rechlin

Very interesting.  It looks like only a small amount of ROW acquisition would be needed and a fair amount of parking would be added.  While the net number of bus stops has only decreased slightly, they've all been moved to make them just past the intersections (in a dedicated pull-off) rather than just before, so they don't block right turns on red.

Yes, Westheimer loses a lane in each direction, but that lane is virtually unusable at present because the right half of the right lane as it is now can't handle cars (only trucks) due to potholes, and bigger vehicles can't stay in a lane the way it is now (because the lanes are narrow and Houston drivers are incompetent) making the lane next to them almost useless anyway.

I like this.  The new sidewalks will be HUGE, which is a big improvement compared to the narrow/nonexistent sidewalks right now, and for such a walkable area, that's important.

The plywood was because people kept throwing (and breaking) glass liquor bottles into the gated entryway, and this stops that.  The sign for the "VENUE" that used to be there has been painted over, too.  So hopefully this means things have started!

One of the architects behind this wrote a really interesting narrative from his perspective on WOMH on reddit yesterday:

Actually the street is still open, at least during the day, but down to two lanes.  Thick steel plates cover the excavation when the road is open so cars can still drive over it.

I think Hearsay was also in the new wave of downtown bars, opening about 5 years ago.  So there really even less prior to when you moved downtown, downtownian.

609 Main sits on a block that had a long-vacant obsolete small-footprint office tower (even the Chinese restaurant in it shut down a decade or two ago), and was otherwise a giant parking lot, though there was a weird suburban McDonald's on that block that was also torn down some years back.

A block away, 811 Main was on arguably the worst (at the time) block in all of downtown, with a dumpy hotel rife with drugs and prostitution and otherwise a bunch of largely decrepit vacant buildings.

Now this several block area is one of the most gleaming parts of downtown.   Add the JW Marriott, which revived another decaying largely-vacant building, the Star apartments which are partially open now (though I think their parking garage should win an award for the slowest parking garage ever constructed -- I think they are building it at a rate of one floor every 6 months), two new light rail lines, and more, it's totally transformed the area.

I worked downtown briefly in 2004-2005 and again since 2012, and the change has been astonishing.  Even over the last 5 years I've seen so much of an improvement in street-level pedestrian presence in the area of 609 Main.  Going to lunch today I was once again amazed at how many people there were outside -- this is not the downtown I know, and I love it.

55 minutes ago, iah77 said:

Wait, they are trenching it when?

 

Right now there is a massive tent community on Caroline so all they did was move in that direction. City needs to fence off asap

It's all part of the big http://www.ih45northandmore.com/ project.  There was an article posted recently that indicated that the timeline has been pushed up for this project, maybe as early as 2021, if I remember right.

Since the freeway would then be below grade, Main and Fannin and the light rail will all be on bridges, and the Fannin exit ramp by Sears will disappear without replacement.  That would probably reduce high-speed traffic in the area, making a large mixed-use district like the one proposed above even easier for pedestrians to get around.

8 minutes ago, BeerNut said:

I've been out of town the past few weeks.  Is the tent city under the freeway still there?  

Everything west of Fannin was cleaned out months ago.  West of Main it was completely fenced in, and between Fannin and Main there has been strong enforcement to keep it clean (sometimes one of the Metro cops even leaves his car parked there).

The block east of Fannin may still have some people hanging out on occasion but it's nothing like it was, and if anyone is still there I don't even notice because it's far enough from Wheeler station.

That said, I've seen a few more people under the Pierce Elevated lately than in the past.  Perhaps that is an additional incentive to eliminate that then IH-45 is rerouted (along with trenching IH-69 near Wheeler) in the near future.

Back to the topic at hand, once 69 is trenched by the Sears, there is sure to be some related work done at surface level, so perhaps that would be the incentive necessary to push through this redevelopment of the Sears blocks.

41 minutes ago, BeerNut said:

Nah it's the large open area under the freeway, unused surface lots, and unsupervised Wheeler Station.

This is largely out of date.  They've now fenced off most of the open area under the freeway there.  And Wheeler Station is heavily supervised now, with at least one HPD vehicle (and frequently multiple) there every time I go there.  I agree that the multitude of largely-unused surface lots (thanks to the Sears that rarely has anyone shopping there) are not a good thing, though.

Those are just vinyl tape stripes added to improve visibility.  I think it's a temporary attempt at improving visibility until the new livery linked by cspwal goes into place.  Don't see it as likely to help much (if you can't see the huge bright lights on the front of the train, an extra reflective stripe and a contrasting color probably won't do you any good!), but if it saves even one life it will obviously be worth it.

On 3/11/2017 at 2:39 AM, enriquewx91 said:

Soooooo what were you doing there! lol

Jury duty.  I got further through the process than I've ever gotten before; this time they didn't dismiss me until the final round of dismissals, as they were making the final selection of the 12 jurors plus 2 alternates.  It was actually quite interesting, hearing the attorneys on both sides giving their introductions and having the laws explained to us.

View from the criminal courts building yesterday:

4 hours ago, terra002 said:

This will probably just attract more homeless people to the area. Churches are always giving hand outs to them. Look at the mess around the church on the light rail in the med center. 

That church stopped helping the homeless in 2015, so if it's still a mess there it's not their fault.

Assuming they are referring to Bar Bleu, which is the only bar on that corner, it means this tower will be right up next to the 2520 Robinhood tower (infamous for Robert Durst and for dropping things on the former Hans Bier Haus below it).  Since it will be similar in height, they will obstruct each others views, with the existing tower blocking the Uptown view of the new tower, and the new tower blocking the TMC view of the old tower.

That damage was already there two weeks ago by the time the sidewalks opened.  They hadn't even installed the ceiling there yet.  Houston drivers never fail to amaze me.

My neighbor took a bunch of photos to show the color changes the night before last.  I keep telling him to make an account, but until then, here they are!

Contrast to this photo I took of the skyline about 15 years ago, in December 2001.  The Wedge tower even had green outlines back then!

The street used to be named Calhoun but was renamed St Joseph Parkway in November, 1997.

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/1997/11/24/editorial1.html

Lowell Street Market is indeed in the Heights, on 18th Street, despite what the confusing name implies:

Not even close to open.  Here's a photo of it as it stands now.  It's still being actively built, just very very slowly:

From HBJ: