Better skyline Houston or Dallas? (Austin, Fort Worth: new construction, place to live, pricing)

[jbarn]

Originally Posted by annie_himself

Maybe they need some argon lights put up.

It might help.

[savanite]

Originally Posted by Houston1197

You guys are right that Dallas has some catching up to do. I agree with the comment about Houston and Gotham.

The biggest teller is the extremely poor vacancy rate in Dallas no matter what the reason will prevent Dallas from catching Houston for years upon years. You look at the iconic Transco Tower (now Williams) when it was sold in 2008 for $275 million is now for sale again 4 years latter and some are putting selling price estimates at over $450-500 million. What does this tell you about the market in Houston? Houston is putting up so many low to mid-rise residential and commercial buildings you would think they were going out of style. Some of the buildings that have broken ground will easily be the sexiest ones in either city. I think some of you need to really come down here and check it out since we are all adults and leave Google view to the kids. There is nothing like seeing something in person. The same building, lake mountain, or whatever can look pitiful on a computer screen but when you see it in person you get excited (if you know what I mean).

How come its only the Houston people who are fanatical about their city?

I don't care about the market in downtown Houston. Or the high rise office market in Uptown Dallas, Oak Lawn, Las Colinas, Addison, Frisco, Richardson, Plano, etc.

What I do care about is the functionality of the skyline images.

The problem is the national impact of pictures of the Houston downtown buildings.

Because of the obsessive-compulsive attitudes about building height in Houston, they fail to recognize that their pictures just aren't selling their city.

Nobody is impressed with pictures of generically rectangular office towers with no unique features.

[Trae713]

Originally Posted by jbarn

Exaggerate much? The Class A space here is doing quite well. The Class B and C buildings have lots of empty space, like most cities do, but much of that space has been, is currently, or will be, converted to residential.

Are you kidding? Dallas Class A vacancy was at 17.8% at the end of last quarter.

[Houston1197]

Originally Posted by jbarn

Exaggerate much? The Class A space here is doing quite well. The Class B and C buildings have lots of empty space, like most cities do, but much of that space has been, is currently, or will be, converted to residential.

Typical. Overall rate is 22.3% and Class A is 17.8%. This residential conversion claim is funny because you guys have had this high vacancy problem since before 2005. Dallas has always had that "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality and it proves when you build buildings with no one to fill them. Carry on.

Dallas CBD office vacancy nears 30% - Dallas Business Journal

Market Trend: Dallas/Ft. Worth's Office Vacancy Decreases Slightly to 16.1% in Q2 2012 - CoStar Group

[jbarn]

Originally Posted by Trae713

Are you kidding? Dallas Class A vacancy was at 17.8% at the end of last quarter.

So that means that 82.8% of the space is occupied, I would not consider that to be ALMOST EMPTY like the poster said "A lot of those tall shiney skyscrapers ARE ALMOST EMPTY. I mean they are full of empty office space. Ther is nothing in them. It was a weird ominous sensation that made me think that there is no way that anyone would put up anoter speculative highrise office building in Downtown Dallas. I drove around Dallas and saw nothing but "SPACE AVAILABLE" and "YOUR NAME HERE" signs EVERYWERE!"

[savanite]

Houston is on the wrong side of history by emphasizing high rise office in its skyline. The trend is toward downtown residential, and when people look at a skyline, they consider where they would live.

Dallas, of course, has massive moves in that direction. The classic 1970s and 1980s towers are converting to residential as office functions are moving into Uptown buildings, and even newly built residential is coming into play. So when someone looks at an image of the downtown Dallas skyline, they see an opportunity to live in a dense urban neighborhood.

Houston images, OTOH, are sterile rectangular workplaces where the pointy haired bosses oppress the Dilberts of the Bayou City. Not a whole lot of fun living there.

The Dallas skyline will, in the future, continue to portray the growth and development of the area immediately north of the classic downtown, the area of Uptown Dallas.

Since Uptown is the only legitimate urban residential district in Texas (other than downtown Dallas), it will continue to contribute to the visual appeal of Dallas as it is expressed in the media, as it displays the Dallas skyline.

[Yokandyman]

Listen people... You all have to remember that Dallas is not some side-bar city over here trying to be like someone else or become something that it is not. Dallas is just Dallas. You have to keep in mind that Dallas has all kinds of odds against it bordering it all the way around, consisting of 3 major cities (Fort Worth pop 734,000 , Arlington pop 365,000 & Plano pop 270,000) along with bunches more of large suburbs with huge populations (ranging 50,000 to 230,000). Now when a city is landlocked and has all of that going on around it, you better believe it's gonna have some rough moments. When future businesses and residents are interested in this area, they have ALL KINDA options to choose from. Considering all of this, Dallas has done a superb job reshaping its image and making strides to revitalize & redevelop it's urban core. It's coming back from that huge slump in the 90s when people started to think that suburban living was the thing to do up here. In essense, Dallas would have several pockets in the city with skylines had things went differently back in the day with annexation battles. So now you have these suburbs up here with their own little skylines, like Irving for example. Oh well, we can't claim the others. We can only deal with what we have and make the best of that. Dallas is doing that as you can see. The city is not trying to "catch up" to Houston in any way, because it's nothing to catch up to. Houston is Houston.....a separate city, larger by default of large amounts of annexed land thereby doubling it's population. It's ran completely different and just doesn't have the same set of limitations that Dallas does. But at the end of the day, Dallas still has the most impressive skyline of the two.

[Houston1197]

Originally Posted by savanite

Houston is on the wrong side of history by emphasizing high rise office in its skyline. The trend is toward downtown residential, and when people look at a skyline, they consider where they would live.

Dallas, of course, has massive moves in that direction. The classic 1970s and 1980s towers are converting to residential as office functions are moving into Uptown buildings, and even newly built residential is coming into play. So when someone looks at an image of the downtown Dallas skyline, they see an opportunity to live in a dense urban neighborhood.

Houston images, OTOH, are sterile rectangular workplaces where the pointy haired bosses oppress the Dilberts of the Bayou City. Not a whole lot of fun living there.

I'm editing because I did go overboard with my original post.

[HtownLove]

Moderator cut: orphaned


Top US skylines
1. NY
2. Chicago
3. Houston
4. Honolulu
5. SF
6. Miami
7. Pittsburgh
8. Detroit
9. Seattle
10...... dunno maybe ATL

[dee936]

Originally Posted by HtownLove

Moderator cut: orphaned

Top US skylines
1. NY
2. Chicago
3. Houston
4. Honolulu
5. SF
6. Miami
7. Pittsburgh
8. Detroit
9. Seattle
10...... dunno maybe ATL

Dallas skyline run rings around Houston boring skyline!!!!