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Frost Bank At 628 E. 11th St.


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On 1/15/2018 at 10:07 AM, s3mh said:

There is more to "walkability" than "is it close enough to my house".  Walkability is also a question of whether a street lends itself to people parking in one spot and visiting multiple shops/restaurants.  If I park at Torchy's to get lunch and also need to get a gift at Big Blue Whale, I would not think twice about walking down there along 19th street.  It is fun to window shop and people watch to see who is out and about.  But, if I needed to get something at Penzey's, I would probably just drive over a two blocks because there is nothing interesting about walking along the sidewalk in front of a strip mall.  So, on a retail corridor like 11th or White Oak, the more you put retail fronting the street, the more likely you are going to have people want to walk up and down the street and visit multiple shops and restaurants.  The more it is just parking lots in front of strip centers, the more likely it is that people will just park where they need to shop and move on.    

You also get such a different perspective of Houston in general. You realize just how walkable Houston is. While not perfect, Houston def lends itself to pedestrians in some nice pockets. 

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On 1/15/2018 at 10:07 AM, s3mh said:

There is more to "walkability" than "is it close enough to my house".  Walkability is also a question of whether a street lends itself to people parking in one spot and visiting multiple shops/restaurants.  If I park at Torchy's to get lunch and also need to get a gift at Big Blue Whale, I would not think twice about walking down there along 19th street.  It is fun to window shop and people watch to see who is out and about.  But, if I needed to get something at Penzey's, I would probably just drive over a two blocks because there is nothing interesting about walking along the sidewalk in front of a strip mall.  So, on a retail corridor like 11th or White Oak, the more you put retail fronting the street, the more likely you are going to have people want to walk up and down the street and visit multiple shops and restaurants.  The more it is just parking lots in front of strip centers, the more likely it is that people will just park where they need to shop and move on.    

You wouldn't walk to Penzey's because it's set back from the street? That's honestly pretty bizarre. If you cut over to the sidewalk in front of the stores, it's just like walking on the sidewalk in front of the older places on 19th,and you get an extra 10 steps of exercise. It's not like it's a 3 mile hike from the street to the stores. When we go to Penzey's, we usually wander down to see what's up at the other places. And, there's the added advantage that others can just park there, right in front of the store, where the door is. Rather than having to walk around from the back to the front, or the proprietor having to hire an extra person to watch the other door. 

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On 1/15/2018 at 4:53 PM, Angostura said:

Placement of the building is important for the streetscape, but as long as we have parking minimums, we'll never get the kind of density needed to have any meaningful walkability.  You can't have walkability without density

That's just not true. Every time I read anything regarding "walkability" or anything related to New Urbanism, they abandon all pragmatism and anything that doesn't "look right" in favor of some unrealistic ideal. Under NU, cars are bad, freeways are bad, all buildings must have zero set-back, public transportation is the past, the present, and the future (Elon Musk be damned), on-street parking should be discouraged, and the end result ends up being so artificial that it resembles an outdoor shopping mall (like, say, The Domain in Austin) rather than a real city.

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Not gonna unpack all of that, but on street parking is actually encouraged for walkability.  It provides a physical buffer between the sidewalks and the traffic, and it tends to slow the traffic some.  

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4 hours ago, Ross said:

You wouldn't walk to Penzey's because it's set back from the street? That's honestly pretty bizarre. If you cut over to the sidewalk in front of the stores, it's just like walking on the sidewalk in front of the older places on 19th,and you get an extra 10 steps of exercise. It's not like it's a 3 mile hike from the street to the stores. When we go to Penzey's, we usually wander down to see what's up at the other places. And, there's the added advantage that others can just park there, right in front of the store, where the door is. Rather than having to walk around from the back to the front, or the proprietor having to hire an extra person to watch the other door. 

Go to 19th St. on a Saturday afternoon and count the number of people out walking between Bliss and Carter & Cooley and compare with the number of people walking along the strip malls that straddle Nicholson on the south side of 19th.  There is no comparison.  

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8 minutes ago, s3mh said:

Go to 19th St. on a Saturday afternoon and count the number of people out walking between Bliss and Carter & Cooley and compare with the number of people walking along the strip malls that straddle Nicholson on the south side of 19th.  There is no comparison.  

That's probably related more to the types of stores than walkability. I know a number of people who think the old part of 19th is a pain in the ass to visit, because there's not enough parking, so they just don't go.

 

True walkability is an old fashioned mall, where you park in one spot and can visit 150 of your favorite stores. 

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5 hours ago, IronTiger said:

That's just not true. Every time I read anything regarding "walkability" or anything related to New Urbanism, they abandon all pragmatism and anything that doesn't "look right" in favor of some unrealistic ideal. Under NU, cars are bad, freeways are bad, all buildings must have zero set-back, public transportation is the past, the present, and the future (Elon Musk be damned), on-street parking should be discouraged, and the end result ends up being so artificial that it resembles an outdoor shopping mall (like, say, The Domain in Austin) rather than a real city.

 

That density is a pre-requisite for walkable is not a controversial statement. Neither is the fact that parking minimums and setbacks are a hindrance to density.

 

I don't think cars are bad, but when you design the built environment around cars rather than around people, cities tend to be the worse for it. If you design places for people (mostly narrow streets within neighborhoods, linked by larger arterials, roads and freeways), you will naturally get less traffic (since things are closer together, people don't have to drive as far to get to them, and a higher percentage of trips are taken on foot). Here's a map of the old section of 19th St. The red and yellow areas dedicated to cars, the blue areas to people. Even in the most walkable part of the neighborhood, half the area is dedicated to cars and car storage. Zoom out, and it gets a lot worse. Imagine how much more places there would be to walk to if we used some of that car space to build actual places for people.

 

As to why so many of these "new urbanist" developments look articial: it's because they are. Authentically urban places were built incrementally, on small plots (25 to 50-ft frontage), with zero lateral or front setbacks. So you would get blockfaces that look like this, where every ten steps or so, you've got something new and different to see. It's fun and interesting to walk along a block like that.  Our current development rules (specifically lateral setbacks and parking minimums) make it next to impossible to build like that anymore. Instead, it makes sense to develop large plots of land, centralize the parking, and build a small number of huge structures so you don't need to have setbacks between individual tenants.

 

So what could we do to create an organic, "old-urbanist"-feeling area? Change the rules to let small-scale development happen once again. Here's one idea: Close 19th St to car traffic from Yale to Ashland. Build a parking garage in place of that surface lot next to Sand Dollar. Sell the land currently occupied by the roadway on 19th, the middle 50 feet of the 80-ft right-of-way, in small plots (25, 33 and 50-ft frontage) with zero setbacks, zero parking minimums, and, say, a 50-ft height restriction. People could build shops, restaurants, townhouses, small-scale multi-family buildings, or flats-over-retail. Whatever. The land sale alone would fetch at least $6M for the city, not to mention the additional sales and property taxes. And we'd have an amazing pedestrian amenity that would be packed every weekend because there's nothing else in the city quite like it.

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Angostura said:

 

That density is a pre-requisite for walkable is not a controversial statement. Neither is the fact that parking minimums and setbacks are a hindrance to density.

 

I don't think cars are bad, but when you design the built environment around cars rather than around people, cities tend to be the worse for it. If you design places for people (mostly narrow streets within neighborhoods, linked by larger arterials, roads and freeways), you will naturally get less traffic (since things are closer together, people don't have to drive as far to get to them, and a higher percentage of trips are taken on foot). Here's a map of the old section of 19th St. The red and yellow areas dedicated to cars, the blue areas to people. Even in the most walkable part of the neighborhood, half the area is dedicated to cars and car storage. Zoom out, and it gets a lot worse. Imagine how much more places there would be to walk to if we used some of that car space to build actual places for people.

