Angostura

I'm curious if this is just something Sola decided to do, or whether they need to do it to be in compliance with the city's parking minimums.

Ch 26 requires 3 spaces for every chair plus a space for every employee. This can get pretty onerous on a per-sf basis.

1 hour ago, wilcal said:

If METRO decides to build the Studemont Inner-Katy BRT station, it would be super close to this project. It would be like a 250ftish walk? I think there's a low chance that they build it here, but it could definitely happen. I'm sure the developers would like that.

 

This is the kind of transit project that looks great from the standpoint of number of dwelling units or square feet of retail within 1000 ft, but the actual pedestrian experience would be terrible.

On 11/13/2017 at 12:55 PM, Angostura said:

 

Also not sure how they keep the stained glass in place if they remove the surrounding masonry.

 

Turns out, they won't.

On 7/15/2021 at 9:05 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

This image is very depressing. We had a great system to expand on. If we had built smarter we would have been much denser, prob closer to a Chicago in size with plenty of room to expand our transit over time. 

Except where they run on dedicated ROW (and sometimes even when they do) early 20th century streetcars were actually pretty slow. During peak hours, the St Charles streetcar in New Orleans isn't appreciably faster than a brisk walker, and definitely slower than a bicycle.

What really limited Houston's density were, in no particular order:

• The 20th century sewer moratorium, which effectively limited construction inside the loop to 4-plexes during large parts of the high-growth post-war period.
• Deed restrictions limited certain areas to single-family residential
• The 5000 sf minimum lot size, which was only relaxed in the 1980s.
• Chapter 42, which established minimum front and side setbacks and other density-limiting regulations (and established the strip center as the dominant commercial development pattern)
• Minimum parking requirements (which basically require a standalone restaurant to dedicate 75% of its land area to parking)

On 6/28/2021 at 5:37 PM, Big E said:

You know, the city should really penalize property owners who own surface parking lots or undeveloped lots downtown and refuse to develop them or sell them.

The concept is called a land-value tax. The idea is that, rather than base property tax valuation on the land-plus-improvements, you only tax the value of the land. So the owner of a block used for surface parking would pay the same tax bill as the owner of a block across the street used for, say, an office tower. 

This incentivizes landowners to more quickly develop to highest-and-best use, thereby discouraging the kind of land speculation Golconda is engaging in, and eliminates the tax penalty associated with remodeling existing structures.

It also removes the tax incentive to quickly demolish an existing structure, then leave the lot empty for (sometimes) years before actually building on it (see e.g. Chevron's demo of the downtown YMCA).

On 5/26/2021 at 1:42 PM, swishafisha said:

"I’m not going to open up a Creek there," Mosley said. "There's just so much stuff going on, with people knocking down these historic buildings. The history that the Heights has, I’m just trying to do my part in preserving it."

Good for him.

There are few enough grandfathered zero-setback buildings that every one is worth saving, and this is pretty much the only way to do it.

On 5/23/2021 at 12:35 PM, IntheKnowHouston said:

charcuterie cone 

I know what each of those words means, but I have no idea what that phrase means.

On 5/19/2021 at 10:52 AM, samagon said:

so to increase walkability, in addition to minimum lot width, you'd also have a maximum lot width?

I don't know if there needs to be a maximum width, but if you plat at 25-ft or 33-ft frontage and sell lots individually, a lot of development is going to happen on one or two-lot parcel. 

On 5/19/2021 at 11:16 AM, Texasota said:

Minimum lot width needs to go away or at least be reduced. I believe the minimum lot width for non-residential lots in Houston is 50', which is absolutely absurd and totally at odds with this kind of traditional commercial development. You can get around it with variances, having retail on corner lots, or a single lot with multiple tenants of course. 

But it's the kind of development restriction that strikes me as pretty arbitrary and totally at odds with what the City should be prioritizing. 

Yes, at least for uses other than single-family residential, minimum width is 50 (or 60) feet. Recall that a typical downtown or EaDo block is only 250 feet between rights of way. So you can never really have more than 5 different façades on a given block face. Add in the 5000 minimum size for non SFR reserves, and the most different façades on the block face around the corner is three. 

The city generally extracts a commitment to provide 6-ft sidewalks in exchange for approving things like setback variances. (Not sure if this project required a variance or not.)

On 3/10/2021 at 2:27 PM, strickn said:

It is surprisingly hard to get an urban atmosphere without financing it the way urban atmospheres were actually financed.  These building blocks are never going to add up to that feel.  

Houston Heights was promoted by a central player with an 1890s financing stack, yes, and so were denser parts of many cities all over the country that now have lofts and offices and workshops -- but the pieces were small enough that many could add to them and modify them personally over time.  Look at these plans and ask yourself where that would ever happen here.

This is an under-appreciated fact that often goes overlooked by "new urbanists". The long-term quality/walkability of an area is to a very large extent determined by two factors: effective street width (distance between opposite façades, not just roadway width), and average parcel width. The former provides human scale and a sense of enclosure, the latter provides granularity and variety as you walk along it.

This development is better than most with respect to street width, (it's probably about the minimum the city will allow), but each blockface is a single building in most cases.

There's a soft spot in my heart for all of Houston's legacy zero-setback buildings.

Would love to see Yale redone as a 3-lane street (like Studewood) with wider sidewalks. Barring that, I'd like more people to take advantage of the fact that on-street parking is legal on Yale for most of its length during most of the day.

Speed limit on Yale is 30 mph, but drivers routinely go 45. Speed limit on Heights is 35mph, but drivers routinely go 25. Road design does more to limit traffic speeds than speed limit signs do.

