East River: Mixed-Use Development By Midway

[Mr.Clean19]

Is this due to Opportunity Zone funding, a need to develop in the area, or some other cause I'm not seeing?

[Luminare]

51 minutes ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

Is this due to Opportunity Zone funding, a need to develop in the area, or some other cause I'm not seeing?

 

Mediocre developers chase only incentives. Great developers chase raw opportunity and potential.

 

Incentives should be a plus when factored. Not the whole.

[Timoric]

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Edited July 12, 2019 by Timoric

[79ta]

Drone footage of the site (not my video)

 

 

[Mr.Clean19]

Great video and overview. Should have done a drone shot of TNP.

[H-Town Man]

19 hours ago, arche_757 said:

I must admit the quality of ideas in regard to development has drastically improved over the last 20 years.  East River, Station Houston and TMC3 (among others), while different entirely in what they are - are the sort of forward thinking, large, transformative projects Houston was known for decades ago.  Those 3 alone will greatly alter the landscape in town.

 

This is an entire new district created in an area where these sort of projects wouldn’t have happened with the developers of the 90’s and early 00’s.  At all.  Midway has - in my opinion - clearly separated itself from anyone not named Hines in this town.  Good for them.  Better for us.

 

I think gclass is going to scold you for not including ROD. Yes, some of these call to mind pioneering stuff like The Galleria or Woodlands Town Center.

 

The real challenge for Houston though is various developers doing little developments that interact and build texture in a neighborhood. Some of our downtown stuff is in this vein but you still have those little pocket parking lots around Market Square where there should be little commercial buildings. "Fine-grained development" as Angostura would say, smaller than a city block. We have always had developers who could take a large piece of land and build a new paradise, but it's the small stuff, fitting in with other development, that we have not mastered.

 

[Luminare]

18 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

I think gclass is going to scold you for not including ROD. Yes, some of these call to mind pioneering stuff like The Galleria or Woodlands Town Center.

 

The real challenge for Houston though is various developers doing little developments that interact and build texture in a neighborhood. Some of our downtown stuff is in this vein but you still have those little pocket parking lots around Market Square where there should be little commercial buildings. "Fine-grained development" as Angostura would say, smaller than a city block. We have always had developers who could take a large piece of land and build a new paradise, but it's the small stuff, fitting in with other development, that we have not mastered.

 

 

Then lets hope that the extension of the non-minimum parking requirements into midtown and Eado take place. Its one of the prime reasons that area hasn't absolutely exploded. Its more cost effective for developers to buy large tracts of land so they can do whatever they want and the "minimum parking requirements" can be mitigated through proper planning. The elimination of parking requirements has had its desired effect on downtown already. The massive food halls and refurbishments of older buildings has only been possible because the city no longer requires these places to cater to parking needs/requirements. These larger developments are really interesting though in how much they fill things in, establish new cores to grow from later, and due to our no-zoning policies brings an interesting hap-hazard formation of clusters of large developments thats like a reengineering of what development patterns were like before the era of "proper" city planning in Europe or even early America. That minimum requirement is the last dam preventing a true explosion of interesting activity at all scales and levels of development in this city.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Luminare

[intencity77]

23 hours ago, Timoric said:

I think Houston metro  had other big things going on in other decades like Kingwood and the Woodlands that were among the best of their type and highly successful

 

Large, yes. Transformative and forward thinking, I think not.  Developments like The Woodlands or Kingwood only furthered sprawl, they are the antithesis of the “forward thinking” projects I believe Arche_757 was referring too.  

[Twinsanity02]

Perhaps this has been mentioned before.  Are there plans for  the downtown connector bus, I believe is called greenlink, to have a route to this area? 

