Fresh from the Twitter feed of pics-about-town provider Christopher Andrews, here’s a panoramic view of the northeast corner of Washington Ave and T.C. Jester Blvd., where construction is proceeding on the Morgan Group’s 6-story Pearl Washington apartment complex. The 322-unit property will feature this courtyard deck facing the front entry at 5424 Washington Ave, a mile west of the similarly named but differently purposed Pearl Lounge.
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The new apartment complex on a 3.1-acre site that was formerly the location of Gary Fruge Automotive and a few other business won’t include any retail (or bar) space, but the leasing office and watch-us-exercise amenity rooms on the ground floor will face onto Washington.
- More luxury apartments headed for Washington Ave. [Prime Property]
- Previously on Swamplot: Where Another Pearl Is Headed, on Washington Ave
Photo: Christopher Andrews. Renderings: The Morgan Group/Dwell Design Studio
It’s almost embarrassing to see a city allow such piss poor development that adds nothing to the community while only increasing traffic and demand on already overburdened infrastructure. Even though it’s on a prime corner at one of the busiest intersections in the area, there won’t be a grocer, a coffeeshop, or any retail to serve these hundreds of new residents, or others in the area. Unless they can find it at CVS across the street, they’ll have few choices other than to hop in their cars for nearly everything; and some people wonder why these giant complexes create so much traffic. Instead, we’ll have be “blessed” with the sight of people working out! Yay! Go Houston! (Development in Houston continues to primarily suck.)
Development in Houston will continue to “primarily suck” according to your view until such time as there are so many affluent people living so densely, and subject to the concomitant traffic congestion that goes along with that, that people want to walk places because walking is less inconvenient than driving. By that time, people like you and I probably won’t be able to afford to live there (or otherwise won’t be willing to pay the price if we can afford to) and we’ll be living somewhere else, dependent on motorized vehicular transportation because those things made sense all along. You’ll still complain, I think.
I hate to fall back on the ‘love it or leave it’ cliche, but seriously if you don’t like living somewhere then don’t live there. Live where you want to live. Live the way you want to live. (For you, I would suggest Dallas because doing what you want would likely have the unintended and undesirable effect of duplicating what Dallas has been making for itself over the last ten or fifteen years.) Let others do the same, and of those places that you think suck, simply allow nature to take its course.
Oh great….a place for all the douche bags to live…..walking distance to all the douche bag bars on Washington Ave….LOL
Jon, there is a massive complex literally right behind this one on TC Jester that hasn’t even registered an impact on street traffic in the area. It is either a) empty or b) the theory that apartment complexes generated sizable traffic volume is a myth. I’m going with the latter.
I’m going to be disappointed if Pearl Washington doesn’t have a basketball court among the amenities.
@TheNiche
Cities change and Houston is no different. To say that a certain type of development is natural to Houston is to deny all other types of development that have been and will continue to be parts of Houston. The city needs people like Jon that care about the future of Houston.
Also being able to walk somewhere isn’t just about convenience. As Jon pointed out, there is a limited number of cars that the city’s infrastructure can support. In many cases the roads area already as wide as they can get.
There is a Coco’s coffee in the development across the street from this apartment. It’s run by a lovely woman and I hope it’s very successful. There’s also the El Tiempo Market a block away which has reasonably priced fresh produce and meat. The selection is limited, but it’s fine for it’s size and is a good resource for the neighborhood. I do think traffic is going to be a nightmare once all of the apartments in the area fill up, particularly at the “choke point” to cross the bayou at memorial/shepherd.
In fairness, I believe that the nearby development at Washington and Westcott was planned to include retail in the first level, presumably a grocer. Further, there are plenty of retail shops along Washington and let’s not forget the massive development on Yale.
While I agree with most of the sentiments here, aside from comments related to Dallas (aka far south Ohio) if I’m not mistaken a Trader Joe’s is being built on the WOW circle, and having lived there for a while it’s not such a big deal to go up to Krogers on either West Gray or Studemont — far better than when I lived there.
Niche, I’m curious if you can offer any insight into why Houston and Dallas models for close-in urban (re)-development have taken off in seemingly opposite directions over the last decade. I’ve been surprised to see zero-setback developments in the Dallas “uptown” area with what seems to me quite a bit of mixed use retail/apartment/condo/office construction there. Houston has continued along a more suburban style track of construction. Is this due to a) zoning ordinances in Dallas b) Different developer, i.e. out of state, money doing the building, c) financial incentives from the city of Dallas or d) the propensity of folks in Dallas to jump on trends?
Looks like an amazing improvement vs. the prior land use. Every major city has traffic. Deal with it. Houston is the fourth largest city in country, yet we are sixteenth in average commute times.