kzseattle
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Posts posted by kzseattle
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Okay, well, I got the 411 from Metro National. Here is what they said to me:
Polly-- I don't have any info for you right now other than it will be a mixed-use development-- healthcare, retail, hospitality... Look for more info on future Memorial City developments in the near future in the press. We will also be lauching a website memorialcity.com in the next 2-3 weeks that will contain updates.
Thanks!
angie sallee
Well all that tells me is that they haven't come to an agreement yet on anything LOL! Let's see, doctors, stores, and.....hospitality? Hotel? Motel? Restaurant?
Sounds like all of the Memorial City area. How vague can you get?!
I drove by the location today and didnt have enough time to look closely but noticed banners on the fences with words like "Dine", "Shop", "Lounge" etc. It seems that it is some kind of an expansion of Memorial City mall. Perhaps, it is their response to what's planned for T&C mall that is going to be some mixed-used development. Memorial City and T&C seem to be in a competitive race. I dont think there is going to be another health care building since it is already there. It is probably going to add some open-air retail plus restaurants.
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Here is something I do not understand. I'm pretty sure the Downtown Dallas hotel market has a lower occupancy rate than downtown Houston, and yet they get Ritz Carlton and W to come in and build entirely new hotels!
Isn't there a plan/rumor of Ritz Carlton in Uptown where Pavillion center or Fashion Square currently is?
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Hey Gary,
You may be making the same mistake you are advising against. That is, not exploring Houston beyond inner loop. For example, have you driven along Memorial and San Felipe/Briar Forest from West Loop to BW8? Not exactly a cultural center such as inner loop but then you mentioned Sugarland too. The area along those two roads is lush and beautiful. Beyond BW8 to Highway 6, the drive on those roads is still ok but the neighborhoods off of them are quite charming. Certainly more interesting than Sugarland due to visual variety of homes.
By the way, if I remember correctly, the other day mentioned you only cared for Inner loop and the Bay (by which I assume Clear Lake area). Now you have added Sugarland in the list as well. So we can assume that the list will grow over time
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Don't you think it's easier to develop and promote luxury apartment spaces in a neighbhorhood already blessed with a development like the Crescent Court, than in a neighborhood like midtown that was totally rundown and largely abandoned?
I think that
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Oooh... I am in the middle of a nasty bout of to be Dallas v.s. Houston, now am I?
No, I guess not. We are just talking about whats a good time of the year to visit Dallas for a pleasant trip.
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Wow! So that is what the new Target looks like. I remember when they broke ground for that! When did you move down? My Lady and I use to Live near Bremerton near the ferry landing.
I moved about 4 months ago. It is indeed a big change, moving to Seattle to Houston, isnt it?
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Summer IS hot... but winter brown?
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Well, zoning in Dallas restricts what can be built where. I may be totally wrong, but just from talking with a friend who works for City Hall, there are 3 or 4 main sections and then sub sections. (i.e., Mixed use residential & C2 [light commercial]). It really only tells you what can be built where, not the QUALITY of the development. But Dallas uses it to strictly enforce strip mall standards, which in my opinion, are the bane of Houston. It doesn't matter how nice of a condo building you construct if there's a strip mall with a 24 hour check cashing store next door.
Dallas has no Midtown. The equivalent (according to location) is Uptown. The Dallas Uptown TIF was formed in 1988 as a partnership between the city of Dallas and Columbus Realty Trust (now Post Properties). That means it took 13 years (2001 was when I first visited the area) to go from a dump to a beautiful pedestrian friendly area with boutique shops and lots of patio dining.
It was so successful that the first "philly-style" property (brick sidewalks, lantern lighting, small public parks every couple of blocks) that opened, Post Meridian, completely leased up in three weeks. Dallas' Uptown redevelopment is pretty upper-middle to upper class in terms of shopping. They have typical stores like Gap and J.Crew but also things like the Magnolia Film Center (an indy movie theatre), and of course a Starbucks on every corner. There are numerous high-end furniture and design boutiques.
In 1998 the median income for the area was 99,000/person.
...Seems to me that this might be yet another case of "we don't need help because we're Houston" from the MMD and the MRA.
Alright, what is a good time to visit Dallas? I know summer is hot, but I hear that in winter it can get pretty brown. Well, I love greenary. If I make a trip within the next couple of weeks or so, would that be a good time? I gotta go and check it out myself sometime.
