HOUSTON | SouthPointe | 12+ Towers | 35FL | 2x 30FL | 9x 20FL |

[Urbannizer]

Location: Astroworld site across from Reliant Stadium.
# of towers: 29? From 35 Floors to 8 Floors.
Status: Proposed
Developer/ Architect:Crosswell Torian

One of Swamplot's best tipsters forwards a link to a website featuring lovely renderings of a family of glassy office buildings and blocky parking garages squatting on the former AstroWorld site — along with a rather direct question: "Is this real???"

Well, the Crosswell Torian website is a real website, where the development company proudly presents its AstroWorld tower roundup under the name SouthPointe: "a hundred+ acre, transit-oriented mixed use development." But a brand-new 13.5-million-sq.-ft. project doesn't exactly seem tailor-made for today's cautious real-estate market.

If the SouthPointe design isn't real, though, it's a brilliant parody — down to the ultra-generic name and its not-so-silent extra vowel. It expertly answers this question: How might a bunch of suburban developers — some of them from, say, Conroe — make a complete mockery of Houston's highest profile and best connected redevelopment site?

To be fair, the former AstroWorld site brings with it a number of problems: It has far-too-easy access to Houston's major employment and activity centers by freeway, light-rail line, and even pedestrian bridge. In less deft hands, the development might make it too easy for people to transfer from one transportation method to another. Fortunately, the designers of SouthPointe have avoided that sort of nonsense with their clever plan, clearly modeled after several better-known suburban office parks.

Except this office park appears to be built out of several smaller office parks, each of which is labeled with a separate theme: "institutional/medical," "office/corporate," residential, or "mixed use/urban." A collection of separately themed office parks — on the site of a former theme park. Get it?

Rendering 2007


New Renderings 2009














There's additional info on the site and a video.
http://crosstorian.com/southpointe

[HOUSTONIAN57]

New design......?

From HAIF, sorry for the quality, but you can watch the video on the website.

[Thymant]

Now this is exciting, at first I did not think this is real and the economy has went up for the past few days so this really does have a chance.

[TTU Arch]

The pictures are pretty and nice, but this development lacks in promoting pedestrian activity. Looking at the plan this looks like a master plan for something similar to the galleria area. From afar it will look cool and have a nice impact on the skyline, but up close you have spread out buildings in a park like setting. The only area that looks to have storefront opportunities are along the main entry. With this being a a huge swath of land, this will be developed over a long period of time. Hopefully those plan will be updated and modified as they go along.

[Thymant]

Originally Posted by HOUSTONIAN57

New design......?

From HAIF, sorry for the quality, but you can watch the video on the website.

That looks like the old design.

[Urbannizer]

From April 14th,

Nine CREW members explained what their roles would be in redeveloping AstroWorld into a mixed-use project. Jeanne Bassetti Jullien posed as the developer. Melissa tells us she picked AstroWorld because it demonstrates complications real developers deal with; last week she met with a group wanting to create a mixed-use project there and learned the plans aren’t going anywhere largely because Houston is requiring $18M in improvements before anyone can build.

http://www.bisnow.com/houston_commer...ory.php?p=8038

[photoLith]

I thought this died a long time ago and was never really a project but rather some architecture students visionary project.

[llamaorama]

Don't like it anyways. The original 2007 rendering was somewhat cool, but the current shows a bland office park. Pass

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Don't like it anyways. The original 2007 rendering was somewhat cool, but the current shows a bland office park. Pass

This is what "bland office parks" look like in Houston? Because to me, it looks like Canary Wharf in London (anything but bland).

If this is bland for Houston, I might have to take a trip across the Sabine one of these days and check it out myself.

[c4smok]

Updated Proposal now called Epicenter

Repost from the Houston Thread..

Originally Posted by ()_T

Epicentre Houston

[Thymant]

I have to say this is a very odd and unique design, I guess I like it because its different and does not look that bad.

[LSyd]

this new design's even worse. the 1950s called...

-

[SD_Phil]

I mean...I guess this far out from a CBD even suburban office parks are better than nothing and, while architecturally interesting, the designs seen thus far don't seem to have much thought put into them when it comes to the pedestrian perspective. That last one especially...just grass lawns?

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

reminds me of SOM's Hudson yards proposal in NYC

[Busy Bee]

Are you people freaking crazy??? This is AMAZING!!! It looks like its from Star Wars. I LOVE IT! You better hope they build this and not 'redesign' it as some neo-traditional crapola.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by SD_Phil

I mean...I guess this far out from a CBD even suburban office parks are better than nothing and, while architecturally interesting, the designs seen thus far don't seem to have much thought put into them when it comes to the pedestrian perspective. That last one especially...just grass lawns?

The Astroworld site is certainly a good distance (6-7 miles) from Downtown Houston, but it's very, very near the Texas Medical Center, and pretty much right along the light rail line.

Great plot of land for development, but damn, that last proposal is horrific!

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Tom In Chicago]

Pretty zany. . . I hope they build it. . .

. . .

[NYguy]

Looks almost futuristic. Wouldn't work in Manhattan the way it is, but I like it. Being away from the center city, it could work.

[Swede]

They show way too many people out walking in the renderings (as usual). If it's a suburban office park to which one commutes by car then there isn't really all that much to do unless you actually go for urban planning and the 2007 proposal came pretty close to that. Add some mixed use and a rail station at the center and you'd have something that's interesting for more than just looking at.

[austin242]

I don't know, if its built like that it will surely become a destination as long as it has street level retail it will be a hit.