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went by a few days ago, and work is progressing. and yeah - they are coming in from...behind.

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I ate at Tony Mandola's Gulf Coast Kitchen last night with the family. Yummy red snapper.

I noticed that Sherlock's has moved to the Northside of the block. I wonder what is going into the old space?

Also, we all commented on how the center used to be so much more interesting with the Wilderness Equipment, Cotton Club, Birraporreti's, and other more local establishments than the current line-up of a Gap, California Pizza Kitchen, and the coming Barnes and Noble. It is becoming anywhere USA very quickly.

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I ate at Tony Mandola's Gulf Coast Kitchen last night with the family. Yummy red snapper.

I noticed that Sherlock's has moved to the Northside of the block. I wonder what is going into the old space?

Also, we all commented on how the center used to be so much more interesting with the Wilderness Equipment, Cotton Club, Birraporreti's, and other more local establishments than the current line-up of a Gap, California Pizza Kitchen, and the coming Barnes and Noble. It is becoming anywhere USA very quickly.

There's a California Pizza Kitchen there? Is that new?

I suspect Weingarten would prefer the national chains. Remember they drove out One's a Meal for not being "upscale" enough.

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I suspect Weingarten would prefer the national chains. Remember they drove out One's a Meal for not being "upscale" enough.

I'm still chapped about the loss of that One's A Meal. Now instead of a great place to eat with a long history in Houston, we have dueling Starbucks facing each other across W. Gray. :angry2:

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What's up with having two Starbucks at opposite sides of the street? Is there enough demand for Starbucks to support two separate stores across from each other? I know I'll never go there. Starbucks actually charges for wireless internet!!!!

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yep - both are busy stores.

reminds me of the movie "Best in Show" when the neurotic couple tells how they met after they noticed each other for a period of time from starbucks that were across the street :P

anyhow, imo there are many more choices of coffee in houston - i don't bother with starbucks

Edited by sevfiv
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Damn. I had forgotten about Biba's Ones-A-Meal being in that center.

Back in the 80s, we used to love to go the midnight shows at the Landmark RiverOaks Theater and then head to Biba's for food at 3 a.m. It never was the same when it moved to Memorial Drive.

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the starbucks on the south side of West Gray is the one without the drive-through and has indoor/outdoor seating. the one on the north side has outdoor seating - can't remember anything about the inside though.

Edited by sevfiv
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Yeah there are so many choices for good coffee and free wireless internet too! I had to wait for somebody in the Medical Center in a Starbucks, and I brought my laptop thinking I would get some work done while I wanted, but they wanted me to pay $6 to use the internet, even for only one hour!

Back on topic... I bet the Barns and Noble they are planning will have it's own Starbucks. So that would be three Starbucks in the same shopping center! They might as well just build a Starbucks on every corner so that you'll never have to walk/drive more than one block to get to a Starbucks!

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why oh why did this person have to be on site when the tv crew was there? :rolleyes:

"I was just commenting on the style, the art deco or whatever it is," said resident Mike Ballantyne. "The other ones over there, too, with the curved thing. It's too bad. But I guess it's progress...sort of."

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For the same reason that national news crews can only find backwoods yahoos with missing teeth whenever they do a story in Texas. I think they have a guy on staff that they bring along and put in different clothes/hairpieces.

My husband and I were in Galveston yesterday and went to Murphy's Pub for a pint. He commented to the barkeep that it was nice to still have someplace where he could enjoy a quiet pipe along with his Guinness, even thought he had to drive 50+ miles to do it. Another bar parton overheard and remarked that he was glad he didn't live in a place where city council could tell thousands of business owners what to do on their own premises, but couldn't do anything about one bulldozer-happy developer destroying historic properties. B)

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I filed this with the Chron:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5106106.html

The demolition was especially awful because it didn't look as though the building had been salvaged. Schoolhouse light fixtures are (as of this afternoon) still hanging in the old Black-Eyed Pea site. Through an office window over Jos. A. Banks' old space, I saw a mid-century aluminum chair. The backhoe mangled it.

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Has anyone considered a fundraising drive to buy the River Oaks/Alabama Theaters from Weingarten outright? These little protests/boycotts/meetings/delicate flower sessions are not doing a thing. Seems to me the only thing that Weingarten understands is money (not an unreasonable thought from a corporate standpoint). Purchasing the theaters would prevent them from being demolished.

Yo, Carolyn Farb, rather than stand there and complain, get some of your fellow rich folks in River Oaks and buy the place! Put your money where your mouth is.

The boycott thing ain't going to work. Watch "You've Got Mail" as an example of that.

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Has anyone considered a fundraising drive to buy the River Oaks/Alabama Theaters from Weingarten outright?

From what I've heard, Alexander would not entertain any offers. That does sound odd to me; a developer not considering a buyout. Either that's not the case or the rumors about bad blood between the Weingarten & Alexander branches of the family are true. Perhaps someone will have to make the "unfortunate decision" to change the company name due to all the bad publicity....you know this is being followed in more cities than Houston, right? My nephew in San Francisco heard about the impending demolition this past weekend. That could just be preservation-minded SF, or people are taking notice since California is one of the states WR has projects in.

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From what I've heard, Alexander would not entertain any offers. That does sound odd to me; a developer not considering a buyout.

At this point in the game, they've almost certainly signed binding contracts with Barnes & Noble and possibly other tenants by now. Anyone looking to throw money at the problem would have to put in enough to cover both Weingarten and any signed tenants. The time for a buyout had long since passed.

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