[j_cuevas713]

6 hours ago, Luminare said:

 

Then lets hope that the extension of the non-minimum parking requirements into midtown and Eado take place. Its one of the prime reasons that area hasn't absolutely exploded. Its more cost effective for developers to buy large tracts of land so they can do whatever they want and the "minimum parking requirements" can be mitigated through proper planning. The elimination of parking requirements has had its desired effect on downtown already. The massive food halls and refurbishments of older buildings has only been possible because the city no longer requires these places to cater to parking needs/requirements. These larger developments are really interesting though in how much they fill things in, establish new cores to grow from later, and due to our no-zoning policies brings an interesting hap-hazard formation of clusters of large developments thats like a reengineering of what development patterns were like before the era of "proper" city planning in Europe or even early America. That minimum requirement is the last dam preventing a true explosion of interesting activity at all scales and levels of development in this city.

What ever happened regarding the vote on this? It’s like it was put on the agenda then never heard from again

[Mr.Clean19]

On 4/26/2019 at 3:33 PM, Twinsanity02 said:

Perhaps this has been mentioned before.  Are there plans for  the downtown connector bus, I believe is called greenlink, to have a route to this area? 

There have been plans for a trolly system that connects to the rail line downtown. I'm more in favor of a gondola system though 

[CaptainJilliams]

6 hours ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

There have been plans for a trolly system that connects to the rail line downtown. I'm more in favor of a gondola system though 

 

I like the idea of a trolley, I think Dallas has an old-time trolley system that runs through Uptown and Downtown. Having something like that would be cool, but I don't know how a vintage trolley would look with the East River plan.

 

Gondolas would be neat as well.

Edited April 29, 2019 by CaptainJilliams

[Houston19514]

3 hours ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

There have been plans for a trolly system that connects to the rail line downtown. I'm more in favor of a gondola system though 

 

Has a gondola system ever been put into use as a serious transit system, in place of where a trolley might go?  I wonder how the costs would compare versus a trolley street car or light rail.

[Luminare]

22 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Has a gondola system ever been put into use as a serious transit system, in place of where a trolley might go?  I wonder how the costs would compare versus a trolley street car or light rail.

 

When I went to Venice, I was actually surprised at how efficient their gondola / ferry transit system was. Of course they absolutely have to have it unless you want everyone to swim everywhere.

[Mr.Clean19]

24 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Has a gondola system ever been put into use as a serious transit system, in place of where a trolley might go?  I wonder how the costs would compare versus a trolley street car or light rail.

 

 

 

[Naviguessor]

Using this system in Quito to connect the new airport to the new Subway system.  Makes sense there and it's supposed to be very cost effective due the terrain. 

[Mr.Clean19]

Could you imagine a Gondola from here to the Dynamo Stadium? That would be so cool!

[iah77]

53 minutes ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

 

 

 

Yes, in Medellin there is a well known and successful project. Caracas also uses them but mainly to connect informal areas to existing metro stations. 

[Naviguessor]

Would be.  But, can you put one of these over Private Property? 

[Luminare]

I've often suspected that if the city started out 100 years prior that we probably would have became more of canal city like many Dutch cities. Would have been an effective way to handle floods. I could imagine a system like Amsterdam where you have concentric rings of canals.

[Mr.Clean19]

City could get that land where the Antenna is just south of East River and do a connector there. I have no idea what the regulation is on gondolas above residential or commercial properties. Some ski resorts have lifts right in the middle of the city that you can take up to the resorts. 

 

There are also rail cars that can convert to roadway vehicles and connect back to the rail. But by 2029, we better have driverless ubers in the area. 

[H-Town Man]

1 hour ago, Luminare said:

I've often suspected that if the city started out 100 years prior that we probably would have became more of canal city like many Dutch cities. Would have been an effective way to handle floods. I could imagine a system like Amsterdam where you have concentric rings of canals.

 

The biggest problem in early Houston was mosquito-borne malaria, which suggests residents wanted to be as far from water as possible and would not have developed like Amsterdam. We lost the state capital over this.

 

[Luminare]

35 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

 

The biggest problem in early Houston was mosquito-borne malaria, which suggests residents wanted to be as far from water as possible and would not have developed like Amsterdam. We lost the state capital over this.

