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Originally Posted by The Best Forumer
Thanks for the question. Yes some will say the 80s crash hit us... which it did and hard. I think the answer can be found in the fact that there is no zoning.
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It sounds like a good idea, but in the case of that period of time, zoning wouldn't have been able to ensure the construction of the scores of buildings that were not built then.
Worth remembering is that the bust in the 80s was two-fold (minimum). The first was tied to the glut in the oil supply, and in a city that was much more heavily reliant on that industry at the time, when the primary industry begins to dry up - so does all of that office space that was sought, much less the money tied to what were vanity projects in some cases.
While oil was the primary catalyst for the collapse early in the decade, in the mid 80s and onward for a number of years, it was exacerbated by the failure of numerous banks. In the years prior to this, Houston had a number of sizable LOCAL banks (Allied, Bank of the Southwest, First City, Texas Commerce, etc...). As time went on many of these institutions collapsed - assets were seized and in some cases, bridge banks had to be created to hold the assets before a larger bank would be willing to purchase them. Many of these banks (First City & Allied at the top, IIRC) that were primary lenders on many of the highrise and mixed-use projects of the period, were out of existence before the decade had even ended.
Proposals for substantial projects (minus the O'Quinn Towers in the TMC) didn't start emerging in earnest until 1990, based on accounts from the Houston Post. That year, there weren't many - a 40 story convention center hotel that would've occupied about 2/3rds of what's now Discovery Green and a trio of towers on the West Loop South near Uptown (2-30 story apartment towers & 1-50 story office tower). None of these ever came to fruition, pointing out the still wounded financing & CRE sectors.
Another point often forgotten by many is that a number of the one-off, seemingly isolated small office buildings in some areas were to have been part of larger developments - some even mixed use, at least in the decade's vernacular that would've served their respective neighborhoods. One that springs to mind is a seemingly nondescript office park of 4 6-9 story buildings on Bissonnet, just west of the former Westwood Mall. The original plans called for two additional towers of up to 12 stories or so, as well as a retail component and apartments packed into a fairly small parcel. Lending had dried up well before this could've been a made into a reality.
So no, building everything in Downtown or Midtown would not have ensured the construction of those signature towers or would have guaranteed additional towers any sooner down the line. The good news is that there is a response to the demand for urban living and office space. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is the number of rehab and renovation projects that have taken place involving older buildings in the core. While a sizable amount is still being demo'd or otherwise altered in an unfavorable way, you have to take a look at some of the new hotels that are online or will soon be coming online - many in historical structures of various sizes. That is something I was not expecting to become a trend, but it seems to have been to a point.
Sorry, didn't mean to go on for so long - I just think people miss the context of what took place during the period and how legitimately bad it was.