East Downtown (EaDo) Promenade & Houston Dynamo Stadium (West: hotel, school)

[AmberAzeneth]

Hey guys, do you really think the soccer stadium is going to be so hugely successful that it does spur all of this new found interest and development in the eastern downtown area? I am just curious. Dannyy, the pictures are awesome!!!

[TheEconomist]

Originally Posted by amberazeneth

Hey guys, do you really think the soccer stadium is going to be so hugely successful that it does spur all of this new found interest and development in the eastern downtown area? I am just curious. Dannyy, the pictures are awesome!!!

It will likely be a very nice soccer stadium. However, it won't spur the development being envisioned. The drawings are nice, but they are drawings, not reality. The drawing of the Japanese Garden was incredible but it is clearly located somewhere other than Houston.

The problem with revitalizing these areas and turning them into in town communities is the same problem keeping condos and townhomes empty all over town. Anywhere you go in-town is saddled with having to pay for a failing school district. So, only childless people or people who can afford expensive private schools will consider these areas. Young people and empty nesters alone can't prop up a neighborhood. To be successful, a neighborhood needs families, but a middle class family will not send their children to a failing inner city school and their money to pay for a private school is taken in school taxes to the failing schools.

It is very unlikely these areas will take off as envisioned due to these fundamental structural problems.

[modster]

Originally Posted by TheEconomist

It will likely be a very nice soccer stadium. However, it won't spur the development being envisioned. The drawings are nice, but they are drawings, not reality. The drawing of the Japanese Garden was incredible but it is clearly located somewhere other than Houston.

The problem with revitalizing these areas and turning them into in town communities is the same problem keeping condos and townhomes empty all over town. Anywhere you go in-town is saddled with having to pay for a failing school district. So, only childless people or people who can afford expensive private schools will consider these areas. Young people and empty nesters alone can't prop up a neighborhood. To be successful, a neighborhood needs families, but a middle class family will not send their children to a failing inner city school and their money to pay for a private school is taken in school taxes to the failing schools.

It is very unlikely these areas will take off as envisioned due to these fundamental structural problems.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. The world rotating around good public schools is a suburban mindset and there is nothing at all wrong with that, but the whole world doesn't rotate around that. Montrose, Heights, Rice-military, Garden Oaks, Midtown and others all have bad schools at some levels, and most had them at all levels when their gentrification began, because remember all of those areas were run down at one time. There are plenty of people who don't have school age children and plenty that do that would never dream of putting them in public school. I am not saying that is better or worse, it just.... is what it is.

There is too broad a spectrum of people, even just within the middle class, to rule out the gentrification of an area like that just because of poor public schools.

[SouthernBoy205]

TheEconomist, you never know. More than likely, this new stadium will spur off some new development. The design itself foreshadows a great future for the area.

[TheEconomist]

Originally Posted by modster

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. The world rotating around good public schools is a suburban mindset and there is nothing at all wrong with that, but the whole world doesn't rotate around that. Montrose, Heights, Rice-military, Garden Oaks, Midtown and others all have bad schools at some levels, and most had them at all levels when their gentrification began, because remember all of those areas were run down at one time. There are plenty of people who don't have school age children and plenty that do that would never dream of putting them in public school. I am not saying that is better or worse, it just.... is what it is.

There is too broad a spectrum of people, even just within the middle class, to rule out the gentrification of an area like that.

But, we still don't have our existing in-town areas filled out. Take Washington Corridor / Rice Military for example. There are still numerous areas that are run down and not very nice looking. Now, we will be creating government subsidized competition to those areas. Besides the fairness issues inherent in that, it doesn't bode well for one area if the other areas are not maxed out developmentally.

As a more closely analagous example, look at the football stadium and astrodome area. We have put in billions of dollars of investments in that area and we haven't seen a revitilization of the area. We have nice athletic facilities, certainly, but that won't lead to an economic turn-around. It is structural issues that will create a good area. Right now, the in-town areas are saddled with high taxes and failing services that drain resources away from things like private schools.

When you have areas that are not practical for a large block of homebuyers, then there will be problems. Two groups (young people and empty nesters) can't bring an area around on their own.

[TheEconomist]

Originally Posted by A&M Bulldawg

TheEconomist, you never know. More than likely, this new stadium will spur off some new development. The design itself foreshadows a great future for the area.

There will certainly be new economic activity and some will use the subsidies to do very well for themselves.

[SouthernBoy205]

Ok, so more than likely, those projects will get built.

[AmberAzeneth]

I am glad to see some good debating here. I am not quite sure though that the soccer stadium can accomplish this but I hope it does.

[modster]

Originally Posted by TheEconomist

But, we still don't have our existing in-town areas filled out. Take Washington Corridor / Rice Military for example. There are still numerous areas that are run down and not very nice looking. Now, we will be creating government subsidized competition to those areas. Besides the fairness issues inherent in that, it doesn't bode well for one area if the other areas are not maxed out developmentally.

As a more closely analagous example, look at the football stadium and astrodome area. We have put in billions of dollars of investments in that area and we haven't seen a revitilization of the area. We have nice athletic facilities, certainly, but that won't lead to an economic turn-around. It is structural issues that will create a good area. Right now, the in-town areas are saddled with high taxes and failing services that drain resources away from things like private schools.

When you have areas that are not practical for a large block of homebuyers, then there will be problems. Two groups (young people and empty nesters) can't bring an area around on their own.

I agree with you that the stadium on its own won't be some grand cure or even necessarily be a lead component in a turn around. It will simply add something to a gentrification cycle already in place. Albeit one that has stalled somewhat due to the economy.

As for areas being maxed out developmentally, I agree with the concept that it isn't good to leave one unfinished and move on, but have you looked around Houston? New development here has never flowed incremently, but instead by "leapfrogging" further and further out leaving undeveloped swaths in between. Gentrification or redevelopment doesn't follow a much more orderly pattern either. Maxing out an area before moving on to the next, be it new development or redevelopment, is not something that has ever really been a Houston way of doing things. I am by no means defending that, it just is how things have been done.

When the housing market picks back up and building resumes, a lot of the builders will be moving out of the Washington Ave area to either EaDo or possibly more in Cottage Grove. They don't pick up and move when they run out of land, (look at all the open space still in midtown which preceded Washinton Ave in the redevelopment game), they pick up and move when they run out of cheap land, or at least some of them do.

[SouthernBoy205]

Originally Posted by amberazeneth

I am glad to see some good debating here. I am not quite sure though that the soccer stadium can accomplish this but I hope it does.

Why the doubt?????