IronTiger

10 hours ago, mollusk said:

Another former Holiday Inn (Memorial and Silver) was converted into senior apartments, and seemed to be doing pretty OK until Harvey flooded it.

That's not a good comparison. In the link below, I show an article that says the hotel in 1986.

The city had planned it for elderly housing as early as the late 1980s, but it didn't open until 1998. Plus, according an article from 1997, there were actually new appliances, fixtures, and flooring in rooms from an attempt in the mid-1990s. Price to clean it up in 1997 dollars? About $3 million. Here, not only is the "structurally sound" part dubious (allegedly, there's problems in that department... ) but it deteriorated for far longer than the Memorial Holiday Inn ever did.
 

A few years ago during a rainy day I decided to roll down the window despite the weather and the somewhat sketchy neighborhood to get a wisp of the coffee smell, but instead I got this nasty burnt smell (the same sort of thing I got when I visited Houston for a weekend a few years back and left the coffee maker on the entire time) and rolled the window back up.

14 hours ago, native_Houstonian said:

You are correct....the gas station was only at the southern tip.   I think they tore down houses on the north side to complete the station?   I can't remember now.   I was at the grand opening of the transit center, I do remember that!

Aerials seem to indicate houses between Louise and Adele. Lot was also cleared--the trees that were there were torn down completely, though the trees that are there now have grown up. The transit center was dedicated in March 1992. I can't find the date it was (largely) abandoned.

Drive by this all the time and never saw it in use (given METRO never uses it these days, I guess why). The gas station that once operated there (closed between 1989 and 1995, though I can look it up) was only the southern "tip" (the triangle south of Louise Street, which was closed when it became a transit center). There is the La Coqueta bar there, which has red neon at night (unknown if it's still open, as the neon I've only seen at night) and looks pretty sketchy.

14 hours ago, gmac said:

 

That's gotta limit the walkability somewhat

It was next to a railroad, which is going to limit walkability in some regards. But really, I suppose one way to back up what the building was is tracing back the land history of the apartments north of the freeway. If the entire property was condemned and then split off and sold, then probably not, but if part of the land was condemned and the original owners sold out then it might be traceable. From what I found, the address of the apartments, legally, isn't on Castle Court but rather 4508 Graustark, but I can't find anything on that property prior to 2016.

22 hours ago, ADCS said:

Probably because we live here and can tell the difference.

 

I noticed in your retelling of history how you ignored 45, 59 and 10 splitting up Freedmen's Town, along with the Third and Fifth Wards, too. Do those communities just not count?

Any urban highway is going to cut through neighborhoods in the city no matter what. The big question was the urban highways cutting in the central business district. As for your other comment, I commute under 610 on a daily basis on one of the major roads that go under 610 North. On either side, there are old buildings and the occasional business. Yes, looking at Google Earth, there are more of the dense townhomes on the southern (more affluent) neighborhoods than the north side but even that's starting to change.

5 hours ago, UtterlyUrban said:

As with everything, it all depends on how either side of the discussion defines the word “ around”.  

 

Those who were PRO highway described a freeway that cut between established neighborhoods and downtown as “ going around”.....

those who were CON highway described the same freeway as going through the core.

 

Both are correct.

Of course there would be demolitions. If you wanted minimal demolitions, you would have to re-route 59 up to Kirby and Richmond (east of Greenbriar was where the heaviest demolition starts for 59, and even then a lot of that is reduced due to a tight right of way and using the railroad). The real question is if you want "core" to mean "CBD with few to no single family houses" (which I-45 DID avoid) or "core" to include "established neighborhoods". If you want to change the definitions, then anything in the Beltway is "core" as well. I find it interesting how the same people who accuse the Pierce as "cutting" through Midtown and shouldn't be there are the same ones who hold 610 as a dividing line between "muh inner loop core" and everyone outside of it.

2 hours ago, HoustonIsHome said:

I've said it before and will continue saying it there is no reason for highways to go through the core.

 

I would remove all of them in the loop and stick to boulevards and mass transit in the loop. Even I10 should go. Trucks from Jacksonville heading to LA should not be clogging areas around downtown. 10 can be looped around  610.

 

Trucks should definitely bypass downtown. 

