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livincinco

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Everything posted by livincinco

  1. livincinco
    That's actually extremely poor especially for a location of that size. Macy's per store average is right about $30 million. If it's true that they were only doing $17 million, then its not surprising at all that they closed.
  2. livincinco
    Totally agree with you and that's obviously a huge factor in the retail that exists, but I'm not sure what percentage of workers shop near their job vs. the percentage that shop near their houses. I'm sure that data exists, I just haven't seen it.
  3. livincinco
    The reason that a residential population is so important to retail is more about evenings and weekends. Most retail businesses do a high percentage of their volume on weekends and are generally reluctant to open in areas that they don't generate that volume. Very difficult to be profitable as a retailer off of daytime, weekday business. Look at Wall Street which has an extremely dense office population, but virtually no residential in the immediate area. It has a much lower retail presence than the rest of Manhattan and virtually all businesses located there close on weekends.
  4. livincinco
    I think you're right and believe that the city has been doing the right thing by focusing on residential incentives to get the population up. The retail demand will come with the population. I'd be really surprised though if the downtown population gets even close to 25-50k in the near ten years. Consider that the population of Midtown isn't even 10,000 yet and that's been developing for years.
  5. livincinco
    Personally, I don't think that the amount of residential population in downtown impacts office development in that area that much. Right now at least, that seems to be much more heavily driven by cost judging by the developments that are underway. I do think that residential population is huge in driving the kind of retail development that people are looking for downtown and would agree that something around 10k is the right number. From what I've read from various sources, that seems to be the tipping point in being able to support basic neighborhood retail.
  6. livincinco
    When I lived in California, there were always news teasers about different seismologists predicting that California would have a major earthquake "soon". Then if you watched actual story, they'd explain he meant geologically soon, meaning sometime within the next 200 years.
  7. livincinco
    We're once again off topic (shocking, I know), but I don't see any meltdown of energy companies coming. I expect that there will be a repositioning as they adapt to whatever the dominant energy source is at that point. Shell is interestingly enough projecting that oil will cease to be used as a source of energy for cars around 2070 which is well before the current projected "end of oil" scenarios and well beyond the timeframe that should concern current building trends. I expect that you'll see the predominant energy companies do the exact same thing has happened in technology. They'll stockpile cash like crazy and start buying any firms that show promise and assimilate them. They have a lock on the kind of engineering talent that is needed to execute large scale installations and quite honestly, there's no way that a wholesale energy conversion happens in the world without their involvement. I would say that IBM is a better comparison than Kodak. IBM was nimble, adapted to change and is as strong as ever while doing business in a way that has no resemblance to their original model.
  8. livincinco
    Saw a sign last night at La Centerra showing application for a liquor license for Torchy's Tacos.
  9. livincinco
    That's the point in the conversation that supporting detail is normally provided.
  10. livincinco
    Especially since they list no requirements regarding parking and specifically call out that all streets will not be identical.
  11. livincinco
    Agreed. Attached is the actual policy for reference.http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/docs_pdfs/Exec_Order_Complete_Streets.pdf
  12. livincinco
    Doesn't matter, assuming Republicans keep control of the state government, there's no way that they let the gov train finish before the private HOU-DAL train. They want that train bad so that they can point out the differences between the TX high speed rail project and the CA project. If that project can launch on budget and be successful, it's a huge selling point to pitch to businesses about why they should come to Texas.
  13. livincinco
    That was my point earlier in the thread. The store is apparently profitable and faces no competition. Sears has no incentive to renovate it.
  14. livincinco
    You guys are 100% correct. Sears is completely healthy. Their business is so strong that they reported -7% top line growth for 2013 and -9.4% for Q4. Those are great numbers! Much better than the +8.2% that losers like Home Depot showed. No question that they're going to look to into immediately reinvesting those strong earnings into renovating the Midtown store. I expect them to start construction any day now, keep watching this thread for updates. BTW, their stock is a hot buy. I'd invest heavily in it. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-01-22/business/chi-sears-close-loop-flagship-20140121_1_sears-holdings-traditional-department-stores-sears-and-kmart http://www.tirebusiness.com/article/20140124/NEWS/140129916
  15. livincinco
    It's a lot bigger than a car.
  16. livincinco
    I think that the big question around stops is whether they intend on running two tracks in each direction or if they are running just one. If they are running only one for cost savings, then the stops would limit their ability to run non-stops between Dallas and Houston. If they're running two tracks, then the intermediate stops would have very little impact.
  17. livincinco
    Let me clarify my point. If Target opened down the road, one of two things would happen. Sears would either close the property because it couldn't compete, or it would have to upgrade the property in order to compete. Given Sears current financial situation I agree that they probably wouldn't upgrade and would probably close which then opens the property for better use. I don't see that as a bad thing at all. The area gets better shopping options and the property is now available for renovation that won't happen as long as the status quo exists.
  18. livincinco
    What I find interesting about this discussion is that there seems to be an assumption that this is a community decision. Sears gets to make the decision about how they operate that location and whether they think that they need to do any renovations. This is a classic example of how lack of competition causes entropy. They aren't doing anything with the store because they have no competition. People shop there because it's close and they don't have a better alternative. Sears doesn't do anything because they are getting good revenue and they have no reason to invest in the property. If you really want Sears to either upgrade their store or vacate the premises, then someone should open a power center with a Target and a Kohl's 1/2 a mile a way and watch how quickly changes come to the Sears property.
  19. livincinco
    Yes, we certainly wouldn't want it to be hidden behind all the very tall buildings that surround it.
  20. livincinco
    The Feds showed a lot of lines on their map that made no sense whatsoever. One line needs to be built and it needs to be proven to be economically viable and then others will follow.
  21. livincinco
    Update on HOU-DAL from Houston Tomorrow http://www.houstontomorrow.org/livability/story/hou-dal-hsr-may-break-ground-in-two-years/ Full article - http://impactnews.com/houston-metro/the-woodlands/houston-to-dallas-high-speed-rail-could-break-ground-in-two-/
  22. livincinco
    If that quote is in relation to the full Monterrey-SA line, then I would say that it is, to put it nicely, an extremely optimistic estimate.
  23. livincinco
    My understanding is that the Mexican government has begun securing ROW but is not going to begin construction until it receives confirmation from the US government that the line will be continued on this side of the border. Funding is just now being secured to start a feasibility study on the US side, so the timeline is very open at the moment. http://sacurrent.com/news/will-the-sa-monterrey-high-speed-rail-line-really-happen-1.1620445 I think Dallas-Houston is probably further along at this point.
  24. livincinco
    I would think that land acquisition costs would be considerably higher for a San Antonio - Dallas route than Houston-Dallas for exactly the same reasons you listed. I think that you'd also have to double track each direction on that route due to the number of stops while you might be able to single track Dallas - Houston.
  25. livincinco
    Sears is pretty much occupied trying to figure out whether they can make their stores relevant in the 21st century. I wouldn't expect them to devote any effort to renovating individual locations (especially individual locations where they don't have any competition), anytime in the near future.
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