crock

between this, the bellrock, and the Art House,  how many Units is that coming online after covid in First Ward? 1000?

wow this is much bigger than I thought, surprised they're not bothering to incorporate any of the houses currently on that block.  also a bummer that the menil is just... ethically ok with the fact they'll have taken out like 100+ affordable apartments from the center of the city at this point?  those two small apartment complxes on the southwestern corner of this lot are the type that was the lifeblood of the Montrose, sad. 

but this will be incredible, possibly the first Hotel in the city that's not embarrassing to recommend to out of towners?! 

they've successfully kicked out all of the interesting tenants.  :/ 

has anyone heard anything about the courthouse extension for the green/purple line? it seemed like the most straight-forward project in METRONEXT and... yet... not a peep, even when they had a whole ass year to rip up the courthouse parking lot if need be. 

i am pretty sure if you asked all 7mm "Houstonians" if tripling the width of the highway next to Minute Maid Park was a good idea the plurality would say no.  but maybe thats just me remembering that 290 has been the butt of jokes for damn near two decades now. 

this is definitely not in Sawyer Yards, Rice Military, Old Sixth Ward, or Downtown. lol. sigh.  "washington ave corridor" or maybe "6th ward"  


Has The Optimist backed out? i was realllly looking forward to that, but now that Tony Mandola's is opening a few blocks away I guess that might have changed? 

7 minutes ago, iah77 said:

Why do they propose such nice things in areas where less people will use them while ignoring very dense areas like Gulfton where bus usage is very high? I feel they really need some program to promote density around the stations to make it actually work. Like the area around Shephard and 1-10 is literally an open stone counter place and not friendly to pedestrians etc.  

the worst part is the one possible stop that's actually in a pretty-dense neighborhood (Houston Ave/First Ward) is the least likely to be built. 

2 hours ago, TrainTrak said:

Yeah, Oscar's Food Mart is 2 blocks north of here.  

As someone that lives in the neighborhood, I have to say that a gas station on this corner feels like a small scale version of the Home Depot going in at Lower Heights District.  On a practical level, I know I'll be able to use both of these, but I can't help feeling disappointed that we've now squandered two opportunities to have a transformational impact on this area.

yes big same.  hi neighbor! 

39 minutes ago, MaxConcrete said:

In case you weren't aware, DFW builds more freeways and tollways than Houston 

uh, except Dallas literally managed to kill their most recent downtown highway boondoggle and that failure is the exact reason TxDOT came here to push for the i45 reno.  

https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2017/08/its-official-the-trinity-toll-road-is-dead/ 
 

i've parked in the basement to go to southside a couple of times, and they're the smallest parking spaces i've ever come across in houston.  if a f250/350/etc. ever accidentally goes down there, I do not think they'll be able to park or leave.  

My forester barely fit in the spots, it looks like whoever designed the piers didn't bother to think through if 2 parking spots could even fit between them. it's rough. 

destroying an entire neighborhood's aethestic/vibe/thing in a week, jfc.   
 

46 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

Literally everything in your post is false.

wow thanks for backing that up with literally any facts or knowledge or opinion.   Did I see you at any of the txdot or CoH meetings the past 3 years? 

On 3/13/2021 at 6:21 PM, Big E said:

The only negative I'm looking at is this getting kicked around ten more years. Just get started so you can get it over with already.

there are literally no positives to this project.   It will cause even more significant traffic around the i59-288 merger, it will destroy basically all of the pregaming/postgaming culture around Minutemaid and BBVA, it funnels all of west-central houston's traffic to 610, exacerbating every other bottleneck of traffic this city already has, it racistly closes off near northside from downtown.  In the event of a disaster, everyone north of i10 will be cut-off from getting to the medical center for any emergencies. It doesn't even tie into any public transportation plans, TxDOT is still a big "we don't know" when asked how long this would affect light rail service.   

 

2 hours ago, Triton said:

Oh cool, where did you find this? Link please? I attended the meeting for this but I don't believe I've seen this one.

page 33 of this https://www.downtownhouston.org/media/uploads/attachments/2017-11-02/Plan_Downtown_Report_FINAL_Spreads_sm.pdf 


i know the last few i45 meetings also had a similar(identical?) rail alignment as part of the Houston requests to TxDOT

@triton

So you were right on the east side, and I was right on the west side... here's the plan as it is in the last Houston Downtown Plan.... so I guess it is true we should be worried/mad that the new i45 plan doesn't imply this'll happen.   ugh. 

 

2 hours ago, Triton said:

I thought it was the other way around. They want to keep the railroad at your red X and remove the railroad on your blue line.

The only thing i'm positive on is that all of the tentative plans have Winter Street line being removed and the southern line, that already has a separate grade crossing at Houston Ave,  becoming the single line, how that works west of white oak bayou i'm fuzzy on.  

my rudimentary understanding of this clusterf' of a plan is something like this? 

10 hours ago, rechlin said:

After reading the Record of Decision published yesterday, one thing I am worried about is that they seem to have abandoned the plan to relocate the railroad tracks, necessary for the North Canal project, because it discusses adding grade-separated crossings for the tracks at Providence and Rothwell Street, but those would be completely unnecessary if the tracks are relocated.  Also they mention a shoofly for the overpass over IH-45, but I would think that wouldn't be necessary if they built the new bridge with the new alignment necessary for the relocated rail in lieu of a shoofly.  If I am reading this right, that is very disappointing.

i'm not sure your reading is correct.  It makes sense that if they relocate/combine the railroad tracks that there would be a need to make sure the crossings are grade separated at those two streets?   


 

anyone else frustrated that they haven't used the pandemic to start building out/figuring out the courthouse lightrail stop?  it seems the most straight forward of the metro next buildouts/approved projects.  

it feels like they're kind of waiting for the i45 update to even bother with how this will actually get accessed.  

i cant imagine how cutthroat it's going to be to try to get companies to come here instead of the MKT or Montrose Collective.   

On 8/26/2020 at 9:11 AM, LBC2HTX said:

This area needs significant infrastructure improvements. I’m aware of Sawyer being redone but that’s not enough to accommodate the explosion of multi family development. 

all of this development points to the powers that be already believing the proposed railroad-combining is going to happen and that winter street's ROW will be rebuilt as a main-street-corridor for the area.  that's the only way it all makes sense. 

i love the rio grande chirping frogs in my pier and beam balloon walls 

i stole it from "wade from FW" on FB