jgriff

I used to eat lunch at the waterwall a lot when I was young. I would take girls from work there. This is one place in Houston where street level retail might work. The empty street level retail under apartments one street over has probably convinced the developers that it doesn't work in the Galleria though. I think they may be wrong in this case but the people who develop these projects are not walkability geeks like many HAIF people. They do the studies, see what works in the area according to statitisics and go home to their families. It's just a job, they want to make money, go home and forget about work.

I think mfastx must have meant the building on the right. That's the old Turnberry leasing office. I was wondering the same thing.

From 8.2.2012

I ran across an article on the science of banning plastic bags today.

http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2012/07/31/plastic_bag_bans_just_another_eco-fad_106336.html

Keep it on topic folks. Any additional off-topic ramblings get deleted.

OK, back on topic.

I drive by the lot where this is being built at least once a week. The fence has been up pretty much since this thread started. If I see any progress I'll update the thread. Otherwise there's not really a lot to talk about, it's a boring 14 story office building. It's being built to give a return on investment to the owners. The return on investment is the only thing that matters.

I lived and worked over that direction for a couple of years and would walk the four-mile round trip back and forth from home to Petrol Station because I thought that it was a pleasant thing to do.

Great minds think alike? I walk the two miles from the bus stop and back everyday to get to work just because I think it's a pleasant thing to do. It takes me about twice as long as driving. I also like knowing that I don't need a car even though I'm a sports car fanatic.

And the Greyhound station... I haven't had reason to visit, and it's not on the way to anything in particular (for me). I wouldn't imagine that anybody that uses the Greyhound station would have very much of a problem with walking in its vicinity. And of course, if they do, then all they have to do is keep walking. Any direction they choose is a heading away from it.

I walk by the bus station and that terrible gas station across from the BMW service center quite often. You do see some crime. Lots of drug sales around there. I do exactly as you say... keep walking.

All malls/shopping centers must renovate periodically or be deemed obsolete; this has been going on roughly since A/C was invented.

2027's headline: Midway proposes Fuller-esque geodesic dome to condition outdoor space of City Centre complex.

I was thinking something along the same lines. Mine was "Citycentre townhome residents fight off marauding bands of abandoned mall enthusiasts." I figure with another oil bust Citycentre could become another Westbury square. In 30 years someone on this board will be reminiscing about how there were apartments over shops there. Then someone will go out and take a bunch of photos of the ruins and post them here.

Phở and bánh mì will never go out of style. And it's the best part of living in Midtown. Not only is it fantastically cheap food, it's healthy and delicious. It tastes even better if you get there on your fixie.

That's one of the great things about the United States. We integrate the best stuff from all over the world into our culture. People won't stop eating Pho, it will make it to the menu at Applebees someday.

There goes jgriff, waxing poetic the way he does.

Ha..

I live near Memorial City and Citycentre. Fortunately not close enough that my property values will be affected a lot by what happens to them. Citycentre is crowded and successful right now. I see no reason why that couldn't suddenly change though. This place is not a guaranteed long term success by any means. I can't imagine why anyone would want to tie their financial future to this place by buying one of those townhomes. All it takes is a few people that are the wrong color, wrong age or wrong income level showing up a few too many nights in a row and the families that are making it a success will never come back. That's what happens to places that are "fake" as Niche puts it. He is correct in that sense and knows far more about real estate development than I do, probably more than almost anyone here.

I've already noticed some of the restaurants going a little downhill. One of them that has a large patio has cigarette burns and mold in the outdoor furniture. If they don't take care of the furniture I don't want to know what they do in the kitchen. I won't complain, I just won't go back. A lot of others will probably do the same.

Hipsters don't go to Citycentre. Hipsters eat Pho. There's no Pho in Citycentre. Citycentre is full of middle class people with families. I don't see rich people or Hipsters there. I see 40 year old parents who have given up on being cool brining their kids to play in the lawn and have a cupcake.

Edit: I started thinking about it and realized that I haven't been to every place in Citycentre. Maybe there's Pho there that I don't know about. I know that hipsters wouldn't eat Pho there though. To really get the full hipster Pho effect you have to eat it at a dirty hole in the wall restaraunt and brag to your friends about how great the $2 Pho is. The eating of the Pho is not nearly as important as the autenticity of it and the making sure all your friends know how authentic and cheap it was.

I'm sure the real hipsters will come out now and tell me that Pho is so last year and we've probably moved on to something like Korean street corner silk worms or something.

Citycentre is a working class mall. There's no Chanel, Tiffany or Louis Vuitton like the Galleria. It's full of middle class families. It's not a place for snooty people. Sometimes it seems a little honky tonk to me.

Seems like it would be a good publicity stunt to declare that you are a non-profit, pay high enough wages to yourself and employees to make almost no profit and donate what's left to charity. I'm not saying that's what they're doing here but non-profit doesn't mean that no one is profiting.

Heavy equipment is on site. They're digging up a lot of dirt.

There. Fixed it for you.

Edit: nevermind, arguing with you just brings me down to your level.

I drove by there this weekend. There's all kinds of street level retail close by so I guess this must be hipster nirvana, right?

I was walking around midtown Frday, not exactly the area where this occured, closer to the Greyhound station. I was amazed at the blatant drug dealing at 9:00am with cops less than a block away. Serisouly the cops were on the same street while a guy was selling drugs to some women in a car.

Horrible building. Horrible location.

Yep, it's a terrible location to put an office building. I guess that's why it's over 50% leased already.

The surprising thing is that people are surprised when the cops do things like this. I learned when I was a teenager that the police pretty much do whatever they want. They can take you to jail for looking at them funny. Sure, you'll get out the next day but they'll make your life miserable for a while. The last thing you want to say to a police officer is "You can't take me to jail for that." They love it when you say that.

What do you think drove the decision? Cost? Privacy of a closed campus? The current wave of corporate thinking?

I wonder the same thing. I live between Beltway 8 and 610 so I'm not inner loop and not quite the suburbs either. I usually find the people who think everything and everyone should be inside the loop or downtown are really annoying. In this case though if I worked for ExxonMobil I would rather be downtown. Downtown is a great place to work. You can get there via bus from everywhere. It's a great place to work if you live in the Woodlands or Sugarland.

I guess cost and privacy may be it. I've worked on many ExxonMobil projects. I've also worked downtown. They really do take corporate espionage seriously. There are so many related business in Houston and especially downtown. Some companies I've worked for have poilices of not talking about work at lunch in a public place. You never know who is sitting next to you. We also have to put all documents in locked trash bins that are sent to be shredded. Sometimes they send people out to inspect your desk to make sure you've left no confidential documents out. This is inside an office building where you have to show your badge to get in and swipe it again to get onto the project floor.

Let us know what they are Niche. I'd love to hear it.

I'm not sure what they are but on this site you should probably wear them as a badge of honor.

The posts seem to be getting longer on here.

And far more boring. I find myself visiting here less and less.

Doubt it, since the majority of BMWs are leased (according to this article from 2007, 85.3% of 7 Series were leased). Which tells me that most of the folks driving BMWs are the 99% but want to appear to be in the 1%.

BMW does have great lease deals. Driving a BMW doesn't get you anywhere near the appearance of the 1% though. BMWs are ordinary cars for everday people. That doesn't mean that the OWS 99%er people don't hate them though.

I went to a bar called "Texas" in Seoul. It was really bad. It smelled like sewage.

Occasionally, I've driven past and seen that a couple of windows have been shot out. Kinda' makes me wonder if it still is worth it considering those things cost about 10k a pop.

Must be the 99%, they're probably BMW haters.