- New Uptown Houston PAC Forms To Battle Construction Along Post Oak Blvd., Including AmREIT’s 50-Story Tower and Dedicated Bus Lanes [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- CHI St. Luke’s Health To Break Ground on Springwoods Village Medical Campus June 11 [Houston Business Journal]
- Alliance Residential Buys City Parks Apartment Complex at 1640 East T.C. Jester Blvd. [Prime Property]
- West Memorial and Briar Forest, Tomball, Woodlands Experiencing Boom in Apartment Construction [Houston Business Journal]
- Houston’s 34-Month Streak of Increasing Home Sales Ended in April, a Result of Low Housing Inventory [Tom Plant’s Houston Real Estate Blog]
- How To Spot a Real Estate Bubble [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- LA Restaurateur Opening Springbok at 711 Main St. Downtown Next Month [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Here’s a Solution to the Metro Overpass Plan: Freeze the End of the East End Line Where It Is [Houston Strategies; previously on Swamplot]
- Liberty Station’s Origins as a Gas Station Designed by John F. Staub [OffCite]
- In Houston, the World’s Most Car-Dependent Large City, People Are Much Less Trusting of Others Than in Copenhagen, Europe’s ‘Green Capital,’ Kinder Institute Study Finds [Rice News]
- Stages, Booths Going Up Along Allen Parkway Near Downtown for This Weekend’s Free Press Summer Festival [abc13]
Photo of mural at 2800 San Jacinto: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Anything AmReit can do to cover up the Cosmopolitan would be a welcome improvement to Uptown. Maybe they could buy out all of the owners and implode it. In the 80’s people built condo towers with open land around them to preserve views. Look at Four Leaf Towers or Bayou Bend Towers. Whoever developed the Cosmopolitan couldn’t be bothered to do that.
So, if I’m reading the article correctly, The Uptown Houston PAC doesn’t like more development coming to the Post Oak Blvd. corridor, worrying about increased traffic causing “safety concerns”, yet also opposes adding BRT lanes that could potentially mitigate those effects by making it easier to get around the area without a car. Post Oak isn’t residential, it’s been a commercial corridor for more than 30 years. This should not have come as a surprise to someone who purchases a condo in the immediate area.
A report on a study that finds a huge difference in trust of other between Houston and Copenhagen that stresses the difference in automobile usage (strongly implying a cause-effect relationship), but fails to make any mention of the difference in diversity, both economic and ethnic, between the two cities is either naive or dishonest.
Freezing the East End line where it’s already at? Really? Does this incompetent author not realize the tracks have already been constructed on BOTH sides of the future overpass? The money saved not building the overpass would have been wasted on several blocks of unusable tracks already built!! At least set foot in the area before you go off writing useless blog entries about it.
Implying causality with cars and trust in Houston and Copenhagen is asinine. It’s like trying to say If all the animals along the equator were capable of flattery, then Thanksgiving and Halloween… would fall… on the same day.
Eddie,
Just to repost what I posted over at that “incompetent’s” blog.
“Everyone falls for the sunk cost fallacy, but politicians and bureaucrats fall for it the hardest. Could you really imagine them admitting their incompetence in such a manner, after already spending 10s of millions on the end of the line?”
That last stop probably was not worth the few 10s of millions of street track it would take to get to it. Just because you already spent some 10s of millions to get to the last station does not all of a sudden make it worth 100 million to connect it.
They should stop the East Line where it is, as suggested by the “incompetent” post. They could then place a few of those old railroad hand-carts on the other end of the line. That would be of minimal expense for Metro and folks can still get around using what has already been paid for.
Problem Solved …. Next
@ Eddie
I don’t usually agree with Mr. Gattis over at ‘Strategies’ but the dude’s not incompetent. So hold your horses man and stop throwing bombs.
I do happen to agree with the principle he’s raising. Are METRO’s resources better spent elsewhere for LRT than to get two more stops on the east end line? What would be the cost to move the TC west of the tracks? The fact that this point wasn’t even thought of by Metro is very telling. The haste of the decision is worrisome considering METRO’s huge error in the first place. And just b/c there’s track there doesn’t mean you HAVE to throw another 100 odd million at it.
Metro should think about running a mini-train along the unconnected portion of the East End Line.. Inconvenient for the few riders that might board it? Definitely, but a lot less expensive than building the $100M overpass that no one wants and one Metro can’t afford.
If opposing growth due to traffic congestion is the reason for this Uptown PAC, then not opposing the BHP tower and opposing the BRT project makes zero sense. Of course, opposing development because of traffic – especially in an already-intense mixed-use area like Uptown – never makes sense and should not be indulged in public policy.
I wonder if the opposition to AmREIT’s tower is because they want a reduced setback form the r.o.w. Some folks seem to have a reflexive negative reaction to that.
Never mind about the reduced setback comment, I misread the article. Nevertheless, views aren’t protected (nor should they be). And aren’t close towers normal in an urban center? Why should they all be “towers in a park” (for those who are familiar with Le Corbu).
This Uptown PAC is laughable. When you move to a condo on Post Oak, you KNOW it’s going to be congested or else you’re a world class moron. I agree, it seems absurd to be ok with a huge office building and oppose a condo tower when both are on top of their neighbors. This guy explaining the PAC was embarrassing inept, he made no logical sense, it’s hard to believe he could get many people to support this absurd PAC and the one’s that do, you really have to question their actual motive because on its face this PAC seems obtuse beyond belief.
Well send in the clowns! This new Uptown PAC is obviously the stop-Ashby’s fancy lunatic uptown cousin looking to protest progress, get their names in the paper and maybe get on tv…weeeee!!! Please someone show these farts out of town.
This is not Mayberry or SmallTown USA…Houston is the 4th largest city in America and soon to be 3rd. It’s growing dynamically by leaps and bounds. If it’s too much for you MOVE/LEAVE!!!…to the country, out of state where ever, to the moon…just get the hell out of the way of progress and quit wasting our time and yours. The Uptown Houston PAC?! Who started this crap…talk about a fools errand.