jfre81
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Everything posted by jfre81
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I think the signage east of South Post Oak actually reads "Almeda-Genoa." IIRC that's the sign at the intersection with Hiram Clarke anyway....
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This might be the perfect place to ask this - Gulfton Drive in Bellaire was changed to Fournace Place a few years ago. Was this to disassociate Bellaire from the apartment slum just down the street?
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Wasn't that at the end of the Heaven On Earth Inn there (with the Maharishi)? It was basically a flophouse then...I still say it's a better place for them than the streets. It's serving no purpose besides being ugly right now.
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FWIW, I walked down Smith St. in Midtown in front of Specs and the gas station yesterday evening and didn't get hit up for change or smokes. Now, proceeding up to Downtown toward Tranquility Park, it was a different story...
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Open up the old Days Inn just across the Pierce and put them in there. Then they won't be on the streets in Midtown anymore.
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I think one section of the barbed wire fence around the tract has fallen over....need to get me a metal detector and go on an Astroworld archaeological dig...
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QUOTE(DevelopmentX @ Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 @ 12:59pm) Luxury Residential Tower with a McDonald's at the front of the property!!!!!!! I am not a fan of Dallas (too white, too small townish, too insecure- thus, the rehearsed snobbery), however when I look at what is happening in Chicago, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Miami (and yes, I know they have overbuilt) I am left with the feeling that Houston is getting second-tier projects where local developers (with the exception of Hines) lack the foresight or capital to execute first class projects that appeal to the type of out of town investors that insure solid financial returns. Not really, this is Houston we're talking about. We have churches next to Church's Chicken.
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Just mindblowing how this building (well, technically a complex with the parking garage and whatnot) that occupies an entire city block just outside the CBD is used for nothing but an occasional SWAT drill. Not worth saving, not worth tearing down. What a catch-22. Squatters breaking into the site of a rich oil fatcat club killed off by the bust in the '80s and drinking their leftover Remy Martin makes an interesting slice of Houston history, at least.
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I think ultimately this is going to get scaled down to something not a whole lot more high-density than the apartment complex that's already there, and that's if they end up not scrapping the whole thing altogether. Who needs zoning ordinances when you can just have people raise hell on a per-case basis whenever something is proposed to go up that encroaches on them? Maybe instead of a formal code they could just have some sort of land-use court where a neighborhood association or individual property owners go present their case to a judge/arbiter against a developer who in turn could try to explain how their project will not have severe negative effects on the surrounding area. This would avert the whole process of going to a zoning system where you are trying to retroactively apply use restrictions to places that do not have them and have mixed-use developments throughout. As it is, Southampton residents ought to do is pool their funds to buy the Maryland Manor and then do whatever they see fit - sell it to someone who will develop something they would want, or run the apartments as they are, or just tear it down and put a park there or something.
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Maybe they ought to run the University Line down Bissonnet. Might as well now if this thing is going up. It can link up with Westpark and they can save the trees on Richmond and Afton Oaks will be happy...by the way, where is John Culberson on this since he was the one throwing his weight around against the light rail line? Or does he only get involved in neighborhood affairs when federal transit money is at stake?
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It'd be better, say, where the CVS on Richmond @ Montrose is. But I guess it was cheaper for the developer to buy the Maryland Manor than the CVS. It doesn't really look like they can do a whole lot to increase capacity on that stretch of Bissonnet, but I may be wrong. Absent of that I will probably avo...er, hell, I avoid Bissonnet as it is.
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Jayson Stark was wrong on one thing - Biggio did change ZIP code, as did the entire team in 2000...
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Everyone knows your name must be on a property deed to voice an opinion on property rights. This was covered explicitly in the First Amendment of the Constitution, no? Put this on Montrose just north of Bissonnet/Binz with the other high-rises and nobody will complain.
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OK, so about 6pm this evening I rode down Bissonnet in front of what is now the Maryland Manor Apartments... ...and it's really gonna suck traffic-wise if this thing goes up. It already does.
