Benny Thunders At 605 Columbia St.

[Bullman]

Can anyone tell me what is the name of the place behind Bike shop at Columbia and White Oak? I went to a party there before. Do they rent this place out? Thanks

[RedScare]

Can anyone tell me what is the name of the place behind Bike shop at Columbia and White Oak? I went to a party there before. Do they rent this place out? Thanks

Yes, they do.

Indian Summer Lodge

[Bullman]

Yes, they do.

Indian Summer Lodge

Thank you!

[innerloop]

And it's For Sale...

<http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearch.cf...lumbia%20Dr>

[s3mh]

It looks like this property changed hands recently and someone has demoed the Quonset hut on the front part of the property.  No clue who the new owners are (just an LLC) or what the plans are for this property.  

[innerloop]

Demo is continuing.  Here is a photo from White Oak.

[innerloop]

Not much is happening.  Here is a view looking south from the bike trail.

[s3mh]

It sure looks like this property and the Agricole project at the old Blue Line Bike Lab building are being developed together.  Or it could just be that the two properties are letting one another cross the property line between them to make it easier to do the demo/construction work that is going on right now.  

[s3mh]

On 12/14/2020 at 11:36 AM, s3mh said:

It sure looks like this property and the Agricole project at the old Blue Line Bike Lab building are being developed together.  Or it could just be that the two properties are letting one another cross the property line between them to make it easier to do the demo/construction work that is going on right now.  

Two different developments. Both will be bars.  

 

https://www.theleadernews.com/real_estate/two-upcoming-bars-have-heights-neighbors-on-edge/article_d1a17fe8-5b45-11eb-9290-bbe2bad038f8.html

[Ross]

1 hour ago, s3mh said:

Two different developments. Both will be bars.  

 

https://www.theleadernews.com/real_estate/two-upcoming-bars-have-heights-neighbors-on-edge/article_d1a17fe8-5b45-11eb-9290-bbe2bad038f8.html

And Nextdoor is blowing up with pleas to contact TABC and object to the alcohol license for at least one of them.

[Texasota]

poor babies.

poor, whiny babies.

[Ross]

12 hours ago, Texasota said:

poor babies.

poor, whiny babies.

Yes, that's a large part of it. Their big complaint is they don't want live music within 50 blocks of their houses.

[gmac]

That parcel would apparently be better used for a parking garage with storage units on top to meet the neighborhood's needs.

[kbates2]

The dude actually wrote the words, "music pollution" in his letter.  

[s3mh]

11 minutes ago, gmac said:

That parcel would apparently be better used for a parking garage with storage units on top to meet the neighborhood's needs.

Touche'

The complaints from the neighborhood are valid.  This area is going to be even more of a hot mess cramming two bars on top of Coltivare.  Having live music at a bar that is literally in people's backyards is just a big f u to the neighborhood.  If I lived in one of those houses, I would go with the giant erect penis in the backyard to protest.  

Unfortunately, this all could be seen coming from miles away.  When they went after the dry zone, it was obvious that parts of the Heights were going to get packed with bars.  When these two bars open, there will be 18 bars and restaurants on about a half mile of White Oak from Handies down to the Ready Room and Mutiny Wine bar.  And there will be more coming once the parking tower goes up.  I guess the best counter argument to the neighborhood is that the two new bars will be tear drops in a salted sea.  But I would not expect the neighborhood to just surrender even though the past votes to take away the dry zone were a big white flag.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8479323/New-York-man-erects-7ft-penis-yard-war-town.html

[Texasota]

*rolls eyes*

Yes, something on someone else's property is "literally in peoples backyards". Sure.

White Oak has been a retail/restaurant/entertainment corridor for a long time. If you live within a block of that, there are certain benefits and compromises that come with that.

Benefit: lots of stuff within walking distance

Compromise: Additional noise and busier street parking. 

This is how cities work. 

[s3mh]

2 hours ago, Texasota said:

*rolls eyes*

Yes, something on someone else's property is "literally in peoples backyards". Sure.

White Oak has been a retail/restaurant/entertainment corridor for a long time. If you live within a block of that, there are certain benefits and compromises that come with that.

