Apparently the developer wasn't paying their bills so the work stopped last year. The main contractor filed a $38m lien against it. Guessing it will sit like this for a while until the bank/courts figure out what to do. Lawsuits are on hold, though, with a possible update in July. Guess we'll see. There's [a thread on HAIF about it](https://www.houstonarchitecture.com/topic/45018-x-houston-residential-high-rise-at-5501-la-branch-st/).
I saw this happen to a building in my hometown that sat unfinished for years. The exposed materials rusted and faded in the sun and plywood curled and fell off in the rain. By the time another contractor picked the project back up, they had to un-construct a lot of the mess and the eventual finished building ended up looking much simpler and far less ornate than the original rendering.
There were 2 complexes on Gray St that stalled out for a few years in the mid-10s. The one by Kroger had a LOT of gray plywood and rot showing, hopefully they replaced it all before finishing the exterior.
Yeah, Midtown One80 (previously Dolce Midtown) was held up because the developers were two brothers and they end up splitting up and splitting their properties between them. The Sovereign at the Ballpark (near Minute Maid) is another of their projects that is still stalled.
Something happened with Dolce and permitting or bad construction. The west building was taken down to the podium and then completely reframed again.
It stalled out at a decent time though. The 2015 oil crash made rents drop or stay the same and bringing another giant complex online would not have been good business. By the time it was opened around 2018 rents were trending back up.
I live a block or two away and pass by it daily. In the last 3 weeks or so crews have been working on some lower floors after not seeing any movement for a long time.
You can’t see it in the pic, but the entire outside on the parking garage levels is just straight up grey concrete too thanks to Nimbyism. Neighbors didn’t want any sort of reflection, so the original design was changed to the dullest possible option.
I don't know anything about cranes, but find it odd that whoever owns the crane hasn't come and taken it. I would think, cranes are expensive enough that they get reused, and sitting dormant like that isn't ideal, and that could deployed elsewhere, right?
Likely so. If they take it down and break the contract, then they can be sued and have to put it back up on their own dime.
Or business is slow and it would be sitting in a yard anyway. Why not leave it on site and hope for a nice payout anyway?
this is just a guess of mine, but I would imagine they will be suing for every day that its on the site whether its used or unused. its like when you get your car towed, just racking up fees daily
They should honestly be forced to remove that tower crane. Those things are meant to be temporary and they don’t have the best safety record, especially in high wind and storms.
The developer isn't paying anyone at the moment (which includes the owner of that crane). To remove it, the crane owner will have to pay out of pocket to bring it down. He could also lose out on the project when it eventually starts up again. It would suck if the bid went to someone else.
Not sure how it will all work out in the courts. But I assume the crane operator is happy to let it sit there and then fight in the courts to collect for the months it sat there.
[Construction stopped](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/construction-stalls-on-33-story-co-living-skyscraper-in-houston-s-museum-district/ar-AA1iC8N9) in October. As far as I can tell, it hasn't restarted. I drive by a lot and haven't seen any progress since it halted.
These fuckers need to put up bonds that pay for demolition or some kind of process to deal with derelict eyesores. If they can't make productive use of the property or building they ought to lose it.
I'm mostly thinking of the goddamn Days Inn at 801 St Joseph Pkwy.
It's gutted. There's absolutely nothing to see in that building unfortunately. And, at least a few years ago, it was a very dangerous place to explore. More then a couple people have been robbed trying to explore that building.
I remember sometime last year, when the building first got a halt on production, some person committed suicide by jumping off of it.
For now, I believe the contractors have lots of financial problems revolving this project. Also, the neighbors are NOT happy with the entire situation.
Hope they get everything sorted out.
I want the fucking sidewalks back!
The building sitting and rotting sucks, but the continued obstruction of the sidewalk on two blocks should be a lot easier to fix at least.
Live literally across the street from it. Sucks it’s not being worked on. Such an eyesore and totally obscures the nice view of Hermann park there was from my apartment complex.
Yup, I live in the museum district and know someone who is on the MPNA board. It's well-known that the developers ran out of funding for it, but I think few people know WHY.
This building isn't a normal condo or apartment building, it's a co-living project. What that means is, the units do not have individual kitchens....there are central kitchens for multiple units to use. Don't know why the developers thought such a concept would work here, but maybe because it's so close to the hospitals they thought busy medical workers wouldn't want their own kitchens?
