mako

8 row flint (yale & 11th) opening December 10th:

http://www.chron.com/entertainment/restaurants-bars/article/Eight-Row-Flint-sets-Dec-10-opening-6657862.php

Lee's Fried Chicken & Donuts is handing out free chicken & donuts & sides right now...said they'll open for business on Tuesday. Mighty tasty!!!!

Interestingly enough, not only did TCR abandon the abandonment they have paved the 20-30 foot gap on Allston so it now connects to 5th street. May just be a temporary measure to allow residents of the 500 block of Allston an exit while 6th street has been demolished. Some of the Fixtures demolition started 2 weeks ago - they've already removed the section of warehouse directly across Yale from Dry Creek. They traded a 25' section of land on Allston for the southern piece of alley that Fixtures had built part of their warehouse over years ago - going to be a bent alley with the sewer rerouted out along Allston.

Hyperloop???...a people pipeline???, man, Texas should be all over this. With all our pipeline experience we could slap a people pipeline under the bayou and solve all our mobility problems in a flash. Just put people pipelines out to all the chemical plants along the ship channel, use their existing pipeline ROW and we'd get half the pickup trucks in Houston off the roads at shift-change time.

As far as number of units the original Heights Alexan was said to be 362 units with TC owning all of the block except for 2 lots. However, I've heard rumors that the lone holdout has decided to sell to TC and the city has posted notices on the vacant lot that was tied up in legal / title problems that it will be auctioned for past taxes. I'm guessing TC will soon own the whole block and expand upon the design. They have started salvaging out the 2 big new homes on one lot on Allston so this one will probably be going up soon.

TC hasn't disclosed the number of units they're planning for Alexan Yale but the Fixtures site includes 3/4 of the block between 5th & 6th & Yale & Allston plus 1/4 of the block between 5th & 6th & Allston & Rutland, i.e. already a whole block plus potential additional space if they can acquire the south half of Allston in this block. Of the 5 lots on the Allston/Yale block that TC won't acquire through the Fixtures purchase 2 lots (1 vacant & 1 with an empty old small home) belong to a developer who has replatted them to build 8 townhomes, 1 is a rental property with a small home, 1 has 4 townhomes and 1 has a newer large home. TC may well acquire this entire block as well. I think they'll delay this project a year or two until the 1st one's done.

The unit count here will probably go up a bit before everything is committed to bricks & mortar.

Actually I have to admit that I do kinda like Dry Creek being "dry". Because its not really dry - you can drink all you want as long as you bring it yourself. They charge a very nominal corkage fee and supply the glasses. I like being able to bring a bottle of wine I know I'm going to like instead of paying an exorbitant price for a bottle of something I've never heard of. Just have to do a little planning.

I can see how restaurant owners won't be happy with the situation though - profits on alcoholic beverages have to be a nice addition to the bottom line.

People who have never owned or managed restaurants or bars may think it is easy. The rest of us are under no such delusions.

Well okay, I don't manage a restaurant or bar, but I do have a successful vacation rental business in New Braunfels as well as my day job. My son has a very successful restaurant business in Portland,OR. Is running a successful business easy??? hell no!!! But anyone who runs a successful business can tell you the "secret" is to provide the customer with a thoroughly enjoyable experience. So, okay, apparently it is a pain to run a private club business in a dry area...hello!!!!, looks like a gold mine to me! If other vendors are too lazy to make this an easy experience for their customers than its easy riches for me!!! For me this is the whole problem with a lot of the postings I see here of HAIF...lots of bitching from folks rejecting ideas out of their own realm of experience.. ideas that would make them a fortune if they would only think about them and adapt them to their own ideas. Guess that's why I get a little too passionate at times...the waste of resources I see here is pathetic!

No, probably no screams. He is not at all the complainer that you appear to be. He takes things in stride.

oh, yeah, probably no screams...just concern$$$$$. No Complaint$$$$$$$$$. Take$$$$$$$ thing$$$$$$ in $$$$$$tride.

Honestly, I've never once heard him denigrate the townhomes. He is a pragmatist when it comes to what others build on the property they own. 

I'll bet...unless its Metro building rail - then you'll hear the screams all the way to Culberson's office.

well, yeah...back in my college days ( a few decades ago) I paid the bills working as a security guard at many sites including a few nightclubs. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks that take on a whole different personality when they've had a few drinks especially when women were involved...sad too that it's usually the stalwart, good people that pay the price. They do what's right without considering that the asshole jerk causing trouble doesn't share the same moral compass. What can I say...these days you've got to strike a balance between doing what's right & what's safe??? Sorry, that just sticks in my craw...Guess the long & the short of it is you have to go with what seems right. Hope they catch this jerk!!!!

