iah77

16 hours ago, ljchou said:

There will be a large shared driveway in front. It is a bit unusual, especially given that each could have their own short driveway and a small backyard had the chosen a different layout.

I don't think it's that simple, I bet since the street is rather wide there is a good amount of "minimum setback" and the fact that is is next to an intersection and the metro rail made the city probably not want 5 separate driveways so close to the corner but I'm not totally sure. I would have put the driveway in the back of the homes but anyways. 

1 hour ago, Ross said:

You will like the changes to 11th Street in the Heights. Nextdoor is blowing up about how the City is catering to 3 cyclists and causing drivers to die. As if it's the fault of the City when a driver hits the bike lane separator. 

It's not their fault that they put up something so cheaply with poor signage, poor illumination, and no reflectors in a road?  

1 hour ago, Ross said:

What would you do with the traffic that uses Spur 527? It doesn't go away, even if Brazos and Bagby weren't reconnected.

You shouldn't waste your time arguing with these two, their ideal cities are Havana and Pyongyang where no one has a car, everyone uses a bus or walks, nothing is economically produced, and everyone hangs out at their neighborhood refresqueria/bodega because there is basically nothing else to do. 

5 hours ago, 004n063 said:

Not necessarily. In my ideal world, both would be redesigned to be more like Main St., with a rail line down the center, and no left turns.

That said, it would be simpler to just improve the pedestrian realm on side streets and remove any regulations that prevent or inhibit pedestrian-oriented businesses from opening there. 

The central issue with Montrose and Kirby and Post Oak (and Washington, and Shepherd, and virtually every other urban arterial in North America) is that they try to perform the antithetical functions of streets (places that serve as platforms for building wealth in the community) amd roads (high-speed connections between places).

And as is universally the case, they perform neither function very well. Tax revenue is low on a per-acre basis (relative to what can be achieved in places with less space dedicated to driving and parking), but overall velocities are also low because of congestion and traffic lights. Moreover, these street-road hybrids (again, you are correct that they're ubiquitous in North American cities) are expensive to maintain and exceedingly dangerous for pedestrians, drivers, and especially cyclists.

If it's not obvious from everything I've written, I strongly recommend the book Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, by Chuck Marohn.

Yes because Main St. is definitely thriving, it has way less business now than it did 10 years ago. All the streets that have had this "intervention" such as Main, Fulton, Harrisburg are all dead and economically depressed. Even in downtown with high density development Main is nothing to boast about. All these things do is drive people further out to areas that actually cater to what they want. 

3 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

Wow this is exciting stuff!

The style is identical to InTown/Lovett stuff being built and  I think they might be involved. 

1 hour ago, bobruss said:

I never thought that I would join a nimby group, but after it was recently learned that a lot had been cleared on Calhoun between two existing homes in the 

most eastern edge of Riverside Terrace something had to be done. This is in between McGregor and OST. I'm usually in favor of growth and density but this is ridiculous.

I can't show you an image of the property but I hope that either Hindesky or CityLiving or Highrise would get some images so you can understand the true situation. This is an extremely deep home sized lot, There are homes on all sides of this property front and back. We have an injunction right now while it is being studied. The lot is cleared. They are putting up a 10 or 12 foot high wooden fence on either side of the front yards of the neighbors homes.

The developer is going to run a street down the center of the lot and construct 17 townhouses on both sides of the street. 

Not only will this be a horrible eye sore, an unnatural neighbor for all of these existing homes, but it will create a run off nightmare for an area that has already suffered flooding on Brays Bayou from Hurricane Harvey. It was originally approved before our neighborhood group went to court.

This neighborhood has seen an incredible amount of new homes and remodels in the last 5 years and home prices have gone up exponentially. It is a wonderful demographic mix and an incredibly quiet beautiful neighborhood. This neighborhood has been here for over 80 years, and it's really sad to see this kind of attack by a very shoddy developer, who obviously cares little about what he does to a neighborhood.

This is by no strech a beautiful block with a vape shop, self storage, gas station and billboard like a few lots down. That lot has been empty forever and the density really should increase as it's very close to the MLK light rail stop. Runoff lately has been addressed by city code so I don't find any issues with this project.   Although I do agree that most new houses in that back area have been very shoddy construction .***

2 hours ago, thatguysly said:

I had an apartment in college that was four bedroom with individual contracts. We had a friend back out and took a fourth random person in that the apartment found. It was a nightmare. Awful roommate who never chipped in for utilities. It is a good concept but sucks when you get stuck with a dud.

