Walmart Supercenter At 111 Yale St.

[RedScare]

I'm comfortable saying that you are posting an intentionally incorrect amount. But, people will give your statements the amount of credibility they deserve, won't they?

[Leonard]

I think it's pretty clear that I've said I don't know how much they spent. Neither do you. However, I'm not naive enough to assume that since they did not do the detention that they did not spend the 308K (or the 20% project management on the 308K or the 20% contingency on the 308K + 20% project managment).

[SilverJK]

I think they actually didn't spend any money... since I don't know otherwise, I'm wearing comfortable shoes.

[heights]

I actually saw a Target shopping cart abandoned near 16th and Heights today.  With the Fiesta at 14th closed, who's going to go around and pick up shopping carts, RUDH?

I actually saw a Target shopping cart abandoned near 16th and Heights today.  With the Fiesta at 14th closed, who's going to go around and pick up shopping carts, RUDH?

I actually saw a Target shopping cart abandoned near 16th and Heights today.  With the Fiesta at 14th closed, who's going to go around and pick up shopping carts, RUDH?

[west20th]

I actually saw a Target shopping cart abandoned near 16th and Heights today.  With the Fiesta at 14th closed, who's going to go around and pick up shopping carts, RUDH?

I actually saw a Target shopping cart abandoned near 16th and Heights today.  With the Fiesta at 14th closed, who's going to go around and pick up shopping carts, RUDH?

I actually saw a Target shopping cart abandoned near 16th and Heights today.  With the Fiesta at 14th closed, who's going to go around and pick up shopping carts, RUDH?

 

I repeat myself when under stress

     I repeat myself when under stress

          I repeat myself when under stress

               I repeat...

 

 

 

King Crimson - Indiscipline

[heights]

Re: repeat

I got an error from the server when I pushed post so I tried a couple more times and got the same error. I figured the board was down an gave up. I didn't realize that it even posted at all.

But you're right, I was stressed about the renegade cart situation!!

[Leonard]

"we should all agree to pay more so that we can run Walmart out of business?"

 

Well, my issue with the Walmart is the 380.  And you know that I do not agree that we should all pay more taxes so that Walmart can get free sewer lines, turn lanes, signals, sidewalks and trees.  Although I do wonder how much of the sidewalk is wider than minimum and therefore reimbursable and the same with the trees.  The landscaping looks very minimal to me. 

[west20th]

Re: repeat

I got an error from the server when I pushed post so I tried a couple more times and got the same error. I figured the board was down an gave up. I didn't realize that it even posted at all.

But you're right, I was stressed about the renegade cart situation!!

 

I figured it was ongoing stress from living so close to the Yale St. Bridge of Death and a Walmart.

Edited January 25, 2013 by west20th

[Subdude]

Note sidebar discussion on health care moved to "Way Off Topic".

 

 

[Subdude]

Note post on a new restaurant moved to the Restaurant section.

 

 

[JJxvi]

Seems like there is a Heights restaurant thread with pages and pages and pages of posts that it seems that those posts could have been moved to without banishing it to a section of the site that I didnt even know existed until just now.

Edited January 30, 2013 by JJxvi

[SilverJK]

Note sidebar discussion on health care moved to "Way Off Topic".

 

while your at it, why not move the entire thread away, since it doesn't belong in the "heights" section since the walmart is not actually in the heights. 

 

 

 

and on topic, i'm worried about walmart healthcare options to invade small businesses in the Heights...

[TGM]

Another reason to like Wal-Mart.

Sláinte!

[samagon]

Walmart invasion status update:

 

Sunday, February 10, 2013. At approximately 15:30

 

I descended into the belly of the beast to collect intelligence and get 2 pitchers, a strainer and coffee filters for my experiment in cold brew coffee.

 

My choice of ingress was to drive up Shepherd (I had a late lunch at Freebirds at Shepherd and 59), right on Washington, left on Yale, and a left again into the Walmart parking lot.

 

Traffic getting up there was light after I got north of the Allen Parkway overpass, prior to that, it was typical Shepherd traffic on a Sat/Sun. Washington itself was fairly empty, and Yale was exceedingly empty. It didn't seem to be as bad as I had been told to expect. Certainly more traffic than previous though. I mean, before the Walmart construction began it would be me on the road and that was it, now there were a whole 2 other cars sharing the road with me. oh, and a guy with a sign trying catch my attention for his tax services company.

 

Considering that there was very light traffic, I was shocked to find the parking lot almost completely full. I was forced to park very near to Koehler street. For the purposes of shopping in a manly way (get in and out quickly while acquiring all I need and nothing more), I chose to enter the location through the garden department, and straight to kitchen wares (since everything I needed would be there), it was busy, but not overly so. I was able to quickly find everything I needed, the wide isles and bright lights made this easy, I chose to forego the experience of standing in the normal checkout lines and went back to the garden department where there was one checkout station and no one there. was in and out in less than 10 minutes.

