Jump to content

PureAuteur

Full Member
  • Posts

    646
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by PureAuteur

  1. We already have something like this in the area: The Oil Ranch, which I believe is in Waller or Hempstead. Is it still open? I haven't been since I was in junior high school in the early 90s.
  2. The kids just need to be careful when crossing the street, and people just need to pay attention and be fully alert when driving their cars anywhere. This phone ban stuff is too much. We need less laws in Texas, not more.
  3. That was a good video, and I agree with his position. Given Houston's growth over the last decade, I'm surprised at how little violence there is in the city. It only seems to be a problem, because the media presents things in a way to get to our emotions, and then also the younger generation these days looks more hostile than previous generations, so there is this vibe present of potential for violence.
  4. Is it going to be like a Mr. Detail? I know there are lots of car washes everywhere in northwest Houston, but other than the HEB, I can't think of any others in that specific area.
  5. It's a new development on the land that was once owned by HP across 249. It just became known as the Vintage about 1-2 years ago. I'm sure the developer just gave it that name. I think only a few people technically live in the Vintage, and that would be those who live in the Vintage di Vita along Vintage Preserve. The rest of it is medical buildings and commercial. I'm sure there is a whole lot more planned for the area, because there is still a lot of land that looks like it's getting set to be developed for something.
  6. I'm not sure if you'd really call it that. I just used that word so everyone would know I was talking about the entire area known as The Vintage and not just Vintage Park. It's basically everything from the Cypress Creek up to Louetta north and south, and 249 to just beyond Cutten east and west.
  7. I visited Vintage Park for the first time last night. Being one of the people on here who thought the style of architecture would not go with the geography when they announced plans for construction, I was actually impressed. It does work after all, given the overall planning of the Vintage district. The ambiance of walking through it was far more pleasant than I had imagined it would be based on all the times I've driven down Louetta and looked at the facade of Vintage Park during the day. I was expecting it to be just a bunch of upscale chain retail, but I was surprised to find a mix of some neat restaurants and professional offices. It was very clean, pleasant, and somewhat romantic; nothing highly original, but for this area, it's a change of pace, and that's always good. It felt like The Woodlands Market Street meets Rice Village. The whole Vintage District feels a lot like the Woodlands with the cleanliness, newness, modern upscale look, and all the trees along Vintage Preserve (the road that runs from 249, through Vintage Park, to Cutten Rd.) They did a great job with the parking layout. There are plenty of parking spaces, and the grid design makes it easy to get in and out. Anyways, I ate at Shogun Sushi, and I had a good overall impression. The prices weren't too bad, the food was decent, the service was great, and the atmosphere enjoyable. The place inside was very large with high ceiling and an open, spacious feel. The decor was nice too. The place definitely gets this northwest resident's recommendation. Does anyone know if this is a small chain or independent? Are there others in Houston?
  8. What do you mean by ignorant beauty and "shallow i'm importantness"? A couple years ago you were always talking about how you loved living in the Woodlands. I was really wanting to move there back in 2006, and I still like the Woodlands a lot, but I just don't really have a plan for living there as far as job or whether to buy a property or just rent. The inner loop is more my speed at this point, since I'm a single 28 year old guy, and I want to be where all the single young women are.
  9. You got the money part right. I don't know so much about time or thought. I really don't see what people are so anxious about. It's just a shopping and business center, no different from the Willowbrook Commons or the newer Willowbrook center where the AMC 24 theater is. The only difference is that it slightly resembles an authentic southern European village. I predicted this all two years ago in one of the original threads about this development. I said that all they really needed to build was the HEB store and forget about the Vintage Park, because the HEB would be the only thing that would do well over there, and it looks like I was right. I think part of the problem is that the concept doesn't fit the area. For one, the old world style of the center is out of place and doesn't give off an inviting vibe. The other problem is that the area around it was designed for upper middle class neighborhoods with the idea of getting into your car and driving to Willowbrook area or 1960 to go shopping. It doesn't blend into the surroundings well at all. Maybe it makes nice decoration, but I could see most people just driving past it. What they should have done with that land was to add more highrise and midrise office buildings like they have on the opposite side of 249. With the rest of the land, they should have made a nice nature park, complete with a futuristic-looking building near the office buildings that serves as a giant "food court" for all the business people working.
