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Park Place | River Oaks: Mixed-Use Development At Westheimer Rd. & Mid Ln.


lockmat

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I like Highland Village.

 

It sounds vaguely Dallas-y, and that and Uptown are definitely the Dallas-iest parts of Houston.

Probably sounds dallasy because they have Highland Park which has the Highland Park Village shopping center? thats my only gripe about Highland Village.. other then that Highland _____, or The Highlands makes for a decent name.

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It seems that both Highland Village and the new development should make an effort to connect via pedestrian walkways across the tracks or over/under the tracks.  An important element missing from most of these new high-density centers is that they are an island seldom (or barely) connected to the surrounding areas.  It's great to have high-density mixed-use, but without pedestrian connectivity to immediate areas, the full benefit of this type of development is lessened in my opinion.

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Nothing says style and class like walking over a railroad hump on a narrow busy road with a sidewalk inches from cars.

 

Edit: Add in the drainage ditch to the equation.

they need to trench the railroad at Westheimer.

and am i crazy or did they fill in the drainage ditch and are building more rail lines along the route? seems like i saw that when i was in the area recently.

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hey, i live near there and walk across the RR tracks often.  I'm not too proud ... but I do think it would be good for the neighborhood to engineer things so as to be kindler and gentler to pedestrians (i.e., other low-class scumbags like me).  I don't mind it so much, I can deal with it ... but, I guess I would like to improve things for our international visitors who have to hike through our obstacle course.  Even if its only to help the economy by having them want to return.  I know many here don't give a hoot about that, but personally, I would like visitors to have a good experience here.

 

 

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It seems that both Highland Village and the new development should make an effort to connect via pedestrian walkways across the tracks or over/under the tracks.  An important element missing from most of these new high-density centers is that they are an island seldom (or barely) connected to the surrounding areas.  It's great to have high-density mixed-use, but without pedestrian connectivity to immediate areas, the full benefit of this type of development is lessened in my opinion.

 

I just can't see a pedestrian-oriented retail strip through Highland Village as realistic.  It isn't likely that the target shopper for these mixed-use projects is interested in walking, and more importantly the scale is too large for a pedestrian environment.  Westheimer is too wide, the potential strip is too long, and at least at Highland Village there is parking in front.  I think it's just the wrong location for pedestrians.

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I just can't see a pedestrian-oriented retail strip through Highland Village as realistic.  It isn't likely that the target shopper for these mixed-use projects is interested in walking, and more importantly the scale is too large for a pedestrian environment.  Westheimer is too wide, the potential strip is too long, and at least at Highland Village there is parking in front.  I think it's just the wrong location for pedestrians.

 

I presume you've never been to North Michigan Avenue in Chicago?

 

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I went to a Houston Tomorrow meeting last week.  The speaker was a landscape architect.  From her slide show we saw what they did in Lancaster, CA.  It was a 6 lane highway in the middle of the city with cars speeding through it.  They reduced to 2 lanes each way.  They added trees and landscaping in the middle of the street.  Also wider sidewalks and more plants.  Before they did this there was no retail.  All the buildings were empty. Two years later they are full with people walking up and down the street.  It can happen here, with River Oaks District, 2929 Weslayen, and Highland Village.  People would rather walk then drive.  I live in the Upper Kirby District and we walk to Eddie V's, Flemming's, Whole Foods, Little Pappasitos and so on.  When we walk down Alabama the traffic at 4 pm is jammed from Kirby to Greenbriar.  We start laughing poor people stuck in traffic. :o         

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The difference is Westheimer doesn't really have the ability to go from 6 lanes to 4 lanes.  Could the city add in an esplanade even?  I don't think there is room?

 

And I agree about the rail road tracks a better solution needs to be figured out there.

 

I do remember the Harris County Toll Road Authority discussion the possibility of putting a "Westpark-esque" toll way down that right of way to help ease some of the congestion on I-610 west.

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Not in many years.  It's hard to see that kind of walking environment replicated on Westheimer.  

 

Not really hard at all with just a tiny bit of imagination and vision.  After all, the reasons you listed above that in your mind makes a Westheimer pedestrian oriented strip unlikely also apply to North Michigan Avenue.

 

High-end target shoppers.

Too large of scale.  Street is too wide and strip is too long...  (North Michigan Avenue is easily as wide as Westheimer and longer than the strip along Westheimer being discussed.) 

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why not a streetcar connecting all of these shopping areas and mixed use developments along Westheimer since many are kind of spread out.

it could run from the future light rail on Post Oak by the Galleria, through Westcreek, River Oaks District, West/Mid Lane, Highland Village, ect, down through West Ave and 2727 Kirby. possibly extending further..

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The streetcar idea is one that makes sense.  

 

 

High-end target shoppers.

Too large of scale.  Street is too wide and strip is too long...  (North Michigan Avenue is easily as wide as Westheimer and longer than the strip along Westheimer being discussed.) 

 

 

 

The difference is Westheimer doesn't really have the ability to go from 6 lanes to 4 lanes.  Could the city add in an esplanade even?

