It was introduced in April as the Arábella, but all you Randall Davis fans who’ve been trying hard since then to affect the correct pronunciation can relax your eyebrows. A reader sends in this closeup of the sign up on San Felipe, next to the driveway for the neighboring Target, advertising the 34-story condo tower the foreign-language-reference aficionado is planning to plant right in front of the just-about-complete SkyHouse River Oaks and across from Ashley Furniture on San Felipe, just inside the Loop. And behold! The accent is gone. Or rather, painted over, the reader reports.
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Alas, the transformation of the Arábella into the Arabella is not complete. The development’s website is still fully accented. This recent video advertising the development, however, appears to be diacritic-free:
- Previously on Swamplot: Meet Arábella, the Wispy 34-Story Tower Randall Davis Has in Mind for San Felipe and Westcreek; A Randall Davis-Flavored Highrise for the East Side of the West Loop
Photo of sign: Txcon
Are you sure Arab Hella is good name these days? What’s next Bin Laden Resort & Casino? Al Qaida Suites? ISIS Spa & Convention Center?
it’s better without the accent…let the people decide whether it’s air-a-bella on san fill-i-pee, aurah-bila on san fay-lee-pay or what.
I’m glad they de-dbag’d the name. Was grossly pretentious (IMO)
Everything RD does just seems…so 90’s.
Still chuckling at how people doing a project of that size and scale, with that kind of money, and who do this type of thing for a living, could pick a name whose pronunciation is questionable and hard to roll off the tongue. Makes the suburban simpletons in Cinco Ranch, Whispering Lakes, Firethorne and other stupidly-named developments look smarter than these inner-city cool kids.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overpriced. Today’s “luxury” is tomorrow’s ghettoplex.