iah77

5 hours ago, Earlydays said:

Whoever came up with that bank name should be fired......probably the CEO.

Ozark has become a pretty big player in major real estate deals in NYC so I think they wanted to sound more global than rural Arkansas. 

Interesting WSJ article.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-small-arkansas-bank-is-fueling-americas-skyscraper-boom-11644238800

11 hours ago, hindesky said:

According to his Wikipedia topic. Seems he could see there was more money in developing than working for the city of Miami.

Career[edit]

Pérez was an economic development director with the city of Miami before he entered the real estate business and became a developer.^[10][12] In 1979, he founded Related Group^[13] with New York builder Stephen M. Ross. Pérez built his fortune by building and operating low-income multifamily apartments across Miami. The firm became the largest affordable housing builder in Florida by the middle of the decade.^[10] He then branched off into rental apartments before becoming one of the most prolific high-rise condo builders in the Southern United States. Pérez has owned 50 condo towers in various stages of completion in South Florida, Fort Myers and Las Vegas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_M._Pérez

His projects are super high quality now, I love this new complex he built in Coral Gables a few years ago. He's a big art collector and his projects usually include something so finges crossed! 

2 hours ago, Amlaham said:

lol let me share some examples of what could have been implemented since a lot of you seem very PRO-whatever is going on with this building. 

 

There's legit a thousand ways they could have incorporated the trail into the development. Im not sure why  being affordable housing or a $20 sandwich, make this vision harder. Is that the standard we set for affordable housing? Being a bare minimum building? This is an architectural forum, criticism will be provided when necessary :) 

If it's so easy why don't you create a non-profit which takes like a week with the state and then apply for a loan for 10,000,000 + and do it yourself since everyone does it wrong lol?

10 minutes ago, Amlaham said:

I wish they found a way to incorporate the trail into the development. That would have been such a nice amenity to add, "connection to the Buffalo Bayou Trail," but I'm starting to realize a lot of these developers are dumb. Like... this building is a 15 min walk on the trail right into the East River Development, thats a huge plus. The Landscape better be bomb to make up for that.

They're dumb for assuming the tenants of an affordable complex aren't going to walk to a food court where a tiny sandwich cost like 20 bucks lol? There's a lot of paperwork involved for a trail connection and it probably was not worth their time in their eyes.

Houston Methodist Cypress Hospital designed as hospital of the future | Houston Methodist Newsroom

Houston Methodist Cypress Hospital, scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2025, will be Houston Methodist's ninth hospital and will incorporate the most advanced technology available from the day the doors open. With 400 beds and a prime location in the heart of the rapidly growing U.S. 290 corridor, the hospital will be equipped with technologically advanced innovations implemented during COVID, many of them designed to make patient communication with physicians, staff and families the very best and most effective in any health care facility.  The hospital is expected to employ about 500 people., and construction is expected to start this spring.

They posted a rending though it is not much.

4 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

You are correct, and that's not even counting Texas A&M College of Medicine's Houston campus.

I would not call a D.O school an actual medical school compared to these other large institutions. They are kind of in a separate category while still good to have non the less. 

32 minutes ago, pokemonizepic said:

any evidence for this claim that the positives far outweigh the negatives?

 

GDP per capita in now way relates to density and there have been several studies that show the negative effects of urban sprawl.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/09/transport-noise-linked-to-increased-risk-of-dementia-study-finds#:~:text=“In this large nationwide cohort,disease%2C” the researchers wrote.

https://www.socialconnectedness.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Emma-Harries-Social-Isolation-and-its-Relationship-to-the-Urban-Environment.pdf

just to name a few of the drawbacks of car centered development, as well as the fact that it is incredibly expensive and inefficient 

 

A short poorly written unpublished paper written by a McGill student? Using this logic, all rural peoples should be forced to move to a city lol. The first paper mention also clearly highlights the noise from RAIL so not sure how helpful that is. 

