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You either cannot name it because it does not exist or do not have the guts to name it because you are afraid of the collective laughter that will pummel you at the idea that the property could support a mixed use development. You may not like what I have to say most of the time, but at least I have the guts to come out and say what I believe without hesitation and deal with the fruit thrown from the peanut gallery. Last chance. Man up and name your magic 50 acres.

So, I am talking about mixed use developments and your retort is downtown office space? Planning=better land use. Just look at what is going up in Frisco: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/commercial-real-estate/20130626-cinema-complex-will-kick-off-huge-frisco-mixed-use-project.ece I have dealt with Frisco's planning and zoning. It is as restrictive and controlling as it gets. But here we are. Giant project that is many times the size of anything in the Houston area.

You know the streets have names in Houston. People have been known to identify tracts of land by reference to street names. It is a fairly effective way to show that you are not making things up to try to prove a point.

If you think that you can just look at 70 mil v. 6 mil in a vacuum, then there is absolutely no hope for you. The circumstances and goals of each project are radically different. The bottom line is that it is totally pathetic that a low to lower middle neighborhood in DC can get a landmark mixed use development when a thriving area in Houston only gets strip malls. Houston shouldn't have to pay a penny to get quality development in the middle of one of the most economically thriving areas in the country, if not the world. All Houston needs is some planning and we could actually see the kind of high quality development that even lame ass Dallas gets.

Funny how you won't tell us the location of the magic 50 acre tract in the Heights that can be readily assembled for redevelopment. Probably because it does not exist or is closer to Beltway 8 than the Heights.

No amount of name calling and insults will change the fact that you have no substantive point to make. There is nothing hypocritical about what I am saying. All you do is toss out wise cracker one liners because you are afraid to engage me on any substantive point because you know I am right and cannot debate me on the merits.

It was until the developer got spooked by the market crash. The original plans floated were for a mixed use development with hotel, movie theater, office, retail, etc. The developer bailed and cashed out with a Walmart and strip malls. Meanwhile, everywhere else in Houston, developers held on for the long haul and are doing great things. Regent Square could have been another big box retail thing. But they held on and are going to do one of the best new developments inside the loop in decades. Even the Hardy Yards project is back on the table. They are going before the planning commission for variances this month. Huge mixed use project just north of downtown in an area that, other than being next to downtown, is pretty run down and far less desirable than the Walmart location.

Heaven forbid you should have to read what I said and contribute intelligently. Of course, when you know that I am right and have nothing to offer in response, you resort to your childish name calling. First, comparing the cost of the government assistance in the DC project to the Houston development is idiotic. DC had to pay a premium on buyouts to get rid of property owners who were ruining the neighborhood with their run down development. The steel plant and armature works were closing up shop and happy to sell to the highest bidder. Walmart and the developer would not touch that area without a sizeable redevelopment incentive. The DC development is a "build it and they will come" development. Community leaders, Walmart and the developer are speculating that the development will improve the area and bring in consumers for the development. The existing market demographics will not support that development. The Heights development is a "they are already here, what are you waiting for" development. There is more than a sufficient market to support lots of retail, office, and multifamily expansion inside the loop. Planners in DC are making sure that they get the highest possible use of the land in exchange for government assistance. In Houston, the City is making a tax gift to a development that is putting in the lowest possible use of the land. At the end of the day, DC gets a huge return on its investment. It turns a run down retail development that is a major detriment into a landmark development that will help bring in additional investment and jobs that would not be seen without government intervention. Houston kisses 6 mil good bye and get exactly what it would get had it not spent 6 mil.

And the other idiotic HAIF method of argument is the "you like X, therefore you have to always support X". Just because a development is mixed use doesn't mean that it is appropriate. 1111 Studewood is out of scale. It is build right up to the property line of a single family home. Anyone living next to a half acre or more of old warehouses or garden style apartments in the Heights may end up with 5-6 stories next door. That is out of scale and a bad thing even if it is mixed use. And oh yeah, it doesn't matter whether the Walmart is actually in the official subdivision map for the Heights. It is for all practical purposes in the same neighborhood. The ads for Walmart on the radio talk with "Heights Moms". So, obviously they are intending to serve the Heights. But in your weak rhetoric silly things like this have to have some weight because it is so plainly obvious that the Walmart development is an inferior development for the area and the 380 agreement is a wealth transfer agreement. As for the "disgusting" comment, it would help if you actually made a coherent argument before calling someone disgusting. First, I think a large mixed use development could be done in the Heights proper where all the warehouses are south of the hike and bike path and north of the I-10 feeder. That would be an excellent development for the Heights. Second, I am all for supporting redevelopment projects in neighborhoods that actually need the support. The DC project is a great idea. Not terribly efficient in execution. But, by East Coast standards, 70 mil is not unheard of for a redevelopment incentive package. What is really disgusting is supporting developer candy in wealthy neighborhoods where there are no economic barriers to redevelopment. The 6 mil for the Walmart development should be going to redevelopment projects north or east of downtown where the money would really make a difference instead of just fattened already fat profits for a wealthy developer.

