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Yeah, but is that a real street or just a wide walkway designed to look like a street? I mean there isn't a car in any of those photos. And in one photo, people are walking in the "street". That's why I was thinking that it looked like Main Street at Disneyland. :) Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it, it's pretty and practical, but I wouldn't be using this place as an example of anti-fake anti-wannabee architecture.

Its an internal street. You can drive on it, but its not really connected to any city grid. Its mostly for look and feel, I think, but if you want to drive on it between the anchors you can.

Edited by buildingunbuildingrebuilding
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Its an internal street. You can drive on it, but its not really connected to any city grid. Its mostly for look and feel, I think, but if you want to drive on it between the anchors you can.

The developer pledges to use the abandoned right of way for a pedestrian piazza connecting buildings on either side.

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The developer pledges to use the abandoned right of way for a pedestrian piazza connecting buildings on either side.

Just to clarify, my comments were in regard to the Domain in Austin that was pictured above in the thread. I have no knowledge beyond what I have read here and elsewhere on what Randall plans for the Village.

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The city could have got just a little more money from this. He really wanted this built and with all the people who did not want it, he may have given up more cash for the street. A few post up it says he will get over 2mil for people who want first pick(if all 600 pay 4,000$) and it is not even under construction yet.

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The city could have got just a little more money from this. He really wanted this built and with all the people who did not want it, he may have given up more cash for the street. A few post up it says he will get over 2mil for people who want first pick(if all 600 pay 4,000$) and it is not even under construction yet.

You realize of course, that he's going to have to spend money on this pedestrian plaza to make it look nice enough to justify passing the costs back to his buyers, right? That takes money on top of the acquisition cost...an a fair bit of it. All for something that he might've just been able to spend a lesser amount on a skybridge to connect, as is typical of most other multi-block developments. What do you really think the marginal benefit of this plaza really was? And since when does revenue = profit?

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You realize of course, that he's going to have to spend money on this pedestrian plaza to make it look nice enough to justify passing the costs back to his buyers, right? That takes money on top of the acquisition cost...an a fair bit of it. All for something that he might've just been able to spend a lesser amount on a skybridge to connect, as is typical of most other multi-block developments. What do you really think the marginal benefit of this plaza really was? And since when does revenue = profit?

He is not building this to lose money or make a small profit. The units wont be cheap with or with out the plaza. Got to spend money to make money, and he would have payed a bit more for the street.

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He is not building this to lose money or make a small profit. The units wont be cheap with or with out the plaza. Got to spend money to make money, and he would have payed a bit more for the street.

How do you know? The question that needs to be asked is not what his bottom line is or what he can afford. It is whether the value added by the pedestrian plaza was worth the sum of the acquisition and construction costs.

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How do you know? The question that needs to be asked is not what his bottom line is or what he can afford. It is whether the value added by the pedestrian plaza was worth the sum of the acquisition and construction costs.

I agree, I imagine that it would be as appealing as a cul-de-sac is in some neighborhoods, just on a different scale.

After looking at the model, it just appeared more massave than I thought it was originally going to be. I was pleased to know that a significant amount of units have been purchased, but neglected to specify if that also included the retail portion of the project.

Another thing about the design that caught my attention is a worry about noise pollution. While I don't THINK they're going to put in a club in there, but if a resturant gets VERY popular or noisy, the noice reverberation would definately a problem; particularly for the lower floors.

I'm dying to see more detailed renderings to study more, though.

But that's the geek in me.

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Having 121 of the 124 units reserved before construction even begins seems very impressive. Does this only represent the small non-refundable payments (~$4000)? What it the norm for pre-construction "reserves" in a project of this magnitude?

I am still excited about the Sonoma project, but worry that the Village may be pricing itself out of it's core audience. For every West U mom shopping on the weekends, the Village continues to attract a wide variety of students from Rice and the Med Center. You just don't see that in Highland Village or Uptown Park.

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Sales office tells me that abatement has already begun on the building and that demolition should start in the next two weeks.

Also, just because the City could have gouged LaMesa (not Davis by the way) on the sale of the street doesn't justify it doing so. City has to have an appraisal done and treat it as an arm's length transaction.

The approach seemingly condoned above is called extortion.

TNJ

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's amazing that all of these projects are happening at the same time (Sonoma, West Ave, Pavillions, MainPlace, Mosaic, and a few others). Houston is going to be pretty different in 2010.

I really like the fact that this is going to have retail and restaurants and be open the the public. I'm glad it's not going to be some traditional gated community type condo development. Since I moved here, that block has been mostly dead. I am looking forward to seeing more life in this part of the Village.

How many stories is Sonoma going to be? Will it be taller than the old building they are tearing down?

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  • 1 month later...

Today at lunch I noticed that the ugly green building was getting the wrecking ball. I had never seen an actual wrecking ball in action before. It was actually pretty cool!

Edited by Jax
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Today at lunch I noticed that the ugly green building was getting the wrecking ball. I had never seen an actual wrecking ball in action before. It was actually pretty cool!

aww man - i have a soft spot for that building...there aren't too many ugly green buildings around :P

but yeah, i was at the Walgreens last week and noticed it was "ready."

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Haha!

It kind of looks better in the rendering than in real life because it looks like there are balconies on each floor (I don't remember that), and I think the top floors were kind of unused and neglected, at least since I came to Houston. I think it's pretty cool that Sonoma will be the Village's first mixed use development. Maybe we'll see more.

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Ugh.

that's all sorts of ugly! The architect was ahead of its time, unfortunately he designed it like he was in the 70's. The Decade good taste forgot.

Nah, I thought the building in the drawing is quite cool looking, in a mod kind of way. Much better than the finished product.

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