livincinco

Our current economic boom, a large percentage of the ship channel imports/exports and the rapidly growing manufacturing base are all due to oil.

 

I'm not complaining about Houston or saying oil is bad.  Far from it.  I just want our national image to improve - and like you said - it has improved over the past 5-10 years.  Though there is still plenty of room for improvement.

 

I'm really curious to see how it plays out as renewables start to become more cost-effective.  Houston is extremely well positioned to grab a large portion of that industry mainly because we have such a high concentration of engineering talent related to the energy industry.  (Not to mention that I think the oil companies are going to start acquiring a lot of renewable companies as soon as that starts to happen).  The city is clearly aiming that direction as well.

That would be a huge step towards improving the cities' image.

Right now - all we have is the oil boom and we're cheap.  Oil has done wonders for this town - yes - no doubt about that!  However, it hasn't done enough to nix the perception that we are a backwards, dirty, sprawling, ugly city.

 

The article (old as it is) clearly states that a town like SF (with all its problems) is light years ahead of Houston in the perception people have of it and the pedestal they place it on.

 

There's an old saying "Toot your own horn, because there's no one around that will do it for you."

I somewhat agree with your comments, but I do think that Houston's image has improved significantly in the last 5-10 years and expect that it will continue to do so.  I also think that you're underestimating the diversification of the economy that has happened since the 80's.  The Ship Channel and Texas Medical Center are both major economic players and are rapidly growing in national importance.  Houston is also rapidly growing its manufacturing sector (although a lot of that is tied to oil).

There are certain elements of the perception gap between SF and Houston that just can't be addressed.  SF has natural beauty that Houston will never have.  SF has an anchor industry (technology) that is way more appealing than energy is.  SF is an international tourism hub in way that Houston will probably never be.

Just keep in mind, that we kick SF's a** when it comes to GDP. 

austin and Charlotte are smaller cities but both have bigger downtown populations. Austins is two times as large as houston. Maybe when we get to that level we will start having 50 and 60 floor residential towers

Charlotte's downtown population really isn't that large. Most of the growth in urban population is occurring in Southend which is essentially Charlotte's equivalent to Midtown, not Downtown (called Uptown in Charlotte).

Having lived in both Houston and the Bay Area, I have to say that the lack of willingness to promote itself is one of the things that I have found refreshing about Houston.  In general, my take on the Bay Area was that people were generally very conscious of their image and the perception of others.  By comparison, I have found Houston to be much more conscious of actions and results. 

True. But the original stretch of the main st line was like 375 million and has spurred well over 2 billion in development along it since it's inception.

And 15 million? How do you figure that.. The whole 5,000 units are 75 mil in incentives. Wouldn't the original 2,500 be 37.5 mil? Still it was an excellent investment, but so was light rail IMO.

I think that we're starting to divert from the topic, but would be happy to discuss on an appropriate thread.

All the "light rail doesn't spur development" people better get their licks in now, clock is ticking...

The downtown residential incentives cost about $15 million to date and I would suggest that they have generated more development than light rail has for considerably less money.

Not sure why no one has brought up the Midtown Redevelopment Authority. Hard to not give them at least some degree of credit for the development that has occurred.

What does this conversation have to do with a supertall for the Galleria area?

I don't think that is the whole picture. Some of those lots had buildings on them. Also, paying taxes on a vacant building makes less sense than generating income from a surface lot.

So demand is part of the picture but so is finances. You have to look at the market, demand, cost of land downtown etc etc

Fair enough and agree with your comments. However, it still has everything to do with market conditions and nothing to do with government regulation.

I read something recently that excessive parking can in some cases decrease tax revenue since it may not be an effective use of land.

That assumes that there is demand for a more efficient use of the land that is being used for parking. Downtown has had a large amount of surface parking for years because the demand wasn't there. Government regulation had nothing to do with it.

