Downtown Houston 2025 Master Plan

[Texasota]

I really think discussing the death of grocery stores is premature. Are there people who will exclusively buy groceries online to be delivered? Sure. There are also plenty of us who *like* going to grocery stores. Those of us who like to cook and prefer to pick out our own produce. Those of us who suddenly realize we're missing a specific ingredient and need to run out and get it immediately.

 

Now, I do think there will be casualties to the online revolution. I'm always amazed that Randall's is still around. But any store that has a good selection and offers somewhat of an experience (Whole Foods, HEB/Central Market, Phoenicia, 99 Ranch, etc) will be fine.

 

...they should build a 99 Ranch downtown.

[Naviguessor]

Exactly.  I cannot imagine asking someone else to pick out a perfectly ripe avocado, fresh cilantro, or prime tomatoes for me.  Same goes for all my meat and seafood purchases.  This is all important and enjoyable for me, as it is for many others.  And a Ranch Market downtown, would be AMAZING.  

[bobruss]

I agree. Grocery shopping for some is a sensory adventure. It's interactive and very important if you like to cook.

I would not trust someone to pick out my fruit or vegetables, meat, poultry or seafood. Plus its always fun to run into old friends or find something on sale that you hadn't even thought about. For mr its something I enjoy, except on Sundays at the Dunlavy HEB.

[Reefmonkey]

On 10/8/2018 at 10:20 AM, Luminare said:

 

One model that I think needs to be cornered quickly is the sorta hyper localized grocer. One that is maybe between 5,000-10,000 sqft. Not like an Aldi, but a small to medium size that still brings in a good market for the decent food brands that is perfect for those who only need to walk 5mins to grab a few groceries.

So basically to kind of fill the role bodegas play in NYC?

[Houston19514]

A timely story about a new grocery concept being developed by the Giant chain, starting in Center City Philadelphia: a 9,800 square foot store.

 

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/retail/giant-mini-grocery-store-urban-concept-philadelphia-93732?be=wdm5%40georgetown.edu&email=wdm5%40georgetown.edu&utm_source=MorningBrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20181010_houston_morningbrief

[Reefmonkey]

5 hours ago, Texasota said:

I really think discussing the death of grocery stores is premature. Are there people who will exclusively buy groceries online to be delivered? Sure. There are also plenty of us who *like* going to grocery stores. Those of us who like to cook and prefer to pick out our own produce. Those of us who suddenly realize we're missing a specific ingredient and need to run out and get it immediately.

 

Now, I do think there will be casualties to the online revolution. I'm always amazed that Randall's is still around. But any store that has a good selection and offers somewhat of an experience (Whole Foods, HEB/Central Market, Phoenicia, 99 Ranch, etc) will be fine.

 

Yep, I've tried grocery store delivery just for "convenience" a few times, through both HEB and Randall's, and have to say I'm not a fan. First of all, you have to plan ahead, then have to schedule it in to be there during their arrival window, and then half the time they are "out" of things you know they have at the store, just not in their home delivery warehouse, and even when they attempt a substitution, it's not what I would have picked, any time I've ordered something like linguine or soba noodles they come all broken up in the package, and the produce  is usually terrible looking. I think with the pasta and produce, they deliberately send to home delivery the stuff they know would be rejected by in-store customers. When I grocery shop on my own I can more spontaneously fit it into my schedule, I'm more likely to find what I need, or if I don't I can make subsitutions that are better for my intended use, I can pick out the best produce, make sure things like pasta aren't broken up, and when I'm going through the store I often remember things I need which I forgot to put on my list. Sometimes I think grocery stores haven't thought through the fact that by pushing the home delivery they are going to really cut into their revenue in the form of impulse buys from in-store customers.