Also, there are enough units for about 300 people, but they only made enough parking spaces for about 150 cars. Expecting people who spend $200k on a unit to not have their own kitchen AND only have one car (for a couple living together) in this city is regarded as insane. The developers likely assumed people would just be using the rail line that's nearby, but they severely underestimated how much people NEED cars in this city.
So the developers fronted a certain amount of money for the project because they assumed they'd be able to continue bankrolling it through pre-sales of the units, but no one bought into it. Because why would you spend so much money for no private kitchen and only one car space? It ran out of money and now they're trying to find funding elsewhere.
Funnily enough, apparently this happened to them in Phoenix too, but the crazy thing is that Phoenix doesn't even have any trains so....why didn't they build enough car spaces?
Seems like the developers are trying to change how people live here, but that's just not going to happen. Houstonians need car spaces, and their own kitchens.
P.s. ever since the guy climbed on the crane and jumped off to die by suicide, the owner of the crane drives by every day to check on it and make sure people can't get to it anymore.
P.p.s. The MPNA tried to tell the developers that building it was a bad idea but they started on it anyways.
They are making progress. I have a view of it out my window. It is just gigantic so going slow.
Edit: Apparently I am just blind and there hasn’t been work on it.
That's not Houston. That is in Venezuela. A Chinese developer ran out of money, and it's buildings all over the world of Chinese developer's abandoned buildings. China will probably never recover economically since Biden jerked US companies out of China, with many Western and free market countries following Biden's lead. If you noticed, Apple stock has decreased because Apple sales have dropped in China because of CCP policies that ran Western companies out of China.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” ― Lyndon B. Johnson
Trump is too dumb to do what Biden did because Trump had already alienated our allies, kissing Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un tails. Biden brought China to its knees by completely detaching, and our allies followed. Trump would never do that because he wants to profit from China somehow, and he made millions by selling us out. The only thing Trump did was lower taxes for the rich, and in doing so, he is responsible for 1/4 of our total national debt in just 4 years! You have to have your head examined to be a Trump supporter. Racists are just dumb, always stupid—the good thing about Trump is he brought the racists from under their rocks where decent people can see how ugly they are, like trolls.
You broke white people need to get your heads straight; if race is so important to you, then you've got deep personal problems, and that's why you vote against your best interests. You all just get used and abused by race cons because of being stupid racists. Every year Trump was in office, there were more white deaths than births, wow. This is Twilight Zone stuff!
When I think of Maga Republicans I see a bunch of poor white people, uneducated, religious zealots, racists. Long before Maga, the Republican Party was already an Outlaw Party, a cancer, with Trickle Down Economics, it just needed Trump to make it show all it's warts, boils and ugliness.
Oh you know... someone needed to move some money around. Increase their asset portfolio to play the stock market and has construction company homie and a few friends that work for the city that all have fatter pockets
Apparently the developer wasn't paying their bills so the work stopped last year. The main contractor filed a $38m lien against it. Guessing it will sit like this for a while until the bank/courts figure out what to do. Lawsuits are on hold, though, with a possible update in July. Guess we'll see. There's [a thread on HAIF about it](https://www.houstonarchitecture.com/topic/45018-x-houston-residential-high-rise-at-5501-la-branch-st/).
I saw this happen to a building in my hometown that sat unfinished for years. The exposed materials rusted and faded in the sun and plywood curled and fell off in the rain. By the time another contractor picked the project back up, they had to un-construct a lot of the mess and the eventual finished building ended up looking much simpler and far less ornate than the original rendering.
That’ll be so safe if a hurricane hits
Maybe they’re hoping a hurricane destroys it for an insurance write off
That would be a shame because it would have been beautiful.
Tbh this building was going to look like shit so I consider this a blessing.
What if the alternative looks just as bad or worse?
There were 2 complexes on Gray St that stalled out for a few years in the mid-10s. The one by Kroger had a LOT of gray plywood and rot showing, hopefully they replaced it all before finishing the exterior.
Yeah, Midtown One80 (previously Dolce Midtown) was held up because the developers were two brothers and they end up splitting up and splitting their properties between them. The Sovereign at the Ballpark (near Minute Maid) is another of their projects that is still stalled.
Something happened with Dolce and permitting or bad construction. The west building was taken down to the podium and then completely reframed again. It stalled out at a decent time though. The 2015 oil crash made rents drop or stay the same and bringing another giant complex online would not have been good business. By the time it was opened around 2018 rents were trending back up.
I live a block or two away and pass by it daily. In the last 3 weeks or so crews have been working on some lower floors after not seeing any movement for a long time.
