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Diaspora

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  1. Diaspora
    It’s a challenge for all but Midtown park, but I like the cut of your jib. Activation and programming give us buckets of salsa.
  2. Diaspora
    There’s much yet to be realized as Midtown grows to confront its potential. For instance, the newly reconstructed segment of Caroline Street, while engineered well (enough) and being future-forward will, without more, simply be a multi-million dollar road to nowhere unless there are incentives and arrangements to bring retail and vibrancy to the stretch between Gray and Elgin. Moving strategically and providing placemaking interventions that bridge Caroline to Main will assist in addressing the blighted strip along Fannin and San Jacinto. Using increment and assessment to invigorate retail and ensure clean and safe pathways for residents and visitors — set as a priority — will enable the cultural nodes that are now languishing to flourish. Smart, surgical employment of enforcement and engagement resources, on foot, and capable of enforcing City Ordinances (sorry Constables that means you’re best deployed elsewhere) will go some way toward enlivening Midtown. We don’t need more parking but we would benefit from a precise parking guide that visitors could access to enable ease of access. Midtown boasts some of the best parks inside the loop. These should be activated/programmed regularly and consistently — with more than exercise classes. Use Levy Park and Market Square Park as learning tools for activation.
  3. Diaspora
    Any other information beyond the rendering?
  4. Diaspora
    Genuinely curious as to what “side” of downtown is regarded as “wrong” by residents or considered “wrong” by visitors, and more importantly, why.
  5. Diaspora
    That last block involves the question of whether they purchase the Green Sheet building.
  6. Diaspora
    The current structure going up will not have GFR. Midtown discussed GFR with Winthur Investments but they were not amenable to putting GFR in the proposed 5 story apartment building. They are amenable to GFR in the neighboring 20 story building that will begin as phase 2.
  7. Diaspora
    Because the extent of the northern block is still under negotiation.
  8. Diaspora
    At this point the Pierce is being "decommissioned" -- while these are early days, "demolished" and "removal" are not on the agenda alone.
  9. Diaspora
    Many times
  10. Diaspora
    This thread has some great suggestions regarding Midtown that align with a number of efforts underway. The entirety of Midtown is currently working with COH Plannning & Development to address/change ordinances to encourage some of the very things I'm reading above, here. If you have the time and interest P&D has the final public workshop for the Walkable Places Pilot Project on September 6, 2018 at Trinity Episcopal (Main Street entrance) from 4:00 to 6:00. https://www.facebook.com/events/241468949940281/ Mark your calendar.
  11. Diaspora
    Yup, the 3101 San Jacinto location has been, in the past, Club Empire and Club Myst, with dreadful results for nearby residents including a driveby in which 6 people were shot in May of 2015, when it was billed as Club Empire. The nearby residents and businesses protested the TABC license in 2016 and the place shut down soon after.
  12. Diaspora
    4 by my count, at this juncture.
  13. Diaspora
    Thanks. Fascinating to think that 2015 was “crazy busy” and Midtown is now tapering off while we have two 30 story apartment buildings on the rise, Camden at McGowen coming on line, the Windsor finished, etc.
  14. Diaspora
  15. Diaspora
    Steinberg Dickey Collaborative have the proposed exterior design of the building on their website.
  16. Diaspora
    Then we'll just disagree. The backbone of successfully engaging with the issue of homelessness has proven to be a housing first style treatment of providing shelter without condition, that is a shelter that is "low-barrier". Contrary to your assessment of "dumping" the "least desirable" this entails coordinated entry and assessment of the residents, counseling and substance management with an eye toward permanent housing resources. After all, the policy is to end homelessness not end substance abuse, so start there and work with persons issues after they have shelter. And just so you're clear on the "dumping" issue, I have no objection to creating such a shelter in Midtown, this one happens to be apparently in your neck of the woods, however.
  17. Diaspora
    My “apparent glee” in finding a housing option for the homeless willing to take up residence at 419 Emancipation? Get some perspective.
  18. Diaspora
    I will also note that Midtown has been working with the COH's Homeless Initiative to find housing for the homeless who want off the street. Until very recently we were anticipating a low level housing opportunity at 419 Emancipation, but the owner of that building decided, instead, to sign on with Southwest Key to house children taken from their parents at the border. http://www.costar.com/News/Article/Houston-Mayor-Asks-Building-Owner-to-Reconsider-Lease-for-Undocumented-Child-Detention-Facility/202078
  19. Diaspora
    We'll have to wait and see then. My conversations with decision-makers on this issue lead me suggest the station will soon be transitioned out of Midtown. I say all of this with the further conviction that the station is a symptom rather than source of the issues it has come to symbolize.
  20. Diaspora
    https://midtownhouston.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/MRA-Minutes-03.29.18.pdf
  21. Diaspora
    We should expect to know by third quarter this year.
  22. Diaspora
    No, I'm not advocating for forced ground floor retail. I'm more about having an extended conversation with developers to see if mixed use (or some activated ground floor presence) can maximize their investment. What I am finding is that developers unfamiliar with Midtown (Caydon may be the exception) arrive with preconceived notions of what will maximize their investment predicated on stale and fixed views of a built structure that has worked for them in another setting. There are means of incentivizing mixed use, as with the incoming Whole Foods on Elgin. There are other developers, like CVS and Walgreens, who see no other means of building than what they have successfully dropped into different settings.
  23. Diaspora
    Can't really speak to the 20 year history of seeking to relocate the Greyhound station. What I can speak to is the fact that a joint plan between the Midtown TIRZ and the COH was funded in March, with the blessing of Greyhound, to relocate the station.
  24. Diaspora
    Yes, there are plans in the making to relocate the Greyhound station and the corporate office is behind the plans as is the COH. But I'm not handing out rose-colored glasses here. The station is merely a symptom among several in Midtown of street gathering opportunism (fueled by mental health and substance abuse issues as well as outright poverty) where there are dead spaces in the pedestrian realm (and this type of gathering serves to exacerbate those dead spaces). Any casual observer can see that the actual gathering of folks is just as dense along Webster between Fannin and San Jacinto, along Gray at the blank wall of the payday loan building, and around the parking lot at McDonalds. These dead spaces are repeated along Caroline between Hadley and Dennis, San Jacinto between Dennis and Rosalie, and of course under the elevated TxDOT land.
  25. Diaspora
    Yes, there are plans in the making to relocate the Greyhound station and the corporate office is behind the plans as is the COH. But I'm not handing out rose-colored glasses here. The station is merely a symptom among several in Midtown of street gathering opportunism (fueled by mental health and substance abuse issues as well as outright poverty) where there are dead spaces in the pedestrian realm (and this type of gathering serves to exacerbate those dead spaces). Any casual observer can see that the actual gathering of folks is just as dense along Webster between Fannin and San Jacinto, along Gray at the blank wall of the payday loan building, and around the parking lot at McDonalds. These dead spaces are repeated along Caroline between Hadley and Dennis, San Jacinto between Dennis and Rosalie, and of course under the elevated TxDOT land.
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