LarryDallas

My 2 cents on this thread. The Walmart on Dunvale is an ADVENTURE. Yes you do feel you have left the USA when you go there. I have seen some very bizzare things in that store. Once much like that episode of Seinfeld I saw a woman in the store wear a bra as a top with some jeans like it was nothing. Everyone was looking at her (well the women rolled their eyes) and I'll admit to looking as well. The Walmart on S. post oak is horrible excet of this Asian guy that is a cashier in the express lane where they sell the cigs. He seems very professional and polite so I've always windered why he has stayed there so long. The guy behaves like a doctor or engineer; go there and you will get what I mean. Him aside the whole store is a POS. The parking lot is the worst. I just park my car way far away where the trees are in the lot. As you walk up to the store you see complete idiots wait on a space when there is an open one just 3 cars down. The drivers also love to play that loud music with their windows down to impress the girls and pick them up. If you are shopping walmart and doing that sort of thing you are not going to impress anyone with half a brain. Inside the items are cluttered together and they lack a proper inventory. Even the checkout lanes are all clumped up and many times the customers do not use deodorant and IT IS NASTY! They sell that stuff like 75 feet from the registers and it costs about $3. Why do people not use deodorant? Anyway, Target that opened up on Meyerland I thought would be great but I am dissapointed because they have a very limited stock of items and variety. The store is clean and their customers much more civilized than Walmart. I like their photo lab and how quick the service is there. I really wish it was like it had been like 6 years ago when the place where Walmart sits was a hill that people shot golf balls on, the Target was a VERY SLEEPY K mart hardly anyone went to, and the movie theater was still there in Meyerland. Circuit City and Pier 1 in Meyerland do not seem to be doing that much business. I highly doubt they will stay there a long time. The vacant spots in Meyerland are begging for a Subway franchisee to lease. The Chick Filet is always packed at lunch with 8 cars in the drive thru at all times. If a Subway opened in that mall next to Pier 1 with good signage on Beechnut it is a gold mine.

Cool story. I moved to Westbury in summer of 1997 and I was 18 at the time. We bought a house that is a 2-5 minute drive from the square. I've walked around over there and looked at all of the shut down biz. and buildings. Do you have any photos of the square in her glory days? I really love this sort of the history stuff. The guy that lives next door to me has been in Westbury for 35 years and he tells me it was a really happening place in the 1970s. He says they used to have poetry reads and all of the 18-30 yr old crowds used to assemble there to have a good time. I wish I could have been there; you know. Westbury these days lacks unity and a sense of community. I've been to the civic center and met the receptionist as well as the chair on the board of directors (Frank Silcock). They seemed okay but it just didn't feel like what I've been told was a great community. The homes and people in Westbury are wonderful IMHO. I love the 1950s vinatge of things and the mature trees. The thing that is hurting Westbury is the string of roach motel style apartments on Gasmer and all of the junky looking auto repair shops on Chimney Rock near the post office. if those things were removed and all of the C-stores and gas stations ____ down and demolished to have new single family homes built on them the area would be much like Bellaire is today. I have mixed feelings about the Home Depot and 99 cent store next to Westbury Square. The Home Depot I buy stuff from almost weekly but that said it just brings traffic into the area. If that store and the 99 cent store strip mall as well as the Bank 1 were leveled and single family homes were built the traffic would be greatly reduced and the area would look wonderful. Light commercial is fine. Chimney Rock has some reality offices, a doctor's office, tax prep., etc... Of course, that Ft. Bend county toll road that dumps into Chimney Rock at S. Main is not helping the situation.

