MiDTOWNeR

Plus 1 for one cash, brother. Christ, people act like I'm a drug dealer to use a $100 bill in a transaction.

That reminds of the days in the barrio when everyone gets their checks and are shopping at Fiesta. Im the only one without the 100s.

Good to see. Mattress Giant at 11th and Shepherd was over a mile from my house. Plus, we needed another so we can get competitive pricing. My monthly mattress purchases were starting to crimp my budget.

But there is plenty of space in existing houses for more and more illegal immigrants. They are the ones fueling the mattress market in this neck of the woods.

I have an idea for a Youtube video.

* First get shots of the lady panhandling

* Several minutes later, show a clip of the same woman driving a car

Perhaps a message at the end could say "Some beggars have more money than you think!" or something to that effect!

By the way, Lisa Gray had a column in the Houston Chronicle stating that the city did not try enough measures to take the "35%" (mentally ill) homeless off of city streets.

"HOUSTON PANHANDLER BUSTED!!!" would get more views and attention.

Why not MORE grocery stores in the loop open 24 hrs??!! Miss my 24 hr grocery stores on west coast!!!! But, I guess the answer to that from most on this noard would be..."GO BACK!"

Sometimes, Houston makes me sick. This is a time when. Why demolish it? If the Alamo was built in Houston, that thing would have already been demolished.

Yet, we can't get rid of the Astro Dome.....yet!

it is the people who believe everything should be "urban" development who want this. it has to make economic sense for a business to come in. not having parking will definitely limit their customer base which doesn't make sense economically.

YEAH! We can't have the suburb of midtown ghetting all urban on us yokels.

Instead the 24-hour city needs to focus on entertainment and services that people would need at 3am.

It amazes me the lack of 24 hr grocery stores in this town.

Sawyer Heights Village will be an urban shopping center, similar in style to Highland Village and Town & Country Villages, Moss says. The developer is turning Taylor/Sawyer into a heavily landscaped boulevard with brick roadways, and has designs to make the entire project pedestrian-friendly.

This just makes me laugh. The idea that any shopping center anchored by a target would remotely be like a highland village is simply hilarious...Especially in this location.

Regarding something like a 24 hour Galleria and the conservative ascriptions thereof...it's not just a Houston thing...America in general is conservative in terms of keeping late hours with the total exception of New York and Las Vegas. Driving down Wilshire in LA through Beverly Hills at 11 pm most nights is even a bit deader than nocturnal 610 and Westheimer. Of course, Vegas is sort of artificial with no real culture and the gambling is something that keeps people up for days on end. New York...if you lived there, how can you sleep anyway?

From San Diego to Tampa Bay...people who spend the upscale money go to bed early typically...or they certainly do not keep in mind buying that pair of thousand dollar gloves at 3:30 am. It's not a "conservative Houston" thing per se. In Spain, people get socially started for the night at midnight! So no, this is America where the underlying Anglo Puritan heritage makes most of us in bed by 9 or 10 pm (except those of us who work 2nd or 3rd shift hours...and that demographic certainly ain't no Tiffany or Cartier shopping one!).

The Galleria itself is private property so I don't see that Swedish type of right-to-the-land thing applying to it in a 24 hour context anyway. It's not profitable to the property owners or merchants.

So, your saying that the high end stores similar to what one would find in Beverly Hills are open late or 24 hrs in New York City?

it looks like an inner city high school with some palm trees at the leasing office entrance.

According to O'Connor & Associates, the Broadstone Uptown Lofts were 97% occupied as of the 11th of this month. I'd say that it probably worked out alright.

Took long enough.

You are correct. The connections protrude from the ground.

You'd probably be surprised to learn this (I certainly was), but apartment complexes with visibility from freeways lease up very quickly and maintain a higher level of occupancy. A site with that kind of visibility is just a variant of outdoor advertising...and a very effective one at that.

that did not work for the "lofts" at 59 and 610.

Although I think most of these town center deals pretty retarded and corny, there is one in Columbus, OH that is thriving quite well. It originally opened in 1999. Its called Easton Town Center. Check it out online.

I smell condo conversion

thank you michael richards.