  10. I'm not even sure what a Med Spa is. I drove by there last week, and it doesn't look like they described it in the ads. I was expecting something a lot more... authentic? It just looks like another pre-fab upscale development with no character. Then again, it's been a long time since anyone in Houston cared about that.
  11. There is a sign near the old Circuit City building that says "new Willowbrook shopping center coming soon". Are they going to tear down that entire center with the Laff Spot, Shannons Street Waves, and Baker Street Pub?
  12. The Heights has a more intimate character, and the large apartment complexes might detract from this. If the apartment buildings are smaller and more nestled into the neighborhood, then they are just as acceptable as homes. This is pretty much how the Heights has always been over the last few decades. Just about everywhere you turn, you see a small apartment community, a single apartment building with a few units, or garage apartments/efficiencies for lease.
  13. Niche- then why didn't developers build gigantic cookie cutter apartment complexes with the standard 3 stories in the 60s, 70s, and 80s? Do you think we'll ever return to the days when one story apartment complexes with maybe 20-30 units will be built?
  14. A combination of money and community vision. Now it's just money. Developers don't care about whether they put too many people in a certain amount of space. Remember when they used to make 1 and 2 story apartment complexes and small quaint little neighborhood apartments? Those days are over. Everything is at least 3 stories now, because you can get more money on the same amount of land. If you want to invest in 4 + stories, then you have to invest in an elevator, but you'd still be making enough to cover that cost. I concur. That kind of development works on the East End, because that area is turning into a near downtown neighborhood for young couples, and single professionals. The Heights has those demographics too, but is more of a family neighborhood.
  15. That's really sad that they would want to demolish the building. It is a unique, classic design, and just another example of how money is destroying the character of Houston and all its history and landmark structures. I don't even see how 195 units of apartments could fit into that space. There shouldn't be any traffic problems though, since the Heights has a grid system of streets.
  16. There will eventually come a point where white movement will slow down. The whites that are moving out to Magnolia, Conroe, and Montgomery are probably looking at the final frontier. This will be where all the baby boomers eventually settle for retirement, while their children and whites in their 30s and 40s will re-populate downtown and the inner city. It's inevitable that whites will move when blacks and hispanics start moving in. It's not that they dislike these people, but rather the cultural differences are too vast, and they'd rather not deal with all the social and institutional merging of cultures. Whites, especially those of central European descent are very clannish and like to be around their own kind. It's interesting what's going on with the growth in Magnolia, Montgomery, Conroe, Willis, The Woodlands, and Panorama Village. This is very similar to what's going on in Los Angeles. All the whites in the San Fernando Valley (which could be compared to Spring, Cypress, Klein, 1960 area) are beginning to discover Ventura County and Kearne County, so some parts of the valley are now starting to go downhill.
  17. I still think they should find some way to get these people out to the mall. These people should take more pride in their community. They were the ones prancing around in the 1950s in their hot new cars and expensive suits like they were the greatest thing on earth, and now they sit in their houses with the doors locked. They just allowed their community to deteriorate after it started off as a super classy, one-of-a-kind residential development. I at least give them credit for staying there and not moving to Sugarland like all the other frightened people.
  18. Why don't they just build a new "Sharpstown" Mall closer to where its target demographics are, so that they don't have to come from other parts of town? It would be my guess that blacks are less than 1/3 of the demographic makeup of the mall's 5 mile radius, yet the mall is mostly geared toward them. I like the mall's independent spirit of welcoming mom and pop stores, but as a white guy, I doubt there would be any stores that would be attractive to me if I lived in the area. It's also laughable that the mall does nothing to attract the aging white population of the Sharpstown area, who are the ones with the most money to spend.
  19. This is correct. Most people don't pay much attention to the architecture of a shopping center after seeing it for the first time. Even if people absolutely hate the architecture, they will still shop there if they like the stores or want something from one of the stores.
  20. I kind of like the demographics of the Willowbrook area. It has a lot of young adults, yuppies, working class, middle-middle class, and lower income people. I like how it is mixed, like you'd find in the city. I like being in a commercial area where I don't feel like I'm surrounded by snobby, crassy consumers. The AMC24 plaza is very nice in design, planning, and landscaping. I'd give it a blue ribbon award if I could. As I said before, it is a good hybrid of suburban strip mall and town center concept. Once you park and start walking toward the theater, it has a pleasantness feel and look. I see lots of people who go there for a particular reason, but end up strolling around and just enjoying themselves. The courtyard in front of the theater is a nice place to relax. The whole shopping center just has a cozy feel that is missing from most others around the Houston area. I could do without the massive congregating of teenagers on Friday and Saturday nights though. They're so annoying, and they make it difficult for the civilized teenagers and young adults to enjoy their outings or dates.
