hokieone

I always explain our summers as being Houston's version of a nasty winter somewhere else. The kind of weather where you just don't want to do anything except be inside, whereas elsewhere it would be so cold and miserable you just want to be inside. I agree that October - about early May is really pretty nice. Even 40's in December is pretty pleasant. The snow we had this year was about the most ideal snow you could ever have. Falls enough to cover and have fun in, gone by the next day. I don't find the weather here that bad, but I do agree I wish the summers were a little cooler at night at least.

I thought someone had said already that H&M was supposedly going to be in the Pavilions. Still, if it comes great, if not, ok too. Been to them in DC and NY, its basically a more stylish version of Old Navy. I've never seen one big enough to fill a department store spot in a mall, plus I've only seen a few that are actually in a mall, most I've seen have been street level stores. Either way, whatever.

Good points on the east downtown TIRZ. I don't think I even really knew there was a TIRZ based on the way it looks now, which is pretty much the same way it looked 5 years ago. I agree most TIRZ's probably have money wasted, but at the very least you would think the signs would have been changed and someone would have spent some money coming up with dumb nicknames for the area (which already does have two , east downtown and warehouse district). Especially strange is if you look at almost all the builders there (Perry, In Town, Waterhill, Juliet), they have all built just outside of the TIRZ zone. Don't know how the TIRZ affects the builders, but just strange to see them almost purposely not building in that zone mentioned above.

Three Allen Center: Office Tower At 333 Clay St.

My predictions - 1) Texans end up with the number 1 draft pick next year - See ya Carr, time for the Matt Leinart Show. 2) Casserly is fired - GM has built this team from scratch, still has about 0 talent, no bigger playmakers than when they started except Andre Johnson and maybe Dunta Robinson 3) Capers is 50/50 shot of staying, if Casserly gets a repreive, than Capers is gone I would get rid of both of Casserly and Capers, but don't think McNair is that aggressive. Titans have more talent than the Texans and all their player are pretty much in their 1st-3rd seasons. They pretty much already rebuilt in two seasons time after going through salary cap hell.

Definitely agree on the trash can issue. Seems like they are not there or full. Thus after being full, people keep putting stuff in. I don't think as a whole downtown is filthy, just certain parts. Anything close to I-45 - filthy. By the Montague - filthy. Most of anything off Louisiana, clean. Seriously, drive down louisiana or travis and a lot looks absolutely pristine.

I wonder why they would concentrate on the newspaper bins and don't concentrate on something useful, such as cleaning up what apparently is known as the PSH (pigeon shite hotel), the area under I-45 and by Pierce elevated. I think nothing in downtown and I mean nothing is as dirty as that area. I love the No Trespassing Signs. Yet there are regularly I'd say about 100-200 people under there hanging out on lawn chairs, matresses, some apparently living in cars. Trash everywhere. But I guess the newspaper racks come first.

I'm about to have some work done on my truck where I got rearended. I think I'm going to take it to Metropolitan Collision on 16th. My friend has taken his BMW there numerous times, and they do good work (I've seen it, and he and I are both VERY picky). Also, they don't mind doing redos if they don't get it perfect. I might check out Metropolitan just because its a little closer. Do you know if they give free estimates?

Anyone have a good car body repair shop they know of? Have some body repairs to make that I've been putting off for a while and probably will pay for myself to avoid the insurance premium hit. There have to be about 1 million body shops in the city, and have never used one in Houston. Just wanted to know if someone had a decent experience with one (balance of good repairs, not a rip off).

The Texans are a joke. I'm glad to see that yesterday was a moral victory in that they "looked better" and were "competitive" uh, its season number 4, those moral victories were fine in season 1 but not now. This give them time adage is not really valid at this point, especially since despite high draft picks for all their drafts, there is still a lack of talent on the team. Even firing Capers doesn't do much, because the team is still the same. The OL is still the same bad one it was yesterday. The mess isn't going to get any better "with time." It'll take some excellent drafting and free agent pick ups over the next two seasons to really have a deep and strong team.

The article does make a good point about the $1 million plus market. It has got to be hard to justify condos that are that expensive in the Houston area. However, they do note the active market for Randall Davis's complexes that are in the 300K and up range. So hopefully the builders will take note of that.

I tried it a little over a week ago. Wasn't too terribly impressed, I like some other places around downtown better for burgers. it wasn't bad, but to be honest, eating a burger to be healthy isn't my thing. The people were nice there though and I did like the fact they had a syrup machine to add to flavor to sodas. for example, I was able to turn my normal Dr Pepper into a cherry Dr. pepper. Price was slightly less than Beck's.

Passed through Little Rock on the way back from evacuating. Was on the way back from Memphis and the roads around Little Rock seemed awfully new and did think the land around the area was also pretty nice. Exactly as Red Scare described. Off topic a little, but close - Used to live in Memphis, and while not a perfect city, has done a great job with their downtown/ Beale Street area. Obviously has history, but they block off the street as well and allow the open containers. Along the river, they have built a lot of townhomes and condos that face the river. It looks really nice and then have also started redeveloping their "Uptown" area, and have started building a lot of townhomes and patio homes. In downtown they actually have retail as well, and overall have done a great job. Was impressed.

