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N Judah

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Everything posted by N Judah

  1. N Judah
    He wasn't a particularly helpful salesman, either.
  2. N Judah
    There's nothing more Houstonian than throwing trash around on the ground. Sounds like these guys are already fitting in and learning from their new hosts.
  3. N Judah
    There must be some reason it's desirable to host a company's hq. For tax reasons, maybe? I don't know. I do remember when Boeing was shopping for a new city for its headquarters, cities were offering huge tax breaks/incentives (that were worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if my memory serves me) for what would only really be a few-hundred-person office.
  4. N Judah
    I'm sure there are national chain restaurants that would better serve the Main st demographic better than Hooters. The only problem is I can't think of any offhand right now. Hmmm....well, maybe a Beck's Prime would be good (if there isn't already one downtown).
  5. N Judah
    So what's a good substitute for Austin? Where can I go for that small college-town charm these days?
  6. N Judah
    I read your post and I think it's too soon to start "beautifying" the city. Houston's economy is still not diverse enough to implement policies which will restrict its entrepreneurial spirit and make it a more expensive place to live. I say Houston should stick with what it seems to have been doing all along -- set up the transportation routes first and then let the market decide the best use for the land. My only problem with Houston is that transportation projects are still too skewed in favor of the automobile...
  7. N Judah
    So? And people who actually work for a living are happy and optimistic about being here.
  8. N Judah
    Contracts are never *truly* binding. You could get out of it if you tried hard enough.
  9. N Judah
    Houston needs a huge rush of new wealth. But that will probably not happen here for a long time. More likely it'll be someone who grew up in Houston and moved elsewhere to make their $$ who decides to come back here to throw their weight around and start pushing things forward.
  10. N Judah
    Well, I think when the other poster referred to design flaws relating to inward-oriented development they were more concerned about the loading docks and utilities facing the street on most sides. In the case of Pacific Place, I'm not sure what they did but I can't recall where they put the utilities and loading docks (underground, maybe, or in the parking garage?) but at any rate as your pictures show Pacific Place interacts with the street/pedestrians very well. With any luck Houston Pavilions will be the same way.
  11. N Judah
    So why would liquor wholesalers want liquor stores to close at 9?
  12. N Judah
    Very Vancouver-y. It looks a lot like that Azure building that's going up in Dallas.
  13. N Judah
    The current setback rule was the reason for the stupid CVS parking lot -- in other words, the presence of regulation, not the absence of it, was the problem in that case. Strip malls are everywhere, even in zoned cities, believe me. So are ugly buildings. Same for garages that face the street. An absence of street life is a problem in most American cities, and there are lots of zoned downtowns that aren't as lively as our Main St.
  14. N Judah
    Depends on the team. A regular MLS franchise, no. A minor league franchise of a storied team from a mediocre league (i.e. the deal with the Mexico City team) - maybe. A minor league franchise of a European team? Definitely.
  15. N Judah
    "Hassled" ? Just don't look at them and you'll be fine.
  16. N Judah
    Oh come on, it's not THAT bad. You guys really like to complain...
  17. N Judah
    I know what you meant by "structure." I was operating on the assumption that the roof of the dome was held up by those white pillars around the outside. There's nothing holding it up on the inside, so everything except those pillars and the roof could be taken out. Extra buildings could be added on as needed. Of course, I'm not an engineer and neither are you, so who really knows if we're "intitiled" to our opinions.
  18. N Judah
    The way I see it, the point of a big transit center wouldn't be to generate growth near the city core any more than an airport would. It would just serve to make it really easy for people to catch their train or bus. I don't think downtown would be a good place at all, considering it's so crowded. As for changing the structure, they could shell the thing, which would keep the basic framework (and thus, the history), keeping it recognizable as a landmark, but change everything else, and add on to the outside also.
  19. N Judah
    The neighborhood will change, trust me. It won't be like that forever, especially if some kind of transit center is put in. Not like the neighborhood really matters -- I don't mean transit center in the sense of encouraging development like light rail -- I mean transit center as in a centralized location where people can quickly and easily transfer trains, or get on a bus, or easily transfer to a train to the airport. I'm talking commuters, not sunday shoppers. You also seem to have overlooked the fact that reliant stadium is there, amidst a "parking lot and crapy apartments." I can easily imagine people from Dallas and San Antonio taking some kind of commuter rail into Houston to watch an international soccer match. Or the Final Four, or whatever. But that won't be the primary purpose of the transit center.
  20. N Judah
    They could make it into a massive train station/transit center. The soaring Astrodome ceiling would make a grand entry for people arriving in Houston by train from wherever it is that we'll have train links to in the future.
  21. N Judah
    Well I happen to think it's pretty cool (and very Houston, in a good way) that a downtown development can serve two pretty different markets without blinking.
  22. N Judah
    They should have a sign in front of the Shamrock: "Whole Foods in front, McDonald's out back."
  23. N Judah
    American Apparel is more like the anti-Abercrombie. They go out of their way to avoid logos, they're 100% American made (quick, name another clothing store that can claim that), and their stores try to avoid extra frills, unlike Abercrombie stores or Hollister stores which try a little too hard to convince you that you're in a surf shack or an alpine lodge. I read in a magazine recently that the new concept for Abercrombie mall stores is to try to re-create the look and atmosphere of a New York brownstone. How they'll manage that I don't know but I have more respect for American Apparel for authentically contributing to urban environments instead of re-creating them in the suburbs.
  24. N Judah
    So what else will be at the NW Mall site besides a soccer stadium?
  25. N Judah
    Maybe the "design competition" I saw suggested in the Letters section of today's Chronicle can be for that Prada store you want.
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