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capnmcbarnacle

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Everything posted by capnmcbarnacle

  1. capnmcbarnacle
    Uh-oh. That swipe at Chuy's could reignite the Chuy's battles that took place earlier in this thread.
  2. capnmcbarnacle
    Where Chuy's and Rickshaw are. There are even rumblings about the corner spot with Buffalo Hardware and Armando's....
  3. capnmcbarnacle
    The simple things the pros do are basically impossible for an amateur. You'd rarely see a basketball player at a YMCA pickup game do things that the pros make look simple, like jam the ball over a defender. As someone who spent a fair amount of time doing skating, all I can say is that that stuff is unbelievably difficult. Don't let the slacker, couldn't seem to give a ____ attitude fool you -- the pros are amazing atheletes who got that way by being obsessive, disciplined people who practiced all day, everyday.
  4. capnmcbarnacle
    I drove by here this morning and there were all kinds of bulldozing-type machines driving around inside. They were probably just using the empty lot to train back-hoe drivers.
  5. capnmcbarnacle
    Bummer. I always liked this place. I went there for dinner the day I got engagd and had my wedding rehearsal dinner there. It was a cool joint. I wish I could go one last time. Sigh.
  6. capnmcbarnacle
    I can't imagine that this thing will have a huge traffic impact compared to all the traditional 3 story apartment complexes (with hundreds of units) around there, not to mention the 5,000 trips a day in and out of Central Market and all of the other stores. And given that it is on the corner of two major comercial streets, Alabama and Weslayan, I can't see much of a basis for freaking out. But freak out people will. The highrise hysteria is an interesting phenomenon. I was by the Huntington today and I swear in the hour or so I was looking at the building I saw maybe 3 cars come or go. 40 story tower of traffic!! If this thing is 27 stories and has maybe 125 units, I can't see that making much of an impact. I have a friend who has a view of 2727 Kirby from their yard and are up in arms about what they think will be traffic from it, but the fact that West Ave is going to drop more people and retail customers into their neck of the woods doesn't seem to bother them. They just don't want to see a highrise on the horizon.
  7. capnmcbarnacle
    That view is to the Southeast and would put it smak in the middle of the Phase II portion of the project. If you look at the most recent Phase II renderings and use your imagination, you can see something with a footprint and orientation that matches the "ghost tower." The plot thickens.
  8. capnmcbarnacle
    I am so glad to see them putting that large piece of retail along main street. I don't want to get hyperbolic, but this building could really do wonders for that part of downtown. Having a big Class A building that opens out to Main ought to bring a lot more foot traffic to the area and do wonders for the vibe you get as a pedestrian.
  9. capnmcbarnacle
    Isolated? Whatever. It's only 2 blocks from the Petroleum Club!! Kidding, I agree with you. A funny thing though --when I looked at Google Earth I realized it is about 7 blocks to the Pavillions, and about 7 blocks to Cyclone Anaya's in Midtown. I realize the average hotel guest in Houston is not going to want to walk either of those, but I found it interesting that you could go either way. The Pierce Elevated acts as such a physical and mental barrier that I never would have thought about walking to Midtown until I looked on the map. I am just really psyched to see this thing get cleaned up, and keeping my fingers crossed.
  10. capnmcbarnacle
    Nothing other than to say that some of the best (most expensive) parts have been snapped up.
  11. capnmcbarnacle
    I think that the parking garage will go there. It looks to be connected by a sky bridge.
  12. capnmcbarnacle
    This kind of density is inevitable. But I am still wondering about the ingress and egress of this place. Assume that exiting onto Richmond directly creates all kinds of problems with turning left over the tracks, or turning right into what may become a 1 lane road. That leaves entering and exiting onto Dunlavy and driving south toward Bissonet and the Tower of Traffic or north and turning onto Richmond that way or driving through the neighorhoods to Alabama, Westheimer or Allen Parkway. Either way, it is going to be intereting. Glad to see them trying to make it work though.
  13. capnmcbarnacle
    I'll be interested to see if it is really going to be the mosque. I liked the old building, but I also have pictures of it after Allison where water came halfway up the side of the building along Montrose. From what I've heard about the mosques that these particular folks put up, we might get something great in its place. I'm a preservationist, but I also believe that sometimes good old things have to go to make way for the good old stuff of tomorrow. Just as long as they replace it with somethig as interesting as what was there, I'll be happy. Unfortunately that rarely happens around here. This is a link to the Ismaili center in London. It's obviously on a much smaller piece of property, but it's definitely more intersting than another Alexan apartment. http://archnet.org/library/images/one-imag...;image_id=38754
  14. capnmcbarnacle
    A little bird told me that sales are going well, with some big, big purchases.