That's pretty awesome, I know people had been rumoring this for a while. Co-Op is pretty cool too. Definitely not a huge deal, but just cool to see. Hopefully it will last unlike the last time they were in the Galleria.

I used to think casinos in Houston was a good idea, but I'm not so sure anymore how it would work. Galveston seems like a good idea, but I really don't think I-45 can handle the traffic. Look how it gets now during the summer with the limited people just heading down to the area on weekends. Add in more people for the casinos and I think it would get even more tied up. Astrodome area, think of a Texans game day every weekend. A lot of traffic there too. Only place where it would seem to maybe work to me is a similar operation to the Harrah's in New Orleans where it is downtown and just one main place. At least downtown has multiple entry points. Still, I don't have a problem with the two hour drive to Lake Charles anyway. I agree, keep some of the not so great aspects far away. I don't agree with that anyone who gambles is dumb (seeing as how I like to gamble every so often and for entertainment purposes, definitely enjoy it, and don't consider myself dumb), but would hate to see the bum population increase anymore than it already is in downtown.

That's my sentiment as well. not that I wouldn't like a theatre down there that I guess is more mainstream, but its not like the city has a serious lack of theatres either. I guess inner loop there aren't a whole lot of options, but you won't have people driving in from the suburbs just to see a movie. So I agree, its not just common sense. Also, I don't remember the plans saying explicitly "if its in Denver, it will be here" Seems like they will do a lot of demographic and economic research before just commiting to a complete replica.

My parents are thinking about wanting to move to a different house now that the kids are all gone. Suburbs were fine and perfect for when we were growing up, but now they would like to be closer to the better restaurants and city for doing things. Problem is, they like new houses or at least recently renovated houses. We did a quick tour of Westchase this past weekend and didn't see anything even close. Quick criteria for them is a modern one story preferred to avoid stairs (thus ruling out all the new townhomes), not a condo (want the backyard room to enjoy and grill), about 2500 sq ft minimum. Not too partial on exactly what part of town, but closer in the better. Somewhere no more than 350K. I think they are out of luck unless they buy a house and renovate themselves. Thing is, they just haven't built houses like that in years. I thought the Afton Oaks area would be good, but that's beyond what they would pay. Suggestions?

Why would we need a second movie theatre when the Angelika is already down there? Angelika is a nice place to go and its not that far from everything else either.

One ironic thing about the Texans. From day one they talked about a blueprint to essentially avoid having a situation like the Browns, who ended up firing their head coach and got rid of most of their first round picks after a few years, and were still nowhere near competitive. Well, looks about the same here. Is David Carr any better than Tim Couch at this point? Chris Palmer, fired from the Browns, will probably be fired here. Team is nowhere near competitive, personnel problems are all over the field, and not one piece of the team stands out as being where it needs to be. So much for that blueprint.

I agree this is great news. The best piece of news will be the day of groundbreaking.

Lately, I have definitely noticed a surge in the area just east of the convention center. Saw that Urban living has something going up just next to Kim Son. Waterhill Homes has two different areas of land they have cleared and started selling, close to Live oak and Capital. Perry is adding new phases near St charles and Juliet's area close to I-45 is starting to look like an actual subdivision, they have put so many over there. City View terrace off of Jensen is coming along pretty well, and all the Clinton area keeps filling in. Definitely exciting to see. Not gong to cure the industrial building and wasteland areas overnight, but progress is being made. really most has been in the last 1-2 years, which is even more impressive. I like the term "the bottom." As much as I hate when Houston keep coming up with new dumb and unnecessary nicknames for some areas (see the "SoDo" discussion), the near east end might actually work well with something like "The Bottom." Right now some people are pretty unclear on where I-10/ Jensen and Near east end exactly are. On the Maxwell house issue, who knows? I do like the smell from the plant though, one of the few you can actually say that about.

I think the Richmond strip is done. You have a few remaining places out there, but I would bet that in 5 years, a lot of the existing lots are converted to residential or something else. I agree that either downtown or midtown make much more sense now.

I don't think Astroworld closing is the sign people don't want to visit Houston. You said it yourself, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Oklahoma City still have them. Do you hear people running down the streets saying they can't wait to visit those cities because of their theme park? I didn't even know they had one. I agree Houston needs one, and hopefully a new one will be built eventually. But if you look at what is needed to have a great park, the current site was just not going to get it done. Too small, bad parking, no attention paid to the park. Look at Cedar Point and Great Adventure New Jersey. Neither is in the middle of the city and both are considered among the best in the country. They have more land and more space. And those parks do attract attention nationally because they are great parks. But you can't expect a sub par park to compete and Astroworld is just not set up for greatness.

Agree on the pierce elevated piece. As much as Midtown says it would like for it to be like a gateway into midtown, it will never be a gateway as long as the bum camp remains there. And it looks hideous. As for the one way streets, I like having the one way streets. I think most downtown areas have one way streets. I'm not arguing either way on their effectiveness for traffic, but I like them personally. I like a lot of the original thread creator's ideas. I think a lot of areas around downtown have the names in place, just not enough connotation for anyone to call them that. Eventually I would see it as a type of "where you live" type or where something is type of reference. Someone lives in the Skyline district, that restaurant is in the historic district, etc. Of course, that would require midrises and more retail. I think we all expect massive Shamrock type complexes to come in, but I would find nothing wrong with seeing a lot of midrise rental buildings come into the area.