3 minutes ago, august948 said:

Induced demand is a flawed model.  If a city is growing, as Houston has by about 3 million people in the last 20 years, that considerably factors into the traffic flow.  No doubt, had we not rebuilt I10 it would be much worse today.  But by just building out I10, we've connected a large pipe to smaller pipes.  For best traffic flow we need to expand out the other freeways, including the loop, the beltway and grand parkway to the same standard including interchanges that can smoothly handle the larger capacity without creating bottlenecks.

If you go back and read my earlier post I suggested that we run park and ride buses along hot lanes on all the freeways creating a faster public transit system that would allow those who don't want to drive the option to reach any destination relatively quickly.  However, for most trips the most efficient and preferred way to get from point to point will always be the individual vehicle unless artificial restrictions are put in place.  Whether that vehicle runs on fossil fuels or renewables is a separate question.

Trying to re-create a medieval urban format by eliminating cars, which is really what this is about, is a truer example of induced demand.

I think they think if we get rid of freeways we will magically have a beautiful city like Sienna complete with medical churches and olive groves... Houston is naturally densifying and is literally a baby barely 120-50 years old? All the cities people keep name dropping are literally at the very least twice as old. 

1 hour ago, august948 said:

Thank you for posting that link.  Reading the article led me to this:

http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/hist/hist_traveltimes_menu.aspx

This is the source cited for the four year increase in travel times from Pin Oak to downtown.  It shows data gathered by transtar for average trip time broken down by 15 minute increments and sections of roadway.  Here are the 2021 highlights from transtar:

Travel time at peak in the morning for 2021 on I10 is below where it was 10 years ago.  2020 was clearly an anomalous year due to the shutdowns in the spring.  I'll be curious to see where this goes over the next year or two as work patterns have changed, hopefully permanently.  What I've noticed, anecdotally, is that I10 is gloriously open during non-peak hours.  The bottlenecks I've found are now where it meets smaller narrower roadways.

Keep in mind that the west corridor literally added 100,000s of residents so this is ridiculous to say time went up by a little. 

45 minutes ago, shasta said:

You do realize, Texas (including Houston) has some of the highest property Tax rates in the country....right?

Our tax money should be re-invested to assist and protect our property...they are not!

Every significant rain event leads to flooding. We have some of the worst roads in the country. We have limited connectivity with sidewalks, etc.

Yes, we have made MAJOR strides in the last 20 years but we essentially let to inner city rot for the 100 years before that.

In a typical property tax bill you can see a huge chuck of it (85%+) goes to Harris Health and HISD alone so I think your main problem is with their severe inefficiency and corruption lol? I agree more money should go to infrastructure 

1 hour ago, shasta said:

This may be the most sort-sided response I've ever seen. Yes we have many people moving into the city of Houston but our infrastructure is lagging ...by a lot. We literally have unpaved ditches a quarter mile outside of downtown Houston, we have streets and side walks that are  in very poor condition, for a metro of 7 million + we basically have very few miles of mass transit. And if you state wide, our energy grid wasn't equipped to handle a major weather even like the one we had last February.

And I don't think you understand how Suburban Sprawl works...a city/region can squash suburban sprawl with regional and city plans leading developers to develop a region per an actual plan.

The City of Houston n=has a rejected a city plan multiple times. The truth is...there was a while when the only "federal funds" we aggressively went after was funding to build new freeways...thus encouraging sprawl for developers looking to develop master plan communities and supporting developments.

Very little in Houston is thought our from a Civic standpoint...they are almost all negotiations with developers/ This is NOT the way to create a forward thinking city that matches the charm of the other Alpha cities it desperately wants to be a member of that group. You get a city of nice "pockets" but you also get a lot of third world type infrastructure.

