Texasota

Which gets to my bugbear about how highway/road capacity is expanded in this godforsaken country: adding lanes to existing roads rather than increasing the number of connection and increasing redundancy. 

We need more bridges across Buffalo Bayou, I-10, the north loop, etc. I'm happy with adding road capacity if it's done in a way that increases options for people so we stop funneling everyone onto just a few routes.

And to be fair, I've lived in tons of places way worse about this than Houston, but still. 

Can we remove "rehab" from the title? However you feel about the result, this ain't no rehabilitation. 

I hate the idea of losing affordable apartments in exchange for, what, 3 parking spaces? But I get it. No realistic way this project happens otherwise. That's the (awful) world we live in. 

1400' is higher than I'd prefer and the City *frequently* grants variances. 

Did they pull a permit? They need to get fined to oblivion for cutting down an old growth live oak in the ROW.

I'm really tired of hearing new homes called "a giant middle finger" to existing residents. Prioritizing skyline views over new homes is the real middle finger.

Gazebo doesn't *feel* like the name of a bar. Seem too low energy.

There are no parking minimums here, but that lot already exists. They're just cleaning up the building.

On a positive note, from the last Bicycle Advisory Committe meeting slides, it looks like the City *is* coordinating with Metro for bike lanes + BRT on Lockwood.

PowerPoint Presentation (secureserver.net)

oh. Well that's better than I was expecting.

I actually think too much importance is placed on "historic" parts of the city. Just existing, regardless of any apparent "historic" value, provides potential for reuse. And specifically, quick, low-cost reuse. 

We are in agree to disagree territory. What happened happened, so it's impossible to know if things could have gone differently. 

I do think you're far too fatalistic about these things though; just because something *did* happen doesn't mean it's the only thing that *could* happen and it has to be possible to try to avoid similar things in the future. 

I'm well aware of where old Chinatown was; having something other than a sea of parking lots so close *could* have helped it stay more sustainable. 

Every central city in the country suffered massive losses at that time, but retaining some existing buildings, even small scale ones, could have provided the basis for rebuilding with *small* infusions of money. 

None of this is guaranteed; the loss is purely potential that might never have been tapped. But we never got to find out. 

Although again, we have a decent precedent right here in Texas: Deep Ellum. Not saying the neighborhoods are identical, but Deep Ellum is/was composed almost entirely of small two and (mostly) one story buildings and was not in good shape in the 80's. It had a massive resurgence as early as the 90's!

Would the east side of downtown looked like Deep Ellum in 1996 if it hadn't been razed to the ground? Probably not! But it might have been its own unique thing, rather than absolutely nothing.

That's nowhere near this location. If I'm living in one of these apartment buildings next to a gas station I at least want to be able to get a decent breakfast from it.

No, I was not alive. But a lot of great things have been done with random crappy buildings. *Any* remaining businesses and housing would have been better than emptiness. 

Maybe old Chinatown would still be around in some form. Maybe something like Deep Ellum would have developed. Maybe just one of those little buildings would today house the best BBQ restaurant in the city. Who knows? Any potential for the unexpected and unpredictable disappeared along with those "random crappy buildings".

The three links you gave are great examples of small, flexible properties that can be repurposed for a variety of uses relatively quickly and cheaply. That's incredibly valuable and something we are really losing with all these full-block developments.

Uggh. This place had better at least serve decent tacos.

I'm not a libertarian, so I don't 100% speak your language Ross. I can sometime translate, but it's an imperfect process.

My only real point is that reducing that whole side of town to parking lots was a net loss for decades.

9 hours ago, Ross said:

The buildings that were torn down were mostly 1 or 2 story random businesses or homes. There wasn't much of note in that part of town.

Ooooh I like this argument. By extension predominantly single family neighborhoods have little value.

I'm criticizing the teardowns more than the lack of new construction.

And it only took, what, 60 years? Decades of lost potential.

2 hours ago, kennyc05 said:

This might be a dumb question. But is downtown Houston the only major city that has pull in parking you usually see that in smaller cities?

No. Philly for one, but I'd say it's not that unusual regardless of city size.

Now they just need to put a residential tower on top of the bus bays.

I can live with that site plan, and the architecture shown in the concept images is above average. Hopefully they keep to that.

I feel strongly that Riverside/Riverside Terrace should be preserved as much as possible, but this is a vacant lot on the edge of the neighborhood.

In general, I'm much more sympathetic to wanting to save something that could be demolished than to worrying about the impact of new construction on existing "character".

I used to live a few blocks from here, and, in general, would have loved to see more development. More people. More stuff. 

Hopefully these houses turn out above average, but, even if they don't, homes are better than vacant lots.