mrfootball

As a rule, I'd never allow my kids to play in those cootie-ridden mall playgrounds.

For what its worth, they got pretty good reviews from a number of diners over on the Coles Crossing Yahoo group.

Looks like another distribution center is being constructed along beltway 8 near West Rd. next to the new Bank of America. The NewQuest office buildings aren't so bad.

Thanks, I was wondering what that was going to be. Glad to hear they're not more apartments.

I drive the Beltway from 249 to Westchase every day and the number of office buildings, etc has exploded.

Grocery stores like HEB, and to a greater extent Kroger and Randall's do neighborhood pricing. Which is based on market demographics. So while, you'd think the grocery stores would charge more in areas like River Oaks, etc...they actually charge more in places in like South Katy, Cypress, Champions, Sugar Land, etc. where the AVG HH incomes are over $100K. Stop in and compare next time your in town, you'll be surprised at how much more you pay.

Where was all of that built?

I-45, Southside of FM 1960, Ella Blvd, Kuykendahl area Rankin, etc.

Perhaps you could answer a couple of questions for me. The first is how could zoning, or lack of zoning, even be an issue in Harris County, as counties cannot impose zoning? Secondly, why are you blaming Houston for your suburban Harris County problems, perceived or otherwise?

As for "commerce centers" that have been allowed to age to the point of being eyesores, I am not aware of any zoning ordinances that address this issue. If you could point out a few, it would help.

Start a new thread.

I'm excited about the green medians project and think some thoughtful organization and/or something like a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) would be beneficial. Macrobro is right.

I'll be happy to pull out a demographic map if you like.

NW Harris County Demographics

Notice, they haven't updated the areas in that big block on the south side of 290 from Barker Cypress over to Fry Rd. (ie. Bridgeland/Blackhorse/CC Lakes/Towne Lake, etc). That big area will fill in as red.

For now. But I know Alan Murphy decided to get while the getting was good. And according to employees there, more of their neighboring retailers plan to leave as well. I do agree with the comments about retailers following their clientele. But then the question becomes why are their clientele moving away from the FM 1960 area?

Right now, Champions at 1960 is a little pocket of upscale commerce...but to the east and to the west....not so good. So how long can Champions hold out? We've lived in this area for 20 years and sometimes I'm taken aback when I think of how things used to be on FM 1960, when I would run my kids to the pediatrician down at Red Oak or pop in to the wallpaper store near Kuykendahl, and how things are now. From west of Stuebner to I-45, forget it. From Willowbrook past Fallbrook, forget it.

I grew up in Greenwood Forest, Ponderosa Forest and Champion Forest so I know the area quite well. The nice neighborhoods along 1960 are still nice, as old as they are, they still look great. Every bit as nice as their sister Kickerillo developed neighborhoods in West Memorial (though they certainly haven't appreciated like those have in the past 5 years). Champions isn't a little pocket of upscale. It's a big pocket. It hasn't shrunk, it's grown. It's filling in the last few areas with relatively expensive homes now. Right now, they're tearing down and building million dollar homes in Champions and homes from $500K to $1M in/around Champion Forest and Vintage Lakes.

As for the rest of 1960...The biggest change along 1960 is the concentration of apartments. They've increased the density, traffic and interlopers. The Champions area is great and I like those centers near Champion Forest Drive. My mini-tour didn't take me past Stuebner. I do know that the stretch from Kuykendahl to I-45 has gotten pretty run-down retail-wise. FM1960 has become the Westheimer of the northwest. In fact, you have to consider that 1960 carries as much or more traffic than Westheimer today and there are a lot of stretches of Westheimer that make the worst stretches of 1960 look good in comparison. While there are well over a hundred nice neighborhoods north of FM 1960, there are a number of nice neighborhoods on the South side of FM 1960 like Greenwood Forest, Windermere Lakes, Wyndham Lakes, Heron Lakes, etc.

Nonetheless, 1960 today sits on the Southeast Edge of a much, much larger NW suburban community that has grown Northward and Westward with rings like Cypresswood, Louetta, Spring Cypress...stretching all the way to Spring Creek to the North and 529 to the South. I would think it would be smart for retailers to open locations to serve those newer areas, but as I drove by the nice centers around Champions, they were all packed with cars and business looked good.

I went over to the Champions area tonight for dinner tonight and instantly thought about how ludicrous some of the comments on this thread are.

One other thing....

I don't know if this attempt to hold the line at FM1960 is too little-too late. I know of some retailers and business owners moving off 1960 and further north....Alan Murphy to Vintage, Silkz to SC Road, etc......because the area has gotten too rough. Seems like some are taking the approach that rather than 'hold the line', they'll 'move the line'.

I think the Champions centers are always going to be viable and nice. The demographics are there and the demand is there. With that said, NW Harris County has grown tremendously over the past 20 years and the epicenter is moving from 1960, northward as the NW suburbs stretch from 1960 all the way to Montgomery county so it makes sense for merchants to locate on Louetta at places like the Vintage more centrally located to the demographic they serve.

Willowbrooks Trade Area includes parts of cities (Houston Jersey Village), and I doubt all of NW Harris County would be a city. Would be one giant suburban mess. Would probably be broken up into "Klein", "Cypress", "Fairbanks", etc.

