PureAuteur
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Everything posted by PureAuteur
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I can't believe how large an area this project encompasses, all the way from 290 to I-45. It will help to make the area more liveable, but we still have lots of work to do regarding the "psycho development" (my new term for it) that is starting to make NW Houston ugly and turn plots of forest land into generic retail or generic clusters of houses (I refuse to call some of the terribly planned new neighborhoods in spring and cypress "neighborhoods"). " I bet NewQuest Properties would have paved the entire Cypress Creek if they were allowed to.
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The older neighborhoods closer to Beltway 8 are good, but Long Point headed toward Beltway 8 is kind of run down. The area near that Spring Branch hospital has gotten very poor. Then again, there are lots of poor pocket areas closer to 610 as well. I'd say if you go closer to Beltway, it's nicer on the far northern most part of Spring Branch, and if you go toward 610, it's better the closer you are to I-10. Anything along Westview is going to be nice.
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Well, yeah, I like bohemian mixed with a little bit of fanciness. Basically, I like a laid back community with a little imagination in their commercial development and lots of great locally owned places to visit. I was very surprised they built Fleming's in the Woodlands, and I'm wondering if they just decided to give it a shot based on intuition or if there was really a demand for it. Either way, that restaurant is in stark contrast to the food you eat at the Woodlands Mall. They have excellent food, and it's totally a San Diego-style restaurant. I'm actually kind of conservative, but I find places like San Marcos appealing. I guess the Woodlands will be what it is. It certainly needs more locally owned places, and I think that could be possible if the town incorporates, and if they redevelop the mall. They could start small, by opening just one locally owned shop at Market Street and see if it has a domino effect. But like you said, KatieDidIt, a lot of the Woodlands residents are more the suburban type that like Pier 1 Imports and Toys R Us and Sharper Image, so any change of scenery in Market Street won't come easy.
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I think I finally figured out what my intangible ideal of the Woodlands was when making this post. I wanted it to be a combination of my two favorite cities: San Marcos, TX and San Diego, CA, which is probably why I was excited to see the Fleming's since I ate there in S.D. and loved it. I want the bohemian/locally owned business part of San Marcos with the more upscale and polished look of San Diego. It's funny because I actually used to like the mall, but I guess tastes change.
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Sorry that my quote button doesn't work. Anyways, Bachanon, to get back on topic, what is your opinion of the mall and whether it should be torn down in the future maybe 10 years from now. To recap the discussion, KatieDidIt brought up an interesting point, which is that the mall parking lot has already undergone redevelopment to build the beginning (or end?) of the Woodlands Waterway as it connects to the Mall. If they continue with this mindset, there might eventually be pressure to tear down the mall. I'd love to see grid streets and more tall buildings. One thing I always liked about San Marcos was how it mixed a grid system in the town center with curved roads surrounding the grid streets on the north end of town. To sum up my position: I'd like to see the mall redeveloped or torn down in order to give the Woodlands 1) less regional, more local feel 2) more consistent ambiance to go with Waterway and places like Flemings 3) more of an urban look 4) more pedestrian traffic (if grid streets connect Market Street and everything else in Town Center) 5) #1-4 possibly leading to the development of a public transit system 6) and less poserism, riff-raff, annoying loiterers who stare at their cell phones in public, etc.
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I did live in San Marcos for 3 years. It was an off and on "like vs. hate" thing, but now that I'm back in Houston, I realize how great of a town San Marcos was. There was a time when I couldn't stand the idea of a "Pleasantville", but the way Houston has changed since 2001 has led me to appreciate the upside to those types of communities.
