Published February 19, 2006
After years of fitful discussions about how to revitalize San Jacinto Mall, its corporate owner announced this week it will introduce a new “lifestyle center” concept at the aging shopping center.
Billed as “The Commons at San Jacinto,” the new venue will take the place of the dormant wing of the mall anchored by the former Montgomery Ward and Beall’s stores.
Los Angeles-based Triyar Companies, which owns San Jacinto Mall, describes “The Commons” as an “open-air plaza” that will “allow for a creative leasing program that would embrace a more lifestyle-driven tenant mix.”
The Commons is expected to open in the third quarter of 2007.
Large signs placed in the parking lots facing Garth Road and Interstate 10 feature an artist’s rendering of a landscaped pedestrian area, with a “relaxing water feature,” leading from the parking lot to the structure. The company describes the entranceway to the Commons as the “signature entrance to the new San Jacinto Center’s ‘front door.’”
The company promises a “prudent and consistent mix of retailers” at The Commons that will “provide a thematic shopping venue for the growing market.”
Oh great! Some Californian trying to promote open air shopping in Texas, a place they have obviously never been in August! My prediction, dismal failure. Open air shopping and Houston/Baytown do
not mix. The weather here does not promote such a thing. We have maybe 2 weeks of "California weather" per year?!
They cite success in the open air Uptown Park in one of the most prime real estate locations in Houston. Let me point out that 5 miles away
is another open air lifestyle venue... the Marqu*e Shopping Center. It is struggling to get ANY shop in there and if not for the movie theater it would have already closed shop.
I am glad someone is doing something with San Jac, but I think this idea is doomed before it begins. My read on this... open air mean no air conditioning costs! Wow we'll save a ton of money! No one will embrace this without stores to visit. No one goes to the mall because there is nothing there! Just how many cell phones do you need! You
want to save the mall, bring in a draw. Get some stores in there like, Old Navy and the Gap, Remodel Foley*s or turn it into a Macys.
San Jac needs to give away store space to the Abercrombies and Hot Topics then when you get some traction other paying stores will follow. I guess we'll all keep driving to Baybrook...
I have been complaining about it for years. It's pretty obvious what is going on... stores do not want to come to San Jac because there is not alot of traffic. There is no traffic because there are no stores to shop at any more. san Jac has slowly let the stores that matter slip away.
What to do... give away space! They are willing to bet millions on some open air design. Why not let some anchors have the space for free instead! Drop a Bass Pro Shop in the Montgomery Wards or Mervyn's space and see if it doesn't start some draw. I bet Circuit City is wanting in to the Baytown area now that Best Buy is here. If a few choice stores were given space or even paid to be here it would create a draw that would in turn bring in the stores that would bring in more people that would bring in the stores and so on... Then maybe we could all complain about how crowded the mall is.
I truly miss the days of the Gap, Spencers, Harmony Surf Shop and all of those stores. I miss the giant tinkertoys in the Market... and Yesterdays and Fireworks. I hope the mall can get back to where is was. In my opinion, that's what these boards are for, opinions, I think this idea is poor and hate to see the mall driven into a state that has no hope of recovery.
Several weeks ago we went to Magic Island to see a good friend of mine Jaime Salinas perform. This page has an illusion he did at that show! Click on the seance and notice that he got Angie out the audience to peek under the cloth! He didn't even know it was ANgie until she was up there... lot's of other great vids on this page as well!
:: 2/16/2006 11:47:05 AM http://www.compfused.com/directlink/1214/ Multi touch screen interface... this thing so cool! That software is awesome but multiple touch points that is schweet!
There is a place you can touch a woman that will drive her crazy. Her heart.
~ Melanie Griffith, Milk Money
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
~ H. L. Mencken
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes. Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet.
~ William Shakespeare
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
~ Aristotle
Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
~ Voltaire
Nothing takes the taste out of peanutbutter like unrequited love.
~ Charlie Brown
anyone have any other good ones? samu
:: 2/13/2006 1:27:05 PM http://www.nbcolympics.com/speedskating/5100190/detail.html he headed downstairs to get in some stretching. Suddenly, Hedrick's body began to shake. Then, the tears started to flow. Maybe it was the thought of his grandmother, who died 13 years earlier to the day. Maybe it was just the inevitable nervousness that goes along with that first Olympic race... TEXAN! GOLD! BAM!
:: 2/13/2006 1:40:33 PM http://www.donetheimpossible.com/index.php A documentary about the Browncoats and fall of Firefly and the fans rally and the Serenity movie is coming out on DVD... I will have to get this!
:: 2/13/2006 1:52:35 PM http://lucasarts.com/games/legostarwarsii/ My son will be thrilled ! One of the best games every for the Xbox was Lego Star Wars... now they are going to make The Empire Strikes Brick! Lego Star Wars II
Feeling left out ... I know I have not been blogging my life away lately and frankly I feel like I'm letting some of you down.
There are tons of things going on... some highlights:
RY's 40th birthday party... holy smoke! Elvis impersonator, way more alcohol than most of us are used to now and a really really good time... until Angie yaked in the bed in the middle of the night... RJ,PJ,GV,JV,JS,LS,RY,NY,EY and whole myriad of other friends were there... Most of us were drinking Hpnotiq and Champagne or as it was expertly called out as Matilda Bay! Angie, P, and a few others were drinking appletinis and Godiva White Chocolate martinis. EVERYONE was shooting Tequila Rose! The thing was all of our kids were there and I was bound and determined for some parents to get snot slinging drunk in front of thier kids... as Dade was helping Angie out to the truck I said mission accomplished. oh and we weren't the only ones!