I've had the blues like Karen Carpenter sings about in Rainy Days and Mondays since I heard the news yesterday. I think it is just tragic how such a key landmark and attraction of Houston that almost everyone has been to and enjoyed is set to go away for good. We can build all of the lofts and such we want downtown and create all of the mcManasions with strip malls we want in the burbs but this town has a really stupid way of taking a wrecking ball to REAL TRUE history and nostalgia. I'm sure almost everyone here has an Atsroworld story of how they recall going with mom and dad as a kid, with friends as a teen, on a date, etc. I've really been thinking of the most memorable trips I had there for the last day and I'm very depressed about this. I've been there many times but a few times stand out like the time I was 9 and scared to go on the Serpent rollercoaster. I can still recall being in middle school when new rides like the Ultra twister and Batman' Ecsape opened. The concerts at the outdoor theater I was not so much into but I can remember some big name stars from the early 90s playing there. Driving those antique looking cars on the tracks was such a treat as a kid. The dome where they showed projector films of a ride on the Texas Cyclone was also a fav. I think they used to have a Dolphin show there as well back in the late 80s. The sky lift that took you from one side of the park to the other was also a nice thing. So many memories there. Six Flags management is saying the parking law suit with Harris county was not the one factor that made them decide this way but I speculate it was the thing that broke them. Attendance many have fallen a bit but fluctuation is normal and a business cycle applies to everything. It's not like their collections took a 30% dive in the past few years. The Harris county officials who picked a fight about parking are total JACKAZZES IMHO. What did it get them now? They were so worried about Texans games and the Rodeo (events that take place only on a few Sundays and about a month, respectively) that they have squandered an $8 per vehicle revenue all summer and many weekends out of the year. After they close the parking will mostly sit idle less the shows and events in Reliant Park which are no where close to replacing the sheer number of cars that came to the theme park. I see the park every weekday as I drive to work on 610 so when they start ripping it up this winter it'll be very hard on me. I just wish someone else would buy the freakin thing and keep it running even if it means closing down Waterworld to cut costs. Someone like Bob McNair or rather some group of individuals like him with money to burn should buy it and restructure it to be a money maker. Convert it to a church if you have to Bob. Hold services on Sunday and get the tax exemption. The carzy inflation on land value is forcing even iconic things to be shut down. I will just go insane if they build a Walmart on the site so it can be next to the Sams Club already there. Your thoughts on this? Your memories there? The last day is Oct 30th and I plan to go that last weekend and buy at least a few momentos. I had planned on taking my future kids there and going on the rides and playing the games I played there when I was a kid but sadly this is not going to be possible.

Now you are just adding names of entities which I NEVER singled out. Please stop making it seem as if I said things which I didn't. Delays in road construction projects do occur but 3 years of dealys for a roadway which at the time was not even a very heavy traffic area is much more than a delay. When Westheimer was redone with from Sage all of the way down to the loop in 2000 they worked around the clock to get it done fast and avoid disruption of business. By that token, the shop keepers on S. Main should have been extended the same policy. Westheimer was done in under 2 weeks. S. Main was a different type of project with a major re-design and widening so of course it would have taken longer to do but 3 years is a hell of a long time. It took construction crews under 2 years to widen Hwy 59 from the Westpark bend to where the belt is in the late 80s. It is less legitimate and I can point out the democratically elected Mayor Bill White's tow rules which started on the 1st. Mayor White is an elected official so by your logic what policy he imposes is the will of the people. Why then do we see stories in the Chronicle and broadcast news about people opposed to this tow policy and even state senator Whitmayer calling for a suspenison of it? Elections only decide who gets to take an office. What they do after they take the office is a different matter because there is sadly very little accountability in govt. A direct proposition puts the decision of an issue in the hands of a voter and like they say if you don't vote you should not complain. Oh come on. Please, are you next going to resort to your Houston19514's "I'll ask the moderator to censor this thread" policy? An elected official is only a representative of the people and will almost never be able to represent all of the stands of an individual voter on every issue. That is precisely why we need propositions to be voted on in general elections. Trivial things should be left to elected officials to decide on. But, things that have a major impact on peoples' lives should be decided directly by the people. We need to have a vote on zoning and we should have had one on the tow policy. Glen, I'll have to agree to disagree.

The residents who are taxpayers because they own property in that area all want something which will make their neighborhood more appealing. I made suggestions of a school or hospital but maybe they have something else which is even better in mind. I doubt they want to keep a mall way past its prime with several dead businesses around it in place. That sort of thing makes new investment into the area more challenging and risky. But I'm sure the riff raffs in Sharpstown and Gulfton LOVE the mall so you have me there. The weekend is a time for higher traffic in any business but the Best Buys and Circuit Cities often sell more big ticket items during those 2 days. And BTW, I never said anywhere that I went each time on a weekend day to cash in on that bait ad. You made an assumption. I've been both weeknights and once during a Saturday afternoon and seen the same just looking thing going on. The lines for checkout at Best Buy are usually about a 3 person wait during weeknights and 5 person wait during weekends. Nothing like that at Fry's. It's not just Sugarland but all of the masterplanned communities that dislike outsiders. And I NEVER said they do not leave Suagrland. I DID say they would not be likley to leave Sugarland to go into a neighborhood of outsiders. Sugarland dwellers would leave to go to other upscale areas like the Uptown Mall, the Woodlands, etc.. Also, please