SilverJK

if that is true, that is amazing news.

it was open/crowded recently. I"ll double check when I drive by today. Everytime I went there it was a really weird vibe, but I still managed to have fun each time.

I always gave them credit for at least having ground floor retail. There is absolutely nothing utopian about wanting mixed use developments. They are sprouting up like toad stools after a down poor in the Galleria area.

so you do support walmart..?

there is a mcdonalds in walmart though so i guess it is also mixed use and is part of your "down poor" (emphasis on "poor")

retail and residential in one nice building.... utopian paradise, yet the ones who always push their distopian agenda still complained about this development. I'm very excited about this opening, I spend a good bit of my time in that immediate area (brazilian arts foundation), having another place to eat within walking distance will be great!

rIt has been called party kroger for a while now by the locals... Name is just too good and blatantly obvious to not use. People keep trying to change it to Broger and other names... but it is party kroger

Yep, even in 2006 there were a lot of bungalows in good shape selling for 200k. I know this because that was just slightly out of my budget at the time. (Just started my first job out of college). As my budget increased, the prices of the house did as well. I lived in the "eek" new construction apartments on Oxford (are they Camden now?) for a little over a year while I searched for houses in the neighborhood. I'll also say this... traveling the neighborhood on a longboard is one of the best ways to get to know the area. I grab a lot of flyers for houses for sale, obviously follow them on HAR, and have a very good measure of the pulse of the neighborhood's real estate through skating around. I have only been doing this since 2008 though, all research I did prior was miniscule in comparison. I would imagine someone like Red would have a similar knowledge of neighborhood during 2004 since he was actually here. I'm guessing that if you did look at any houses in 2000 (which I still don't think you did), it was merely a cursory "Hey look at this quaint bungalow" in the paper vs. actually looking for houses. I did the same thing in the early 2000s, but I was still in school so I obviously didn't go into the depth of what I did later.

The house in this topic however, I have skated by countless times, and I have never seen/heard anyone enjoying the pool or outdoor space. I also have rarely even seen cars in the carport area. I've always been intrigued and hoped to catch it on a home tour or something. Maybe the new owners will take the interior to that next level.

I've been looking forward to this as an Onion Creek alternative for friday nights... as OC has really started to get on my nerves lately.

I looked at property in the Heights in early 2000. Builders and renovators were becoming very active back then and lot values were quickly rising. I remember looking at bungalows on full size lots for $200-250k back then. This property is a double lot. It is not an unreasonable guess that a full size lot would have been worth $150k and a double lot $300k back in early 2000. The Heights had come a long way by early 2000. And I did say "or less". Maybe the property was priced below market because the park next door was full of gangs. But, if the park was that bad, why would someone build a million dollar ultra modern mansion on that lot?

As far as you looking at houses in the heights in 2000, I simply don't believe you.

There were still lots of updated nice bungalows on full size lots for 200-250k up until about 3-4 years ago (I bought one). In 2004 they were selling for 150-200. (those are the people that are really making out like bandits when they sell)

s3mh has only been here a few years, they don't realize what the neighborhood was like 8-10 years ago, nor historically.

How does this house not have a garage though?

s3mh, you mention that this looks like something in vegas or dubai where celebrities or saudi princes would stay... perhaps that is the type of person they are targeting.

although not my style... this is clearly an interesting building obviously built beyond the normal scale for the hood, couple that with being on a 13k+ sq. ft corner lot and the price doesn't look that rediculous. I'd assume this house will not go for less than 1.5 mil, but what do I know.

why can't they just use a regular police car?

co op art studio with chickens... coop co-op. Genius.

Stack a few shipping containers together and call it a house. That should meet all the requirements mentioned above, plus it's sooo artsy. They can't complain about art and still maintain a left-leaning public image. (or can they?)

I really dig this. Wouldn't have to worry about a draft coming up these floors.

You should definitely look for someone with a lot of experience and references in handling refinishing hardwoods in old houses. Your standard hardwood floor guy will just sand it down and put on a finish that will probably be too heavy on polyurethane, making the floors too shiny. Your standard floor guy will also not be the best person to deal with if you need to replace a board (they will just plop down whatever they get at the lumber yard instead of getting a reclaimed piece that matches the existing floor) or have problems with gaps between boards (I have seen people fill gaps with wood filler and try to paint them to match the flooring) and leveling issues with the molding. I have seen some serious butchering by the average floor guy in the Heights.

Your standard s3mh answer (opinions passed as facts)... Heavy use of polyurethane will not make the floors shiny, heavy use of clear gloss polyurethane will. Using a clear satin would not make the floors shiny. There has recently been some advancement in polyurethane, and there are now waterbased products available that are less hazardous. I'm not sure about their application for floors, but I've been expermimenting with them on my skateboard/longboard finishes with very good results. (durability is crucial) so it is something I'd look in to.

