totheskies

An official press release, or a script to read to inquisitors about why Lucky Strike won't make it's open date.

Great... all the more reason to keep them open outside of standard business hours. Man, that sounds fun... it's a shame that they'd only be open from 8am-7pm, Monday through Friday. When does Buffalo Wild Wings do most of its business??? Let me try to be clear. I really really like the tunnels. When I worked for Houston Grand Opera, I loved the convenience of having my car in the parking garage, and never having to get wet or hot to get to the bank, restaurants, or anything else. They are a great and marvelous part of our city, and one of Houston's most important happenings of the 20th century. NOW is the 21st century!!!! We have rail connection between downtown and the 24/7 population of the Medical Center. 4th ward is almost gone... overtaken by the massive gentrification movement that is midtown. The near East End, once a dry area of factories and empty lots, is poised to follow in midtown's footsteps. Even DOWNTOWN is set to gain 1,000 residents (BTW the current residential population, not including prisoners is 3,883). Discovery Green and the House of Blues have injected new energy into downtown at street level. I agree with whoever said it "Let Houston be what it is" in the 21st century, and let's stop holding on to the city's poorly-planned past.

Let's all hope so... There's not a living person at HP to answer the phone right now. I'm sure they're scrambling to try and pull something together.

A) I happen to like OPP's roof, and I don't view it as crappy and imitative... rather eclectic and inspirational. All planing aside, Houston lucked out with a phenomenal skyline. Everyone is envious of Austin, but that's b/c they're finally growing up. I was in Dallas just this weekend, and even with the massive impact of Victory growing right beside it, there's just no comparison. Houston has the biggest, boldest skylines in the state of Texas... hands down. C) I love this city. It's certainly far from perfect, but the variety and diversity of Houston... whether we're discussing its architecture, its people, or its food... is just world-class. No other Texas city can claim this. I like Dallas alright, but do you know how long you have to drive around that place to find a continuous collection of black people? Hispanics? It's just shameful the way they hide their ghettos from the world like that.

We should get some more antennas for our current high-rise stock... just take care of this problem Chicago-style http://www.city-data.com/forum/chicago/319...ion-thread.html

Since they're not breaking ground until March, I will hope for and expect more updates to the design. I'm just glad the financing was able to slip through the current economic lock. It is much needed for downtown to have more hotel space. About the roof... I agree totally. Houston's skyline is one of the tallest in the western hemisphere, but because five or six of the buildings are of similar height, and the all have flat roofs, it diminishes the height effect of the overall skyline (the Houston Center area is particularly horrible in this regard). So yeah, I'd love to see more variety, BUT I'd much rather have a 19 story building with a boring roof than the current flat surface parking lot... so I ain't gonna raise a stink. Get the thing financed, get it BUILT, and we can focus on strengthening the overall area with retail and stuff. That's way more important.

To me the question is less about whether we like the tunnels or not, and more about whether or not we like retail in the tunnels.

Ninfa's serves more meals than just lunch so does Schlotsky's and Beck's. Last time I checked, they were all full-service restaurants. Conversion to full-time restaurant hrs. would be pretty easy if they were committed to it. I have worked downtown (currently work at UofH) and I know the major convenience that the tunnels give to the area. They would be equally as convenient without retail in them. They'd still be air-conditioned, well-maintained (hopefully) and protect people from the elements... the only thing that would change is the retail could move to street level, and then maybe downtown wouldn't look like a post-nuclear warzone. Oh, and bums? If more people were walking around at street level, the bums wouldn't be so adamant.

As much as I enjoy the tunnel system in Houston, I wonder if they're really as useful as people claim them to be. Since the tunnels only operate during weekday business hours, that means that Houston CBD loses 60% of its retail after 7pm. The city's been working hard at revitalizing downtown, but a serious step would be to do one of two things... a-- close the business components of the tunnels and move all the retail to surface level, or b-- extend the operational hours for the tunnel system, and open more entry points to the street level. With so much usable retail space, why not open the tunnels to the public?

