arche_757

Yep! I understand Galveston's leaders are studying a way to beautify Broadway - which at times is fascinating, and others ugly! The problem with anything in Galveston is = Money.

Bolivar Bridge would be tough - it needs to be bigger or at least as big as Fred Hartman (probably bigger for Panamax ships - and the deep water ports of Texas City and Galveston), and also span one of the worlds busiest waterways missing the wetlands that are prevalent on the East End and the Bolivar end of things as well. Plus you have the Bolivar lighthouse - which is historical so it'd be expensive to route around in all probability. Also, how many would use it? I'd be for a coastal highway built about 10miles inland running from the Valley to Beaumont - for hurricane safety - but the costs would be really high and few and far between traveled I think. Pelican Island will probably get another bridge at some point. Galveston, City of Houston and others are exploring a several billion dollar container terminal on that island. Golf/resort would be a big one to me. I would think someone could put in a nice place on the East End between the end of the "city proper" and those condo towers built in '06ish...

- Free parking on the Seawall. Guess why the city charges people to park there? 1) they were sold a bill-of-goods from the parking meter people, and 2) I'll wager 50% of the people who come to Galveston pay next to nothing in the actual city. They buy their food and drink from home, park for free in town, and then eat their previously purchased food/drink on the beach. They may pay or may not pay anything at all on the island. - There are large areas where Galveston has lovely neighborhoods. There is easy - safe - access from the Strand to the Seawall via 25th or 23rd or even 19th Streets. Galveston IS the most walkable and bike friendly town in the state - my opinion - but after working here for years its evident the pace is slow enough and people largely are cognizant enough to recognize that there are pedestrians and bikers. Consequently Galveston has plenty of sidewalks, in fact every street inside the 61st Street East/West corridor has sidewalks. - Bike lanes wouldn't do much. The streets aren't typically busy enough to warrant additional lanes for bikes.

Not to insult, just commenting on a few points you're trying to make: - Larger Seawall: The Seawall does need to be rebuilt in a few places. I'm not sure, but I do believe there is a plan to rework that? The problem with adding the seawall is that erosion has nearly wiped out the beach in a few places - therefore adding to it would be a much more costly and monumental task. Also, its hard to plant anything along the seawall because of the caustic air full of salt spray. Makes plantings really tough. Benches and other amenities would be easier to add - the problem is removing parking areas. - Heritage Trolleys: Not historical. They have money for getting them running again, they have to either A) restore that network - which is running on cheaper buses, or remove all that track. - Retail: Galveston actually commissioned a study 4-ish years ago and determined that the best way to help revitalize the community (namely the Strand) was to build out a rather sprawling-walkable Outlet Mall using empty lots and some existing buildings re-purposed. Guess what. Other developers read that study and jumped at Texas City quickly and built the Tanger Outlets where they are now. HEB used to be on the island, but had a smaller store and it wasn't very popular. To my knowledge they've shown no interest in Galveston, even though they would in all likelihood do quite well.

Tilman owns the Golden Nugget in Vegas.

I looked at it last week, and I spent several months earlier in the year looking up/researching flights from Houston to San Francisco (on any airline possible) - as my wife and I were planning a vacation to either Tahoe or Napa/Sonoma - I looked at prices to SFO, OAK, RNO, SJC and everywhere else in between. Suffice to say the prices were almost always cheaper from those locations to HOU or IAH. Maybe that was earlier in the year? And maybe I picked the one single week when I was looking last week for price comparisons that SFO was cheaper? Don't know? Now, I did look for February dates for Southwest, I did find that the prices were similar for SFO to HOU or HOU to SFO - except - the flights from SFO to HOU typically had more times available with the lower fees. Which to me = lower fares across the board. Maybe that's changed since I looked last week? I'm curious... do you ever post without sounding condescending?

I searched for February prices last week. This close to Thanksgiving, and this close to today's date the results will be expensive no matter where you search. Maybe the prices are always in the same range, but last time I flew it was from HOU to SFO, and the fares if reversed (SFO-HOU) were cheaper! This was also March/April... not November before the 2nd largest holiday of the year.

New Jersey's biggest cities are suburbs of New York and Philadelphia.... the other areas in that state are quite nice. Atlantic City - like many "rust belt" towns is bad not because of gambling, but because of failures on every other level. I'm sure if the casino owners spend the time/effort/money that Vegas did with their casinos AC wouldn't be quite as bad off. New Orleans (for what its worth) has only 1 casino - Harrah's. Which only opened about 10 years ago. Before that its safe to say most of NOLA was a dump. Can we blame casinos on that? The Mississippi Gulf Coast was in fairly bad shape prior to casinos taking a key part in helping to reinvigorate that stretch of coast line. Vicksburg, Natchez and other cities along the Mississippi that have casinos were in less than favorable conditions pre-casinos, not post-casinos. To argue that any place that currently has casinos is worse off than before...well, petty property crime may have risen a bit - I don't know? But I'll wager that overall the influx of money, tourists etc. due to casinos (for the above mentioned cities) has greatly outweighed the negatives. Do casinos bring about people that are less than savory? Yep. Bars, clubs and liquor stores bring about the same unsavory types. If we closed, or chose to not allow businesses that might attract 5% of its base (if even that high of a number) who are unsavory, disreputable or otherwise have problems then just about every business that serves food or drink would be automatically shuttered. Again - I'm not saying we allow 100% casinos in 100% of Texas. I'm saying we pass an law that allows 4-6 in select areas, and put some financial requirements on them to keep Joe's Beer, Gas and Slots from opening.

