Downtown(Marketsquare) (Houston, Post, West: hotel, houses, theater)

[txdemo]

Downtown hasn't been the same for me since Power Tools.

[Truth713]

yeah seems like the area is not done growing yet as three more bars are slanted to open..I really want Downtown to get in residental weight up as this is what sustains places like this..

[crono_clone]

Originally Posted by Truth713

yeah seems like the area is not done growing yet as three more bars are slanted to open..I really want Downtown to get in residental weight up as this is what sustains places like this..

There's about 5 residential projects in the works, most of them on the rail line. It's pretty exciting!

Where Downtown Has Developed, Is Developing, and Might Develop Some More » Swamplot: Houston's Real Estate Landscape

There's even going to be a high school for visual and performing arts. Who'd have thunk?

[Schumacher713]

Power Tools, Spy, and Toc were kind of the original ones downtown. I remember the days.

[westhou]

Originally Posted by crono_clone

There's about 5 residential projects in the works, most of them on the rail line. It's pretty exciting!

Where Downtown Has Developed, Is Developing, and Might Develop Some More » Swamplot: Houston's Real Estate Landscape

There's even going to be a high school for visual and performing arts. Who'd have thunk?

I wonder if the people who will live in those developments will be the target market for those bars, restaurants and clubs or will those people be more likely to go Uptown to eat and drink.

[crono_clone]

Originally Posted by westhou

I wonder if the people who will live in those developments will be the target market for those bars, restaurants and clubs or will those people be more likely to go Uptown to eat and drink.

Why wouldn't they be? I'd imagine the people who'd want to live in a downtown apartment are the kind of people who want a walkable, urban lifestyle -- otherwise they'd be in the suburbs. Why would you rent downtown if you're going to end up driving to the Galleria?

[Mr. Krinkle]

and Uptown sucks

[LocalPlanner]

Why do you think Uptown sucks? Because there's a lot of tourists? At this point it's still Houston's only true, dense, fully mixed-use district (residential, office, retail, hotel). Hopefully Downtown will get there soon, if they can get at least a couple thousand more residential units built (beyond what's already planned).

[H'ton]

Uptown does suck.

I avoid it at all costs. True, it has some of the ingredients needed to create an urban environment but I feel its own lack of planning sabotages all of those integral pieces. Compare Uptown to Downtown. Downtown has connective tissue - they have walkable streets, urban parks, hotels, sporting venues, entertainment venues, theaters, light rail, restaurants, etc.

Now, uptown has some of these but crossing Westheimer is far more risky than say, crossing Texas Avenue and walking the Uptown district is less of a realistic option. Also, most of the buildings are disconnected from each other. Sure there are residential buildings but does a gated residential high rise really add to the area? Uptown is a planning disaster..it's designed around the car, not the pedestrian, and as we've seen with major events like the All-Star game (or even a typical Christmas season) there are severe problems with its layout in regards to traffic congestion.

On top of that, THEY seem to have rejected a light rail plan that would have actually helped them do what they need the most...the ability to move many people in and out of the area (without the dependence on automobiles). People would be dropped off and picked up at some of the major points. The reasons why they rejected the University and Post Oak lines will only hurt them in the long run and cost them more in the end. Especially when they will have to re-do the plan their alternate plan.

Imagine of everyone who needed to get into Manhattan on a daily basis had to do so by car or bus. It would incredibly slow down the productivity of Manhattan. I see Uptown being significantly affected by its own growth a,d lack of pedestrian designed infrastructure to handle this. Projects like the River Oaks District will only make this problem worse. Downtown is the EXACT OPPOSITE...it has the infrastructure to handled significant growth which is why we may start seeing the emphasis put on downtown (new residential, walkable streets, hotels, etc.)

[LocalPlanner]

The Uptown folks did not reject the light rail plan. They supported it for the most part - it never would have advanced as far as it did without their support. However, for various reasons (including opposition by folks outside Uptown but more because METRO was far too optimistic about its financial resources), it has been essentially put on the back burner until who knows when. So Uptown is going forward with BRT that can be converted to light rail in the future (the light rail plan was the same as the BRT, just with different vehicles) - hardly the sign of opposition to transit.

I agree that the historically poor pedestrian environment, compared to downtown, hurts Uptown in many ways, even though it's been the more economically successful area from a mixed-use standpoint. However, the district is trying to remedy that, by putting in new public streets, sidewalks, crosswalks, and even pedestrian lighting - a rarity for Houston. I doubt they ever put Westheimer on a "road diet" though. That's a TxDOT road, by the way (FM 1093 starts at Loop 610).