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Frost Bank At 628 E. 11th St.


Mab

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http://www.parkplaceon11th.com/

 

This was the prior attempt to redevelop that tract.  it is not in a historic district, so you get what you get.  On the one hand, retail rents in the Heights are getting pretty high.  New sq footage is needed to keep rents from getting so out of control that everything in the Heights ends up being from Austin or Dallas.  But woof on the architecture on this one.  

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16 hours ago, s3mh said:

http://www.parkplaceon11th.com/

 

This was the prior attempt to redevelop that tract.  it is not in a historic district, so you get what you get.  On the one hand, retail rents in the Heights are getting pretty high.  New sq footage is needed to keep rents from getting so out of control that everything in the Heights ends up being from Austin or Dallas.  But woof on the architecture on this one.  

 

looks like boulevard realty branding, but doesn't mention them, likely as they are a residential shop

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
6 hours ago, Avossos said:

bad design. front parking. doesn't fit with the area.

 

can i shake this guy?

I don't go to places with parking in the back, it's too hard to tell if there's an open space. And this is too far away to walk to.

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36 minutes ago, Ross said:

I don't go to places with parking in the back, it's too hard to tell if there's an open space. And this is too far away to walk to.

 

Good to know. You're missing out on a lot of good stuff.

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10 hours ago, Angostura said:

 

This is why we can't have nice things.

You can have nice things, I likely won't be a patron. I just don't see the attraction of parking in the back. And, since this place is 2+ miles from where I live, I am unlikely to walk there for a meal, which makes parking important.

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1 hour ago, Houston19514 said:

 

That is quite literally unbelievable.

Not really. The last 3 times my brother parked behind a restaurant, his truck was burgled. One of those was at House of Pies on Kirby, one at Houston's,  and I don't recall the third one. That's 3 windows he's had to replace.

 

I don't like rear parking because it's hard to tell if there are any spaces, and it's often difficult to keep an eye on your vehicle. 

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3 hours ago, Ross said:

Not really. The last 3 times my brother parked behind a restaurant, his truck was burgled. One of those was at House of Pies on Kirby, one at Houston's,  and I don't recall the third one. That's 3 windows he's had to replace.

 

I don't like rear parking because it's hard to tell if there are any spaces, and it's often difficult to keep an eye on your vehicle. 

 

People who advocate for more pedestrian friendly/new urbanism type development get bashed regularly on here for being snow flakey about the concerns they express about the impact developments have on pedestrians, etc.  This comment is more snow flakey than anything any new urbanism proponent ever came up with.  

 

It is hard to tell if there are any spaces?  You mean you have to drive an extra .003 miles to go in and out of a parking lot?  Would that be about 3.6 calories you expend turning the steering wheel and moving your foot from the gas to the break and back again?  Goodness.  Let's change the minimum setback to 50'.  Someone must stop the madness.

 

It is difficult to keep an eye on your vehicle?  Do you keep a box of Krugerrands in your glove compartment?  Who in the world goes into a restaurant and wants to be sure they maintain a clear line of sight to their car so they can watch out for burglars during dinner?  And what good would it do?  It takes about 5 seconds for someone to pop a window and snatch a bag from a car.  By the time you got out of the restaurant, the burglar would be high tailing it away.  Or are you a concealed carry guy who would spray the neighborhood with bullets to try to stop a petty thief?  

 

 

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1 hour ago, s3mh said:

 

People who advocate for more pedestrian friendly/new urbanism type development get bashed regularly on here for being snow flakey about the concerns they express about the impact developments have on pedestrians, etc.  This comment is more snow flakey than anything any new urbanism proponent ever came up with.  

 

It is hard to tell if there are any spaces?  You mean you have to drive an extra .003 miles to go in and out of a parking lot?  Would that be about 3.6 calories you expend turning the steering wheel and moving your foot from the gas to the break and back again?  Goodness.  Let's change the minimum setback to 50'.  Someone must stop the madness.

