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I saw them building another building next to the bbva and asked a construction worker what it was and it's just a parking garage for an apartment building.

And I don't know the name to that apartment building next to the Walgreens but one of the construction workers said it was going to be 6 stories tall but then he said it will be on top of a parking garage. So I'm not sure if he meant there will be a few floors of parking and then 6 floors of apartments or what. So I surmise it will either be 6 stories or 9.

He might have meant the parking garage component would be 6 stories. The whole building will be 22 stories (although it seems to be 23 if you count from the back half). Here's a link to the post on HAIF with the renderings.
http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/h...ost__p__391884

Kind of hard to tell how it will turn out. I think it might look decent if they use high quality materials. Guess we can call it 5250 Brownway for now. Also it looks like there will be 300 units.

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Oh wow, thats great news.

This is going in behind the Carrabba's on Kirby:
http://http://www.houstonarchitectur...9358_thumb.jpg
from http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/h...9358_thumb.jpg

Houston Airport System breaks ground on new IAH terminal

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/n...ks-ground.html

NBC Sports seeks incentives to put studio downtown

http://www.chron.com/business/articl...wn-2653814.php

When I was down in Galveston this weekend, a long time abandoned 1920s hotel I found out is being converted into apartments or mixed income stuff. I saw workers rewiring the interior on Saturday. Its been abandoned for at least 20 years, probably longer than that.

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...rland/g101.jpg

I took this photo of it last August. I snuck into it Saturday night as they had forgot to lock the gate and the interior was completely gutted, nothing left at all. Im very glad they are not tearing this building down though and anything that helps out downtown Galveston is amazing, as it needs it. I heard rumors that part of the building will be used for mixed income housing, so I hope it doesnt bring some ghetto trash into downtown though, as that would for sure not help the situation out at all. Most of the public housing in Galveston was torn down after the hurricane and hasnt been rebuilt anywhere since. So, theres a massive need for public housing but the place for it is not downtown.

Lovely.

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I know that doesnt sound nice, but lets face facts. Public housing and low income housing lowers property values all around it. Downtown Galveston needs all the help it can get, and this does not come in the form of lowering property values and making the place an undesirable place to live. Anyone knows that areas around public housing do not do well. It may not be pc to say, but oh well. There are plenty plenty plenty of other areas on the island to build public housing. Yes, people with low to no income need places to live, but as I said before, the already struggling market of downtown Galveston is not the place for it.

Yes because ghettoes of exclusively low income public housing has been so effective in the past.

If they're selective about who they let in, it should be ok. There are plenty of people on fixed/ low incomes who don't live like animals to assume low income housing will always adversely effect an area. They just need to filter out the trash and ensure the residents they do let in adhere to set of minimum set standards.

Can anyone name one successful public housing project? Anywhere? I can't think of any.

I'm not in Houston and can't help you. But a word of caution. You're almost guaranteed to get apples-to-organges comparisons. Even though you're specifying construction cost only (not soft costs, land, etc.), there are huge variables in what's reported, based on:

--Published figures being rounded up or down depending on the owner's preference. Sometimes the number is massively off.

--Taxes included or not (in my city, construction pays 9.5 sales tax).

--Buildouts included or not. An office building might be 2/3 of the final built-out space cost.

--Wide variations in finish levels.

--A large cost range depending not just on steel vs. concrete, but the many variations of each. (Which relate to not just cost, but also factors from floor thickness to availability of materials to speed of construction to vibration control, the latter being a key to labs for example)

--Whether parking is included, and how much. Big variable if an equivalent-sounding office building has 500 spaces or 1,000.

--Confusion between net rentable space and gross square footage. Even net rentable can be defined differently...for example if one tenant occupies the whole building, even the corridors might be in their rented space.

--Any other costs associated with the building. Houston seems to have a lot of grassy fringes and driveways associated with new buildings, which will normally be reported as part of the building cost.

--Soil conditions and related types of footings, shoring, etc.

That's a partial list. Speaking as a PR guy for a contractor.

SFUVancouver, are you doing Hines' Urban Land Institute/Student Urban Design Houston 2012 gig (@Downtown Post Office siting)? If so, best wishes!

If you're talking about my comment I was being sarcastic with photoLith's usual rigid reactionary statements. Public housing or projects are a failure. The role models are non-existent and there is little motivation to not continue the cycle of poverty because most lifestyles around do not liberate individuals from their circumstances. With mixed income housing atleast individuals have an opportunity to find themselves by not hanging around the same bums.

http://assets.bizjournals.com/housto...a-Exterior.jpg

Ta da! I give you the 23-story Astoria! I wouldn't get too excited yet. The land this is to be built on isn't even purchased yet and is in the middle of the BLVD Place development.

Another condo tower proposed for Uptown but yet none for downtown.:(

where did you find info on that condo tower? link? doesnt even fit in withe design of BLVD place at all.

I found this while searching google maps.

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/...acy/wilson.jpg
http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/...town-building/

Does anyone know if this project started?

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/p...rising-on.html