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You know the more and more I look at the list the more that just makes sense. I was having a hard time with how high on the list San Fran was but if you take headquarters into account... well there you go.
San Fran is easy. It is the high-tech mecca. Oracle. Cisco. Sun Microsystems. Intel. Just to name a few. And they are all big global players. And I think Seattle is so high in the list primarily because of Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks. The three do billions of dollars worth of business with the rest of the world.
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I'm fairly certain its all due to the airport. Don't get me wrong, i love Atlanta. But we have the harbor, a close runner up airport-wise, and a close border with a foreign country.
Maybe its because more corporate headquarters are based there?
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Lack of zoning must take most of the responsibility. Even if the city gets off it's ass, there isn't a standard to enforce.
Once again, lack of zoning is being taken as lack of standard. I favor zoning but does lack of zoning really mean lack of standards? If I understood correctly after the discussion on this subject in another thread, the two are different. Does anyone here know exactly what do zoning laws regulate? That would help us determine exactly what we can blame lack of zoning for instead of lumping together every problem in this city and blaming it on lack of zoning.
About rundown portions of Midtown, one needs to remember that it is an area in transition. The problem is not that the change isn
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You have to focus on the property owners. The trash throwers are random and could be anyone. Moreover, trash is byproduct of absent-mindedness, like someone carrying a bag with trash in it but not having it tied properly and a couple of pieces of trash fly away; or someone in a car or truck has some trash blow from inside of it (that's happened to me before); or truckers who don't properly cover up the trash in their beds--aluminum cans, construction debris and so forth.
Then you have those weekend jackasses who throw their 24 oz Busch beer cans in the medians, mainly because they're concerned about incriminating themselves if they happen to get pulled over.
So in lieu of all of these factors, it's much more effective to nail down the property owners who allow the trash to just linger on their property for weeks at a time. The worst offenders, I believe, are a) apartment complexes and b.) strip mall retailers/renters/owners.
Poor management of the surroundings.
I think the property owners can only do so much. A few times, I have seen a particular location being cleaned up and only a few hours later the trash is back.
After all, it takes only a second to throw something out of the car but takes a lot more effort to pick it up. I agree that property owners should clean up their premises more regularly. That should help in reducing the amount of trash we see on a given day. However, the city also need to attack the source of the trash. If people know that they are really going to be penalized if caught, it could go a long way in discouraging this habit.
I agree that some of the trash could be due to absent-mindedness. However, the most common type of trash I have seen is related to fast food. You see items such fast food wrappers, soda cups/cans, napkins etc which indicate that people simply threw them out the window when done eating. Moreover, some people do clean up their cars in parking lots by throwing all their garbage out there.
Having said this, the city is really too easy on businesses. There are no zoning laws. Apparently, there are no ordinances or planning guidelines that commercial properties must comply with (or if there are, they don
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She said "We still occasionally encounter a cigar smoker in a private party trying to sneak a smoke" Nothing was said about any cigar smoker trying to sneak a cigarette. And if a cigar smoker is having to "sneak a smoke" one would think it would be pretty obvious that the establishment does not in fact allow "a private party room full of cigar smoke". (quote, houston 19514)
how would she know the person "sneaking" the cigarette was a cigar smoker? i guess she could have inquired, but it's more logical that he was taking advantage of smoking the cig in the private party room where cigar smoke is allowed. why not a cigarette smoker sneaking a smoke? no, to me the way it was worded implied she was expecting cigar smoke in the private party room and a patron took advantage and smoked a cigarette. i'll give her a call and get this cleared up. heaven forbid an accusation of hypocrisy.
debmartin
Ah! I see what you are saying. If anyone is at fault here, it is the writer. Multiple meanings can be inferred from that sentence. Reading the sentence, "We still occasionally encounter a cigar smoker in a private party trying to sneak a smoke", a casual reader would simply infer that a person who smokes cigar was trying to smoke one at a party. One would assume that the writer already knows that the person smokes cigar. However, another analysis would reveal the other meaning, that is, the writer is ok with cigar smoking but is complaining about a cigar smoker trying to smoke a cigarette instead.
Oh well, we are really splitting hair.
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Not to get off topic, but speaking of the "Planning Guidelines", has anyone heard anything new on it?
