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zaphod

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  1. zaphod

    METRORail Red Line

    zaphod replied to ricco67's topic in Transit

    As we all know, the Red Line hooks west and goes up Greenbriar where it splits in a Y with Fannin, and continues to Braeswood where it turns east and then turns again at the intersection with Fannin. There is one station in between at Smith Lands, which serves a giant parking lot and some apartments. As we all also know, TMC 3 is a massive development proposed east of Bertner between MD Anderson and Baylor. This is quite the walk from either the TMC transit center or from Smith Lands, which has no reasonable direct path. It means people who work at TMC 3 who might otherwise use the Red Line probably won't. WHAT IF we realigned the Red Line to just stick to Fannin, closing the detour onto Greenbriar, the sharp curves, and the station at Smith Lands? This is a shorter route(approx .7 miles vs .9 currently). This would allow a station to be built perhaps around the intersection of Fannin and St. Agnes(one of those side streets that goes to Bertner). Then within the recommended quarter-mile walking distance that most planners seem to agree is how far folks walk, you got MD Anderson and the western Bertner facing side of the TMC 3 complex. And its only a .3 mile walk to the heart of TMC3. Since the red line has more than one depot now, it wouldn't hurt to have to close the southern tail of the line and do a bus bridge for the few days it would take to join the track segments. If this was done, it would ensure even more jobs are within striking distance of Houston's highest ridership transit corridor. So what do ya'll think?
  2. zaphod
    Ah I see. That makes more sense.
  3. zaphod
    I think the most realistic outcome, assuming Musk doesn't continue to behave like an insane person and implode his own company, is that over the very long term they would move out of Fremont. The only reason why they'd want to be in Fremont is access to Silicon Valley venture capital and talent and of course the NUMMI plant they stumbled upon. My bets would be either somewhere like Nashville(Nissan, GM, others are there, and it's a "cool" city that talent would accept moving to) OR maybe Greenville, SC. Which has things like CU-ICAR(automotive tech center run by Clemson University), Proterra(electric bus manufacturer), and a nearby BMW assembly plant.
  4. zaphod
    It looks like the residential portion above the podium is halfway done, so this is maybe 2/3 of the way to max height? It's got a lot of presence heading down I-10 now.
  5. zaphod
    I think tan/beige buildings do add warmth though, if they use a brick veneer or something. Market square tower is pretty decent looking. Too much white and blue and you get Austin's skyline, which can be kind of austere from certain angles and I mean in a not good way.
  6. zaphod
    I always thought that highrise Wyndham at I-10/Hwy 6 was kind of funky and dated looking, like something from Sarajevo. It is very similar to the Plaza tower in College Station that got imploded. But I know nothing about the kind of business they do, it could be fine and lovely inside for all I know. To be honest, I would be surprised if a name brand hotel was lost. Those could be sold down to a lower end chain nobody's ever heard of. The places which seem like they'd be toast are the ones that already took a fall from grace, like some of those iffy hotels around Intercontinental/Greenspoint.
  7. zaphod
    I totally forgot about those Albertsons stores. I wasn't living in Houston at that time, I just remember seeing them sometimes when visiting family here. That explains the unusual design of a number of places around here.
  8. zaphod
    The problem is its going to look cruddy if it gets streaked with mildew and the paint fades over time. I think you'd have to go with a less saturated color. I'm kind of partial to very light green, like you see in scandinavia but also the deep south. Or a pinkish color, though pink is kinda ugly. Maybe Charleston, SC could be a reasonable example of adding color: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Quarter_(Charleston,_South_Carolina)
  9. zaphod
    Maybe one approach would be to build a shear wall along both sides of the bayou's allowed corridor, and then dig down lower around the channel. Then it could meander within that area but then not get out from beyond that? I am always curious how deep that main channel actually is during drier periods. It could be quite deep at the centerline, but in some bayous on the west side of town it looks like a puddle at best. Without channelization I imagine it would be shallower, which could be problematic for rapid on demand drainage capacity if it turned into a swamp
  10. zaphod
    Well isn't that special. What's with the bulls, is that supposed to be like some kind of ancient Sumerian god or something? Uh oh, Zuul is back. Who you gonna call?
  11. zaphod
    Looking at the Target upcoming stores website, this store is going to be 63,000 sq. feet. That's about right for how big grocery stores tend to be. Looking through their other coming soons, I noticed a pattern: There are a lot of tiny stores, about 15,000 square feet, which are in the bottom of mixed use developments. That's the size of a walgreens. I wonder how these are going to fare. Walmart tried this approach and then closed all of those stores later. There are some small-medium stores around 25,000 feet to 40,000 square feet being planned in various cities. I can't visualize what these look like. The stores that are the size of this one(63k) don't seem to have renderings but ones that are a little larger are consistent with the "city target" design that generally do have actual hard goods. EDIT: They opened a 50,000 square foot store in phoenix, here is a news article with interior views. Looks fairly normal, just smaller. Not bad. They are only building a handful of "big" traditional suburban Targets planned right now, it looks like Raleigh and Wilmington mostly, which are 114k or so sq feet. This is probably about how big the Sawyer store is if I had to guess.