This is literally the whole concept of tenement housing .. Multiple rented rooms with shared kitchen/bathroom. I mean I think its a great idea from an affordability standpoint but there's probably a reason they were totally phased out in the US .. 

2 minutes ago, 004n063 said:

But Amsterdam's metro consists of a central city that's much denser than any part of Houston and then several suburbs that are denser than basically any part of Houston, spread out between large swathes of farmland.

Virtually nobody in Amsterdam lives more than a few hundred feet from a grocery store or transit stop. And nobody there lives more than a few dozen feet from the bicycle infrastructure network. This is only possible because endless tracts of single family detached homes with front, back, and side yards - the majority of the Houston metro area - literally does not exist. If you are suggesting that Amsterdam's sprawl is anywhere close to Houston's, you're delusional.

I say population size does not matter because even a small village can be walkable, and a megacity like Tokyo can be easily navigated via walking, biking, or transit. This is not the case in Houston. Our sprawl and insane modeshare for private vehicles chase each other in a perpetual doom loop.

If we want to solve Houston's traffic problems, we need to invest heavily in both transit and transit-oriented development, or the city's economy needs to collapse. 

I think you need to direct you anger at our ridiculous minimum setbacks and parking requirements. Anything you like about Amsterdam is probably not legal here under our present building codes. Keep in mind even applying for small variances can be very expensive. 

2 hours ago, Luminare said:

Fulshear is basically what Cypress was like 30-40 years ago. At least from looking at old Satellite images and talking with family members.

Fulshear is going to develop much faster in my opinion due to westpark tollway and expansion of I-10 again up to Columbus. I would say it's like 5-10 years behind current cypress. Infrastructure and subdivisions are being laid out pretty quickly along with lots of roundabouts etc .

1 hour ago, swtsig said:

Word is MKT will be expanding across Shepherd at some point. 

I saw a replat sign already across the street a few days ago I beleive.

11 minutes ago, J Money said:

75k square foot tenant… first guesses are a City Target or a Trader Joe’s? 

This sounds rather exciting ..

1 hour ago, EndUser said:

But still doesn’t explain the lack of activity. Leaving a building like that open to the elements can’t be good…

It's literally just I-Beams and cement, a few months won't do anything. What are they supposed to do, cover it in a giant tarp?

2 hours ago, 004n063 said:

They would, but the long-term effect in either case would be a reduction in traffic congestion.

Yes so the streets can look dead like Harrisburg and Fulton do now ..

22 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

There are some good concepts presented in the document, but these particular photos/renderings are a bit disingenuous.  They portray one of the spots where the freeways are being relocated to, but they don't show us before and after of any of the spaces that will be cleared of freeways.

I was about to say the same thing, new views will open up elsewhere from it being moved. 

I feel a Trader Joe's in a concept like this would do extremely well. 

35 minutes ago, wilcal said:

I liked it, too. Was cool that it was designed around train access.

Wife and I bought about 1/4 mile from here. I'm excited about 20 more upper middle class incomes to add to HEB's sales calculator. 

The East End is really starting to step on the gas. Not sure if you saw the thread about The Mill (Canal @ Navigation) but the existing big black apartment complex filled up in 9 months after they opened. Pretty impressive.

I think development has accelerated lately and think it's going to be a very interesting area in the near future. Super hoping for an HEB soon as well! I think it's only a mater of time. Eastwood Green is 40 homes btw and I know the empty lot nearby is also platted for at least 10 more homes. 

1 hour ago, wilcal said:

Hell yes. This site had been for sale for awhile and was replatted this year into 20 lots just under 2k SF on 18' shared driveways.

The other new homes just to the south have been selling really well evidently, so I'm sure these will move quickly.

 

I just bought across the rail ., I liked the warehouse but excited to see more activity in the area. 

16 hours ago, hindesky said:

The old Museum Florist building is going away.

I really liked how these two old structures contrasted with the museum, I'm sure whatever replaces it will look off. 

On 8/11/2022 at 7:39 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

Why tf is the entrance on the trail? Who can we contact about this bs? 