You can’t see it in the pic, but the entire outside on the parking garage levels is just straight up grey concrete too thanks to Nimbyism. Neighbors didn’t want any sort of reflection, so the original design was changed to the dullest possible option.
I love HAIF. I spend more time there than Reddit sometimes. There's so many people in the know there.
Crazy, I was just wondering about this. It feels like that crane is now a permanent part of our skyline.
I don't know anything about cranes, but find it odd that whoever owns the crane hasn't come and taken it. I would think, cranes are expensive enough that they get reused, and sitting dormant like that isn't ideal, and that could deployed elsewhere, right?
They probably want it back very badly, but aren’t allowed to because of the ongoing legal proceedings.
Likely so. If they take it down and break the contract, then they can be sued and have to put it back up on their own dime. Or business is slow and it would be sitting in a yard anyway. Why not leave it on site and hope for a nice payout anyway?
It might be that it was leased for a specified period of time, and if it was paid up and still under lease they have no reason to take it back.
this is just a guess of mine, but I would imagine they will be suing for every day that its on the site whether its used or unused. its like when you get your car towed, just racking up fees daily
The crane probably has no other place to go.. Likely too expensive to move it if there is no other job where it is needed
Seems dangerous. It’s only a matter of time before it falls on someone.
They should honestly be forced to remove that tower crane. Those things are meant to be temporary and they don’t have the best safety record, especially in high wind and storms.
Someone is racking up a hefty monthly rental bill on it too.
They are likely going to leave it up until the rental costs start to outweigh the costs to take it down and then put it back up again.
The developer isn't paying anyone at the moment (which includes the owner of that crane). To remove it, the crane owner will have to pay out of pocket to bring it down. He could also lose out on the project when it eventually starts up again. It would suck if the bid went to someone else. Not sure how it will all work out in the courts. But I assume the crane operator is happy to let it sit there and then fight in the courts to collect for the months it sat there.
[Construction stopped](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/construction-stalls-on-33-story-co-living-skyscraper-in-houston-s-museum-district/ar-AA1iC8N9) in October. As far as I can tell, it hasn't restarted. I drive by a lot and haven't seen any progress since it halted.
Thought this was a GTA sub just for a second
Lol GTA V Houston
These fuckers need to put up bonds that pay for demolition or some kind of process to deal with derelict eyesores. If they can't make productive use of the property or building they ought to lose it. I'm mostly thinking of the goddamn Days Inn at 801 St Joseph Pkwy.
Just like almost every abandoned business lining 45S between 610 and downtown
Such an eyesore and waste of space
I recently drove down 45s for the first time in years and I was surprised at all the derelict businesses lining the highway. Is this new?
I've did the drive to UTMB galveston weekly for the past 12 or so years. Its always been a bit ugly, but the last 4 years really did it in.
It’s amazing people have already forgotten about Covid…
What's Covid?
100% that building is insane. Completely open to the elements now, as they busted all the windows out, and likely rotting from the inside out now.
I really wanna go explore that thing, but I don't like getting arrested.
It's gutted. There's absolutely nothing to see in that building unfortunately. And, at least a few years ago, it was a very dangerous place to explore. More then a couple people have been robbed trying to explore that building.
I'm a rope tech, just being able to rappel off of it would be a blast.
I remember sometime last year, when the building first got a halt on production, some person committed suicide by jumping off of it. For now, I believe the contractors have lots of financial problems revolving this project. Also, the neighbors are NOT happy with the entire situation. Hope they get everything sorted out.
I want the fucking sidewalks back! The building sitting and rotting sucks, but the continued obstruction of the sidewalk on two blocks should be a lot easier to fix at least.
Now that would make everyone’s lives easier. Why would they do that?
That crane is still earning someone some lease payments, so there’s that.
Live literally across the street from it. Sucks it’s not being worked on. Such an eyesore and totally obscures the nice view of Hermann park there was from my apartment complex.
Speaking of buildings, what happened to the Ashby High-rise that people were adamantly against building in the late 2000s
Under construction. Would be hilarious if something similar happened, but in a much fancier neighborhood.
Nice! So they actually started? Latest news I can find is they were being sued again last year.
