Texasota

No! Drive-through? Come on!

Yeah it looks cheaper than would be ideal, but the scaling, site plan, and lack of parking? I love it. Give me hundreds more of these (with maybe better exterior finishes and balconies).

Huh. I don't agree. I like the way they screened it and the big double height entrance area with its forest of columns.

It's a still a giant parking podium, but I've seen much worse.

From the August meeting:

Pursuant to the DRA Board’s recommendation, Staff has distributed a letter of request to property owners inside the boundaries of TIRZ3, seeking participation in a feasibility study to go to an RFP later this summer. The study will evaluate approximately five opportunities for conversion of office space into other uses such as residential. The study is intended to inform the development of a financial tool that can be used to more easily facilitate the conversion of obsolete office space.

Also this sounds pretty interesting:

Staff has submitted a revised strategic annexation & term extension request to the City Planning Department for Mayoral review later in August. This request will come before the DRA Board in the Fall as a proposed Project Plan and Financial Plan, as has been exercised in the past. The limited annexation holds the promise of assisting the DRA in its mandate to address blight remediation and invigorating Downtown public spaces because the proposed annexation involves a significant redevelopment project that would generate significant incremental tax revenue.

The first one is Audio Video Plus, which, I guess ClutchCity94 hasn't lived in Montrose that long. It's never been pretty, but it hasn't been vacant *that* long. The real mystery is how it stayed open as long as it did.

The third one is Mark's/March. 

I think the whole topic is over-stated at best. EADO still has a ton of vacant land, and two of the examples given for Montrose (Disco Kroger and the Tower Community Center) were torn down with the intention of replacing them.

Now, if Skanska never does anything with the Tower block, that's a different story. 

It would, but they don't have a large enough space for that.

I don't know the details, but certainly Ave and TGV both operate on shared track in Spain.

That's awful. Hopefully the perpetrator's car was totaled.

Maybe we should move complaining about Regency Square to the Regency Square topic

Argh. I know we're not in Europe, but someone really needs to talk to them about their name.

That's a great and obvious use they should have thought of a long time ago.

well, it also makes tearing down existing buildings difficult or impossible in many cases, and if the existing building is a single family home, that will still have a similar effect.

The big problem in the Heights historic districts has been 1200sf homes on 6600sf lots. Developers can't tear down the existing house, so they had instead just been appending massive additions to the rear, ending up with absurd mcmansions with the original house serving as little more than an entry hall.

The historic ordinance has had some amendments and Heights-specific design guidelines were developed, but a lot of the damage was already done. 

Montrose has a decent number of historic districts as well, but houses and lots are typically much more in scale to each other (smaller houses, larger lots, and the occasional genuine mansion), so you don't have the same problem there.

Woodland Heights, Germantown, and Norhill are all more intact as historic districts because of a combination of smaller lots and, in Norhill's case, a somewhat overzealous attention paid to deed restrictions. Norhill worries *way* too much about garage apartments, which have nothing to do with preserving the historic character of the neighborhood. If anything, encouraging garage apartment construction would be much more in keeping woth the neighborhood's historic character.

And, for what it's worth, large chunks of any definition of the Heights are outside the districts. You can tell because that's where the wide-scale townhouse development has been. The whole southwest section (S of 11th and W of Heights) and the NW section (smaller lots/blocks around W 19th), both of which are original parts of Houston Heights, have had tons of redevelopment.

Hopefully not sushi. Too many good sushi places too close to here.

*rolls eyes*

It's definitely not worse than the Embassy Suites. Is Autry Park better? Of course! Is Regent Square as good as what was originally shown? Not at all! But it's not bad!

I think the Dallas St frontage is generally pretty good - it engages the sidewalk and is overall pretty pleasant. There's a lot of potential for the retail plaza at Dunlavy, especially once that street gets rebuilt and the next phase of Regent Square (hopefully) gets built.

The long term vacancy *is* a problem. But hopefully it's one that's finally going away.

Eh, the hate on Regent Square is overdone. In reality, Regent Square and Autry Park *together* are completely transforming this part of W Dallas.

As GFR for a 39 story tower? Sure.

It wasn't an "eyesore" until very recently. It was a handsome building the owner allowed to sit vacant.

Yeah, I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. You can absolutely get a meal at (numerically) most places inside the loop for less than $20.

And beyond that - restaurants exist at multiple price points. Some will be more expensive than that, but if they're less expensive than an equivalent restaurant in peer cities, that still makes Houston relatively affordable.

2 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

We literally have no affordable restaurants in this city, and very few chain restaurants inside the Loop.

huh? Houston has gotten more expensive, but almost every restaurant in the city is pretty affordable by national standards.

I just want people to give their businesses real names, especially if they're planning multiple locations. "Taste" is not a name. 

Hobby is always a great experience for me, but I can't agree on the food options. Gotta break that Pappas monopoly. 

neat, but seemingly unrelated - these are replacements for the general fleet.

No I get it. I don't think "cheese and wine" is exactly the issue though - Light Years is a good example of a place that still feels like Montrose. 

Montrose Cheese and Wine is borderline for me - it doesn't have *quite* enough personality. 

The fact that bars are required to provide parking in most of the city is *also* completely insane.