samagon

Call the police and report it, they have a gang task force that will catalog it.

If you own the property you are responsible to remove it, and my understanding is that you can be fined if you don't remove it quick enough.

Paint over it at the least.

It's really neither here, nor there, if you were to put the number of cars that access city centre onto Yale (which is the only 'major' road that the land that walmart is on borders), you'd need at least 3 lanes in each direction, or more.

And it's moot anyway, the comparison with city centre and walmart was brought up cause someone believed that city centre was the catalyst for an office building going up in the area.

However, now there's news released of an office building going up in the Walmart area (http://swamplot.com/a-25-story-office-tower-aimed-for-washington-and-waugh/2013-06-28/), and I submit that this office building's placement is influenced as much by the walmart as the placement of the new office building that will be going up near city centre, that is to say, little to none.

I'm sorry, I stopped reading here. I don't think I am misremembering when you said that the Walmart site can't support the kind of traffic Walmart brings, and now you're trying to say the site had a better use as something like city center. Not sure if you've seen the traffic around the town and country area, but it dwarfs the traffic of any Walmart I've ever seen.I suppose the city would have had to make a bigger 380 to get them to widen Yale to 3 lanes in each direction? I could only imagine how unhappy Leonard would be since they would have had to remove even more trees, and who even knows how many for hydrants would be in the middle of sidewalks!

City Centre made one big mistake in what is otherwise an excellent development. City Centre did not develop a true street grid. Instead, they have a single main boulevard that goes North/South through the development, but no East/West connectivity. As a result, everyone is piled into a single street inside the development. Traffic piles up easily as soon as someone stops to drop someone off, pick someone up or use a valet service. Sugar Land Town Center did a much better job with designing a street grid that flows better and does not have the traffic congestion issue. It is not a volume problem. It is a design problem. And one of the traffic issues with the Walmart development is that it limits street connectivity. The entire west side of the development is a wall. With a mixed-use development, Schuler St. could have connected all the way through to Heights and Bass could have intersected it inside the development to create a street grid instead of having all traffic exit either at Koehler or just before the grade separation.

In your effort to dodge the point you didn't bother to imagine that anyone else has actually been to city center and knows you're absolutely wrong about the number of ways to get in and out of the place.

Nice effort though.

There is still plenty of industrial land on and around Washington if someone wants to build mixed use on it.  

You will never get a centralized collection of 35 acres around Washington with the same kind of access ...

I'm sorry, I stopped reading here. I don't think I am misremembering when you said that the Walmart site can't support the kind of traffic Walmart brings, and now you're trying to say the site had a better use as something like city center. Not sure if you've seen the traffic around the town and country area, but it dwarfs the traffic of any Walmart I've ever seen.

I suppose the city would have had to make a bigger 380 to get them to widen Yale to 3 lanes in each direction? I could only imagine how unhappy Leonard would be since they would have had to remove even more trees, and who even knows how many for hydrants would be in the middle of sidewalks!

Wow, talk about comparing apples to oranges.... and then your statement just keeps getting worse the more you read it.

 

Uh, do you not live in the Heights? Redevelopment is happening on almost every street in the Heights. Abandoned stores are being turned into shops and bars, and abandoned houses are being renovated into livable homes. This Walmart is providing people moving into the Heights area with better selection. If I want something more valuable, I'll go somewhere else. If I want something more locally grown, I'll go to the farmers market on Airline.

 

Dumping ground for strip mall retail?? And then you talking about the City Centre area?? HAHAHA! WOW... Uh, let's compare the amount of strip malls in the City Centre area to the amount of strip malls near this Walmart:

 

 

 

The only valid argument that I would agree with against this Walmart is the amount of traffic that has made driving on Yale unbearable.

 

You'd rather have this property remain abandoned warehouses than see it turned into a Walmart huh...

The amount of new retail and residential in the Heights is not nearly enough to make a dent in the demand on the inner loop in Houston. Also, a lot of the residential redevelopment in the Heights is merely transitional and not new housing. We are just swapping out lower income folks for higher income folks. Large acreage inside the loop, especially between the Heights and Montrose is a precious commodity that has absolutely been squandered with the Walmart development.