 

I have several friends who claim they never go to the grocery store anymore, rely solely on home delivery. These people claim to be foodies, and like to cook. I have to bite my tongue, because to me, if you really care about food, you want a hand in picking out the best ingredients. How lazy have we become if we can't take the time to pick out and prepare the very fuel that keeps us alive and healthy, and which forms the centerpiece of much of our coming together as families and friends? Man, I've read too much Michael Pollan. It is ironic, however, that urban hipster "foodies" have gone in about 5 short years from insisting that they have to shop at farmers' markets to have a connection with their food and the people who grew it, to having minimum-wage workers pick it out for them and deliver it sight unseen.

 

Agree about Randall's. Shoot, in the 80s, Houston was the envy of many other cities for having Randall's. Sure, it was more expensive than Minimax or Gerland's, but the quality and selection were always top-notch. Then between Kroger's and HEB upping their game in the late 90s and Randall's being bought out by Safeway after Safeway had already failed in the Houston market, Randall's has just been downhill ever since. Now after running them into the ground, Safeway sold them to Albertson's, another company that couldn't hack it in the Houston grocery market, and Albertson's is already doing their best to make Randall's worse, by closing its Houston distribution centers and serving it out of DFW. As if they weren't always running out of stuff already. I almost wish Randall's would just finally fold completely, put it out of its misery.

[cspwal]

6 hours ago, Texasota said:

Those of us who suddenly realize we're missing a specific ingredient and need to run out and get it immediately.

This right here is why I want a downtown grocery store - the number of times I've lost 30 minutes going and getting butter or an egg or something is nuts.

 

When the shop at Houston House was still open, I went down there and bought 2 eggs from them to finish a recipe - it took maybe 5 minutes.

 

Long story short I want more late night stores open in downtown, especially south downtown which now has exactly 0 stores open after 4 pm

[Houston19514]

2 hours ago, cspwal said:

This right here is why I want a downtown grocery store - the number of times I've lost 30 minutes going and getting butter or an egg or something is nuts.

 

When the shop at Houston House was still open, I went down there and bought 2 eggs from them to finish a recipe - it took maybe 5 minutes.

 

Long story short I want more late night stores open in downtown, especially south downtown which now has exactly 0 stores open after 4 pm

 

Houston House is almost exactly midway between Phoenicia and Randall's and is a pretty easy walk to both (11-13 minute walks). Even in the most urban of cities, one is unlikely to find grocers or even a bodega much closer than that to every residence.  The northern end of downtown seems to be in greater need of grocers than the south end. There are and always will be inherent inconveniences to urban living.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Houston19514

[Reefmonkey]

2 hours ago, Reefmonkey said:

 

Sometimes I think grocery stores haven't thought through the fact that by pushing the home delivery they are going to really cut into their revenue in the form of impulse buys from in-store customers.

 

Heh, just 2 hours ago I said that, and then this story pops up in my browser:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/03/business/hershey-virtual-checkout-counter/index.html

[Texasota]

2 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Houston House is almost exactly midway between Phoenicia and Randall's and is a pretty easy walk to both (11-13 minute walks). Even in the most urban of cities, one is unlikely to find grocers or even a bodega much closer than that to every residence.  The northern end of downtown seems to be in greater need of grocers than the south end. There are and always will be inherent inconveniences to urban living.

 

 

 

I think a lot of the issues have to do with the Randalls' - there's both a perceived and real (lots of vacant lots, homeless people, crossing under the Pierce Elevated) barrier between Downtown and Midtown, and once you've crossed that barrier, you've arrived at ...Randall's. 

 

Not sure what "inherent inconveniences" you're talking about here. Grocery store proximity would be much worse in almost any suburban setting. That said, you would absolutely find grocery stores/ bodegas more frequently than that in the "most urban" of cities, although that would mostly be due to smaller scale stuff. If Georgia's Market had bee better (and had survived), the new CVS was more of a small market, and the little market on Main Street were improved, Downtown would be in reasonable shape I think. Oh, and if the CVS on Main Street had reasonable hours. 

[KinkaidAlum]

I'll continue to shop in stores because I am afraid of what our society will become without retail jobs. Plus, I like human interaction and I am picky with my produce.

