keyser

Aside from that, I really only remember Keyser's being there back in the 80's, but I would go inide there fairly often. They still had the track when I went.

As someone who is unused to seeing my last name anywhere, particularly in the town I now live in(!), can you tell me what Keyser's was?

I haven't been here too long (since 2000), but a few places I remember were:

Garcia's (where Fuddruckers is now). This seemed to me to be a pretty popular place, I always liked it, and it had won several "Best in the Brazos" type awards. I'm surprised it went out of business, but there is a lot of competition in the Mexican food market.

Alicia's (where Crazy Cajun's is now). This was a unique kind of Mexican/Cajun place that we used to bring out-of-town guests to. This one closed when Alicia decided to retire/move, and was replaced by a Thai restaurant that moved there, then by Crazy Cajun's.

Imperial Chinese (I don't think anything has gone in there yet, though it's been closed for a while). I had some of the best Chinese food I've ever had outside of China there - yes, I'm serious. Of course, that was when I came here for my job interview and went with someone Chinese who ordered directly (not even off the menu). After raving about it to my wife, I took her there and had a not-very-good-at-all meal. I had the impression that they were fixing "Americanized" dishes geared toward buffets/mass preparation, while if they had stuck to more authentic dishes, they could have done really well.

And, though they weren't particularly outstanding places, there used to be two Thai places (Nipa Hot and Thai Taste) on the North side of University near A&M. I think high rent in Northgate drove out Nipa Hot, and the Thai Taste place had some of the slowest service ever, so I'm not surprised they're gone. I am surprised that there are no other Thai restaurants that took their place, though.

Two places I don't miss (but that I think others really liked) are T-Bone Jones and Tom's Barbecue. I tried each of those for the first and only time shortly before they went out of business, and in both cases, the food was pretty bad - maybe it had been better in earlier years.

Well, after years of basically no progress (though there were some new concrete entrance signs put up recently), it seems the work is now officially stopping on this building. The building permits have now expired:

http://www.theeagle.com/local/b3-042708-STRICTLY

Now I really wonder what will be done with this hulking unfinished shell. There's been too much put into it (plus there would be additional cost) to just tear it down. It's too far along to do much else with it besides finish it. Yet, there are evidently fundamental problems that make it unlikely that finishing it is a financially practical option. My best guess is that it will now sit there indefinitely, slowly deteriorating for the next 20+ years. Does anyone know what generally happens to buildings in such a condition? I'm not sure I recall seeing too many buildings that end up like this.

Now that I think about it, though, I believe there might also be some similarly "permanently unfinished" office space (though less noticable than this 10 story building) that was put up on Briarcrest (near Villa Maria).

There was a short article in the Eagle earlier this week (although now I can't find it on the website) stating that these were indeed on the way. It's been over a year since they were first announced...

By the time I arrived here in Fall 2000, it was not there - in fact, this is the first I've heard of it! Where was it located in the mall (i.e. what's there now)? How many screens did it have?

My mom just called me and asked me if there were any Easter Sunday brunches going on in College Station. After looking on the internet for about an hour I couldnt turn anything up. If anyone knows anything can you please let me know?

Thank you!

I thought I heard somewhere that the Bell Ranch Steakhouse (the restaurant in the Hilton - I think they "rename" it at meals other than dinner) was having one, but I might be just totally imagining that. It would be worth a call to check, though.

Just thought some non-BCS people might be interested in an update on some of the new businesses that have opened here in the last couple of weeks.

- The Culpepper Plaza shopping center (at corner of Texas Avenue and Harvey Rd.) renovations seem to be mostly complete. The main anchor, Kohl's, has now opened, and a Spec's wine/liquor store has opened in one of the larger anchors.

- The development North of University Drive, next to the bypass (highway 6) is continuing to grow. Michael's has opened (and it looks like some other smaller stores are going in there), and Fish Daddy's restaurant (which burned down about 1.5 years ago, just before it opened) has finally been rebuilt and opened.

- In Bryan, a Cotton Patch Cafe has opened near the Premiere Cinemas.

I'm sure there are others, but those jumped out at me.

I recently went to Bryan's GIS system:

http://www.bryantx.gov/departments/?name=maps

and discovered they had a new feature, showing all the development in (and a bit outside of) the city. It's the top link on the page.

