Reefmonkey

To me, the 90s in Houston is almost two separate decades. There was the 90s in Houston before I went off to college in August 1994, and the 90s in Houston when I moved back after graduation in May 1998.

I grew up in the 'burbs, in Champion Forest, but my parents took us into town a lot, and then when I started driving in high school I went into town as much as I could. Then after college I lived out at Westheimer and Fondren but spend a lot of time inside the loop, until moving into Midtown in January 2000.

1994 and earlier:

Going to see plays and musicals at the Music Hall, a fantastic example of Art Deco, a travesty that they tore that down.

The Pizzaria Uno on Kirby

Hard Rock Cafe on Kirby

Jamail's on Kirby

Sakowitz, with its flagship store in the Galleria area finally closing in 1990 (which, despite strict interpretations, I still consider the beginning of the 90s)

Auchan out on West Sam Houston

Town and Country Mall

When Houston had the international spotlight when it hosted the 1990 Economic Summit.

Though not a big sports fan, I still remember a couple of Astros games at the Astrodome, and one Rockets game at the Summit. I never went to an oilers game.

Prince's Drive-in on South Main

93Q when it was a Top 40 station. I also remember listening to their weekend broadcasts from Club 6400.

Harry's Kenya, a great upscale restaurant downtown where my parents would take us before seeing plays. We also went to Damien's a lot.

Glenn Beck's brief, bizarre stint on 104 KRBE.

The Westheimer Street Festival

Seeing up and coming bands at the Tower Theatre. (Now El Real Mexican Restaurant)

When Northwest Mall was still almost a decent mall.

The VERY early 90s, when Greenspoint was still almost a decent mall.

Northline Mall, that hadn't been a decent mall for a while, but still had, ahem, character the one or two times I went there in the early 90s

Exposure indoor rock climbing gym on 1960 and Cutten Rd.

County Line Barbecue on Cutten Rd.

1998 and 1999

La Vista on Fountainview, before it was discovered by everyone and got too big for its britches.

Polyester's on the Richmond Strip

The Ale House on West Alabama. I so miss that place. Greedy motherf'ing developers.

The Fabulous Satellite Lounge on Washington when Washington still had character. I stopped eating at Star Pizza after they wouldn't renew its lease so their pizza patrons wouldn't have to compete with parking.

Houston Cellular. I still have the same phone number I got from them before they became Cingular and then AT&T. I think my wife does, too, even though we didn't meet until 2003.

Probably plenty more in both time periods, but thats what comes to mind right now.

It's like eight different drunk architects vomited on a set of blank blueprints, and a builder picked the blueprints up, scratched his head and said "yeah, I think I can build that."

I'm curious about the history of Briargrove Plaza, on Westheimer just west of Fountainview. It seems to have retained The Palm steakhouse, The Melting Pot fondue restaurant, and Sun & Ski at least since the late 90s, when I moved back to Houston. The Sun and Ski store looks to be an old movie theatre, and Sun and Ski still uses the theatre marquee as its sign. I'm guessing by the size of the theatre space and the marquee, this was a 3-screen theatre, max, so based on the megaplexes starting to take over in the late 80s-early 90s, I'm guessing this theater closed by 1992-ish? Anyone have any other information on when Briargrove Plaza was built, and notable former tenants?

I seem to remember reading that part of the reason the Pantry concept closed was the Walmart Neighborhood Market concept beat them out, a very similar concept, but with a much more recognizable brand, especially for the target market. Couldn't compete with Walmart for the cheap seats, couldn't compete with Kroger and Randall's for the higher end market, so they regrouped and brought in Central Market to give them high end market draw, and then the right combination of traditional stores and CM/traditional hybrids. I think Central Market is what gave HEB its second chance in the Houston market after Pantry fizzled.

They dropped the "Preferred Customer" card (something Kroger has yet to pick up on), and did improve other divisions like Jewel or Acme (post-SuperValu), plan to have the divisions operate more independently (Randalls being one). It seems that the stores under the "United Family" have pricing similar to H-E-B, and the idea is that the combined Safeway/Albertsons will have more buying power.

I understand that some stores won't be up to snuff--some H-E-B stores still lack even a pharmacy...

