thedistrict84

I completely agree with you. I didn’t mean that the two areas are delineated by Lockwood. I meant that the East End includes Second Ward but extends well beyond that to include the other neighborhoods and areas you mentioned—hence the “overlap” comment. I probably could have been a bit clearer with my statement. My apologies.

I’ve lived in the area for about four years myself, and I would agree with this for the most part. The one caveat I will add is that (I think) the recognized boundary of the Second Ward ends at Lockwood, whereas the East End refers to the area well beyond that. So, there is some overlap but the names aren’t necessarily interchangeable.

I don’t disagree. Even better would be if the City hurries up and does away with minimum parking requirements completely. With ride sharing and Uber/Lyft more prevalent, and automated vehicles maybe 5-10 years out, there will be less of a need for parking and garages like this will be antiquated. The City’s recent vote to extend the CBD to most of Midtown and EaDo (and therefore essentially eliminating the existing minimum parking requirements) gives me hope. And I know parking capacity is a concern held by retail tenants, but that too will change as more and more people move away from driving their own vehicles for the reasons specified above (plus hopefully extended public transportation and better walkability due to increased density in certain areas).

As long as Google maps still labels the area Second Ward, I don’t think the designation will go anywhere. If anything, it might help broaden use of the name.

10 levels. Even worse than we imagined. Wow. Where’s Angostura? I figured he would have chimed in by now to defend his favorite automated garage. I hope he didn’t commit sepuku because his stock in U-tron tanked (because a ten-level automated garage in this part of The Heights is a horrible idea).

I think the Second Ward name is still sticking for the most part, but there is definitely some name-creep occurring in the area, thanks mostly to town home developers. The worst part about living in Second Ward is having to correct all of the people that call it EaDo. The BNSF rail line provides a clear boundary, so I’m not sure what’s so confusing about it. Oh well.

I drive by here fairly often and have been monitoring the construction. Seems like they’re making good progress so far.

I would imagine some of the people on here who talk about “building vertical” and “density” and “activated pedestrian realms” fit this category and barely ever spend more time inside the loop than they have to. They want to build high-rise towers everywhere so they have a pretty skyline to look at on their commute. But, would they actually want to live in them?

I don’t disagree, and when I first moved to the area I found the tracks down the middle of the street to be a really interesting feature. It was especially cool the few times there was any activity on the rail. However, in the last few years, Commerce has degraded fairly rapidly. There are many potholes near the tracks, and especially on the other portion where the second set of tracks was paved over. There is also a bunch of washout from the two portions where cars cross the tracks in a perpendicular fashion, near St. Charles and again at Palmer. At this point, the entire street needs to be redone along this stretch. If the tracks aren’t being used, I see no reason why they should remain.

Exactly! There have been a number of changes (all for the better) in the four years I’ve been in Second Ward. It’s exciting to think of what this area will look like in ten years. Projects like East River (although technically Fifth Ward) will go a long way to expediting the growth and development in this area.

Figured I’d revive this long-dead thread to see if there is any updated information out there. From what I’ve seen, the rail line down Commerce has been completely abandoned. The last activity I saw was a small “shunter” engine for moving rail cars going down the line about three years ago. The ROW and tracks themselves between Commerce and Canal, and Canal and Navigation, have been overgrown with brush. There has also been some patchwork on the tracks as they pass Canal to smooth the road over, which inhibits their use for trains. Lastly, there have been walking paths built over the tracks as part of the Headquarters development on Canal. My question is this: if the rail lines have been abandoned, is Commerce St currently under consideration to be redone? It would be nice to have it repaved with dedicated bike lanes.

I was thinking the same thing. I drive by there occasionally, and it still seems to be going strong with many cars in the parking lot.

There there was a relatively rough but complete 1960 Dodge Dart Seneca out behind Johnny’s Gold Brick, which was incorporated into their back courtyard (before the courtyard was shut off). It looked like it had been sitting in the same spot for decades. It would have been in the general area of this redevelopment. I wonder if it’s still there?

No worries, I was mostly mentioning it to draw attention so the admins could look at merging the threads.

There is an existing post regarding this project in the “Downtown” section. May need to merge topics. https://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/39015-u-haul-moving-storage-expansion-at-1617-san-jacinto/