Nate99

Interesting. It looks like someone is recycling a perfectly good steel building frame out of this one.  That's cool. 

Views previously unpossible 

I'm in the "it was a blighted, old, abandoned box" camp myself. There were some plans once upon a time to build stuff on this whole block, maybe it will come back around. 

Finally some movement...

Construction date projected for roughly $76.2M Kingwood mobility project | Community Impact

They are estimating two years to get "Phase 1" of the Northpark expansion done after eight years of study, I'm guessing it will be more than that just to set my expectations low. 

Ford Road going toward Porter from the back of Kingwood is seeing some action too, and could add another couple of lanes of ingress/egress capability into Kingwood, though I don't think it will extend past the Montgomery/Harris line. 

East Montgomery County project to widen Ford Road gets rolling (yourconroenews.com)

Kingwood Drive will likely never be expanded given the particular love people have for the tree canopy, at least they'll be able to enjoy it for long stretches of time while they sit in traffic. 

Given that it took eight years for a simple widening of an ugly stretch of road to get started, this will likely be it for unclogging Kingwood's major roads, at least for as long as I plan to be here. Another road up the western side of Lake Houston/East Fork from the end of West Lake Houston Parkway up to 99 would do wonders, but that's just me staring at the map, I don't think anyone has kicked that around at all. 

The other no brainer would seem to be an expansion of Hamblen Road all the way to Woodland Hills along the West Fork, but I think that one was actually considered and shot down for reasons unexplained.  If the 'shroom trip moonshot Herons/Marina thing would have happened, this would have been almost a prerequisite, but I think we had as much of a chance of that thing ever getting built as we still have of it appearing spontaneously. 

I'll check back on this thread in another decade and give a progress report on that Northpark overpass. 

He's right, it's awful. Cockroaches so big they steal your shoes in the summer to avoid the scorching hot pavement themselves if you are so ill-fortuned as to have to get out of your car. Stay far, far away. 

Then again, if it weren't for people conveniently fleeing from the Dark Knight reboot going on in NYC, Connecticut might be further down the list of net out migrants.  But at least there are plenty of walkable neighborhoods with fewer residents than there used to be for those unimpressed by CoH's efforts to emulate them by coercion (as is right and just). 

17 hours ago, Big E said:

Do the Coyotes want to move? It seems more likely that Houston get an expansion team than another team move here.

The Coyotes are a basket case of a club. Their owner wants to get in on a big mixed use deal that is part of the Tempe stadium plans, so he's all-in on that. I don't know if the NHL could force a sale, but they should, the guy can't manage to find a major league caliber venue. Seems like that would be a condition of franchise ownership.  The ASU venue they use has half the seating capacity of the Tuscon arena that their AHL affiliate uses. 

That said, Seattle and Vegas have done really well, the league may be up for more expansion. 

They were smashing on it today for the entertainment of the Final Four hotel guests. 

The Ballpark in Arlington/GlobeLife Park/Chocktaw Stadium offers an interesting analog, but it wasn't abandoned, half gutted and turned into a mold spore factory.   They use it for rugby and other minor league type operations (XFL, MLS feeder team). 

Not having to manage the HVAC makes it only just so analogous, but in any case, I can't see how those entities pay for upkeep of something that big. 

Interestingly, the Rangers used that park for only 26 seasons if I counted correctly.  The Astros are starting their 24th at MMP after 35 in the Dome. Time flies. 

Wait.. what? 

Concur that it looks like it was taken from Texas Tower, but more importantly, who is falberding and why are you stalking them? 

Welcome to HAIF. 

On 10/28/2022 at 12:20 PM, Ross said:

Frost Town did not extend as far South as MMP. MMP is on the site of Union Station. Here's the 1944 aerial, with Frost Town circled in red

Late coming back to the discussion, I was recalling another photo of the neighborhood just south of Union Station that you can see in the arial shot, I didn't realize that wasn't contiguous. 

On 10/27/2022 at 6:45 AM, 004n063 said:

There was a rather heartbreaking picture of the Eastex freeway under construction in the East River thread yesterday. The massive parking desert of the 1970s-1990s was apparently contiguously urban in the 1940s.

Even older photos show the Frost Town neighborhood surrounding what is now MMP, with Annunciation Church's steeple sticking up among a dense cluster of two-story homes, not unlike the one that Annunciation quasi-restored/reconstructed as offices. 

I'm not sure how far the original Houston Center sky city concept went before everything went bust, but at least in renderings it stretched way out in all directions. Maybe some buildings were demolished for that along with other dynamics shut down the east side of DT. Houston kept growing, but that part was abandoned.  

Pizza bot appears to be operational. 
 

On 9/2/2022 at 5:35 PM, staresatmaps said:

New 24/7 pizza vending machine at 625 Fannin where the Fannin Food Mart and another one next to Social Beer Garden HTX.

That Food Mart has probably had a half dozen of its windows smashed out since it opened, always promptly replaced. I worry for pizza bot's safety.