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Okay, Pineda, thanks for tearing me down piece by piece there. I guess I'm just a perfectionist or a utopian, as reflected in my post, but more than anything, I just want a community feel. The reason I was hoping to move to the Woodlands after I got my Master's in the first place was to get away from the anti-city that Houston is becoming in the last 5 years. I guess you're right. The Mall and Town Center are just about the money, and this is a shame, because my grandparents generation would say that a town center should not be just about the money, but about civic life. I always thought the Woodlands was a return to that sort of thing, but if I'm wrong, I may rethink my desire to live there. I would consider San Marcos, TX an ideal town: dominated by locally owned businesses, an aesthetically pleasing grid street system in which the university connects smoothly to the center of town, and a town square that is completely a part of the town's culture and people, and not just some money-making project. Houston Heights neighborhood is also ideal to me, and one of the few parts of Houston where I actually feel like I'm in a community, the others being ethnic communities which might not welcome me as easily as the Heights would. Also, Pineda, notice how I modified my post in which I don't say "demographically consistent" in the new post. I guess you were eager to jump on my post weren't you? What would be your ideal Town Center, Pineda, and how would you deal with the Mall? You also misinterpreted my words. It's not like I was fixated on the teens at the mall. But being an intuitive person, I could get a sense of the people I was around just by being there, and poserism was rampant, in addition to superficiality and plastic looking girls/women who might be upper class, but still don't fit into my ideal ambiance for the Town Center. I don't care what social class inhabits the Town Center, as long as they are mature people. Hence why I said " hate to sound classist, but...". So, if what you say is true, that the Woodlands Mall is a regional shopping center marketing to people far outside the Woodlands, then the name "Town Center" becomes a joke and a scam. You're not getting what you think you're getting which is a community. And no, I didn't spend more at Market Street and less at the mall because of "posers", that was just an observation relating to my other point. I didn't spend anything at either, because I don't like the stores there. I prefer locally run businesses.
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36-Story Multifamily High-Rise At 3615 Montrose Blvd.
PureAuteur replied to yaga's topic in Going Up!
The rendering looks fanastic. It's about time we see some architectural/artistic achievement in this century. It looks unlike anything I've ever seen. -
"A large portion of the concrete block has been tranformed so maybe that will continue." I'm glad you mentioned this. There has already been transformation to the mall's parking lot, so there is a chance we'll see further transformations, even bolder, in the future. I think the chances of tearing down the mall are slim at this stage, but the more the area gets transformed, the more you'll have that intangible pressure to get rid of the mall itself. I really think it would help the Town Center. They could rebuild the mall at 2978, which is experiencing tremendous growth, which would make it more accessible to Woodlanders and people in Magnolia/Tomball. I hate to be classist, but most of the people I saw using the mall on Sunday will probably never have the desire to eat at Flemings in their lifetime. Furthermore, I hate to include human beings when I critique the Town Center's ambiance, but in order to have an aesthetically pleasing and uniform ambiance, you need to have more consistent demographics with adults over 30 far outweighing children and teens and less "takeover" from outsiders. Gosh, I really sound like a snob, and I don't even live in the Woodlands, so I guess I'm an outsider too. The way I talk about things though, I may as well be a resident.
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I was at the Woodlands Mall Sunday at around 4pm, and it felt strangely different than it did the last time I was in there. I almost didn't feel like I was in the Woodlands, but rather somewhere in Houston, like Northline Mall. Do the native Woodlanders just not shop there anymore? Has this mall been "discovered", and if so, why are people from Houston driving so far just to shop at a mall? Another thing I noticed was that there were way too many poser teens, and not just halfway serious, but embarassingly serious poserism. Are these kids raised by televisions and malls? They would realize how stupid they looked if they had a better frame of reference and interacted with adults more. Which leads to my question... Does the mall really fit in the Town Center anymore? It seems like it just perpetuates the typical mall culture, and thus is not very progressive compared to the rest of the Town Center. Also, it seemed like only about 50% of the people in the mall that afternoon actually lived in Woodlands proper. When I went to Market Street, it was the same way, although there were no teen posers. Because of the demographic diversity of Market Street and the mall, I am wondering if the concept of "town" in the town center is being lost. I really felt like I was in a true town when I went to Market Street about a year ago, but this time there was no community feel, like I was just in a place where people were coming from all over to visit. It is too focused on the retail and commercial, but should instead feel like a public space. I said once before that getting more locally owned businesses would help this problem. The layout is already perfect for local Woodlanders to relax and enjoy their town. Going back to the mall, I just think it detracts from the "mature" feel of the town center. I think it should be redeveloped or torn down. They could expand a grid system of streets that connects to Market Street to make the Town Center look more like an actual town, then build more high-rise office buildings mixed with street-lined stores like you'd see in a small town like San Marcos. This is just an idea I've been pondering lately. Anyone else have an opinion on this?
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Hildebrandt Intermediate School At 22800 Hildebrandt Rd.
PureAuteur replied to Chris's topic in The Great Northwest
It's a shame that the developer of Northhampton didn't purchase the intersection of 2920 and Kuykendahl back in the 1970s to either develop it tastefully or leave it as forest land to prevent the tragedy that befell that intersection in 2005. -
Hildebrandt Intermediate School At 22800 Hildebrandt Rd.
PureAuteur replied to Chris's topic in The Great Northwest
Well, the "open field and cow pastures" description is misleading. The school serves the Northhampton neighborhood, which is very established and looks like a neighborhood you'd see inside Loop 610. This neighborhood has excellent demographics, so it would not surprise me that there are high quality teachers and administrators at Hildebrandt. Does anyone know who developed the Northhampton subdivision? -
All you have to do is support locally owned businesses and encourage everyone you know to do the same. Speaking of local businesses, there is a great family owned French restaurant on Eldridge near Briar Forest in west Houston called Le Mistral. If you can afford 25 dollar entrees and 8 dollar salads, I highly recommend it.
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Greenspoint Mall Developments
PureAuteur replied to Houston Retail's topic in Other Houston Neighborhoods
I think Greenspoint has tremendous upside. After going downhill in the 90s and becoming a low-income area, it still looks great. It's a surivor, for sure. I don't know what it is about Greenspoint. The planning is very good, much like with Westchase. Streets look nice, the landscaping looks nice, infrastructure nice, and the buildings are quite beautiful to look at either at night up close or from the freeways around it. The mall would be great if they just renovated it, thus making people feel more comfortable shopping there who live in or outside of Greenspoint in those areas around Kuykendahl south of 1960. There are several new neighborhoods going in there, and GP Mall is the most convenient. The home prices are around 120 to 150k as Bachanon stated. -
River Oaks/Upper Kirby Real Estate
PureAuteur replied to HtownKid's topic in River Oaks/Upper Kirby/Greenway Plaza/Bissonnet
Move to the Heights. It's very classy and cooler than River Oaks. R.O. is too established for your taste. You'll find the women beautiful and will likely want to pursue many of them, but you'd have to adopt the whole River Oaks culture, speech, lifestyle, body language, etc. so you can easily walk into a fancy party and fit in. The Heights people have money, they're classy, but most of all, they are accepting of anyone in their community as long as they are decent. I'd seriously suggest looking into the Heights. You might like some of the new architectural development. -
Some of the people I've met from the Woodlands were like that. Then again, they were under 25. They should get some people from the Pacific Northwest or Vermont to run the Woodlands when/if it incorporates. That would be great.
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Hmm, that's new to me. I always thought the Woodlands was known for its anti-mainstream tastes and a preference for locally owned businesses. I have never even heard of those three stores you mentioned. (Do you know how they're doing business-wise?) Can you tell me what businesses are, indeed, locally owned in the Town Center? Those are the ones I'd want to visit first the next time I'm at Market Street.
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I figured they might be doing this thing all over the country. I was hoping the Woodlands was unique with this project. Speaking of "unique", what is with all the corporate retail on Market Street? It's the same stuff you see anywhere else in Houston's sprawl limits. I want to see locally owned businesses that have character. The Town Center itself is great. They just need to hurry up and incorporate so they can make a government ordinance to prohibit chain stores from leasing at Market Street. This would be beneficial to the community in the long run. It would promote town unity and keep the Town Center from seeming fake-looking. I understand that the rents are high, but once they enact that ordinance, I'm sure it will be more affordable. Think Kaplan Ben-Hur in the Heights: independent store and a famous staple of the community. (Too bad it closed down; they sold excellent coffee). I'd use San Marcos downtown as an example. It has just the right balance of touristy gift shops and mom and pop stores that locals visit on a regular basis, for instance a pizza place, a martini bar, a shoe store, or a tobacco store. As it stands now, Market Street has basically the same stores you could find in the Galleria or in the Rice Village.
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What about Plano? Would that be closer to a Sugarland or closer to a First Colony? Also wanted to note, it's funny that nobody ever says they're from First Colony, they would just say Sugarland. However, people from the Woodlands do not say that they're from Spring, they say The Woodlands. So in one case, you go with the town or area, and the other case, you go with the master planned community/edge city.
