I-45 Rebuild (North Houston Highway Improvement Project)

[Amlaham]

Noticed another giant double billboard and a small building off of St Emanuel and i45 were also removed. However, it looks like they were taken down December 2021. 

 

 

[Amlaham]

Found more, these buildings were at the south west intersection of i69 and 288. These were also demolished in 2022. 

 

 

 

[Amlaham]

Last one guys, sorry if these end up being irrelevant.

This one is on the south west side of La Branch and i69

 

[hindesky]

The TXDOT guy I talked with said they have bought a bunch of property in the area including the old Mexican Consulate. I'm surprised they let KPFT move in to their new building on Caroline St. because he mentioned that it would be coming down too sometime in the future.

[august948]

4 hours ago, editor said:

No one said any such thing, but if you enjoy living out in a field like a farm animal that's your choice to make, so you have to live with your decisions.

Moreover, the "hive" thing is just a real estate industry meme spread by desperate low-end agents who can't come up with any logical arguments.  It's the real estate equivalent of calling someone a "poopyhead," and reveals more about the writer than the position being argued. 

I hate to break it to you, but the notion of continuously building vast expanses of single-family homes is last century's thinking.  Population decline is a thing, and has already arrived in many developed countries.  Who's going to live in all those empty suburbs?

To @Ross' point about moving because of his job, moving around for work is not unusual.  In the 70's and 80's, there was a joke in the tech industry that IBM stood for "I've Been Moved."  From 1994 to 2006, I had a job that constantly moved me and my family not just from neighborhood to neighborhood, but across the country.  I lived in about 11 states because of it.  But it was a choice I made.  I never thought, "We should spend billions of tax dollars building freeways to accommodate my chosen way of life."

I think the extreme would be wild animal, not farm animal.  Though life on a farm would be nice.

I'm not in the real estate industry and so wasn't aware that "hive" was a real estate pejorative.  I'll keep that in mind now that I know.

Population decline is absolutely a thing.  Though for the US that will happen well into the future and at a much slower pace than the rest of the world.  The big unknown is how population decline will affect the economy and life in general.  It's likely, though, that when the population declines economic activity will also decline.  It's far from certain that economic decline is going to increase urbanization.  It seems more likely that such decline would increase ruralization as people return to greater self-sufficiency out of necessity.  The only example I can think of off of the top of my head is the de-urbanization that happened in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire.  If you have some other examples of what happens to a society when populations and economies collapse, I'd genuinely like to hear them.

[editor]

30 minutes ago, hindesky said:

I'm surprised they let KPFT move in to their new building on Caroline St. because he mentioned that it would be coming down too sometime in the future.

I'm surprised that it's coming down in the future, since the general manager and the disc jockeys on the air yesterday kept mentioning the new Caroline building like they're proud of it and expect to be there a long time.  Go figure.

7 minutes ago, august948 said:

I'm not in the real estate industry and so wasn't aware that "hive" was a real estate pejorative. 

Go out to the sticks to the west of Houston, and you'll see it on billboards put up in cow fields by local wantrapeneur real estate developers trying to convince people to move out of Houston.

[editor]

9 minutes ago, august948 said:

It seems more likely that such decline would increase ruralization as people return to greater self-sufficiency out of necessity

You don't have to look any further than America's own history, and the way business works today, to understand that population decline will mean people moving into cities and large towns, and not spreading themselves thinly across the landscape.

Texas is littered with dried up small towns that didn't make it.  People who live in small towns across America today constantly complain about the kids moving to the big city and leaving their towns to die.  That's been going on for at least the last half century.

From a business perspective, if I'm opening Ed's SuperSud Washateria, I'm going to put it as close as I can afford to the most people, I'm not going to put it out in the middle of a mouldering suburb with few people and no future.

From what I've read, I think Japan and South Korea are at the leading edge of the depopulation trend.  Their governments are giving the last remaining people in suburban villages incentives to consolidate into larger towns and cities.  It's just too expensive to maintain infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, police protection, fire cover, etc…) for a declining population spread out over a large area. 