I've said before - the Oil Boom is "over" in the sense we've likely seen just about all the construction possible from it over the past few years. However, the ancillary boom associated with the big oil jobs growth is on its way. Hospitals, schools, houses, roads, freeways, bridges etc. are all yet to happen - or have only just begun. And lets say Oil cra*s out for a bit... just like the 1990s and early 2000s we will see other industries pick-up the pieces and we'll continue to move forward. The Medical Center was BOOMING during my school years (early 2000s) and frankly I'd love to see something similar happen over the next decade (no slow-downs, but a boom in biomedical).

I think its great we all have different opinions... My one caveat for Casinos to be allowed in Texas is: - Scale. No casinos smaller than say 100,000sq. ft. That'd limit the trash instantly. MGM and other casino companies would be the only types capable of affording that scale of operation (think of the bank holdings needed for large casinos like that). No convenience stores, no slots in the airports... none of that. If I had my druthers I'd also *only* allow them in Galveston, and maybe San Antonio around the Riverwalk...maybe Corpus Christi too? And I'd only allow 4 licenses per "region" or whatever it would be called. That would allow only 8-12 casinos total in Texas. Not perfect, but it would alleviate some of the concerns people above have posted about. Too each their own I say. I'd also like to point out that casinos do award people money. Sometimes a lot of it. You have far greater odds of winning something in a casino than a lottery ticket.

That first sentence is sufficient to explain why Houston is so expensive.

You missed the point. Houston was more expensive back when it was the busier airport than SFO. My point was - Houston is expensive to fly out of. Yet Houston is more expensive than just about every other airport in the country. Look it up.

Those people EXIST with or without the casinos existing in Galveston. I can walk outside right now and find one. If there was a casino here on the island - guess what - that person would be there just the same! EDIT -- I'm not calling anyone a fool. People are entitled to their opinions. Certainly. I don't think casinos are the end-all-be-all, but they aren't the devil either. Like Ben Franklin said "Everything in moderation, including moderation!"

Where are the statistics for that last statement? Who is to say that they would not ruin themselves some other way? Should we outlaw all vices even if 99% of the population can responsibly handle themselves, and the other 1% would simply find another vice to ruin themselves on? I don't gamble either. Personally I think its stupid. But people will do it regardless of if we have it or not. Texans are still ruining themselves and spending away countless billions gambling. If we did it here, at least the money would return to the community - at least a little of it - instead its just lining the pockets of Louisiana and Oklahoma. We see $0 of it. Texas gets $0 for the citizens spending $4,000,000,000.00 of their money gambling.

I'm not sure I understand that concept? How sketchy is Vegas. Galveston won't be that, but it won't be the dirty-poor backwater of Mississippi or Louisiana either. Those states had myriad problems prior to gambling taking off. To heck with Louisiana's economy. I'm worried about Texas' and more specifically Houston's. Louisiana already has issues, and people will still frequent places like NOLA from abroad and around the US because of its other draws. Lake Charles is a major petrochemical hub and port for western Louisiana. Galveston's problem is the transient population here already. These people are low wage earners who hawk t-shirts and beer during festivals and work at bars the rest of the year (not knocking bartenders or the like - just an example). Adding additional jobs would be bad how? I'm also pretty sure the poor who relocated due to Katrina are in fact still mostly here in Houston. Most of NOLA's lost population was the urban poor - the wealthy could afford to return and rebuild.

But Texans already have those problems... they just spend the billions in Louisiana and Oklahoma. People can use willpower to not drive to Galveston, or Corpus. Those who can't probably have additictions already, and gambling is likely the least of their worries.

^And Southwest! United and Southwest have a monopoly at each airport. Guess what, tickets FROM SFO to HOU are cheaper than from HOU to SFO! Don't believe me, look it up!!! United is no different. I hope Spirit ignites a price war out of IAH, and that HOU follow suit. Man, it would be fantastic to buy some tickets at the prices that people in LA or NYC do. Houston is expensive to fly out of!

So you'd rather Texans spend $4-5 Billion in Oklahoma and Louisiana than *in* Texas? That's absurd, sorry to use such harsh language but it is. I would rather our billions spent gambling stay in the state than go out of state and support whatever it is it supports in those other states. The economic impact of having casinos in Galveston alone would probably end up at around $2 Billion for Galveston alone. Here's the problem with gambling in my eyes. 1) we allow it through the lottery already, 2) and we also have other stupid laws such as the Sunday blue laws. You can't buy liquor for yourself to drink AT HOME, but you can go to a bar and get as drunk as you'd like... on Sunday. Also, this is the United States, select religious institutions shouldn't have final say on what laws are allowed here or not.

I thought the caveats were that there were certain "districts" in Texas where they could pop-up? Corpus, Padre... Galveston. Instant development for Galveston, not sure of the other areas.

The name... conjures up an image of a sleezy detective carelessly puffing away on a cigarette. Smoke thick in the air, blinds tilted revealing only that its dark and raining outside...and then there's a neon light from the diner across the street casting a red glow across the room

We can all admit if Amegy had a flaming spire (or spires) as an architectural embellishment! Well it'd be a game changer! I'd buy swtsig a six-pack of low-carb beer or similar in celebration. Just because.

I was just messing around! I posted a page or two back about how we're waiting to see anything about this tower - and how I'm betting it won't be as grand as some say... hence the silly Lego Tower.

The Mercer sure is a lovely little elevator shaft - isn't it.

Unfortunately I don't have one. Maybe someone more involved with the project (I'm actually not involved at all) can get one?

So... I "snuck" into the offices of the design firm responsible for this tower, and guess what!? They had a scale model of the building! Here's a fuzy photo of one of the models they had in the office! Personally I find the transition from the parking deck to the tower portion seemless and also timeless, I think its my favorite detail of this design! Instant classic!