The strip malls you triumphantly point out that are located around City Centre mean nothing. Most pre-date City Centre. In fact, the new development I highlighted is replacing a strip center. Also, City Centre is well outside the loop with more abundant and cheap land with highway frontage. That is where strip centers should be. Inside the loop, frontage acreage around the Heights is extremly limited by comparison. Taking @35 acres of open land inside the loop and only doing strip malls/big box and one 280 unit multifamily is the definition of nearsighted development that will be regretted in the long run. But who knows. It took less than ten years before plans were underway to demo Archstone Memorial to make way for midrise multifamily. Maybe we will get lucky and this development will see a similar fate. After 10 years, most strip mall developments in Houston look very tired and lose what little luster they had when they first opened.

You counter yourself in your own post, which is awesome.

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/blog/breaking-ground/2013/06/moody-ramlin-to-begin-work-on-new.html

 

And this is the difference between what we get and what the rest of Houston gets.  City Centre is spawning lots of redevelopment around the area as a result of maximizing the value of the real estate with a great mixed use development.  Meanwhile, I-10 and Yale St., a much better location, will just be a dumping ground for strip mall retail.

Yeah, that office building has nothing to do with being down the street from the energy corridor, or a fairly large hospital, or thousands of square feet of other commercial space.

Not to mention, how do you know that city center was the catalyst for this, maybe it was the best buy and lowes across the freeway that inspired this?

It probably had as much for input as the restaurants, or other night life that city center gives it. 

I can only imagine if they had built this tall of a building anywhere near you (as you've established in other threads) that you would be very unhappy with the height.

Or is it okay to build tall buildings where walmart was built because the houses across the street isn't yours?

you continue to make no sense at all.

1.  It is on the best route out of the neighborhood that does not have a rail road crossing at grade.

2.  Many of the anti-Walmart leaders were from the West End, not the Heights.  The guy who started the facebook page lived just behind the Walmart.

3.  Just what the hell are the boundaries for Montrose, anyway?

4.  As noted above, Montrose got a beautiful HEB and is just as close to retail development south of 59.  For the Heights, there is very little retail development in the area by comparison to the areas from Rice Village up to W. Gray.  The Walmart property was our best chance to see some comparable development.

5.  Who said that people in Montrose weren't against Walmart?  I saw lots of posts from people in Montrose on the anti-Walmart facebook page.

It really depends on the type of retail you're talking about. in the Heights, you're far closer to all the action going on at the airline markets.

I have always found that reliant seems to draw conventions that locals would attend (outside of OTC) like car shows, bridal shows, home and garden stuff, where the GRB seems to nab more of the stuff that brings in people from out of town who are attending the convention.

Yes, they have a gun show every weekend at GRB, which is more local crowd, but for the most part, they seem to segregate along those lines.

Just read that the railroad line that goes up from spur 5 towards downtown is going to become a quiet zone, so does anyone know about the other lines that cross the east end? The one that goes down Harrisburg? The one that crosses telephone and Lawndale?

They've done some improvements at the telephone crossing, and also at the Lawndale crossing. Is this part of the process for that line?

If it preserves the structure, I'm happy.

I am curious what kind of exhibits they'd to put in there that the GRB downtown won't hold.

I'm glad I couldn't afford to live in the heights. I think I would make my house look as gaudy as possible to piss off nosy neighbors who think because they bought a house near me, they have a say in what I do to my house.

When I cut the pecan tree in my backyard, I estimate it was nearly as old as my house. The only discussion I had with neighbors was that they asked why, I told them it was old and I was worried about it's health, which was confirmed when it was removed and it was showing serious signs of age.

Trees do not live forever, they last longer than we do, no doubt, but they have to be removed/replaced for our safety when they are part of our habitat. It's not like a forest or something.