Benefit: lots of stuff within walking distance

Compromise: Additional noise and busier street parking. 

This is how cities work. 

But if I put up my giant 7 foot erect penis on my property, causing the neighboring bar to lose business, is that ok?  That would be one of those "benefits/burdens" of opening a bar that abuts single family residential buildings.  You have the benefit of a quiet location instead of being on the feeder road or a strip mall.  But you have to deal with whatever the neighbors are doing. 

 

I know this is a city with no zoning in a capitalist economy where the person with the biggest bag of money gets to do what they want.  But that doesn't make it right.  And that doesn't mean that people adversely affected can't complain and hope for something better.  

 

And this is not how cities work.  Cities have zoning because they recognize that it is not fair for commercial developments to extract value from residential neighborhoods and leaving the neighbors to deal with all the externalities.  

[Texasota]

This is a commercial corridor. It has been for a long time. Fitzgerald's, before it was torn down? a 5 minute walk down the street. Before it was Fitzgerald's? It was a dance hall. There's been live music on White Oak longer than anyone currently in the neighborhood has been alive. 

And you can't possibly believe that a bar would lose business if you put up a 7' penis on your property. If anything, the opposite would be true. Everyone would want to go to the bar next to the giant penis!

[mollusk]

7 minutes ago, Texasota said:

And you can't possibly believe that a bar would lose business if you put up a 7' penis on your property. If anything, the opposite would be true. Everyone would want to go to the bar next to the giant penis!

Well, it does make it easier to give directions...

[s3mh]

4 hours ago, Texasota said:

This is a commercial corridor. It has been for a long time. Fitzgerald's, before it was torn down? a 5 minute walk down the street. Before it was Fitzgerald's? It was a dance hall. There's been live music on White Oak longer than anyone currently in the neighborhood has been alive. 

And you can't possibly believe that a bar would lose business if you put up a 7' penis on your property. If anything, the opposite would be true. Everyone would want to go to the bar next to the giant penis!

Fitz put a lot of money into that venue to sound proof.  My understanding is that the new bar will have some music on a patio.  

White Oak is commercial, but it is not a six lane road with 20 acre lots on each side.  It has a limited capacity for cars, bars and so on.  It is already overrun with cars and people and adding more and more bars and restaurants is just going to make it impossible.  

And that 7' penis is very anatomically accurate.  Not the kind of décor you will want if you are trying to sell $12 cocktails in the Heights.  

[gmac]

8 minutes ago, s3mh said:

Fitz put a lot of money into that venue to sound proof.  My understanding is that the new bar will have some music on a patio.  

White Oak is commercial, but it is not a six lane road with 20 acre lots on each side.  It has a limited capacity for cars, bars and so on.  It is already overrun with cars and people and adding more and more bars and restaurants is just going to make it impossible.  

And that 7' penis is very anatomically accurate.  Not the kind of décor you will want if you are trying to sell $12 cocktails in the Heights.  

$12 what now?

[BigRed]

So much pearl clutching!

[Texasota]

It sounds like s3mh actually wants to live in Spring. Or Cypress. Or Katy. A subdivision where all the noise and retail is on "a six lane road with 20 acre lots on each side" and the houses are on their little dead end cul-de-sacs and you have to drive everywhere. 

Too bad for them. That's not what the Heights has ever been. It's not a subdivision. It's a real, old-fashioned neighborhood, where you can walk or bike to most things. And that absolutely includes bars and entertainment and anywhere that serves alcohol. Putting bars on 6 lane roads is basically asking people to drive drunk. 

And I don't buy your excuse that Fitz's was fine because of sound dampening. I've been to Fitz's. Fitz's was fine because it was already there. Noise is not the problem. Change is.

[kbates2]

Also, S3mh seems to really misunderstand the hilarity of giant anatomically correct penises.