If you click on the "information" button at the upper left, and then click on any of the actual developments, you get at the bottom of the page the name of the development and a link to the development site plans and plats. It's very cool, and you can check out things like the new Lauth development, the new High School/Middle School, some of the residential developments, etc.

I doubt it.

The equipment was seemingly abandoned, though there were a number of trucks and workers behind this building working on another project.

Living in Tiffany Park, I drive by this building almost every day. To be fair, I do occasionally see people out there, and the equipment and stuff outside the building seems to change occasionally, but there is no sign of any progress on the building itself. Who knows what they're doing.

Now, the area right around it (Crescent Pointe) is really moving along. Several lots have been cleared, several foundations poured, and at least one building (I think for a law office) seems to be coming along quite fast. At this rate, all the development in Crescent Pointe will be finished before this building ever is.

Interesting. Were their plans to match the architecture of the Academic Building? Were they going to put a building on each side or just one big one one side? Or was anything that specific ever discussed?

There were to be two buildings, one on each side of the Academic building. Longer term, there was to be consideration of allowing for the possibility of future buildings along New Main. Coordinating with (though not necessarily "matching") the Academic building's facade was a prime consideration, and the idea was to further highlight this entrnance to campus. And like I said, it was the thing that the architects seemed to get most excited about. There was even significant discussion about how the biomedical engineering building (which requires stacks and stuff on top) might have a false top floor or something, in order to match architecturally. I'm guessing that with the new location, those considerations might be gone.

And, just to clarify, I had/have no say in the actual decisions - I was just attending to help provide input on needs requirements, and I didn't even meet with all the prospective teams.

The latest on the neverending project - looks like litigation is in the works:

http://www.theeagle.com/stories/052707/local_20070527052.php

I happened to be in on some of the meetings with architectural teams bidding to design these buildings. At the time, the locations currently referred to as "alternative" were the designated site. I know that the thing that was getting the architectural teams most excited was the chance to design buildings in such a prominent location as flanking the Administration building. Evidently the regents (or maybe just the chancellor) changed their mind about where they would be located. I think the new location will work a bit better in terms of keeping the Engineering buildings clustered. I hope it doesn't mess up my parking too much, though...

You've already got Bryan Town Centre in the works and there are two large neighborhoods (Riverstone & Gartenheim) in the works for FM 1179.

This is the first I've heard of these neighborhoods. I found a plat for Riverstone, but nothing about Gartenheim. Do you know if there is any information out there about these?

I know. Whereas the high school attendance zones passed with smooth sailing the middle school situation appears ready to drag well into 2007. I see the concerns of parents living in Wheeler Ridge, Tiffany Park, Park Meadow, etc in that SFA (their proposed new middle school destination) has had pretty lackluster performance lately but I think they're looking at it from the current status quo.

Warning: I'm one of those people living in Tiffany Park, so I do have a vested interest, and I'm likely to just start venting here - I really don't mean to even disagree with your comment - it's just an opening to ramble on...

Looking at the status quo is true to an extent. But, what it comes down to, is that no one I have met around here sees any way that the proposed move is better for the kids in our neighborhood, and everyone I've talked to sees it as worse. I haven't even heard anyone who supports the new district claim that this is better for our kids. The arguments for it deal almost entirely with achieving more socioeconomic balance, and that this might be better for some of the other students in the district. On the other hand:

- You have all the students in this area currently going to a middle school that's pretty good - at least ranked acceptable. You're about to move these kids to a school that's been ranked academically unacceptable. True, it may change (and I'd expect it would), but I don't see how this helps our kids at all.

- It's clearly much more of a pain to get from this area to SFA than it would be to get to Rayburn - driving into downtown Bryan vs. going a little way up the Bypass. This is one of the most clear-cut issues. To be honest, I think a lot of people bring this up because it's something that can't be argued against, but I don't think it's the main reason people oppose the move.

- There was support for the school bonds in this area - I believe this was one of the stronger regions in support of the bonds (though I'm not certain). But, these were supposed to be to relieve overcrowding and repair schools, not to be an excuse to engineer some sort of social goal. We feel like we're being used as guinea pigs, just to cover up more fundamental problems in the other schools.