In the end it's all run on gas or gasification of something.

hmmm...well if gas or gasification of something is the driving force maybe all of us who are more or less lactose intolerant can agree to drink a glass of milk for breakfast and contribute to the common good...free methane for the urban biotrain! Maybe if it was fashioned along the lines of the little go-carts at Disney World that give you a steering wheel but keep you on a fixed track it would be acceptable to Houston car-lovers??? 

The next step will to be require ground level retail in all 3 story townhomes.

Frankly, if I thought I could get away with it I'd be tempted. Once those 800-900 new apartments are leased out less than a block away, we could probably do a fantastic business with a little coffee house / kolache stand on the ground floor. Might even get some of the younger crowd appreciating the niceties of retail within walking distance of your home. Guess the big bucks would come with going the private club route and selling overpriced craft beers & vodka to the rental hipster crowd. So...if anyone could fill me in with the details on running a private club in a dry area...maybe we could form a mutually beneficial compact???

well, what can I say. we didn't build this big place but bought it in a magic time when tiny bungalows were ridiculously expensive & big new townhomes were relatively cheap. nothings cheap here now and townhomes are the norm. Still, if your friend thinks 3-story townhomes are light & view blockers I wonder what he'll think when the 5-story rentals move in.

So, mako, which house are you, the ranch style home bracketed by the 3 story homes or one of the 3 story homes? If you are on Allston, I don't see you getting hit with much traffic. The entrances are likely to be fronting 5th or 6th or both. You may have some apartments facing your backyard, but that is nothing that a little bamboo hedge won't fix.

One of the 3-stories, the one with a back yard. Already have bamboo to block the warehouse view. Need some type of mutant strain to block a 5-story building. Yes I do have a bit of appreciation of the irony that the ranch home owners were probably just as disgusted to have 3-story homes built next to their bungalows as we are at the prospect of 5-story behemoths blocking out the sunrise. Well, at least it'll probably block some of the traffic noise from I-10 as well.

Hope all of you are right about the traffic, but frankly I find it hard to believe. The first building is 362 units - that's a lot of new people & cars. They haven't said how big the 2nd one will be, but given that its already a bigger site even if they don't take over half the street I'd guesstimate another 500 or so units.

My guess is a curved entrance, southbound only on Yale, entrance / exit on 5th and service entrance on Allston, pretty similar to the plans for the Heights building but straight on the Allston if they are able to buy the street. Regardless of where the entrances are all of the traffic has to go to Yale or across to Heights. The detention ponds have cut off access to the west.

I'd heard TXDOT had expressed interest in the back warehouse as a potential site for an additional detention pond. Guess us hardworking taxpayers will be spared that expense - if White Oak Bayou gets too high Trammel Crow will be providing a nice new detention pond - TC Alexxan Yale Underground Parking Pond. 

Interestingly enough (to me at least) today is the one-year anniversary of buying our home here and its truly incredible to me the amount of change we've seen in our little corner of the Heights. Did we think it would not change? Quite the contrary - we counted on it; just getting a bit more than we bargained for. We were hoping the junky shacks would get replaced with nice homes and that's pretty much done. Didn't foresee the big apartments though.

Still, as you noted, we do not plan to stay here long term. Strangely enough in all my trips to Portland over the past decades I never have seen these forced densification zones - guess I'll have to ask the kids about them.

Retinue United for Designer Horseflurf?

Actually, I am mere blocks from this location. Other than you, I may be the closest poster to this site. Feel better?

 

Here's the deal on "gridlock". It is a term used to describe traffic congestion so severe that the traffic grid is locked. In other words, traffic cannot move in any direction. Regardless what grade the intersection at Yale and I-10 is given, it never gets anywhere close to that state. Hence, my calling you out for overstating the level of carnage. It really isn't that bad.

 

Now, let's get to the real source of your ire, the encroachment of density upon a future Portlander's home. I invite you to google the address 5292 Memorial, Houston, TX 77007. Why? Because it allows you to see dense condo developments on tiny streets without curbs and gutters. I lived in that development for 5 years. The effect on traffic on Detering and Chandler Streets was almost non-existent. The interesting thing is that there were two developments on Chandler, in addition to a busy Children's Assessment Center...and, of course, the ubiquitous townhomes. Even with all of that, Chandler remained a sleepy dead end street. Your fears are overblown.

 

Now, this isn't to say that the construction will not be immensely annoying. However, once that dies down, you will find that the traffic congestion claims were exaggerated. It is easy to do. Unless you have actually lived in that scenario, as I have, it is hard to believe that a large apartment complex doesn't flood a street with traffic. Here's a suggestion. Go up to 2100 Yale and watch the traffic around that complex. You'll feel better.