Dave and Buster's strikes again! ... avid readers will know that Dade and I get our hair cut once a month and after the cut we go to D&B for lunch and play. We save our tickets up and try to get nice things instead of junk. Well a year and a half ago we go an Xbox from saving tickets. Recently we cashed in again... this time PSP! Oh man this thing is so sweet... crispy screen like I have not seen and just wowowowow fast. Movies look sharp and games even sharper. I love it!
Superbowl! Oh man this was awesome... first we got a new 40" Sony Bravia XBR LCD... let me tell you this thing is quite the TV HD is like 3d! Bright as the sun and sharp as a Ginsu. Anyway the V family came over to watch and we had some food and it was fun and I won $525! ChaChingo!
Little League... I don't know where to begin on this one... let's just say the drama over having 6,7, and 8 year old playing baseball is ridiculous! The things I've heard about ... anyway I am coaching on Dade's team this year and our manager is great, there are a couple of other coaches in the league that are awesome as well and with any luck we some of the good guys will take over and squeeze out the others. We had a fantastic draft. I took notes this year during tryouts. Detailed notes so when draft time came we did well. Let me say that the early rounds of the draft are easy everyone knows the strong quick talented kids. It's the later rounds... if you did not take good notes you won't know who is coachable and who is not. There were 4 kids that move up as 6 year old in our league. We got 3 of them because we knew they were worth getting when all of the other managers were skipping by them because of age. Anyway long story short we should have a good team this year. We have had two practices and so far I am impressed as I can be, if anything it's going to be hard to do a line up this year because they are all capable!
work... has been good lately... keeping very very very busy MortonWebWorks.com is coming along and should launch in a few more weeks.
That about wraps it up for now...I am in the mood to blog today so keep tuned!
MYSPACE MYSPACE... first let me say that it's not Myspace's fault that people are getting raped and killed from their site... it's the lack of parental attention. First parents remember when you were a kid, preteen, teen? You wanted freedom and a little independance... When I was a teen it was a BIG deal to get a phone in my room... now kids are virtual webcams and chat and IM and cellphones constant communication. Uncontrolled hormonal urges flying around, it was easier back then, there was no outlet so it was sorta control able. Well not any longer it's impossible to prevent kids seeing porn on the Internet if they want to. IMPOSSIBLE! Now guys think about when you were young if you laid hands on a dirty magazine that thing was like currency! it was gold! Scarce and limited! Now not so much... girls flirting with the boys was the thing, I think, but once you were home all access was cut off... not anymore Myspace provides that! So unregulated anyone can be anyone... reminds be of being a kicker on a astronaut alternate when on spring break! Parents watch your kids! Just because they are looking more adult they still need parenting! case in point! It's a damn shame that these stories are coming in daily! Myspace was supposed to be an indie band site and the preteen teen high school crowd took it over and created a fertile hunting ground for pervs and other vermin... go see for yourself... sad sad sad.
Half Life fan Video If you've played Half Life you know that the physics in it are cool! Watch this video ... pretty neat!
I leave you with a lawnmower that has Nitrous... yes I said NOS! WOW!
i.am.samu ... there.is.no.spoon!
:: 2/10/2006 4:26:50 PM http://www.xboxaddict.com/ HALO 3! WHoa! it's ready? Maybe so... what are they waiting on? Looks like they are waiting to release Halo3 on the day that Sony releases the PS3! sneaky!
Could it be that the next gen of iPod Video is right around the corner... looks pretty sweet!
http://www.poststar.com/video/specials/videos.asp You've listened to podcasts for awhile now and are looking to move up the tree to some vidcasting? I am ... anyway this should get you started... top 10 ipTV vidcasts on the internet. I have not viewed any of these but I will be soon!
:: 2/9/2006 9:14:33 AM http://fireant.tv/download FireAnt should help fuel that vidcasting bug I'm sticking in your ear... how long before I start podcasting or vidcasting? If I had better bandwidth on my provider I might do that!
:: 2/9/2006 9:21:26 AM https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1457 I assume you have Firefox by now and if not thanks for giving me all of your info just by browsing my webiste...j/k no really to make Firefox kick you need to install a few extentions. This is one of those I use every day! foXpose
:: 2/9/2006 9:24:22 AM http://ackroyd.de/googlepreview/ Google preview is great! When you search google you get little thumbnail previews of the pages in the search results! v.cool!
:: 2/9/2006 9:25:58 AM http://ted.mielczarek.org/code/mozilla/tabpreview/ Using Firefox tabs is great until you have 20 of them open, a regular occurance with me. Anyway get Tab Preview and when you hover the tabs you can see 1/4 screen thumbnail of that tab. samu.likey
:: 2/9/2006 9:29:36 AM https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1419&application=firefox more than a few of you think that Firefox can't handle certain websites. This is true for those coded poorly and for those with the dreaded ActiveX. So if you must! IE Tab extention allow you to stay in FF and have IE open as a tab within. Right click the offending IE only page and select view in IE...easy peasy!
:: 2/9/2006 9:36:24 AM http://persistent.info/ The google gods have smiled on us again with this Greasemonkey author! Go to this link and read on some of the things possible with greasemonkey and gmail or google. I use the conversation preview bubbles, gmail label colors, and gmail macros every single day! Go go google and go go Greasemonkey!
:: 2/20/2006 10:24:56 AM
Most of us were drinking 
this time 