Yeah, those HEBs are usually relics of HEB's failed "Pantry" concept, there is one close to me at Memorial and Dairy-Ashford. The only reason it survives, I think, is the only other two grocery stores nearby are a crappy 70's-era Kroger and an old Randall's. I think the HEB Pantry failure, as well as the first Safeway failure and the Albertsons failure and Randall's post-acquisition decline in popularity demonstrated something Safeyway/Albertson's needs to finally sit up and take notice - the kinds of stores that may work in their other markets don't work in Houston, Houstonians have come to expect better selection, especially on name brands, and better shopping environments, and any chain that thinks it can cut out desired brands like Boar's Head so it can push its own in-house brands, and do so in a boring or warehouse-like environment, is doomed to fail.

The "old" Albertsons essentially died in 2006 with the sale and breakup of the company. The current Albertsons is substantially different in many ways.

So what's substantially different about it now? I've been to the Albertsons on Berry near TCU in Fort Worth several times since 2006 since it is the closest grocery store to my in-laws' house, and it still sucks. Ugly store, lackluster service, poor selection. I would be willing to give the ugliness of the store the benefit of the doubt, being a relic of pre-2006 conditions, but would think that service and selection would be improved if the Cerberus buyout were really an improvement.

And who names their investment company after the 3-headed dog that guards the gates of Hell? Sounds like an omen of what is to come for Randall's to me.

Thanks Fillioscotia, but at least the pictures in the article aren't Second Empire. I see Italianate, Queen Anne (with Eastlake), Folk Victorian, which jibes with what I have seen driving through the Heights and Montrose. Sixthwardguy, thanks for the information, makes a lot of sense, especially Southern antipathy for Northern styles during reconstruction and just after.

I have some fond memories, it was the little neighborhood store my wife and I shopped at when we first got married in 2004. Sad to see it go, but what they have done since at that intersection is really nice. I agree about HEBs, nice selection when you really want to shop, but when you run in for a few things, I find the maze annoying, feel like I am a cow in a shoot designed by Temple Grandin.

Ugh, had no idea that Safeway and Albertson's were merging. Surely to be the coup de gras for Randall's. Albertson's was terrible, I was so happy to see it fail here in Houston. Of course I also remember when Safeway failed in Houston, and rather than take the hint, they bought Randall's a once-great local chain, and have run it into the ground IMO. Randall's was always a little more expensive than Krogers, and alot more expensive than Fiesta, but the shopping experience and selection, esp. of higher end items, was always better. I always liked Tom Thumb up in Dallas when I was going to college there. Remember shopping at both the really old Mockingbird and Central Tom Thumb that was like walking back in time to at least the early 60s, and their store at Lover's and Greenville, both before and after its rebuild in about 1995-1996. The Randall's-Tom Thumb connection gave me a sense of continuity both when I went away to college and when I came back to Houston.

Have a lot of memories of Randall's from my childhood in the Spring/Klein area in the 1980s. Remember going to the Randall's on the south side of 1960 at I-45 when we lived in Cypresswood in the early 80s. It was later moved across the street. Then I remember occasionally we would go to what in the early 80s was the only Randall's Flagship in the area, at 1960 and Champion Forest Drive, back when it still had the upstairs cafe in a loft that overlooked the store. Later when we moved to Champion Forest in the mid 80s, we went mostly to the Randall's on Louetta and Champion Forest Drive, that closed a few years back, only a few years after undergoing a major renovation. That used to be our main place to rent VHS movies on Friday nights. Shoot, even when I went off to college, I would still rent movies from Tom Thumb sometimes, because while the selection sucked compared to Blockbuster, the price was so much cheaper, and all you needed was your loyalty card to rent.

Remember a few other non-Randall's grocery stores from the early 80s in that part of town. When I was really young in the very early 80s, when my mom didn't want to drive all the way to the Randall's at I-45, we would shop at the Eagle grocery story on 1960 Ella, next to the Interurban Pharmacy (anyone remember those?), it had a very 60s-70s vibe. Then later (~82-85) we would shop at the Kroger on Kuykendahl and Louetta. It was one of those ones from that time that had the smoked glass roof in front.

The Fiesta at Blalock and I-10 lost a large chunk of it's parking lot.  They moved out and 99 Ranch Market moved in.

That's not correct. As a young fledgling environmental scientist in the late 90s early 00s I worked on groundwater remediation projects (to bring soil contamination levels down to safe levels for construction workers) at two spots along the railroad bed between Old Katy Road and the I-10 feeder road. Every month for two years I measured groundwater levels  at a site right there at Blalock, and the northwestern-most well was right at the southeast corner of the old Fiesta parking lot. I know what that lot was like before the expansion intimately because of that, and now I shop at 99 Ranch Market quite often. None of the the parking lot was lost to the expansion.

