wilcal

Are you talking about a tax abatement for the landlord or for the tenants? City could refund their portion of the sales tax, but that's only 1% which probably doesn't go very far.

I'm a big fan of doing the drop off zones. As curb space becomes more limited, commercial zones like this are vital. Nice to see they are sticking with it.

I'm not going to be able to go to the CIP meeting. If possible, I would very much like to hear about how interested Kamin is in completed the Lower Westheimer reconstruction.

Domino's opened yesterday! Stopped by and talked with the manager and they were having some first day pains, but seemed to be somewhat under control. It's a corporate-owned store. They actually have 12 ebikes to use for delivery. He said he was having a hard time actually hiring enough drivers. He took me into the back behind the oven and they have racks for all 12 to hang up and a battery charging station. They are set up to do car deliveries as well, but he said that they were going to try to do all ebike. He said his territory was 59 on the south, 59/288 on the east, Allen parkway on the north, and Taft on the west. Definitely a manageable region for ebikes imho. The Joint had some equipment inside their store front, so they may not be terrible far away.

I just rode through about 90 minutes ago and the only illegal parking I saw was right at Alabama and then in front of the townhomes under construction north of Emancipation Park. So about 1/5 of the number of cars parked illegally.

Very attractive. Wish the pricing was online.

Yes, this is! Great to hear they've started. Thanks for reporting in. I'll swing by to take some pics this weekend hopefully. There is pavement repair, two floating bus stops and bike parking on a raised island going on. The bike lane itself will be similar to the one on Gray, so mostly just paint with the concrete parking barriers added on top of the street.

City can't evict from TxDOT land which is where a ton of the encampments are (along highways). State won't evict because of fear from lawsuit.

I definitely understand how tight the margins are in grocery (grandfather was an exec for HEB for decades and made store managers keep a roll of pennies on their desk to remind them that every penny matters) and that cut-through traffic could make the difference between making it or not, but having unsafe streets in this area is a much larger hindrance to development than having access to groceries. Would Whole Foods not also receive a benefit from the Bagby entrance being closed to the spur and diverting all of the Bagby spur traffic onto Smith? You can go to their Google Maps listing and see how busy the store is on average by time and day of the week, and the 6-7pm slot is their busiest of the day on weekdays, but that's also the time that locals would be shopping. The weekends are still easily their busiest day. Their mid-day numbers, when there is zero cut-through traffic is 75% as good as their peak traffic between 6 and 7. Their 1-2pm traffic is about the same as their 5-6pm traffic. Might they get some people grabbing a juice or breakfast on the way in from Brazos? It's feasible but those people still have the option to do so and drive literally one extra minute to go there.

I guess if you don't live here? Pretty sure everyone that lives in Midtown or Montrose has driven down Westheimer/Elgin and seen the giant green Whole Foods lettering/branding on the side of their building. The letters that are also visible from the Bagby entrance to the spur. This is one of those situations where I could never prove that it's a fake number, but there is absolutely no way in hell that could be factual. They aren't even open when it is rush hour on Brazos. To me, their claim is basically saying that their business is off 20% because reverse commuters can't be bothered to go one street over, from Louisiana to Smith, and as a result are purchasing their alcohol from some other non-specs liquor store? I like Bourbon and I'm a frequent Spec's Smith St shopper, and have made friends with some of the staff and we were talking last month about how this location is number 1 in whiskey sales in the entire country, and likely the world. This one store sells as much whiskey as the state of Tennessee consumes. They do have the spec's key system for tracking purchases, and there may be an asterisk attached to the 20% number, as in their drive-by traffic sales from non-locals are down 20%, but there is not a chance that their business is off 20%. Sorry for being unclear, programming is the term that they use for any type of active participation from the Management District, and I was referencing their use of privately hired security from SEAL and one of the Constable's office. If the park could be under MMD's control, then they could enforce the rules themselves and prevent encampments like they do in their other parks. I would be surprised if they wouldn't jump at the opportunity for adding new park space for effectively only the cost of maintaining it.

Only solution I could think of is to have it "programmed" by Midtown MD like Midtown Park and Bagby Park. It's unclear if the land would be in MMD's territory. I also don't know how the mechanics would work or if this is even feasible.

I refuse to believe that the businesses on Bagby are relying on cut-through 45-59 traffic for approx 4-6pm Mon-Fri. Whole Foods business model in Midtown is not based upon those people. What business is currently benefiting from cut-through traffic? 1) CVS. Fine. 2) The Midtown Food Store? 3) Capital One Bank? 4) Subway? Spec's is not visible from Bagby.

Are there even 50 businesses on Bagby and Brazos combined? I count 7 non-bar/restaurant retailers on Bagby and 6 on Brazos, but I may be missing some. Homeless encampment is an understandable concern. Really not sure what the solution is with that. Definitely concerns about that at Randall's in Midtown. People not stopping at Whole Foods because of Brazos being closed is borderline laughable imho. Only reverse commuters would be shopping while driving from the spur and the current "detour" might be 1 minute? It's not like there are a lot of grocery stores in Midtown. I've actually been walking over once or twice a week for light shopping, but still do my main grocery shopping at HEB in Montrose because of the price difference. Yeah, pretty much. Making local roads move so quickly and dangerously that it pulls in cut-through traffic from the interstate is not a viable long-term strategy. Don't think I've seen any of the business owners in Midtown come out against NHHIP which would supposedly allow the downtown commuters to not drive through Midtown anymore and would certainly be shifting any cut-through from 45 -> 59 traffic away. If this was an HEB they wouldn't be having any issues right now. They may have underestimated how many people will pay extra for a premium grocery experience. Not sure why there is an extra distinction being generated for this being GFR versus all of the other businesses in the area that don't have customers living above them. Also, that corner is quickly becoming the densest in Midtown and will certainly be so if the high-rise across the street gets built. The spur is not closing down. One of 3 exits and half of one entrance is closing. Traffic is being 600 feet away. Yeah, I don't get it either. I did the count above. Less than 25 total retailers on Bagby/Brazos even including the bars and restaurants and all of those cars are still driving through Midtown. Then again, I don't understand why most of the local neighborhoods are against traffic calming measures when all of the roads in Midtown are designed to have non-locals speed through as quickly as possible. Locals are somehow worried about rush hour traffic, when they are all reverse commuters and they don't feel those affects. It's like, you live in the freaking neighborhood, you know it's not comfortable to walk or bike around because of the design of the streets, and yet you don't think that we should adjust these mini-highways? With the light cycles aligned for north/south traffic for commuters at rush hour, the locals (the people that actually live here) are actually INCREASING their commutes. I bet if the city put out a notice that they would make the north/south green lights twice as long so that commuters could get to the highway faster, locals would flip their shit yet that same logic doesn't apply to move the needle the other way in situations like this.

Houstonia published an article about the resto/expansion https://www.houstoniamag.com/arts-and-culture/2020/03/the-rothko-30-million-dollar-restoration

Always thought those would make way more sense on a smaller lot where the value could be maximized. They just seem kind of awkward on a lot that looks too large.