Crowds long gone, Richmond Strip a focus of revitalization efforts
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It was along this stretch of Richmond Avenue that revelers rushed out to celebrate after the Rockets won NBA championships in the mid-1990s. The annual St. Patrick's Day parade drew ample crowds to the six-lane street and to bars like the Yucatan Liquor Stand. Every weekend, partygoers found a vibrant scene of restaurants and dance clubs, arcades and two-stepping joints.
Widely referred to as the Richmond Strip, the area - just past the Galleria from Chimney Rock to Hillcroft and from Westpark to Westheimer - was the place to see and be seen for much of the 1990s, a flashy drag of bars, clubs and restaurants seen as the Houston's answer to Sixth Street, Beale Street and Bourbon Street.
Now the largely abandoned entertainment district is a focal point for city and business leaders in the area, hoping it can shake its forlorn image and draw on the energy of nearby businesses and retail opportunities along nearby Westheimer.
"It only takes driving up and down the streets in the area to see the problems that exist," City Councilman Mike Laster, who represents the area, said Tuesday.
The city's first Chuy's, Taco Cabana and Joe's Crab Shack rose in the area, where young professionals flocked to brand new apartment complexes.
Decades later, many of those apartment complexes are boarded up. The party people moved downtown, to Midtown and along Washington Avenue. Vacant properties and adult entertainment venues mix with remaining offices and restaurants.
"We want the area to overcome the negative image," said Daniel Brents, chairman of the Urban Land Institute panel commissioned to study the area.
Community meeting
The panel, which includes real estate experts, landscape architects and urban planners, presented a general concept to revitalize the area on Tuesday at a community meeting. They interviewed business owners and neighborhood groups as part of the study. A primary suggestion was to make better use of existing tools such as management districts, tax increment reinvestment zones and other incentive programs to help spur development.
John Dupuy, a landscape architect with TBG Partners, noted the disparate land uses in the area that was originally meant for single-family homes but evolved over time. He cited a few current bright spots, including new townhome developments, a group of exotic-car dealerships and custom car shops, and an immigrant community that recently created an independent soccer league.
"We wanted to find a way to make these anchors more significant and tie them together," Dupuy said. "We want to make corridors clean, safe, walkable and successful streets."
Problems identified by the panel include infrastructure, drainage and a lack of lighting. The group's interviews with interested parties also found that a lack of open space, parks and safe sidewalks hampered development.
The lower-end apartment complexes in the area are nearing the end of their "life expectancy," said Chris Reyes, with the retail division of Transwestern. He said occupancy is strong, so there is little incentive to redevelop or remodel the Class B and C properties.
On a positive note, he said, there are some Class A multi-family projects on the fringes.
In the retail sector, Reyes said, there are high vacancy rates and below-market rents, with a hodgepodge of businesses. There are many abandoned properties among sexually oriented businesses, small offices and flea markets.
Culturally diverse
But Reyes said the culturally diverse area could one day become a culinary center for Houston's foodies.
"It has the potential to draw energy from Westheimer. It's a big business district, and we want to bring that energy and move it south," Reyes said. "We could have new restaurants and retail along Richmond."
To fund any proposals, the area's leaders could attempt to take advantage of several tools, including TIRZ funding, management districts or incentive programs to bring in developers, said Tyler Ford with real estate brokerage firm HFF.
Management districts and TIRZ improvements could take up to a decade to revitalize a neighborhood, the city's chief development officer, Andy Icken, warned. The city has 24 TIRZ districts, which are tasked with helping improve various areas.
He said the city has in recent years focused on 380 agreements, which offer incentives to developers to build.
"Every case needs to be looked at pretty carefully," Icken said. He pointed to downtown, which is represented by a TIRZ district, as an example of a success. Market Square and along Main have seen a string of new developments in recent years, and this has begun rippling throughout downtown.
Brents, an architect and urban planner, said the panel purposefully did not come up with a specific plan for the area - so that many disparate groups would be represented.
"We hope for a long-term vision that is very positive, that benefits everyone at large," Brents said. "It has to be accomplished deliberately, slowly, over time."
