Will the Medical Center ever become more urban/residential?

[Yellow pool of piddle]

Originally Posted by bu2

Actually the answer is yes. People in West U., Southgate and Southampton do all the time.

If you consider density as sufficient qualification for the designation of urban, then I agree with you. I don't consider density to be urban, but retail is a prerequisite of it. It is the most difficult anchor ti establish and has never been a primary focus of Houston.

The demolishing of an original art deco structure within the River Oaks shopping center is proof of this. Further proof of this in more modern times is the recent demolishing of the Macy's department store in downtown Houston. Also the conversion of the pretty shopping center Palm Center into a community center is horrendous.

What is great retail? You can't know until you start asking. In Houston, great retail is accepted as strip centers built around anchors of tall office buildings. This is backwards.

[curbur]

Originally Posted by Yellow pool of piddle

I do like the Montrose area. However, the inner urban retail within Loop 610 got hurt by all those malls built out in the suburbs. In central Houston, if it is necessary to drive to go shopping, it doesn't matter how walkable an area is.

I believe you may have been right if this were 1994, however, a lot of the retail going up near downtown, the galleria, or even the medical center are relatively higher end and would rarely be found in a suburban shopping mall anywhere. They primarily have different clientele at this point, and thus suburban malls really don't have much of a negative factor against the Galleria area at all. Perhaps one could argue developments like City Centre may slightly pull some away that would have otherwise gone to Uptown, but again, for the most part they are serving two different types of clientele.

As an aside, I'd like to see this list where Montrose is in the top 10 most walkable US neighborhoods; walkable compared to a lot of Texas then of course, but compared to the US as a whole, then no way.

Originally Posted by Yellow pool of piddle

If you consider density as sufficient qualification for the designation of urban, then I agree with you. I don't consider density to be urban, but retail is a prerequisite of it. It is the most difficult anchor ti establish and has never been a primary focus of Houston.

The demolishing of an original art deco structure within the River Oaks shopping center is proof of this. Further proof of this in more modern times is the recent demolishing of the Macy's department store in downtown Houston. Also the conversion of the pretty shopping center Palm Center into a community center is horrendous.

What is great retail? You can't know until you start asking. In Houston, great retail is accepted as strip centers built around anchors of tall office buildings. This is backwards.

Your proof of your claim that Houston doesn't focus on retail is a 60+ year old dilapidated department store in downtown that was brought down to be redeveloped and an old worn down, suburban-style shopping center near one of the lowest income areas of town? Alright then.