re-read my post right before this one. Sugarland is not a bunch of scared white people. It is a bunch of people of all races whodo not want contact with the outsiders who are not like them meaning income mainly. Just because Sugarland is diverse does not mean there is this Martin Luther King Dream going on in there. You kind of seem to imply that upscale suburbs are going to be white only. Sure Sugarland may be diverse but that does not mean as a collective population they do not look down upon others with lower socio-economic status. Glen, the most important thing is location, location, location. What stores are you talking about on the SW side that are such a draw that people from the Village and West U go out to them? By that logic then wouldn't those same people drive to a Fry's located on Hwy 6 and 59? It is a fact that buyers of the big ticket items are going to be in a higher proportion in the suburbs. If you did a comparison of how many of some "x" expensive computer product sold in the Gulfton area vs. a Sugarland one while keeping the area of square miles the same I'd guess Suarland would come out ahead even though Gulfton would probably have more people per square mile due to higher apartment content. Sure there might be some techy big spender in Gulfton but the 20 or so mid-level users in Sugarland would trump what a biz would make selling just to that one guy in Gulfton. Ricco, I made no derogatory comments towards any group of people. I'd say I wasn't even politically incorrect at all. People just seem to get bent out of shape when they see words like "blacks and mexicans" because they have been conditioned to have red flags go off when they see that. Go back and look at the other posting and you will find nothing "inflamatory" in it. Glad to see you brought this up. On the other thread I said gentrification done by forcing business out is wrong but legal. S. Main construction was started about 3 years before the New Stadium was complete. In that time the whole road was left a dirt and mud mess which was detrimental to the business on S. Main north of Murworth. As the road was built at a slow pace the business suffered. That sort of conicidental completion of the road and the stadium at the same time was...ugh...ahem...odd to say the least. If zoing is done it would require a propositon to pass during an election. That is democracy where the people decide what will be. South Main was an example of those who had in interest in the Reliant Park got to decide what will be. If the people chose to zone then the rules will have to be followed. I go a step further to say that existing business should be grandfathered and allowed to remain undisturbed until a lease expires. That sort of provision would give the business lots of time to consider what to do about the future. It would be nothing like S. Main where they tore up the street and made mud driveways so the business would die off. BTW, the big box retailers usually sign leases for decades if they invest in bulding a multi-million dollar store on a plot of land. If we passed zoning we would not see the effects of it for maybe 20 years.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion so I will never make a personal attack on these msg boards. If the tennats of Sharpstown want to do business there and the patrons like the mall then more power to them. A demo. of the mall is just my opinion of how to re-do the area and start from scratch. I don't advocate gentification of the area but rather a different type of structure to serve a different purpose to the residents. As for Fry's I am not qualified to make a 100% always true generalization about their custoemr base because I have been to the north store only about 4 times since it opened up. I do notice how they bait people in the Sunday paper with the limited quantity off brand stuff that is a very low price. Usually the stuff is not geared towards the IT community or computer nerds. It is usually stuff for the riff raff crowd that likes hi tech but just to use as a stutus symbol. It's sort of like the guys that install 4 TVs in the car and have them all on while going down the street at night so everyone can see that they had the cash to buy the stuff. The rear seats are not even occupied so it is purely conspicuous consumption. I would say that was the crowd in the store when I visited it. The loaction of the new store is a mistake in my opinion because it will noty be appealing to the very people the store is supposed to attract. The people that live in Sugarland live their manly so they do not have to deal with or come into contact with the "outsiders". You can rationalize it all you want and say they like the clean area, the good schools, and general atmosphere but having known people who live there and a few real estate agents I can tell you with great confidence that a main selling point of Sugarland is that if you live there you will not see or come into contact with poor people of all races. All of the master palnned communities have this feature but I guess they forget to print it on the brochures. The businesses are also carfully zoned to keep out the undesirables as much as possible. Where they houses are you will never find gas stations, fast food joints, and walmarts. All of those things attract outsiders and they can't have that. Some people I know are as blunt as to say they want to keep out the blacks and mexicans. Well, there are blacks and mexicans with money who are home owners in there and I'm sure the community does not want poor whites in there just as much so I have to disagree with the blacks and mexicans line of thinking on that. Anyway, the typical Sugarland dewller is not going to exit into an enthnic area like W. Belfort and 59 to get to Fry's. Maybe they would in the day time but I highly doubt they will at night. The store they have on 45 south is a different animal completely. You are comparing apples to oranges there because that store is very much stand alone on the feeder and there is very little development around it. There are no apartments whatsoever in the area and it lacks a Metro bus line on which "outsiders" commute in a greater proportion. To the Clear Lake suburbanite it is an ideal store because it requires a private car to get to and it is located in a newly developed area which lacks natives if you will. The Fry's on 59 will make money if it copies the Best Buy format and sells stuff to the young kiddies in volume at low prices. Fry's shoud not bank on the savvy info-tech big spender at that store. On a purely business standpoint it would have been more wise for them to have put that thing in the shopping center on either side of Hwy 6 and 59. The traffic is like crazy over there and suburbanites feel comfortable in the area. There is nothing personal in such a decision it is just bad business to build a store in a bad area and expect strong sales.

Best Buy seems to attract more of the criminal element because there are far fewer sales people on the floor which makes for easier oppportunities to do illegal things. This store also seems to be geared more towards the teen to mid 20s crowd cause they make most of their money selling low price high volume stuff like Cds, blank media, software, and computer peripherals. Best Buy also has music playing really loud when you walk in. I'd speculate its some subliminal way of saying welcome to the kiddies. Circuit City is very different. There are tons of sales people and the sections are better divided for better monitoring purposes. For someone who is a paying customer this is great cause you can get help if you need it or just find your stuff quickly cause you know where to go. For someone wanting to steal this sucks big time. These guys also seem to be more focused on selling higher end stuff to older buyers. Their TV/video seems to be the most important area whereas Best Buy usually builds the store around Cds. I am also very thankful that Fry's did not open a store where the Target will be located. Have you ever been to the one on West Rd and I-45? I thought it would be okay since they seemed to be primarily making money on computer stuff for people in the computer industry. I went in once figuring I'd see people who know all about servers, bluetooth technology, and such. What I saw was...um...er.....it was bad. I dunno how Fry's stays in business if they just rely on stores sales to make the rent. Surely they must have some corporate supply contracts. The shoppers in the store do not seem to be buying much at all. Most are just there to get out of the house and look at stuff. Fry's does have some higher end things like Mark Levinson audio, Bose speaker systems, and a selection of dvd players which is perhaps the largest in town. Again, you would expect people who actually buy this stuff to be there but it is not the case. I recently was on 59 going down to Sugarland and saw that Fry's has built a store on W. Belfort and 59. OMG!!! WTF are they thinking?! The guy who does market research has got to be on a crack pipe to put that store there. The squarefootage in the building seems smaller than their fisrt Houston store so maybe it will be like a Best Buy wannabe with a main focus on selling cheap items in high volume to make a profit. You can pretty much bank on this place being a haven for crime.

The last time I went to Sharpstown was back in the spring of 2003 when a relative who used to live in Houston in the mid 80s came to see me and wanted to tour the places that were his hangouts back when he was in college. It was scary in the mall becasue very few cars were in the parking lot. I did not like the thought of just leaving my car unattended in the parking lot when we went inside. Once we got inside the mall seemed to be mostly independent retailers that bought their stuff in bulk and were reselling it at high profit margins. It was most all off brand stuff and not many people were buying it. Their renovation inside was good enough but the stores and buyers were just not there. I used to go to the mall as a kid in the mid 80s when they had the dark brown and circular red tile scheme going on and it was a different mall completely. Wards and JC Penny used to be around and there were so many shoppers back then. I can still recall the Petland they had on the second floor full of people of whom many were buying and not just looking. The whole environment of the mall has died. Sharpstown was never a mall meant to compete with the Galleria. It never had Dillards, Neiman Marcus, etc...but it did have a strong exchange of money for goods going on for middle class people. Those middle class people are no where to be seen now. It's mostly young kids and a few 20somethings wandering around in there and many stores are vacant. Why the Foleys has stayed is a mystery to me. They are the only anchor store left and they have that parking garage to boot. This is just as big a mystery as why Sears has stayed in the old Westwood Mall lot. Don't get me wrong, Sharpstown was a part of my childhood even though I grew up inside the loop in the Greenbriar Area. I would like to in 20 years take any future children I have and show them where we used to go when I was their age and have some nostalgia in town so I can visit my roots at will but I also think progress is not a bad thing at all. The mall was the first air conditoned one in Houston when it was built in the 60s. It saw the glory days and many happy memories were made there for lot of Houstonians. I just think it is time to let it go with whatever dignity can be managed. Perhaps HISD should build a school there or HCHD should make a hospital on the site. I know it is almost impossible for a private firm or investor to build a new establishment on the land due to the surroundings. Well, I may be wrong on that since HEB seems to have an art to building stores in what many would consider a slum but making it profitable. So maybe HEB could do something with it. Now about that Walmart. I think we are stuck with it for decades simply because business is so good for them over there. It is the only Walmart store that covers every area inside the loop all of the way from that southwest corner of the loop to the 610 and 45 interchange. The customer base is not just Meyerland, Westbury, and Med Center and that is the problem. There are just too many people from too many neighborhoods going to the store. To top that off, the store is not one of the giant ones that has wide isles and mega square footage. They have intentionally made narrow isles and packed the stuff in tight to be able to better monitor what is going on inside. Walmart is not stupid. I know they did market research prior to opening this store and knew it would draw riff raffs hence their selection on layout and the tons of security cams inside for shoplifters. I go in maybe a few times a year for household things like landry detergent, motor oil, etc...and the people I see in there are not the same ones that live in our neighborhoods. In the 4-5 years it has been there I have never been and ran into someone I knew. That is to be expected I suppose. The signage on the loop makes it easy to get some to just take an exit and be there. The near by park and ride also attracts tons of people for Reliant Park events and makes them aware of the store. Many stop by and buy stuff for tailgate parties and such. BTW, have you ever been to that duck pond just next door to the Walmart? I've seen some famlies out there a few times so it looked okay but I've never been there myself. I am also thrilled about the target coming to the other retail center on Beechnut and 