[thedistrict84]

On 1/20/2021 at 5:45 PM, s3mh said:

Two different developments. Both will be bars.  

https://www.theleadernews.com/real_estate/two-upcoming-bars-have-heights-neighbors-on-edge/article_d1a17fe8-5b45-11eb-9290-bbe2bad038f8.html

People like the guy quoted in the article referring to buying a nearby home as “invest[ing] in that area” are the problem. When you view your home primarily as an appreciating asset instead of just a place to live, property values become the be-all, end-all and lead to this absolute NIMBY-ism on display here.

I rolled my eyes so hard while reading that quote that I think I dislocated my eyeballs.

[gmac]

3 hours ago, Texasota said:

It sounds like s3mh actually wants to live in Spring. Or Cypress. Or Katy. A subdivision where all the noise and retail is on "a six lane road with 20 acre lots on each side" and the houses are on their little dead end cul-de-sacs and you have to drive everywhere. 

Too bad for them. That's not what the Heights has ever been. It's not a subdivision. It's a real, old-fashioned neighborhood, where you can walk or bike to most things. And that absolutely includes bars and entertainment and anywhere that serves alcohol. Putting bars on 6 lane roads is basically asking people to drive drunk. 

And I don't buy your excuse that Fitz's was fine because of sound dampening. I've been to Fitz's. Fitz's was fine because it was already there. Noise is not the problem. Change is.

Sounds like you yearn for the days of cholera and raging fires. Those were the hallmarks of a REAL old-fashioned neighborhood.

How many people in Houston have ever actually lived in an "old-fashioned neighborhood" like you describe?

[Texasota]

22 minutes ago, gmac said:

Sounds like you yearn for the days of cholera and raging fires. Those were the hallmarks of a REAL old-fashioned neighborhood.

How many people in Houston have ever actually lived in an "old-fashioned neighborhood" like you describe?

Yep, you've figured me out; I just love cholera. 

What a good, well reasoned response to what I was actually saying. 

[gmac]

1 hour ago, Texasota said:

Yep, you've figured me out; I just love cholera. 

What a good, well reasoned response to what I was actually saying. 

You threw out a sweeping generalization about "suburbia", when there are actually very walkable neighborhoods in many of the outlying areas. People in Katy/Cypress/Spring can actually safely walk to stores, restaurants, churches, bars... you name it. The walk may be a half mile, or maybe a couple blocks, but it's eminently doable. What many people DON'T want is a bar right next door with the concomitant issues of noise and traffic. That's no more unreasonable than not wanting a bunch of storage units plopped next door.

OTOH, if the bars/entertainment were already there when you purchased your home... tough luck.

[Texasota]

Hey I'm not the one who brought up "a six lane road with 20 acre lots on each side".

That specific development pattern of purely residential neighborhoods arrayed along relatively few, giant roads with oversized shopping "plazas" is absolutely descriptive of Spring, Cypress, and Katy. I didn't pick those places randomly. I had FM 1960 in particular in mind. FM 1960 is, to me, the perfect example of everything wrong with how we have developed our communities since the 60s or so. Cypress and Katy are sort of not as bad, but that's because their equivalent corridors are mostly feeder roads with some four lane boulevards. 

And they're not nearly as walkable as the Heights, if for no other reason than the fact that they lack a street grid. "A couple blocks" is not a concept that makes sense in most of Katy or Cypress because most residential streets dead end into cul-de-sacs. 

And again, White Oak is a commercial corridor. It has had live music on it for more than a century. If live music and alcohol don't belong on White Oak, then where in the Heights do they belong. Because it is a more traditional neighborhood with a true street grid, any location would be "next door", or at least within a block, of someone's home. And that's a good thing! That's part of what makes the Heights a great place to live!

Edited January 22, 2021 by Texasota

[SamHouston]

As a resident of Harvard Street I think a 7 foot erect penis would be great for the neighborhood. But why stop at seven feet? Make it large enough that you could see it from a block away. "Meet me at the cock for drinks tonight". Have it light up at night, maybe it could grow and shrink with the temperature?

 

Seriously, the parts of White Oak that weren't entertainment the last twenty years were light industrial. There still is a print shop. Coltivare was a vacant building. This zoning nonsense and HEB blaming is unreal. If this city had zoning, what exactly do you think White Oak properties would be zoned as?