- Land Tejas Reveals Details for First Large Sterilized Lake in Balmoral Master Planned Community [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Rolled Ice Cream Maker I-CE NY Plans To Open 5 Houston Locations in Next 2 Years, Starting with The Woodlands Mall in June [HBJ]
- Sideout Volleybar Officially Opening June 1 Near White Oak Music Hall with Bar Attached to Sand Volleyball Courts [HBJ]
- Getting to the Bottom of What Happened to the Proposed Original Ninfa’s at Uptown Park [Culturemap]
- Old MFAH Surface Parking Lot Closes as New Underground Parking Lot Opens [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- The First Comprehensive Database of Parks in the Houston Area [The Urban Edge; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston ISD Could Be On the Hook for Another $60M in ‘Recapture Fees’ [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Needs To Do a Better Job of Marketing Itself [Bisnow]
Photo: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
I knew the MFAH would figure out a way to get money out of “free” Thursdays. They won’t get mine at least as I can just walk a few blocks and enjoy all the new viewing room they are creating for me by driving away the crowds
Yep, delightfully ironic. MFAH is creating more gallery space, while making all that space less accessible.
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Next, watch the permit-only parking zones spread through the surrounding neighborhoods…
Re: New Pay Garage for MFAH
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It is a shame that access to priceless art comes with a hefty price for parking.
I’d think a company called Land Tejas would name the development of a large natural-esque swimming hole something Texan like Balmorhea rather than after a castle in Scotland.
there’s a bigass surface lot about the same size as the one that is closing that is not much further of a walk down main on the other side of the presbyterian church. im pretty sure its free and ive never had any problems parking there as a backup when the other lot was full, but maybe i’m wrong.
@relax guys
That lot has closed to the public. It is now only church and school parking only. All but one of the entrances are closed off and there is an attendant at the only open entrance.
Wow, more whining about having to pay for parking. You know what costs a lot of money? Large underground parking garages.
MFAH built this garage so they can replace an ugly surface parking lot with a beautiful new museum building, allowing them to show more of their collection. Want to park at LACMA? It’s $14. Want to park at the Met? Good luck. Don’t want to pay $10 to park at MFAH? The light rail stop is closer than the garage.
MFAH is entitled to do whatever they want with their land, and it’s perfectly reasonable that they would want to recoup their investment in a big underground garage by charging for parking.
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I’m just saying, I’ve never been to MFAH and thought, “This is a beautiful museum, but they’re running out of space for all of this art!” In fact, it seems that the museum exhibition space is maybe 70-80% full most times I’ve been, with big section roped off. Rather, I’ve thought, “It’s pretty nifty that this world-class museum offers free parking for its patrons.” An especially nice benefit on free Thursdays, which get lots of folks into the museum who probably wouldn’t bother otherwise.
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Being the cheapskate that I am, I’ll probably drop my family off, then park for free in the nearest residential neighborhood and walk over, just like I did at LACMA.
Actually the lot north of the church was originally the MFAH parking lot while the one across the street from the museum was the church’s. They had an agreement that both could be used for either institution, but agreed to trad lots to build the new museum building along with an access agreement for the church to have free use of the underground parking on Sundays (actually a good deal for both parties). I can certainly understand why the church has now restricted the north parking lot.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the same people here were making the same comments about the parking garage at the science museum back when that opened.
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That lot is pretty much perpetually at capacity. This lot will be pretty much perpetually at capacity too.
The parks data is a dataset buried on the website, cannot be replicated easily by the casual user. The blog post itself only shows 2 images of the Sharpstown area. The headline is misleading and does not convey the actual information city-wide park accessibility as it implies.
That Houston booster article is the usual brutally tone-deaf claptrap. All the marketing in the world can’t keep people – “transplant” or otherwise – from seeing it for what it truly is.