  15. capnmcbarnacle
    It's a shame the owners let it come to that. It wasn't too long ago that that place was bustling. All the pho and vietnamese laser discs you could ask for. As an aside to the days when "Midtown" was "Little Saigon," and I'm not talking about the part of "Midtown" that used to be the Fourth Ward or "Freedman's Town," does anyone recall the freakout about the street signs being in Vienamese? Proper names like Travis and Fannin wouldn't seem to be something that you could translate, so they gave them other names in Vietnamese. And it couldn't have been more than a couple years after that that the place began its decline. Looking at midtown now, it's almost unfathomable to think what it was like a dozen years ago. I miss the pho and Hoa Binh market. It was easier than driving out to Bellaire. Oh well. Hopefully they'll go forward with their plans.
  16. capnmcbarnacle
    The rendering of the restaurant is so accurate that it includes a stripper who apparently came over for a drink before walking to her shift at the Men's Club. Classic.
  17. capnmcbarnacle
    The links at the listed page were dead. Can you entlighten me?
  18. capnmcbarnacle
    "Without Metro's help, the land would probably have been used for new townhomes, banks or drug stores, Schultz said." That line is a classic zinger. Aside from the nail salon/Cingular wireless monopoly on strip malls, the CVS/Wachovia/Perry Homes triumvirate may be the most prominent features in non-strip mall development. I'm glad they stopped them for at least 2 blocks.
  19. capnmcbarnacle
    There was an interesting article in the Chron about the cemetary next door to Regent Square and the developers contributions to getting it cleaned up. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nb/hei...ws/5806719.html
  20. capnmcbarnacle
    One thing that those renderings show, that you didn't see along the city sidewalks of Texas one hundred years ago, is trees. I don't think you can build out over the sidewalk a la The Strand in Galveston and still have trees planted along the sidwalk. I find it interesting that the Swamplot people are moaning about the pre-fab look of the place. I don't see it. In fact, I think dressing this thing up as a mock 1910 Texas town would be he worst thing they could do. It's natural for people to compare this to other places they've seen, but I can't really think of any other development that looks this way. It doesn't look master planned to me - it looks more natural. The developers have the luxury of taking large parcels that were made up of numerous blocks many years ago, and returning them to something resembling the original grid that was there. It fits in. As someone who lives on Dunlavy, am I psyched that my traffic-free trip to and from downton will end? No. But as a resident of the area I'm excited to see these guys do something this ambitious with that piece of property.
  21. capnmcbarnacle
    I agree inasmuch as I can handle losing something cool if it is replaced by something that is just as interesting or better. The real shame here is tearing something down and putting up something that is totally blah. Had they put up something innovative and different -- something that would elicit reaction 30 years down the road -- I could handle it. If they tore down the theater to put up the coolest building in Texas, I could deal with that. Most great buildings went up where something previously stood and the great buildings improved upon what was there. The problem with this rendering is that it is worse than what used to be there.
  22. capnmcbarnacle
    Here are some photos I took. I can't say I'm too pleased with this building. It looks really out of place to me. I'm glad that we are getting development that comes out to the sidewalk and adds to the pedestrian nature of the area, but this looks like it should be out on Woodway somewhere. I don't know, I just feel kind of ambivilent. Surely there is a happy median between a strip mall and this. Thoughts?
  23. capnmcbarnacle
    You have the right thread, and....Wow!!! A Barnes & Noble bookstore!! Who knew Houston was so cool and urban as to warrant one of those!!! Interestingly, their rendering fails to show the ugly-as-sin 4 story concrete slab parking garage that runs behind the existing structures, uglying up the whole stretch. I actually droved someone from LA down Gray last week and they noted that they thought it looked like a cool stretch of road (which it is) and then said, "What's with that parking garage?" Not wanting to regale them with tales of the River Oaks Theatre I just summed by saying it was put up by the same people that are eventually going to tear down that old theater. But a Barnes & Noble?!?! We should be so lucky! I thought we would never get so lucky as we did when they tore down the Ale House on Alabama to make parking for the Border's. All is forgiven Weingarten!!!
  24. capnmcbarnacle
    It's the liquid building and presumably the old white residential structure at the rear...
  25. capnmcbarnacle
    A few from mine too... And from Westheimer & Hazard...
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