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X.R.

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Everything posted by X.R.

  1. X.R.
    Paging @Houston19514 I'm trying to find your loop stats but failing, so what was the increase from 2010 til now? And thats incredible @BEES?!if this is nearing the most people who ever lived in the loop!
  2. X.R.
    I wonder how big the parking podium will be...😝 The first thing that comes to mind is A) love this part of the city, and B) this feels like that "fine grain" development I've seen others post about when it comes to elevating a neighborhood. @Houston19514are you saying they are going to destroy everyone's favorite dog park and weirdly open space?? Thanks @iah77for the article, gonna read over lunch.
  3. X.R.
    yeah its weird, I would have thought they would have redone all the bridges to be similar to the new Southmore bridge which I think is the only one that was redone. They did plant trees by that bridge, and some new trees on the side of the walls on various parts of 288 just past 610 going north, but not much else. Doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to why they put the new trees in. I was thinking if they didn't redo the bridges or the walkways why they didn't just plant trees/vegetation consistently in the wall/feeder sections with grass (helps with flooding!). A strange highway update, but effective! It moves people!
  4. X.R.
    IF all they did was buried the freeways with no expansion, I'd be on board. And I would agree, it would be a massive win. I was on the fence about the expansion aspect, tbh, I could see both sides. But after working with clients these last two years, I think expansion of the highways is premature based on the change the pandemic brought and continues to bring to the workplace. Work From Home, at least in part, is now ingrained into almost all industries in Houston. Hell, multiple oil and gas plants in Houston are allowing non-essential people to WFH at least once a week. Law firms too. And those two are the oldest, most curmudgeonly industries yet WFH is here. I've had recent interviews where I would get a bonus if I promised to come into the office at least 3 times a week. Its crazy, but its here to stay. I believe relying on pre-COVID data to justify expansion is a hard sell, the paradigm is going to be different for the next few years. Traffic has been permanently changed. The burying would help downtown transition from a strictly business oriented area into a neighborhood, someplace you wouldn't mind going to on the days when you technically were working from home. Maybe to visit a coffee shop you like, or chill in one of these green spaces. And like @sapo2367said, given the direction the city leadership is going, and how Houston has some incredibly generous and wealthy families who regularly donate to park space, I could see some of these caps getting parks. Hey, at the very least, it'll increase the property values for their rental properties 😂
  5. X.R.
    Man thats wild, when was it 4 if you can remember? Would y'all think it would make sense to convert this to a longer stay hotel? Like the ones where they rent to you for a week or more? At 20+ hotels, you'd think you'd have so many price points covered, so may be it would make sense to introduce multiple price points at the "i'm in Houston for a week" type of thing.
  6. X.R.
    Whats going on in the brown space on the roof in the top third of the roof? Is that soil or is it being prepped for something else? Anyone know? And thanks @citylivingfor your greatness!
  7. X.R.
    Yeah the way I read it is the same as @Houston19514 . It sounds like the enviro studies and pre-construction stuff for the whole line is under-way and construction on the thing as a whole doesn't begin until 2025. At this particular meeting however, they chose to focus on that certain piece. If they are doing BRT the same way they did BRT in Uptown, then I can see how this can be a long term project requiring crazy amount of prep. I mean Uptown BRT came with sidewalks with trees and lights and the median is full of trees and each stop has a nice shelter area and some LCDs. I think Uptown helped with a lot of that (someone correct me please) so even if it doesn't come with the sidewalks and stuff, and its just the median, I mean, that's still a massive project that I'm sure requires a lot to be prepped. Who knows, maybe they are also waiting for each TIRZ/neighborhood this thing goes through to get their plans in order so they can do a Uptown-type pedestrian experience for each place it goes through.
  8. X.R.
    its cool that greentown labs is trying to put together a fortress of vines, saw people working on the little planters at the base of those...skinny fences (lol)? Its going to be wild to go from all that was there before to this largely green building and the type of trees that are planted on the north side of the Ion, which I assume will be used for most of these developments. Maybe they got rid of the planters and are opting for vine fences that we see on greentown and the Skyhouse developments downtown. 🤷‍♂️
  9. X.R.
    Anyone know the above? Just looking at the brochures and stuff it seems to allude to a Q4 2021 finish but they haven't really done much as of yet... Given the amount of tourists I see walking by the Shops and quizzically looking at it like "can we go in there?" every weekend I feel like just doing what they planned to do for the Shops would give it a big boost. It also would extend the Discovery Green/Austin St Bike lane foot traffic almost to Main, which would be huge. I hope its not scrapped. Edit: I was at a function for one of the tenants in Center One and the new renovations are fantastic, they did a lot of work inside that isn't even detailed in the brochure. The office I was at said theres so much added they almost didn't know what do with all of it/how to integrate all of the additional features into their work culture.
  10. X.R.
    So i'm relatively young and grew up on the south side of Houston. Never had any friends on the north side of DT, most of them were like exit 52 or higher. Are y'all telling me the only way to go the area north of downtown other than 45 was via this viaduct...and its been closed for 4 years? No other streets went up that way? Is this why I always took the highway to Saint Arnolds? If this is true, my mind will be blown for the day.
  11. X.R.
    This is the wildest thing about being a Dynamo fan. Its like the Bars in that area and around town are like "eww a poor" and act like they dont get the game (lol) or that changing a TV is like moving a boulder uphill. I like Pitch 25 but that is the craziest thing about them, and its to the point that I wondered if old ownership told them not to do it because it absolutely made no sense. Maybe this is the improved gameday experience Segal alluded to in his presser ☺️? I initially honestly thought @thedistrict84 was playing it for laughs and photoshopped the old bbq place but no, it seems its real lol. I cannot believe some of you went to that bbq place, it always looked so shitty.
  12. X.R.
    This and bagby's makeover might be the fastest thing the city is working on currently. Someone lit a fire under their asses 😂.
  13. X.R.
    Given the amount of money that thing cost, and how expensive it looks, there is no way in hell that garage stays as it is. But, there has been a slowing down on the construction a bit on the weekends/the construction people are less visible, so either they are doing wiring inside or the construction crew has slowed down for whatever reason (prolly vacation, seems like everyone is taking vacation now). It is a bit interesting to hear the MPNA people whine about the noise (particularly music) coming from the site, I'm like...who lives near enough to this that they could hear anything? We all know the Mond is empty 😝
  14. X.R.
    This place has been so empty for so long during the Pandemic, how is construction not wrapping up now lol. I'm still sad that Luby's is gone, that was part of my weekly rotation pre-pandemic. I'm glad they are doing SOMETHING because as it currently is its getting smoked by Uptown Park and the development across the street. It looks like they saw the improvement Uptown park made (which wasn't a whole lot) and were like "can we do 50% of that??" The answer is no, not anymore. Like, you can't be lacking lessees pre-pandemic, see what the pandemic did to everything, and then roll out a patio and 5 trees and 10 bushes and say "See! We get it!" Especially on Post Oak of all streets in Houston. Edit: I'm not saying I expected a second story or some crazy transformation, but it just needs to elevate itself a biiiiit more than the pictures show and it didn't. I actually like the renderings, just wish there was a bit more.
  15. X.R.
    Maybe the ugliest building in Houston, it haunted me as a child when I would roll through to get some middle eastern food. I'm glad that turned out to be the exception, lmao.
  16. X.R.
    I never noticed the six columns on the Calhoun bridge, and my question to the designers on the forum: was water flow and the like not a thought when these bridges were built? If they are able to do such a bridge with two sets of columns or what not vs 6, why not do that from the beginning? I am 100% for all of this, it just seems like alot of what is done by the city of Houston is correcting design choices that overutilized concrete/construction materials.
  17. X.R.
    Will there be trees along Westheimer? That would be very awesome cuz for a corridor that is in such a cool part of town, it would nice to emphasize the "cool" aspect of it and get some trees in along that street to bring the temp down a bit while walking. 🤫
  18. X.R.
    Bayou Place has been dead for at least 5 years now 😂. I'll respectfully disagree with Discovery Green tho, weekends its crazy already and weekdays the scooter rentals keep that place alive. Tbh, our parks have been the fastest things to pop back after the pandemic. Everything else you described is indeed operating at a lower capacity than pre-pandemic. Having been to Austin two weeks ago and Atlanta for a few days now, I gotta say its kind of a theme. Downtowns and the city area haven't been popping off like they were pre-pandemic. Just give it a bit of time, all economic signs point to people spending money on vacations and travel and food/drink again so we'll be back sooner than later.
