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capnmcbarnacle

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Everything posted by capnmcbarnacle

  1. capnmcbarnacle
    I think that the parking garage will go there. It looks to be connected by a sky bridge.
  2. capnmcbarnacle
    Do the architects who design these really like what they are doing, or do they just think "It's what the market demands, and I need a paycheck." Or is it an inside joke to see who can design the most aesthetically catastrophic house and sell it? The windows up the stair to the turret are a nice touch. I guess anyone who needs to ascend the tower to save Rapunzel can look out the window on the way to see if any evil knights, dragons, or witches are approaching. But maybe I'm being to harsh. Could this be a nod to the legendary Witch Hat house that used to be on Fannin?
  3. capnmcbarnacle
    Hoping someone can help out here. I've seen a million versions of where the line will go, but have yet to see a rendering of the actual street. I am assuming 2 tracks in the middle with stations in the middle like downtown, but I have no clue. Will Richomond be 1 or 2 lanes in each direction? Where are the turn lanes? If anyone has a rendering I'd love to see it. Thanks.
  4. 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.
  5. capnmcbarnacle
    Neo Kinky -- that is great. This is so nasty I don't even know where to start. And someone will buy it eventually and call it their home. It's sad to see the old neighborhood go. Townhomes or McMansions, take your pick. Ugh.
  6. 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
  7. capnmcbarnacle
    A little bird told me that sales are going well, with some big, big purchases.
  8. capnmcbarnacle
    I was at a wedding and met a woman who lived in Montrose when she was girl in the 1930s. She lived where the parking garage behind the Black Lab is today. She told me that she went to Montrose Elementary. She didn't remember exactly where it was and I know it doesn't exist today. Anybody know where it was and when it closed?
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. capnmcbarnacle
    The links at the listed page were dead. Can you entlighten me?
  12. 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.
  13. 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
  14. 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.
  15. capnmcbarnacle
    Yikes. Commericial rents have been on the upswing for awhile around here and I think the writing is on the wall for a bunch of the old businesses that lease their space. I hope that the owner plans on doing something with the building that is there. It's a great old building with some great potential.
  16. 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.
  17. capnmcbarnacle
    Clicked a few of this as it is going up. I like the idea of this kind of commercial space in the area. http://www.kaldis.com/theterraces.html
  18. capnmcbarnacle
    A couple photos of the site.
  19. 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?
  20. 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!!!
  21. capnmcbarnacle
    That parking lot is for the Randall's. The apartments are where the complex with the two pools, just to the east, used to be.
  22. capnmcbarnacle
    Here you go...
  23. capnmcbarnacle
    For your consideration. I'll just say that it beats an entire block of parking fronting Westheimer.
  24. capnmcbarnacle
    It's the liquid building and presumably the old white residential structure at the rear...
  25. capnmcbarnacle
    A few shots from the car. This thing is quietly making its way upwards..
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