The latest edits to the Rice Village area’s look include the installation of the above parking meters for the spaces along Morningside Dr., as captured by a reader this morning. The Rice Village District folks announced in January that the formerly free spots around shopping complex will become pay spots in February. There will still be free parking in the area, for those who watch the clock: parking in the garage between Morningside and Kelvin St. and on the rooftop lot on across Kelvin will be free for the first 2 hours.
The changes appear to fall in line with some of the suggestions made in a 2015 Kinder Institute report on the area’s parking congestion and access inefficiencies; the authors noted at the time that the shopping district always had at least 1,000 unused parking spots even at times when parking seemed hardest to find (like during the peak of the weekday lunch rush).
The to-be-metered zones are marked in light blue in the map below; those zones include the spaces around the former Village Arcade structures between Kirby Dr. and Morningside along University, as well as parts of Times and Rice boulevards and parts of Amherst St.:
“People would rather circle for hours for a spot that is 3 ft. from the door they wish to enter than to: A) pay to park B) walk.
So please keep in mind, when someone says ‘there’s nowhere to park in the village’ what they mean is:
There’s nowhere within 3 ft. of my destination to park.
Of course, everyone knows where they can park, but the last thing they want to do is walk from their car to their destination.” [
The owner of Rice Village dim sum spot Yum Yum Cha tells Eric Sandler that Rice University’s management company “can’t decide what they’re going to do” with the building it bought earlier at the corner of Times Blvd. and Kelvin St., but that demolition is possible. Yum Yum Cha was offered only a 6-month renewal on its lease. Instead, the restaurant, which has occupied the space at 2435 Times Blvd. for 10 years, 
“My great-great grandparents purchased the land mentioned in the above article when there were just a few houses on the street, and the street was not yet paved. They built this house and 3 generations of my family lived together under its roof at one time. My grandparents met working at the movie theater that used to stand in the Village Arcade. My grandfather was an usher and my grandmother was a concession girl. He used to sneak her out of her bedroom window for dates when she was 15 and he was 16, a few years before he joined the Navy to fight in WWII. My great-grandfather planted rose bushes in front of his daughter’s bedroom window to stop her from climbing out. When my grandparents were first married, they lived in the house with her parents and grandparents. My parents lived in the house after they got married, and I lived my whole life on Chaucer until I got married. My grandfather remained in the house long after his wife passed, and himself lived there until he passed away early last year. All of my best memories were set within those walls, all the family meals, holidays and birthdays.
Driving past the muddy, empty lot felt like looking at someone’s usual armchair after they’ve passed away and expecting to see them sitting there, right as rain. Seeing those beautiful bone-colored porcelain bricks trampled under tire tracks . . . It took the air out of me. I hope that by sharing this history, people will understand that sometimes, a house is more than just 4 walls and a roof; this house was more than just a location and a parcel of land. Sometimes, it is the root that anchors us to our past, to our identity, to our origin.” [
It may have taken some time to weld all those custom steel bow windows, but the Cyclone Anaya’s Mexican Kitchen on the east side of the Hanover Rice Village apartment complex between Cloud 10 Creamery and Punk’s Simple Southern Food, is at last ready for its enchilada debut. The restaurant’s official opening is scheduled for this Sunday. The first Cyclone Anaya signs were spotted at the 5214 Morningside Dr. storefront 
“If the Rice Village wants to be a retail goldmine, it should look outside its borders. My suggestion would be a linear public park that would take the residential properties between University and Dryden between the Medical Center at Travis all the way west to Greenbriar.” [