Willowbrook's trade area is NW Harris County, the "Great Northwest"...the namesake of this, the most popular, of all HAIF Houston Metro subsections. As I've shown there are over 1 million people living in this community.

Whether it incorporated (if ever) as one big 800 lb gorilla or as smaller communities of 100,000-300,000 is something for another thread. Nonetheless. I grew up here in the early 70's, graduated HS in the early 90's, came back to Houston after college, worked and lived inside the loop for about 6 years and came back home to the GNW. I think this is one of the best burbs in Houston - a city with great burbs all over. There are others that feature a nice big master-planned community here and there, but overall this is the biggest and best burb in town. It's amazing how much it has grown.

You're stretching if you include Spring. That is more north. School districts is a bad way to define it. For example, Cy-Fair ISD stretches all the way down to Clay Road at Fry. Surely you don't think Clay Road is in Northwest Houston?

Here's GGP's profile for Willowbrook.

2000 - 802,367

2007 - 1,041,318

2012 - 1,185,435 (projected)

Random musings: from a marketing perspective, a universe of over 1 Million people with an avg HH income over $80K is pretty remarkable. If we (UnIncNW) were our own city, we'd instantly become one of the largest cities in the state, boasting some of, if not, the best demographics in the nation for a city of over 1 million people.

You're stretching if you include Spring. That is more north. School districts is a bad way to define it. For example, Cy-Fair ISD stretches all the way down to Clay Road at Fry. Surely you don't think Clay Road is in Northwest Houston?

Here's GGP's profile for Willowbrook.

2000 - 802,367

2007 - 1,041,318

2012 - 1,185,435 (projected)

I was going by the Chron article today, that said 1.4 million of the 3.9 million people in Harris County live in the unincorporated parts.

By the way, don't forget the other counties in the Houston MSA.

The Chronicle can say that, but the Chronicle's figures are out of date. Demographic figures are never 100% spot on, especially in high growth areas. Houston has grown quite a bit since the 2000 census, even those figures are crap because they don't count hundreds of thousands of undocumented persons, etc residing in/around the Houston metro area.

School districts are one of the more accurate indicators of recent growth and demographers generally compute total district population to be a factor between 6-7 times the enrolled student population. The school district's (CFISD) formula is that for every 6-7 people there is one school aged child. Calculate the enrollment of CFISD, KISD, SISD, TISD.

692,188 CFISD (98,884 students)

65,716 TISD (9,388 students)

226,800 SISD (32,400 students)

289,982 KISD (41,426 students)

Total Enrollment = 182,098

Using these figures (which are already outdated) you get a figure between:

1,092,588 (x6) and 1,274,686 NW Harris County (x7)

NW Harris County does not have one million out of the 1.4 million in Unicorporated Harris County. I doubt it. Maybe like 700,000.

fyi - there are a hell of a lot more people in Unincorporated Harris County than 1.4 Million people (Houston MSA has 5.4 million conservatively...more like 5.8). As for the Northwest (the largest part of unincorporated Harris County) Cy-Fair alone has 700-750,000. Add in Klein, Spring, Tomball, etc and you easily hit/surpass 1 million.

I grew up in that area in the 80's...it was very safe then. Has the area gone downhill?

Looking at a crime map, an overwhelming majority of the crime that occurs in NW Harris County (an area with well over 1,000,000 people) occurs in/around Willowbrook Mall (mostly car theft). Considering the sheer number of people in the Willowbrook area, the crime isn't bad. I wouldn't go so far to say that it's gone downhill (i.e Greenspoint), but the Willowbrook area right at 1960 and 249 isn't as safe as it once was. With that said, I feel safer at Willowbrook than I do many other malls save for The Woodlands.

Good gosh that is gawdawful.

Candelari's does a pretty damned good Chicago-style deep dish.

Go to Deerbrook on a Friday night...can't miss 'em. And apparently they are also at Katy Mills, though I have't been in a few years and have never seen them...

These people are everywhere. Memorial City, First Colony, The Woodlands Mall, Willowbrook Mall. You cannot escape them.

Whole different company since the Bob Allison days.

Whole different company since the Bob Allison days.

My company is hiring Geoscientists like crazy right now.

Gringo's is the most mediocre to bad nice Tex-Mex restaurant in town. They spend all their money on decor and apparently nothing on the menu. Yuk.

Per the property managers, the new Outlet Mall had the biggest opening two weeks in Simon's history and is setting records upon records for sales.

Personally, I'll wait until the huge crowds subside. I was hoping to see a Ralph Lauren outlet at this location. perhaps they'll open one or relocate the Katy store.

While I don't doubt what Trae said, the brutal Texas heat will limit loiterers, IMO. They much prefer A/C.

I would hope this would be nicer than Katy Mills, as I was never impressed with that place...the outdoor effect should help.

I agree...but remember that for those SAHMs it is quite a drive from Cypress even to Willowbrook (and the traffic on 1960 on the weekdays isn't great). My wife and I in Coles Crossing usually drive to the Galleria (about 25 minutes on the weekend) but wouldn't do that on a weekday. So we are excited that even though it is last years stuff at least it is convenient when we don't want the hassle of a long drive. Also, the crowds will die down a bit, it is still brand new...

RE: Outlet Mall

Still takes us about 15 minutes to get there from Longwood...about 20 minutes to get to Willowbrook....25 minutes to get to Memorial City or the Galleria on the weekend.