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H-Town Man

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Everything posted by H-Town Man

  1. H-Town Man
    This almost seems like a parody of taking a post completely literally and totally missing the point. Which is, putting thought and planning into what you build (as in the case of Rice) produces a much better effect than just building a bunch of shiny buildings (most Houston development for the past 75 years or so).
  2. H-Town Man
    Thank you for these thoughtful comments. I guess the fact that MFAH spent so much money to build tunnels instead of much cheaper skybridges shows that they too recognize that skybridges are not good for a neighborhood. Which is no surprise since they are well acquainted with the aesthetic dimension of things. As to why they built tunnels, which admittedly are anti-urban, I think that is a practical consideration born of the difficulty of charging people $19 to enter a multi-building complex. If people are constantly exiting and reentering the paid admission area, that creates challenges. There was probably also some concession to the preferences of their clientele for air-conditioning and ease of movement, especially the elderly. Perhaps the big donors had some say in it. Donors usually do. As to district boundaries, I think we should be able to agree that the Museum District proper is roughly bounded by Hermann Park to the south, the Southwest Freeway to the north, Montrose Blvd to the west, and Almeda to the east. The commercial part of this district includes the arterial thoroughfares of Montrose, Main, Fannin, and San Jacinto, with maybe Binz as an east/west thoroughfare. East of that is the more residential portion. If we accept that definition of the Museum District, what do we have? The residential area is mature and aesthetically pleasing with a leafy atmosphere and a serene, staid quality. The commercial area is a shambles. You have a nice assemblage of museum and church institutions along Main and Montrose, but the potential retail areas along Fannin and San Jacinto are more or less a blank canvas of small old buildings with no contributory value to the land. Because there is little of interest commercially in the MD, it is not an interesting place to walk around unless you are a resident out for exercise. No memories are created in the Museum District. Nobody fell in love sitting at a cafe there. What should go on this canvas? Medical buildings? To the extent that we can encourage a certain vision without destroying the sacred principles of the free market that we all agree have made Houston and America great, I would say that it should be something like the Bloomsbury and Covent Garden areas of London, especially around the British Museum. Leafy, tranquil, walkable. Lots of little shops and cafes. Probably won't be as dense. Hyde Park in Chicago and Georgetown in D.C. are good domestic models. The Cultural District in Fort Worth isn't there but is on the right track.
  3. H-Town Man
    I'll say it again... Think of a street that you would want to take a photo of. Did that street have skybridges over it? Notice that this is different than saying, "Can skybridges be photogenic?" Sure, they can be photogenic. The skybridge at the Enron buildings on Smith Street is very photogenic. But... do great streets have skybridges over them? I can't make you see this if you aren't willing to see it. I can't convince you if you don't want to be convinced. This requires openness and a certain willingness to notice something about the world that you hadn't noticed before.
  4. H-Town Man
    I am sure we all appreciate being able to push patients over skybridges when we go to the hospital. Do you want the Museum District to turn into an extension of the Medical Center? Is that your vision for this neighborhood? Does anyone have any vision for this neighborhood, other than "something better than what was there before"?
  5. H-Town Man
    I think you're setting the standards pretty low. Avenida de las Americas is so-so pedestrian friendly, pedestrian tolerable you might say. It is no great street. And I don't think that it's what we're going for in a neighborhood of museums and other cultural institutions. Think of streets that you would want to take a photo of. Have you ever taken a photo of a street that had skybridges going over it?
  6. H-Town Man
    This is wonderful! I just walked by this parking lot the other day and was hoping a hotel would fill it before long. I think American Liberty Hospitality had some stake in this lot a few years ago when the old warehouse was torn down, something like a ROFR to purchase, but this is better than their designs (though not by much). I guess we are going to lose the trees along that stretch of Texas, but maybe they just didn't put them in the rendering? Not likely, but maybe?
  7. H-Town Man
    To explain my use of the word "none," I was saying that a lost decade between the early 80's and early 90's does not explain why the appearance of the area drastically declined between the late 90's and early 2020's. I mean, there might be some vague causal relationships, but nothing really apparent. I think your last point echoes something I said earlier. The presence of many small incorporated areas in the suburbs instead of a vast unincorporated area makes it a lot easier for initiatives to "clean things up" to take root. If Garland for instance starts getting too much uglier than Rowlett, Garland is going to take action to clean things up. And then Richardson takes notice because they want to maintain their lead over Garland, etc. We have to some extent overcome this with management districts, but management districts don't tap into local pride the way incorporated cities do.
  8. H-Town Man
    This is another statement that doesn't follow logically. There are many reasons a city might choose to enact regulations on development other than impeding traffic on a road. It is in fact kind of silly that you think the only harm that a development could possibly do to a streetscape is to slow vehicular traffic.
  9. H-Town Man
    You found two laws which should probably be revised due to unintended consequences. It does not follow from that that any/all laws regulating development are bad.
