C2H

Forgive my ignorance, but where exactly is this thing going up? I was at Memorial City Mall the other day with my fiance and all i saw was the Hospital directly across the street on the other side of Gessner. I even tried driving around a bit and couldn't find this development so i guess that means its not where i thought it was. Is it on the other side of I-10 opposite Memorial City mall?

No. There will indeed be retail on the bridges, not just space for people to walk. The circular parts are the pedestrian bridges. The parts that went up first will be retail, over both Fannin and San Jacinto.

How do you know this? The bridges seem a little small to be able to handle foot traffic and retail.

Who?

Jesse?

Are you MIDTOWNer or his close relative or something? Your signature matches his mindset.

So coming up on 2 years since the most recent update, i guess its safe to assume this project's dead. Anyone with any other info?

The article was an interesting read but why did it say it was being created over within seven city blocks? Maybe i misunderstood the way it read.

Also consider that a significant amount of the park is still "under construction", so you don't have the full impact of what the total landscape will look like upon build out.

True Dat!

Oh, you are just hilarious! The restaurant is almost certainly no larger than 12,000 square feet, laid out on 2 levels, meaning it probably has no larger than a 6,000 square foot footprint. On the other hand, the park is in the neighborhood of 515,000 square feet. This means that the restaurant takes up about 1.17% of land. And this makes the other 509,000 square feet feel "cramped"?

Priceless!

Look you don't have to agree with me, I was just making my own observation and stating what I perceived it to be. Also stating possibilities as to why a few others on this topic have said the park seemed cramped. I wasn't getting all technical on the actual square footage of the place vs the park. I could care less!

How do you know that the restaurants are larger? Just curious if they posted anything about the parks dimensions.

I really don't know if they are larger. I was just saying that the restaurants appear to be taking up more space in the actual park than they do in the diagrams, thus resulting in what appears to be a more cramped space.

From looking at the diagram and seeing the actual park itself, it appears that the restaurants are smaller and take up less space in the drawings, but in the actual park, the restaurants take up more space than anticipated, thus taking away park space and appearing cramped.

I'm not as excited about this park. The space is too cramped and everyhing is on top of eachother. Maybe things will look different when the park is complete.

Awsome. I thought all blocks would have 3 levels of retail, but looking at the rendering it does look like the block closest to Main only has 2. Either way it's getting exciting seeing everything top out!

I could be wrong but i think all 3 blocks do have 3 levels. Perhaps you're confusing the block with the tower to be an extra level maybe?

19514 is right, a plan for a hotel was never set in stone. But then again, the residential componenet wasn't either since it was able to get scrapped so easily!

Seattle, NYC, Chi, SF, Boston, and LA are all laughing stocks for one reason or another. You can now pass this information all over the internet because now it has been said, written and read. It's too late, you can not un-read it now. Seattle has been branded a laughing stock forever. But don't worry, it may or may not be booming and have thousands of people pouring into it every month like Houston, but I'm sure it has potential too.

I laugh at Seattle. Now you can go on to a Seattle based web site and tell everyone that their town has been laughed at. It has been written and been established. Now that you've read it, the statement is just as legitimate as the 'laughing stock' claim about Houston. In other words PW, now you have more internet dribble to waste people's time with.

pretty funny there Mister X. I guess No one can really argue with logic.

It's all becoming clear to me. This is another Disney ride, but instead of giving the impression that you're sailing with pirates or in a haunted house, it makes you feel like you're in an "urban city".

Pardon me for being horrendously blunt, but just how in the hell do you know? You do not live here. You do not see downtown during the day, at lunch, or at night. You are making sweeping statements with authority....authority you flat do not have. You are either flat out guessing, or you have taken the opinions of others as your own. But, since you do not know the context of their opinions, your opinion carries the weight of a guess.

Sorry if I offended YOU, but you frankly have no idea what you are talking about....even if you happened to guess correctly....which you have not.