GESSNER DRIVE

a stand-alone restaurant at the northwest corner of Gessner and I-10 (don't know name)

unknown restaurant - Dewar's? Dexar's? Take a look for yourself

REI - Opened in the late 1990s, short lived

 

I think that standalone restaurant on NW corner of Gessner & I-10 was a Luther's Barbecue, wasn't it?

That unknown restaurant looks like a Demeris Barbecue (a couple other locations still open)

REI wasn't short-lived, they simply moved to Westheimer and Voss/Hillcroft in the early 00's and are still in business. They had a big moving sale, I got some nice gear at it pretty cheap.

I tried this topic a couple of months ago, but maybe my original title was too enigmatic. I'm also thinking since Halloween is tomorrow maybe some more people will be interested.

What is a more iconic symbol of Halloween that haunted houses, and the stereotypical haunted house is Second Empire. So, I was wondering, anyone know of any original Second Empire-style houses still standing in Houston? Pics, addresses, and bonus points if any of them are reputed to be haunted.

Also, a great article on how Second Empire came to be the iconic style for haunted houses:

http://www.tripplannermag.com/index.php/2012/10/horror-style-why-second-empire-scares-you/

October 30, 2012 by: Samuel Scheib

A sunset walk in the 5^th District of Budapest, just a couple streets away from Heroes’ Square and the National Museum, is an awfully pleasant way to spend a fall evening, so I was surprised when my delight at the 19^th century streetscape turned decidedly to the creeps.  The silence around me was not the eerie, too-quiet kind.  In fact, it was not really silent as the muted bustle of the city could be heard a few blocks away.  There was nothing among the cast iron gates and moribund cars hugging the curb to explain why the hairs on my arm were standing at rapt attention.  The reason, I later discovered, was the French.

Louis Napoleon, nephew of Bonaparte, ruled France from 1849 to 1870, first as president, elected by the virtue of his name alone, and then as emperor beginning in 1852, thus launching the Second Empire.  Louis Napoleon directed Baron von Haussmann to rebuild swaths of medieval Paris and he did so in an elegant style typified by tall buildings with elaborately bracketed cornices and dormers projecting from the double-hipped roofs.  The lower pitch of these so-called mansard roofs tended to be almost vertical, doubling as a wall for the useable interior space and was covered with patterned, multi-colored slate tiles; the upper pitch was unseen, either flat or slightly sloping, and often trimmed with a cast iron widow’s walk.

Students of planning or architecture are likely familiar with the distinctive Second Empire style that was popular the world over until the late 19^th century.  If you are not familiar with the grace and elegance of the style that originated in Haussmann’s Paris, then you at least know it as the haunted house.  Norman’s house in Psycho plus the houses in countless other movies like The Changeling and Beetlejuice, television programs The Addams Family and The Munsters, the Disney haunted mansions, including, ironically, the one in Paris, and even children’s Halloween decorations all feature the familiar Mansard roof and dormers of the Second Empire; those iron spikes on top lend themselves nicely to the horror oeuvre.  My walk in Budapest featured my own indoctrination into the fear of these old houses.   

Steven Kurutz explored the haunted house this week in a New York Times article, “No Rest for the Eerie.” He portrays the house as a sanctuary and an intrusion on the security of the home as the source of terror.  He uses the Paranormal Activity franchise, with the fourth in the series recently released, as an example.  These films don’t use blood and gore to frighten.  Oren Peli, the creator of the movies is quoted in the article as saying “the gasping [of some unseen being] confirms that any kind of evidence that something is inside your house is a very unsettling feeling.”   It should be no surprise that we in the United States have the Castle Doctrine which allows a homeowner to use deadly force on an intruder for just such a breach of the old homestead.

I agree that the home invasion is scary; it is almost a cliché that after being burgled a homeowner feels “violated” and no longer safe at home.  But I think there is a reason so many of these haunted houses stick with a particular architectural vernacular.  Second Empire became synonymous with the reign of Louis Napoleon and even as he fled to England after his disastrous defeat at the hands of the Prussian Army, Second Empire houses were still gaining popularity in the United States.  Then came a succession of disasters for these big old houses:  the Panic of 1893 led to nearly 20% unemployment, with another panic in 1907, then the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 limited immigration (big old houses needed lots of staff), then World War I.  Worst of all, tastes changed in response to these forces and the small craftsman bungalow became America’s preferred style in the early 20th century.