  21. This is why I could never live out in the nw suburbs after I get out on my own. Too much crass development in recent years. At least inside the loop, developers and residents have more aesthetic sensibility, so that if something gaudy pops up, you at least have a lot of people who live nearby complaining about it.
  22. People will go there, but it won't be anything special. Most people will be able to see it for what it is: a faux-European shopping plaza with upscale stores and professional businesses. People will shop there the way they shop at other strip malls around the suburbs. This isn't really something you can get excited about (other than having some shopping in proximity to home), because it has no community identity. It's not something that anyone will take pride in. It's merely a regional shopping center for the upper middle class in the great northwest. As much as some of you would like to see all the commercial activity move further north while Willowbrook turns into a Greenspoint, this will not happen. People are still drawn to 1960 and the Willowbrook area, and this will remain the center of activity and night life. So, as I stated, people will go to the Vintage and spend money, and on the weekends, I'm sure it will draw large numbers of people, but it will never be a popular center of activity, since it's way out in suburbia and doesn't have the city-feel of Willowbrook, which is technically in Houston. The one thing that will be a hit with me (and many others) is the HEB store. I've been waiting so long for one of these close to my house, ever since they closed the HEB Pantry Foods literally right in my neighborhood entrance. I either had to go to Spring Branch or Klein to shop at HEB, so I was left shopping at Kroger, which I hate. What they should have done was to build only a huge HEB store, leaving all of the natural tree canopy. They could have called it Cypress Creek Market or Great Northwest Market and designed the store similar to the modern look of the HP area. This would have been classy, practical, welcome, and at the expense of a lot less trees.
  23. I was referring to the newer Willowbrook plaza surrounded by 249 to the east, Gessner to the north, Mills to the West, and Greens to the south. I think it's actually a pleasant shopping center and not faux-looking in the least. It's a nice hybrid of strip mall and walkable lifestyle center. Sometimes when I'm catching a movie at the AMC and I'm really early for the showing, I'll just walk around the plaza for about 30 minutes. The shopping center you were thinking of that housed the old theater isn't that great, but isn't bad either. I'm not sure I even have an opinion on it. As much as I like dense, pedestrian-friendly development, it doesn't work in nw Houston. I actually prefer the status-quo in this area. Until we run out of oil, I see no reason to abandon the strip malls and parking lots. The only thing that really bothers me is the clear cutting of trees. Developers are just assholes.
  24. Yes, English style could be any of those things and Colorado would be like a lodge feel. The strip center on Cutten between Cypresswood and 1960 is about as close as this area has to a Hill Country design. It actually goes well with the surrounding trees. The Vintage development is just going bring in more of these wanna-be high class women who drink Michelob Ultra, spend all day at the spas, drive a Lexus, and dress in such a way that if they were in one of those decorated model apartment units in a suburban luxury apartment complex, they would just blend right in. People shop like mad at the Galleria, Memorial City, and Highland Village because they are consumeristic and gravitate toward anything that looks upscale.
  25. I actually like the idea of the Vintage being mostly banks and business offices, but it doesn't work with the architectural design and planning. If you're going to create a vintage Mediterranean shopping experience, then there needs to be shopping and eating. They really screwed up with this project, and I think it will be a failure. The Willowbrook shopping center is much nicer looking to me, because it's not trying to be something it's not. It's simply a well-designed commercial area for shopping and entertainment. What they should have done with the Vintage was to make it an extension of the development around the original HP facilities with the mid-rise buildings. They should have kept all the natural trees and built around them. The HEB store is still a good idea, but this should have a modern architectural concept similar to the development on the other side of the freeway. The "vintage" concept was a mistake, and whoever thought of it likely doesn't live around nw Houston nor know anything about it. I'm not saying the project will be an eyesore, rather it just won't have a comfortable feel to it, and people will get an artificial feel when walking around.
×
×
  • Create New...