 

As to why so many of these "new urbanist" developments look articial: it's because they are. Authentically urban places were built incrementally, on small plots (25 to 50-ft frontage), with zero lateral or front setbacks. So you would get blockfaces that look like this, where every ten steps or so, you've got something new and different to see. It's fun and interesting to walk along a block like that.  Our current development rules (specifically lateral setbacks and parking minimums) make it next to impossible to build like that anymore. Instead, it makes sense to develop large plots of land, centralize the parking, and build a small number of huge structures so you don't need to have setbacks between individual tenants.

 

So what could we do to create an organic, "old-urbanist"-feeling area? Change the rules to let small-scale development happen once again. Here's one idea: Close 19th St to car traffic from Yale to Ashland. Build a parking garage in place of that surface lot next to Sand Dollar. Sell the land currently occupied by the roadway on 19th, the middle 50 feet of the 80-ft right-of-way, in small plots (25, 33 and 50-ft frontage) with zero setbacks, zero parking minimums, and, say, a 50-ft height restriction. People could build shops, restaurants, townhouses, small-scale multi-family buildings, or flats-over-retail. Whatever. The land sale alone would fetch at least $6M for the city, not to mention the additional sales and property taxes. And we'd have an amazing pedestrian amenity that would be packed every weekend because there's nothing else in the city quite like it.

 

 

 

 

But the old buildings downtown weren't built because of restrictions, they were built because they DIDN'T have all sorts of restrictions. (On that note, I found a very interesting article about how 40% of Manhattan's buildings are grandfathered into the zoning code due to some violation or another that couldn't be done today including setbacks and height, and one of the things noted that a "New New York" would be less dense--link). I imagine the same would be for Philadelphia and others. The "designed for cars/designed for people" are just NU buzzwords, and I'm not going to dissect everything here but closing off 19th Street would literally make it a shopping mall.

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6 hours ago, IronTiger said:

 

But the old buildings downtown weren't built because of restrictions, they were built because they DIDN'T have all sorts of restrictions. 

 

That's exactly right. (Availability of financing for mega-projects over the last 70 years or so is also a factor, though.) A lot of great neighborhoods in the US would be illegal to build today.

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6 hours ago, IronTiger said:

 

closing off 19th Street would literally make it a shopping mall.

 

If by shopping mall you mean a narrow pedestrian corridor with shops on both sides, then I suppose you might be right. Except for the roof, the design conformity, and the lack of an ocean of parking surrounding it.

 

But if shopping malls mostly looked like this:

 

Switzerland2-1.jpg

 

or this:

 

pariscurb.jpg

 

 

 

...people would probably think they're pretty great.

 

 

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I don't think we'll ever see super-narrow corridors like that in the U.S. that are actual buildings like that (ADA restrictions, fire code, just general construction--most of those narrow roads are the result of dense city construction from hundreds of years ago, and historically density was a bad thing. Poverty, disease, all that. Bringing this topic around back to Houston, I think that the main Heights retail district should adopt NU principles moving forward because it is also something that NU always is but no one addresses--it's relatively upscale. Before anyone starts suggesting tearing out parking lots for aesthetic reasons, 317 West 19th would have to redeveloped--seems it's basically been a scrapyard storage area for years.

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49 minutes ago, IronTiger said:

Before anyone starts suggesting tearing out parking lots for aesthetic reasons, 317 West 19th would have to redeveloped--seems it's basically been a scrapyard storage area for years.

 

Ever wonder why that land, which seems to generate next to zero revenue, but carries a $10,000 tax bill, hasn't been developed?

 

Let's assume the planning commission grants a variance to match the building line of their neighbors, a BIG "if". If someone wanted to build, say, a furniture store, they would have to find space to park 12 cars. For a clothing boutique or wine store (we can have those now): 24 cars. How about a barber shop? 48 cars. God forbid they try and build a restaurant (60 cars) or a bar (84 cars).

 

We've essentially made it illegal to redevelop that plot of land, meaning it will remain a scrap yard until we change the regulations that keep it that way.

 

 

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1 hour ago, cspwal said:

Where do they get these numbers?  I've never been to a barbershop that could even be cutting 48 people's hair at once.  That would be one busy barber shop

 

Those parking numbers assume 6,000 square feet of gross floor area.  That might qualify as the world's largest barber shop.

