- Facebook Page Outlines Vision for 25-Acre Amusement Park Next to Texas City’s Tanger Outlet Mall [Prime Property]
- Planned Heights Restaurant Coltivare’s 3,000 SF Vegetable Garden Delaying Variance, Causing Parking Problems [Eating Our Words]
- Hurting Galveston Businesses Await Return of Cruise Lines [MyFoxHouston]
- Squirrel Knocks Out Power to 6,100 League City Residents [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Texas Drought, Wildfires Contributing To Decline in Monarch Butterfly Populations [Houston Chronicle]
- Top 10 Parks in Houston [Art Attack]
Photo of Downtown Transit Center: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Houston Business Journal just posted that Hines is moving forward with a new 41 story building at Main and Texas. It is to be called 609 Main.
This is why I avoid White Oak like the plague. I don’t buy this whole “green space” argument thrown around by the OKRA people. Put your danged parking lot next to your danged business. Anyone who claims people are going to park across White Oak and then risk their lives running across when there is street parking on Arlington, is deluded. The purpose of the parking ordinance is to avoid the problem Coltivare is getting ready to compound. White Oak and Arlington are plenty crowded. We need safer streets more than we need another Italian restaurant.
Mel: As someone that lives right around the corner from the proposed Coltivare and regularly walks across/bikes across/drives across White Oak (I know, I know, I’m a real “risk taker”–me and the all the others that use the bike/hike trail that also crosses White Oak), I disagree 100% with you. The streets in this area are not made “safer” by parking spaces–they are made safer by attentive drivers/pedestrians and by obeying speed limits/stop signs. I’m willing to bet that whether their parking ends up being across the street or immediately adjacent to the building there will be no discernable impact on the “safety” of White Oak one way or the other.
In every other city, people seem to be able to cross streets, walk, etc. to get from one place to another. I fail to see why people think it is impossible to park across the street from a destination.
Mel: the proposed parking by the warehouse is on the same side of the street as the restuarant. I love the idea of having a garden next to the patio seating area for this restaurant. The real impetus is probably the fact that it is way cheaper to plant a garden than to dig up a sewer connection to drain a parking lot. But, whatever. And this is far enough away from the parking cluster-f down by Christians that it will not be an issue. I too avoid that section of White Oak like the plague.
I am unfamiliar with the stop signs and traffic lights which protect the bike path. Anyway, the real issue for me is that I just don’t understand asking for a variance when you don’t have in place alternative parking. From what I read, the owners proposed a hypothetical lease for use of someone else’s private property. If the parking available on the other lot satisfies the parking ordinance AND the lease becomes reality AND the certificate of occupancy is contingent upon that lease being in full force and effect, go for it. Otherwise, White Oak is going to find itself in the same situation as Washington Ave when mutliple bars claimed the same small parking area as their own for purposes of securing permits. I don’t mean to be Debbie Downer, but the whole point was supposed to be responsible urban development not any urban development, other than Walmart.
Mel: I am all for “responsible urban development”. That is exactly why I am all for this variance being granted.
Your support of the variance is because of the garden, or because of the association with Revival?
If kjb is correct, it’s the most exciting thing that’s been on here in awhile. The Houston real estate world seems dull of late.