  12. zaphod
    So about halfway up, now. I was thinking the other day how many decent sized companies we have HQ'd here which are not oil companies, and Crown Castle is a good example. It's also a good sign they chose a building like this instead of sprawling out in a low rise like you'd see in DFW.
  13. zaphod
    Since most of the good kinds of soup were gone as the panic buying hoards cleaned out that aisle, I tried two different kinds that were Amy's brand(aka 'organic'). The carrot and ginger soup is awesome. I'm surprised that toilet paper is still low. How much TP do people need? What are you people eating, gag.... I bought a 12 pack before this all happened and I still have most of it left.
  14. zaphod
    Aren't Safeways in other parts of the country usually pretty nice? They succeed in Northern California which must be really tough(high labor costs, unions, an affluent discerning clientele that probably wants to order everything for pickup, etc). Maybe there's something wrong with the expansion model they had or the division they grafted all the Houston stores onto. I went to a Safeway in Denver once and it was pretty nice inside. Albertsons in contrast tend to be moo, I've never seen a "fancy" Albertsons store in the vein of a large H-E-B or Kroger Marketplace, they are always small, windowless beige boxes from the 1970s. Albertsons-Safeway also owns United which is the dominant grocery chain in the Panhandle and those tend to be really great stores. I just have a thing for grocery diversity. I hate to see chains back out of an area. Its too bad they couldn't make it. Hopefully a few stores last a few more years.
  15. zaphod
    Carl's Jr was identical to Hardees, its the same chain operating with two different names due to historical reasons. As you probably noticed they didn't make it here. Hardees was good stuff back in the day. I lived in far south georgia near northern florida(Tallahasee was about 30 minutes away) for a while growing up and there were lots of Hardees down there. But something happened to the chain. I had it a few years ago travelling in the south and wasn't impressed.
  16. zaphod
    That area is kind of odd looking if you fly over it on Google Maps. A big empty gap in development in the middle of the city with a weird mix of ugly townhouse complexes with no yards facing it. Does anyone think in time it will fill in with conventional housing subdivisions?
  17. zaphod
    Exactly. It's a complicated problem. Greenspoint is the same way IMO - its a mess with such a concentration of poverty but its also a humongous share of the city's low end housing. It would be a bad idea to uproot thousands and maybe tens of thousands of people who don't have anywhere else to go. I guess the displaced residents could go find some apartments in Katy that are having some leasing specials with the oil bust and all that. You know, history repeating itself...
  18. zaphod
    Now the lack of buildings on the other side of the curve is going to bother me. The rounded canyon of buildings looks so cool.
  19. zaphod
    I think this is going to end up looking nicer than what people had said earlier in this thread(5 years ago...). The location is suburban, so it really isn't a problem the way its laid out. At least its tall.
  20. zaphod
    I realize there is probably a reason why it wouldn't work, but I wish they would get rid of the concrete channel. But I'm the sure the bayou would naturally want to start eroding and forming bends.
  21. zaphod
    That's a big deal. What's Target's policy on having stores close together? I don't think the one on Sawyer would be under threat, but its only 2.5 miles away as the crow flies, similar to the ones at Uptown and by the Med Center. Do we know if this is going to be a conventional store or possibly an urban format(which are honestly like a fancier walgreens with some extra stuff than a real target) location such as the two in Austin? I would guess if anything that if this is a full sized store any Target in midtown would be a little one.
  22. zaphod
    What do you guys think of the future of that area will be like? It seems like a prime gentrification target if you ask me. Centrally located, the single-family portions generally look nice. Bellaire is no less close to the Gulfton apartment ghettos. It would follow that at some point someone will tear down those 60s era homes for McMansions like you see in other surrounding areas. I'm thinking because of the decline of retail in general, instead of being redeveloped into a open air or big box shopping center, the mall will just continue to languish and then one day get torn down for who knows what. Probably some kind of low density, less than exciting type of mixed use project that itself never gets finished 20 years later. I'm just spraying windex on my crystal ball here...
  23. zaphod
    I have a potential solution guys: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tees-48068866 Thinking what I'm thinking 😈
  24. zaphod
    What a time to reboot a dead project. Sat idle throughout a historic growth spurt, now its going up during a crisis, lol.
  25. zaphod
    It seems like the man bun will be getting a second wind, as if it ever left.
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