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2 hours ago, cspwal said:

Where do they get these numbers?  I've never been to a barbershop that could even be cutting 48 people's hair at once.  That would be one busy barber shop

 

well, really it would be more like 12 barbers, 12 people in the chairs, and 24 (2 per chair) waiting for a cut...but yes, it's overkill.

 

i guess you could apply for a parking variance, but watch out for torches and pitchforks from the locals...

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4 hours ago, Angostura said:

 

Ever wonder why that land, which seems to generate next to zero revenue, but carries a $10,000 tax bill, hasn't been developed?

 

Let's assume the planning commission grants a variance to match the building line of their neighbors, a BIG "if". If someone wanted to build, say, a furniture store, they would have to find space to park 12 cars. For a clothing boutique or wine store (we can have those now): 24 cars. How about a barber shop? 48 cars. God forbid they try and build a restaurant (60 cars) or a bar (84 cars).

 

We've essentially made it illegal to redevelop that plot of land, meaning it will remain a scrap yard until we change the regulations that keep it that way.

 

 

While regulations may have to do with the lack of redevelopment, wouldn't the type of development you're suggesting (no setbacks, no front parking lot) make things less likely to develop in most cases? The reason why its undeveloped is lack of demand. If the Houston Heights had some sort of merchants association, they would probably push one way or another on what to do with it. And if a parking variance is defeated by Heights residents, isn't that the point of "people oriented development"?

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16 hours ago, IronTiger said:

While regulations may have to do with the lack of redevelopment, wouldn't the type of development you're suggesting (no setbacks, no front parking lot) make things less likely to develop in most cases? The reason why its undeveloped is lack of demand. If the Houston Heights had some sort of merchants association, they would probably push one way or another on what to do with it.

 

No parking minimums doesn't mean no parking. There are no parking minimums in the CBD, but there seems to be plenty of parking. It's just not free.  Same with most of midtown. What parking minimums do is require EACH development to provide parking, so there's no incentive to have centralized, shared parking facilities. Would it be so terrible if there were a parking structure or two on Washington, or White Oak, or 19th that allowed all the surface lots to be developed into useful places?

 

It also makes small-scale development really expensive. If you do a 5000 s.f. standalone restaurant, you need another 15,000 s.f. of land for the 50 parking spaces the regs require. But if you add a dry cleaner and a check cashing place to the same building, now you're a "neighborhood shopping center", and you only need 5 spaces per 1000 s.f., so you can build 10,000 s.f. with the same number of spaces. This is why we see so many restaurants in strip centers.

 

If you de-couple development from parking and price on-street parking correctly, the market will sort it out pretty quickly. 

 

 

Quote

And if a parking variance is defeated by Heights residents, isn't that the point of "people oriented development"?

 

 

Cute.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Angostura said:

 

No parking minimums doesn't mean no parking. There are no parking minimums in the CBD, but there seems to be plenty of parking. It's just not free.  Same with most of midtown. What parking minimums do is require EACH development to provide parking, so there's no incentive to have centralized, shared parking facilities. Would it be so terrible if there were a parking structure or two on Washington, or White Oak, or 19th that allowed all the surface lots to be developed into useful places?

 

It also makes small-scale development really expensive. If you do a 5000 s.f. standalone restaurant, you need another 15,000 s.f. of land for the 50 parking spaces the regs require. But if you add a dry cleaner and a check cashing place to the same building, now you're a "neighborhood shopping center", and you only need 5 spaces per 1000 s.f., so you can build 10,000 s.f. with the same number of spaces. This is why we see so many restaurants in strip centers.

 

If you de-couple development from parking and price on-street parking correctly, the market will sort it out pretty quickly.

 

 

 

I think our parking regulations do allow for centralized shared parking facilities to offset on-site parking, at least in some parts of town.

 

I am generally in favor of letting the market sort things out, but just letting the market sort out parking in areas like Montrose , Washington and White Oak will almost certainly mean adjacent residential streets clogged with parking by patrons of the commercial establishments.