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There are some deed restricted communities in Houston - I am guessing the restrictions are based on covenants that existed before the city annexed these neighborhoods. One thing to consider is that it's a big city and sometimes things have to change in certain areas for the better of a larger group of people in the city. This extends to Afton Oaks and other NIMBY criers concerning Metro. That said, this area will have light rail running near it soon, and possibly commuter rail nearby if they ever get around to making use of the Westpark corridor. So the possibility is there for this part of town to become more dense without having to necessarily add to road traffic capacity. At risk of going into something that might be another thread instead - so what if they introduce zoning? Developers with enough cash and leverage can simply get it zoned for whatever they want it to be if they want to. Developers have always owned this city and it's not going to change if there's zoning. Zoning is more likely to tighten their grip on this city and price everyone out of the city except the people coming from California and the northeast to come live here for "cheap."
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Especially these days it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to put a self-storage warehouse on that land anymore. Now that the concept of *being close-in* is becoming cool they will command a lot more $$$ for places for *close-in* people to live and work. I can understand the traffic concerns, but then again if they would expand transit then you can build densely without necessarily having to expand road capacity. You know it's become a problem when people don't want major development just because a bunch of people are going to have to drive through there and park. This reeks of Afton Oaks and the rail...if not for then they would already be putting it down by now...
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I can agree to this to a point, but tearing down old houses for McMansions when there's plenty of room in the burbs for that crap...oh anyway, I was gonna go into a big rant but... They probably think so, but they probably came from somewhere else so they think so just because what they see *isn't like home.* The lack of zoning bothers me none at all.
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My wife works not far from where this is going up(?)... I could see this area becoming higher-density in the future but right now the transit infrastructure is not there. The University Line will run not far from there....when it comes to be - if it comes to be, it seems anymore. I agree this is better suited for Main Street. They could plop this on the Greyhound station site and nobody in Midtown would complain about it being 28 stories. Or it could be around the other high-rise buildings between Montrose and the Museum district.
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Valencia Place: Multifamily At 3131 West Bellfort Ave.
jfre81 posted a topic in Texas Medical Center
Right now, exiting South Main/90A @ Bellfort offers only a U-turn, but I'm wondering if they will link Main with Bellfort going toward 288 now. They tore down this fleabag motel that was at the Bellfort U-turn, and there's a lot of new townhome construction along Main, Omeara etc. With more residential development here, it might be feasible to make it where you'll be able to go straight down Bellfort from Main to the South Fannin METRORail Park & Ride. I live in this area and if they did that it would be a lot easier than taking the South Loop/feeder to Fannin. This would probably be done for sure if they ever did anything useful with the AW site...- 9 replies
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They should at least prescreen the comments and post up the 10% of the balance of text that goes onto that so-called forum currently. Otherwise, yes, they should do away with it. The good submissions are basically digital letters-to-the-editor. Having been a part of it off and on for nearly a decade now, I don't think I have anything positive to say about the state of the mainstream newspaper industry anymore, and especially the state of it here in Texas.
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The Chronicle revels in its *liberal mouthpiece* reputation for this very reason. The bubbas won't read the paper, but now that they have Internet access in their double-wides they can drive up the traffic on their website by letting them get on there, spout things that are far more uninformed than anything the paper puts in print (physically or digitally) and they make money through ads when people spend a bunch of time on the site. They can dismiss the gross bigotry and ignorance as being outside their control. Papers hardly want to pay people to actually produce content for them, let alone moderate comments on the website.
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They're not any more competitors than the Washington Post and the New York Daily News. Different markets. Every once in awhile the Houston Press gets enough cajones to take the Chronicle to task...
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What? There's a rival newspaper? R.I.P Houston Post...
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No, half of those morons have probably never touched the paper, or any paper. There should be a link near the bottom of the page that says "Read All Comments."
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As it is, the chron forums are a good indicator of just how weak a grasp we have on reason and civility here in Houston...