 

It is difficult to keep an eye on your vehicle?  Do you keep a box of Krugerrands in your glove compartment?  Who in the world goes into a restaurant and wants to be sure they maintain a clear line of sight to their car so they can watch out for burglars during dinner?  And what good would it do?  It takes about 5 seconds for someone to pop a window and snatch a bag from a car.  By the time you got out of the restaurant, the burglar would be high tailing it away.  Or are you a concealed carry guy who would spray the neighborhood with bullets to try to stop a petty thief?  

 

 

I didn't say I am opposed to rear parking,  just that I won't be patronizing this place if that's how it's developed. 

 

There's been many stories about break ins at restaurant parking lots, even if nothing is visible to steal. I just choose not to park behind buildings where theft can happen unobserved. 

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9 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

 

That is quite literally unbelievable.

 

That's your problem. I'm the one who has been burgled and vandalized repeatedly, always when I parked in the rear of a restaurant (inside the loop). Feel free to take the space I won't be occupying. Consider it a gift.

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3 hours ago, Texasota said:

Disappointing site plan, especially since there's rear access.

 Why is it disappointing? Putting the building closer to 11th would suck, and make access far more difficult for anyone who is in a car, which will be 95% of the customers.

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That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. 11th is a reasonably walkable street, all things considered, and this is exactly the type of development that could contribute to that if better sited. 

Also, how exactly would putting the building closer to 11th be meaningfully worse for drivers? At most, you have to drive an extra 30 seconds to access the parking lot from the alley rather than 11th. In fact, you could easily have a one-way access drive from 11th to a rear lot with the exit through the alley. You'd still have exactly the same amount of onsite parking. 

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16 hours ago, Ross said:

 Why is it disappointing? Putting the building closer to 11th would suck, and make access far more difficult for anyone who is in a car, which will be 95% of the customers.

 

If you design for cars, you get cars. If you design for people, you (might) get people. Putting the building on the street makes for a better pedestrian environment than walking along a parking lot, and you can still get the same amount of parking on the site by putting it in the back.

 

11th would also be a good candidate for a 4-to-3 road conversion.

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7 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

What? You're joking right? Lol

Not at all. This location is too far for me to walk to for a meal, and I don't like establishments where the parking is in the back. That's my opinion, which is, of course, far superior to anyone elses opinion:D. I think walkability is overrated, especially in Houston.

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There is more to "walkability" than "is it close enough to my house".  Walkability is also a question of whether a street lends itself to people parking in one spot and visiting multiple shops/restaurants.  If I park at Torchy's to get lunch and also need to get a gift at Big Blue Whale, I would not think twice about walking down there along 19th street.  It is fun to window shop and people watch to see who is out and about.  But, if I needed to get something at Penzey's, I would probably just drive over a two blocks because there is nothing interesting about walking along the sidewalk in front of a strip mall.  So, on a retail corridor like 11th or White Oak, the more you put retail fronting the street, the more likely you are going to have people want to walk up and down the street and visit multiple shops and restaurants.  The more it is just parking lots in front of strip centers, the more likely it is that people will just park where they need to shop and move on.    

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ya i don't really get the "it makes it more difficult for drivers" complaint... like how lazy are you? they could have positioned the building on the northeast corner and still had plenty of parking on the side perfectly visible from 11th street as well as in the back. obviously that helps create a more engaging streetscape in a part of the heights that is seeing decent development but even from a tenant's perspective, how much more attractive does that patio become if it's positioned on a hard corner of a more walkable street than it is situated in the middle of a parking lot? these things seem like no brainers to me so perhaps i'm the one that's missing something.

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Different likes for different, errr, folks. I would never eat on a restaurant patio, hate the very idea. Some people love doing it. I would rather park in front than get trapped in back, but if the establishment only cares about locals, go right ahead and hide a few spots in the back and count on a walk-up crowd. Diners are fickle.

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Placement of the building is important for the streetscape, but as long as we have parking minimums, we'll never get the kind of density needed to have any meaningful walkability.  You can't have walkability without density, and you can have density if your city's layout dedicates 25% of land area to automobile right-of-way, and half of what's left to off-street parking.

 

Even 19th St, cited in another comment, has about ~50% of the land area dedicated to cars. Only the north face of 19th between Ashland and Rutland is predominantly street-facing. (It would be illegal to be a similar development today.) Between Rutland and Yale, about half the frontage is parking.

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