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, hindesky said:

The TXDOT guy I talked with said they have bought a bunch of property in the area including the old Mexican Consulate. I'm surprised they let KPFT move in to their new building on Caroline St. because he mentioned that it would be coming down too sometime in the future.

Per the maps on TXDoT's NHHIP website, it appears the KPFT building will not be taken.

https://www.txdot.gov/nhhip.html

 

Edited May 12 by Houston19514

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, editor said:

From what I've read, I think Japan and South Korea are at the leading edge of the depopulation trend.  Their governments are giving the last remaining people in suburban villages incentives to consolidate into larger towns and cities.  It's just too expensive to maintain infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, police protection, fire cover, etc…) for a declining population spread out over a large area. 

Japan is paying families 1 million yen to move to the countryside 

https://theconversation.com/japan-is-paying-families-1-million-yen-to-move-to-the-countryside-but-it-wont-make-tokyo-any-smaller-197551#:~:text=The Japanese government has announced,000 on previous such payments.

Edited May 12 by Houston19514

[Ross]

11 hours ago, editor said:

No one said any such thing, but if you enjoy living out in a field like a farm animal that's your choice to make, so you have to live with your decisions.

Moreover, the "hive" thing is just a real estate industry meme spread by desperate low-end agents who can't come up with any logical arguments.  It's the real estate equivalent of calling someone a "poopyhead," and reveals more about the writer than the position being argued. 

I hate to break it to you, but the notion of continuously building vast expanses of single-family homes is last century's thinking.  Population decline is a thing, and has already arrived in many developed countries.  Who's going to live in all those empty suburbs?

To @Ross' point about moving because of his job, moving around for work is not unusual.  In the 70's and 80's, there was a joke in the tech industry that IBM stood for "I've Been Moved."  From 1994 to 2006, I had a job that constantly moved me and my family not just from neighborhood to neighborhood, but across the country.  I lived in about 11 states because of it.  But it was a choice I made.  I never thought, "We should spend billions of tax dollars building freeways to accommodate my chosen way of life."

I know all about moving for work. From the time I was born until I left home to go to college, we moved 9 times, including overseas. I've moved 9 times since finishing my degree, with 7 years overseas in 4 different countries.

I was responding to the point about having areas that are walkable and located near to work locations. I think that's an unreasonable expectation in Houston given how many different work locations are in the Greater Houston area. Implying that a person should move within Houston every time their work location changes is impractical at best, and really bad at worst. No one is going to be excited about moving 5 miles to be next to the new work location, with kid's schools to worry about, whether the available accommodation is any good, whether there are decent amenities, etc. If you own your home it's much worse. It just generally works out better to stay where you are and find a way to get to work.

[august948]

10 hours ago, editor said:

I'm surprised that it's coming down in the future, since the general manager and the disc jockeys on the air yesterday kept mentioning the new Caroline building like they're proud of it and expect to be there a long time.  Go figure.

Go out to the sticks to the west of Houston, and you'll see it on billboards put up in cow fields by local wantrapeneur real estate developers trying to convince people to move out of Houston.

Real estate developers trying to convince people to buy their developments?  Now there's a shocker.

[august948]

10 hours ago, editor said:

You don't have to look any further than America's own history, and the way business works today, to understand that population decline will mean people moving into cities and large towns, and not spreading themselves thinly across the landscape.

Texas is littered with dried up small towns that didn't make it.  People who live in small towns across America today constantly complain about the kids moving to the big city and leaving their towns to die.  That's been going on for at least the last half century.

From a business perspective, if I'm opening Ed's SuperSud Washateria, I'm going to put it as close as I can afford to the most people, I'm not going to put it out in the middle of a mouldering suburb with few people and no future.

From what I've read, I think Japan and South Korea are at the leading edge of the depopulation trend.  Their governments are giving the last remaining people in suburban villages incentives to consolidate into larger towns and cities.  It's just too expensive to maintain infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, police protection, fire cover, etc…) for a declining population spread out over a large area. 

I don't think you can look at America's history for guidance on this particular issue.  America has been in population and economic growth mode for all of it's history.  What we're talking about is permanent year over year declines in population.  That's whole different animal (and not a farm animal at that).  It's not at all clear that the long term (generations) reaction to that will be the further growth of urban areas. 

