12 Comment

• WR February 21, 2018 at 9:02 am

  Re: Texadelphia

  Good luck on trying, but that Montrose location seems to be “cursed” due to a lack of parking.
• commonsense February 21, 2018 at 11:01 am

  @WR, people constantly scream “we don’t need no stinking parking!” And yet businesses constantly fail in such walkable utopias specifically because of lack of parking.
• Pitts February 21, 2018 at 11:58 am

  @CS The argument is that the city shouldn’t be the one dictating the parking with the often bizarre parking minimum requirements. Developers and business owners know, depending on the location, that they need parking and should be smart enough to make the calculation on how many spots.
• XCellKen February 21, 2018 at 12:03 pm

  Commonsense:

  Montrose is a “Walkable Utopia” â„¢ ???

  That is as much of a myth as the “Guy in the Sky” that neither of us actually believes exists !!!
• joel February 21, 2018 at 12:22 pm

  Curse? Berryhill seemed to do well there for nearly 10years. Isn’t it still far easier to park on the south side of Westheimer than on the north side too?
• Local Planner February 21, 2018 at 1:14 pm

  I am fully in favor of removing the city’s on-site parking requirements.
  .
  That said, I am also fully aware that most businesses in Houston (like 99.9% of them) need more customers than are likely to arrive by walking, transit, and bicycle. That means they will need parking. Whether the business owner (and, if they are renting their space, the landlord) thinks that whatever on-site parking they have is sufficient for the business to make an operating profit should be left solely to them. Is it possible that the on-site parking at that strip center is insufficient for business survival? Perhaps, though in Montrose there’s generally on-street parking within a relatively nearby walk (subject to my walkability comment below). But have any of you considered other potential reasons, like low quality of the services / goods offered, too high a lease rate for the likely revenue level, poor landlord / tenant relations, etc.?
  .
  Regarding the Montrose neighborhood, it is somewhat walkable by Houston standards, but by the standards of southern and western cities like New Orleans and Los Angeles (and even parts of Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio), it’s nowhere close. If the property owners in Montrose truly valued walkability, they’d take a little better care of their sidewalks, instead of violating city ordinances by declining to maintain them (and then whining that the city doesn’t spend the money to do so).
• WR February 21, 2018 at 1:37 pm

  Yes, I will give it that it is still easier to park on the south side of Westheimer than the north, but again you can only say that Berryhill SURVIVED for 10 years. It never made any real money and left due to (gasp) lack of available parking.
• Angostura February 21, 2018 at 2:40 pm

  “Nobody goes there because the parking lot is always full!” –Yogi Berra, probably.
• Cody February 21, 2018 at 3:06 pm

  I used to go to that Berry Hill all the time. It was there forever. And damn, during the ‘sunday funday’ hayday, it was a pretty big stop on the circuit. And guess what, I walked (or took my skateboard). WIth all the high density apts coming online (+ acceptance of ride sharing like Uber), my guess is parking will become less and less a factor as time moves on.
  .
  Lack of parking isn’t why the new place failed. The new place failed because it sucked. Hell, look how long some of the other places have been there.
  .
  But let’s assume it was due to lack of parking. That doesn’t mean anything other than this business should decide to use more of it’s land for parking (or charge less rent to attract tenants who can put up with less customers due to lack of parking). It’s not even close to an example of where the government should tell a business how much parking they need. If this center wants to have one restaurant and the rest of the lot parking, that’s their decision. If they want to have all shops and no parking, cool.
• gruffbear February 21, 2018 at 4:10 pm

  re: Westpark HOV

  I was under the impression that the closure was permanent, and that the closure was happening this weekend.
• JT February 21, 2018 at 11:26 pm

  @Local Planner “If the property owners in Montrose truly valued walkability, they’d take a little better care of their sidewalks, instead of violating city ordinances by declining to maintain them (and then whining that the city doesn’t spend the money to do so).”

  If the City of Houston actually gave a damn about Montrose, then the streets here would not be the worst in the entire Inner Loop area. Why should anyone in Montrose do anything to help the city? COH has done NOTHING to foster a better environment here despite it being a prime destination zone for museums, nightlife, restaurants and cultural activies. Couple that with the never ending rebuilding which pours more tax dollars into the coffers which we never see returned to the area. Although my sidewalk is perfectly fine, I can assure you I would let it decay like every virtual undriveable street in my neighborhood while whining that I don’t have the money to maintain it just as COH continually whines about lack of funds.

  So many sidealks are unwalkable because tree roots have upended the pavement. I guess we should cut the trees down but, oh no, we can’t because COH would have a hissy fit.
• Jonathan February 22, 2018 at 2:11 pm

  Ugh, those hideous buses down the middle of Post Oak. It should have been light rail but the East end where few work and live, gets the rail. Houston is ridiculous. Still the Main St Line was the only one that made any sense and one up Richmond and Post Oak that never happened. How can you have no rail going West? It’s insane, but oh so Houston.