kzseattle
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Posts posted by kzseattle
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Wish it was more connected or pedestrian friendly like Rice Village it has some of those elements but the big parking lot in the middle ruins it
I have been paying close attention to strip centers in other cities and such centers are indeed quite common. However, unlike Houston, their parking lots are much smaller and there is a row of trees/vegetation between every couple of rows of parking space. That helps a lot in making such shopping center seems more human-scale and inviting. Unfortunately, in Houston, most strip centers face gigantic, tree-less parking lots. This center also seems to have allocated a lot of space for parking.
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kzseattle, from where were your friends visiting?
Yeah, Downtown Houston's weekend nightlife is one of those little known secrets about our fair city. I like to think of it as a upcoming cross between 6th Street in Austin and Downtown Ft. Worth.
My friends were visiting me from Dallas. At the start of the tour, it was clear they werent expecting much from Houston and thought of it as an inferior town. I believe their opinion took a 180 degree turn by the end of the tour.
I have driven through 6th street in Austin as well and found its night life to be pretty similar to what I found on the Main street and so I wonder why 6th street has so much more fame.
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Houston's Main street is still a surprise.
?????You probably haven't been here all that long. Main Street has been popular since 98'/99' slowed down during the light rail construction and just now is starting to come back around to pre-rail status. Some residential in that area will really help
I was talking about people from out of town. Almost everyone I know has heard of Austin 6th street, for example, but believe that Houston's night life is dead. I for myself had never been to Main street at night until this weekend but I knew that it is quite active on the weekend although I found it to be even more active than I expected. And you are right, I am still relatively new in Houston.
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Last night (Saturday) me and a couple of buddies took off to Ginger Man pub in Rice Village. When we pulled into the arcade area the streets were packed everywhere, there was litteraly no where to park for blocks. we eventually got lucky and found a place. When we finally made it to the bar it was like sardines in a can, and it wasn't the only place like that. Every single bar (and grill) were packed to the hilt and we found it impossible to get in anywhere, so we left.
We then headed to Rudyards on Waugh and encountered the same thing so we left. We then went to the Continental Club on Main to find it worse than all of them and that was with a $15.00 cover. Since we were already on Main we decided to head Downtown and hit a beer pub (Mcelroys) which is also on Main.
When we got close to the area I was blown away by the thousands of people (and cars) swamping Main and Prarie. It was so packed that we had to park 9 blocks from where we were going. When we eventually made it on foot to Main it looked almost like Mardi Gras. The streets were packed to the gills with people. Every bar had lines going into them and in fact some bars had lines with over 100 people well past 1:00am.
When we got to Mcelroys we got very lucky to find a table outside being cleared so we grabbed it. As we sat back drinking Black & Tans we people watched for two hours as hundreds passed by our table on the street. I know the ladies may not appreciate this but the girls outnumbered the boys about 4 to 1, it was great. We also observed how young the crowd was, probably an average of between 22 to 26.
When we finally decided to head home around 1:30am the bars were still full and the people were still there.
I jus thought it was a great night to experience the Houston night life, this city is really up and coming and I'm proud to live here.
A couple of my friends are visiting me from out of town and so I had to drive them around this Saturday night. We went to Main street and I was shocked to see the amount of activity going on over there past midnight. The streets were jammed with cars and the Main street was overflowing with people. I had of course heard of bars/clubs on Main street but had no idea that it would be so packed and bustling. The Main street has indeed been transformed into Houston's version of Austin's 6th street. Of course, while everyone has heard about Austin's 6th street, Houston's Main street is still a surprise.
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In essense this zone would form a sideways capital T if looking at a north oriented map. Any other details mentioned?
No, no rendering, not much details unfortunately. I wonder what they plan on doing but it could simply be continous sidewalk, human-scale lighting, street furniture, pedestrain bridges etc. I wonder if they could expand the sidewalks. Of course, they cant do much about surface parking lots/setbacks of existing structures on those roads.
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Does 02 have a website?
I dont know. I just picked up a free copy at Marriot hotel in Sugarland Town Square! Its mostly about urban real estate. You would find many advertisements on lofts/townhomes/condos etc. One interesting piece is a study about several neighborhoods to determine their urbanity and it has ranked them accordingly. While the author has a PhD in urban planning, he talks about pretty much the same things we always talk about here. I would post the ranking sometime.