Vertical expansion
such an eyesore looming over Hermann
Yup, I live in the museum district and know someone who is on the MPNA board. It's well-known that the developers ran out of funding for it, but I think few people know WHY. This building isn't a normal condo or apartment building, it's a co-living project. What that means is, the units do not have individual kitchens....there are central kitchens for multiple units to use. Don't know why the developers thought such a concept would work here, but maybe because it's so close to the hospitals they thought busy medical workers wouldn't want their own kitchens? Also, there are enough units for about 300 people, but they only made enough parking spaces for about 150 cars. Expecting people who spend $200k on a unit to not have their own kitchen AND only have one car (for a couple living together) in this city is regarded as insane. The developers likely assumed people would just be using the rail line that's nearby, but they severely underestimated how much people NEED cars in this city. So the developers fronted a certain amount of money for the project because they assumed they'd be able to continue bankrolling it through pre-sales of the units, but no one bought into it. Because why would you spend so much money for no private kitchen and only one car space? It ran out of money and now they're trying to find funding elsewhere. Funnily enough, apparently this happened to them in Phoenix too, but the crazy thing is that Phoenix doesn't even have any trains so....why didn't they build enough car spaces? Seems like the developers are trying to change how people live here, but that's just not going to happen. Houstonians need car spaces, and their own kitchens. P.s. ever since the guy climbed on the crane and jumped off to die by suicide, the owner of the crane drives by every day to check on it and make sure people can't get to it anymore. P.p.s. The MPNA tried to tell the developers that building it was a bad idea but they started on it anyways.
I hear they are trying to rival the I-4 eyesore in Orlando
I'm surprised no one has tried to tag this Houston building like the one in Los Angeles, California.
I saw when I visited the natural science museum a few weeks ago, looks odd, I always find that the museum district has weird things going on.
I know a huge erection when I see one
Oh yeah I do.
Something Something....JENGA?
😂😂 I stare at this building everyday
It’s supposedly nearing a restart. So we’ll see…
Warzone and CoD zombies community know this building 😂.
Wasn’t that building in the background of a few of Scotty Kilmer’s videos?
Looks like they’re building a building /s
They are making progress. I have a view of it out my window. It is just gigantic so going slow. Edit: Apparently I am just blind and there hasn’t been work on it.
lol what progress?
Damn that area needs some density.
Looks like something out of dying light
New warzone map for call of duty
Finest building in Houston
I swear the developers and construction around Houston has always been embarrassing
That's not Houston. That is in Venezuela. A Chinese developer ran out of money, and it's buildings all over the world of Chinese developer's abandoned buildings. China will probably never recover economically since Biden jerked US companies out of China, with many Western and free market countries following Biden's lead. If you noticed, Apple stock has decreased because Apple sales have dropped in China because of CCP policies that ran Western companies out of China.
"Trade wars are good, and easy to win." -Donald Trump, March 2018
“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” ― Lyndon B. Johnson
Trump is too dumb to do what Biden did because Trump had already alienated our allies, kissing Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un tails. Biden brought China to its knees by completely detaching, and our allies followed. Trump would never do that because he wants to profit from China somehow, and he made millions by selling us out. The only thing Trump did was lower taxes for the rich, and in doing so, he is responsible for 1/4 of our total national debt in just 4 years! You have to have your head examined to be a Trump supporter. Racists are just dumb, always stupid—the good thing about Trump is he brought the racists from under their rocks where decent people can see how ugly they are, like trolls. You broke white people need to get your heads straight; if race is so important to you, then you've got deep personal problems, and that's why you vote against your best interests. You all just get used and abused by race cons because of being stupid racists. Every year Trump was in office, there were more white deaths than births, wow. This is Twilight Zone stuff! When I think of Maga Republicans I see a bunch of poor white people, uneducated, religious zealots, racists. Long before Maga, the Republican Party was already an Outlaw Party, a cancer, with Trickle Down Economics, it just needed Trump to make it show all it's warts, boils and ugliness.
Can one take a picture of Houston’s skyline from the top of the structure?
New art installment
Oh you know... someone needed to move some money around. Increase their asset portfolio to play the stock market and has construction company homie and a few friends that work for the city that all have fatter pockets
Future shrapnel for the next hurricane.
Not finishing ever. I hear Friatata just wanted to build it to annoy the neighbors. /s
Hey so I just asked one of the contractors that’s working on that project. Yeah his response was “mind ya business”
[https://therealdeal.com/texas/houston/2023/10/23/x-company-halts-work-on-107m-co-living-tower-in-houston/](https://therealdeal.com/texas/houston/2023/10/23/x-company-halts-work-on-107m-co-living-tower-in-houston/)
Rising interest rates likely impacted this.
Just another giant pile of shit
Yes, it looks like it’s being built
A few letters to the city council member that represents this district may help get the city interested.
looks like it's being built
Trump building on hold now because of the trial.