TheNiche

I hate it when the GHP throws this out there. While true that Houston, the municipality, has more Fortune 500 HQs than any other municipality except NYC, that is attributable to the very large geographic size of our City. If you tally up all the HQs throughout each metropolitan statistical area, which is the true relevant area for economic analyses, the Houston area is about in-line with what it should have given its population. No surprises. Nothing to boast about. Similarly, this count appears to have been made at the municipality level, and it includes small cities without very diversified economies. Not surprisingly, border towns and college towns are highly represented. The results would be much different if you only compared MSAs with population in excess of one or two million.

From the 2005 skywalk plan, an outgrowth of the 2002 pedestrian circulation plan, developed by the Texas Medical Center, Inc., which represents the 45 member institutions that comprise the Texas Medical Center.

There's a lot of land in the inner loop, and quite a bit just beyond it that is already half-decent. Most people fail to realize just how much. It's going to be a while. And you're right that flooding is a secondary concern, but the new flood maps are now in effect, and when banks make people buy flood insurance, that absolutely does affect development patterns.

Yeah, I went to the Duany design charrette presentation last night at MFAH. Duany made an ass of himself. He showed up very late, made every effort at every possible opportunity to compliment the developer, Frank Liu, in the most fake and obnoxious way, as though Frank was the only developer in town that did anything right or had any insight at all. Stroking a client's ego in a public setting is pretty typical of a consultant, but most people have the good taste to keep it subtle so that it appears genuine. Duany did not. Duany started out by explaining New Urbanism. He claims that Houston isn't market-driven because there aren't at least two square miles of a truely urban environment. He pointed to Portland and Toronto as market-driven places--at which point he lost credibility in my eyes for obvious reasons. The conceptual plans that he presented ranged from uninteresting to unrealistic. What he had proposed for Liu's Fannin South sites had less to do with the sites that he'd been given than with a complete rebuilding of the METRO P&R station and an idea for the City to carve streets throughout the surrounding area and to create a traffic circle out of the Almeda/Bellfort/Holmes flyovers, which also have a four-way freight rail intersection running through it. Duany compared the potential of that public project to DuPont Circle. More lost credibility. Very disappointing.

Actually, it probably would have. The referendum only passed by a pretty thin margin. METRO was very deliberate in dubbing the route "Westpark" because they wanted to keep the possibility of staunch NIMBYism among wealthy constituents (the only ones that ultimately matter) in that corridor in check, and Westpark was the most forgiving alignment where negative externalities are concerned. Notice that the other routes were "Southeast", "East", "North", and "Uptown". Names, of course, signify nothing, but very few voters read the full ballot language to understand that, and METRO knows this. This much is true. The opportunity to campaign is over. Disingenuous though METRO has been, they have what they need to do pretty much whatever they want.

The market for high-end rentals tends to be pretty small, but I'd imagine that it would be safer if you do your homework. Just be sure to demand references, especially from previous landlords, and verification of employment and income. Also demand a security deposit. If someone bails out on you, that way you can at least cover repairs and very possibly have a bit of money to help keep you afloat until you can find a new tenant. Remember that people that make a fair deal of money tend to have assets that you can go after if they break contract, and they also tend to be easier to track down because they live a higher-profile lifestyle. They also have more to lose than a low-income tenant, so they aren't likely to screw with you. ...the only caveat is that they're more sophisticated. If you lease to a lawyer or someone with an intimate knowledge of real estate law, they might know enough to become a real pain in the ass, demanding this and that of their landlord.

Right, they lower their rates on the weekends but even then, they only lower them to a point. Beyond that point, they'd only hurt their own profitability by continuing to lower rates, even if their occupancy could be boosted. These chains, especially the high-end ones that could take on a boutique hotel, tend to be extremely picky. The greater the number of stars a hotel is going to have, the more leverage they exert over everything, especially location. And the boutique chains tend not to be quite as interested in downtown as they are in other areas, especially the Galleria area. That isn't necessarily the case when you throw condos into the mix in a new construction deal, but it is a strike against the independent downtown boutiques. And you're right that many of these hotel owners are likely to have some basic sense about them...but not necessarily. Depending on their current level of financial distress and whether lenders will still trust someone that invested in a flop, it may not be easy to reposition a property. ...but I agree that the fact that there are several hotel owners that are hurting makes some combination of my brainstormed ideas unlikely. I'd suspect that there's something holding all of them back that is similar in nature. ...and that's why I came up with the idea that it might be an issue with the City, which was giving away money left and right--except that there's no such thing as free money. There's always some sort of a contractual agreement. And what's more, there's no guarantee that the City's restrictions made sense. In fact, I'd hardly expect for everything to make sense. This much is true. All of it.

I'm privy to this one. Its real--at the very least it is a real proposal. Won't say another word.

Yeah, they're way off the mark. The Greater Houston Partnership is kind of like a chamber of commerce for the region. Check out their data. I'll grant you that it is presented in a biased way--they're just doing their job--but what's there is fact. I'd imagine that you'd be interested in various employment indicators as well as the 'Energy Headquarters' sheet under the 'Energy' heading.

Purple Turtle Profoundly unpretentious.

Lowering the rates does not necessarily mean that a sufficient number of hotel customers will be induced to stay there; meanwhile, those of the clientele that would have stayed there anyway would effectively get a discount. I would suspect, however, that if you were to play one boutique off another, you could get a really good deal, since they'd have the opportunity to engage in the kind of price discrimination that their price-taking customers couldn't get a peice of. There are plenty of possible reasons. There are only so many chains with which to affiliate, and chains often have standards for consistency that would require remodeling. It can be difficult to convince an owner of something that is unprofitable--or especially his lender--to throw more money at an unprofitable venture. The owner may be in it more for his/her ego than for the buck. Those chains that are a good fit may already have a position in the market, probably with a non-compete agreement with the other hotel owner(s). There may be agreements in place between the hotel and the City regarding subsidy in some form or another that could be tricky to work around. And then there are the oddball reasons that aren't known to more than a handful of people. ^Just brainstorming.