- If reducing overcrowding alone were the issue, the problem could be solved without moving students from an "academically acceptable" school to an "academically unacceptable" one. That's part of why you see no objection to the high school boundaries - it's not like anyone is being moved to a noticably worse situation. If Rayburn's where all the growth will be, then split it's current district and put half the people into Davilla (plus maybe pull a few from the North end that currently go to Jane Long). They could easily address just the overcrowding issue, though it might lead to socioeconomic imbalance.

- Most people moved here in large part because of the good schools. Bowen elementary was a big selling point for me, and we knew our kids would go to a "good" middle school. Living in this part of town (and I'd include Copperfield and some of these nearby areas), I could reasonably tell my College Station friends that the education (at least until High School, and arguably even then) was as good as they would get in the College Station schools. Working at A&M, I already see lots of bias against the Bryan schools in general. The property value differences between the two districts are clear. By making this move, it seems to me to be diluting the one "strong" area of Bryan.

- The redistricting feels like Bryan schools would be striving for "uniform mediocrity." I think most in this area would have preferred to see some sort of push to, say, make Rayburn a top-notch (e.g. at least "Recognized") school, rather than trying to blur things together to make everyone average.

- The other aspect that no one seems to bring up is that "socioeconomic level" of an area is determined in large part by the schools. Good school lead to higher property values, and thus higher socioeconomic level in the region. They might find that if they send kids from a higher socioeconomic area to worse schools, then after 10 years or so the "high socioeconomic area" isn't so high any more. And, as schools get reputations for being "good" or "bad", that's going to reinforce the socioeconomic levels in those areas.

- Lastly, this region isn't static. Many people in Bryan, particularly those in this region, could choose to move to College Station if we wanted - we're already some of the closest people to CS geographically. Much of the reasoning seems to treat Bryan in a vacuum - as if College Station, with its quite different "socioeconomic balance" and generally higher-quality schools weren't right next door. Even the folks wanting to balance socioeconomic status look only at Bryan - never mind the differential that would probably then be created between College Station's schools and Bryan's.

- For all these reasons, pretty much everyone here believes our property values will drop if this move is made. Even those without kids who would be affected oppose it.

I don't think the SFA proposed attendance zone will hamper development in east Bryan b/c the areas that the new zone are largely already developed.

I think you're probably right, as far as residential development goes - pretty much the only things in this region undeveloped are either floodplain or clearly commercial (Park Hudson, area near the bypass). But, I do think it will lower residential property values around here.

As a side note, I get kind of sick at these neighborhoods constantly being referred to in the Eagle articles as "affluent". Tiffany Park is certainly above average, but not what I'd usually think of as "affluent" - I think of places like Miramont and Traditions when I think "affluent". Maybe you would call Park Meadow "affluent", but Wheeler Ridge? And, compared to College Station neighborhoods, I think it's ridiculous to call any of the three affluent - there are many neighborhoods in College Station that are significantly more "affluent" than any of these.

I'm ignorant on the subject: does anybody know why the area east of Highway six is so underdeveloped relative to the area at the west?

It seems like development on Highway 30, especially, would have spilled over further east when the Post Oak Mall was built back in the 80s...

I'm sure there are a lot of reasons and that I don't know several of them. One I was made aware of not too long ago has to do with the flood plain that exists to the East of Highway 6. In addition to limiting development within the floodplain itself, it would require additional infrastructure for utilities (esp. water, sewer) on the other side of the floodplain. This has evidently limited some of College Station's development of that area - College Station has not even annexed the areas that were agreed to be in its eventual annexation area.

Some other reasons I can think of include historical development and the fact that Texas A&M is very much on the West side of Highway 6. But, development is now beginning to expand more to the East, especially up in Bryan.

Does anyone know what's happening with the (what was going to be) First American Bank building (the giant one) on the College Station side of the University & Copperfield intersection? It appears they've given up any pretense of continuing to build it (though I did notice they put some boards over some unfinished windows on the upper floors). It feels like it has been going on for years.