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7 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

I think our parking regulations do allow for centralized shared parking facilities to offset on-site parking, at least in some parts of town.

 

I am generally in favor of letting the market sort things out, but just letting the market sort out parking in areas like Montrose , Washington and White Oak will almost certainly mean adjacent residential streets clogged with parking by patrons of the commercial establishments.

 

You can do 25% of your requirement offsite, provided it's for your exclusive use, and provided it's within 500-ft. If you have full-time valet, it can be up to 75%, but still has to be exclusive during the hours you're open.

 

I'm not sure what the standard for "clogged" is. If it's that cars can't get through, then parking should be restricted to one side of the street, or the street should be converted to one-way traffic. If a street can't function when more or less 100% of the legal parking is occupied, then it's a design issue. But in general, if you price a good at less than its value, it will tend to be over-consumed. Just having a "free" valet-only lot will tend to push a lot of restaurant parking onto adjacent streets where it's actually free. Price on-street parking correctly and the problem goes away.

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14 minutes ago, Angostura said:

 

You can do 25% of your requirement offsite, provided it's for your exclusive use, and provided it's within 500-ft. If you have full-time valet, it can be up to 75%, but still has to be exclusive during the hours you're open.

 

I'm not sure what the standard for "clogged" is. If it's that cars can't get through, then parking should be restricted to one side of the street, or the street should be converted to one-way traffic. If a street can't function when more or less 100% of the legal parking is occupied, then it's a design issue. But in general, if you price a good at less than its value, it will tend to be over-consumed. Just having a "free" valet-only lot will tend to push a lot of restaurant parking onto adjacent streets where it's actually free. Price on-street parking correctly and the problem goes away.

 

You have the off-site requirements wrong.  The entire parking requirement can be provided off-site, if it's within 500 feet. In certain cases, some portion can be provided more than 500 feet away. The parking facility does not have to be for your exclusive use, but they don't allow double counting. (You can't use the same parking spaces to meet the parking requirements for 2 businesses.) Further, two or more use classifications can share parking spaces to meet their requirements.

 

The standard for "clogged" is that residents and their visitors cannot park on the street in their own neighborhood.  Maybe we shouldn't endeavor to provide free street parking for residents and their visitors, but if so, let's be honest about it.  As I said in the other thread, the idea behind parking requirements is to make businesses bear their own costs and keep them from free-loading on their neighbors.

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13 hours ago, Angostura said:

Cute.

 

Yeah, but what actually matters more to you, what local residents want out of their community, or your idea of a master-planned community? Like what Houston19514 already said, I have nothing against the latter (several unbroken blocks of shops and buildings would be nice) but do be honest with yourself instead of hiding behind buzzwords.

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On 1/19/2018 at 1:37 PM, Houston19514 said:

The standard for "clogged" is that residents and their visitors cannot park on the street in their own neighborhood.  Maybe we shouldn't endeavor to provide free street parking for residents and their visitors, but if so, let's be honest about it.  As I said in the other thread, the idea behind parking requirements is to make businesses bear their own costs and keep them from free-loading on their neighbors.

 

How about we make everyone bear their own costs, businesses and residents alike? I understand what the intentions were behind parking minimums, and the fact that they're almost universal in this country shows they must be popular, but there have been some serious unintended consequences.

 

Back when "excessive" street parking was first becoming an issue, we had two choices: increase the price of on-street parking to discourage its use or subsidize off-street parking by requiring businesses to include it. We chose the latter. As a result, development got a lot less dense and less walkable, so a higher and higher proportion of patrons arrive by car. We're now in a situation where SO MANY people arrive by car that even with outrageous parking minimums (like 14 spaces per 1000 s.f. for a bar), there's still a lot overflow parking on neighborhood streets. 

 

Eventually we need to realize that the remedy is causing the disease.

 

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On 1/19/2018 at 10:16 PM, IronTiger said:

 

Yeah, but what actually matters more to you, what local residents want out of their community, or your idea of a master-planned community? Like what Houston19514 already said, I have nothing against the latter (several unbroken blocks of shops and buildings would be nice) but do be honest with yourself instead of hiding behind buzzwords.

