TheNiche

Can you get your building's security folks to tell you their source on this information? I'm having trouble confirming it.

Yeah, barracuda is on the mark. Midtown lacks the necessary residential population density. I've been in the Randall's a few times and it looks pretty barren. Perhaps its just that they sell lower quality products at higher prices, but its already-low sales volume would probably just serve to scare off other grocers. Why compete in a market that's already beyond the saturation point? Even if you're in a slightly different product class, its still difficult. Also bear in mind that areas like their Alabama location draw from all the wealthiest neighborhoods in a 3 to 5 mile radius. In Midtown, 3 miles takes you into 3rd Ward and 5 miles might take you into the east end, 5th Ward, and Near Northside areas. Few Whole Foods shoppers there. Also remember that even though the downtown population is increasing in number, a very large segment is made up of convicts in the county jail. Few Whole Foods shoppers there. Also factor in that grocery stores have a razor-thin profit margin. This isn't the kind of thing where you plop down several hundred condos, and if they don't sell as quickly as you thought, then you divest the remainder to vulture investors and take a slight hit. Grocery stores are frequently proprietary and are hard to get rid of if you've got to vacate and sell them. So you'd have to be really certain that the market exists before you dive in. Midtown's going to take a while and may see another few CVS's before it sees something substantial. The best we can hope for is that a set of small specialty food shops can pick up the slack with quality goods, though I'd expect the prices to be ridiculously high.

What I like about the media is that it informs people about potential opportunities and threats that may affect their life, giving the masses a chance to make the decision to live/work or not live/work in a dangerous area, or in an area that is otherwise smelly. I, myself, am well off enough to afford alternate areas and would prefer not to inhale the scent of flared Armourall. Even though it may not constitute a major threat to my health, I just don't like the smell...so I'm unlikely to have cancer as a result of airborne toxins, but that's a result of the CHOICES that I make throughout life. On the other hand, I am likely to have to undergo a quadruple bypass one day...that doesn't mean that I'm going to sue Burger King for bringing it upon me or demand that Sheila Jackson Lee tax Burger King out of existence. I just happen to like Whoppers, and the reward of the burger outweighs the known risk of future heart attacks. What I don't like about the media is when it goes 'yellow' and reports dangers that are way out of proportion with reality. I personally think that the Chronicle would be better serving the public by doing a more thorough analysis, comparing the risk of death in the Ship Channel area by exposure to toxins with the risk of death in River Oaks by exposure to stairs. A seperate article, of much greater importance, could review the latest phone-based study of households that report unpleasant aromas. They could even utilize GIS applications to create something similar to a daily weather map of smells. That would be far more important to most people, if they were objectively informed, even though it'd violate the 'if it bleeds, it leads' policy of news media.

Jan. 11, 2006, 7:21AM SOMETHING DANGEROUS IN THE AIR State finds toxics imperil Ship Channel neighbors Monitors show air pollution at 11 hot spots in the Houston area can sicken residents By DINA CAPPIELLO Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle When Victor Sarmiento reports to work aboard the Lynchburg Ferry each day, he worries about what he will breathe. For 12 years, as he has steered the commuter ferry across the Houston Ship Channel, Sarmiento occasionally has been overtaken by fumes