The Voice of University Oaks

Over the past couple of days crews have been power-washing this property's parking lot and putting down new striping for parking spaces. Is this an indication of impending redevelopment?

Just beware of the old fat guy across the street at 2528 Chenevert who sits out on the balcony and silently judges you as you pass through that intersection...

It looks like this service has ended. I guess they couldn't make it work. Too bad, as it was rather unique.

And if it ever happened it would be operated by VN or QH, rather than UA.

8 hours ago, wilcal said:

I really think that they should combined the I-10 BRT with the Galleria BRT line. That way you can one connection from the red/green/purple lines and other BRT lines ending in downtown (lika IAH) to the Galleria. 

They will be connected. The Uptown BRT line will go through the Northwest Transit Center and then run east towards downtown along an elevated busway that METRO and TxDOT are designing right now.

On 4/9/2016 at 4:35 PM, MaxConcrete said:

The connection underneath the overpass at Post Oak road will slow down buses and preclude future options, like opening up the West Loop structure to vanpools or HOV.

Umm, maybe because the structure is intended for buses, rather than two-person "carpools"?

On 4/13/2016 at 1:46 PM, KinkaidAlum said:

And Air New Zealand is doing even better than hoped. NZ will be adding frequency soon. 

 

Additionally, the A380 is back this summer with Emirates. 

 

 

An Emirates A380 flew right over my head when I was driving down Will Clayton a couple of weeks ago. Did they not go back to the triple seven, or am I missing something?

Yes, an at-grade crossing was the original proposal for Harrisburg near 66th Street. They intended that light rail service would simply be interrupted when freight trains passed through the intersection, which was ridiculous. The elevated grade-separation was the second proposal, and the submerged grade-separation was the third and final proposal.

Not only ridiculous, but a direct violation of both FRA and FTA regulations.

METRO had proposed an at-grade crossing as part of Frank Wilson's 2005 "BRT-convertible" transit plan. It was a dumb idea even with BRT, as the number of freight trains passing through there would have completely screwed up a system that was supposed to be more reliable than local bus (by virtue of dedicated lanes, offboard fare-collection, etc.), but when the BRT plan was scapped in favor of LRT, there was simply no way a grade crossing at that location was even fathomable.

Also from the above-linked Daily Cougar article:

There will be an opportunity to move students from substandard housing to this new project," Vice President for Finance and Administration John Rudley said.

Translation: once these dorms are done, we're moving students out of Cougar Place, and it is going bye-bye.

I don't know if anybody else has noticed, but Randall's is currently in the process of repainting and remodeling the interior of the Midtown location. It looks nice - I like the feaux hardwood flooring in the produce section.

Not sure what it means about the overall health of the location, but if this Randall's was performing very poorly Safeway would probably not be sinking money into its renovation.

The Mosaic is giving every new resident a bottle of red wine and a bottle of white wine as part of their "move in" gift package.

Today the folks from the Mosaic called my wife (the Mosaic's official wine provider!) and asked how long it would take for her company to print custom labels for the bottles.

This indicates that move-in is going to be happening in a matter of weeks.

- The stadium will be ready for the 2010 season.

Where will the Dynamo play in 2009? Will they extend their lease at Robertson? Or has the relationship between AEG and the University of Houston become too tainted for that to happen?

The problem with that parking lot is that so many people have figured out how to park there and then "walk through" the Dog House Tavern on their way to Tipsy Clover or the Red Door.

Robertson Stadium is a Works Progress Administration-era structure. It was completed before the United States entered World War II. Although I love the stadium itself - it's a great place to see a game - it has its shortcomings, namely in regards to capacity, amenities and handicapped accessibility.

The expansion and renovation it received prior to the 1999 season, i.e. the lowered field, new seating tier, endzone seating and four restroom and concession pods, can be regarded as the first phase of a long-term project to upgrade, modernize and expand the stadium. The next step will be to complete the endzone facility in the north endzone. That is the most crucial need at this point and that is what UH Athletics Director Dave Maggard is currently focusing on. Once the endzone facility is complete, then we can look at refurbishing (or a complete demo-and-rebuild) of the west and east grandstands themselves as demand warrants.

Anyway, a couple of interesting tidbits from the .ppt presentations on UH's Facilities Planning page:

- Apparently, UH plans to build a new parking garage across Calhoun from the Calhoun Lofts development; the graphic says "January 2009" but I can't tell if that's a start date or a completion date. The graphic indicates that the Pizza Hut and the strip center containing the Chinese Star will be demolished to make room for this parking garage. Hopefully, the Pizza Hut and the Chinese Star can be relocated to another venue prior to construction. The Chinese Star, specifically, is a campus institution and I'd hate to see it completely disappear.

- A "soft closure" (whatever that means) of Cullen is planned for the summer of 2008. It looks like UH is already in the process of "taking" Cullen and Holman from the City of Houston. METRO, as has been noted, has already routed all of their buses off of Cullen in anticipation of this street's closure. Personally, I'm not too fond about the imminent closure of Cullen - how will I get to Combat Kroger once Cullen is closed? - but this has been in the works for a long time.

It will be interesting to watch what happens in and around campus over the next several years.

The technically correct answer to your question is "no." The City of Houston will not build direct connector ramps between these two highways because they have no jurisdiction over state and county roadways.

However, I think the latest H-GAC TIP includes a line item for direct connectors at this intersection. I don't know when they're supposed to be built, however. TxDOT and HCTRA would likely share construction costs.

My old office at 1201 Louisiana faced the Sheraton. There really isn't much to see in there; as others have said, it's been completely gutted.

It's also quite leaky. Everytime a storm blew through downtown you could see big puddles form on all of the floors.