I believe it. His only mistake was to predict that there would be closings. It is indeed a financial bloodbath, but as long as they can cover their operating expenses, their doors will not close. Some may be repositioned or eventually even converted to some other use, but the building won't just go dark.

Come to think of it, you're right that stormwater drainage was critical in both the Kirby and Studewood street reconstruction projects. Same thing with a recent project along Almeda. But since Richmond runs parallel to the bayous, I don't follow your reasoning that it would be a prime candidate for concrete. From what I can see in the GIMS system, there are only a couple stretches along Richmond where there is a continuous stormwater line; these are between Kirby and Edloe, and then from Timmons to Post Oak Blvd. But I can't tell how large the pipe is. There are no announced proposals to upgrade stormwater lines along any part of Richmond inside the loop, and the layout of stormwater lines under OST looks very similar to Richmond. So unless Ricco's pothole argument pans out, I'd put my money on asphalt resurfacing as the most likely outcome.

Whole freeways have received asphalt overlays (parts of I-45 and 225 come to mind), so I'm not sure that traffic volume by itself is a reason that it wouldn't work. I'm also quite satisfied with OST for the time being, but I can understand your reasoning regarding the potholes. ...I honestly don't know what the truth of the matter is.

Electricity generation pollutes too, but I'll grant you that it at least tends to be pollution that occurs away from population centers, so that much is a fair point. I don't know about the smell.

Ditto for what musicman said. Price is the key advantage. For what it takes to build a single LRT line, a BRT system can be developed. BRT has a somewhat lower capacity per vehicle, but that might only mean that vehicles have to be run with greater frequency during peak hours...not really a bad thing. That certain people have a rail bias is unfortunate, but is a reality. To the extent that such people refuse to ride something not on rails, that is a disadvantage.

It was intentional. The idea is to force a choice one way or the other.

Does anyone know whether Richmond would need to be completely reconstructed (even without rail along it) or whether it could just be resurfaced? Most of the OST resurfacing project was minimally disruptive, even though some issues with the contractor made it last longer than it should have in places, and OST was about as torn up as Richmond is before the job was done.

The 5th (as it is commonly known, north of I-10 and east of I-45) is a hard sell. The third is sandwiched in between the TMC and UH/TSU, each major regional activity centers, and also has somewhat better connectivity with downtown. For someone that has been in Houston reasonably long, odds are that they've cut through the 3rd numerous times to get one place or the other. The fifth is out of everybody's way and doesn't really but up against anything other than industrial facilities. Also, whereas the 3rd receives a lot of politicial support from wealthy folks in the neighborhoods that line Brays Bayou, the 5th doesn't have that kind of backing. The 5th also earned the "bloody 5th" moniker back in the 80's and has had difficulty shedding the reputation. Add to that all the flooding problems, even if they aren't unique in that respect, it just doesn't make for an environment very conducive to urban redevelopment. The East End, 3rd Ward, Near Northside, and perhaps several areas just outside the loop are going to face redevelopment pressures and become substantially transformed long before it hits the 5th Ward in any meaningful way.

The bar scene is waning.

Read post #1.

I'd debate how accurate their figures are, but Central Houston estimates 4,000 downtown residents (living in market-rate units, i.e. not in the Harris County jail) at present. At 1.41 persons per household--their estimate, not mine--the Park Tower would add another 346 units, or 488 people.

Frankly, I agree as well. I stayed at a tiny room in a Motel 6 in Harlingen earlier this year, the epitome of a minimalist experience, and realized that I could easily live in a space like that if I had to. That was the moment I became a fan of single-room occupancy (SRO) facilities. I'm in a 600sf 1/1 unit right now but my bed is set up in the living room and about all I use the bedroom for is a place to put the computer, bookshelves, and a spare bed that gets little use...and if I really wanted to, most of that could be moved into the living room/dining nook as well or just gotten rid of. By the end of the year, I'd like to be out of my current unit, and my preference is to actually downsize, possibly into a garage apartment, studio unit, or something similar.

The tarp, canvas, or whatever the material is, is used to cover portions of the building as exterior renovations are being done.

No, not one's travel time. Hundreds of thousands of peoples'. Not to mention the benefits of having more accessible and thus affordable land, access to an open-ended network of streets and highways serving the region and beyond, and catering to a form of transportation that allows individuals to take different paths on the same vehicle. ...and yes, it is temporary, but so is just about everything that humanity will ever undertake. The only solution to impermanence is not to do anything. If the land acquired for ROW is commercial, as is the case along much of I-10, and frankly most highways as are found in Houston, then the owners of the commercial property will have greater access to a larger pool of consumers or employees, so their remaining land will be worth more. If the highway runs through a predominantly residential area, then it is a matter of trading one form of social benefit for another. The aim should be so that highest and best use should wins and so that those that may lose property are compensated. But my argument in favor of busses on managed lanes over commuter rail is simply that the ROW available should be put to its maximal benefit, and that that can be accomplished by mixing busses and private vehicles. ...if we were talking about a very high-speed commuter rail system that was the epitome of efficiency, I might be persuaded otherwise, but I doubt that there is sufficient benefit to warrant the extreme expenditures that would be necessary for any such system.