 

 

There is literally nothing wrong with everything you stated lol. If people here do not want to pay for it and are willing to forgo it, what's the problem? Houston is not Boston, New York, or Paris - nor should we attempt to be. Any city you view as a roll model is probably very expensive and unaffordable to most Houston residents. As long as the city is divided into many counties etc, these problems are going to be very hard to address so what is going on is a rational reaction to that. If Harris county funds things that people do not want to pay for, they will go to a county where they can pay less and enjoy the "free" nice things by just driving in. 

18 hours ago, mattyt36 said:

Acc to Misspelled Doug:

Though there is concern about the project’s impacts in Midtown, Third Ward and Eado, the most vocal opposition to the project emanates from north of downtown where TxDOT proposes to add two managed lanes in each direction to I-45. That widening, which requires the destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses adjacent to the freeway, has drawn scorn and accusations that highway officials are perpetuating decades of carving freeways through low-income and minority communities to the detriment of those neighborhoods.

Is there a summary of this opposition anywhere?  Are we talking about just the 610-Downtown segment or going all the way to the Beltway?  Does this refer to the Stop IH 45 Now group?  Does anyone know how long this group has been together, who formed it, who funded it (most importantly), and how they have historically participated in the comment process?

I don't know where all these vocal people were during their survey lol. It seems like a very loud small group of people...

I regret not buying this when it came for sale  2 years ago lol.

On 11/17/2021 at 11:22 AM, Naviguessor said:

Amlaham - The city is here because of the Port and the huge amount of revenue that it brings to the City and State.  Not going anywhere, anytime soon.   

Thank you for bringing reason to this forum, people seem to fantasize that we can all just live off cute coffee shops or something lol..

15 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

Wow who are they kidding with that bs? Now don't get me wrong, this will still be great because it is more of a dedicated entrance but damn. Hopefully as foot traffic increases and Brookfield gets their head out of their ass, they could always upgrade the rest. 

I mean I do think the interior renovation still looks significan and it seems to open it up a lot more in their defence? I woudn't exaclty call it a light cosmetic renovation 

14 minutes ago, Luminare said:

It is, but I do appreciate where their mindset is. This area has the potential to be what they show in the images. I mean they did land SHOP architects to do the ION itself, so they already know what kind of architects who can do this kind of work. That is a good sign. It always starts with the architect you choose to do this kind of work. I hope they start roping in some others like Michael Hsu, who can maybe massage this look to something that feels more Houston. Right now this all feels like something I would see in New York, LA, or even cities like Toronto. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I think something that expresses the colors of Houston, and our general eclectic nature would work better. Overall its a good direction. Will all of this work out? Maybe not, but if they can just build out the area around the ION with a few buildings like this then I'll be satisfied enough.

Michael Hsu is literally everywhere inside the loop so I would appreciate a little more diversity in architects lol. I feel his architecture screams Austin and is not representative. I think these look amazing.  

5 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

Not sure what you mean...  How is it completely different than [their] typical store?

The description in that permit sure sounds like an RH..., especially with the name "RH"  😉

This being a second location is very unlikely.  Way too close to Highland Village. (If they ever do a second location in the Houston metro, it would probably be in The Woodlands).  Maybe they'll convert the current location to an RH Modern

I agree, this most likely means Highland will be closing in my opinion. 

34 minutes ago, CREguy13 said:

Yes, but completely different than typical store and the Highland Village location I don't believe is going anywhere.  To get a better perspective of the type of development, look at the RH Dallas that opened earlier this year:

https://rh.com/dallas/restaurant

 

I think they have only 1 or 2 markets with more than 1 RH store so this would be extreamly rare. Sometimes they do a small RH Modern store but this looks like a full size store.

23 minutes ago, Luminare said:

In today's news people hold gun to someone's head demanding cash, or they will shot gun. Person with gun pointed at head hands over money to person with gun. More at 11.

Thank god the exorsion was less than expected...  I would love to see what Evans-Shabazz has donated to the district after so much time in power.