So do we already have "Planning Guidelines" for Houston or is it something that is going to be introduced?
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I would built a Walmart Supercenter, complete with a 12 stall Murphy gas station in front. It would be the biggest one in Houston, with twice the parking lot for those last minute christmas shoppers. I would also have parcels in the front to open a Chili's, a Subway, and a Payless Shoe store.
Man, how cool would that be?
There is one problem with this idea. We already got this kind of cool stuff in Houston
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If I had A LOT of money I would buy new Perry Homes (the especially bad ones), dismantle them, recycle the materials, and build quality, site specific projects in their place. During all this I would hire a director and crew to make a reality TV show called "Extreme Makeover - Death to Perry Homes Edition."
Seeing that article about Perry home made me angry too. However, I think KB homes are supposed to be even worse than Perry so maybe one could start with them.
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If you were a developer, or had money, what would you build in Houston that you have seen in another city? It could be your favorite building, shopping center, lifestyle center, hotel, town homes, condos etc. Something that you saw and thought "Ah! I wish we had it in Houston!". A picture would be nice
I am not talking about transformation of the entire city, just a realistic project.Or it could be your imagination. Hey, ya never know, may be some developer sees it here and actually make it happen
Since I am from Seattle, I could start it off. How about a Target store like this one in Seattle (I know it has been mentioned before):
http://www.touchstonecorp.com/project.jsp?id=6
I just thought it could be a fun thread.
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At this point, what value will zoning add, other than perhaps a larger city planning staff (and therefore higher taxes) and slightly better protection of residential areas (some of which may actually find themselves zoned non-residential with the decision of a few)? I'd love to see some more great discussion. I love this site!
As we have discussed it several times before, commercial properties, and not residential, are the main causes of ugliness that we see in Houston. That
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Heck, I'll take it one step further: taking into account all of the positive side effects of no zoning (cheap cost of living, entrepreneurial atmosphere, architectural diversity), I'd say the absence of zoning is probably the *only* thing that makes Houston desirable.
And I really don't see how zoning ordinances would make Houston more desirable for corporate relocations. There are other cities that probably do the zoning thing better than Houston realistically could. A company that wants a well planned and aesthically pleasing home probably isn't going to come to Houston no matter what happens.
If I were in the business of making Houston more desirable to outsiders I'd probably just aggressively expand transit options. Some rail over here, some rail going in that direction, buses ok, something commuter-y for the suburbs, etc etc.
I have one question. If lack of zoning were such as neat idea, why is Houston the ONLY major city to not have zoning?
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You're talking about the Westpark Tollway, right?
Nope, thats a different toll way. I have also driven on Fort Bend Toll way from Sienna Plantation to BW8. It is indeed a very quick drive.
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I love Boston, but don't think that it can be compared to Houston in any way just because they are so different.
I have noticed the outer parts of Houston have always been nice. Spring, Woodlands, Cy-Fair, Katy, Kingwood, Sugar Land. That's not really Houston, though. Here on the west side, we have a growing grafitti problem that no one seems to want to do a thing about and it's getting worse by the day. I haven't noticed any difference in trash or anything else, frankly.
What part of west side is that? I have driven through nearly every neighborhoods bounded by I-10, Wesheimer, West loop and Highway 6 as well the area bounded by Westheimer, Gessner, West Park and Highway 6. The problem areas, as far as trash is concerned, are the feeder roads along BW8 and I-10, the open ditches along Rodgerdale road, and Westheimer. In other parts, you may occasionally see a paper cup, can or a bottle here and there and there but that isnt unusual. However, so far, I havnt seen any graffiti in these areas.
Now, south of West Park, we have the real problem areas such as Gulfton, Sharpstown and Alief. For now, I pretend they dont exist!
Like I said, the only way to reduce the amount of trash is to track and PENALIZE those responsible for it.
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We'll see what happens when summer hits. I'm still not sure if the success these mixed use projects have had on the west coast will translate so well to cities with climates such as Houston's
I think there are open-air establishments in cities as Denver and those in the north east. Winter isnt easy in those cities but apparently they seem to be doing fine. Also, I think that SLTS and other such places usually get busier in the evenings which shouldnt be too bad (although I havnt lived in Houston long enough to experience evenings in summer).
Shamrock Tower At 617 Main St.
in Houston Neverbuilt
Posted