[downtownian]

15 minutes ago, KinkaidAlum said:

I'll continue to shop in stores because I am afraid of what our society will become without retail jobs. Plus, I like human interaction and I am picky with my produce.

 

Same reason I continue to send telegraphs, travel by horse carriage and insist on having a human reset my bowling pins.

[intencity77]

I still like the idea of actually grocery shopping. I am too finicky about expiration dates, freshness and substitutions to leave it up to a store clerk to pick out. Plus, ever so often new items show up. Who knows what new items I might be interested in, that I wouldn’t know about simply because I get my groceries delivered. Maybe in the future I might reconsider, but for now we aren’t completely there yet. 

[102IAHexpress]

Produce delivery will require a certain level of trust, true. A trust that some are not ready to embrace. However, general grocery delivery does not require that

same trust factor. A box of cheerios is a box of cheerios, etc. 

[Reefmonkey]

19 hours ago, 102IAHexpress said:

Produce delivery will require a certain level of trust, true. A trust that some are not ready to embrace. However, general grocery delivery does not require that

same trust factor. A box of cheerios is a box of cheerios, etc. 

 

Except, one could say the same thing about a package of linguine or soba noodles that you're saying about a box of Cheerios, yet when I have gotten home delivery, I've gotten linguine and soba noodles that looked like someone had sat on them, all broken up.  When I go to the store to pick them out, that's not a problem. And when it's my food, I've just decided I like to minimize the chain of custody. I've never done Doordash or Uber Eats because the idea of some basically gypsy cab driver carrying my food around in his car turns me off. Generally if I'm getting takeout I'd rather go pick it up myself, but at least if the delivery driver is an employee of the restaurant there is at least some accountability for food handling and quality when it reaches you.

 

I don't know, whenever I hear people justify their reliance on home delivery for everything with "my time is just too valuable to spend it in a store (or restaurant)", I just think about the high likelihood they are spending that "valuable time" bingwatching Hulu (or posting on internet forums), and getting up, getting out, getting some fresh air and exercise and interacting with people might be a more valuable use of their time. It's like we're becoming a nation of lazy shut-ins. When I lived Downtown just as it was getting cool in the early Aughts, the whole point of living downtown was to be out, to be able to walk out my door and have everything there. I rarely spent much of my waking hours in my apartment. I would have loved to have had grocery stores to walk to.

[H-Town Man]

This interview throws some cold water on hopes that downtown is on the verge of another sprouting of residential towers. I hope Hines gets financing soon for their Block 42 tower. The Block 98 Trammell Crow tower might be too much to hope for.

 

http://realtynewsreport.com/2018/10/08/how-to-build-a-successful-high-rise-apartment-tower-in-downtown-houston-qa-with-marvy-finger/

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, H-Town Man said:

This interview throws some cold water on hopes that downtown is on the verge of another sprouting of residential towers. I hope Hines gets financing soon for their Block 42 tower. The Block 98 Trammell Crow tower might be too much to hope for.

 

http://realtynewsreport.com/2018/10/08/how-to-build-a-successful-high-rise-apartment-tower-in-downtown-houston-qa-with-marvy-finger/

 

He did sound a bit negative. On the other hand he seems to say One Park Place has been and is very successful and 500 Crawford is at 90% occupancy without giving out deep concessions.  

[j_cuevas713]

As much as I respect the man, I don't fully agree. 

[Houston19514]

And, as he said, he's working from a different set of criteria than other developers. While it doesn't sound like he'll be putting up any more towers downtown (and to be honest, if we're talking about towers, he already stopped building towers after One Park Place), he kind of suggested others won't necessarily slow down.

[H-Town Man]

22 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

He did sound a bit negative. On the other hand he seems to say One Park Place has been and is very successful and 500 Crawford is at 90% occupancy without giving out deep concessions.  

 

"500 Crawford was a struggle from the first day and continues to be a struggle, but we are at 90% occupancy."