You didn't read the article or my comments. Typical HAIF oversimplification to avoid any intelligent discussion of a complicated issue. DC spent 70 mil to get rid of a derelict shopping center, buy out over a dozen different property owners, bring in new investment that would never touch that area without government intervention and get a landmark development that will spark development in an area that would otherwise get passed over and that was in desperate need for grocery and big box discount stores. If it goes well, a neighborhood that is potentially in transition, will get a huge economic boost instead of stagnating and probably decaying. And DC got more than just a Walmart. They got twice as much retail SF and 475 residential units all in an acre and a half smaller space than the property the Walmart in the Heights sits on. By contrast, Houston spends 6 mil to get a half the retail SF, no residential units on a property that was cleared, assembled and ready to be developed in an area that was bursting at the seems with new development and in an area that already had two Walmarts, four Krogers, a Whole Foods and a Target within the trade area. The property was the subject of a bidding war between Walmart and HEB and was going to be developed with or without tax dollars being given to the developers. DC gets a great development in an area that would normally see no new development and gets to replace a derelict property that was a drain on the area. Houston makes a gift of 6 million and gets about half the retail SF, no multifamily on a piece of property that everyone was fighting over to develop. If you cannot see the difference, you are not looking.

http://www.theleadernews.com/?p=10589 A pizza place it will be.

Actually, the two projects provide a very interesting look at how Houston abuses tax incentives to developers. That section of DC is mostly a low-lower middle income/working class area. But it is not a bad area. Under normal conditions, no one would do a major project like this in this area. The main challenge of the project was that there were so many different property owners that it was very expensive to get them to sell what many residents considered a derilict property. It cost about 30 mil to acquire the property and deal with all the eminent domain issues. 40 mil has been proposed in TIF funding to ensure that investment comes in and businesses open up and stay. If all goes as planned, they will get a great town center-style development, a big boost in employment and development in an area that would not see any of this without government intervention (http://www.skylandtowncenter.com/vision.html). By contrast, the Walmart property is in the middle of one of the fastest appreciating, in demand real estate markets in Houston, if not Texas, if not the entire US. The property was going to get redeveloped whether the City offered 6 mil or 6 cents. While DC is going to get 342k SF of retail and 476 residential units over 18 acres, Houston gets a 152 SF Walmart and @21k SF of strip mall and bank/restaurant pads over @20 acres. Houston puts 6 mil into a development that does not need a penny and gets half the retail SF and no residential units over about the same acreage. It is one thing that the Galleria area, Upper Kirby, Midtown and the Memorial/West Houston area gets the great mixed use developments instead of the Heights. It is totally pathetic that a lower-middle class neighborhood in DC gets a better project than the Heights does. The Walmart project had none of the barriers that existed in DC (high cost to assemble land, no interest in the area absent major tax incentives, very weak demographics for trade area in terms of house hold income). Yet, the City put out 6 mil and got the lowest possible use for the land. I would much rather see the City actually get something for its money instead of just making a wealth transfer payment. But, oh yeah, I forgot the motto: "It's Houston. You should have seen how bad it used to be."

http://houston.eater.com/archives/2013/07/02/damicos-has-shuttered-its-heights-location.php The official version. I can certainly understand the decision. Anything that goes in that location is going to have to be able to make money off of bar spillover like Tacos Agogo does. A pizza place that sells by the slice might work if it was really good.

And D'Amico's just closed. No idea why. I would speculate that the bar scene makes it very difficult to get customers on Friday and Saturday night due to the parking situation. It will only get worse with the cantina. And the competition down the street from Coltivare will also make things difficult for them.

I am hearing that the gas station has finally sold and the repair shop will be moving to a new location. No word on the specifics (buyer, where the repair shop will end up).

Hard to do anything but a place with quick service and fast turnover at that little place given the economics. Might have worked as a casual sushi restaurant, but people tend to linger when they eat sushi. Plus, there wasn't really enough room for a good sushi bar inside. Thus, two hot dog places is better than eight Mexican restaurants or seven sandwich shops or five and a half Italian restaurants, etc.

http://houston.eater.com/archives/2013/07/01/good-dogs-food-truck-sits-for-heights-brick-mortar.php#more This will be great. Perfect fit for the old Big Mamou location.

