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Angostura

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Everything posted by Angostura

  1. Angostura
    Weekley Homes owns the land immediately south. Another 4 acres or so. Wouldn't be surprised to see a TH farm go in here.
  2. Angostura
    Great pics! Re-plat of part of the Chase drive-thru is on the planning commission agenda this week. Basically the SE quarter of the block is re-platted into a single reserve. I suspect for additional MF, but haven't seen plans yet.
  3. Angostura
    I think that "trail" is vehicle access for work on the bayou, not a bike path extension.
  4. Angostura
    If you design for cars, you get cars. If you design for people, you (might) get people. Putting the building on the street makes for a better pedestrian environment than walking along a parking lot, and you can still get the same amount of parking on the site by putting it in the back. 11th would also be a good candidate for a 4-to-3 road conversion.
  5. Angostura
    709 Yale was on Swamplot's demolition report today. This is the brick foursquare between Urban Jungle and Barrio Anitguo.
  6. Angostura
    There's no real reason for that 4-block road to be laid out as a 4-lane boulevard. You could sell half the roadway RoW along with it and make the land more developable.
  7. Angostura
    25-ft BL along Kirby? Why not request a setback variance to match West Ave?
  8. Angostura
    They apparently made an attempt at rehabbing the structure, but uncovered some previous fire damage. CoA for demolition was approved in October. Not sure what's planned for the footprint.
  9. Angostura
    You're always paying for parking. This just makes it explicit. I like it. The rate isn't unreasonable. If you figure construction cost of the garage, plus the dirt underneath it, it probably comes out to around 15% ROI. Contract rates downtown for 24-hr availability run around $200-$350.
  10. Angostura
    Unless the developer does the upgrades as part of the construction, they don't get done. There's no way CoH is going to do anything about sidewalks in this area.
  11. Angostura
    If everyone in Manhattan drove themselves to work, Manhattan would look a lot like downtown Houston: a lot lower activity density, a lot more parking. Transit is kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. You can't get transit to be even close to cost-efficient without much higher density than pretty much every part of pretty much every US city has. And it's politically very difficult to achieve that kind of density without a workable transit system, because neighborhoods object to new development by citing increased traffic and parking concerns. Houston has some advantages in this area, since developers can add density by right, so there's no need to up-zone in order to increase density. But at the same time, our setback requirements and parking minimums tend to make fine-grained walkable development all but impossible, and result in very low activity density, even in central neighborhoods. And we dedicate a very high proportion of land-area to non-productive uses. For example, EaDo is a rapidly densifying urban neighborhood, with a mix of multi-family residential, high-density single-family residential, and commercial development. But the area is platted with 280-ft blocks with 80-ft rights of way, which means that almost 40% of land area is RoW. That's before you add in parking minimums and setbacks. Very hard to get to a critical mass of activity density when half your land area is empty.
  12. Angostura
    By looking at the plats and ownership data on HCAD. This project has 100-ft of frontage. The two lots immediately to the west of Fitzgeralds each have 50-ft of frontage, and both are owned by "2714 White Oak LP". The two lots total have 12,500 s.f., which is what the flyer says this project has. Also, it looks like there's less than 50 feet between the west property line and the building on Fitzgerald's site.
  13. Angostura
    Site work permit was approved yesterday. Building permit will need another go 'round.
  14. Angostura
    This is why fixed guideway transit is economically challenged. We're better off just building much denser neighborhoods and let transit patterns grow up around them.
  15. Angostura
    Another adaptive re-use project that starts by knocking stuff down for parking. Off the top of my head, just in the Heights: - 21st & Yale - Heights Mercantile - 11th & Lawrence
  16. Angostura
    Didn't need this much parking to go forward. The developers requested a variance to provide less parking and were denied after neighborhood opposition. They then bought two neighboring buildings and knocked them down to meet the city's minimums. I agree that it's better than typical development, but I'd rather not have the extra surface parking on Heights Blvd.
  17. Angostura
    Not without a variance. As designed, it exceeds the parking requirement, but that doesn't mean they could just extend the patio. A restaurant <3000 s.f. requires 8 spaces per 1000 s.f. That 3000 s.f. includes the building, and any patio space in excess of 15% of the size of the building. In this case, the building is 2600 s.f., 15% of which is 390 s.f., but the patio is (a little more than) 625 s.f., so for purposes of parking, the building is 2825 s.f., which in this case would require 23 spaces. That can be further reduced by up to 10% by providing bicycle parking spaces (in this case 8 bicycle spaces could replace 2 parking spaces), reducing the requirement to 21 spaces. So, in theory they could get rid of 4 parking spaces and convert a fifth into bike spaces and still comply with the city's requirements. But if they use that space to, say, double the size of the patio, then the building area plus excess patio area would be 3450 s.f., which changes the use classification from "small restaurant" to "neighborhood restaurant," so they would need 9 spaces per 1000 s.f., which, even with the 10% reduction for bicycle parking, would be 28 spaces. So, in this case, adding 600 s.f. of patio increases the parking requirement by 7 spaces. At an average of 300 s.f. per parking space, that means that for every s.f. of added patio space, they'd need to add 3.5 s.f. of surface parking.
  18. Angostura
    Phase 2 will be 50% parking just like Phase 1 is. At least nearby residents and users of the bike trail can feel secure knowing that the day-drinkers at the wine bar will have plenty of free parking.
  19. Angostura
    Variance request for reduced building line along 19th (for the new-construction Bldg D) was approved last week.
  20. Angostura
    A busy Sunday afternoon at Heights Mercantile yesterday. Here are some pictures of the surface lot the neighbors forced the developer to put in. Meanwhile, plenty of empty street parking along Heights Blvd. Good job, guys. Way to make your neighborhood just a little bit shittier.
  21. Angostura
    The south-facing wall of glass could be a challenge. Also not sure how they keep the stained glass in place if they remove the surrounding masonry. I don't think you can just lick-and-stick those windows on the new glass facade.
  22. Angostura
    This is the two bungalows immediately west of Fitzgerald's. So this parking lot will be right next to Fitz's parking lot. Which will make about 120 feet of surface parking fronting the sidewalk between Fitz and whatever this ends up being. Point being: why advertise your development as being on one of Houston's few walkable streets, only to make that street less walkable.
  23. Angostura
    "Premier location on one of Houston's few walkable streets." So let's dedicate 3/4 of the frontage to a parking lot. I'll consider getting excited when I see who the tenant is. Until then, it's just another building on a site that's 80% parking lot.
  24. Angostura
    I'll consider getting excited when I see who the tenant is. Until then, it's just another building on a site that's 80% parking lot. In fact, 13,000 s.f. of buildings are being demolished in order to provide surface parking.
  25. Angostura
    I think that all parking minimums are bad, but parking minimums for bars are particularly terrible, and a good first target for elimination.
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