nucklehead

If done right, Midtown Houston could be even greater than Uptown Dallas.

The potential of Midtown is huge, especially the area from Louisiana to San Jacinto and Pierce to Elgin. But it must not be developed as a bunch of isolated compounds, rather it should be a number of open properties, interconnected with the neighborhood.

The city of Dallas has been passionate about developing both its downtown and surrounding areas for some 30 years now. If the city of Houston likewise wants to do something with its Midtown area, it will need to make some time consuming fixes. One fix is that it needs to bury the two elevated freeways that cut off the neighborhood of Midtown from both the downtown area and the Art's district/Medical Center areas. Of course, the problem with burying any freeway in Houston is that they are subject to torrential flooding.

The city of Dallas planned well by originally burying the freeway that splits both the downtown area from the uptown one. Now they are in the process of making even the sunken portion of the freeway disappear by building a park plaza on top of it.

In regards to development, developers never develop in a continuous fashion in a single area. A problem arises when prices of real estate rise along with the value of the finished development. That is why new development tends to spread out throughout a booming area because developers look elsewhere for cheaper land prices. Eventually the too hot prices around the new development will cool off enough to add new development to that particular area. But once again the price of real estate would rise causing the developers to once again look elsewhere for cheaper land.

Another concern with planned developments are economic downturns. During the recession of the 80's a lot of master planned developments in Houston got scrapped. One example of this would be Greenway Plaza. The original master plan for its development called for a mini airport to be built upon a long, continuous parking garage across the freeway. There is now retail space in its place. The master plan also called for another Summit like arena to be built in the project. Anyway, the point is that master plans go to hell during a recession and leave huge gaps of undevelopment afterwards even up to many years after the economy has picked back up.

I only brought up the Metro HOVs becuase many in Houston are so sad we don't have more rail.

But it's not about the form of transportation, it's about moving people.

And Houston's HOV system moves tons of people and is the model of efficiency.

Comparing Metro to Dart is like comparing a Volkswagon to a Lamborgini. Simply put, developers will never build billion dollar developments next to the bus stations in Houston. A Houston citizen will never feel special on a bus the way a Dallas citizen does on a train. Tourists in Houston aren't going to get excited on the bus every time it bounces them up and down when it hits a gigantic pot hole. Come on now! You have to be joking certainly.

The next craze in real estate is happening right now and it involves building mini urban areas next to train stations. Why should Houston be concerned about this? Well, Houston doesn't have a lot of stations that don't already have lots of development around them. When Houston does finally build a line in which residents actually ride, then it will be Dallas companies who have the expertise to come in and build them.

The only positive about the big mess that Metro has in Houston right now is that it just might work out well one day. Midtown is a vacuum between downtown Houston and the Medical Center. Houston's plan won't seem so silly if Midtown does indeed become the central hub of the metro area one day. Most of us will probably be long dead before that happens.