kylejack

I found the brisket pretty weak, more like roast beef.

Awesome sides, though.

For a look at what an awesome roof can do, go to the Cy Twombly Gallery (also on the Menil campus) on a sunny day. The roof is built to diffuse the light and provide a soft glow to the room using natural sunlight. It's really cool.

Notice that I said to go and see the roof, not the art. Not a Cy Twombly fan at all!

Really? How does it benefit the Chron?

Publications with paywalls enable the full article to be accessed from search engines. This way the search engine can index the full story. They get click-through traffic from people that search words in the story. If nobody ever finds their articles on Google they risk losing relevance.

Just going off a speech based off city of houston planners a few months ago

A speech by who in particular? Brian Crimmins? Marlene Gafrick? I'd like to ask whoever it was about what you've said.

I'd agree with you for those who tend to be couples/older families. However, most of the people parking at the zoo lot are families with multiple kids with multiple strollers, other junk to load up to bring with the kids, picnic supplies, etc. and visitors from out of town. If Houston were a city with true mass transit... then you'd have a point.

 

Yes, there are a lot of options nearby for parking... but no one knows about them unless you live nearby. For those visiting, there is no clear signage or indication of where there is public parking available and where it's at. Heck, even the Ben Taub parking garage (where people park at and walk across to the zoo entrance on the back side) has notices posted saying that the garage is to only be used for hospital visitors.

Well then, it sounds like a signage problem more than a missing parking garage problem.

There is an executive order instructing the Planning Department to design and implement a Complete Streets policy. That has not been done yet, so what Houston's does or does not entail is not currently known.

Since they intend to apply Complete Streets thinking to all new street construction and renovation, we can be reasonably certain that there will not be street parking on every single street.

Corner Bakery and Compass Bank are there in the lobby, or are you referring to something else?

 

That's true.

We live in Houston, and according to the city they will have parallel parking on at least one side.

The new Complete Streets policy of the City doesn't have any firm rules, actually. It is just a policy of considering all road users when building or renovating roads.

Good point, but I'm sure they're hoping closing off the street would encourage it though, right?

Also, I just realized this site is the next block over from the square, so it doesn't seem totally unreasonable. Still, I'm curious what Hilcorp's justification would be other than, "why not, the next block over is," unless there is retail. Even then, I'm not sure it makes sense.

Maybe it wasn't Hilcorp's decision. It is part of the plans of Downtown Management District. Anyway, just like Main Street Square, closing the road off to cars can create a better pedestrian environment. Main Street Square has trees for shade and etc.

I just noticed on the site plan that it references the possibility of Main closing on the west side.

No way the city would consider that unless they planned on retail or a major entertainment venue.

Why not? The current Main Street Square at the Reliant tower doesn't have street level retail.

"Complete streets" don't necessarily have parallel parking. I could imagine a scenario if a bike lane was installed at the expense of a lane (and making a larger median) or thinning of the median for a bike lane...but either way, as interesting as "complete streets" are, it shouldn't hijack much needed repairs of existing roads. If that's really the case (which I hope it isn't), the sorry conditions of the road are what the voters got.

We don't have enough money to repair the roads because taxes are not high enough. Complete Streets just means taking all types of road users into account when designing new roads or renovations of roads.

There's nothing going on at that building. It was hollowed out and then...nothing.

Yeah, that's awesome. I wonder if/when they will close off the block in front of the Main Street square north station, to have a full 3 blocks closed off.

Probably tougher since there's a little bit of street parking for Kirby Lofts.

 It's almost.... it's almost as if they found something... maybe... just maybe, they found Thor's hammer, Mjölnir.

 

Redevelopment of Main pdf shows the layout of the new office tower here: http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/29592-main-st-improvments/?p=448813

Note that they are closing Main Street in front of the tower and turning it into a plaza, like Main Street Square.

I just heard a rumor that they are tearing down the rest of it.

Marfreless opened in 1972, relocated to current location 1976.

It is my opinion. You can certainly have yours. Why is it a disappointment?

 

1. Because the initial renderings showed the building back to 100% true form

Well, that would have been nice. And they tried. But after removing the facade, the brick wasn't in good condition. They would have had to redo the entire thing.

So it runs on Richmond until it turns south at Shephard and goes down to Westpark before turning to the west and running to Hilcroft, right?  I still don't see what the big deal is considering the options for development on the south side of 59.  Not the ideal route, perhaps, but then the ideal route would probably be down Westheimer, if that were possible.  What i'm saying is rather than spend more years trying to overturn Culberson's efforts, they should get going with the route they can do.  In the end I think it will turn out just fine, or perhaps even better than if it had run down Richmond.  You may end up seeing the strip malls along 59 and Westpark get torn up and replaced with towers and mid-rise mixed use.  That couldn't happen as easily on Richmond because of all the single family homes along much of the way.

 

No federal funding has been approved for any version of the University Line. Culberson has been anti-rail even back to when they were building the original Red Line. When the plan changes, he'll oppose the new plan too.

They wanted it entirely off Richmond and Metro wanted it entirely on Richmond, but at the end of the day this is how it's worked out.  Better for Metro to take it and run than spend the next 20 years trying to reverse it.

 

No, Culberson has now gotten it banned from Richmond anywhere west of Shepherd.

I know they wanted Richmond originally, but I'd heard that the route switches over to westpark before it gets to Afton Oaks due to opposition.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Line_%28METRORail%29

 

Yes, that's true. http://www.gometrorail.org/clients/2491/372235.pdf But the Richmond rail opponents want it off of Richmond entirely.

Hasn't it been pretty much the plan to go over to westpark for some time now?  Sucks as a route compared to Richmond, but maybe that will foster new development where there would have been little or none along Richmond since it's more residential and westpark is more commercial.

Plan by who? Certainly not METRO. They wanted Richmond, and Culberson and others pointed to a referendum vote that had it on Westpark originally.

There is not enough room to create two lanes of traffic without removing some sidewalk. The current lane as it is is not very wide. Bicycle and car can't travel side by side. No interest in removing more sidewalk.

Preserving traffic flow can help keep a street "alive".  I have a hard time seeing the argument for making Main a pedestrian strip.  Mainly during the 1970s dozens of streets were converted to pedestrian shopping streets, and in almost every case the concept failed miserably as the streets became dead zones. 

How many of those were already lousy pointless streets to drive on?

What? The are miles apart and, in my opinion, able to coexist,

Dumb move if true

JW Marriott is the luxury property. Someone looking for the best Marriott experience shouldn't have to guess which one is the better property. This simplifies it.

There's another argument for not blocking it off: activity on Main will ebb and flow over the years, so there's no need to do some major reconstruction for blocking the roads that could dry up in future years.

Major reconstruction... You're proposing a project that will costs tens of millions of dollars, relocating a rail line to Travis.