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Sky-guy

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    How big will it get?

    in General Houston Discussions

    Posted · Edited by Sky-guy

    Good points august. Houston metro is projected to have 10 million people by 2040-2050. This boom may not be sustainable, but for the long term I see Houston being very a very healthy market.

    That's adding an average 130,000 per year/1.3 million per decade (Adding 4 mil. in 31 years). I would consider that "boom", not "bust". That's just about the amount we've been adding in the past 13/14 years.

    • Like 1

    The Galleria Mall At 5085 Westheimer Rd.

    in Uptown and Galleria Area

    Posted

    I was Just reading through this month's issue of Houstonia. "Secrets if the Galleria". I thought it was an amazing issue until I turned to page 54 (Galleria by the Numbers) where I saw that 2014 would be the year that the Galleria would be torn down. I took some pictures of the page on my iPhone, but I won't be able to post them till I get home in about half an hour. Anyone else know anything about this?

    A Town Square For Houston

    in Houston Real Estate

    Posted

    it sounds like no one can disagree with you, so just for clarification--you want something like the Woodlands, Sugar Land, and City Center squares plopped down in DT with big box retail and the sort (with of course narrower surrounding streets and historic, wow monuments)?

     

    Who are you asking?

    A Town Square For Houston

    in Houston Real Estate

    Posted

    Main street is still the number one convergence street for public transportation and downtown has by far the highest daytime population of any area in Houston.

    A huge percentage of the busses dump passengers on main street.

    Westheimer and Montrose is rather the sleepy in comparison.

    Westheimer and post oak world probably be the worst intersection for a square in all of Texas.

    Squares are anti car and you suggest taking the most heavily car dependent corner in all of the southern United States and building a square there?

    Most highly functional squares are blocked off to cars altogether or have narrow slow moving car lanes.

    Downtown already has the high concentration of public transportation, it us surrounded by fairly well developed neighborhoods and the through car traffic on the east side of downtown isn't as hazardous as post oak.

    A block or two of traffic can easily be removed without much notice because many already don't go all the way through.

    Try blocking off any spot along Westheimer and see how that goes. Blocking westheimer at post oak would be kind closing off uptown's Aorta. Leaving it open would result in a drive by square.

    Why would anyone want to improve downtown and build the square 6 miles away next to a huge enclosed mall?

    Enclosed malls are highly suburban, white squares are highly urban features. i don't get it.

    You are taking one feature (highly travelled areas) and ignoring a dozen others.

    Westheimer and post oak had the density but it fails in every other category.

    Uptown had the makings of a modern central business district, but urban it is not. The only business district which feels as urban as Downtown is TMC.

    HoustonIsHome, I partially agree with you. A town square would not be ideal in Uptown. At least not today in Houston. I was in SF this past summer and I spent about 5 hours in Market Sqare. The traffic was horrendous (Thank God I was walking) and it probably is many days. Especially during the rush hour parts of the day in a city w/ 4+ million people. What I'm trying to say, is that a square would not fail if placed in an area with very little, if any, pedestrian activity. A square is what will, in fact, help bring the pedestrian activity. If the city of Houston were to make a town square today, it would be in downtown, probably market square. I think that in 7-10 years from, the best place to put a town square, that would be extremely successful, is at the Post Oak/San Felipe intersection either where the Calufornua Pizza kitchen is currently, or across the street, almost next door to the Astoria. Here's why:

    -BLVD Place: defineatly going to add at least some pedestrians to the area.

    /Residential nearby: (the Astoria, Hannover, etc.) will provide more need for a square for the nearby residents.

    -Almost everyone I know who has come to visit Houston, has stayed in Uptown, I mean where else would you stay? Downtown, mabey. But it doesn't give that welcoming urban feel like other cities. No one will stay in the med. center unless they're here for something medical related. Not Greenway. The only place that is nice to stay when visiting houston, is Uptown. It has Good food/entertainment/shopping in the area. It would work really well to have a square on uptown, at that location, especially that by then the area will also look great with the gables tower going up and the dense feel the area is going to have in 7/10 years. if it became something like union square in SF, with retail/hotel/Resi, that would be perfect. I can imagine a "BLVD Square" in uptown in a few years. the only problem I can think of is the lack of public transit.

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