 

Walking to my car I was surprised to see that it had not been broken into, or stolen, or in any other way molested (as had been predicted earlier in this thread). More importantly, I was not accosted and my the loot I had collected from shopping was not stolen from me as I walked back to my car. I spirited away down Koehler to Heights, left on Heights and right on the frontage road to get on I-10 and head back towards my house. I chose this not because my vehicle would be over the current load restrictions of the Yale bridge, nor out of fear of it crumbling beneath my wheels, but because it's about 30 seconds quicker to skip the light at Yale/10 and turn right from Heights onto 10, if I'm lucky I won't be stuck behind anyone on Heights and can just do a stop and go at that light as well. 

 

So overall, a quick and easy experience, where none of the horrible things described throughout this thread occurred, no hookers in the parking lot, or people shooting each other, or dealing drugs, Yale was not a gridlocked mess of snarled traffic and school buses fallen into the bayou. I did not see any traffic at all going, or coming from the west on Koehler (through the neighborhood).

 

On another note, the cold brew came out great. it took a little longer to filter than I had anticipated, as you steep the coffee grounds for 12-16 hours in the water, you have to strain out the grounds from the coffee. I started by first straining the coffee through the strainer transferring from my Tupperware container to one of the pitchers, I deposited the grounds in my backyard, and then proceeded to further filter out the smaller particles using the strainer again (this time going from pitcher 1 to pitcher 2), but with a coffee filter fitted in the strainer. I had about 8 cups of water, and went through about 4 filters as they became clogged with fine sediment. It's a concentrate and I do a 1 to 2 (coffee to water) ratio so this should last me an entire week of driving into work, it's a lot easier and quicker than making coffee every morning!

Edited February 11, 2013 by samagon

[Trae]

This Walmart is pretty awesome. never any crowds and the shoppers are definitely not your "people of Walmart". Attractive people shop here . I guess the name alone brought all that opposition.

[august948]

This Walmart is pretty awesome. never any crowds and the shoppers are definitely not your "people of Walmart". Attractive people shop here . I guess the name alone brought all that opposition.

All Walmarts are awesome.

[s3mh]

This Walmart is pretty awesome. never any crowds and the shoppers are definitely not your "people of Walmart". Attractive people shop here . I guess the name alone brought all that opposition.

 

I stopped by for another curiosity visit last weekend.  The place was dead.  They have started running lots of radio ads with women who claim to be shoppers from the Heights who did a price comparison with Kroger (they are paid for their time as the ad discloses).  And the "expanded selection of organic produce" is now down to three:  baby carrots, green onions and orange peppers.

 

Walmart is getting beat up pretty badly in the innerloop market.  Regardless of whether you were for it or against it, there just are not that many people living inside the loop who want to shop there.  But Walmart is big enough that they can take a big loss on this store as long as it drains something off their competitor's market share.  If the new Yale Street Market development has a Fresh Market, Walmart will be a ghost town.

[RedScare]

I stopped by for another curiosity visit last weekend. 

 

Yeah, sure.

 

I actually had occasion to shop at BOTH Walmart and Target this weekend. No made up reasons. I actually went to both stores on purpose. I found Walmart to have a decent crowd. Target's crowd was slightly smaller. As if that means something. Neither store is going anywhere. 

[s3mh]

Yeah, sure.

 

I actually had occasion to shop at BOTH Walmart and Target this weekend. No made up reasons. I actually went to both stores on purpose. I found Walmart to have a decent crowd. Target's crowd was slightly smaller. As if that means something. Neither store is going anywhere. 

 

Neither store is going anywhere, but one store reached into your pockets for 6 mil to build a store that no one wanted.  And after taking 6 mil, they didn't bother to finish the sidewalks and crosswalks. 

[Leonard]

Yes, unfinished sidewalks and crosswalks, over 250 caliper inches of public trees mitigated to Walmart's parking lot (and it still looks barren).  Curbs already broken and in the ADA ROW. 

 

The sidewalks as they go from Orr to Ainbinder are ridiculous.  Why are we paying for a 6' sidewalk that turns into a 5' sidewalk in the middle of the block?  Why are we paying for a 6' sidewalk on one side of Yale and a 5' sidewalk on the other when an ooopsie by the City means there isn't enough room on the Orr side to plant proper street trees? 

 

They would have built the Walmart without the 380. What exactly did we get for that $6M?

 

And they did spend all the money.  $146K on the Yale Street Bridge (a 3,000 lb per axle weight limit and scheduled to be torn down).  Over $50K on "miscellaneous" project management.  Hopefully the City will require them to break it down a little more specifically than that, but don't count on it. 