In a historical sense, the highways DID bypass the core. The reason why I-45 is always bad because of the sharp curves in the road, and those were there to AVOID THE CBD. Interstate 10 went clear on the other side of the railroad while US-59 also avoided the core. With the exception of Boston's defunct Central Artery (which pre-dated the Interstate system), the Interstates were largely designed to go AROUND the downtown area. Anyone telling you otherwise either has no idea about history or is trying to push an agenda (usually both). Don't believe me? Fire up Google Earth (I think there's still a desktop version if you don't already have it), go back to 1944 when the freeways didn't exist (but leave the roads layer on) and tell me what you see.

Private and public officials are closing in on a deal to develop the main campus of Houston's innovation district at 4201 Main St. — the site of the former Sears location in Midtown, sources close to the deal told to the Houston Business Journal. Rice University owns the land and will be involved in the innovation district's development, sources said.

 

Sears Holdings Corp. (Nasdaq: SHLD) had a storefront at 4201 Main St. for 73 years before closing in January 2018. Rice Management bought out the remaining 28 years of Sears’ 99-year ground lease and acquired another 3 acres from Sears. The former Sears store property sits on 6 acres of land, and the parcel contains an additional 3.4 acres of land for development.

Wait, so the Sears had a ground lease that it only would've had for 100 years? Who owned it? I thought Sears had all that land, and leased some space to Fiesta. Huh. A while back we had discussions if Rice owned the land or not. I guess they really DID all along.

On 3/8/2018 at 3:26 PM, Vy65 said:

I don't think you can say that the presence of multiple empty lots - that have been empty for years - is a sign of a densification. I only know of the one tower being built by Hanover (to the extent that you're suggesting that there are two being built). As for other's "on the way," I'll believe it when I see it because a lot of what I see out there is empty land. 

 

As for Apache, their Alpine play is poised to be highly lucrative. That, along with the rise/recovery of oil makes the renewal of their POC lease (as opposed to starting their building) kinda prove my point. 

Empty lots don't really have to densification, it has to do with land value (and those two are not interchangeable). A row of strip centers, churches, restaurants, and hotels is not very dense, but downtown and Uptown are, and empty lots (or parking lots) usually indicate two things:

1) The land value is so low that it doesn't really make sense to build there (any place out in the country, neighborhoods in serious decline, City of Detroit, etc.)

2) The land value is so high that it doesn't really make sense to build anything other than a high-profit building (basically any urban area including San Francisco's former Central Expressway up until 2008-ish)

If you look at Uptown, even back to 2004, you'll see that there are more empty lots than today but the lots that are developed (with a few exceptions) are all skyscrapers, dense malls, or hotels. Downtown has empty lots, and those lots won't develop until they find developers for big multi-story building. Putting in a Panda Express with its own parking lot and drive-through would definitely be attractive but the land value is too high to see a low-rise like that built anymore. At one time the land value in downtown was low enough that a McDonald's with a parking lot was there at Main and Capitol, but that obviously is not the case anymore.

On 2/23/2018 at 5:36 PM, Tumbleweed_Tx said:

it looks weird Uptown without the Jetsons street signs 

I *think* there might be one left, but another one of the unique Houston items...gone.

I wonder if the adjacent Fiesta will close too. Was that announced? I believe the Fiesta was on land Sears leased, and that property is now Rice's...

Oh, so it's actually closed? When was the closing date?

So, it looks like the "express lanes" construction also involves a total rebuild of the 288/610 interchange. This includes a temporary situation where the 288 S exit (eastbound) from 610 has gone from its 2013 reconstruction (two lanes splitting off from 610 to two lanes on 288 instead of one lane turning into two) to a scary exit-only lane with a really sharp turn. The original 288 interchange wasn't bad in itself (unless you were a truck with a penchant for going too fast), with the only most obnoxious part having the 288 North exit being BEFORE the 288 South exit, if you were going eastbound on 610. Westbound made a little more sense, with the traditional "exit and split" routine seen at the other interchanges. The rebuild seems to place the ramps at the same level and does not address the fact that the westbound 610 frontage road is not contiguous.

2 hours ago, cspwal said:

My point was that even if the train turned out to need money it would be after construction - and public financing of anything except where the track crosses highways should be highly scrutinized.  The expensive part of any train is building the thing

All railroads cost money to operate and maintain, and very few make a profit. Even the MTA (New York City's transit system) only gains back about 50% what they put in the budget. If the HSR was built and didn't make a profit, the state could sell the line to Union Pacific, who could use it as a super-fast way of getting from Dallas to Houston, and definitely turn a profit off of it.

5 hours ago, cspwal said:

 

What is the sequence of events that lead to public financing of this rail line?

