JJxvi

There's something really wrong with Edwards Greenway recently... anyone know? It didn't even have Spectre. Ended up going to Cinemark at Memorial City instead.

It's also because of this boycott.  Spectre is playing at iPic so Regal is refusing to show it at Edwards Greenway, they won't have Star Wars and don't have Mockingjay or Peanuts, either. Presumably they won't have Creed or Legend next weekend either.

Apparently iPic will have Star Wars and Mockingjay and Edwards Greenway will not...that doesnt seem like a smart move Regal...

I really doubt that TCR is going to build some crown jewel station at NW Mall anyway.  If it is a success, then maybe they will extend the line downtown anyway at some point.  I suspect though that NW Mall will actually be viewed as being a pretty good location in the long run.

I suspect that the city is about to become VERY amenable (even moreso) to new TIRZs.  With the city property taxes being capped by revenue anyway, a TIRZ is one way to at least collect money and do something with it inside its district without having to give it all back through tax rate decreases because of the revenue cap.

Personally, (although Im sure theres some things I havent considered) I think relocating both the NW transit center and the high speed rail station at Post Oak Rd and Hempstead would be excellent.  HSR runs NW to Dallas, LRT runs SE through Eureka Yards then through the Heights to Yale-ish to the Washington Corridor to the same lines as Purple and Green downtown and also LRT south on Post Oak Rd to the Uptown line.  Seems like with the new lanes for 290 a bus transit center here could also easily be connected to both 290 and Katy lanes as well, probably easier than the way it currently works at I-10 and Katy rd.

So instead of alerting other officers, like calling 911, or getting their badge numbers to report them, you just watched them "do drugs" and determined the entirety of the HPD is getting high on the clock and not catching criminals?

I'm really not sure where you're going with this. Like, I know you're lying, and I don't care tbh, but I wanna know why.

I don't recommend calling the police to tattle on the police.  I don't generally recommend calling the police anyway, esp in any situation where you could possibly become a suspect except in true emergencies.

The idea that travelers would be able to step out of the train terminal and be at their final destination is a fantasy even for downtown.  The business traveler  will be headed to an office or hotel downtown/uptown/greenway/along I-10 between Bunker Hill and Katy.  NW Mall/Transit center area is actually an ideal site, and much better located than Hobby Airport (which is the current Dallas to Houston exit point).  It's also a site that IS on the plans for future LRT both east to Downtown and south to Uptown.

Yeah...net operating income or pretty much EBITDA.

In general the way buildings like this are appraised is the income approach which applies a cap rate to the net income to get an income value for the entire property.  So if you know the value and the cap rate you can back out to what the yearly income probably is.

For either the CBD or Uptown the cap rate is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-8% for early 2015.

For BBVA this is $100 million * 7%/8% = $7 to $8 million income per year

For Bg Group Place is roughly $450 million * 7% = $31.5 to $36 million income per year

Telecommunications equipment is also much better now.

My father says that when they proposed an HSR in the early 1990s, they determined to be profitable they would have to get everyone off of I-45 from Houston or Dallas (all of them would have to be riding the train), and is convinced that the whole thing is a lot of noise about nothing. Now, there's more population in Texas now, but also ROW is more expensive overall. Remind me again, who's proposing the railroad again?

Was it a study paid for by SWA that ignored the fact that most traffic that would switch would be from their own air travel instead of highway traffic.

LOL @ a Houston Chronicle blog citing "unnamed sources" as to who the Houston Chronicle is in negotiations to sell to. 

The governor will only be involved in this if it becomes a matter of conservative vs liberal politics.  There are probably 7 million people in the counties affected by this, and 6.5 of those are in Dallas and Harris counties and things get really skewed if you start including the Houston/Dallas metropolitan area counties around the end points as compared to the tiny population along the route.  I doubt the governor, who runs in a statewide election, is really going to do much more than lipservice to the rural counties involved here.

I may have said this earlier, but I'm more and more against this realignment (don't call it an expansion), they could and should do this cheaper.