Check out the Galveston-Houston Regional Forecast 2025. HTown is divided into zones. Zone 1 is DT and inner loop. Z2 is 610 to SH Tollway. Z3 is SH to GP. Z4 is GP to areas I am not familiar with. Z5 is even beyond that. According to projections, Z1 gains 200k, Z2 almost a million. Z3 1.3 mil. Z4 almost another million. Z5 like 200k. Thats a LOT more people in just 11 years. Is this a credible summation?

That seems high.  Houston is expected to grow fast but the projections that I've seen have been closer to 2.5 million additional in the next 15 years.  Your numbers add up to about 3.7 in 11 years.

It is interesting that projection calls for 200k of the increased 3.7 million inside the loop.  That would increase population inside the loop by about 40% and would still account for only about 6% of the new residents.

i'm not so sure 500 crawford will even be tall enough to see any significant portion of th field, especially if the roof is closed. the overall design complements MMP quite well and the addition of retail (even a small portion) is a great step forward. to call the design "cheap" is just wrong.

According to the official MLB stats, the roof was open at MMP for only 14 of 81 games last year so the whole question of being able to see the game seems to be rhetorical.  I agree though, that you probably won't be able to see enough from the top of the building anyway.

Pretty hard to argue that this isn't a nice net win for the area...

While we're dreaming, can we wish them back to the NL?

I'd save mine for wishing that Ryan and Biggio were the starting battery instead of throwing out the first pitch.

Wal-Mart is becoming more urban friendly in some cities (except here cough cough). But who knows, maybe they'll come downtown one day.

http://urbanland.uli.org/planning-design/walmart-goes-urban/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=magazine

It's funny how the media always seems to be surprised when companies evolve to take advantage of changing trends. Smart companies find ways to meet market demand and while Walmart is called many things, people rarely question their business sense. Walmart has to be looking at CVS/Walgreens and trying to figure out how to get more of their business. This seems like a perfect way to do that.

Only if you count prisoners, the homeless and others in group homes and the like. As shown above, as of the 2010 census, there were 2,409 housing units in which there lived 2,384 people.

Nothing adds density like a prison. This might become a new urban living model.

But increasing the pedestrian experience for tenants has been shown to be profitable though.

People want to live in these areas. How much is it going to cost to put something other than a blank wall fronting the park?

I can understand not putting anything if you are building low income housing in crappytown or out in the boonies, but this area is a destination. It is the historical district. People are going to pay top dollar for this area, why not make minor improvements to make the area more inviting?

My point is that it's still a matter of judgement from the individual developer.  Each developer makes a decision regarding the profitability of "increasing the pedestrian experience" and whether it's worth making additional investment to do so.  Additionally, making an investment towards increasing foot traffic is one thing, actually realizing increased foot traffic from that investment is another.

You assume that anything a developer does is what "the market actually thinks" is best. Funny how the market thinks it's best to have ground floor retail on the corner of Market Square where Hines is building, and the market doesn't think it's best to have it here.  I think it's just a matter of one developer giving a damn about improving the pedestrian experience around this area and the other developer not giving a damn, but for you, every developer has this crystal ball that he gazes into to tell him exactly what the market thinks is necessary, and the consequences are dire if he doesn't follow it.

 

I think it's more of a question of one developer thinking that ground floor retail is going to be profitable in a particular location and another thinking that it won't.  I don't think any developer is interested in "improving the pedestrian experience" unless it's ultimately profitable for them.

Which is kind of weird. When I rented at a Randall Davis property in Houston the landlord encouraged me to modify the apartment. Which I did. Lots of paint, an enormous chandelier, and other thing. The previous tenant built a glass block wall for the bedroom, which was very cool. I don't know if it was this particular landlord's philosophy or an RD philosophy, but she explained to me that if you let people act like they're at home, they'll renew their leases longer.

Since then, I have only met one landlord who was similarly open-minded. And all of those places where I wasn't allowed to change things, I moved out of fairly quickly.

That's interesting because I never experienced that during my time renting, but I do think that it's safe to say that the average homeowner spends more on home improvement than the average renter does.

Most big box retailers are trying to figure out how to develop an appropriate model for urban environments though.

pardon my ignorance, but what is the difference?