Japan and South Korea are export economies.  They need to sell goods overseas because their populations are in decline and they don't have the consumer base to support their economies.  Without the option to sell abroad, they would (will) experience significant declines in their economies, possibly going as far as deindustrialization.  Bear in mind that it's industrialization that has led to the phenomenal growth of urban areas since the second world war.  That's the reason people left the farms for the big cities.  If that goes away, so does much of your urban population.  This is whole economy level stuff, not Ed's SuperSud's level stuff.   No doubt, governments will try to maintain (obsolete?) twentieth century trends as you are implying Japan and South Korea are, but that's a losing battle in the end.

[004n063]

12 hours ago, Ross said:

I was responding to the point about having areas that are walkable and located near to work locations. I think that's an unreasonable expectation in Houston given how many different work locations are in the Greater Houston area. Implying that a person should move within Houston every time their work location changes

I specifically said "or transit options thereto," though.

Of course it's unreasonable to expect people to move constantly to be within walking distance of work. I really don't think that I implied that all. 

I don't think it's unreasonable to want a majority of employers to coalesce around transit-accessible nodes, however, if we're talking about a 30-year vision for the city.

I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that a transportation plan that relies on people's buying and servicing of expensive, large, private vehicles that rapidly degrade themselves, their extremely expensive infrastructure, and the environment around them is a bad plan. 

[samagon]

On 5/12/2023 at 7:34 PM, Ross said:

I know all about moving for work. From the time I was born until I left home to go to college, we moved 9 times, including overseas. I've moved 9 times since finishing my degree, with 7 years overseas in 4 different countries.

I was responding to the point about having areas that are walkable and located near to work locations. I think that's an unreasonable expectation in Houston given how many different work locations are in the Greater Houston area. Implying that a person should move within Houston every time their work location changes is impractical at best, and really bad at worst. No one is going to be excited about moving 5 miles to be next to the new work location, with kid's schools to worry about, whether the available accommodation is any good, whether there are decent amenities, etc. If you own your home it's much worse. It just generally works out better to stay where you are and find a way to get to work.

I've worked for the same company for coming up on 21 years. in that time the office has had 4 locations, and is completely closed as of now, ownership is going to be getting a new office (primarily to have a conference room, and customer training area). so I'll be able to say, in the next year or two, 5 locations, 22 years.

I used to live in the 'burbs, and commuting when the office wasn't near the house was a 1 hour affair from one 'burb to another. luckily, for most of that I could just toss cruise control and go, but about 30% of the drive was in stop/go traffic not on freeways.

anyway, I now live in the east end, and can happily say that for the 15 years that I've been in the area, my commute at office #2 was 20ish minutes, and #3 and 4 was less than 15 minutes (including the walk from the car to the office desk).

I don't think I'll be so lucky next office, rumor is that will be near i-10 Campbell area, so I'll be back to a 20-30 minute commute.

meanwhile, some folks have only ever rented, and they move with the office, others lived within minutes of the first office and have grumbled every time the office moves farther away from the primary location. a few quit. I'm out here just shrugging at the whole thing. I'm sure there's some actuarial table to assess that risk.

it's whatever, we all assume various risks in our lives and there are trade-offs for those risks. the big problem is though, the actual cost of living in the suburbs gets hidden in new developments paying for older ones (aka, roads and other maintenance of the older stuff that exists in those towns is paid for by taxes from new owners, there's little maintenance for the new stuff, so they don't have to worry about that for 10ish years, and then they just need to get some freeways expanded and woo some developers to build more homes), at some point that party is going to end and someone is going to be left holding the bag. and if freeway construction that helps promote that behavior is any indication, everyone is going to be paying those checks when they come due.

Edited May 15 by samagon

[hindesky]

First building demo permit.

[hindesky]

Two more building demo permits.

[samagon]

On 5/4/2023 at 12:39 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

Wow yeah F that, 20+ years!? And they wouldn't start on the capped park section until 2031. I've been on the fence about this for a while but this schedule just convinced me this is not what we need. 

it'll be the slowest moving train wreck in the cities history.