You complain when developments don't connect to trails and then complain when they do as well ....

They aren't just for bikes so I think legally it's no different then connecting to a sidewalk. It looks like there is an alley easement next to the trail so they are not really the same thing. Like the old rail like was separate etc. 

10 hours ago, nate4l1f3 said:

Bummer. Upscale huh? I liked the vibe of goodnight Charlie’s when it was open and was hoping for something casual here. This along with the wine and cheese place next door pisses me off .. O well. 

Why? The wine place is actually very affordable. I swear the owners just use it as a tax write off. 

6 hours ago, Amlaham said:

77 years ago it was $35,000?!?! Isn't that a little low even for 77 years ago? Was Houston that cheap back then?

I mean this was pretty far out from the center 77 years ago.

11 hours ago, 004n063 said:

Yeah, the fact that street redesigns don't automatically include proper bike lanes in 2022 is pretty infuriating. I live in Midtown and use the protected lane on Austin all the time...to go to Downtown.

 

Not really useful at all for intra-neighborhood trips apart from Retrospect.

Maybe not everyone wants a bike lane on every street...? There are literally two walkable  streets with no car access on that design.

3 hours ago, nate4l1f3 said:

I never knew this was once a coffee shop. Looking at the pics it looked like my type of spot! I could be way off base but the interior had a NY coffee shop vibe off of the pics that I’ve seen. Has anyone visited it before? 

As a kid my parents always got coffee here. It was a Dietrick's, there were two. Here and where upper hand salon is on Westheimer next to Lanier. I loved that one more because it had a fountain you could run through at the time haha. 

On 7/25/2022 at 10:36 AM, editor said:

Sounds like just a supposition from a middle manager to an employee to me.  CVS and Walgreens are both magnets for vagrants, and addicts.  That's nothing new.  It happens with nearly every CVS and nearly Walgreens in every city in the nation.

If either of these chains was actually interested in reducing the number of vagrants in their parking lots, they'd stop selling tobacco products, alcohol, and lottery tickets.  Though, to its credit, I believe I read recently that CVS is dropping tobacco sales — but only in certain states.

That's absolutely not true,  most pharmacies don't have the amount of vagrants one in midtown had. It's sad if you think young employees alone should have to put up with this just because they work at a CVS.  

6 minutes ago, 004n063 said:

You're not exactly wrong - in order for places like this to serve the greater Houston area, they need to accommodate drivers. And projects of this scale do need to think beyond the local community, because they're taking on such a gargantuan amount of debt all at once. 

But I do wish the city itself would do more to make locals-oriented development feasible. It's easy to assume that people won't walk, bike, or take the rail becaus they're "too lazy, stubborn, or stupid," but we've built most of our streets in a way that is aggressively hostile toward pedestrians and bicyclists, and our rail network really only takes a fraction of our population to a fraction of the places they want to go.

No individual developer is capable of or responsible for fixing this, but every one who doesn't is ultimately contributing to the perpetuation of the problem.

And given the ethos the Ion District seems to want to be identified with, it would have been cool to see them lean into a "yeah, you're not going to want to drive here" attitude.

The two current projects that I think do a decent job of exemplifying both sides of this are the Caroline Street redesign (as an example of a standard the city could be pursuing for street design) and the Urban Genesis project in the Warehouse District (as an example of a construction approach that doesn't appear to be prioritizing car storage or throughput).

Since the Ion is located at pretty much the exact middle of the busiest (but still under capacity) rail line, one of the busiest bus stations, and the central and key transfer point of the probable University BRT line; and since its north-south streets have huge ROWs (making an extended pedestrian realm and a high-comfort bike lane very feasible) and its cross streets have extremely limited traffic (making pedestrianization very feasible), the opportunity for transformatively human-oriented development here was enormous.

This is still going to be transformative for the area. It just could have been better, that's all.

(And honestly, I really don't care about the garage, personally - it just exemplifies the kind of "stuck" thinking we're talking about.)

I totally agree with this, I just think its very hard to reach for this level of sophistication when bus stops here are just poles in the ground and some of the highest density areas with high public transport usage like Gulfton are totally ignored and don't even have the bare basics like crosswalks, continuous sidewalks, illumination, bus shelters etc. I think we put a lot of focus on the nicer parts of town and totally ignore places that actually have transport users.