By the time Wall Street crashed in 1929 the U.S.’s Second Empire (along with other Victorian) homes were at or nearing their 50^thbirthdays and America was broke.  These are precious, intricate buildings that require tremendous upkeep and as the 30s and the Great Depression wore on and as the U.S. entered, fought, and won World War II, the old houses fell into terrible disrepair.  After the war, we wanted new stuff.  While the Germans rebuilt Berlin, Dresden, and other war-torn cities, America ignored our urban cores and built the suburbs.

While the immediate post war years were hard on Italianate, Gothic, Queen Anne and other gingerbread houses, the Second Empire style had a particular problem: its origins were decidedly urban.  The Champs Elysees is a Second Empire street.  Like a popular clique in high school, Second Empire buildings are powerful in groups but seem exposed when alone.  As one author put it, “In rural settings the elegantly fashionable architecture was likely to seem out of place, like an overdressed lady on a picnic.”  It is no surprise then that the ailing Second Empire house sitting awkwardly by itself became Hollywood’s ideal house of horror.  Edward Hopper—of Nightwatch fame—may have single-handedly set the pattern with his lonely House by the Railroad from 1925 as seen at the top of this article.

I am endlessly charmed by the steep pitch and dormers of a Mansard roof and so the horror fascination of the Second Empire style saddens me.  But what comes around goes around.  We are several years now into the prediction that the slums of the future—as energy prices rise, as the population ages and needs better access to services, and as cultural preferences shift to urban housing—will be in the suburbs.   And as Kurutz pointed out in his Times story, Paranormal Activity 4 “mines horror from everyday life in a suburban tract home.”

This weekend is supposed to be our first little cool front, a harbinger of Fall, which always gets me thinking about my favorite holiday, Halloween. What is a more iconic symbol of Halloween that haunted houses, and the stereotypical haunted house is Second Empire. So, I was wondering, anyone know of any original Second Empire-style houses still standing in Houston? Pics, addresses, and bonus points if any of them are reputed to be haunted.

I remember when I was a kid, in late elementary school and junior high in the mid to late 1980s, getting hooked on Oldies 94.5 KLDE. I would get ready for school to their morning show with Sherry Bernardi and some guy whose name I don't remember, have it on during the evening while I did my homework, or listen to it on my Walkman or little boom box (I did say this was the 80s) as I mowed the grass or hung out by the pool or tinkered in the garage with my dad. To me, this stuff was quintessential summertime music. Of course, this was a time when there was a lot of Baby Boomer-fueled nostalgia for the 1950s and 1960s, made popular by generation-bridging movies like "Back To The Future" and "Dirty Dancing" as well as period TV shows like "Crime Story," "Tour of Duty," and "China Beach," and lots of 20-year retrospectives on The Summer of Love, Woodstock, etc.

So first KDLE moved from 94.5 to 107.5 (switching places with The Buzz) in the early 2000s, and then changed formats and disappeared completely. While there are some "classic rock" stations in Houston, I can't find any true Oldies 50s and 60s music stations that are going to play a mix of 50s and 60s rock, Motown, Beach Boys, Stones, The Temptations, The Drifters, Beatles, etc. True, I have a lot of favorite songs of this kind on a playlist on my phone, and you can find this stuff on satellite radio, but when I listened to it during a trial subscription in my car, I just didn't find it had the same feel as tuning into a local station did. So what happened to this format, did the Boomers just finally get too old to be a viable marketing demographic for radio sponsors?

Interesting responses...  If you notice the freeway signs, it says "W.Mt. Houston", not "Mount".  Mt. is an abreviation for Montgomery, as in Montgomery Co.   W. Mt.- Houston Road took you from Houston to West Montgomery County.  The town of Montgomery is also that direction.   W. Montgomery road still exist from N. Shepherd to where it hits hwy 249 and still takes you to... W. Montgomery Co.

 You provide an intriguing theory, but I am not convinced.   The only part of W. Mt. Houston that is extant isn't aligned to run from the historic center of Houston (downtown) to the town of montgomery. Most roads in the area with two names like that were running between the two towns named, not between a town and a county. Also, there already is a West Montgomery Road in the area, that even intersects West Mt Houston, so it seems unlikely that two so similarly named roads as West Montgomery Road and West Montgomery Houston Road would be built so near each other. Third, according to the Texas State Historical Association, there is a community called Mount Houston out in the area. I think it is more reasonable to believe that the road was named for the town of Mount Houston. It is close enough, esp, taking into account possible realignments, for that to be the case.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hrmuq

I think everyone here is forgetting or overlooking the actual topic of this thread, that is the origin of the name of WEST Mount Houston Road (emphasis on west mine).

