So what’s new?
- Opening: There’s a big new Gallery Furniture taking over the old Pier One space in the Post Oak Shopping Center, across from the Galleria. Isiah Carey notes that there’s a (much smaller) “coming soon” sign out front. Also coming to the strip from Mattress Mack: a new and more upscale Kreiss Furniture store, where Pier One Kids used to be.
- Closed: Paulie’s restaurant reports receiving an undisclosed “offer we couldn’t refuse” to close its Holcombe at Kirby location, and dutifully complied on Monday. The original Paulie’s, on Westheimer at Driscoll, will remain open.
- Hoping to Spread: And Katharine Shilcutt reports that Otilia’s Mexican restaurant, the longtime Long Point standout, now “a bastion of the upper class yuppies who reside quietly in the nearby Memorial Villages and wash down their rice and beans with bottles of Merlot,” isn’t closing, despite rumors she had heard. But:
it turns out instead that Otilia’s is actively seeking to franchise their restaurant. A bright sign by the register blinked this advertisement every five seconds as we ate, while the waitresses sullenly confirmed this fact.
Then there’s that Main St. mulch . . .
***
While other neighborhoods complain about the huge piles of mulch left over from the Hurricane Ike show, the Lawndale Art Center has cleaned up its much smaller installation. Artist Emily Sloan’s To Whom It May Concern, originally spread over the parking lot adjacent to Lawndale on the 4900 block of Main St., was “intended to blow away/disperse/broadcast out over time as public notices and messages do.”
But the choreographed mulch piles, which spelled out “To whom it may concern” several times over, didn’t seem too interested in much of that blowing, dispersing, or broadcasting, and stuck around pretty much intact from its November installation until earlier this month, when Lawndale went ahead and put the artist’s materials to more conventional use around the property:
Sloan only discovered her impersonal mulch note had finally been erased when she came back to photograph it. But she had never intended it to last forever. And there’s still a little something left to show for it:
- Gallery Furniture Is About To Go Upscale! [InSite]
- Second Gallery Furniture location rolls out red carpet in urban center [Houston Business Journal]
- Paulie’s shutters Holcombe restaurant [Houston Business Journal]
- Paulie’s Restaurant Cuts Operation in Half [Cleverley’s Blog]
- About Paulie’s [Paulie’s]
- Adios Otilia’s? Not So Fast. [Eating Our Words]
- Otilia’s 100% Mexican Food
- The Temporary Artwork That Was More Temporary Than Expected [Hair Balls]
- Emily Sloan: To Whom It May Concern [Houston Press]
- To Whom It May Concern… [Emily Sloan]
- linger longer [Lawndale Art Center]
- Attack of the Mulch Mountains [Swamplot]
Photos: Isiah Carey (Gallery Furniture); Shane M. Maberry and Emily Sloan (To Whom It May Concern and mulch); Lawndale Art Center (“it”)
I guess Mattress Mack realized there are a chunk of customers who just won’t exit between Parker and Tidwell off I-45 for furniture.
At least the space isn’t going to waste, but I still wish a commercial developer would realized plans for different style development at that shopping center. Something more keeping with the urban center that Uptown is trying to become.
Post Oak Shopping Center is doing just fine, thank you!
Got to agree with kjb on this one. Post Oak shopping center is just a strip mall with columns. Anything that could help promote easier flow of pedestrian traffic around there would be a godsend. Have you ever tried to walk from the Galleria over to the Container Store, its like taking your life in your hands.
Jimbo, you made it clear. It would be of benefit to the Post Oak Shopping Center to have it more pedestrian friendly. One of its great pluses though is the volume of unobstructed parking.
EMME-
You seem to think that either (1) the ocean of parking is somehow helpful, if so, welcome to 1955; or (2) parking and pedestrian-oriented developement are incongruent. One can have both.
Actually Scott, I pedestrian friendly. I would actually like to see large pedestrian only areas. However, I have a personal dislike for parking garages. Call it a phobia. I don’t like getting held hostage in a garage that has too many cars trying to get out at once and all the exhaust that comes from that. I much prefer open air parking with multiple exits. But since this discussion began, I have begun envisioning “greening” that parking lot. There is a family connection for me to this center, so I have sentimental attachments as well.
i love the idea of pedestrian friendly developments and neighborhoods. i’ve been to chicago, portland, new york, paris, and seattle and enjoyed their urban walkability. the pearl district in portland is amazing.
however, as a small business owner in retail centers i would not open a business on main street houston, midtown houston, west ave, or blvd place because of the restricted parking for customers. the majority of houstonians love a sea of parking and dislike parking garages. post oak shopping center is the best retail location and retail center in houston, period. all you wannabe urban planners and dreamers can take my word for it or sit back and watch the downtown pavillions fail as their tenants go out of business and default on leases. it just does not work in this town. so emme keep your center just the way it is and if you can squeeze in a few more parking spots for your new tenants and customers, do it.
dream