 

I think there are at least three things to take into account in evaluating how the new residential properties have performed: (1) Occupancy, (2) Concessions given, (3) Rent. Everything we've heard about the market is that occupancy is doing well, but concessions at most properties have been steep (3-4 months). We don't know much about rent or rent growth. If 500 Crawford got to 90% without giving deep concessions, they may have sacrificed rent.

 

The other thing he mentioned that sounded gloomy was employment growth. Not a lot of domestic in-migration or growth in white collar jobs these days in Houston. This is reflected in our office vacancy rate, which depending on which source you're watching, either finally start to improve this quarter or is still getting slightly worse.

 

[UtterlyUrban]

On 10/11/2018 at 11:02 AM, KinkaidAlum said:

I'll continue to shop in stores because I am afraid of what our society will become without retail jobs. Plus, I like human interaction and I am picky with my produce.

There is significant truth in this.  And, retail is often faster (especially for clothing) and arguably better environmentally, than shipping me 8 pairs of pants from 5 stores only for me to try them on, keep one, and ship them all back for “free”.

 

 

[bobruss]

I was doing some research and came across this very informative site presented by the Houston downtown district who provides much of the direction and steering along with funding for the future of downtown. It is thorough and presents all of the projects that will make Houston even more livable.

Here is the link

 

http://www.downtowndistrict.org/static/media/uploads/attachments/plan_downtown_report_final_spreads_sm.pdf

[102IAHexpress]

Any news on what will happen to the Forever 21 in downtown? Hopefully the Forever 21 location in downtown is not affected by the recent bankruptcy filing. I assume Forever 21 will seek restructuring/concessions from all their landlords, (including the downtown location) so, hopefully both sides can come to new terms. If not, maybe another retailer or grocery store can come in to that space? The future of downtown is not good (for retail) if there is another giant vacant retail space, again. 

[Luminare]

12 hours ago, 102IAHexpress said:

Any news on what will happen to the Forever 21 in downtown? Hopefully the Forever 21 location in downtown is not affected by the recent bankruptcy filing. I assume Forever 21 will seek restructuring/concessions from all their landlords, (including the downtown location) so, hopefully both sides can come to new terms. If not, maybe another retailer or grocery store can come in to that space? The future of downtown is not good (for retail) if there is another giant vacant retail space, again. 

 

I like how we have all been excited by the growth of downtown and the growth of new uses in downtown, but all the sudden one retailer closes its doors in a retail development that has never been that successful and all the sudden there is panic like this is a harbinger of things to come. Its like that one quote from the Joke in The Dark Knight (with slight alterations for this context), "Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow [Amazon will deliver with drones and that I can get my groceries deliver via an app], nobody panics. But when I say one little old [retailer that has been under performing for years dies], everyone loses their minds!"

 

Enough with the hot takes and knee jerk reactions everyone. Everything is fine. Next door all of The Shops and Houston Center is being renovated and altered to create more retail and will probably bring in more of the retail we would actually like to see in downtown. Lets just wait and see. Its not like downtown Houston is the reason Forever 21 went bankrupt, and it wouldn't have been the reason it would have been saved.

[102IAHexpress]

5 minutes ago, Luminare said:

 

I like how we have all been excited by the growth of downtown and the growth of new uses in downtown, but all the sudden one retailer closes its doors in a retail development that has never been that successful and all the sudden there is panic like this is a harbinger of things to come. Its like that one quote from the Joke in The Dark Knight (with slight alterations for this context), "Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow [Amazon will deliver with drones and that I can get my groceries deliver via an app], nobody panics. But when I say one little old [retailer that has been under performing for years dies], everyone loses their minds!"

 

Enough with the hot takes and knee jerk reactions everyone. Everything is fine. Next door all of The Shops and Houston Center is being renovated and altered to create more retail and will probably bring in more of the retail we would actually like to see in downtown. Lets just wait and see. Its not like downtown Houston is the reason Forever 21 went bankrupt, and it wouldn't have been the reason it would have been saved.

