Move In

This morning the Houston Permitting Center opened for business. I am absolutely sure that the facility will surprise both employees and their customers. I may be over-attached to the place, certainly over-invested, but nevertheless, this building has been repurposed in sophisticated, eye catching ways. The original brick and concrete columns remain throughout and the white sheet rocked interior walls do not detract, but reinforce what we can see of the history of this place. Studio Red certainly had a vision for how this 85 year old rice warehouse could morph into a 21st century green building, retain some of its original character and yet, function in new millennium ways.

The original skeleton is everywhere in evidence and we can see how well the new has been incorporated. The 'new' would be those hundreds of cubicles, glass walled offices around the perimeter of each floor, interior stair railings and the exterior elevator tower, mesh covered open stairways and the green roof. And then there's the civic art and lots of it, too.

Jesse Sifuentes' murals, Serena Lin Bush's Houston sky views in the basement stairwell andMetalab's CO2 monitors that gauge people-traffic in the lobby are just some of the public art that is accessible to all Houstonians.

So, I have to believe that this morning everyone is ramped up and ready to work in this new space. I hope the system itself works too and that there aren't too many IT issues or too many plans and project numbers lost? misplaced? in the move.

I will take myself over to this building soon, just to sit in the lobby and watch the flow. Just to see how it feels on the first Monday.