Well, um...no, I don't feel better. This new development isn't blocks away it's right across the alley easement, assuming Trammel - Crow doesn't get their high-dollar lawyers to find some way to seize that property. Then is will be literally (yes, in the true English meaning of literally) in my backyard.

Okay,...Gridlock...google the term. Yes, the first definition is literal gridlock, where no traffic will ever flow in that location again, but in reality-land where all of us actually live that never happens. Do you know of any intersections where the traffic was so bad that the intersection was permanently abandoned with all of the vehicles caught up in the situation left there for all eternity? No, there are no literal examples of this extreme - you're just blowing extreme wind here. Look at the other definitions...this is the reality-land gridlock expressed so often by those frustrated by Houston's traffic-bound masses.

I guess i need more background information to render a reasonable opinion on your dense condo experience. My question...did you buy into this high-density situation or did it spring up out of the blue after your investment??? That is the crux of the whole situation. If you bought your home and the area was already high-density multi-family than obviously you weren't surprised by the future density. When we bought our home in the heights there were. no  competing density concerns.

Well, what the hell, I'll go all in...let's power the electric street cars with wood fired furnaces from the oaks we cut down along Yale... or wood fired locomotives?

Do they make wood-fired monorails?

It seems to me that Horseflurf is already available in abundance on HAIF. If it was only so abundant in reality it could power all of the transportation needs for the area for generations.

It occurred to me today that there might be a proposal that could unite (or bring together in opposition) the many disparate positions about the Alexan Heights & Yale, Wal-Mart & Public transport in the Heights. Why don't we build a monorail from the Walmart parking lot to the Trammel-Crow parking lot along 5th & Yale, bypassing the infamous bridge of death on Yale? No need for pedestrian sidewalks along the also infamous non-sidewalk zone in the Walmart tax-rebate zone. Maybe something both pro & anti-development folks could agree on??? Hee, hee, yeah, I do know better.

There is one other poster on this site that overuses the term "gridlock", too. I suggest that you get together with him and start an advocacy group. Maybe you could call it "Houstonia"...unless that name is taken. In that case, maybe "Gridlocker" will do. You can advocate for density while advocating against gridlock. You can call for ground floor retail while also railing against the traffic congestion it causes. You can advocate for density killing historic districts while also demand mass transit that requires density to be effective.

 

Change the world!

 

I'd help, but I don't find the traffic that bad at all, so it would be a waste of my time. And, with 4 shopping centers within a mile and a half of my house, I simply do not understand why I should be demanding even more dry cleaners and nail salons under people's apartments. But, you two can handle it.

Well okay let's both stick to the facts. There are at least two TIA's I know of that rate the Yale & I-10 intersection as an F - the worst possible rating. What does this mean vis a vis Gridlock? I don't know - the official city rating city doesn't define any worse rating systems. So okay, let's not say the G-word that makes you whine - the most recent traffic studies that have been done for this intersection already rate it as the worst possible rating. Sorry, this trumps any of your "I don't find the traffic that bad" BS. Actual scientific traffic studies of this area agree that this intersection is already failing as bad as possible under the current rating system without the additional traffic load from these huge apartment complexes. Obviously that is of no great concern for those of you that live far away from this area, but this new development is just across the alley from me. I drive these streets every day and traffic is already bad during rush hour without these two huge complexes. What worries me most is what if there is an emergency during these future somewhere beyond F-rated traffic situations - a fire in these apartments or me having a heart attack getting too excited about these (INANMIDGF, It's Not Anywhere Near Me, I Don't Give a F***) postings. Must be nice to be posting your BS from your safe location miles & miles away. This new development will be 15 feet from my backyard. I'll have to deal with their traffic loads every day, their building will surround the home I love.

No reasonable people complain about inner loop street traffic...until they do not like a proposed project. Then, they whine and cry and use words like "grid Lock" to describe the extra couple hundred cars per day travelling down a four land road. The people that count, city engineers, never listen to them.

Pure bullshit. Everyone who has to drive there complains about the traffic backups along Heights and Yale & I-10. More to the point every recent TIA report of the Yale & I-10 intersection has rated this intersection as the worst possible failing rating, "F". Ironically, under Houston planning standards this means that anyone who wants to build a development that adds even more traffic to this pathetic roadway doesn't have to do anything to alleviate the additional traffic load - as far as Houston is concerned the traffic is as bad as it can get. Come on people! Pure D Bullshit!!!! We have to make both the developers & traffic department & politicians realize that this is NOT sustainable development! WE CANNOT GO ON THIS WAY!!!! We do not want to wait until literal gridlock hits the streets. Developments that drain into failing intersections should be denied until the city & developer can agree on a plan to improve the traffic flow. Dumping additional traffic onto a failed roadway is no solution and developers should realize that their customers will soon figure this out.

