what

I definately understand your point. thanks

What about a whole foods with a 24-hour "Chester-Chicken" Drive through that has a window complete with a neon sign saying "now serving hot-chicken !" , and a large putt-putt golf course carved through an empty mall ?

Ok. How does that help them or the area ? This approach benefits nobody ?

That sounds like the perfect formula for driving people out of downtown ? Is that their intent in your opinion ?

I think your idea about parking is great.

this 24 hour thing is kind of cool. i can't help but mention that i think it is strange to hear that people actually want it, and i don' think it's a bad thing. However, it makes me think that downtown is further ahead then some might think. In reality hasn't downtown been trying to go in a 24 hour direction for years. while the idea of a 24 hour environment is nice, i am not sure that the galleria can stomach what comes along with it. houston is a big city and the people should start thinking of it as such, so that it can develop naturally instead of trying to control every aspect of it in a way that somehow stems back to trying to remind them of some neighborhood from up north. I think that a majority of the good things that have occured in this town in areas have actually occured on their own. It seems like when we try to be the miami's, ft. lauderdales, and la's with the slick bars and establishments is when the appeal is short-lived for establishments and centers just like on post oak today. the ones being called dumps in this thread are actually out performing the caesars/vegas looking projects that they are talking about tearing down and that have had a (200,000 sf + ?) vacant for years now. nothing looks great boarded up to me, regardless of how much art work you stick in windows outside or how much one trys to disguise it. but that's just me. performance does matter more than just looks. sorry.

Agreed.

I can come up with at least another GOOD IDEA that would assist them. Take the time to prepare good information. I can understand to a certain extent why some retailers are potentially shy about downtown. If you look at the report prepared by houstondowntown.com of retail inventory it states that the occupancy of retail in the area is 65%. I went through their report and very quickly found what looks to be an error of around 352,000 sf of space that is Either : actually not vacant, not retail and categorized as office in the tax records, not retail and/shouldn't be in the report, and/or owned by the govt. and not being marketed for retail use. In my opinion the report is sad, and another sad part about it is that it looks like they hired people to prepare a report which also appears on their website certainly based upon this retail inventory which appears to have little or no real thought put into preparing it. One common error that seemed to occur repeatedly is that they counted All the levels in office buildings or condo buildings ? Another thing that it is obvious to me that this information was just plastered into a report. The Shops at Houston Center show 66,848 sf vacant, when the leasing company says they have 36,069 SF. Some of the spaces that they count as retail are actually 100% within an office building complex and are not on the street at all. It' s really sad. Is this the information that businesses and visitors to Houston use in making decisions and is this the group that is paid to represent downtown ? It seems that they are asleep at the wheel at best... This brings the occupancy up potentially to 81% or greater in retail downtown which is good for downtown. I don't understand what these people are thinking about or actually doing if anything, but it doesn't seem that there is any genuine interest or effort made in my opinion.

I believe it was actually the second store Whole Foods opened in Houston and it has been located at Westheimer/Wilcrest for over 7-10 years now...across the street from Randalls.

This was actually why I thought a poll of www.HoustonDowntown.com would be a good idea, because I am confident that a lot of good ideas would probably be suggested.

Thank you. I couldn't agree with you more. Bach I think the material should pertain to the area and not confuse people or frustrate them trying to figure out exactly what is going on. Additionally, I don't think anyone is even aware that this site is out there. I think that perhaps instead of spending all of this money to create new districts, more banners, more division, the same money could be spent actually promoting the area as a whole and perhaps letting people actually know what downtown has to offer.

I have been reading about a large mall and shopping center being torn down, that obvioulsy under- performed over the years and notice a lot of places that have closed on both sides of post oak and san felipe and can't help but think that there is already too much repetiotion in the area of high end retail concepts. So it is a shock to think that some would venture down the same road again and build the same thing to target the same types of high-end businesses. The Houston Chronicle mentioned this concern I believe just last week with all of these projects being announced. The good news as we know is that a lot of what gets announced never happens anyway. I am not convinced that building more or tearing down to build more is going to really have a positive impact on the galleria area. Who would have thought that so much space would have sat vacant for so many years as it is doing now in an area that is supposedly held out to be such a guaranteed success ? Uptown park struggled for years and I still remember when they were allowing non-profit orgs. to use the space for free, just so the place didn't look empty. I think it is going to be a real uphill battle trying to find the unique types of businesses that are going to want to go into this area. I know Sprint decided to move its store from Post Oak/San Felipe to 610/Westheimer. Other stores have also closed as well over the years or decided to move. Maybe it is hard for some to acknowledge that there truly is just one Galleria Mall and one soon to be Houston Pavilions which will also be a first to the area. Perhaps sometimes it is hard for some to realize that the race to market makes all the difference in the world and trying to compete with something that is already there is very hard or next to impossible.