The Crescent Pointe development (on the College Station stretch of Copperfield, between University and 30/Harvey, except for the above mentioned building) seems to be coming along. The entrance brickwork seems nearly complete, and it looks like there is something going in at one of the pad sites in the middle.

I noticed yesterday that the Circuit City facade is now going up. It will be in that retail/restaurant development at University and Highway 6 (actually down University a little ways) - back behind Wings & More, next to the Linens and Things and Petsmart stores.

I know the SFA attendance zone idea mentioned in an earlier post was orginally on the drawing board. However, I don't believe it has made it to the final list of options as can be seen here: BISD Proposed Attendance Zones

No, the SFA option is in the final list of options - it's option 3-A2 in the link you mention (notice how the Bowen school district - everything between 6, 158, and University is in SFA's region, there). There was a school board meeting last night (which I attended, in fact) to get input about it. But, the board is not tied to any of the particular proposals - they could adopt something totally different.

I should probably put this in the other thread about the schools, but I think this could have an impact on development in SE Bryan. One of the things that has been a selling point about this region of Bryan has been that it has good schools. For those moving to this area, it has been the part of Bryan that you could make a case for being comparable to College Station in terms of schools. Personally, I think that redistricting proposal (3A2) would hurt development in that region, in that it would tend to "weaken" Rayburn and move some of the students in that region to a weaker school, and could thus lower property values.

For the Park Hudson area in particular, it might not affect new development too much. The region is basically already built out as far as residential construction, and it's not like a change in schools will affect the business development much. But, I do expect it could affect development in other Southeast regions.

Regarding the comment about SFA and Rayburn being basically the same - I think this is clearly not the case: SFA was ranked Academically Unacceptable by the TEA this year (as was Jane Long). Seethis article.

Okay, the residential areas are zoned to Bryan ISD schools:

* Bowen Elementary School

* Sam Rayburn Middle School

* Bryan High School

Except that one of the most heavily supported proposals (not final - there will be a town hearing tonight, in fact) changes the Middle School to Stephen F. Austin, instead of Rayburn. There's a decent chance that move would reduce property values in this area (yes, I'm annoyed, considering one of the reasons I have stayed in Tiffany Park was because of the particular schools)...

Upscale retail, restaurant plaza planned for University Drive

An artist

I wonder if this could be the new building going up next to Petsmart and Linens-n-things. There's something going in there...

That Best Buy is only 5 years old, and it is large enough. :closedeyes:

It must be older than that. I've been here 6 years, and it was here before I came (and didn't seem that new when I arrived).

I dont know if Bryan has a say. To my knowledge its federal mandate through FEMA to not build on frequently flooded plains, as to not be a liability. Although I believe FEMA re-drew the 100 year flood plain recently. You would have to check the GIS flood plain mapping on the city website.

Thanks. I checked the GIS system, and the area I'm mentioning is indeed in the 100 year flood plain. The existing Exxon station right next to that area appears to overlap a thin sliver "cut out" of the 100 year flood plain, and is classified as a 500 year flood plain.

I guess what I was thinking was that if you brought in enough fill, you could raise part of the land, so that it could then be classified as out of the flood plain, and thus build on it. Is this type of thing allowed?

There was a letter to the editor of the Eagle last week complaining about losing all the trees there, also (the writer was complaining that new stores would be going in, but I think he/she was just speculating). I haven't heard yet (and haven't had a chance to drive by again to look to see) what will be going on there.

Hmmm. Correct me if im wrong, but I thought that area was in the flood plain, which is why it was never developed. There is a nice size tank/pond back off in the trees next to Green Valley Dr.

That's what I thought, too. But, there were lots of trees knocked down... Maybe they plan to build up the land to get it out of the flood plain (does Bryan let you do this?).

I've seen Carter(?) creek reach a large flood stage twice in the 6 years I've been here, covering all the area adjacent to University Dr. from the bypass to right by the West (old Decision 1) building. And, I now see that land offered for sale (I believe listed as potential commercial property). Building in any of those flood plains would concern me, even if they did build up the land a bit...

Does anyone know what's happening on Briarcrest, near the intersection with 158 (Boonville)? Most of the trees have been cleared away in between the turnoff into Wheeler Ridge and the Exxon station at the corner. This is part of what's designated as park (or something green) in the map citykid posted.