 

 

But I assume traffic on the Magnificent Mile moves much slower.  An esplanade would help but would also mean cutting off left-turn access into the different shopping centers, which the merchants would scream about.  

 

Also, the scale issues aren't just w.r.t. the width of Westheimer.  The stores themselves are mostly set back from the road by parking spaces.  Look at busy, successful shopping streets, and the shops will open up directly to the sidewalk.  It doesn't "read" as a pedestrian area.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I would love to see Houston get a fast, efficient subway network that connects downtown with the med center, Greenway Plaza and Uptown (and eventually out to Reliant Park and Hobby Airport on the south side, Greenspoint, IAH and The Woodlands on the north side and out west from the U of H main campus through Montrose/River Oaks, Highland Village, ROD, the Galleria, Westchase, the Energy Corridor and CityCentre). The Westheimer corridor is ripe for this kind of development. Limited stops at key destinations with well-planned street level interaction and moving walkways would help tremendously. If only we could build it for the $63 million per mile that Barcelona paid for their Sants-La Sagrera tunnel, or the $69 million per mile that Seoul paid for their "Subway Line 9"...or even the $165 million per mile Vancouver paid for its "partially underground" Evergreen Line.

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The streetcar idea is one that makes sense.

thanks. i hadnt really thought of the distances or how they would work (i.e. be one car going back and forth on a track like they do in Dallas, or multiple cars going in a loop system) but when i looked at a map i realized 4 of these areas are within a mile of each other (Westcreek, ROD, Mid Lane, and Highland Village), and the Galleria is just outside that mile radius. West Ave and 2727 Kirby (not really mixed use [unless they have GFR, im a little naive to the tower other than i like the design, heh]) is a lot further down Westheimer than i realized, probably almost a mile and a half down from H.V. so at first i wasnt sure if it would be worth connecting that into the streetcar system, all the way out there. but then i realized there are quite a few apartment complexes and a large portion of River Oaks in between H.V. and West Ave, and that the streetcar could serve more residents along the system so its not only used by non-locals who drive to one place and want to visit another.

would the tracks be a loop system, in the street ROW, or would/could they squeeze one set of tracks for a back and forth streetcar between at least Post Oak and say Central Market thats not in the streets ROW?

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I would love to see Houston get a fast, efficient subway network that connects downtown with the med center, Greenway Plaza and Uptown (and eventually out to Reliant Park and Hobby Airport on the south side, Greenspoint, IAH and The Woodlands on the north side and out west from the U of H main campus through Montrose/River Oaks, Highland Village, ROD, the Galleria, Westchase, the Energy Corridor and CityCentre). The Westheimer corridor is ripe for this kind of development. Limited stops at key destinations with well-planned street level interaction and moving walkways would help tremendously. If only we could build it for the $63 million per mile that Barcelona paid for their Sants-La Sagrera tunnel, or the $69 million per mile that Seoul paid for their "Subway Line 9"...or even the $165 million per mile Vancouver paid for its "partially underground" Evergreen Line.

i like your vision, but unfortunately it doesnt seem anywhere close to feasible. a trenched commuter rail line would be the closest i see Houston getting to a "subway", especially one at the lengths your talking. we missed out when we decided to make pedestrian tunnels downtown instead of putting subways through them. and then again on the failed heavy rail plan. and then again when many mistakenly voted against rail money recently.. ugh... this city could of already been one of the front runners in the world, instead were a "beta world city"...

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The streetcar idea is one that makes sense.  

 

 

 

 

But I assume traffic on the Magnificent Mile moves much slower.  An esplanade would help but would also mean cutting off left-turn access into the different shopping centers, which the merchants would scream about.  

 

Also, the scale issues aren't just w.r.t. the width of Westheimer.  The stores themselves are mostly set back from the road by parking spaces.  Look at busy, successful shopping streets, and the shops will open up directly to the sidewalk.  It doesn't "read" as a pedestrian area.  

 

It only takes a little imagination.  No one is suggesting Highland Village is currently pedestrian friendly, only that with some vision and imagination, it and the burgeoning retail/mixed areas to its west could become pedestrian friendly.... and fairly easily, I might add.

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Houston needs to make better use of street trolleys. We (the city) are almost the exact same size of the greater London area with just about a fifth of the population. Traditional rail would be tricky to implement here.

I think we should look to the area as a collection of smaller cities (as is actually the case in London as the actual city of London is quite tiny) and grant some of these cities a stop and connect that stop with trolleys. The city is already divided into 88 superneighborhoods. We can grant about 40 of them a rail stop.

For example we can have a university line running from the 3rd ward super neighborhood/ city to the uptown SN/ city. I guess the Highland Village would be in the Greenway Super Neighborhood. Once you get off at the greenway stop you can catch the trolley which should circulate around the points of interest.

Of course certain SN/ cities will have more than one stop.

Edited by HoustonIsHome
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Quickline down Westheimer from Hwy6 to University of Houston where it becomes Elgin. Redo streetscapes and boom we got a bustling 20 plus mile corridor. It's frankly embarrassing the state of Westheimer in Montrose. 

Edited by kdog08
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