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Nit Noi Thai Cafe opened for business last week downtown on the block of 300 Main Street and they were packed for lunch. Nit Noi had butcher paper up on the windows while they were doing construction to their space at 301 Main Street( previousely Cava's)at the corner of Congress. Cava's moved right across the street next to Cielo Bistro.This block seems to have emerged as Downtown's Restaurant Row as it seems to have the most restaurant cafes and bars in downtown that are all located on the same block and or within close proximity including: Mia Bella,Grum Bar, Clark's,Notsuoh,The Office Bar, Martel's Bar,Cava's Bistro,Cielo,Red Cat Jazz Cafe,Del Rey,and Voice within Hotel Icon."The Hub" building is the only remaining location on this block available for a restaurant or bar and has an updated tan stucco facade which replaced the fire engine red tile and large neon "Hub" signage. If you go to this link and scroll towards the bottom of the page there are some cool photos of this historic block and "The Hub" building over the years: http://www.hsacq.com/312-main-street-downtown-houston-texas

I think Sakowitz is going to be a home run as soon as H. Pavilions breaks ground, which should be very soon.

It' so easy to complain... Yes, this is Houston and I don't see anyone standing in the way of anyone's great ideas, so with that being said...I'm sure we have all probably heard the expression if you really want for something to be done...then why not do it yourself !!!

Great posts Hizzy and Niche.

That's great news.

I agree with you about the need for chains and securing tenants with name recognition would benefit the entire area. It is so weird to me that in driving down Main how few chains are existing. I think H. Pavillions will be able to succeed even without more residents coming to the area and in fact will draw more people to live there by just being built to a certain extent because of a couple of things it has going for it. Timing: Light rail is done downtown, and the rest of the city is freaking out(unnecessarily) about it. I think the nationals haven't really been courted to come downtown to a certain extent until HP came along. The city groups I think push tenants to H. Pavilions because they feel like to a certain extent it is their best bet in getting securing new bus. for downtown, but I personally think H. Pavilions actually sells itself in reality. Anyway, I think that the city groups see H.Pavilions as a great vehicle to increase attendance to G.R. Brown by being able to couple the amenities of G.R.B and the proximity of H. P. to hotels,etc. It should get a considerable amount of business from the app. 1 million conventioneers frequenting GRB. Additionally, House of Blues I believe will have live entertainment 270+ days out of the year, along with Toyota center also having 270+ events per year drawing crowds. On top of that HP brings businesses to the area that people are used to having to drive back home to find. Last it will have 2 condo/apt. buildings giving it a built in residential component. I don't see how such a well thought out project with such support wouldn't be able to make it.

Are you talking about the office tower, or the condo towers ? It is my understanding that there will be one office building in the middle of 2 condo/apt. towers.

I think that's a great idea. The rendering is actually what gave me the idea for Shclitterbahn. No offense, but the rendering looks sort of like a redone Astroworld that even has the green Asrto-water, and I'm sure they could squeeze an Astro-disco or something out of it somewhere. It just has such a "kid attraction" type of look for a hotel to me.

I think you make an interesting point regarding people living downtown. It is my understanding that downtown has close to 5,000 people and midtown has app. 10,000 people. Combined that makes app. 15,000 people. Why don't the downtown groups just call downtown , simply "downtown" and combine the 15,000 people to promote growth downtown? I think we can all agree that Midtown is intended to be a residential downtown neighborhood. Midtowners want Midtown to be more of a residential neighborhood anyway from what I can tell reading this blog anyway.(for example: CVS types of issues) Downtown can simply be what it is intended to be the commercial area where people come to do business and with 15,000 people residing in and around it. Additionally, you have some that like living in the middle of the action downtown, and then those who want maybe a yard and more of neighborhood feel but yet next to downtown or the Midtown area. Let's discard all of these names for the same downtown area and focus on exploiting strengths the entire area already has as a whole instead of inventing more and more cute names that end up watering down the demographics and that scare businesses from coming downtown. I thought 10,000 was the magic # for retail, I think a number closer to 15,000 better reflects what truly already exists downtown, but unfortunately so much is made of having all of these diff. names that downtown is having to market itself froma position of weakness, which is just a shame.

Tear it down and build a Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort.

I do think that a dome where people go in and do everything is not good for the city and only for those investors involved. I think it would be a great problem to have over-booking, and discussing solutions for this downtown would be huge for downtown. Unfortunately though I recently read an article in the Houston Chronicle about hotels working on ways I believe with the city on restructuring their debt....I understand that it is easy for downtown groups to push Houston Pavilions and feel a sense of accomplishment ,but Houston Pavilions doesn't really need their help in my opinion because it sells itself. I am convinced the Houston Pavilions is definately happening, and it will have a great impact on the area. I sure would like to see instead the downtown groups actively promote downtown as a whole. I think if they were doing more promoting of downtown as a whole (which requires a lot of real hard work) then you wouldn't perhaps have two tenants (M.Bia. /R.Cat) moving from one side of downtown to open 4-5 locations under different names in the Pavilions. How does this occuring benefit downtown ?? I am pro H.Pavilions and think it is great for the area, but I am also pro- all of downtown and wish that these downtown groups would tackle this need to promote the downtown area as a whole. I heard H. Pack. /8,500 people ? Also maybe Microsoft looking with 10, 000 ?

It appears that the downtown groups are pushing all of the retailers interested in considering downtown right to Houston Pavilions so that it can be kind of a package with G.R.B. to better market the city and from what I can tell it is working. I heard in passing that Hewlette Packard just decided to have its convention here, and that there are some other major groups looking at Houston harder now. This would be really bad timing for a dome- theme type of hotel thing to occur right when it looks like Downtown is positioned to have a real big up swing that is long past due. We all want more people to come downtown right ?

This whole hotel dome thing is a joke anyway. So, almost any idea including a disco makes better business sense at this point in time in my opinion instead of competing with GRB. It appears that the downtown groups are pushing all the retailers to Houston Pavilions so that it can be kind of a package with G.R.B. to better market the city and from what I can tell it is working. I heard in passing that Hewlette Packard just decided to have its convention here, and that there are some other major groups looking at Houston harder now. This would be bad timing for this hotel thing to occur right when Downtown looks positioned to have a real big up swing that is long past due.

The rendering reminds me a little bit of the Kiam building .

I think when you consider that 2nd floor space above retail centers in that area is being marketed at $210/SF, and look at the high retail rental rates in this area over the years it has always seemed like a very underestimated area with a lot of potential to me.

Is this an Uptown B. promotional thread ?

I think if they spiked cookies with liquor and served them that it would be like throwing jello shots to hot chics from on top of a bar at this particular location. I believe F. Saucer recorded almost $200k in liquor sales in May ? God Bless Them for wanting to sell cookies there ! I really hope they do well and think its great.

KB owns Saks, rt ?

No such article.

I like your positive attitude. Welcome to Houston.

Is it open yet ? How is it doing ?

I think Richmond makes much more sense then Westpark. I don't believe there is much along Westpark for people to want to stop at.

I guess the more the merrier. AA Concpts-Wish 1614 Westheimer St http://www.luckymag.com/cityguides/texas

That's an interesting observation on your part. Apparently there are two different companies that use the AA name and it is my understanding that the lower westheimer store is not the group being discussed at Saks .