BigSky

1500 people will be moving into the HP office space which will have a huge impact to the retail component of Houston Pavilions. I have to assume that once Reliant moves into HP in December, that more retail will come on board to capture the purchasing power of 1500 employees.

Got a tour of Lucky Strike this afternoon and I will tell you that it is going to be a slam dunk at HP. Mark My Words...HP is about to be a huge success with that addition.

You are correct, CBD to Medical Center could be a fantastic Urban Utopia, but I think the difference between ATL and Houston is the lack of zoning. Without it, I've heard numerous sophisticated developers state that they are scared to make great investments into CBD/Midtown due to that reason. In addition, CBD is struggling to attract the type of jobs that are needed to sustain the urban utopia lifestyle. We do not have a great concentration of the creative class that would appreciate that type of environment. In addition, Rice University which is right in between the two employment centers never tried to integrate themselves into the city, which could have been a great conduit to building the creative class in Houston. I think Houston is a facinating city that could have a lot to offer, but the lack of vision of the city planners (or lack thereof) is the biggest problem. ATL was developed by intelligent design not by evolution and unregulated land development.

Hey guys I browse this site weekly however this is my first ever post! When I lived in Houston's Post Midtown Square 8-9 years ago I prayed that "Midtown" would eventually get developed into this true urban oasis that many Haif'ers (like myself) crave, but when I would come back to visit 2-3 times a year I would notice that "Midtown" was at best slow to develop and half of the new development was disappointing to say the least (i.e. both new suburban style CVS stores).

I live in Midtown Atlanta right in the mix of everything and would always wonder why Houston's "Midtown" couldn't get their act together. My neighborhood is vibrant, eclectic, and walkable with numerous newly developed and older highrise and midrise condos above retail.

When visiting Houston back in June of this year I finally realized that "Midtown" is really not comparable with Atlanta's Midtown in terms of demographics, economics, and development focus. For years I had been comparing apples and oranges. However what I did observe is that Houston does have an "Atlanta-like" midtown area but it's just not called "Midtown". In fact I'm not sure if it really has an identifying name at all. I'd say the area west/southwest of downtown extending pretty much all the way out towards the River Oaks/Uptown area is Houston's true "Midtown"!

The blighted area south/southwest of the CBD between downtown and the medical center has potential to be this great urban utopia, however I believe the attention of developers has always been the area more west of downtown for obvious reasons (demographics, median household income, population etc.)

I think a mix is needed, the one mistake I believe the designers of HP made is by not mixing up the anchors to force people to walk through all four blocks. They should have paired HOB with Forever 21 and Lucky Strike with Books A Million. The synergy of the audiences would have played well with that pairing. Instead, what you have is people looking for entertainment will stay at the far end of HP and the people that are looking to shop will be 3 blocks away.

Mix Use means exactly that.

Went by Lucky Strike bowling alley and it is probably 75% complete....It looks great. They have most of the lanes in and the pins have been delivered. Mark my words, this place is going to be huge and will have a very high demand to get in and bowl. They do not have a great deal of lanes, and I bet this is going to be the place to see and be seen.

This is a much better solution than a convention center hotel or casino. This will help spawn an entire industry as well as much needed diversity of talent into the city. Imagine how diverse the economic foundation of Houston will become with one of the largest sound studios in the world in our backyard, you will have Medical, Oil & Gas, Energy and Film Industry within a 5 mile radius.

If the County Commissioners do not see the potential of this idea, then they are on the take with some other private developer.

Went the the Ottmar Leibert concert Saturday. It was a nice event and the venue itself was very not bad. Someone had taken our seats so the usher had to kindly remove the imposters. He played Barcelona Nights 3 times and it was awesome.

Afterward, we went to Pete's Dueling Piano Bar. It was different as I'd never been to a piano bar before. Very entertaining to say the least. I'm sure when she's able to get away again we'll go back.

All in all I give the place 2 thumbs up.

It might be premature, but I am starting to think that you can consider HP a success, you have some successful venues coming together and the major components are pretty nice. Forever 21, HOB, Pete's Dueling Piano and when they get Lucky Strike it will be another successful venue. In addition, they have fully leased out the office space to a Fortune 500 corporation.

It does have its faults but in comparison to BLVD and some of the other Mixed Use Developments that either didn't come to fruition or are faultering, this one seems to be off of life support and is making a full recovery.

Uh... ?

Anyway. The bartender at the HOB says that they are still working out their kinks. We'll see.

Went by Lucky Strikes today and it they had a light crew there working on the place. it does seem like it has away to go, but they are making progress....They painted the outside, you can see the bar and lounge coming together, and they've made some progress on the lanes.

If and when this thing opens it will be packed.

The Galleria area is not only famous it's shopping but also its gridlocked traffic. It's not unreasonable for people to react negatively to the (preceived) impending traffic situation.

I personally believe that if you do not like having a highrise behind you, you probably should work with city council to get a zoning law passed. The city is ready for it and you might as well use this as an impetus to get it done. Neighborhoods should have a say in what goes in your neighborhood versus some opportunistic developer.

I drove by it today and it is in full swing. It looks like they are working on the utilities right now, but it is happening.

Drove by yesterday, delivered diggers and bull dozers to the site along with dumpsters. It looks like the hotel is about to get kicked off.

A majority of the office building is being rented out by a major Fortune 500 corporation. Word through the camp fire is that the lease is signed, sealed and delivered.

