WHAT TIME THE EXPLOSIONS DOWNTOWN WILL WAKE YOU UP A rep from Metro confirms that the booms of the controlled demolition of the former Foley’s at 1110 Main St. will begin booming between 7:10 and 7:20 this Sunday, September 22. (That’s 10 minutes past sunrise, for all you morning people.) And if you’ll be driving Downtown to find parking and get yourself in implosion position, note that the street closures that Swamplot reported yesterday will begin at 6 a.m. [Metro; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Foley’s: Jim Parsons
Mayor Parkers uninspired Dallas St. shopping corridor will be a big flop. No one goes downtown to shop. It is NOT a retail destination.
Houston proud
So excited about the downtown momentum!
If you wait for density to add all of the trappings for density, you’ll find yourself in a quagmire when/if it occurs. No, we will never be hole to bow like NY or Chicago, but even at current densification levels, a retail district wouldn’t flop, and that’s assuming density stays flat. Which it obviously isn’t.
Heard the rumbling as I was putting groceries into my car at the Montrose Kroger.
If anyone has paid attention for the last 40 years, the only retail that has ever been successfil downtown, is the tunnel system, one level…below…street level and the dysfunctional Houston Center mall, which is one level…above…street level. Nothing else has or will work because most normal people don’t want to mingle or share the same … on the street… environment with mentally ill homeless vagrants, thugs, street/metro rail loiterers, recovering drug and alcohol addicts or food pantry recipients. Of couse we should have social service programs for the homeless and needy but they must be relocated outside of downtown and midtown, not focused in these areas where Anise and her consituents think retail should be built. Can you imagine the Galleria with homeless people walking the mall or sitting in front of a store with their shopping cart or sleeping bag or thugs and gang members loitering outside Macy’s. How about a food pantry for the homeless in the Galleria III, city council? How long would the Galleria last if all those street people from downtown congregated in the mall? It would close down overnight. Why is downtown any different?
I feel like a downtown retail district would be best served by book ending it with a park on the site of the imploded Macy’s.
Maybe add tunnel access via that park so the shopping options would seem greater? That might entice a greater # of shoppers.