Double L

If Houston wants less parking, it needs to provide more public transportation…

Not a good looking building but there is a need to have affordable housing in the city and the downtown and it will help build up and populate downtown. There isn’t a lot in that part of downtown and we need to build it up. It will be interesting to see how much the units will cost.

I’m leaning more and more towards getting rid of the parking requirements from the city of Houston. Let the businesses decide how much parking they will need rather than the government. The businesses will have an incentive to decide for themselves how much parking they will need, because it will determine how many customers they believe they will receive, relative to how much space for parking they believe they will require.

This will be a new service to the city and we will gain money from it, not lose money from it. As long as they are not obstructing pedestrians and bicycles from moving along the sidewalks, I don’t mind a little “clutter” and I don’t mind the right of way being amended to include non-transportation amenities, I think that positions our city to use our right of ways for a larger variety of services.

This guy has a blog where he regularly talks about Houston and he just posted a blog about The Woodlands.

Great project. I hope both it and Springwoods village are built.

I was hoping they would do something like this when I first heard of the church burning down in 2005. Should be a great addition to the fourth ward.

What are your thoughts and opinions of the Woodlands Town Center? Discuss and post your thoughts.

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1. There will be a clearer view of the design features of the balcony when looking at the building from the east.

2. Over time, more things will be built there. You never know, in 2025 that balcony may be one of the best views in the city. Perhaps not the neighborhoods east of 59 but in the downtown area there will be lots of demand.

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If we can't pay for it we might want to try to get more investors. Maybe something different than a hotel, something like a theme park or a mall. Something that will get more people involved, and bring more money in. Go ahead and let free market competition of those who want to benefit from the project help pay for it.

...just a thought in the case this project hits any serious trouble.

Besides the name change, there's a chance the new owner won't want to keep the building lit up or they may change the lighting. However the building is highly occupied so the chance will be slim unless it goes to a much smaller business. If Hines can keep it lit up I would imagine most owners could.

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That's huge right there!!!!

Shamrock was cancelled and they were signing leases with tenants.

I don't see a reason to get all caught up in this until we get a "yes or "no" from the developer.

Texas Southern is pretty much one of the largest black universities in the USA and it was the first in Texas, opened as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court case. We should do everything we can to keep it independent. I think it's possible, if we fill the board of regents with financial managers we can improve the situation. If not then it won't be that bad to be under a major state system.

Do we have any reports of business leaders downtown even saying that they are losing business due to the condition of the neighborhood in the first place?

Thanks for the info. I appreciate it.

This will really change that neighbrohood. If you were hoping to preserve the feel of that area, this will be another nail in the coffin for you. Can anybody who has been to this area recently tell me how regentrification has been going on over there, are neighborhoods still rundown or are they moving on up?

It must suck to be kicked out of those cheap apartments in a prominent location. Very sad.

This looked to me like it was a trustworthy developer who was putting their efforts into the design, architecture, open space, pedestrian access, and traffic access, of their complex. They are performing traffic studies and making sure the entrance/exits to the property were well designed and placed. That's being responsible with your power. I am very happy with what I see so far in the developers responsibility.

To promote retail you have to bring in the money to the retailers and there are many ways to do that. I can think of a few key points.

-Downtown's underground water pipe system is outdated and inefficient. Very few locations downtown have working bathrooms. Improving this can help the retailers with their business. The downtown development organization was talking a while back about port-a-potties on the streets. I don't know if they ever did this?

-Events are great about bringing lots of people downtown. Any time we have an event downtown it attracts people to downtown. Also, it operates not only as a way to bring customers but also as a marketing tool so that they can see downtown and it attracts them back to downtown.

-Residential development is a key component and more important than visitors to downtown for neighborhood style retailers because people who live downtown will always be there and will support the essential businesses like Walgreen's. Without people who live downtown your downtown becomes touristy and lacks a real neighborhood environment, it is filled with retailers attracting visitors and is not as liveable. In downtown San Antonio they get lots of tourists and the River walk and Houston/Commerce streets areas are fantastic areas with a Rainforest Cafe and tons of hib bars but the rest of downtown has buildings that are all in bad shape and all lower end retail.

-Also, we could do TIFs and we could target them to the most essential needs downtown. Need a grocery store? target it. Need a specific block developed? Target it. In Austin they try to encourage developers to meet a standard in building development. If they fail that standard they are charged and the money is put into retailers in the surrounding area. There is a serious issue with TIFs and that is that they are biased, supporting some businesses more than others so mistakes can be made denying you teh ability to achieve your goal. Sometimes they accelerate a development by giving the developers money only to realize that there was in fact a better development possibly in the pipeline that they have now missed out on.

Hope that helps, just my thoughts without reading the thread.

Does anybody know why they would choose that part of downtown? Why wouldn't they choose vacant space down by Main Street Square?

MBar was really nice. I'm surprised it was bought out. If Walgreen's is that willing to buy out a successful establishment for a central location, then that bodes well for downtown's outlook.

or more accurately, "Bought out."

That means that wallgreens is very optimistic to be in downtown if they're willing to ask for a prime spot like that.

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That is incedible.

^ Absolutely agreed.