610. That area seems to be better in all ways because of the proximity of Bellaire and the combined effects of 2 police forces and good shopping center security. I was sad to see the General Cinema demolished since it was built like a vintage movie theater instead of the mega 30+ screen things they have these days. It was a perfect movie house for the vintage feel of the area. Circuit City opened a store on the site recently and that is okay. Thank God it was not a Best Buy cause that would have had the same Walmart effect. Target seems to sort of not cater to the riff raff element so I think we dodged a huge bullet on what came to live in the area. Ideally, I would have liked to see Home Depot be where the Walmart is now located because people who go to the store just get what they need and go. Home Depot is not for people just hanging out or packs of delinqiuent people. It would have been great for competition with the Lowes a few miles away. The Home Depot which is currently at Chimney Rock and W. Belfort is okay because it has that get it and go thing going on but the mall in front of it just saw the HEB close and a 99 cent only store move in. It remains to be seen what will come of this but I have a bad feeling about it. Again we get back to zoning. All of that area would have been much better off being all residential with a light commercial zone on the main roads. The north bound side of Chimney Rock in that area is okay. There is a realitor's office, a tailor, a Chinese food place, and some small offices with tax services and such. These sorts of offices are what the community needs. I also like the light commerical on the west bound side of W. Belfort in that area where there is a 2 story building full of small offices for insurance, a dry cleaner, a driving school for teens, etc. Mega chain stores belong only on mega highways or roads with 3 or more lanes going in each direction where there is no threat to the peace of residential areas. Houston needs zoning and while existing business should be grandfathered there should be strick provisions that require the new laws to be followed once a lease expires. Base it on a lease not a structure.

tw2ntyse7en, I agree! When these homes were built it was the rich part of town. Meyerland and Westbury were made for people with money in the 1950s. In fact, my neighbor across the street lives in the house the Weiner's family had built after their now defunct store was makeing money back in those days. He has llived there for about 30 years and loves it so much he says they'll have to carry his cold dead body out before he would consider leaving. The thing that bothers me the most about local govt. is the lack of zoning laws to keep business out of these residential areas. I'm sure you've driven tons of streets in these areas and seen C-stores, liquor stores, and gas stations separated from a house by only an 8 foot wooden fence. I was aware of this problem before we even started looking at homes but it makes me feel horrible to think that some homeowners have to live next to this. Pure residential areas are much safer because people tend to learn which people and vehicles come and go. With business there is constant flow of traffic and with it comes crime and pollution. I do not mean emissions for trafic but problems with litter and graffiti. We also have this huge problem in Westbury with auto repair shops that have used old shut down gas stations to work out of. Auto repair involves all sorts of nasty chemicals, waste, and it just looks really bad to have a lot full of cars parked for long periods of time. HISD recently invested a ton of money into rebuilding Westbury High School and they did a good job. The concrete is new, they built a huge solarium, added an electronic sign out front, and basically brought the place into this century. BUT if you look across the street there is a car repair shop like the one I metioned working out of what used to be a Texaco. The place looks like a junkyard with chianlink fence and barb wire. It's just so unfortunate that this occured right next door to a brand new post office that looks immaculate. These areas out be spectacular if they just fine tuned things by zoning. As for ths lower income areas of SW Houston; well they will always be in bad shape because of the fact that the crime and deviant activity is done by a few low income folks and the majority of the ones that like nice and tidy yards and homes can not afford to fight back. Before you jump on what I just said be assured that rich people are just as likley to have a desire to be malice but they do not need to do crime to get what they want. Many homes in Sharpstown are examples of where the owners have lost their will to keep things up. The paints are chipping and sun burned, the yards are overgrown, and many have junk cars parked out front. The apartment communities in the area will also always lack the motivation to improve things. I've worked in the industry for 6 years and seen what the scam is when it comes to rental property in bad conditon. Usually owners will get a property and maintian it at bare minimum levels for a few years until they can get a new buyer to take it off of their hands for a handsome profit. Usually I've seen about $75,000 in profit made for each year the property is held by one owner. Talk about easy money. The units are usually leased by illegal aliens who remain silent about violations or abuse for fear of the law getting involved. I think things will just continue to get worse in those areas as time marches on. Gillman Mitsubishi/Honda used to located across the street from Sharpstown Mall until about 2 years ago. I'm surprised they held on that long. Now if you go in the area it looks like a total slum with weeds growing out of conrete, abandoned buildings, and just this bad vibe to it all. Sharpstown Mall needs to be put out of its misery. It would be a mercy killing if they just leveled the whole thing. Another intersection that has gone bad is S. Post Oak and W. Belfort. The AMC theater that is loacted there was the best in town in the late 80s. On the other side the Kroger that opened in the early 90s was also a big deal back in that day. The whole areas was wonderful until the mid 90s when it was developed with the wrong things. Walmart came in around 1999 and it was in the toilet. There used to be a big hill at the corner of the loop over there and some sort of golf practice range was located on it. Walmart came in and attracted a lot of the criminal element. Jus this past summer some old lady was shot in the Randalls parking lot during a robbery for her purse. She later died in the hospital. These types of things were unheard of in the area just 10 years ago.

