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Big E

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Everything posted by Big E

  1. Big E
    Nobody is telling them how to spend their money. Expressing disappointment is not "telling people how to spend their money". Not like anyone here is contacting them to lecture them on their desire to downsize this project.
  2. Big E
    This is even worse than what Paco showed. They might as well not even build it. I mean, what's the point? Another glass box. Leave the parcel for someone else to develop. Medistar chickened out. Its honestly kind of embarrassing.
  3. Big E
    Depends on if they'd rather pay for the plane ticket or just drive the distance. Either way, the train would be good third option, and probably cheaper than both in the long run.
  4. Big E
    Doubtful. The "cool companies" (I assume you mean hip Tech Companies like Twitter and Google; I wouldn't exactly put an enterprise business like HPE in that group) generally put their biggest offices in large suburban campus locations even now (Google is based out of Mountain View, California, Microsoft is based out of Redmond, Washington, Apple is based out of Cupertino, California, etc.). Even if they did move to Houston, for lower taxes and such, they would move to the suburbs, maybe as close in as Westchase or the Energy Corridor, not to a huge skyscraper downtown. The only company I could actually see doing that would would be Amazon, since they are already headquartered at a huge skyscraper in downtown Seattle, but we all saw what happened with HQ2. Also, maybe Twitter, since they are actually based out of San Francisco, but even Twitter is not based out of large skyscraper.
  5. Big E
    For people who drive between Houston and Dallas regularly, we're talking daily or weekly, it very well might be better for them overall than loading up a car, driving the long miles, on their gas, to do whatever is they got to do, then driving back.
  6. Big E
    When the freeway is removed, it will raise land values and encourage more development in the surrounding area. Might get some more residential. Plus, one could build a park on some of the vacant land without having to worry about maintaining the existing freeway structure (or maintain it as an eyesore).
  7. Big E
    I mean, they can park food trucks and such under the freeway as it is now, and not do anything to the freeway. They could do all kinds of things with the space under the freeway, but it still wouldn't be the best usage of that footprint.
  8. Big E
    I'd rather they tear down the Pierce Elevated, sell the land to developers, then use that cash to help cap the freeways on the other side of Downtown, but that's just me.
  9. Big E
    When the money flows in, the homeless must flow out. Wonder where they will migrate to next?
  10. Big E
    Come on guys, leave Randall alone. Its not his fault he was born without taste. Its a very terrible, serious condition!
  11. Big E
    I mean, the biggest barrier between downtown and EaDo isn't the freeway (which, like the Pierce elevated, is a viaduct that doesn't impede the street network), but the Convention Center which causes a major break in the street network, and the convention center isn't going anywhere.
  12. Big E
    I mean Clayton Homes was probably on its way out regardless. The area was an inundated disaster area after Harvey, and, from what I understand, only like 20% occupied, if that. The rest was a mold infested wreck. So moving the homes away from the bayou probably makes sense.
  13. Big E
    While rebuilding the Pierce Elevated is not something I'm opposed to, that ship has probably sailed. The city and community seems personally invested in the idea of tearing the thing down wholesale or converting it into a park. Freeway tear down seems to be all the rage among the urbanist city planner set these days, even if the "tear down" really translates to just building an entirely new freeway somewhere else to carry traffic more efficiently, or tearing down an old freeway spur that was supposed to be part of a larger freeway system that never got built, and if you actually look into most examples of tearing out freeways in the U.S. that is exactly what has generally been the case. I-30 through downtown Fort Worth. Yeah they tore the freeway down...only to build a newer, wider, better designed freeway a few blocks further south. Same with I-40 in Oklahoma City. Tearing down old I-5 in Portland. Yeah they tore down the freeway portion the passed through downtown, but they just rerouted I-5 across the river, and the reason they tore down the old freeway was because it was old and out of the date, and the newer, wider, better designed I-405 had already been built to the west of Downtown Portland, and could carry traffic much more efficiently than the old freeway. And what of the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, the example to end all examples of freeway tear downs? The Embarcadero Freeway was supposed to be part of a much larger freeway system that would have followed The Embarcadero all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. That freeway system wasn't built, leaving the small section that was a truncated spur that served no real purpose. Destroying it was no big loss because it was overbuilt for the traffic it carried and carried no thru-traffic anyway. The Park East Freeway in Milwaukee was the exact same situation: a short freeway spur that was supposed to be part of a larger freeway system that was never built. The spur was thus overbuilt for the traffic it served, so destroying it was justifiable. While replacing the Pierce Elevated with a tunnel or adding a second deck maybe feasible or even preferable, the TxDOT won't do it. They've convinced themselves that the first option is too expensive, and everyone else has convinced themselves that the second option doesn't solve the problem of Pierce Elevated being a "barrier" (though it isn't a barrier in any way except psychologically; the entire street network passes unimpeded underneath). Thus, the push for another "freeway removal" which isn't a removal at all but simply moving the freeway a few miles away.