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My bad. I meant GreenWAY, not Greenspoint.
But yeah, that pedestrian thing. Respect.
I was reading O2 magazine and, according to it, there is a plan to create pedestrain friendly zone/promenade from Sage to 610 and from 610 to Westlayan on Westheimer, and from Richmond to Woodway drive on Weslayan. Does anyone know anything about this?
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Maybe he thinks they're talking bout Greenspoint.
Yeah, I figured that. I was only pointing out the misunderstanding indirectly, in the context of his common complaints that pretty much everything is too far for him.
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I dont think I will ever go out that far... it's just too... far!
So now even Greeway Plaza is too far for you?
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I don't understand how this is the smart solution - i.e. structures with surface parking attached. It would seem to me that there must be much more logical solutions with long-term objectives in mind for the area.
If this is the reason that developers keep building business structure with surface parking attached, then I can't help but conclude that these developers are short-sighted.
It is probably cheaper for them to build surface parking rather than buidling multi-story parking structure or providing underground parking. Since there are no restrictions/ordinances in places to force the developers pursue those options, they would do whats cheapest for them. And therein lies the reason behind ugly features of our city such as strip centers with bland/tasteless facades, huge surface parking lots and that thin, yellow building in Uptown.
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Also, I think King of Prussia in the Philly area is bigger than our Galleria, but also is split into two areas by an outdoor walkway. Again, it makes for a hassle because not everyone knows where the walkway is, weather, inconvenience factor.
Galleria already has a walkway that connects Nordstorm wing. A walkway could work if it is covered (so weather is not a factor) and it is prominent.
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It's just market driven and zoning or no zoning, the housing has to appeal to the demographics or it will just sit there. I think the Cityview project, which I admit I know nothing about, sounds like they were trying to attract a higher-income renter by sounding urbanesque and perhaps playing on the miniature skyline there but you just can't fool people.
The area is really too far from the city and, rail or no rail, urban types won't want to live way out there. There's no retail in the immediate vicinity except the mall, hotels, which are useless for residents, and restaurants. To the south you have the typical shabby Houston taqueria/dollar store zone and to the west is the freeway, then sparse, low level suburbia.
Unless they worked nearby, why would anyone making 50-100K want to live there?
Since apartments are commercial properties, I would imagine that zoning could control their development. Since zoning dictates land use, it could dictate how much land in an area could be use for apartment complexes. However, that's just my guess. That is why I asked if other large but zoned cities experienced the same phenomenon, that is, glut of low-income apartment complexes causing the decline of an entire neighborhood.
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I guess I am the lone naysayer, and I hope I am proven wrong because I think it would be good for the whole north/northwest area for Greenspoint to turn around, but I don't forsee that turnaround in greater Greenspoint unless they actually demolish a number of the complexes and replace them with office space or something.
It is going to be several years before light rail ever makes it out there, and a lot will depend on what happens and how well it holds up between now and then. The Cityview stuff is being sold to a company called GFI I believe, which will pull the current management away from Lincoln Property Company. Personally I don't have as much faith in GFI as I do Lincoln, so I don't see any positive changes on the horizon. While Cityview looks considerably better than pre-renovation, I don't think demographically it has moved up that much. With Lincoln's pending departure & a continuing soft market in the B & C class apartment market, IMHO it will stagnate or even slide back down some as the newness of the renovations wear off.
Once rail comes into the area, if the area has slid at all, then who is going to move into an area of 5000+ lower income units just to be near the rail? Will there the mass influx of people with more disposable income to support increased retail in the area? To support an overall "turn-around" in general? How many people would you need to turn around an area with so many units in such a small area?
There are apartments west of the astrodome area that are near rail, but I don't see the rail dramatically improving that area. Even if you had new owners that wanted to renovate a complex in Greenspoint post-rail installation, it is stilll very hard to impossible to pull up one complex in a sea of bad ones.
I would love to agree with those who see a rosier future for Greenspoint, I hope you are right, but I'm not seeing it
Apparently, high concentration of low-income units has brought down many areas including Gulfton, Sharpstown, Alief, Greenspoint etc. Is this phenomenon unique to Houston or can be found in other cities? I wonder if zoning would have prevented it by restricting the number of apartment complexes that could be built within a certain geographical region.