Well i guess coming to grad school since last November doesn't qualify enough to know what i'm talking about. I guess coming back and forth to Houston on internships since 2003 that sometimes last 3-6 months don't qualify enough to know what i'm talking about. I guess my "GUESS" is just a ghetto fairytale!

But what do you mean by "more urban"? What scale are you using?

Definitely not new york or Chicago. But lets face it, Currently downtown Houston is DEAD, lifeless, and empty. Its only LIVE during lunch time and business hours. I'd be happy to see downtown Houston even become somewhat like downtown Denver in terms of pedestrian activity. There may not be overcrowded people on the streets NYC style but there is enough action on 16th Street mall to go hang out and draw people there. You do see quite a bit of people walking around. So if Houston could one day match the level of downtown Denver, i'd be pretty satisfied. I just hate to see the downtown of the 4th largest city in America lack so much life.

Sorry if i offended anyone but memebag did ask the question.

That sounds like C2H is more interested in how Houston looks to outsiders than how Houston functions. It also raises the question of what makes a city an "urban city".

Well, yes and no. True, I have a lot of respect for Houston and I do want it to get more recognition for the great city that it is. But i think you're wrong about Houston functioning one way. Houston is a plethora of many different cultures, people, and ways of living. You can't put a stamp on Houston and brand it as strictly business professional when other parts of the city don't function that way. I hear people saying that the thugs come in and chase people away from downtown. Or downtown should just be for adults and no children.

Downtown has been doing all these rennovations to help it become more urban, to help establish a sense of place. Houston isn't just one way and if downtown is to become more urban, it has to accept all kinds of people, race, agegroups, skinny, fat, short, and tall.

I agree, no main stream theatre is a good idea. I don't want to have something that ends up becoming a daycare for teens like the MarqE is. Anyone notice the large number of vacancies at that place?

The way i see it, patrons are patrons. There needs to be a good mix of teens as well as adults to give the impression of an urban city. (No i'm not a child molester)

Hell, even new york is not exempt from having its share of teens on the block.

I know, i'm frustrated that this developent is not including a movie theater in it like they have in Denver Pavilions. Angelika Movie Theater isn't really a movie theater to me, its an art show!

the mia bella people also own cava bistro but that isn't open as much as mia bella. mia bella is definitely a positive for the area. i think it is the only restaurant survivor of the LRT construction yrs. food quality is excellent with reasonable prices!

the supposed red cat move will be interesting. the mgmt of red cat doesn't have a good reputation when you speak with their employees. their employees are treated poorly and end up getting screwed for their mgmt's faults. (long hrs, etc) losing them from market square wouldn't be a loss IMO.

I personally hope the Red Cat doesn't move because if they move to HP , it will leave a big hole in that part of Market SQ

I'm starting to think that American Apparrel is never going to open up downtown. They were supposed to open up in February of 2006. That was almost 2 years ago! Everytime I visit Houston, the building still shows no signs of being converted out of the garage space. What's up with that?

Umm....Houston is 14 years OLDER than Los Angeles.

Oh no its not, not to argue with you Red but LA was founded in the 1700s

**** EDIT ************

I just saw Highway 6 comment above. He posted the same time i posted mine

In all fairness, DT Denver really isn't that much busier than DT Houston. We're not talking about a complete ghost town of a CBD on weekends or nights but it certainly isn't where it was or where most of us hopes it will be.

When was the last time you were in downtown Denver? Denver's downtown has really grown over the past few years and has pedestrian activity night and day. 16th St Mall is even busy on Sundays now! You'd be lucky to see 1 person in downtown Houston on a Sunday.

Exactly! Those haifers who want downtown Houston to be a hot club/restaurant scene just don't get it. No place in the United States has that scene unless you believe that Houston can compete with Time's Square NYC or Las Vegas, NV.

Wrong. Try Denver, Seatlle, and Chicago to name a few.

I thought Urban Outfitters was supposed to be on that list?

I really wish they'd put a Movie Theater in the Pavilions like they have up here in Denver Pavilions.

I hope more retail is brought on the scene but even if they run out of space in the Pavilions, they still have all that retail space that's opening up on Main St Square.