This topic hits home because I live in the Meyerland Westbury area just outside of the loop. We bought our house in 1997 when the new home suburbs were thriving as home buliding was being done as fast as they could do it. Sales in this area at the time were not crazy. In the time I've been in my home both of the homes that sit next to mine have changed hands a few times. I've also noticed a trend of younger buyers coming into the area. Back in 1997 there were mostly retirees and you never saw school buses in the neigborhood bcause no one had children that age. The early 30 something couple that moved in next door stayed only 2 years because they ran out of money to pay the house note. The guy was a professor at UH and the wife was a stage actress so they were not uneducated people who could have anticipated a budget. I just think most first time buyers do not realize the expenses the 1950s ranch homes require. Foundation work, re-pipe jobs, and repaving have set us back over $20,000 in the past 5 years alone. I've now got a plan to change out all of the windows and do the roof in the next 3 years. The houses are a money pit but you can at least go at your own pace if you are patient and do one thing after another instead of going into debt trying to do it all at once. A few people have indeed been buying homes in poor condition and doing a total demolition to do a total rebuild. I think that is fine but there should be restrictions on how big the new hosue should be. There are currently 2 homes that stand out in my mind which are wrong for the area. One is just past the rail line on Willowbend going west past Stella Link while the other is at the corner of Willowbend and Chimney Rock. Both of these homes are close to 4000 squarefeet and have that cookie cutter look of Sugarland/Cinco Ranch with medium red brick and keystone design. The houses in the area ar all around 2000 square feet. If it affects the neighbor's property value that a bad thing. Besides that, the one thing I LOVE about these areas are the fully mature trees and the shade they provide in the bilstering summer time. To build a 4000 square foot home on a lot made for a ranch home you pretty much have to level everything including the trees to make it fit. There is another rebuild home on Willowbend past the tracks but on the east bound side which is an example of how it should be done. The house is one floor like all of the others and they have maybe made it 2500 square feet so they still have greenery. The fact of the matter in this area is that the retirees are slowly dying off so yes the area will in the next 15-10 years be transformed by new younger 30something buyers coming in. I hope they don't all decide to go cookie cutter and try to preserve the 1950s Americana feel of the areas which are away from the main roadways. God willing, I would like to eventually move back inside the loop in the future. The greatest area in Houston will always be River Oaks and that does not mean you have to live on River Oaks Blvd. even though that white house on the north bound side just before the country club is perhaps the mostly lovely home I have seen in Houston. There are still a few homes in Rievr Oaks which are still under a million dollars. All of them are 100% custom built with design that is the complete opposite of cookie cutter. If I could get into that place I don't think I'd like to go out anymore because being at home would be so intresting. I'd research the house like crazy and be very much into the trivia and tid bits of the house. The Memorial Area is also excellent for houses with a history and the plant life. I know a family that bought a house out there and found all sorts of treasures in their house. They have a room with a marble floor which was once in the Shamrock Hotel. How cool is that?! I'm so much in envy.haha. I highly doubt that the delapidated areas in the SW and pretty much all of Houston will ever change. It is very easy for the people in higher income brackets to look down upon those people who live in the bad areas but without them things would just not be able to work. Someone is needed to do the jobs they do, buy the things they do, and just be a part of things to keep the city moving. Just think of how much money the area from 59 and Westpark down to 59 and the Belt would be worth if there was "urban renewal". It has stayed the same for years sans the car dealerships that have sprung up by 59 and the belt. One thing I have never been able to figure out is why Ferrari of Houston is located where it is by being next door to a flea market on the 59 bend before Westpark. It seems as if they would have been better off moving by the Rolls Royce dealer on the loop next to the Landry's building.