[Amlaham]

Idk if this has already been posted/discussed before, but Midtown TIRZ created funding for a cap park over i69 between Midtown and the Museum District. The dates are obviously off, but the important thing is that they plan on funding the park! 

 

[hindesky]

Demo of the buildings is underway.

[Luminare]

On 5/12/2023 at 10:47 AM, Amlaham said:

Last one guys, sorry if these end up being irrelevant.

This one is on the south west side of La Branch and i69

 

Some nice investigative work @Amlaham keep it up.

[Texasota]

On 5/18/2023 at 2:41 PM, Amlaham said:

Idk if this has already been posted/discussed before, but Midtown TIRZ created funding for a cap park over i69 between Midtown and the Museum District. The dates are obviously off, but the important thing is that they plan on funding the park! 

 

Good to see confirmation, but this one was always going to happen. Midtown is well funded and good at planning. 

 

My big concern is the N Main cap.

[hindesky]

[HoustonMidtown]

Was riding the bike trail behind Clayton homes and ran in to emergency vehicles all over the place - took me a while to find what was going on....

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2023/05/24/water-rescue-reported-in-buffalo-bayou-hfd-says/

 

[hindesky]

Plumbing and building demo permits.

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

All the buildings are coming down.

[hindesky]

 

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

[hindesky]

[Triton]

Man, I'm going to be sad when they tear down Tout Suite. Someone was telling me it was the first Ford dealership in Houston... ?

[Houston19514]

31 minutes ago, Triton said:

Man, I'm going to be sad when they tear down Tout Suite. Someone was telling me it was the first Ford dealership in Houston... ?

There’s at least one thread on this forum about old Ford dealerships.  I don’t see anything about a dealership at this location. 

[Ross]

7 hours ago, Triton said:

Man, I'm going to be sad when they tear down Tout Suite. Someone was telling me it was the first Ford dealership in Houston... ?

In 1923, that address was Houston Brick and Supply

in 1911, there was a grocer and Houston Wood and Coal. Ford was located at 800 Walker.

I don't see any evidence that there was a Ford dealer there.

[samagon]

speaking of favorite places that are losing their land...

I've chatted briefly with the owner of Huynh, and asked what they plan on doing, I know they plan on keeping on, we just never got to that part of the conversation before he had to move on to another table.

[JClark54]

They're aware of the inevitable, but aren't looking for a new location at the moment, husband/co-owner Bryan Hucke told me. They'll move when it's time.

Would prefer to stay in the east end, where the restaurant already has a large dedicated customer base, but the I-10 corridor going west is being considered. Heights, Spring Branch, Memorial, Memorial City were name-dropped. It'll depend on what spaces are available at what price points at the time. 

They want an inexpensive, turnkey restaurant space where no renovations are required in an effort to keep prices affordable. 

Edited June 12 by JClark54

[004n063]

2 hours ago, JClark54 said:

They're aware of the inevitable, but aren't looking for a new location at the moment, husband/co-owner Bryan Hucke told me. They'll move when it's time.

Would prefer to stay in the east end, where the restaurant already has a large dedicated customer base, but the I-10 corridor going west is being considered. Heights, Spring Branch, Memorial, Memorial City were name-dropped. It'll depend on what spaces are available at what price points at the time. 

They want an inexpensive, turnkey restaurant space where no renovations are required in an effort to keep prices affordable. 

Appreciate the info, but I couldn't help but chuckle at "stay in the east end" - they're barely at the east beginning!

Which got me wondering (sorry, a little off-topic) - where does the East End "begin" for y'all (not necessarily talking about the technical district boundaries for the Greater East End district)? I think for me that rail line next to 65th is the dividing line

[hindesky]

Greater East End District boundaries.

https://eastenddistrict.com/wp-content/uploads/EE-Map-8.5x11.pdf

[Luminare]

wow. Buffalo Bayou is FULL. Y'all been getting that much rain?

[JClark54]

17 hours ago, 004n063 said:

Appreciate the info, but I couldn't help but chuckle at "stay in the east end" - they're barely at the east beginning!

Which got me wondering (sorry, a little off-topic) - where does the East End "begin" for y'all (not necessarily talking about the technical district boundaries for the Greater East End district)? I think for me that rail line next to 65th is the dividing line

I understand your laugh. They're right on the edge of downtown. My gut tells me the purists on this forum would have had a bigger issue with my location had I used downtown, however. I can see the comments now... 