Oh please. Ghet off your soap box

, Frankly, I don't care how many people (psst...cities can't agree on account of that they aren't sentient) disagree with me. Although I'll be the first to admit that I won't always be correct, or that I'll even know what correct looks like, I'd like to think that I at least have intellectual integrity.

I hope that you hold yourself to the same standard.

blah blah blah.....

One answer to this question is the fact that sprawl has splintered the city and it's beginning to function more like disparate towns than the fourth largest city in the country.

Isn't sprawl what made Houston the 4th largest town? Without annexing everything in site would the town be the 4th largest? Has Houston in fact ever really had the opportunity to function as one cohesive unit?

To answer your question, yes. Of course.

I never said that there weren't costs to having no zoning. But the net benefits are greater, IMO, without it than with it.

Interesting that more cities don't agree with your opinion.

For such a progressive and open-minded city, our development community is sadly behind the times.

Perhaps then, Houston is not "progressive and open-minded.

An honest question.

It isn't as though there aren't other areas of opportunity within the city where it'd be easier to stimulate major redevelopment on a more concentrated and grand scale (i.e. Buffalo Bayou corridor). Downtown/midtown are each just have this problem with divided ownership of a whole lot of tiny parcels that makes cohesive urban planning incredibly difficult.

Doesn't the whole -no zoning- play a huge part in not having a cohesive urban area?

Plenty of projects are going up in Houston - There are cranes poping up all over the city, condos and townhomes are going up like crazy as well. Don't worry people, this project is a go. In my opinion DT Denver and Seattle has more residential and shopping then our DT because that only have one cenral area and also majority of our cities residential and shopping is in uptown/galleria area which is like a second DT.

Although Seattle and Denver do not have areas on the scale of The Galleria or the Medical Center, Their Downtown's are hardly the only area where residential and shopping coexist.

How is the mattress/ cheap shoe market not saturated yet? Do people buy new matresses every 3 months?

Probably not every three months. But do you think illegal aliens bring mattresses with them? They have to purchase them somewhere.

Welcome to Houston, the 4th largest joke of a city in America. The city with no efficient transit options (i.e. rail), no amusement park, 600 sq miles of ghetto, low density, car-centric, unplanned neighborhoods, lack of progress, and etc......................................................

Can I use this as my signature?

Go back on a Saturday night. That place is crawling with people. Don't think they built 3 large mulit-level parking garages for nothing.

Give it time. It will eventually be very apparent why 3 large multi-level parking garages were completely unneccessary.

Lol, Midtowner!

Uptown/Galleria is a beautiful place, but it is best appreciated if one lives inside the loop and doesn't have to deal with the horrible traffic on 610.

I was driving around in the area a few years ago in an expensive black car (not mine) listening to Moby's version of the James Bond theme on a chilly overcast evening. It was kind of eerie.

Try that while listening to Moby's "God moving over the face of the water" Even creepier

I went to the Galleria yesterday, and everyone was dressed so well. I mean I thought I was in New York or something. All the women looked like models. they all had class and had on the best looking clothes. And they call Houston one of the fattest cities in America, I don't think so. I think many cities are envy of Houston in many ways.

First we went to drove by Highland Village just because I wanted to so my family. They were amazed, they never knew that area of Houston existed. They saw all of the palm trees with christmas lights rapped around them and the stores that had bowes on them made to look like gifts.

Uptown Houston looked like a very large city itself. The parking garage near the Cheese Cake Factory was pretty full so we parked above ground. Looking around the view is amazing! Lots of people driving Hummers, Jaguars, mercades, etc. Last time I went to the Galleria I saw a Maybach.

This ways also the coldest I have ever seen Houston!

We got there at 7:00 pm and left the Galleria at 10:00pm.

It was dark and cold but nice!

Was bored and found this GEM of a posting. Thought everyone would enjoy reading it again! They love me, THEY REALLY LOVE ME!!!!!

Citykid, you're right, the Galleria area is all about high class!

If your from Mexico City

It's sad, but we have to stop being so p.c. It is not once in a blue moon that you have an encounter with someone you really do not want to deal with in that area.

AMEN to that!