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That clarifies things a bit, because I always thought Sugarland itself was the master planned community that evolved from its old rice and sugar town origins. Maybe that's why I was so disoriented while driving around. I never really went through any of the communities, but I was thinking it was all one big community. So, if this is the case, then Sugarland is different from the Woodlands, as I once thought they were both the same type of thing. Sugarland is more like a Katy, being an area with multiple master planned neighborhoods, while the Woodlands is one community with individual villages. By definition, the Woodlands is an edge city, but I wouldn't call Sugarland one until it finds a way to unify itself a bit more.
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Sugarland is no master planned community. I've driven through all of it, and it's so disorganized looking. At one point I couldn't tell if I was in Sugarland, First Colony, Sweetwater, Houston, or Stafford/Missouri City. Sugarland is basically what I'd call sprawl with an ego. I would disagree with Pumapayam about the Sharpstown comparison. Sharpstown in 1960 was a true big city neighborhood, and a really pompous one at that, where style was everything, from clothing to hats to cars to storefront signs and marquees. The concept of civic life was still being applied. The people would have considered themselves Houstonians. Go put some of the 80-90 year old residents still living in their Sharpstown homes on a bus and take them on an intimate tour of Sugarland. They will find the comparisons laughable. Sharpstown in 1960 was bustling with life and activity. It had an electricity about it that will never be recaptured. What's with all the attention given to Sugarland anyways? What about the "and areas southwest" part? I want to hear about the new Gulfton Town Center or the new Harwin Town Center too.
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Did Life Forms ever build inside the loop? The houses on Diane Street around Old Timbergrove and Heights Annex look similar to the one in the photo. I'd like to see some homes built in the late 1970s to see how the style compares to my old neighborhood, Woodland Trails West, off Fairbanks White Oak. Many of these homes, including my old home, have been bought out by the county and removed. They got hit with three big floods in a 6 year period, which forced many of the homeowners to move. Now there are many cleared lots where houses used to be. The entire neighborhood was custom homes, and each one seemed to be unique. When I was a kid, I always knew exactly where I was just from looking at the houses. You can't do that in neighorhoods built in the 90s/00s, where the houses all seem to look the same, no matter how different the floor plan. They re-routed the White Oak Bayou over there, and did some things to where the flooding shouldn't be as bad in the future. Does anyone familiar with that area know if they'll ever rebuild the subdivision? Or will all the homes eventually get taken down? It's really a shame, because it was good land with lots of tall pine trees. I wasn't sure if I should go to "Great Northwest" or "Other Houston Neighborhoods" to post something about this.
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Those Life Forms homes look awesome. They have dimension and character/substance unlike most of the cheaper non-custom homes found all over suburban Houston that feature gables, those little accent things, arched windows, and lots of brick all over the front of the house. My house is a great example of this sort of thing, only it's not as bad as most of the others, because the brick is an unusual peach color, and the design is unique, with a super high single-columned arch front porch and windows making up most of the house's front side. Of course, once I move to the Woodlands, I'll either try to get a Life Forms house, or if I can't find one on the market, I'll just do the urban living thing and get an apartment or condo/townhome close to Town Center.
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I couldn't believe it when I actually saw the Chronicle article. I wonder if there is anything we can do. My mother was involved in a neighborhood coalition a few years back that actually stopped a Wal-Mart from building a store. If a bunch of suburbanite moms can stop Wal-Mart, why can't an entire city stop this from happening?
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I think it would great if they went with a real world theme, but I'm not sure the "Southwest Houston" theme would be very popular with the developer's intended clientele. They could make the hotel look like a fire-gutted apartment complex on Bissonett or Fondren. They could recreate the authentic look of a southwest Houston night club storefront, or perhaps a used hubcap store. They could also open up a grill shop where upper middle class white baby boomers will be able to get a true taste of Houston culture by getting some diamonds and gold on their teeth. Then they could also mix in a freeway sign clutter theme, in which the pedestrian walkways are lined on either side with authentic looking billboards and signs, just like you'd see on Interstate 59! Seriously though, they should build a Houston History Museum inside the dome, which would give tourists and even most non-Houstonian Houston residents a tour of the history of this city, allowing them to see what it was like in every decade since it was founded. They could put so many things on exhibit in one unified way, artifacts which are currently all over the place. Anything salvaged from Astroworld would be an example of things you'd put in this museum.