I liked the idea of the Pavilions that was first proposed.

I don't much care for the current project although quite a few folks I know have enjoyed the HOB.

That said, I think it's still too early to write it off as a disaster.

Seriously, how big of a deal is it to lose Lids? You can find that store anywhere including airport terminals. That was NOT a destination store to put it mildly.

Now, IF Lucky Strike or some variation of it doesn't get built, then we can start to talk. If that fails to go in, then there will be serious trouble because that was a unique venue that would have drawn people to the development.

Agreed...Lucky Strike's needs to go through, and frankly HP should look at investing. They need Lucky Strike for this thing to be a success or have any ability for it to succeed. LS was a significant differentiator for this development and it would have been enough of a night time draw for 21+ crowd that did not want to go to the bar or did not like the performers at HOB....

I hate to say it but that was one of the critical pieces to this entire deal.

Well I have a little bit of bad news(well a lot of terrible news really)...walked around this evening with some friends and workers were boarding up the "previous" Lids store...and then we walked past Journeys and saw they had tons of boxes of inventory, but upon further look it turns out they're mailing product out to other stores...so it looks like they'll be boarding that one up pretty soon. I really hope the restaurants can weather out this recession and hopefully we won't see any more stores close before this topic moves out of the "Going Up" category

To me, it was silly to have them placed where they were...They should have had them next to Forever XXI to build up some critical mass. In addition, those two stores is not the correct clientele for HP and the Downtown crowd.

Cool. I might take the wife out for dinner there. I will never go back to HOB though. The food was quite bland. What do you think of it?

I've eaten there quite a few times and enjoy the food. I've ordered the meatloaf and their cornbread is delicious, you might want to try the ribs as well. I would give it another shot.

For lunch in downtown Houston HOB vs. the Park Shops. I will take HOB.

It's not canceled... just on hold... try and be a little optimistic.

I wonder how much is Lucky Strike short. I was also looking forward to this anchor coming into HP and I thought it was one of the most important ones to be in there. I think it is a good investment and will definetly make the money back with all of the downtown corporations looking for outings and weekend activities for adults.

Cool, when did you see it packed?

Lunch time...Going to HOB for lunch and passed by Guadalajara....It was full for lunch as well. Again. I think lunch is going to keep HP alive and slowly once we get out of this recession you will see the next revival of downtown houston and HP/OPP/Discovery Green will lead the way

I wonder if they serve chips...

Guadalaraja is open now and it was packed. Clique salon is now open across from Guadalara. Mia Bella is still under construction, don't know what is going on with that one. It makes me a little worried, I haven't seen any movement on that one for some time.

With the amount of money these guys have made off of Allen House over the last 20-30 years. They have enough equity to build probably 200 of these type of projects. Unlike Sonoma and Titan, I believe these guys are professional and they sure seem to be in this thing for the long-haul and not just to make a quick buck. My bet is that they can make this one happen even in this bad economy.

I know the gm at McCormick and Schmicks and spoke to him. He had nothing but positives to say about the current location and stated that the weekend traffic is solid with guest staying downtown and convention traffic. I know personally that for lunch you can't get in without a reservation and therefore, this thing is doing much better than people thought.

Give it time, but you will see that this thing is going to really kick-off the next downtown revival.

This thing getting postponed/cancelled is a good thing. We do not need any more retail in the inner loop and with Houston Pavilions going up and starting off with a good start, it should help centralize traffic and retailers back to downtown vs. sprawling it out all throughout inner loop houston. I think if this thing gets going in 2010 or 2011 it should do fine, but this is actually the best thing for Houston Development.

I will say that I went to HOB on Sunday afternoon and they had a great crowd. People need to stop being Houstonians and get positive. In a down economy this thing is so far holding it's own and probably 10% of the entire thing is open. Once Lucky Strike's opens, you will see an entire different crowd coming to this development.

I will say this, it is far from reaching its potential. But if you were to fast forward 10 years, this thing will probably be a huge success.

Mark

This is my 3rd trip to Forever 21 with my wife and this time we went at 7pm on a saturday night and the place was packed and the cash registers was humming. Mostly students from UH downtown, folks from midtown and high school moms with daughters. I think they have a winning formula and the only thing that the need is critical mass with other retail to capitalize on the anchor. If they put in the right retail mix, it is a great situation.

Was at Forever 21 again tonight at 6:30 and it was buzzing with activity. It didn't even feel like Houston, felt more like Chicago. I know it is one store, but I think this thing is primed for success.

I went to McCormick & Schmicks and they were taking reservations, and went to HOB and they were full for lunch. The important thing that you seem to forget is that they have 200K workers in downtown houston and it is connected to another huge employment center which is less than 5 miles away at the Med Center. The only thing missing is residential, but residential primarily provides retail purchasing only on nights after work and weekends. I use to work at Foley's and I can tell you that it was a mid-tier store with zero complimenting the store.

Forever 21 at night had a line and a good amount of traffic from UH-Downtown. This thing is actually a nice retail find, and I will bet you that many retailers would trade in some weekend traffic to have consistent traffic Monday-Friday.

With 2 stores open and HOB, this thing already is going to exceed expectations and will only get better when more things come into town. I do think this is a rough time to open, but if the retail stores can survive the following downturn, this thing will be a huge success.

I do think that this development is on a lot of retailers radar and they will be watching it trying to see what type of traffic it will have on weekend and weekday.