Joke

I've been out of Houston for 4 years now, but excited for this to happen. Just popped up in my feed with the Ballpark Lofts demolition. I've done a little searching, but couldn't easily find what's happening with Pierce Elevated. Has that been decided? Also, any chance that this will do something about how Spur 527 turns all of west Midtown into just a dangerous ingress/egress path to downtown at the rush hours? Try walking between, say, Drew at Bagby and the McGowen light rail station at rush hour -- it's a car-filled nightmare. My thought when I lived there is that they should dead-end a few of the North-South streets at various places, turning whole whole block of street into something fun (plaza, pocket park, whatever). E.g., dead-end Brazos at Dennis, Smith at McGown, Louisiana at Mcilhenney, etc. It would work out fine for local traffic, but the fact you couldn't straight-shot all the way from downtown to/from the Spur would make the spur a lot less appealing to people just passing through Midtown to downtown. Alternatively, making 59 to the east side of downtown much more appealing would also do the trick, but I don't know if this does that.

Man, the service at Rico's was shitty. Food was not bad. Hopefully La Calle is more committed.

Thanks for that. I've been looking for any hard numbers, and that's the first I've heard.

This is exactly my thinking on the situation as well. In the wake of Harvey, there has a been a lot of talk about Houston's development and the loss of permeable ground. I think it's an important discussion, but it really has very little to do with the damage form Harvey. That loss of permeable ground is what makes us more susceptible to flooding from "normal" rain events; it's the difference between no flooding and some flooding for events that are right on the edge. Harvey was so extreme -- so much water came down so fast -- that the water that could've been impounded by permeable ground was basically negligible. That's my guess. I'd like to hear an expert opine.

I live in Midtown, bike/walk to downtown, and would _love_ to see the Pierce elevated go (well, really what I want is the portion of 45 that runs north-south from Allen Pkwy to Pierce to be demolished and replaced by more entrances to downtown -- ideally green spaces with ped/bike-friendly entrances to downtown). But I'd love to see the whole thing go; i like the high line park idea. But at the same time, I just find it hard to believe that the Pierce elevated itself (the elevated stretch running along Pierce from Brazos to 45) is necessarily an impediment to pedestrian connectivity between midtown and downtown. Yes, it's kind of unpleasant to look at and walk under, and yes it can be a bit intimidating at night because the columns provide hiding places for potential evildoers. But I absolutely refuse to believe that creative types couldn't overcome these concerns with a fairly modest budget, e.g.: - Tons of bright lighting on the sides and underside of the overpass, to remove some fear of threat - Ivy and other plants grown all along the the sides and underside of the overpass, and over all the columns, to turn a sad concrete jungle into a nice green spot - Food kiosks or food trucks or something directly under the overpass right at the sidewalk's edge. Maybe use the space behind the frontage for outdoor seating. Mandate that these be in operation from early morning to late night. - In addition to or in place of some of the plantings, do something cool with the look of the overpass, art or something. I think the real problem with connectivity is where 45 acts as a _physical_ barrier between downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods (as mentioned before, the stretch of 45 from Allen Parkway to Pierce). I really think that the mental barriers could be overcome with just a little effort.

So, I feel like I've heard about a number of new bars and restos coming to Midtown, but clearly Mrs. Joke and I are in a rut because I think the last new place we've tried in the last couple years is Oporto. What are your recommendations for Midtown spots that have opened up in the last, say 2 or so years? PS - We liked Oporto. Need to try it again some time.

SuperLake

Culture map says Whole Foods on the bottom, luxury apts on top. http://houston.culturemap.com/news/real-estate/05-08-15-midtown-grows-up-with-new-whole-foods-market-and-luxury-apartments-planned-for-prime-site/

So the post on the Lamar bike lanes got me reading about the Columbia Tap bike trail, which inevitably turned up the comments and news stories about numerous muggings on the trail in mid-2013. It also turned up news items (and a thread in the HAIF Crime and Punishment subforum) about some juveniles getting arrested for the muggings in September 2013. So question to local cyclists -- did the arrests fix the problem? Anyone heard of any new issues since September 2013? Any experiences would be helpful.

And while I'm here, some good articles on this from the Chron, first from Dec 2013 and second from August 2012: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/columnists/gray/article/Archeologists-make-surprising-discovery-at-Bethel-5042261.php#/7 http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Bethel-Park-to-emerge-at-site-of-historic-church-3812629.php And someone made a pretty sweet video via drone flyover:

Biked by today (man, what a gorgeous day!!). Snapped a few pics:

Thanks again, phillip_white! I think I got all of this discussion transcribed (I noted some background on my transcription in the superblock thread): Midtown Rep: "Caroline Street: You guys may be aware from the Chronicle article we received we're working with TxDOT on this project, a joint project between the Redevelopment Authority and TxDOT. TxDOT has a $4 million grant attached to the project, and they are also responsible for bidding and construction management of that project. "That project was re-bid, in January, in hopes of getting better bids. In all actuality, the project, the bids came back higher, than the initial bid. Came back at 13.9. Our engineer's estimate was right at 10.8, so this is about a $3 million gap. So in that, we had some, hard questions to answer. "So currently we're working with both the city and Houston-Galveston Area Council for intending to secure additional funding to move the project forward. We're hoping to have an answer by mid-February whether we'll have secured additional funding from either the city, or HGHC, or both, to cover that gap "Without the additional funding the project will either be shelved or significantly delayed. But we've had some good conversations with HGAC and we've had an additional conversation with the city. If we get favorable response from the city we're pretty confident that the project will move forward "And just the details of that project: It's a complete reconstruction of the roadway as well as back-of-curb improvements, very similar to the treatment that Bagby Street received. Not the exact level of those treatments, maybe a slight level below, but a lot of the amenities will be similar and it will run from Pierce to Elgin Street. "And there's also a second phase that we're working on with Houston Community College to improve the blocks between Elgin and Holman Street at a later date."

Thanks, phillip_white! Note that technically this was a meeting of the Midtown Management District, and we're dealing with the part of the meeting where a representative of the Midtown Redevelopment Authority (I didn't catch his name) provided an update to the MMD board. For grins I tried out an app at the meeting last night that let me record bits and then pay to have them transcribed. I thought this part of the meeting was interesting, but I missed recording the majority of his discussion of superblock.Here's the little bit of SuperBlock-related stuff that I recorded: MRA Rep: "...also a 12 month construction contract. Very aggressive schedule targeting completion of the park November/December 2016. In time for a potential home uh venue for the Superbowl in early 2017. [iNAUDIBLE]. Uh, Camden's, uh it's 300. Between 300 and 400. It's an 8 story." Roger Neal [member of MMD board]: "334"MRA Rep: "Between 300 and 400. Thank you sir."[LAUGH] I got all of the MRA rep's Caroline Street comments. Will post on that thread.

If they really believed the pitmaster to be that good, they wouldn't need the titty gimmick. Weak.

I have zero knowledge of demolition, so apologies if these are dumb questions. I work next door to the Macy's (29th floor of the 1000 Main builiding, right across Lamar). Any chance that I'll be able to go into my office that Sunday morning to watch the demolition? Or will they require evacuation of all the buildings in the 9-block area?