Sorry about the link.  Yeah, it is to the wikipedia article on "We Didn't Start the Fire".  In the article it mentions that Billy Joel got the idea when someone half his age (presumably a GenX-er) complained that the world was an unfixable mess.  You are right, there'd be a lot less great music without the Boomers.  My point is that every generation complains that the one before it messed things up and then proceeds to do the same and get the same complaints from their children.  Just wait til you hear from the Post-Millennials that the Millenials really messed up the rebuild.  You know it's coming....

I hope not. As a gen x myself, I don't want to miss out on being responsible for an entire generation's bad fortune, and if it goes straight from boomers being at fault to gen y being at fault I will feel cheated.

Trolling the troll is always most effective!

TL;DR, and just some copied and pasted garbage from Slick's anti-suburb agenda. 

It's not that simple, I don't think.

In the overall trend, specific to Houston, suburbs are still the majority leader in where people want to live.

Demographically though, what percentage of Gen X, or Gen Y choose to live in the city compared to the young generations of 3 decades ago?

I read in the chron yesterday that a couple of folks are trying to do just that.

I hope it doesn't have to come to that, but if it does, I'm glad someone's working on it.

I saw the article in today's chron that they got 19 submissions, but won't go public with them until the 19th.

http://www.chron.com/default/article/19-ideas-submitted-for-Dome-redo-4593723.php

some of the ideas are in there.

I like the ski dome idea, it would be interesting to watch skiers coming down from all sides to meet in the middle.

They are essentially already doing this in the Katy toll lanes. Peak rush hour toll is double the non-peak. I recall there was some discussion last year about doing this on the Westpark tollway as well.

I support this, as it will help pay off the tolled sections that much quicker, allowing them to be become normal freeways that much quicker! doh

Is it still sprawl if hardly anyone came? Is the wisdom of it still obvious? And can it really be said to have been "rooted in a desire to realise lifestyle changes"? Or was it driven by something else?

 

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/spain-ghost-towns-satellite-2011-4?op=1

I want to take a vacation to tour these various ghost towns with a Ferrari and go crazy racing around

The ghost towns in China they built a few years ago look really appealing for these purposes

Something I find interesting here is looking at an EIA report from this May shows that we're importing 40% of our oil needs as of 2012, with half of that coming from the Western Hemisphere. It also states that our oil imports peaked in 2005.

http://www.eia.gov/energy_in_brief/article/foreign_oil_dependence.cfm

That jibes with other reports I've heard that due to new technologies we may be a net exporter within the next decade or so, surpassing Saudi Arabia in production.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/us-oil-production-2012_n_3426755.html

What I'm curious about now is how this is going to affect global political, economic, and military strategies in the near future. As we become less dependent on Middle Eastern oil, what happens there is going to be of less concern to us. At the same time, it might happen that what goes on in the Middle East will become of greater and greater importance to China and India, possibly spurring them to the kinds of political, economic, and military actions we've found ourselves involved in for the past 70 years.

I can't find the specific article right now, but they are predicting that the shale oil will last anywhere from 10-20 years, so over the extended long term, if things remain status quot (no new energy sources, no alternate fuels), I'm not so bullish on our foreign policy shifting too much. The article I'm thinking of was released in 2011, so a lot has happened in production, and what's available since then, so I'm sure it's shifted.

This country peaked oil consumption a couple years ago but is growing domestic reserves significantly. I think waiting for higher prices isn't the starter you're looking for.

But I do think Houston will eventually add commuter rail to the suburbs. I would favor that and favor transit that makes sense. I'm also probably in your generation. I DO NOT favor socialist style mandates requiring some all knowing government to decide where families and individuals should live. You really sound like you have a complex over this. You mentioned earlier you grew up in a suburb. It's like you can't get "urban" enough, whatever that means.

USA production peaked back in the 80s for oil, that was what initiated Houston's bust at the time.

oil prices have risen, and will continue to rise thanks to the difficult extraction methods they have to use now, and thanks to new and increasing markets for oil.

