bachanon

Cru, A Wine Bar opens in The Woodlands. HEB, The Woodlands Market carries more labels than your average grocer. Young executive crowd in The Woodlands being targeted with wine offerings. link to full story

prop 2 is "hateful"? ignorant maybe, but not hateful. determining that someone has hate is to assume that one has malice in their hearts, a desire to bring harm or do evil. it's inflammatory to presume hate and makes it difficult to have meaningful discussions on tough issues. IF I vote on prop 2, I will vote for it to fail. why? because it's unnecessary and does nothing to preserve marriage. if people want to preserve marriage, make it more difficult to get a divorce. make it hurt to go back on your commitments. this rush to make marriage "only" between a man and a woman seems redundant to me. perhaps civil unions should be offered for straight and gay couples who do not want the religious implications of "marriage". granted that the civil unions would have to be equivalent legally to a marriage license. i think that the efforts of those wanting to bar marriage to gay couples is a specific reaction to the gay community pushing for gay marriage. if the gay community would have pushed for a legal civil union bill, there would have been far less backlash. the concept of marriage is a hot button issue. legal agreements are boring and therefore are not.

come on people. maybe we should have a thread for gay political issues. or, maybe keep the arguments about those mean republicans and dastardly liberals to the way off section. now, before i make a statement that continues the back-and-forth on prop 2 or log cabin republicans, i'll find the thread someone started on prop 2 and make my opinion known there.

speaking of games and large scale events downtown: wouldn't the pavilions project succeed (overwhelmingly) at keeping people in downtown longer? i hope the project remains viable for the investors. it will be (fingers crossed) a great addition to downtown.

here we go again.

"And you Bachanon, i can't believe you'd actually use the Bayou Place as an exampe of Houston's progress. That place is as dead as a doornail, not to mention depressing. Where are these residents that place is supposed to be adding? No signs of any progress on that? Why can't we seem to get federal funding for more rail while Dallas keeps building more and more miles of rail? What's the deal Tom Delay? Do you hate Houston that much? I hope his indictment goes through." bayou place helped to develop interest in downtown houston. it was brought about by cooperation between the city and private investment. it is not on the scale of the pavilions project, but i think it has been significant in a return of investment and attention to downtown. it may not be all it was cracked up to be (and may have already passed its prime) but it was amazing that it ever occurred and when it opened it gave a place for people to hang out after or before a show. has everyone already forgotten what it was like to go to jones hall or the wortham for an event, enter from the underground parking garages and exit the same way, straight to the freeway. you had to go to montrose or the galleria before you found any restaurants. people from the burbs (not in the know) had to drive 10-20 miles back to the burbs before stopping for food. bayou place helped to create a focal point in the theatre district that didn't exist before.

huh?

i completely agree on the need for affordable housing downtown/midtown. midrises with incentives and mixed use concepts can work if a developer will set their mind to it.

tierwestah said: "You can't be for real. Are you serious? You can't see my point and look back on how many projects in Houston have failed in the past? Major things like this rarely happen." what about? Reliant Stadium Minute Made Park Toyota Center Cotswald Project Bayou Place All the infrastructure improvements to downtown. Light Rail These are enormous accomplishments that required many entities working together to bring each of these projects about. Development ebbs and flows. We are revving (sp?) up for another wave of development (IMHO). Of course, it may not be the kind of projects we hope for. Just because a development (or three) do not get off the ground does not mean that projects in general aren't going to pan out. Be patient and enjoy that ones that do get off the ground.

i've not heard of mi le. i look forward to more information on this.

i had a delicious "kicken' chicken" pizza from extreme pizza the other day. it has chicken marinated in a spicy ginger peanut sauce, with scallions, fontina cheese, fresh cilantro and mozzarella. it was better than the thai chicken pizza at california pizza kitchen on san felipe/post oak. oh, the villager had a snippet about a new strip center going up on sawdust road (the one with ghastly colors right next to whataburger). there is going to be a vietnamese restaurant there. no name released yet. it will be the first vietnamese restaurant in our area. i'm hoping for the best. but i digress. they are to begin construction on waterway square early next year. the financing is in place. there will be several more restaurants on the waterway level by late 2006. yippie. i'm still waiting on those damn trolleys. they were supposed to be up and running by last fall.

party pooper

you could say that sevfiv, but market street and the woodlands' lifestyle center have offices (dental, PR, accounting firms, etc.) on the upper floors, along with parks, fountains, entertainment, public works of art and activities (jazz series, living sculptures, children's reading events, festivals, etc.) and lots of outdoor seating for restaurants and those who linger.

i heard that there was one in the works for 1488. i would hope that they would not build a super target right across from the super wal-mart in your neck of the woods. with the target at pinecroft center, across from the mall, i do not think they would build one on 1488 near 242 unless they close the one at pinecroft. if 1488 is THE road that one will be built, i would think it would be nearer to the 2978 intersection. BTW katiedidit, i tried mi luna last weekend at indian springs. i'll give it 2.5 forks out of 5. an average dining experience for a saturday afternoon. one waiter knew how to make a good mojito, the bartender couldn't get it right. the food was hit and miss. i might enjoy it more with out a toddler and a fifteen year old. it seems the tapas experience is for more for drinking and nibbling rather than a meal. the arriving saturday night crowd let me know that the time to come was later in the evening.

i wondered if the texas summer heat would affect the attractiveness of these developments to consumers. when the woodlands announced that it would be adding an open air lifestyle center to the woodlands mall, and the market street plans came online, i had some doubts. apparently, it has made no difference. i was truly surprised how people lingered in these public spaces regardless of the heat and humidity. i read recently that stores in market street and the lifestyle addition to the mall are in the top percentile of their respective chains.

the maps i've seen of that area (terramont, i think) includes more strip centers and restaurant pads.

my bad. i guess the entire website and it's contents are copywritten. i thought the residents website was.....oh well. sorry editor.

my interest in this article was not so much about the housing bubble but the shady lending practices going on to naive first time home buyers. these mass production builders have been selling to thousands of people in the houston area who can barely afford the payments. some of us here at haif have used the term "slums of tomorrow" and it may well be coming to pass (sooner than i thought). it will be interesting to see how all of this pans out in the suburbs of houston.

21 Waterway Avenue Topped Out A

Market Street Presents Smooth Jazz Series Returns The sounds of smooth jazz continue to come from Market Street this fall as The Smooth Jazz in Central Park series continues on Thursdays from 6:30

and so it begins............. Empty houses, falling prices: A boom dies You can see how the housing bubble is bursting in places like Columbus, Ohio, where builders and lenders threw common sense away and enticed people to buy homes they couldn't afford. By Bill Fleckenstein Regular readers know that since early 2004, I have described the housing ATM as what's allowed the economy to move forward..... link we can look forward to similar stories about builders such as d. r. horton and other low-moderate end mass home builders in our area.

ahhh, back to the big easy.....i mean, big empty.

what an embarrassment for montgomery county (read....me).

this thread is really disappointing.

we have had power continuously in grogan's mill (knock on wood). i had no idea that other parts of the woodlands were experiencing the roaming blackouts. friends at lake conroe have been without power since saturday morning. the change in weather will be a relief.