  14. Big E
    I mean what would you rather they do? Try to tunnel the whole freeway? Talk about Houston's Big Dig. The guys at TXDOT have long ruled out tunneling any portion of the I-45 rebuild as either unfeasible or, more than likely, too expensive, though it would make more sense to do that if the goal was to affect the least number of people possible. And I'm talking about a full bore tunnel, not the cut and cover tunnel they are planning to do here with the freeway caps
  15. Big E
    I think everything is being built in at least two phases. The retail pavilion and Hotel/condo tower are phase one. The rest of the midrises are future phases.
  16. Big E
    Yeah, a pandemic will do that to you.
  17. Big E
    Isn't there another grocery store near Midtown? Pretty sure there is. Maybe they are doing more brisk business?
  18. Big E
    That's largely just shifting the burden from the city to the TIRZ, leading to a more patchwork situation. Now this could theoretically be better: rather than a city as geographically large as Houston trying to push a one size fix all solution, each TIRZ would be in charge of making things work in their own neighborhood, which they understand much better and more intrinsically than the city ever could. But it wouldn't fix the fundamental issue regarding affordable low income housing. It would force the TIRZ to push for low income housing in an unnatural, artificial way to meet a quota, irrespective of the wants of the community its serving or the actual economic conditions supporting such, rather than allowing the market and natural evolution of the neighborhood to dictate where said housing goes and if it goes there at all.
  19. Big E
    They're looking for loans, not handouts. Nobody could have predicted the damage the Coronavirus has wrought on society economically. Unfortunately, massive infrastructure projects like this are going to get squeezed and that's unavoidable.
  20. Big E
    The thing is: Does the city actually indicate how it intends to shift truck volumes away from downtown? The only option to do that would be to reroute all truck traffic along the Loop, which is already a backed up mess most of the day, especially the west loop. It would also increase travel times to force everyone to go around the city. If the city is planning to prohibit all truck traffic within the Loop or some such thing, it would probably cause more problems than it solves. What would help traffic would be to setup a Local–express lane system for through traffic on 1-45 and direct all through traffic on to it, but that would still require a massive expansion of the freeway right of way. Another option would be to expand the loop to handle the extra traffic load, but that would just move the burden of freeway expansion to another freeway (that and the park lobby would have a field day opposing any expansion of the west loop through Memorial park). Come on dude. You know that's not what he's saying. From an objective standpoint, the areas along I-45 look terrible, and its not because of the poor neighborhoods it goes through. Its because the massive amount of billboards and low end businesses (plus their signs) that front the freeway. The freeway itself is nothing to write home about, just a slab of concrete, and the area around just contributes to a run down look. Now you may like that Frye's Electronics, but I think Houston can survive without it.