My turn. PG1 The Harris County Sports Authroity oversaw every aspect of the dome in the past. It was never owned by the Astros. In fact, the uproar over the destruction of the famous Astros scoreboard was "blamed" on football by many. If the Astros had total control over it there would have probably been more of an effort to save that scoreboard. PG2 Talk of getting a superbowl in town started as soon as talk of getting a new NFL team started. The superbowl was the goal from the get go of McNair's desire to bring back the NFL. I can't speak for Bob but the city and businesses which would make money from a superbowl were salivating from the start. Of course, the super bowl did not come until 2 years after the stadium was built. The locations for the game prior to that were already finalized way before Houston became viable for a superbowl. I would also immagine they wanted to get the bugs out of the building before hosting a bowl game. The contracts to host the week long festivities for the game require much competition and it is a long process which can take up to and over a year. It was impossible to have a superbowl in town the year the stadium opened. You are somewhat right about the land west of the staudium having been mostly unoccupied. South Main was full of businesses all of the way from the loop to where it hits OST. There was a large area of land behind the businesses on S. Main all of the way to Kirby which was undeveloped. Had the plan not been gentrification the parking lots and Texans practive facility could still have been built without disturbing existing business on South Main. If the people did not want to hurt their virgin eyes a wall could have been put up on the west side of the lot. PG3 I can't belive that Reliant just kind of signed up to put their name on an entire park at a moment's notice. The deal went public after the construction of the stadium was underway but deals had to have been made behind closed doors prior to construction. You can't honestly think that a company like Relinat would have knowledge of a new park being built in town but then just sit back and wait until it was done to then join up and slap a name on it. Reliant or someone who works for them had a big time influence in the project from the start. As for the businesses on South Main they were not all red light district establishments as you seem to think. They had restaraunts and a really good car detailing place where a parking lot now sits. I had been to that car wash place and the Mister Carwash further up the road and the mom and pops one did a better job at better price. I must however point out that "family business" does not mean "for families" as you seem to think. Think of familiy business are more along the lines of independent owner/opperator. How do I know this? The names on the businesses were not Marriott Courtyard, Holiday Inn Express, the aforementioned Mister Carwash, etc. You made a good little speech on America and the free- market economy and kudos to you on it but do you really believe in it? I don't think you do because those rules of free enterprise seem to apply only when a business fits in with your value and moral system which is all very subjective. I think the adult bookstore, pay by hour motel, and smoke shop owner should have the same right to do business as high end places do. Power of eminent domain was used to take land for the expansion of S Main from 2 lanes going each way to the current layout before the stadium construction got underway. It was pretty underhanded becasue the whole road was a muddy mess for over 3 years as the work was done at a slow pace to be completed concurrently with the stadium. When it rained the north bound side would flood. Business probably suffered due to this deliberate way to sort of get the "undesirables" out. The point here is that it was wrong to do things to get those places to go. I am no fan of shady places that are havens for hookers, junkies, and common street criminals which is why I choose not to live in such an area. If the business owners out there decided they wanted to do biz in such a place then more power to them as long as no laws were being broken. This may come as a shock to you but laws are broken in hotels with names like the Four Seasons, Hitlon Intercontinental, the Omni, and the Icon. Sex and drugs are bought and sold in those places as well. The prices for such things have a relation to the prices of the establishments they take place in but it is still prostitution if a $500 per hour "escort" sleeps with someone in a suite of a 5 star hotel or if a $10 street walker turns a trick in an hourly motel. PG4 Like I said in the first post I do not follow the deals the Texans made with the city so I'll have to take your word on that one. PG 5&6 I agree (there is a God!). PG7 The city must get involved in the dome if it is to be preserved. When a govt. entity is not invloved things like Space Center Houston (c/o Disney design) happend. The old NASA museum was very stately and proper with a layout sure to impress any vistor. It had complete displays of all of the trophies given for the missions, the pen collection of various presidents and congressmen used to sign key doccuments in NASA history, many more displays of actual equipment used by NASA, etc. The current center is geared towards children with video games, a jungle gym, and that air hockey chair thing. The tram ride to buildings is a great addition but the rest of it was better the old way; especially the no charge admission which probably impressed foreign tourists. A govt. entity would keep things in perspective better than a private firm because profit motives lead business to gear things they way they do. Disney made is very clear that NASA would draw more kids if they geared Space Center Houston for kids. So, the old building which was part of the main NASA