 

West Mount Houston Road is nowhere near the now defunct community of Mount Houston. The road doesn't go to that area. So why'd they name the road West Mount Houston Road? That's what this thread is supposed to be about.

No, I assure you, everyone else is right in their approach to the topic I started, I am honestly curious about the "Mount" thing.

The "West" part of West Mount Houston Rd. comes from the original patentee of a Mexicanland grant for the area that is generally where George Bush International Airport is today his name was Gadi West. He was the brother of my third great grandfather Levi Oliver West. Anything in northeast Houston with West attached to it is named after Gadi West.

That doesn't sound right at all. Occam's razor - the simplest and most likely answer is anything in northeast Houston area with a "West" attached to it means it is the westernmost part of a feature.

it would appear you have never been here during a flood.  we are not san antonio.  the referenced bayou is actually used for drainage.

There is definitely some truth to that, musicman. The Riverwalk is only about 4 miles from the headwaters of the San Antonio River, while by the time Buffalo Bayou hits downtown, it has run for 50 miles, and has about a 100 square mile watershed, so it can pick up a lot of flood water in a short time, as anyone who has lived here a while has seen. Building right along the banks as we see at the Riverwalk is completely out of the question. However, I've seen in European cities that have rivers with variable levels running through them, embankments are built and there can still be quite a lot of cafes, etc, at the tops of these embankments, and even more temporary establishments at the foot of these embankments. If Houston developed something like this, encouraged redevelopment of businesses that are where the tops of the embankments would be to be restaurants, bars, etc, we could have a nice little cafe culture here in H-town. Furthermore, if ramps were built, food trucks could drive down there and be the "temporary establishments" like the little cafes along the Rhone in Lyon. Let them set up some outdoor seating, etc. This might be a nice compromise over city ordinances about food trucks having propane in downtown, etc. Not saying that this is definitely what we should do with the downtown bayou, but throwing it out there as one idea that might work.

As someone who works in the environmental field, I'd like to use some of what people have said here as a touching off point for an issue of media and public attitude I just think is wrong-headed. I really dislike these ranking of "dirtiest city", "most polluted city," etc and how news articles report on them. The reporting often comes off as finger wagging at the cities identified, and certainly people who don't live in those cities use that information to feel smug about their own city being cleaner than the ones listed. They act as if the pollution is that city's fault and problem, when in the case of Houston at least, we suffer from pollution so that people in Charleston and Colorado Springs don't have to, yet they still get to have all the fuels and chemicals that we process and produce here. These activities create a lot of air emissions, wastewater, and solid waste that must be treated and disposed of here in the Houston area. Our pollution is their pollution, too, because it is the pollution created to make the critical materials that people in those cities as well as Houstonians have come to rely on. People in those cities need to stop being so smug and realize they have a responsibility for Houston pollution as long as they buy the products this city produces.

Yay! I can't wait for the name change!!! Westheimer used to be FM some kind of number too. About time!!! Anyway, I'm glad they are trying to change things around here. It has to start somewhere... Usually great things are rejected in the beginning... Yay NORTHWEST HOUSTON!!!

Actually I believe Westheimer Rd was Westheimer Rd before FM1093 was designated. The name was just logically extended westward

Now that I've got some skin in this game and live off this road, I've noticed the problem isn't simply boundaries and economics. The poor live alongside the affluent everywhere more successfully than what you're crediting to 1960. The problem here is all the derelict structures alongside the road. 1960 is a stripmall ghost town. I think a simple solution would be to eliminate a number of the empty buildings at owner's expense. I'd like the county to require a minimum of 25% occupied capacity based on square footage on a five year rolling cycle. If a property can't maintain that capacity, then the owner should be required by law to bulldoze the structure and plant some pines in its place. Leaving the number at 25% is fair to the owners, but forcing the bulldozing would make land owners and developers more cautious and certain of success (as much as is possible) prior to construction. Plus, this law would virtually require the proper cycling of old, worn-out structures with newer and better construction.

Then again, who cares?