 

I see three possible scenarios for this train:

1. The line becomes successful and makes some already wealthy people richer
2. The line becomes popular (lots of riders) but doesn't break even, leading to the public wanting state funding to avoid it closing
3. The line is a flop - no one rides it, so it closes as a failed business venture.

I think the only bad situation would be #3 if the state subsidized the failed train to keep operating.  But even then, the major costs - building the infrastructure - will have been paid for by the investors of TCR.

Nah two is also bad because it will basically confirm what everyone in the counter-rail group is thinking, that it's just a long-range con to scam taxpayers and not actually deliver a functional, profitable private rail line. Already we've been going from "Hey, this is privately funded and operated, we're not like California here, ha ha" to "Yes, it's privately funded but have you considered eminent domain? It's only a narrow little strip!"

6 hours ago, mollusk said:

 

 

Urban rail transit generally runs on such a short frequency and at such a speed between stations that it and freight would be stepping all over each other.   It's also vanishingly unlikely that UP is willing to put up with the disruption that would occur with trying to put dedicated transit lines either above or below its ROW inside the loop, particularly since the generally parallel Katy ROW is now mostly a bike lane - regardless of how practical an idea that might really be.

 

No way would anyone living near the Heights Bike Path would allow HSR down it. In addition to having needing far more ROW than the Katy railroad ever had, it had all sorts of twisty turns that would make it impractical to freight and HSR alike.

On 2/6/2018 at 10:10 AM, mollusk said:

 

uh, Hobby started being the main Houston airport during the Coolidge administration. 

 

And there were complaints in the 1960s about IAH being so far out in the country. (map from 1962)

Whoops, critical research error on my part. For some reason I read Hobby opening in 1969, not IAH. Point still stands though. If this is anywhere close to a major hub as a contingent of this thread believes it to be, downtown is neither necessary or pragmatic.

LOL to the "why not downtown" arguments. If this is supposed to be an airport alternative, why does it have to be downtown? If HAIF had existed back in the 1960s, would there be just whole pages of complaints about the future Hobby Airport being outside of the Loop?

If it's facing north (roughly) and paralleling the Gulf Freeway, why does there seem to be an elevated freeway in the background? The half-cloverleafs wouldn't have existed at the time. Or that just a big building?

Based on the freeway, at least one other cross street, and the road length I want to say Pierce and Brazos.

It seems to be one of the streets around downtown, very narrow (three lanes, no dedicated parking). Were any EaDo or Midtown roads converted back into two way?

11 hours ago, SpaceGhost said:

A bunch were found in this thread:

 

http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/29412-lewis-coker/

Oh man, and that was my own post too.

Where did Lewis & Coker have its locations before they closed the last one in the late 1990s (Memorial Drive, which became Rice Epicurean/Fresh Market/Total Wine)? All I can find is they had one other location in Kingwood in the late 1980s.

From reading the articles it seems like at least their later days they skewed upscale despite the fact that they operated the Kmart grocery stores in the 1970s.

15 hours ago, plumber2 said:

The other one at the end of Golf Drive was what my dad referred to as the Heights Golf Course. He claimed to have caddied there for extra money when he was a kid. It apparently closed sometime around WWII and then it became developed as Sheperd Park Forest later on.

 

I've also heard that the current Pine Forest Country Club on Clay Road is going to close. The members have sold the property to developers.

History has a way of repeating itself. Us native Houstonians have been witness to it more often than we'd like. 

Reading about it on the current website of Pine Forest says it opened in 1945 (explaining why it isn't on the oldest aerial) and closed in 1975 (which is why the warehouses were only partially built out in 1978).

Doing of my "look at something in Google Earth and discover something else" excursions that I do on a far too regular basis, I found what appeared to be a golf course just east of the Sears store there.  It was roughly bordered by North Shepherd (west), the railroad (south), Crosstimbers/Westcross (north), and the homes west of Yale (east). By the late 1970s it was demolished for a series of warehouses with railroad spurs, which it is today, though the spurs are not active anymore. Does anyone know what this golf course was? I tried to do searches on it to no avail.

7 hours ago, nate4l1f3 said:

Maybe it’s just me but is anyone else annoyed by thread titles with just addresses in the title?  I’m sure it’s just my pet peeve, but if we have a name of the business why not just use that as the title? The heights forum is full of them and it’s hard for my little brain to keep track of what addresses match what business.

Sometimes the business that the address refers to go under (pretty sure I've seen one thread where that happened). Plus, it can be helpful to refer to previous occupants of the property as well.