New York. I hope San Francisco doesn't propel past us.

Part of what makes this list misleading are all the separate communities that make up the metropolitan centers, each with their own lists of skyscrapers. From what I can tell, more buildings will be going up in Houston proper than in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Washington, but all of them have activity in the surrounding communities that's not accounted for. And San Francisco is getting one and possibly several supertalls (don't let the folks who preach "Don't Manhattanize SF" hear that!). All the cities on the list are building at a furious rate, with Houston probably outpacing them all in terms of sheer numbers. There's also Miami, which is adding condos like the bust never happened.

[toxteth o'grady]

Originally Posted by Urbannizer

Phillips 66 HQ: 4/22 by Cloud713



Air Liquide Centre: 4/22 by mikehouston

Those are a couple of busy sites. Think they've got enough equipment working on the Air Liquide building?

[timoric]

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[Urbannizer]

UH Football Stadium: 4/22 by Triton

[Hawk89]

Originally Posted by timoric

I wonder where Houston will end up on this list in 10 years, would love to see 3rd place behind Chicago and New York. I hope San Francisco doesn't propel past us.

http://skyscraperpage.com/database/country/2

Cities Population Highrises

• New York City 8,175,133 5886
• Chicago 2,833,321 1150
• Los Angeles 3,849,378 543
• Washington 601,723 452
• Honolulu 377,260 451
• Houston 2,144,491 440
• San Francisco 805,235 419

Houston will probably jump Honolulu and DC, but San Francisco may catch you guys. They have a lot of buildings going up for their Transbay project. But still, I don't think this is a valid comparison. Houston's city limits are huge, so of course it will have more overall high rises. I bet if you just compared the area surrounding a city's CBD that Houston wouldn't even be ranked in the top 10.

[N90]

Originally Posted by Hawk89

Houston will probably jump Honolulu and DC, but San Francisco may catch you guys. They have a lot of buildings going up for their Transbay project. But still, I don't think this is a valid comparison. Houston's city limits are huge, so of course it will have more overall high rises. I bet if you just compared the area surrounding a city's CBD that Houston wouldn't even be ranked in the top 10.

Houston drops behind SF if you cut it down to 50 square miles or less. The clusters form what Tory Gattis has branded as "the skyscraper walled city of Houston", a triangle shaped cluster with a eastern terminus of DT, western terminus of UT, and south tip of TMC with Greenway Plaza in the heart of it all.
The 4 largest skyscraper clusters in Houston metro by a lot. SSP provides maps with all highrises. From DT to UT the edge of east DT to San Felipe Plaza in UT), it has 366 highrises and is 43 square miles with the north and south boundaries being 610 and 610.

You can count each highrise on the database to verify. I have already done this because people come up with every way to try to undermine Houston. BTW, in this boundary is over 50% of Houston's proposed 114 highrises. So it will only continue to distance itself from the city right below it. SF is in Houston's neighborhood when you take this 43 square mile boundary into account.

If you increase the land boundary to ATL's size (134 square miles) then 95% of the city's TOTAL highrises are within it. Adding the four remaining large clusters of Energy Corridor/City Centre/Memorial City, 59 South (Hillcroft to Sharpstown), and 610 North loop @ the 290 intersection. Only excluding Greenspoint.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by timoric

Man, if Houston could just get some rail lines along these major corridors, it would have it all. That is going to cost billions and take decades to build I imagine, if it happens at all. This lady at my dog park in Maryland and her husband taught at Rice last summer and her comment about Houston was "that place is so sprawling and there isn't any good public transportation."

And yet Rice is pretty much on the first rail line (the one that runs from downtown to the Reliant Stadium area (through the Med Center). I guess it didn't go where they wanted to go, which is understandable. There are other lines, too. My understanding is that ridership is good. But you're correct, the lines need to also go along some major corridors where they currently do not.

[timoric]

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[N90]

Originally Posted by timoric

I would like to dump it all in Excel and do some analysis on visual bar graphs to compare cities so if one city has 300 ten story buildings and one has 150 30 story buildings the total floor count would favor the taller city not the many short buildings. Actually a total story count for each city could do that too.

Height has never been a problem for Houston. If anything, the lack of 10-15 story buildings in spades has been the city's problem. Which is what's being corrected in this boom cycle.

Look at DT SF and DT Houston and around both their DT's in a Google Earth view. DT SF has a big sea of 10-15 story towers to create mass around its DT (or as I simply call it MASS INFILL). When we look at the tallest buildings the convo goes the other way in favor of DT Houston and Houston's inner loop in general.

What you're describing has been done regarding floor height, etc.

http://www.ultrapolisproject.com/Tal...nes_Cities.htm

[Dale]

Downtown Houston is rapidly evolving into a downtown in keeping with Houston's stature.

Off-topic: looked like the Toyota Center was half-empty. Realized that half the crowd is wearing red t-shirts. :O

[Hawk89]

Originally Posted by N90

Height has never been a problem for Houston. If anything, the lack of 10-15 story buildings in spades has been the city's problem. Which is what's being corrected in this boom cycle.

Look at DT SF and DT Houston and around both their DT's in a Google Earth view. DT SF has a big sea of 10-15 story towers to create mass around its DT (or as I simply call it MASS INFILL). When we look at the tallest buildings the convo goes the other way in favor of DT Houston and Houston's inner loop in general.

What you're describing has been done regarding floor height, etc.

http://www.ultrapolisproject.com/Tal...nes_Cities.htm

Correct. Downtown Houston has a tall mass of buildings right in the middle that is more impressive than any other U.S. City besides NY and Chicago, in my opinion. The height really is incredible. The problem is that the tall mass is surrounded by parking lots. If you guys fill those in with 10-20 story buildings, then I definitely believe that Houston deserves the title of 3rd best skyline in the U.S.