A jail is used for temporary detention. A prison is used for people serving long term sentences. There's certainly an advantage to having the jail so close to the courthouse, but I would think that, as others have noted, the value of the land is going to get high enough at some point, that it's going to make sense to move it.

There is an overlap between retail that residents would want and that visitors would want. It doesn't all have to be chic boutiques and Texas souvenirs. That said, and understanding that some things need to be practical to support residents, I don't think Home Depot would work. Unless they have some urban format that I'm not aware of, the price per sf of land downtown is way too high for them, a 250 x 250 block size is too small, and imagine people buying lumber downtown. Maybe a small Ace hardware would suffice, and if people need more they can drive out.

Both Lowe's and Home Depot have experimented with urban formats, but they've generally tried to locate in areas that are more similar to Midtown than Downtown.  Any area that has a high percentage of renters is tough for those chains because renters are so much less likely to do "home improvement" than owners are.

There is a reason drycleaners, nail/hair salons, coffee shops, sandwich shops, donut places make it in suburban strip centers... they have relatively cheap leases.  The trouble is getting these needed, though low operating cost (and low value) businesses to take a risk on more expensive leases in the core.  They will also need enough foot traffic to survive.  And while the demand is I'm sure high for a dry cleaner (for example), most Downtown workers who need dry cleaning probably just wait till they get home to use the local cleaners.

 

There will be a time when enough residents live Downtown that they will demand that kind of retail and that they will get that kind of retail, but I do not think we've reached that level yet.  With the build out of the proposed and now underconstruction residential properties in Downtown we will reach that peak where there are enough people living within a walking distance that these sort of stores will start to pop-up.  That will help fuel more retail and further exploration into the Downtown market by private retail.

In complete agreement, it would make no sense for the city to provide incentives for retail development until the residential base is in place.  To your point, once that residential base is sufficient, low level retail will develop and that's a really good time to look at how to develop retail.

Traditional downtown department stores like Macy's are dying, big box retailers like Walmart and Target haven't pushed downtown locations, there's a limited audience for "upscale" retailers as at the Galleria, and like yourself, a lot of people find it easier to just shop online. 

 

Mundane retail like dry cleaners and hardware stores make a lot of sense to serve residents.

Actually a lot of traditional "big box" retailers have been looking at different formats that are better suited to urban environments for the last couple of years, but the results have been pretty mixed.  Very difficult to get the same level of profitability from those locations that they do from their suburban locations. That being said, I agree with you that mundane stores are the most likely result.  I'd expect to see a lot of the same kind of stores that are found in suburban strip malls - dry cleaner, nail place, coffee shop, etc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/business/retailers-expand-into-cities-by-opening-smaller-stores.html?_r=0

http://plannersweb.com/2014/02/walmart-stores-go-small-urban/

On a sidenote, someone mentioned lower Manhattan as an example of office workers not supporting retail, but it occurred to me that the mall beneath the World Trade Center was (IIRC) the highest grossing shopping mall in America before its destruction. Of course, it wasn't street level.

Fair point, but it was also a major transit hub so it got a ridiculously high level of foot traffic.  It's also relevant that it was directly under a major tourist attraction.

Yes, their average is more like 30 million, but that wasn't my point. My point was to contradict fernz' assertion that "they don't shop" and to argue that some retail is possible without rooftops, and that office workers do contribute something. Otherwise, where did the $15 million come from?

Sure - there's always a number of factors in something like this.  Downtown workers, convention traffic, tourist and entertainment traffic are all factors so it's clearly a simplification to just say 10,000 residents is the magic number.  The point is more around having a base of continuous traffic during non-business hours that a retailer can expect.  Workers provide minimal uplift during evenings and weekends.  Convention and entertainment is event driven and can be heavily cyclical.  Residential is more even and even more importantly provides that off hour volume that retailers (and restaurants) need.

Official announcement on Torchy's Tacos opening in La Centerra

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2014/02/retail-wrap-torchys-tacos-in-cinco-ranch-yogaone-studios-in-the-heights-tommy-hilfiger-in-katy-mills/?cmpid=businesshcat