 

Huh? Who said Forever 21 is closing its doors? Do you have a source? They filed for bankruptcy, true,  but what does that have to do with closing? Do you know how bankruptcy works? I agree, enough with the knee jerk reactions. 

[Luminare]

8 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

Huh? Who said Forever 21 is closing its doors? Do you have a source? They filed for bankruptcy, true,  but what does that have to do with closing? Do you know how bankruptcy works? I agree, enough with the knee jerk reactions. 

 

I think this has been both a clarification and communication issue. I was merely using your quote as a launching point to a more general discussion about several threads which have discussed Forever 21's bankruptcy which was to be used as a more broader discussion on how some seem to be spelling doom of retail in downtown due to this one companies incompetence. Also people seem to be overly sensitive to the topic of retail in downtown.

 

You seem to be looking to discuss Forever 21 more in-depth which is not what I was looking to do in my statement. That is something that should have been pointed out and clarified. That is on me in that instance.

 

Other than that I stand by my general statement about what I'm seeing, and my focus is on that and not on Forever 21 specifically. That help?

[HoustonMidtown]

26 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

Huh? Who said Forever 21 is closing its doors? Do you have a source? They filed for bankruptcy, true,  but what does that have to do with closing? Do you know how bankruptcy works? I agree, enough with the knee jerk reactions. 

 

They may close up to 178 stores

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/09/29/forever-21-chapter-11-bankruptcy/3816101002/

[102IAHexpress]

13 minutes ago, Luminare said:

 

I think this has been both a clarification and communication issue. I was merely using your quote as a launching point to a more general discussion about several threads which have discussed Forever 21's bankruptcy which was to be used as a more broader discussion on how some seem to be spelling doom of retail in downtown due to this one companies incompetence. Also people seem to be overly sensitive to the topic of retail in downtown.

 

You seem to be looking to discuss Forever 21 more in-depth which is not what I was looking to do in my statement. That is something that should have been pointed out and clarified. That is on me in that instance.

 

Other than that I stand by my general statement about what I'm seeing, and my focus is on that and not on Forever 21 specifically. That help?

 

Not really helpful, no.    You stated:

 

37 minutes ago, Luminare said:

 

...but all the sudden one retailer closes its doors in a retail development ...

 

Just trying to understand where -you- got that from? Not from any of other threads, that I took a quick glace at. Seems like you just made it up? So far, there is no evidence that the Forever 21 in downtown is closing. It may close in the future, indeed I hope it does not (see my post above), but in any event it seems like -you- where the one making knee jerk reactions. 

[Luminare]

Just now, 102IAHexpress said:

 

Not really helpful, no.    You stated:

 

 

Just trying to understand where -you- got that from? Not from any of other threads, that I took a quick glace at. Seems like you just made it up? So far, there is no evidence that the Forever 21 in downtown is closing. It may close in the future, indeed I hope it does not (see my post above), but in any event it seems like -you- where the one making knee jerk reactions. 

 

No the problem here is that you seem to take everything literally. If you aren't going to accept my clarification which was an attempt in good faith then I'm going to have to infer that you are making your case in bad faith, and I think its just best that we disengage. I didn't even say that it was closing today or into the future, but bankruptcy does present that threat. They will close all their stores across the Atlantic, and might not stop there, but that has left some in a tizzy over it all. Clearly though you are fixated on one word, and if you aren't even going to look at the broader scope of what I said then I don't feel like this is a conversation that we can reasonably have or make productive.

[102IAHexpress]

11 hours ago, Luminare said:

I didn't even say that it was closing today or into the future, but bankruptcy does present that threat.

 

 

You literally did. It's like I'm talking to Trump. We can all read what you posted.

 

Anyways, for those interested in -facts-, as of right now the downtown Forever 21 has been spared. Very good news for downtown. I would suggest we all try to limit our "knee jerk" reactions before facts are posted. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/10/01/forever-21-closings-list-these-178-stores-could-close/3833982002/