Yes, we, the USA might be level, or even declining in oil use, but China and India are the elephants in the room here. according to the EIA both countries are increasing their use, while their production does not increase year over year at the same rate:

http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=CH

China is the world's second largest oil consumer behind the United States, and the largest global energy consumer, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The country was a net oil exporter until the early 1990s and became the world's second largest net importer of oil in 2009. China's oil consumption growth accounted for half of the world's oil consumption growth in 2011. Natural gas usage in China has also increased rapidly in recent years, and China has looked to raise natural gas imports via pipeline and liquefied natural gas (LNG). China is also the world's largest top coal producer and consumer and accounted for about half of the global coal consumption, an important factor in world energy-related CO2 emissions.

http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=IN

India was the fourth largest consumer of oil and petroleum products after the United States, China, and Japan in 2011. It was also the fourth largest importer of oil and petroleum products. The high degree of dependence on imported crude oil has led Indian energy companies to attempt to diversify their supply sources. To this end, Indian national oil companies (NOCs) have purchased equity stakes in overseas oil and gas fields in South America, Africa, and the Caspian Sea region to acquire reserves and production capability. However, the majority of imports continue to come from the Middle East, where Indian companies have little direct access to investment.

this will catch up, and prices will reflect this because oil is a global commodity and the prices we see are very much reflective of the demand vs supply in the global market.

edit: as further explanation, I do not believe that mature markets will reduce consumption at the same rate as other emerging markets increase consumption, the end result will be that overall global consumption will continue to increase, even though the USA and Europe consumption might actually decrease.

So the big question is, can we (the USA) reduce our own consumption of oil at a rate that corresponds to the increase in the price (as opposed to reducing our consumption to offset the emerging markets increased consumption). The fact that truck sales are increasing again doesn't bode well for this to play out.

So, if Chicago is such a hell hole, why did United drop Houston like a hot potato in favor of Chicago? It should have been the complete opposite result.  Why is so much more venture capital going to the extremely business unfriendly states like Massachussetts and California?  The answer is obvious to anyone who has any ability to look at Houston objectively without lazily falling into the small minded nativism that keeps Houston from becoming the world class city that is should be.  Houston is fortuitously located at the center of the US oil and gas industry.  Most of the major refining and production in the US is located in the Gulf Coast area.  Business comes to Houston because it has to, not because it wants too.  A friend of mine who is from the West Coast and working for Chevron on assignment considers Houston to be like an exotic assignment abroad.  When his time is up, he is headed back to the Bay area to work at Chevron's corporate head quarters.  He could probably jump ship and get a big bonus to work for another oil company in Houston, but will go back to California for high taxes, cost of living, etc. because the quality of life is better.  Californians realized that good planning means good quality of life, higher property values and the ability to attract top talent.  I want to see Houston grow by taking non-energy industry corporate headquarters away from Chicago, NY, San Fran, Boston, etc.  It should be a no brainer to relocated to Houston.  Even with the recent run up in real estate prices, Houston is a bargain in comparison.  But, it is well known that Houston cannot compete in terms of quality of life with the aforementioned cities because Houston has chosen to let developers do as they please instead of planning to enhance quality of life.  The current boom in multifamily will just give way to impossible traffic and over crowded retail areas.  With a little planning, areas inside the loop that are seeing growth could become highly desireable neighborhoods like the Back Bay, Greenwich Village, Lincoln Park or Pacific Heights. 

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Even doing a quick wikipedia search shows that.

there are a few ways to rank quality of life.

standard of living (cost of living index) is one of them:

http://www.vdare.com/posts/top-10-standard-of-living-cities-in-the-us

No california cities rank in the top 10, Houston ranks in the top 10 as does Dallas. Guess who ranks in the bottom 10? 3 of them are in california...

quality of life:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/145913/City-Wellbeing-Tracking.aspx

according to that data, Houston is less than 1 point behind LA in our quality of life. and that's considering we're all so fat...

development index:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Human_Development_Index

guess if you want to raise kids, Houston might be a bad idea compared to California, but then Norway is the best idea, I imagine the cold weather really hampers the overall quality of life in general though.

so ultimately, there is no compelling evidence given by the common standards of living indices that show that Houston is less of a livable city than other places. There certainly is no standard of living index based on ground floor retail.