 

 

Thats a point that I understood, but that doesn't mean that it was entirely out of the realm of possibilities for that time. Just as a theoretical idea for our city it would have been interesting. There are many paths Houston could have taken and turned out completely differently that are fun to think about. If Houston was started further down the Ship Channel it could have turned into a city like Hamburg with a very close relationship to shipping and industry than we have right now. As for Amsterdam's canals at that time, its not like they were that fantastic as they are today either. They were effectively used for boat travel, as open sewers, and defense. Even New Amsterdam had canals as well. Again, not out of the realm of belief as 100 years prior was an era when canals were a solution to both transportation, sewerage, and flood control. Might not even be out of the realm of possibility today given that we have tech to protect us from said diseases, and at the same time we are looking for new solutions to divert water during flood events.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Luminare

[H-Town Man]

43 minutes ago, Luminare said:

 

Thats a point that I understood, but that doesn't mean that it was entirely out of the realm of possibilities for that time. Just as a theoretical idea for our city it would have been interesting. There are many paths Houston could have taken and turned out completely differently that are fun to think about. If Houston was started further down the Ship Channel it could have turned into a city like Hamburg with a very close relationship to shipping and industry than we have right now. As for Amsterdam's canals at that time, its not like they were that fantastic as they are today either. They were effectively used for boat travel, as open sewers, and defense. Even New Amsterdam had canals as well. Again, not out of the realm of belief as 100 years prior was an era when canals were a solution to both transportation, sewerage, and flood control. Might not even be out of the realm of possibility today given that we have tech to protect us from said diseases, and at the same time we are looking for new solutions to divert water during flood events.

If you look at old illustrated views of Amsterdam such as in Braun and Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Amsterdam looked pretty incredible as early as the 1500's. They were the economic center of the world from about 1600 to 1780, with the first stock exchange and unprecedented accumulation of wealth. The other Dutch cities, while not in same stratum as Amsterdam, were wealthy cities far more advanced than comparable cities in other European countries. I don't think anything like Dutch canals would have been feasible in 19th century Houston. You had a canal movement in the U.S. for moving goods from city to city, and some cities like Rochester or Syracuse had something like an urban canal where the Erie canal went through. But nothing like that was happening economically down here.

 

[Timoric]

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Edited July 12, 2019 by Timoric

[Triton]

10 hours ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

 

 

 

 

**side track**

 

Oh! My "adopted" home country!  Vietnam uses gondolas very extensively from the north to the south but they are all used to either get to resorts or theme parks, including the one in this video. This video is of the island of Phu Quoc connecting to a resort under construction on the island of Hon Thom. These rides bring a lot of tourism to Vietnam especially because of the many scenic areas these all fly over. Highly recommend the gondola ride in Nha Trang and my absolute favorite is the one going up to Bana Hills:

 

[pablog]

A gondola from Post HTX and East River would be great. It would offer amazing views too of downtown on the trip. 

 

Also, I would love to have ferries or boats transfer people over and have them designed in the traditional fashion of the boats that came into Allen Landing in the inception of the city.  

[innerloop]

18 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Has a gondola system ever been put into use as a serious transit system, in place of where a trolley might go?  I wonder how the costs would compare versus a trolley street car or light rail.

 

They tried it in Rio de Janeiro, but some people say that was just a vanity project for the Olympics.  They built a 2.2 mile line and they say it cost $70M.  The trip took 10 minutes, I couldn't quickly find any information on capacity/hour.

 

A quick look on Google Maps shows the distance from the Post Office to KBR is about 1.5 miles, so about 30% shorter than the Rio line.  And I love the Brazilians, but there's got to be some inefficiencies and graft in their numbers.  So maybe $35-$40M?  I'll leave it to others to investigate the access question and operating costs.

 

But it would be cool!

[Twinsanity02]

We have gators in Lake Houston. I've seen one from my backyard. They don't seem to bother people, dogs may be problematic. They tend to stay away from populated areas. Is there a gator situation along the bayou?

[Mr.Clean19]

1 hour ago, Twinsanity02 said:

We have gators in Lake Houston. I've seen one from my backyard. They don't seem to bother people, dogs may be problematic. They tend to stay away from populated areas. Is there a gator situation along the bayou?

I think this is the 3rd time in this string where it was brought up. The bayous banks are too steep on the east side to allow gators to climb up.