  19. X.R.
    For someone who was raised in the no-man's land of between 610 and Beltway 8 on the south side, Montrose was already full of amazingness and great development. I guess yeah, compared to upper kirby and uptown/galleria area it hasn't gotten that level of development but to alot of Houstonians like myself its still pretty damn great. This development alone and the new park on Westheimer are blowing my friends' minds who hadn't been drinking in Montrose in a year and a half and went in the last two-three weeks. This development, skanska's, and disco kroger's re-developments will elevate Montrose to rare air in htown. I'm happy Montrose is getting some development love but its a great place already (and arguably the best in town for the combo of living, eating, drinking, the arts, and chilling/exercising in some green spaces). Edit: glad to see Lum is posting more consistently!
  20. X.R.
    Did a @hindesky type ride through downtown. Say what ya want about Discovery Green as a park, but I couldn't help thinking with the amount of people who were there at 7pm on a Wednesday that so much of this development was made possible by that park and what its done for that area. City just needs some more greenery to link this area to Bagby (which is starting to look incredible), and main street's water feature and stuff helps, and I can't help but think this will continue the revitalization of downtown in a massive way. The barriers were already spilling out onto Labranch's road a bit so I'm assuming some part of Labranch will be shut down when things really get heavy. Exciting.
  21. X.R.
    Seems like its on hold for real, unless TxDot is saying one thing and doing another (surprise!):
  22. X.R.
    I lived in dallas for a while and still go up there for work sometimes. Most of those jobs are where companies can build full on campuses, so like plano/arlington/richardson/etc so yeah, they need the highways. Downtown Dallas is ghost town during the day with nothing going on, which isn't helped by the fact that jerry world and the rangers are DWI-fest 30 mins west of the city and FC Dallas is in the burbs to the North and is consistently one of the underfunded teams in the league (because no one goes to those games in part because its in the mdidle of nowhere). I say all that because normally those types of games would help businesses flourish in a downtown and they aren't in downtown, so downtown and uptown stay empty during the weekdays. Again, the highways help allow for these type of spread out development. Shoutout to the Mavs and Stars for cultivating a hell of an experience at American Airlines. Speaking of downtown, didn't they actually kill a TXDot highway project AND build Hyde Park (which is awesome) and is basically the model for cap parks in America? Everyone loves Bishop Arts, the gentrifying Oak Cliff, the M Streets, Knox-henderson, white rock lake, Highland Park, etc but its because those places are walkable and are actual communities. And my friends in the actual city are never like "we love Las Colinas, Plano, Arlington, and Garland!" (the places where these corporate campuses are) because they are your normal car-dependent burbs. I really enjoy Dallas, but Houston and Dallas are just different. I'm happy they are getting more money to develop those highways because they need it, they move a ton of people.
  23. X.R.
    Them Fed boys and girls decided they weren't playing around. Told em to stop everything in a "did you not hear us the first time?" type-a-way:
  24. X.R.
    Went by this weekend, and its crazy to think this is actually happening and how quickly its moving. Like, every other week it seems they are making visible, substantial progress. Are they going to put fences up or something on the sides of the land bridges? You know people are gonna accidentally let go of a dog, or someone is going to kick a ball real hard, or throw a disc too high and its going to go over. I was wondering that once I saw the height of the land bridge.
  25. X.R.
    Wow, after all of this is done we're going back to sharing lanes to exit? The only difference being that 59S finally gets two lanes and 59N gets the new ramp? That is f***ing terrible if true. Guys and gals, they had ALL this time, ALLL this time during COVID to shut that down. And instead, we're doing it when everything is building back to normal? Defeating COVID took a bit of time, so they got a full year more than some expected. Incredible amounts of stupidity. I went back to work in the middle of 2020 out of necessity, sometimes I was alone at 8:50 am taking the 610 ramp. They couldn't have just dropped certain projects and taken advantage of this unprecedented time? Maybe quit a project TXDot was doing in BFE, Texas and rush to one of the busiest highways in the state? I love HAIF but the reddit thread for this is filled with the right reaction of joyfully poking fun at what a shit show this is going to be.
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