I know this is a really old thread, but I've gotta say, God, I love that idea. It needs to be done along Dairy Ashford between Westheimer and Briar Forest. There is an old strip center along there that most of the tenants have left, and about a third of it burned down, and has not been rebuilt, just left as an eyesore. The whole strip center needs to be bulldozed.

I read it more that in general "Bayous seem wasted somehow", as if in general bayous in Houston are unusable for recreation, with statements like "Knowing that at one time the bayous were *not* encased in concrete [...] I was wondering if it would be feasible to restore a bayou in Houston to a semi-natural state, and use it specifically for relaxing tubing runs" making it sound like all the bayous are in that condition and we have to wait for someone to restore one before there are tubing opportunities to be had. Yes, there are some whose primary purpose is to serve as a drainage, and because of prior decisions that weren't in the best interests of ecology, aesthetics, or even what we now know is good flood control method, were turned into concrete drainage conduits. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't still plenty of bayous that are in a semi-natural condition and be used as recreation, so we don't have to wait to restore bayous like Brays before we can get out there and use our bayous. I know many of my fellow paddlers who use area creeks and bayous for paddling trips - Timmy Chan named a few: Spring Creek, Cypress Creek, Armand Bayou, Buffalo Bayou, and even White Oak is not concrete throughout its whole course and there are people who enjoy it. Just because some of our bayous aren't the most conducive to recreation doesn't mean our entire bayou scene is "wasted".

Well done, Original Timmy Chan's!

Their concerns seem pretty vague, and I don't see them really making a case for how the public has any more say in how the park is managed now than it would be under the TIRZ. I also see them not coming up with an alternative - the city doesn't have the money under the status quo. Forgive my cynism, but as an environmental scientist who has worked in the environmental field for going on 15 years now, too often have I seen how "environmentalist's" poor understanding of environmental issues, heavy on emotion, light on facts and understanding of environmental science, regulations, and risk, can really foul up projects to the detriment of the environment. So, I am pretty skeptical when environmentalists oppose plans with nebulous concerns like the ones I see here.

Alright, I am man enough to admit I was hasty in posting about the snails, false alarm, and I am glad it is. But the water spinach issue, still a problem, as are several recently introduced exotics, and it is not just Vietnamese immigrants who are doing it, and they aren't just doing it out of ignorance. I am sure many of you have heard about the snakehead fish problem? In 2011 Yong Hao Wu imported 350 of these live fish through New York, trying to pass them off through customs as another, non-prohibited species. These fish are highly valued in Asian cuisine. that was the first time Yong was caught, and he admitted to having previously imported six other shipments. As an environmental scientist, I have been involved in invasive eradication from the very basic level, of coming home with red eyes and a blackened face from prescribed burns, or all cut up from digging and slashing, to taking part in state-level workgroups, and I have seen the trends in sources of new invasives in this state. Talking about Asian Orange, something people my parents' age did at the orders of people my grandparents' age a decade before I was born - because that happened, we can't talk about, let alone try to do something about something that is happening here and now? How asinine. Calling it an "anti-Vietnamese rant" is just the same walking-on-eggshells PC mindset, refusal to admit there are cultural differences and some of those cultural differences might be causing problems, is what prevents progress in in fields from criminal justice to education. We can't solve a problem like invasives if we don't understand it, and we can't understand it if we refuse to even talk about the fact that a growing subset of the problem is the black market economies that serve the culinary needs of immigrant communities.

I read somewhere last week that people in charge of the park are concerned about this happening. I guess they don't want people who know nothing about parks making decisions without community/their input.

I don't know, maybe I am wrong, and there is something to that concern, but it seems unlikely. It's not like the uptown park shopping center owners, et al will suddenly own or control the park and do whatever they want with it. The plan the TIRZ board proposes will have to go through public comment period and city council approval, and it will still be the city using the money and doing the work. The Parks department has to answer to the city now, it will have to answer to the city then, it will just be following a plan that it gave plenty of input on and the public and city approved.

I have heard rumors that the Uptown area is going to create a TIRZ (tax increment reinvestment zone) that includes Memorial Park, for the purposes of rehabilitiating it. If you are unfamilar with how a TIRZ works, basically once a TIRZ is established, instead of all the property tax revenues from the properties just going into the general coffers at the county tax office, a portion is earmarked for reinvestment within the TIRZ, for infrastructure improvement, beautification, etc. If this rumor is true, it is a very, very promising development.