- Wheatley High School Demolition To Proceed This Week After Judge Dismisses Suit [Houston Chronicle]
- American Liberty Hospitality Breaks Ground on Combo Hampton Inn–Homewood Suites Downtown, Will Build Another Hotel on Adjacent Property [Prime Property]
- New 19K SF Warehouse Space Going Up at Hwy. 105 and Loop 330 in Conroe [Houston Business Journal]
- Torchy’s Tacos Opening Sixth Houston Location, in Sugar Land, Within 6 Months; More To Follow in Galleria, The Woodlands, Memorial City, Baybrook [Houston Business Journal]
- Paul’s Kitchen Opening September 29 in Former Haven Space at 2502 Algerian Way [Food Chronicles]
- Otilia’s Mexican Restaurant on Long Point Has Closed [Food Chronicles]
- Vietnamese Food Truck Les Ba’Get Signs Lease for Space at Former Interfaith Ministries Bldg. at Montrose and Westheimer [Culturemap]
- Swede Farm Dairy in Waller Raising Money Online To Avoid Shutdown [Eating Our Words]
- Houston-Area Hog Activity ’70 Times Worse’ Right Now, Says Animal and Pest Control Expert [Click2Houston]
- Slideshow: The Cranes of Houston [The Texican]
- A Family Compound of 6 Homes and a Rec Center on 18 Acres in Clear Lake [Houston Chronicle]
- City Data from Crime Stats to Hurricane Risk Areas To Become Public at New Houston Data Portal [Houston Chronicle]
- Scenes from the Nearly Vacant Northwest Mall [Houston Press]
Photo of North Blvd.: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Northwest Mall is overdue for the wrecking ball. Fairfield and Katy Mills killed it. Overall brick and mortar retail centers are fading, discount big box super centers are the exception. Office or a multifamily complex would do well there.
You know where could use a big 3+ star hotel? The corner of Montrose & Westheimer where that old half-vacant strip center sits. That property is already for sale. It’d be lovely to get a big building there right out to the sidewalk with a restaurant in the lobby. I know Montrose isn’t exactly a business district, but it’s basically the city’s top entertainment district, so surely it can support at least one big hotel. It’s also close to several business areas, and a lot of travelers rent cars anyway.
I don’t know what kind of Mormon or Gypsy orgies the family compound guy is into, but financially speaking it’s an abysmally terrible idea..
1. You’re building expensive homes in an area which does not support it which means half the money you’re spending is gone out the window overnight.
2. If one or two of the homes need to be sold individually it would be next to impossible, you have to subdivide the property in a recordable fashion with recorded right of ways to each lot. Plus don’t forget the whole weird vibe of living in someone else’s compound.
3. He’s robbing his children of OPTIONS. A home, especially an expensive one, is a tool that can be used to sell or leverage and start a business or to quickly recover and start over in case of bankruptcy (home can’t be taken).
4. I’m sure all the wives and inlaws are just thrilled about this, no conflict at all I foresee, everyone will forever sit around a campfire signing kumbaya :).
I always thought it’d be cool to do something similar to what the guy is doing on his compound.
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It wouldn’t be for my family. I’d team up with other architects to buy land and build a subdivision for ourselves. It’d be a small subdivision – only six or eight houses, but the lots would be pretty big: maybe half an acre or so. We wouldn’t have traditional architectural controls. Instead, we’d look over each other’s shoulders and critique each other in a crit process. I figure if we’re all architects and the houses are for our families we could have something really awesome. Nationally published even….
another torchy’s? awful service, awful wait, and meh tacos. i guess they keep building new taco bells around town as well, so i shouldn’t be surprised.
@htownproud If your problem is the wait go sit at the bar, you can skip the line. If your problem is the tacos, well…I can’t help you!
@Christian: Traffic at that intersection is horrendous now. A hotel or multi-story apartment building would make matters worse.
torchy’s tacos are an overpriced jumble of meh as the above poster noted.
Torchy’s is just awful. Not just the offensive price for tacos, but the quality isn’t even that great. They cram so much stuff in them yet the taste is bland for a majority of the offerings.
Go to Chilosos instead.
As far as Torchy’s goes, tacos are way too contrived and overcomplicated with an underwhelming culinary result. And the staff just looks filthy like they slept in an alley behind a tattoo parlor every night. Seriously, where did they find so many hipsters to work there and why didn’t they make them take a mandatory shower?
Interesting that the people dogging out Torchys have intimate knowledge of the staff’s grooming habits and culinary offerings – ie, maybe they’re spending more time there than they care to admit to.
Torchy’s=Expensive tacos for white people
Went to Torchy’s on Shepherd a month or so after they opened and once was enough. Commonsense nailed it.
Everything about the place was dirty and the taco was mediocre. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to spot dirt.
Re: Torchy’s
As a general rule, any cool, local restaurant with more than 3 locations has gone “chain.” My favorite is when these chains then expand into the burbs 5-10 years after initially becoming popular. Then, at Christmas, I get to hear even more of my distant relatives exclaim, “I just LOVE living in Katy! You don’t have to go into Houston for ANYTHING!”
People who eat at Torchy’s remind me of Jim Jones cultists.
ZAW, most architect’s homes are very specify to their tastes, thus often they are hard to sell. Though your idea would be interesting I’d certainly attend an open house;)
I don’t get Torchy’s, either. I’ve tried 4 of their tacos and they were all bland. Houston is full of great tacos. Why is Torchy’s so popular here?
@artfox: Good. The worse the traffic gets, the more pedestrian traffic there will be, and the more people will demand that the university line gets built.
@lhd & others: It seems to me like this should be obvious from some basic real world observation but taste, preference, etc vary from person to person not only on food but just about any topic. If you don’t get anything then move on to whatever it is that you do get. I personally like Torchy’s but I don’t consider it to be the same cuisine as other tacos. I don’t even consider Tex Mex tacos to be the same as Cali Mex tacos or tacos form various regions within Mexico. One can certainly appreciate more than one type of cuisine.
Even if I didn’t like Torchy’s life is too short to rant about every possible thing that I dislike in life. People can like things that differ from you for various reasons with being in a cult. If your perspective on the world is so oversimplified that you just dismiss other preferences as cultish then other people and cults aren’t the problem.