Only on HAIF would the two separate and distinct issues be slapped together to make a point. The developers were obligated to put in sidewalks and did not. That is wrong regardless of whether there are a lot of people using the sidewalks or just a few. Plus, there was a big PR push on the public from the developer, walmart and the City about how the 380 money would help make the development pedestrian friendly with wider sidewalks. To do that and not even put in a segment of sidewalk is inexcuseable. On the other hand, whether one development has created synergy with the surrounding properties or not is a completely different issue. If you think the developers of this tower will put "walking distance to Taco Cabana and Walmart" in their leasing flyers, you are nuts. Most everyone working in that building will jump in their car for lunch, adding more traffic. But the City Centre development doesn't even need to mention the proximity because it is right next door. Workers in that development won't get in their car to go to City Centre for lunch because it would be more of a hassle to drive over there than walk.

You won't see a single worker from that building trying to cross Washington at Waugh. And the issue is synergy between one development and the next. It is undeniable when a building shares a property line with City Centre that there is synergy. When a building goes up on an awkward corner on a one way street with no good access from the south and contributes nothing to the street scape of a strip mall a half mile down the street, it is undeniable that there is absolutely no synergy between the two. And it is also undeniable that it is an embarassing mess of urban development and exactly what I predicted (i.e. underbuilding readily available land leads to overbuilding in the odd remaining awkward parcels). If the Walmart land was still vacant, it could have been developed into the best mixed use development in the City. Demand is there for office, retail, and residential. But, all of that will have to get crammed into the odd nooks and crannies of the area because Walmart had to saturate the Houston market to try to steal market share from its competitors.

Three lanes in each direction? That is just silly. You have absolutely no basis to make that assertion and you know it. The volume of traffic at City Centre does not require a six lane road. It just needs a better planned street grid. The new office building is nowhere even close to the Walmart development. The new office building I pointed out at City Centre is right next door. People using the office building will be able to walk to City Centre and people using City Centre will be able to access the ground floor retail and theater space at the new building. The two developments will be virtually seemless. If you cannot see the difference in the two, you are intentionally trying not to. The placement of that new office building is idiotic. There is no access from the south. Anyone coming from downtown or Upper Kirby would have to either worm through the neighborhood to the west of the lot or go past the development and make a uturn at Waugh and Washington (no easy feat). That building could have been the centerpiece of a mixed use development on the Walmart tract. But we were all supposed to jump up and down with joy because we got a big parking lot instead of a vacant lot. Now, office buildings and apartment complexes are going to be crammed into all kinds of odd spots all over the neighborhood because 35+ acres of prime open land were wasted on a Walmart. Worst land use decision ever. Markets do not work.

Are you even looking at a map? If the east/west streets connected through to the east, you could get people out of the development and up to the I-10 feeder without having to deal with traffic at the I-10/Beltway 8 interchange. You would also give people wanting to go south an alternative instead of having to drive through the entire development. It is traffic engineering 101.

I will be sure to tell Monica Pope that she sucks at cooking because she only has one restaurant.

Or you can live in your fantasy world where economic choices people make in a consumer market place are all ethically neutral and the only value in a transaction is whether you can get the lowest price. Also, you do not have to be wealthy to make socially conscious consumer decisions. I know plenty of people who spend significantly more on food, clothes, etc. in order to buy organic, fair trade, independent, locally owned, etc. They just spend less on other things (cable TV, vacations, cars, consumer electronics, etc.).

Except that I am right. When you enter the development on Town and Country Blvd from the north, you cannot exit the development by turning left until you get to the far end of the development. Both left turns are dead ends. The first left (east) turn dead ends into a parking garage. The second dead ends into the apartment complex. There is no east/west street grid. You can get out by turning right (west), but that only gets you to a one way north bound feeder road. Anyone who wants to head south will have to go all the way through the development down to Kimberly if they do not want to have to do a u-turn at the I-10/Beltway 8 interchange. And when traffic is bad on the NB Beltway 8 feeder, it backs up into the development. The could have easily built the east side of the development to allow street connection, but didn't. A big screw up in what is otherwise a very excellent development.

So, you chide me for making generalizations, but readily make your own. Not all businesses that do well become a dreaded chain. In fact, many small business owners have no intention of trying to become a chain because their success depends on the knowledge/skill etc. of the owner. Multiple locations can just lead to a cheapening of the brand and dimish the quality of the enterprise (See, e.g. anything Tilman Fertita gets his hand on). And I am not lumping all chains together. Cartier, the Palm and Roche Bobois are chains. But the boutiques in the Heights are no where near that end of the market. Their competitors are the mall stores like Banana Republic, AX, etc. The employees at those stores may not be right at minimum wage, but they certainly won't be working there next year and won't know your name or your kids name or organize neighborhood events at their stores.