complex was abandoned as a museum completely and adults lost a great thing. The state run San Jacinto monument museum (minus the added theater) has remained unchanged for 20+years. Something like that needs to go into the dome. Best of all it is still free to see the museum. We had a digital divide in this country back when the internet was still young and computers were not cheap. A govt. run museum is the only way to keep things low cost and not help widen the cultural divide. Space Center Houston costs something like $12-16 for an adult. That does not seem like much for one person but it adds up for many persons and sometimes that does make the difference between going or not if someone does not have money to burn on a daytrip. If a dome museum ticket exceeds the $5-$8 range it will have been priced too high. BTW, "Houston Museum at the Astrodome" would be a better name. Yours is too long to print in travel brochures and the print would have to be very small on ticket stubs with so many characters. =) Older citizens like museums and we wouldn't want to strain their eyes would we? =)

You sound like a Reliant Employee to be so highly critical of me. I just tell it like it is pal. South Main was gentrified plain and simple. The businesses on South Main did "sell" a lot of things but that was their business. I used to work in the med center when I was a student so I am very familiar with the area. Those places might have been undesirable to have around in the city but they were not illegal. When the intrests of a corporation like Reliant infringe upon the right of others to do business it is wrong. Not illegal but wrong. And please, stop with the pathetic censorship plea of yours. NOTHING in my post was fictional. I had a lot of opinion in it based on fact. If you didn't like what I had to say disprove it. If you can't do that you should not be on this forum.

The fundamental problem with the Dome area has to do with corporate sponsorship and the influence Reliant has on what is done with what should be public buildings 100% free of corporate influence. Prior to the area being renamed Reliant Park the Harris County Sports Authority used to maintain the Dome and did so for over 3 decades. Once Reliant came in things got bad because the area was developed fast to get that super bowl in. Sure that one weekend pumped money into Houston but look at the after effects. It just looks plain stupid to have 2 giant stadiums next to e/o. The beauty and futuristic look of the free standing dome is forever gone. I can recall going to the dome as a kid in the 90s and parking wayyyy far from the building cause there were too many cars in the lot. Now they have added a bigger stadium as well as Reliant Center which reduced parking spaces in that complex. The did buy out the people in the block west of the park to make additional parking but what good did that do? I would speculate they wanted to get rid of the lower income businesses and motels that used to be on South Main. It was gentrification plain and simple. I'm all for progress but driving family owned business from the land by buying out the lardlord's building and lease is wrong even though it is legal. If Reliant wanted a squeeky clean new looking park developed they should have broken ground in some other area. There are acres upon acres of undeveloped lands south of loop 610 on hwy 288. Metro could have added a rail line with ease and it would be a 10-15 minute drive from downtown. Reliant stadium is a very risky build simply because Bob McNair is no spring chicken. I don't follow sports deals much so I can't say if he signed some agreement to keep the Texans here for decades but if he didn't who is to say his family won't sell and/or move the team after he dies. Things are usually all about the bottom line in business. When trying to get an NFL team McNair said what everyone wanted to hear bout loyality to the city and keeping the NFL in town. After he is gone the future is a question. As for the dome, it should be converted to a museum with all of the key moments in Houston history. Each floor should have the seats gutted to make way for displays. They should leave a strip of seats from the floor level to the upper decks as is to show people the famous Astros rainbow design in the seats at the top. NASA is supposedly builiding a structure around the rockets it has on display outside. A better idea would be to have them moved to the dome (at a high one time cost) and house them there permanently for climate controlled perservation. This museum should not be art or scinece but more of a sociological one with many atrifacts from people who shaped the town. Jesse Jones and Howard Hughes should have entire floors dedicated to them. They just need to cover important stuff like the medical center, the major universities, a bit on NASA as a tie in to what they can see out in Clear Lake, etc. There are many possibilities. The city would have to somehow buy out Reliant's claim to the dome to do this and also have some sort of divide made in the parking lot to allow for low cost or free parking to go see this museum. I'm sure the outragious rate out there would turn off everyone but tourists if museum goers had to pay what sports fans do. If admission was reasonable I think it would be world class. There is too much history in that building for it to do anything but be a preserved museum. BTW, there is a movie Ryan O'Neil was in during the 60's which was filmed entirely in Houston. There is a shot of the dome in it during construction. Around the dome is open grassland as far as you can see. You would never recognize it if not for the done. I highly recommend this film to anyone who is a history buff. They have many great shot of homes in River Oaks, the museum district, the sidney sherman 610 ship channel bridge, etc. The movie is called "The Thief Who Came to Dinner"