 

Whether residents like it or not, what we're doing now if financially untenable in the long run. 

 

A s.f. of land in the Heights with two-stories worth of building on it might be taxed at a valuation $400 or more. That same s.f. of land dedicated to parking is taxed at a valuation of $60, but still requires the same about of infrastructure (water & sewer pipes, drainage, streets and sidewalks) to support it. Low-density development doesn't generate enough tax revenue to pay for the infrastructure it takes to support it, let alone the other costs of running a city. A lot of towns and cities are starting to find this out the hard way.

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4 hours ago, Angostura said:

 

Whether residents like it or not, what we're doing now if financially untenable in the long run. 

 

A s.f. of land in the Heights with two-stories worth of building on it might be taxed at a valuation $400 or more. That same s.f. of land dedicated to parking is taxed at a valuation of $60, but still requires the same about of infrastructure (water & sewer pipes, drainage, streets and sidewalks) to support it. Low-density development doesn't generate enough tax revenue to pay for the infrastructure it takes to support it, let alone the other costs of running a city. A lot of towns and cities are starting to find this out the hard way.

 

But the Heights is naturally densifying just because of market forces. Also, "parking requires as much infrastructure as a two-story building" is objectively wrong (little to no electricity being wired, maybe a storm sewer but no water connections, no gas, etc.). More restrictive development won't cure the "parking lot problem", either. If you want to see what I mean, go to Historic Aerials or Google Earth and type "368 Fell Street, San Francisco, CA". Navigate back to the early 1990s. There's a row of parking lots in a diagonal pattern stretching about seven blocks northeast. With the land value in San Francisco, Hayes Valley being relatively nice or at least nice enough to attract new construction, and with everything else being developed with hardly any surface parking, all that would become buildings again, right?

 

Wrong. In 2008, after more than 15 years (including a better economy) those parking lots still reigned, and most of the recent development was done in the last five years. Reason being S.F. is notorious for being hard to develop in, so much so that it was actually cheaper to let them stay as parking lots for decades despite lost tax revenue. Start requiring nonsense like "no parking in front" and you'll start seeing existing parking lots stick around a lot longer, but they won't be free or usable.

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38 minutes ago, IronTiger said:

Start requiring nonsense like "no parking in front" and you'll start seeing existing parking lots stick around a lot longer, but they won't be free or usable.

 

I think this is probably true. I don't want additional requirements. I just want the current ones lifted.

 

Zero minimums doesn't mean zero parking. Even in the CBD/Midtown, where parking minimums are zero, there's still parking. I'd just like to see it (a) decoupled from individual developments, and (b) priced at something close to the cost of providing it. This would allow small-scale development (standalone stores, restaurants, etc. vs strip centers) to occur, and would provide an environment for centralized parking structures to be built (which starts to make sense at land values not much different from where they are now in the Heights). 

 

Any externalities can easily be dealt with by pricing on-street parking more rationally.

 

 

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On 1/19/2018 at 8:30 AM, Angostura said:

 

if you add a dry cleaner and a check cashing place to the same building, now you're a "neighborhood shopping center", and you only need 5 spaces per 1000 s.f., so you can build 10,000 s.f. with the same number of spaces. This is why we see so many restaurants in strip centers.

 

 

although if the restaurant is more than 20% of the total SF of the center, then you have to provide more than straight retail parking ratios

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/18/2018 at 10:38 AM, IronTiger said:

 Before anyone starts suggesting tearing out parking lots for aesthetic reasons, 317 West 19th would have to redeveloped--seems it's basically been a scrapyard storage area for years.

 

 

That site appears to have been completely cleared of its previous contents. Not sure what's planned for the site.

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  • 1 year later...

Speaking of clearing lots of their previous contents. . . resurrecting this string, as the houses on the lots have been demoed and/or cleared.  Apologies for not snapping a photo, and I did not see any signage as to future use.

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  • The title was changed to 628 E. 11th St.
  • The title was changed to Frost Bank At 628 E. 11th St.

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