The building seems to be 9 floors above the podium parking in the render, do the permis usually include parking as floors?

On 10/22/2021 at 2:05 PM, Texasota said:

The bank is already there. A drive through is not really a new investment in the area. It's not adding a new service, or housing, or really much of anything.

And it is next to the light rail. A new drive through attached to an existing business next to the light rail is 100% a whomp whomp for me. 

Especially given all the new student housing going up just the other side of Scott. This could have been something interesting, but it isn't. That's a whomp whomp.

You must be privileged and be able to go to a bank during "business" hours unlike a lot of us who use atms to make deposits. Sorry you don't understand the fear of making a deposit in a relatively unsafe area at night. This is a big plus for people who live in the area and can only bank after hours. How about you withdraw 500 dollars and hop on the lightrail at night to see how safe you feel?

48 minutes ago, Texasota said:

whomp whomp

Investment in this area is a big deal consdering how it is now, why whomp whomp? Until Frost there was literally no banks around here except for the Chase on UH campus hidden in the back. 

9 minutes ago, X.R. said:

Its not thaaaaat bad now, and its much better than it was. Shipley's was doing good business, that thing was busy most of the time when you'd go in, and the homeless was much worse then. Its especially not that bad compared to other cities.

Also, lulz at them being behind on taxes, thats just a bit funny. I would like the fences to come down around Greentown labs and the parking lot next door. It feels a little standoff-ish with the neighborhood. Unless they are saying things aren't done yet, then I can understand. Otherwise, take the fences down! 

Every house around that block has fences or bars on their windows, why in the world does a fence on someones land offend people?

37 minutes ago, wilcal said:

The reason for doing it with the community is so the city isn't involved with enforcement. Breach of contract would be handled by a court. If the CBA is with the city, the city does what the mayor wants, so he/she can choose not to enforce it. CBAs are traditionally made bypassing the city because of this.

$6.6 million for parking garage vegetation?

$6.4 million for two "public plazas" that will be on private property?

IDK about all that. The TIRZ could do so much more with that money.

I think the bolded statement is completely disingenuous, and really doesn't even make sense. The Fiesta was by far the most convenient grocery store for a large portion of the Third Ward (with some portions having car ownership rates in the 60%s), so it isn't just about "potential benefits". 

Some of the leaders aren't even directly affected by this, but are trying to help support voices that are typically squashed. As has been talked about earlier in the thread, Rice's interaction with the black community in Houston isn't exactly a positive history. Several of the members are Rice students that want to see more equity from their university. So yes, it is expected that there hasn't been a continuous push by some of the members in this one specific area. Sears had also been sitting on a what, 50 year lease? And that is something that did help serve needs in the community whereas the Ion might not. 

And in terms of Third Ward, yes, the highways have re-edged the borders of neighborhoods, but you have to also see that there are areas of strong black culture and residents, like along Almeda, still exist in those parts that are outside the "modern" boundaries. 

The Kwik Kopy building is up for sale at like 7-10X its appraised value. There will be ramifications felt by local residents because Rice decided to make such a significant change.

CBAs are definitely a new thing for Houston, but to claim that a grassroots org is just demanding handouts when they see their neighborhood continuing to change, and not to benefit long-term residents is not a great take imho.

 

 

HEB opened much closer and is actually cheaper than Fiesta and actually had a large fresh produce section so that is not true, it wasn't even on many bus routes from actual 3rd ward like the new HEB is. I think it's crazy is the 21st century to try keep areas as ethnic enclaves etc. Shouldn't every area mirror the demographics of the city overall?

Just now, tigereye said:

This infuriates me. As a nearby resident who’s live in the area for the last decade, Rice’s involvement has cleaned up a once seedy part of town. Where was the “The Houston Coalition for Equitable Development Without Displacement” when this area was a shantytown? This isn't about gentrification. This is a shakedown for free benefits when they haven’t done shit previously. 

Totally agree with this.