If the demand is as great as some think then Whole Foods might decide to find another better location that is a sure thing, so they can go ahead and get started. Go to the one on Westheimer, always parking...I don't believe it changed up the entire area. I think more people go to HEB?Central Market anyway...and they would probably do the same at this location too if it even breaks ground or if they don't end up somewhere else first. In fact, I think bellaire would be a great area for Whole Foods with much more demand than Midtown and with fewer quality stores. There are a lot of properties along S. Rice,near Sams...very close to the Galleria.

I tend to agree with Red Scare's views as well. I consider Sugarland, and Clearlake folks as downtown tourists anyway. Overall I think the healthy mix of new and different types of tenants is going to be appealing for locals and all tourists visiting downtown.

That's what I expected from the name. It sounds very cool. I will definately check it out. Thanks for the feed-back.

Similar, smaller, profitable like Eatzi's ? Didn't Eatzi's go out of business ? i read somewhere that people couldn't get their meals on Turkey-Day at Eatiz's because they had been closed down un-expectedly. What would make this a better location all of a sudden now for other small grocery store chains ? Even the much nicer and larger center across the street from this center seems to be struggling to get places filled. Then you have the high-end Rice grocery right across from this place and that store doesn't seem to get an over-whelming amount of business either and it is immediately across the street from those 2 super-high-rise condo Four-Leaf buildings, and there already is no lack of neighborhoods in this area that i'm aware of. a good tenant mix might make all the difference in the world, but when there is already so much duplication in tenants already you might have to take a grocery store instead of a book store, or a chester-chicken instead of a cafe express, etc. LOL !

Who wants to re-categorize Downtown (Central Business District/CBD) to being at the same level as a neighborhood anyway ? Midtown is downtown's neighborhood anyway. I think you could build the parking within the building like they are doing at Calpine.

That's a fair point. However in researching the WSJ articles specifically with regard to whole foods, it seems having whole foods was in much greater demand back in 2005. They also seemed to be actually located within the first floor of high-rise condos in other cities. I think timing is important, and sometimes by the time a development actually materializes several years have passed and so have the likes and dislikes of people, and what was in then, may actually be way out by the time a project materializes. I am not saying this is the case, but i have heard about this saks project for a years now...i don't think it is fair to piggy-back off of Houston Pavilions success in breaking ground and moving ahead with their project. Houston has not seen a trophy property like this developed in years from a retail standpoint... Houston Pavilions did a great job of not name-dropping all along the way. Houston Pavilions came and bought the property and it appeared from their drive that failure was not an option. They are the Real Deal. Generally, in cities where House of Blues go in they are really the buzz in the town. Grocerys just aren't quite as sexy, and I don't anticipate any buzz about it. Now moving forward I have not heard much about the "Whole-Foods Avenue" project in terms of securing any other "real" tenants other than the grocery store, nor have I heard about a date for ground-breaking.

How is the new Morton's steak house ? Has anyone been. It looks really nice walking by every am on my way to work.

once again...Did what ? What's to get excited about when there is Nothing even there and may never be. i have never seen so much excitement about a grocery store that has a deli. some people really could stand to get out a bit. Secondly, wasn't the Fame/City Fun Plex concept (that you apparently are very familiar with) used by the same realtor-men handling Blvd Place today that ultimately ran Saks Center in the ground shortly after Radler(sp) bought it ? Now it is slated to be torn down. right ? maybe ?

HAIF POLL !!!!!, HAIF POLL !!!

neat. there really is a show to watch. maybe there will be one showing how wealthy consumers select rotisserie chicken in the deli. word is that Walmart has deli's in their european and asian stores with rotisserie chickens and coffee shops...

Yea who would have thought that promoting downtown to some means having a downtown that has quiet restaurants, bars, and no-shopping. What were those people thinking of... I think the attention should be turned instead away from the shop owners and more to the people riding down the street with their stereos ramped up. those people should get the tickets, not the people who work down there.

What i see is more coming soon banners being hung up eventually. maybe the ground-breaking of this can be coordinated with the demasis banner being removed from the window downtown. all show..no go.