- Houston Construction Starts Down 40% Year-Over-Year in November to $766.7M, Finds Dodge Data & Analytics [Houston Public Media]
- The Case for Natural Drainage Systems in Houston-Area Land Development Projects [Realty News Report]
- Gateway Southwest Industrial Park in Missouri City Signs First Tenant [HBJ]
- HISD Opens $72M New Campus for Aviation Magnet High School Sterling with Airplane Hangar [HBJ]
- Construction To Start This Month on Roka Akor Steak, Seafood & Sushi in First-Floor Retail Space in 2929 Weslayan [HBJ]
- Chobani Café Opening First Houston-Area Location in The Woodlands, Per Craigslist Job Post [Eater Houston]
- CityCentre in West Houston Getting New Restaurant, Boutique and Showroom [HBJ]
- League City Mixed-Use Development Pinnacle Park Adds Ohio-Based PizzaFire [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Macy’s To Close Greenspoint, West Oaks Mall, and Pasadena Town Square Stores This Year [abc13]
- The Real Story Behind the Closing of Foreign Correspondents [Houston Press]
- How Houston Is Coping with Population Growth and Demographic Changes [BBC via Houston Chronicle]
- Orkin Names Houston Among the Most Bed Bug-Infested Cities in the Country [Houston Chronicle]
- How a Fresh Look at Street Design Could Help Prevent Pedestrian Deaths in Houston [Houston Public Media]
- Finding History in Bellaire’s Evelyn’s Park [Offcite Blog]
- 5 Graphs That Describe Houston in 2016 [The Urban Edge]
- The Restaurant Industry Bubble Is About To Burst [Thrillist]
Photo: o texano via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Re design to lower pedestrian deaths: perhaps higher or more impassable walls along the freeways? There was another one today:
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Pedestrian-hit-killed-on-Gulf-Freeway-in-SE-10836755.php
Foreign Correspondents link is by far the most interesting. A shining star in the Houston landscape only to be marred by the greed of seemingly one of its partners… Sad day for Houston’s culture.
Re: Design to lower pedestrian deaths
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Google: While no one should lose their life walking, that article says that the man was killed while CROSSING the freeway.
The Treadsack article on HP is a good read. Sounds like all isn’t hunky dory.
When I read the headline about Macy’s, somehow I knew the 3 selected locations were not going to be the Galleria, Memorial City, or the Woodlands Mall. Now that would have been surprising!
@Walker: Sorry I wasn’t clear. I meant higher walls to keep the pedestrians off the danged freeway, not the other way around! Or maybe we just let natural selection continue to work. Reminds me, a couple of the ped deaths last year were people stepping in front of the Metro rail. Again, completely preventable already.
I was just surpised there’s still a Macy’s at stinkadena and greenspoint. Wonder if the Sears over there is being closed with today’s announcement as well. They’ll all be gone soon enough though.
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Treadsack article sounds more like rampant mismanagement / inexperience than greed to me.
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That BBC doc was very disappointing and superficial. Hope they collected a lot more stuff for more in depth articles later on.
It’s one thing when a pedestrian gets hit on a crosswalk or cyclist in a dedicated bike lane or shared road….. but who in their right mind tries to cross a Houston freeway in the middle of the night?
Toby, you’d be surprised. I remember when Betlway 8 was completed, connecting I10 and US59 at the time. Then there was that huge French store called Auchan near Beechnut. That area of town had a lot of apartments across from Auchan on the other side of Beltway 8. That area also went downhill in the 90s.
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Those people who lived in the apartments were always in such a hurry, they would rather hop over the concrete dividers, and then dash to middle, hop again, and dash to the other side. I don’t think there was ever a month that deaths were not reported. But just the experience of seeing someone dart in front of you was enough to scare you into calling it in and complaining.
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Thus, that is why you see fencing on that stretch of the Beltway 8, and not on most of the Beltway. Some people are just that stupid.
@joel
I can’t find the link, but no Sears in Houston are closing (at least this round). I recall once IIRC that Garden Oaks and Main Street, at least, were among the high-performing Sears.
Re: The Gulf Freeway pedestrian death last night: I heard it reported on the tv news this morning that it was a guy who stopped his truck to pick up some road debris and was consequently hit, rather than some guy just randomly crossing the freeway. It’s always dangerous to leave your car, even if pulled over to the side. Drunks will always see you and inadvertently aim their car straight toward you, since they drive in the direction they are looking.
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Re:Treadsack. Hmmm, the other week on this forum when the article about Foreign Correspondents closing appeared, I said then that I felt they did not have adequate working capital. Turns out I was partially correct. Looks like a lack of working capital exacerbated by the owners’ taking out too much cash from the business to give to their relatives. I started noticing last Fall on visits to Downhouse that they would randomly be out of wines or ingredients listed on the menu. I suppose when you bounce checks to your vendors you don’t get your shipments on time. Maybe the partners should head over to a third world country and see how the pros there siphon off cash.
Another day, another highway pedestrian death. This morning’s was on TX 146 (is it SH 99 there yet?) on the Fred Hartman Bridge.
Another highway pedestrian fatality Saturday night / Sunday morning. If you count that as Saturday, that’s three in three days.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/driver-hit-killed-after-running-across-freeway