  21. Big E
    That might be true in absolute terms, though even that is debatable depending on what you are actually measuring (MSA for example). What is also absolutely true is that Houston itself is geographically larger than any of these cities. However, that doesn't affect the point really. There are still plenty of suburban and rural areas outside of these cities for people to move to and live in. And honestly, in an era of skyscrapers and dense development, geographic constraint probably shouldn't play as much of a role. The fact that it does speaks to my wider point about how government laws and interventions are largely constraining development. Well that doesn't actually weaken my point that Houston has geographic constraints to development. Also, despite the geographic constraints, the eastern side of the SF Bay is just as developed as San Fran's. Not necessarily. In a bad or stagnant economy, they may stagnate or go down. Even in a decent economy, home prices may remain relatively stable if demand isn't overtaking supply. Houston's home prices are a fraction of a city like New York's or San Fran's, even with its booming economy (pre-corona). Prices in some areas were probably stagnant, even before the corona virus hit. Depends. That...isn't a poor idea on the face of it. As the articles I linked above pointed out, when you get right down to it, IZ is more of subsidy program than anything else, and its success seems to be tied to how much the government is willing to subsidize to prevent rents and housing costs from going up. The problem is whether or not the government is willing to subsidize, how much, and whether or not IZ is better than other forms of government subsidy.
  22. Big E
    The city wanted the Katy Expansion (or accepted that it was necessary) and pushed it despite opposition. The design phase was a little long, but that was mainly due to the fact that when they started, TXDOT had not yet bought the old railroad tracks next to the freeway. Once that was taken care of, everything went relatively smoothly. The tracks' removal allowed the expansion of the freeway without building costly elevated structures or as much right of way acquisition, so the city never really pushed for an alternate proposal. All of the Katy's opposition were from private groups, but the city solidly backed the freeway, and the opposition was ultimately defeated. The city never backed the Hardy Toll Road and in fact was hostile to it, which is why the county judge at the time basically single-handedly had to push it through on the county's end. He effectively personally championed the project. There were no alternate proposals because the city simply didn't want it built. The Harrisburg Freeway was not a major priority for TXDOT, nor the city government and took years just to get consideration. Its development was further complicated by the new federal laws at the time that was mandating all kinds of things the older freeways didn't require. What really killed it though was that it came at a time when TXDOT were massively strapped for cash and resources with huge funding shortfalls (which had already delayed the freeway), and had no stomach to push through an "unpopular" freeway given the current situation when the resources just weren't there. The West Loop Expansion ran into unique opposition in the form of the Park Lobby, which is very strong in Houston. The Park People organization in particular, mobilized to kill that plan, with the help of certain friendly city council members who were vocal anti-freeway people. Truth is, nobody who uses Memorial park would have noticed the 3.5 acres that would have been lost to the expansion. However, I think in the case of the West Loop, it was more like everything just seemed to align in that one moment to frustrate that particular plan. The planets sure haven't aligned that way since. Both 290 and the Katy ultimately got widened, barreling over any opposition.
  23. Big E
    The whole Skypark thing I can take or leave. They could just give the land to development and it would work just as well. As for their proposals, I'm not sure how much TXDOT will consider them. Adding capacity was a major focus of the project. I doubt TXDOT will actually walk away from that. They may scale the project back, but I'm not holding my breath. History has shown that when a freeway project is seen as a pressing need, it will get done in Houston and everyone will ultimately get behind it. The Katy expansion moved forward despite opposition, the Hardy Toll Road happened despite opposition, and this will ultimately do the same. The city will get behind TXDOT in the end and just tell everyone "Well, we tried".
  24. Big E
    Then you should have kept reading, because you didn't understand why I called your statement apple to oranges. I called it that because you intentionally skewed your comparison. You compared the densest, most central part of the cities/metro areas of San Fran, New York, and Seattle to the entire metro area of Houston. Your comparison was inherently flawed because it didn't compare like things and was weighted in your favor because of that. Despite how preposterous it was, I took the time to read it and explain why it was flawed. It says more about you that you didn't take the time to read my explanation.
  25. Big E
    I think they are also working on a third building? A 20 story office tower on West Dallas?
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