  10. H-Town Man
    It is true that the 80's were a lost decade, and that is when a lot of Veterans Memorial was developed (mostly 70's - early 80's), and having properties foreclosed on didn't help matters. But this road did not look nearly as bad even in the late 90's. And none of that explains why certain things look so terrible now. If you are a landlord in this area, why not get out a weed whacker and a few cans of Sherwin-Williams? The reason why you don't is because nobody else does, which is because it is just accepted in this area that that is how things look. My aunt laments that the Half Price Books at FM 1960 and Veterans Memorial finally shut down after 25 years. Yeah, I wonder why. People living in wastelands don't generally read books. The two things just don't go together. I was in absolute shock that Anthonie's sandwich shop (one of the original Antone's) was still there after 40 years. What a story that old guy could tell. And it's not a completely lost cause. Certain areas would look almost quaint and charming if people just fixed them up. Like the area around the Bammel N. Houston intersection, with all those little flex warehouses. Weed wacker. Fresh paint. Power washer.
  11. H-Town Man
    Fannin seems on its way to becoming a gloomy chasm, like certain other stretches of Fannin. What would make a difference? - Wide sidewalks, 15 feet absolute minimum - Trees between road and main sidewalk area - Banning skybridges in TOD areas, to include all of Museum District and Midtown - Brick crosswalks around intersections, with a rumbly feel to calm traffic down
  12. H-Town Man
    I've just explained why they should be limited. We aren't a pure laissez-faire city, that's a myth. We banned billboards and have been buying out the ones that are grandfathered. We banned most forms of signage downtown. We've created parking minimums and setback laws. There are something like 17 scenic districts and I forget how many historic neighborhoods. The pure laissez-faire Houston is long gone and most people appreciate the improvements. Banning skybridges in transit-oriented-development areas would be another improvement.
  13. H-Town Man
    I listened to it. If the one bright spot of the pandemic is that it kills the tunnels, that would be something. But I think in certain areas of downtown like the central and western areas, there aren't enough other uses that could lure those shops out, like there are in the northern and eastern areas. Nonetheless, the guy running Central Houston sounds smart and some of the figures they cited made it sound like downtown is indeed on its way back.
  14. H-Town Man
    Couldn't agree less. You have a bunch of museums, cultural institutions, high incomes in the area, mature trees. It can be done right and we could have a great walkable neighborhood here if we don't settle for the same old crap. Imagine if when they built Rice University they had said, "Well shucks, we don't have to plan anything, let's just put up a bunch of shiny buildings and by golly, it'll be better than what was here before!"
  15. H-Town Man
    When I wrote initially that the skybridge was horrible, I didn't mean that it was horrible for Dr. Mann, I meant that it was horrible for the neighborhood. Do you want the Museum District to fill up with medical buildings and skybridges? Even one skybridge is too many. And if we were to make a law banning skybridges in certain areas (perhaps TOD areas), either stuff like this would go elsewhere, or else Dr. Mann with his deep resources would figure out another way to get his patients in safely, perhaps by putting the hotel on the same block as the clinic.
  16. H-Town Man
    I was in town last weekend with my Dallas-born-and-raised wife. My wife generally doesn't like Dallas and kind of likes Houston, mainly because I've shown her all the good things. We stayed downtown and had a good time. Then we went to visit some of my relatives and I drove up Veterans Memorial, from I-45 to Spring area. I may have seen a few roads in America that had as much slovenliness and decay, but I don't remember when. Pretty early in the drive, my wife commented, "One thing about Dallas is that you would never see any place look like this." There were buildings that looked like they had been falling down for a decade, waiting for someone to clear them away. There were overgrown weeds in almost every parking lot. There were abandoned billboards - one right next to Cypress Creek - that were just rotting on their poles. Made me miss the nice pretty billboards in better areas of Houston. The only place on the whole road where the grass was mowed and fences and other site improvements were in good order was the V.A. national cemetery, and I thought it must be an awful fate for any soldier to end up buried on that road. Before anyone says, "Well that's just one bad street," I'm sure you can find similar sights on Airline Drive, West Little York, North Shepherd, Aldine-Bender, or just about any other commercial thoroughfare in that region of the city. FM 1960 is probably well on its way there, I didn't drive down it to see. The only places I can think of where I've ever seen anything like it are a few towns in East Texas like Lufkin or Hearne. I'm not sure how much even zoning would help. I guess it would prevent people building new colorful stucco buildings in the middle of shopping center parking lots and leaving the buildings behind them to wither away from lack of visibility. Might also help to keep each shopping center having just one sign instead of a bunch of extra homemade signs, half of which have been abandoned and forgotten about. I think the biggest thing that would help is if you had incorporated cities in the suburbs that would take responsibility for not letting their city look horrible. Garland or Mesquite in Dallas probably have about the same income levels as this part of Houston but Garland and Mesquite are not going to let their commercial roads just descend into squalor.