Again with ground floor retail and transit!!!   THIS IS HOUSTON - ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. 

 

If you want ground floor & Transit, you need density - if you try to build density anywhere nice people want to live, your met with COMPLAINTS!  NIMBY's and hypocrites everywhere you look!

Ahh!...the heart of the problem. Why is ground floor retail & mass transit such a problem in Houston??? This is what really confuses me about this whole discussion - why are all the developers so quick to condemn local stakeholders (i.e. NIMBY's) for their resistance to change (i.e. mid-rise & high-rise apartments in their backyards) and yet entirely dismissive about any changes to their own stale business plans??? Maybe there are good sound economic basis for including some inventive retail schemes in your developments? Or do you base all of your decisions on an economic models from 30 years ago because you laid off all of your bright engineers?

If you look at most cities or neighborhoods comprised mainly of high-density mid-rise buildings, the actual proportion of those buildings with ground floor retail is pretty small. Probably not more than one-in-five. On the upper west side of Manhattan, for example, retail is pretty much restricted to the avenues (Columbus, Amsterdam, Broadway), and pretty much non-existent on cross streets.

 

Houston's current mixed-use developments (West Ave, City Centre, Woodlands Town Center) are basically destinations, not self supporting from their own residents. Each has extensive parking facilities. The only potential exception is Post Midtown, which is supported by a lot of very nearby residential-only developments in addition to its own residential square footage.

 

And remember that both of these blocks are dry.  No developer in their right mind would do mixed use in a dry area, especially when such a high proportion of potential tenants in mixed use projects are food and beverage operations.

Okay, I'm not that familiar with Manhattan (been there once in my life) but try this experiment - Yelp any address you choose in these high-density mid-rise areas and look for retail in the area. I played with it a while and couldn't find any areas without retail within a block or two.

I've seen several posts about how bad this dry area is...and yet, I've enjoyed many a fine craft beer at Downhouse. How troublesome is it to go the private club route? Not being argumentative here - I'd really like to know. I've lived in / visited several areas that were technically dry (Lake Jackson, Wimberley, Downhouse, etc.) where they gave you a private membership and then you could magically buy booze to your heart's content. Is this really such an impediment? Please enlighten me.

Uhh...dude. 6 story apartment buildings are ALL OVER Portland and Paris. If you are whining about higher density while pining for Portland and Paris, then I can only surmise that you are ignorant or a troll.

Umm....dude, if you actually read my posts and think about it you'll note a common thread, 6 story buildings (not apartments) in Portland & Paris include extensive, vibrant public transportation & ... Need I say it - Ground floor retail!!!! Is this what TC is proposing? No, no ground floor retail and not only is there a distinct lack of public transportation, the street grid in this area is quite substandard as well. There aren't any streets to the west of this proposed development. All traffic has to go to Yale and down to the infamous F rated intersection that can't get any worse legally, but will certainly get worse in reality land. This area is poorly suited to such a development and yes I agree that it is the city that should address this deficiency, but we all know it won't happen.

Guess I've lived around Houston long enough to be very skeptical about public developments - still vaguely remember mayor Whitmire's promises to build a transit system decades ago. And today? We still don't have a good working transit system. What a waste of time.

I count at least six of those transportation options available in Houston. Your comments seem at odd with each other...we need density in order to justify more mass transit options, yet you oppose projects that increase density.

Fair enough. Seems like from the last dozen or so postings Houston is already at a density on par if not exceeding that of Portland, Oregon - maybe it's time we caught up in the public transportation arena before we squeezed in even more density?

Guess I should have elaborated more on the transit modes. Not only do they exist here (Paris), but they are fully integrated - you always have multiple options to get from point A to point B quickly & efficiently. When my wife & I want to go somewhere here the question isn't can we do it, but what seems to be the best way? You can fly into the airport take a train or shuttle or taxi into town, hop on the subway or bus or grab a bicycle of the rack to travel the neighborhood cheaply & efficiently? Why can' t we do this in Houston? I'm not knocking Houston, I'm truly wondering why we can't get some world class transportation options going in one of the biggest cities in the USA.

Unfortunately these apartments are a perfect example of the type of thought process that holds us back. The TIA that TC did for the 1st project showed that the nearest major intersection is already rated F, the worst level possible so no traffic remediation is required. Does this really make any sense? If the traffic flow in the area is already failing maybe there should be a ban on future development that adds any extra traffic flow. That would get the politicians & developers working on real solutions.

I am not anti-development, I am anti-irresponsible development.