The ground-breaking is taking place nearly nine months after theproject had been made public. The development will be located at1401 McKinney and is an expansion of Houston Center, a largecollection of office towers, retail space and a hotel owned byCrescent since 1997.

The building is only a few blocks from the city's new stadium,Enron Field, and is part of a rebirth of the Eastside of Downtown.Nearby, work already is under way to turn Texaco's old headquartersbuilding into a new Ritz-Carlton hotel. And a proposed basketballarena--which faces a test at the ballot box Nov. 9--could bringadditional vitality to the Eastside.

The original Houston Center development dates back to 1970, whenTexas Eastern Corp. developed the project. JMB Realty of Chicagohad bought the development in 1989 for about $400 million. Eightyears later, Crescent had picked it up for about $325 million. Thedeal had included the office complex, a Four Seasons Hotel, ahigh-rise apartment building, the Park Shops shopping center and 20acres of mostly vacant land.