  17. H-Town Man
    It's not that you'll inspire people to walk around by forcing them down to the street level (although maybe they'd be slightly more likely). It's that having a skybridge over a street hurts the streetscape for anyone else. It says "Special people up here - plebeians down there." Think of any great street that people like to walk around on. Lower Main Street. South Congress or 6th Street in Austin. Houston Street in San Antonio. McKinney Street in Dallas. The Strand in Galveston. Anywhere in the French Quarter in New Orleans. Now picture a skybridge - just one skybridge - going over that street. Terrible! Plus, it sets a precedent. Think this will be the last medical building in the Museum District? And every medical building will have to have a skybridge for their patients so they don't die. Next thing you know, the Museum District is Medical Center North, and we will mourn the neighborhood that might have been.
  18. H-Town Man
    I was in town last weekend, took the family to a baseball game. If it hadn't been for Astros fans, I'm not sure there would have been anyone at all downtown. I don't really understand why either; I've all but forgotten that there ever was a pandemic but I guess some people haven't. Went to Underground Hall for dinner and it was packed, great atmosphere. Went to Discovery Green on Sunday after church and was impressed by how the trees had grown and how good everything looked. Think it will look amazing when the new Skanska building defines the rest of its border. Then walked down McKinney and the renovated Houston Center area looked pretty sad, with the half-hearted renovation of the Park Shops looking even sadder. Walked up Fannin - instead of Main for once - and was impressed by the architecture. It's not such a bad street, Fannin. Some pretty fine buildings. Perhaps someday it will be something.
  19. H-Town Man
    Early discussions for a renovation project involved a potential $200 million figure, before I think Hurricane Harvey scrapped everything. I seem to remember it was going to involve a complete gutting as well as adding a rooftop garden. At the time, I was disappointed that they weren't going to build a whole new symphony hall, as Hans Graf called for them to do twenty years ago. Although I will say that the last couple times I've been in town and seen Jones Hall, it had a certain venerable awe, maybe because I've lately been going to concerts at the Long Center in Austin. Anyway... I'm just glad that they're even renovating it at all. You have to look at the glass half full.
  20. H-Town Man
    We are talking about walking across *a street* correct? I just want to make sure we are both talking about the same thing. Crossing one street in the Museum District. Not crossing a freeway. Not crossing an eight-lane road. A single street in a neighborhood that you hope becomes an interesting neighborhood where people walk around, not a repeat of the Medical Center and its jumble of skybridges, garages, and faceless buildings that nobody wants to walk around. Fannin has a traffic count of 15,683 a day. Not very busy. You push a button on the crosswalk and wait for the walk sign to appear. Why would a developer in an urban setting have an interest (vested or not) in keeping those who visit inside the development? It's a hotel, and there are lots of tourist attractions nearby... are you saying that you don't want people walking to those attractions? This isn't the Gaylord Texan where you want everyone to stay bottled up inside your development. Of course you care about the street. It makes the hotel more desirable if there's a nice active street to walk on. Someone visiting a museum is more likely to stay at your hotel, etc.
  21. H-Town Man
    Skybridges don't just rob the street of pedestrians. They create a psychological sense that the street is a second-class location while the glass-enclosed bridges above the street are the first-class location. They rob the street of dignity, and great streets the world over seldom have them. They're worse than tunnels because you don't have to look at the tunnel. They are characteristic of second-tier cities where the public sphere is weak and the private sphere is overly powerful, and people don't want to walk on the street because it is thought to be a gross and scary place full of homeless. I can't take too seriously that there is a risk of eyecare patients getting run over if they don't have a skybridge to get them across the street. How did they get to the hotel in the first place? If you can drive, you can cross a street. If somebody drove you, they can walk you across the street.
  22. H-Town Man
    Click on Build Responsibly.
  23. H-Town Man
    That is interesting in Austin's case, since it will affect the whole retail corridor along Barton Springs Drive (which is entirely within a floodplain), the Lamar Street corridor north of 9th Street downtown, about half of Rainey Street (including Banger's for heaven's sake!), and the whole Near South Congress area just across the river from downtown. I'm not sure that this has been adopted by most cities, though, as I've seen many projects built in Flood Zone AE in my work around the U.S. Let us know what you find. I also think it's a pretty draconian regulation. 500 years isn't that often. Require flood insurance, maybe require disclosure for residences, and let the market determine if it's willing to pay the cost. The entire French Quarter of New Orleans is in the 500-year floodplain. It has proven to be economically feasible despite the flood risk, and wouldn't be the same if all those structures had had to elevate themselves.
  24. H-Town Man
    I'm pretty sure that was the old requirement, amended in April 2018. I found this at their website: "The City of Houston standards require all new structures to be at least 2 feet above the 500-year elevation (3 feet above the 500-year elevation if building is considered a critical facility or located in the floodway)."
  25. H-Town Man
    You're right, it was two feet, not four feet. And City of Houston enacted a tandem law that matched the county's law regarding the two foot elevation, so although the county law does not apply, the city law has substantially the same regulation. Thanks for digging into the details. Everything I said regarding buildings that couldn't be constructed today still applies.
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