 

As much as it sucks, they should keep the current alignment of everything and add more through lanes to 45. keep 45 elevated the whole way around downtown by removing the dallas dip and add at least 2 lanes in each direction. They can do this easily by expanding over the existing street grid between midtown and downtown, smooth the curve around the southwest side of downtown and connect into existing lanes. Remove the allen parkway exit from northbound traffic. remove the allen parkway entrance for southbound traffic, there's still the Houston street entrance/exit for 45 which is very accessible from allen parkway. while they're at it, remove the ramp from 59 southbound traffic to 45 northbound (direct all 45 northbound exiting from 59 southbound onto I-10 west). Remove the ramp from I-10 westbound to 45 southbound (direct all 45 southbound exiting from I-10 onto 59 southbound).

 

I know it sucks that freeways don't get removed, but to remove and make better one area to the detriment of other areas is, to be as polite as possible, f***** up.

Every highway expansion ever is for the benefit of one area to the detriment of another area.  The odd thing about this is that the area we're talking about benefitting is actually right there on the ROW instead of all the negative impact being at the construction point and all the positive impact being commuters from far away and owners of vacant land who can now develop sprawl to fill the capacity of the new freeway lanes.

Gee, I wonder what it would be like to have some kind of psychological barrier on the north side of downtown.  That would be weird...

Why are the highways separated instead of merging and then splitting off?  I assume its to increase speed but how so?

because drivers are assholes.

The reasonable N/S fix is to connect and make Sage/Silber a major road (would bet money based on the fact they are on the exact boundary line that this was intended).  Wouldn't happen in a million years considering the homes between Memorial and the bayou.

Im not certain, but part of the 610 ROW is within Memorial Park, so I think that actually opposition to more lanes and more ROW came from people opposed to any loss of park.  I don't recall anything about the 59 interchange in particular.

The plan requires significant use of eminent domain in EaDo.  Something like 15+ full blocks that will need to be acquired.  I would be surprised if the land under the Pierce elevated isn't being thought of as a way to offset land acquisition costs.

This would likely be a different and more complicated problem if the Pierce elevated actually connected any destinations, since TxDOT would need to figure out a more complicated design likely still utilizing the current 45 ROW to maintain access, but since the Pierce elevated is basically just a through way for the 45 mainlanes it really doesn't matter if those lanes exist in any particular ROW.   As far as I can tell the only destination impact is for northbound Gulf Fwy traffic that intends to get to Allen Pkwy and Memorial Dr, but that doesn't seem like it'd be a particularly large affected group.

I doubt that removing the Pierce is actually the driving goal here, driven by "yuppies"

IMO this is driven by practicality of ROW acquisition. The Pierce elevated ROW is basically maxed out, and is also hemmed in by some pretty expensive relatively developed real estate. The area east of 59 is relatively sparse and industrial by comparison plus land values are lower. There may be some minimal gains in traffic flow by having the freeways run side by side for longer periods, but I bet that acquiring 1 block worth of ROW along 59 and selling the half block width Pierce ROW is simply viewed to be a more realistic undertaking than acquiring another half block width of ROW along Pierce and Gray to add the necessary lanes to 45.

These blocks (and all the blocks east of 59 and west of St Emanuel) would seem to be under threat of eminent domain for freeway ROW in the new I45 upgrade plans.

I69/145 is trenched between St Emmanuel and Hamilton (No quite Hamilton, since the GB extends over the Hamilton ROW).

15 blocks or so between 59 and St Emmanuel will need to be ED'd in this plan including lots leased to the Astros, one of the Ballpark Lofts buildings, Little Woodrows, The Meridian, etc.

I think the big reason this route is chosen is that #1 EaDo blocks are less valuable than Downtown blocks, and the Pierce ROW is pretty much impossible to expand, so the most cost effective way to maximize the width of ROW and cost is  to buy the less developed Eado blocks and offset some of the cost by selling the Pierce ROW.

Its at least 6 city blocks worth of land.  (12 half blocks) so we are talking maybe $40 million dollars or more of property.

Demo it.