Alot of the pine floors you find in these houses are also loblolly or long leaf pine varietals, which is quite hard to track down.

Yes they are. There are nine single family homes on Wroxton that will have the Ashby Highrise built right on the property line in their back yard. Not across the street. Only in Houston would people think this was an acceptable land use decision.

Your property rights and yard don't extend passed the property line... despite how much you want them too...

In any sane municipality, people would find it crazy to put in a big box supercenter and strip malls served by a major thoroughfare with a country load weight limited bridge. The only sane thing to do is fix the bridge and then let development proceed down stream.

If this was the only route to the Walmart.....

The other "sane" options would be to mark the bridge with large signage saying (BEWARE BRIDGE OF DEATH COULD FALL AT ANY MOMENT) or something along these lines. Perhaps limit the bridge to one lane of traffic. Put up temporary gates at 6'6" tall (that would keep nearly all overweight vehicles off).

There are plenty of other "sane" options for the city to do while they update the reconstruction plan of the bridge. I supsect we will see this bridge rebuilt no later than 2014.

Your perceived problem is again with the city (admittedly from this post), not with wal-mart.

No, but because of the attention RUDE keeps bringing back to the bridge (pics of walmart truck on it) it has forced the city to harass all driving over the bridge. I would say a majority of drivers have no freaking clue how much their vehicles weighs, so enforcing this rule on non commercial vehciles with a monetary fine seems overbearing to me. A written warning would suffice (repetitive violaters after the written warning should be fined). Commercial trucks should be fined as they are required to know their weight and etc. though.

Leonard you need to stop with the trying to put words in everyone's mouth.

Actually, I believe Planning did not want to allow an entrance acroos the bike trail, necessitating asking for the variance on 5th. This is really a fight between competing NIMBYs...the ones on Frazier and the ones on 5th. The City...and the NIMBYs...cannot prevent access to the property, so one of the variances muct be granted. It is simply a matter of which NIMBYs will lose.

I kinda enjoy watching this. We'll see who has more NIMBY power!

I wish they would do access from both 5th, and Frazier just so both NIMBYs would lose. = ]

Apparently Mayor Parker was heard saying this was a bad site for this project... I bet that was just to make the residents think that she is on there side though, because nobody could ever look at this and honestly say it was a bad site (unless their views are heavily distorted with their own personal wants)

It is in the Chron because the bridge had massive weight capacity reductions, nobody gives two craps about the walmart, just that a bridge will have to be rebuilt at some point. It is sensationalized by the media because the bridge is in such crappy shape.

There are perfectly suitable alternative routes... again this bridge has NOTHING to do Walmart.

Editor, you should remove all posts only regarding the bridge (including this one) because the bridge has nothing to do with the topic.

Variance Requests are part of the guidelines... There is no logical reason to block this development. Mosley is one of the 8 people who will be minorly inconveinenced. I'm sure that if this development required NO variance, he would still be complaining. The fact that he even has traffic as an issue on his silly pink laminiated posters plastered all over onion creek, shows how much of a nimby hippocrite he truly is. Onion Creek is my spot too, I go there pretty much EVERY Friday, but his actions recently have made me want to find an alternative place. (he fired his best two bartenders for rediculous reasons, and the scene is much more d-bag centric than the previous eccentrics and hipster neighborhood bar).

Doesn't he also own Cedar Creek, the Shady Acres traffic nightmare that a handful of the neighbors hate?

Mr. Mosley is a joke, he lives in new contruction and complains about new construction, opens a bar and complains about other bars and additional traffic.

I'm unsure how this new development impact anyone in a wheelchair, unless they live in the new development...

I remember everyone being rejoiced when that target opened... weird. I didn't see a single ashby esque sign anywhere.

Ok, I have beef with the anti EMES Place people. These people have posted bright pink LAMINATED pieces of paper outlining their silly opinion. Since most people immediately disregard these papers they seem to end up as trash pretty quickly. I saw two of them on the sides of White Oak, and one of them on the Bike trail. Thanks for laminating these, now they will take forever to decompose once they end up in our waterways (hey, just running with your logic). If your gonna post your nonsense about saving greenspace and etc., please have the courtesy of using recycled paper that isn't coated with weather proof plastic, some of us actually care about the neighborhood. = ]

btw, the one I saw on the bikepath was facing text side down in grass off to the side... I removed it, folded it up and put it in my pocket (not easy since it was laminated) and later disposed of it properly.

The idea that people have to have a certain number of years as a resident of the Heights in order to know what is right for the neighborhood is complete garbage. It is just a way of dodging the real issues.

The idea that a small group of people who mostly just moved to the neighborhood try to tell everyone else how the neighborhood should be sounds pretty significant to me (not garbage). The people who move in to places like the soon to be built 84 condos will have opinions but I bet you will try to use the "you just moved here" approach with them, or you'll probably say something like "WE" know whats best, and the condos aren't part of the neighborhood.