If you equate high taxes to high standard of living (which is not an index of standard of living, indeed cost of living indexed against salary is a major factor in cost of living, and it's not the less you make and the more you spend the better off you are, it's the opposite), then California is the place for you, NOT Houston, feel free to pull up your stakes and hop a train west.

I value our greenspace and outdoor venues much higher than blue man group, or some guy named david, or any 'streetscape'. 

What good would it do to live in LA where some French circus act performs once a year if you can't afford the tickets thanks to all the taxes and high cost of living? Boasting rights? I'd rather live in Houston, hop a flight to vegas and catch blue man group and that French circus thingy all in one weekend, then jet over to Europe for a nice vacation 2 or 3 weeks is always good. But I'm sure it would be nice to live in a city like LA where all these acts come and go all the time, but not be able to afford any of it, maybe a drive to mexico to get stabbed or something would be nice too.

I can safely say I have never been privy to sit in a board room meeting when they are deciding where to move their corporate headquarters, but I can assure you that one topic that is not up for discussion "How many mixed use developments are there around the heights? Not in the heart of the Heights, but around the edges." They don't give one little small poopie about ground floor retail.

Two questions:

1: Do they have to put something on the ballot or can they go forward without it?

2: What's the deadline to submit something for the ballot (i.e. when might we know what the decision is)?

here's the chron article from yesterday that outlines the timeline:

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Deadline-nears-for-Astrodome-4587827.php

June 19: Sports Corporation's board meeting, where staff will reveal a public plan for the stadium and the board will vote on what proposals to bring to Harris County Commissioners Court for consideration.

June 25: Commissioners Court capital projects meeting, where the Sports Corp. will present ideas on what do to with the dome.

November 5: The next election, when an Astrodome renovation project could end up on the ballot so Harris County voters can decide its fate.

of course, in italics, it might not even be up for a vote? Hell, even if it is, who's to say that they'll listen to the people anyway, Mayor Parker and other Harris county officials have said in the past they would ignore the will of the voter if they didn't like the vote (specifically the metro funding), so I don't expect it to matter anyway.

So they made decisions today and that can't release their results?

The deadline for submissions was yesterday.

They'll review them and choose the best one for the ballot for a yes/no in November.

I'm sure the question will be "vote yes if you want to keep paying maintenance costs on the dome, or no, if you want to transform it into a revenue generating venue"

where they won't say that the revenue generating venue is a parking lot 

This of course, is just my suspicion, we'll see how my sooth saying capabilities work out.

Okaaay, now I'm really impressed. Has anyone seen the rendering for the other side of the Central Bank building? It's showing off some really nice retail area. It's clearly something new because I've never seen it before. I was riding my bike at midnight and wasn't able to get a picture but I'll get it next time I ride through unless someone else snags a pic. It's at the corner of Milam and Gray. You can't miss it.. it's a big rendering.

 

Edit: To clarify, it's a poster board. It's nothing I've seen online.

If this is the rendering I'm thinking of, it's been there for a really long time, and was just a rendering of 'what could be' with the for sale sign under it.

So is the county going to release all of the proposals that are submitted, or just the ones that it deems viable?

I ask, because I have to wonder if there is a submitted proposal that doesn't have any real backing (I'm thinking the strip it to the skeleton idea) but would have the support of the people, and maybe get some financial backing from philanthropists who just want to have their name attached to something good for the city.

If there was ever a time for the county to be completely open, it would be now.

I would think you'd not be for any congestion charges. All it would serve to do in Houston (even if we had a serviceable mass transit solution) is move more stuff into the suburbs.

General motors conspired to make monorail fail.

I always think of the Simpsons episode about monorail.

My understanding is that costs are really to high for monorail to be successful anywhere but Disney world.

Another problem that always gets me is how would one line cross another?