[J008]

Yes, unfinished sidewalks and crosswalks, over 250 caliper inches of public trees mitigated to Walmart's parking lot (and it still looks barren).  Curbs already broken and in the ADA ROW. 

 

The sidewalks as they go from Orr to Ainbinder are ridiculous.  Why are we paying for a 6' sidewalk that turns into a 5' sidewalk in the middle of the block?  Why are we paying for a 6' sidewalk on one side of Yale and a 5' sidewalk on the other when an ooopsie by the City means there isn't enough room on the Orr side to plant proper street trees? 

 

They would have built the Walmart without the 380. What exactly did we get for that $6M?

 

And they did spend all the money.  $146K on the Yale Street Bridge (a 3,000 lb per axle weight limit and scheduled to be torn down).  Over $50K on "miscellaneous" project management.  Hopefully the City will require them to break it down a little more specifically than that, but don't count on it. 

 

I couldn't agree with you more.  Also note Kroger (another one who got an un-needed 360) has yet to build the street they said they would.  I was hoping to use it to avoid the crazy street light that stops all of studemont for often no reason at all. 

 

Also, the west side of studemont has no sidewalks but only wheelchair ramps to lead you to the grass.

Additionally, the turn signal going north on studemont leads to a complete dead end.  it is perhaps the only signal U-turn in the city.

[JJxvi]

There is no "taking $6 mil"

 

They did not get $6 mil and then pocket it by not spending it.  Ainbinder must spend its own money on the front end on things the city agrees to pay for to get reimbursed.

 

This is also a $40 million development, the city is going to be getting roughly $250k-$300k per year in property taxes alone, and probably something like $2 million or more per year in city sales taxes from all businesses in the center (vast majority coming from WalMart sales.  Then you have all the anciliary benefits of job creation, etc. The city will make its money back easily very quickly, having spent $6 million on things that needed to be done.

[JJxvi]

As for the rest of the "it would have been built anyway" I pretty much agree.  But unfortunately there was a very vocal minority of folks in the area that thought it would be a good idea to frame their anti-WalMart message into an argument over aesthetics, infrastructure inadequacies, traffic pattern problems, that made getting this money from the city the politically expedient way to get a high dollar development the city wanted built to get done.

[RedScare]

wow. i hadn't heard that.

[Leonard]

Yes, I understand that it's a loan.  Just like if you go out and spend $500 on a pair of shoes and charge it to your visa, visa pays for the shoes and you reimburse them, plus interest.  You must buy the shoes before you have to reimburse visa.  If you don't buy the shoes, you don't have to reimburse visa.  However, the 380 reimburses for stuff that Walmart would have been required to do, like landscaping, sidewalks, turn lanes and connecting to water and sewer. 

 

The City projects between $753,419 and $853,154 in ad valorem, personal property and sales taxes for 2013. 

[Leonard]

J008, my understanding on Kroger's street was that they would just build/fix up the stub.  The 380 didn't allow for the entire street to be built, just to be ready.  Ridiculous. 

[samagon]

Neither store is going anywhere, but one store reached into your pockets for 6 mil to build a store that no one wanted.  And after taking 6 mil, they didn't bother to finish the sidewalks and crosswalks. 

 

I wanted it. I shop at it.

 

Yes, unfinished sidewalks and crosswalks, over 250 caliper inches of public trees mitigated to Walmart's parking lot (and it still looks barren).  Curbs already broken and in the ADA ROW. 

 

The sidewalks as they go from Orr to Ainbinder are ridiculous.  Why are we paying for a 6' sidewalk that turns into a 5' sidewalk in the middle of the block?  Why are we paying for a 6' sidewalk on one side of Yale and a 5' sidewalk on the other when an ooopsie by the City means there isn't enough room on the Orr side to plant proper street trees? 

 

They would have built the Walmart without the 380. What exactly did we get for that $6M?

 

And they did spend all the money.  $146K on the Yale Street Bridge (a 3,000 lb per axle weight limit and scheduled to be torn down).  Over $50K on "miscellaneous" project management.  Hopefully the City will require them to break it down a little more specifically than that, but don't count on it. 

 

I never went to college, so my maths might be off, but 146,000 + 50,000 = 196,000.

 

That isn't 6,000,000.

 

Can you please educate me how 146,000 + 50,000 = 6,000,000?

[Leonard]

It's not the whole list, just a couple of points I wanted to make.  If you want the whole list, ask Mayor Parker.  She'll gladly send it to you. 

[RedScare]

Wow, this is shocking news! Why are we just now hearing about this! We should have started a facebook page about this...or something!

By the way, that Kroger is STILL the best Kroger in the area. Much hotter chicks than the one on 11th.

[Leonard]

I agree it's shocking.  The Walmart, Kroger and HEB 380's should all be investigated.  Something isn't right here.