In terms of what's east end, they'd be Third Ward if the ward boundaries are used. Third Ward roughly follows the West Belt. Hence, the Leeland light rail stop being called Leeland/Third Ward. They're obviously EaDo if we use current names, but that's east end, too.

 

Today, I think I'm fairly safe in assuming most people use highways as boundaries. It's east of 45, albeit you're right it's only east by 100 feet or so. 

[samagon]

17 hours ago, 004n063 said:

Appreciate the info, but I couldn't help but chuckle at "stay in the east end" - they're barely at the east beginning!

Which got me wondering (sorry, a little off-topic) - where does the East End "begin" for y'all (not necessarily talking about the technical district boundaries for the Greater East End district)? I think for me that rail line next to 65th is the dividing line

there's the East End Management District, which their coverage starts where EaDo ends, as a western border.

that about the only officially named area with East End in the name.

my mom (and probably anyone who grew up in Houston before freeways defined borders), who grew up on Truett and Dismuke, went to Austin HS, she'd probably define EE as everything east of the westbelt railroad. (which is pretty much where the EEMD starts)

myself, before I moved here, I thought of anything east of 59 as the east end (which affirms @JClark54), now that I've lived here for 15 years (mostly at Telephone and Broadmoor), I'd probably use that same coloquial border she does. there's definitely a clear difference at that point. west of that (excluding the newer townhomes) it's mostly warehouses/industrial, and not high quality homes. east of that, there's less warehouses, and more homes, and of higher quality. at least, of the older stock. 

where you are seeing the start of the east end, basically, at wayside, I would say is smack dab in the middle of the east end. I bet if you canvassed 100 people, you'd probably get about 10-20 different responses for where the east end historically, and currently would have begun.

to the greater point, I'd think that most people who live with freeways, and probably don't live here, or have the influence of others who might have defined things before freeways, anything north of Gulf Freeway, east of 59, and south of Buffalo Bayou is Houston East End.

of course, with all the stuff happening north of Buffalo Bayou, I'd guess in 50 years the East End may include anything south of I-10 too. the same as the border of The Heights continues to grow over the years.

Edited June 13 by samagon

[Triton]

On 6/11/2023 at 12:47 AM, Houston19514 said:

There’s at least one thread on this forum about old Ford dealerships.  I don’t see anything about a dealership at this location. 

 

On 6/11/2023 at 8:19 AM, Ross said:

In 1923, that address was Houston Brick and Supply

in 1911, there was a grocer and Houston Wood and Coal. Ford was located at 800 Walker.

I don't see any evidence that there was a Ford dealer there.

Oh ok thanks. This was a colleague telling me about this... even had an elaborate story too. Like, where the glass windows are facing the highway is where the service bay for Ford vehicles used to enter. But guess not.

[HoustonMidtown]

So weird being able to see through this area with all the apartments demolished

https://flic.kr/p/2oJKm3Y

 

 

Edited June 21 by HoustonMidtown

[hindesky]

Everything but the slabs are gone.

[samagon]

seeing this land without homes on it (other than doing the obvious things) shows some interesting features.

the slope of the land cascading towards the bayou is very obvious when you view it from a south to north orientation.

there's a lot of land there, and presumably they'll make it a retention basin?

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, samagon said:

seeing this land without homes on it (other than doing the obvious things) shows some interesting features.

the slope of the land cascading towards the bayou is very obvious when you view it from a south to north orientation.

there's a lot of land there, and presumably they'll make it a retention basin?

I-45 and I-69 will be routed over most of that land, eliminating the big curve.

[samagon]

7 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

I-45 and I-69 will be routed over most of that land, eliminating the big curve.

yes, that's correct.

I guess, I was just wondering, because it just says "Potential Detention". 

will it actually be an overflow/detention area, and will that area be given a similar treatment as Arthur Storey Park, or even the unnamed detention pond at 610/Braeswood intersection.

I'm guessing they'd say that's out of their scope of work, and it will depend upon the corps of engineers to do something?

[hindesky]