Hmm sounds like any critics of the The Galleria back then are probably eating it today (no literally, they're eating at Kona Grill, The Cheesecake Factory...) You guys sound old and bitter the way that you talk about HP. It's been open one month and four days. There's hardly anything there for us to criticize yet. My personal "first impression" of the project??? Nothin' special, but it works. It's a vast improvement over the three surface parking lots that existed there in 2006. The tourist and convention crowd (yes that's correct, Houston DOES actually have tourists) and convention crowds are loving it, as was apparent during the Latin Grammys. Being located in downtown and on the rail line, Houston Pavilions is providing a much needed outlet for after hours retail and entertainment. And the Marq-E comparison is a compliment to HP, b/c last time I checked, the Marq-E's business was booming.

Well, what I really love about HP is that it came to downtown at the RIGHT time. Houston is still floating above the economic waters, but I think the Ike effects are pulling us down, and we're going to slip into recession with ever)yone else. But we're fortunate b/c this city still has a great jobs buffer... we're even more fortunate that a lio's share of those jobs are inside the loop (med center, universities, downtown, construction, etc.). HP, though not perfect, is going to fill a huge void in downtown b/c it'll be the only place that's ALIVE after 6pm. Oh, and I hope our HOB, HP, Discovery Green and Toyota Center gets to benefit from some recent worldwide exposure thanks to the Latin Grammys, so downtown should be seeing a nice little boost.

Maybe we hang out with entirely different groups of people... I don't know too many people that live IN downtown, but as for Midtown, my friends love Forever 21 and have been frequenting the downtown location (20 something women). The word is also getting out around UH campus, although everyone complains about the lack of parking near the store.

Couldn't agree more! I'm an East Ender, and the thought of having some evening selection that is downtown is very inviting. I frequently bike to downtown for various reasons... rehearsals with HGO... just to enjoy the day at Discovery Green, etc. Houston Pavilions in itself is far from earth-shattering, but it's adding another very important piece to the downtown puzzle. Pavilions aside, has anyone noticed that there are actually PEOPLE that walk around downtown now?? even at all hours of the night, there are folks just taking a stroll near Discovery Green, and then walking over to the Theater District. It's FAR more lively than the usual traffic spots of Bayou Place, Main St. and Cabo/Frank's (unless it's a game day). People are EXPLORING the downtown again, and they're finding excuses to be there... that's what we want!!!! BTW Houston Pavilions is not only the closest major venue to Downtown, Midtown, and East End, but it's also the closest venue to UofH, UHD, and Texas Southern (a combined student pop. of over 65,000). Granted, most UH students don't live on campus and have a car, but there's still about 7500 students are in the residence halls. Add on to that the 5000 or so that come to campus most days by bus, and you've got a nice little base for HP to tap into. HP should start working on some new slogans... Houston House of Blues...er, I mean Houston Pavilions! No wait, seriously we're onna be cool... just give us a few more months!!

The Co-Cathedral, FUMC, Christ Church Cathedral, South Main Baptist, First Pres., St. Paul's, Trinity Episcopal, Holy Rosary... are all right there or on the rail line. Sounds like a rather large Christian market, so maybe BAM was a good choice.

I hope that downtown lights up at least for the Holidays. That would be a great time to have them on, and then "conserve energy" throughout the rest of the year.

Has anyone called the store and requested more diversity of texts?? I just did, and they said they would examine their current setup. If they get five or ten more calls like that, you'll see some changes. Books-a-Million is quite biased towards Christianity btw. Go to their website and type in "Islam" and see what you get for the search results. Pretty shameful.

Hey, the way I see it losing Turnberry isn't great, but Houston was fortunate to get lots of fantastic projects off of the ground. I'll cry about this today, and console myself with OPP, Mosaic II, 2727, and the stuff on Allen Pkwy tomorrow.

I like the white lighting just fine... especially b/c it's one of the ONLY buildings that has outward lighting now

Where are the jumbotrons?? I've been looking for them!! I walked around it earlier this week, but am going back tonight to visit Book-a-Million. It's so nice to have a BAM within biking distance of my house!

Hmm... sounds like they're trying to shore up liquidity. But without any tennants, can you really get the financing approved?

This is increasingly common practice within the retail sector... in bigger developments, they'll open up the anchors first, which helps build anticipation for the rest of the development.

Damn!! Virgin Megastore... that's one we definitely need in downtown. Hmmm... the Main garage would be a good place to put it.

OMG... SORRY. 37-story, 40-story, whatever. We need connectivity.