On 1/19/2021 at 6:58 PM, Houston19514 said:

I also don't think Houston's prices of condos vs single-family are particularly unusual compared to other cities.  It is almost certainly hyperbole to say that an apartment being more expensive (per square foot) than a standalone house would be unthinkable in other (actually dense) cities. For example, apartments selling for higher prices per square foot than nearby single-family residences in Chicago is clearly not unthinkable.

Assuming steel-and-brick construction is $400/sf and stick-built SFH construction is $200/sf, you can calculate the breakeven floor-area-ratio for a given land value.  For condo FAR of 4.0 and SFH FAR of 1.0, land values above $270/sf would favor condo construction. There are very few places in Houston where dirt sells for that much.

Having lived in mid-rise condo buildings in a neighborhood in an (actually dense) city where that type of construction is typical, I can tell you I couldn't have afforded the same square footage in a standalone house.

FWIW, I love these kinds of buildings (4-6 story, <20 apartments), but staffing these kinds of buildings gets very expensive on a per-apartment basis. When I lived in 5-unit building w/ 24-hour doorman coverage the condo fees were brutal.

On 1/18/2021 at 12:13 PM, astrohip said:

Most people who move to condos don't do it for the money. It's not whether it's more or less than your SF residence was, it's "condo life".

As someone who made the house>condo move a couple years ago, I can tell you from talking to my fellow residents, there is not one single person who factored money into the equation. It's the lock & leave lifestyle, it's security concerns, it's having packages accepted for you 24/7, it's not having to worry about the roof or the A/C or the yard or the pool or floods... or anything.

Maybe at some price point, or in some parts of the country, condo vs SFH is a real debate. But in the upper end segment of Houston condos, it's a lifestyle choice, not a $$$ one.

Just my .02

I understand the dynamic, it's just the opposite of the way things work in (actually dense) cities where land value drives the economics. In places where 90% of the population lives in a multi-family building, where floor area ratios are seldom below 4.0, an apartment being more expensive than a standalone house would be unthinkable. 

I'm guessing the demand curve is very steep. Doing a very small number of these probably means each one is very profitable (that penthouse alone is probably a 7-figure profit to the developer), but once you get beyond the people for whom it's a lifestyle choice, the market-clearing price drops a lot.

I know there's a market for these units at this price point, but the price per s.f. on these developments never ceases to amaze.

At $4.3M for 4300 sf, you're paying almost twice the going rate per s.f. for single-family houses on generously sized lots within a couple blocks. And for the $2600/month in condo fees, you could pay someone to pick up the mail and handle the yard work.

Quote

Hai Hospitality’s Asian smokehouse concept that unites two James Beard Award winners — Uchi founder Tyson Cole and Franklin Barbecue founder Aaron Franklin — is still on track to arrive in The Heights this year. A Hai representative tells CultureMap that the plans to convert a former church on 11th St. into a restaurant have been submitted for permitting, which means construction could begin relatively soon. With some luck, Houstonians could be eating sweet corn fritters, Malaysian chicken bo ssam, and smoked prime bavette rice bowls — all paired with a mix of craft beer, cocktails, and wine — as soon as this summer.

From here. 

"as soon as this summer" probably means, "maybe this time next year."

I wouldn't say it's purely decorative. Sett paving can last a lot longer than concrete or asphalt (centuries in many cases). And it has the beneficial side effect of slowing down vehicular traffic.

On sidewalks in places with street trees, brick pavers (or, even better, Portuguese stone) undulate naturally with growth in the trees' root system, whereas concrete sidewalks crack. The material is ubiquitous on the sidewalks of residential neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro, for example, for exactly this reason.

On 11/10/2020 at 1:17 PM, samagon said:

 

nope.

 

there are plenty of examples worldwide of roadways being constructed of brick in far worse climates than our own and the quality of those roads is far better than even our concrete roadways.

 

that doesn't make it a good idea for Houston, we just shouldn't use a different excuse to cover for the real reason, which is that we as a city don't want to pay the taxes necessary to support the cost of better quality roads, of any type.

There's an easy solution: make rights-of-way narrower. 

In EaDo, for example, something like 40% of land area is public right-of-way. If you increase the ratio of taxable land to paved surface by a factor of 3X or so, you could afford a lot nicer paving.

On 11/10/2020 at 12:18 PM, s3mh said:

Vietnam Restaurant has closed.  New venture going in under the business entity Grand Heights, LLC.  Judging from the folks behind the LLC, I would guess that it will be more bar oriented, but that is just a guess.  

The principals appear to be the same team behind Tikila's on Shepherd. 

I'm surprised they can add that much square footage without a parking structure. 

Though by the looks of the new buildings, it looks like there's a significant non-retail portion.

On 4/7/2020 at 11:33 AM, s3mh said:

The old Lee’s Fried Chicken building is turning into a Common Bond take out concept.  

Unfortunately, every concept is now a take out concept.  

IIRC, since the acquisition CB's baked goods are now done from a central commissary, so this should be a relatively easy concept to replicate, especially if they can lock in attractive lease terms.

Commercial MBS markets are completely frozen. Commercial leaseholders will struggle to make lease payments, which means property owners and developers will struggle to make loan payments, which impairs the associated commercial MBS assets.

For the most part, banks and other holders have foregone margin calls, and Fed is backstopping, but don't hold your breath for new funding.

Saw a rumor that MF Sushi will move into the spot on White Oak being vacated by Barnaby's.

To the extent Houston is still an industry town, I would expect phases 2 thru whatever to slow down. The energy industry is going to get absolutely hammered. Have a look at oil and gas stocks over the last month to see what the consensus outlook seems to be.

Predictions are that global oil demand could be 10% lower, and prices below $20, which will decimate free cash flow at operators, who will need to slash capital spending to keep paying their dividends (oil majors are very reluctant to cut dividends), which will have a trickle down effect on the supplier base, much of which is still recovering from the 2015-6 slump. There will be bankruptcies.