Of course, the reactions are "glowing"...
Under a white tent in downtown Houston, developers made a long-awaited announcement Tuesday morning that the Houston Pavilions project had officially broken ground.
"I'm sure a lot of you thought today would never come," said William Denton, a partner in the shopping, restaurant, entertainment and office development to be built on several blocks near the light rail line.
(snip)
White alluded to other residential developments proposed around the park and a strong interest in downtown overall.
"If you want to invest in projects in downtown Houston you better get in line," he said.
The developers of the Houston Pavilions say it will open in October of 2008.
(snip)
Real estate observers said the project will help spur more shops, restaurants and convention activity.
"I think it'll definitely be a catalyst for more development," said Mark Sixour of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, a national mortgage banking firm that secured the project's financing and equity.
Stop me if you've heard that same song and dance before.
The "Pavilions" project is just another turn in the slug trail that has become Houston Downtown development. As long as there's a City Gov't in place willing to subsidize developers, then there will always be "something new" on the horizon that is the next big thing. Usually to be marketed as the thing that will make Houston "world-class".
First it was the Sports Stadiums. Remember the initial promises about those?
Except that didn't happen. What developers omitted was the fact that people don't WANT to live near stadiums where there are noise, light and traffic issues. Hotels near stadiums struggle due to the very seasonal nature of demand. Ditto with the Toyota Center. And now, believe it or not, there are some in the soccer community trying to tell us that what we really need is ANOTHER downtown stadium (this time for the beautiful game) which will succeed where the two more popular sports failed.
When the stadiums didn't work out as advertised Houston voters were sold (barely) on Light Rail as a development tool. This has met with only moderate success, as much of the real-estate along the Danger Train line still looks as if its one second away from the wrecker's ball. To be fair, there has been some moderate success in clusters around certain stopping points, but overall a trip on the DangerTrain is a depressing site as boarded building after boarded building passes on both sides.
Of course, the NFL Championship was supposed to cure this. Having the Super Bowl in Houston was to be a boon to downtown businesses, downtown was poised to morph into the "Entertainment capital of Houston". Whoops.
So now the slug trail turns again. This time though we have new developers and a new vision, one replete with diversity. And as we all know, diversity is beauty.
Through all of this noise and hustle some very real positives are getting lost in the shuffle...
City Council just took some steps to STOP unfettered development that demolishes the historic flavor of neighborhoods, Downtown business occupancy rates are up, and there are growing entertainment options in Near Town and Mid Town then ever before.
Under a sensible growth plan there'd be no problem having downtown reserved as a business and theatre district while the entertainment districts moved to other areas. Even Metro could serve an increased role here providing free trolley service to and from restaurants and the theatres, from office buildings to bars etc. The taxi cabs could then profit by driving home those who have (perhaps) over-induldged. People would be allowed to live where they please, be that the suburbs, outlying neighborhoods in Houston, or the City Center and receive equal service from public transportation without regard to social engineering designed to fatten the pockets of certain developers.
Of course, this is the real world, and Houston is limited by the lack of vision of its leaders and activists, and moneyed interests.
So the slug has taken another turn.
And the trail grows longer albeit just as slimy.
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1 comments:
Even Metro could serve an increased roll here providing free trolley service to and from restaurants and the theatres, from office buildings to bars etc.
Nah, that would make too much sense.
Instead, we'd have to figure out a way to make people go out of their way to take the train, so that METRO could then claim it's the most successful train operation ever!
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