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I have to admit to no liking this building at all, but I think it will look allright if in fact a second tower is built that backs up to the first. The building is very lean. I would have rather seen a larger (in width) building instead of two leaner ones. Oh well, it is there, nothing we can do about it now.
From what I have heard on this forum, the second building would be build next to the first one, not behind it. Talk about putting salt on a wound.
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Any idea what /who is going into that new center. Someone mentioned Whole Foods but that site is too small. I must just be a retail center with multiple tenants.
As I just mentioned it one post earlier, it is supposed to be an expansion of Uptown Park.
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Whats the name of the new shopping center next to Montebello?
It is an expansion of Uptown Park, I believe.
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And when and where are they building #2?
It would be right next to the first one (so the two would be side by side).
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Neiman's will be leaving in the fall. There is no word yet what will be in its place.
Here is a link to Midway Companies' plans for T&C:
Thanks for the link. From the rendering, it looks like we are looking at yet another mini-downtown!
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So what are they building in place of Town and Country???
We dont know the details but it will be mixed-use development consisting of residential units, offices and retail components. This is just my guess. It would probably be similar to what's planned for Memorial City. If you dont know about that project, a massive $700 millions dollars mixed-use development is planned around Memorial City mall that would consist of office and residential buildings, hotel, open-air retail and entertainment venues such as a cinema. The entire development would cover about 200 some acres. Since T&C is in competition with Memorial City, lets see what they come up with.
By the way, if you havn't been to Houston for a while, there is already a Town and Country Village shopping center nearby.
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Anyone seen that nasty yellow skinny building near Richmond and the loop 610? That thing is way too skinny. Typically the buildings height shouldn't be more than 6 times the length of its base. I believe that building has about a 10:1 ratio.
What do you guys think the over/under is on how many days before that building falls to the ground due to inadequate structure?
I say about.....650 days... a little less than 2 years from the building's date of substantial completion. Well, we'll say from the date the owner received his/her Certificate of Occupancy.
Thoughts? Comments?? Compliments???
LATER,
The big KOK-on Steeeeeeeeel, baby!
I assume you are talking about Mercer Tower (or is Mark II ? ). It is too ugly for anyone NOT to notice it. And, yes, it has been bashed several times on this forum.
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This sounds exciting but i am a little confused. Are there two Pavilions in Houston that are supposed to be going up? I remember reading about the same type of project in the Galleria area off Post Oak. So there's a similar project proposed for downtown? If so, that might really boost Houston's downtown image.
Yeah, thats right. The one in Galleria area is going to replace the existing center that is called Pavilions. I dont know what the new development would be called.
The one in downtown is being developed by the same company that did Denver Pavilions and that is why they are calling it Houston Pavilions.
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All the webiste says is "coming soon"...
Crap..I justr hope this does not go like the Shamrock..
Say..watever happened to the Sham, anyway?
Well, the project thats going up in Memorial City also had a website for a while that just said "Coming soon....". So just because the website doesnt have enough information doesnt mean much. They probably havent finalized the details yet and they probably do not want to give details that may change.
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The area is densly populated. Sure it is not Downtown (which is not densly populated) or Midtown, but this area is obviously ready for this type of development. The mall has transformed into probably the #2 Mall in the city and with a successfull malls come all the ancillary developmeny.
OK, I have no real way to quantify Memorial City as the #2 mall in the city, but I can not think of a nicer mall with better tenants besdies the Galleria.
Well, actually, it is # 2 mall in terms of size/retail space. Indeed, it is the 17th largest malls in the nation.
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I understand the concern over not having developments in downtown & midtown, but what I don't understand is why one would curse this developer for building around their already existing developments?
Midtown & Downtown will get their turn, and when they do - ALL will be envious. I'm sure of it. We just need to wait until the time is right for the best development for those areas to come in and take shape.
I agree. This developer is simply expanding what is already there. Besides, what would we have there if the developers didnt build this? Strip malls? Usual big-box retailers? Parking lots? Vacant land? No, thank you. I would rather see some cool mixed-use developments like these. Now we would all like to see some exciting projects in midtown or downtown. However, while thats not happening, we can at least enjoy what's happening elsewhere. Besides, one thing is sure. This particular developer wasn't going to downtown anyway.
Turnberry Galleria Luxury High-Rise At 5048 Hidalgo St.
in Uptown and Galleria Area
Posted
They can't find land in Houston?