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They aren't excluding the numbers. When you add a number into a data set and it changes next to nothing, it's predictive validity is crap. Why would you just throw in factors that have no correlation to the project.

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This is what I'm curious about. How do they know excluding the entire population of Bryan won't skew the results? Not doubting you, I see you're thin skinned about this. I'm just curios how researchers particularly in retail can reach those conclusions. Would love to see the hard data. Without the "proof in the pudding" I wonder if our local demographics have been off over the years.

Survey data, store records, tax info, plenty of places to find spending habits if you know where to look. Bryan was behind CS 5 years ago per capita spending. They are farther behind now, and their income growth has lagged CS, too.

There isn't a invisible line between the cities, but from a financial/development perspective, there is a green line that separates them. CS residents spend a larger dollar value, yet a lower % gross income than Bryan residents on non-consumer staples. In fact, they even spend less on consumer staples which is why Walgreens and CVS want out. They would rather the scripts (money maker) be filled at Wal-Mart then trying to make Bryan work. Why? Look at consumer traffic flow. It moves unidirectional. CS stay in CS. A lot of Bryan residents travel into CS for work, and then shop in CS. Very few work in Bryan and use disposable income in Bryan. There are exceptions to the rule like Miramont, but for every Miramont, there are more Finfeather/Avalon low income areas. CS has the state streets, and behind NG before it was bought up.

Bryan likes to point the finger at CS and claim the city is over-regulated, they don't realize that while developers hate zoning laws, they don't mind them if they make their property more valuable. Far corners for a Walgreens or CVS in CS go for a higher multiple and price/sq ft because you won't be boxed in by Smoking Joes, have a Wendys turn into a title loan company, and grandfather the signage of Wendy's to the new title loan company essentially creating a massive title loans billboard (which are allowed in Bryan, but not in CS other then some grandfathered like Readfields).

Bryan is falling behind because Houston is growing, the university is growing, and money is moving out. It happens all over the country across time. It's the problem with 2 cities that are adjacent to each other. One USUALLY goes one direction while the other goes the opposite (Midland/Odessa , Richmond/Rosenberg, etc)

I asked a co-coworker "How should I explain that CS has more demand then Bryan?"
Their response: "Pick 10 properties in each city and see which has a higher Section 8 %".

So, he did (I guess over lunch so he could get extra hours?), and 7/10 in Bryan accepted Section 8. None in CS accepted it. That is glaring.

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Look at consumer traffic flow. It moves unidirectional. CS stay in CS. A lot of Bryan residents travel into CS for work, and then shop in CS. Very few work in Bryan and use disposable income in Bryan.

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This is what I'm interested in. Why is the population of Bryan ignored in the data if there is obviously some unidirectional movement in spending? My suspicion is researcher bias (newspaper kind, not statistical) that results in some data being ignored.

Thanks for the detailed response. Very interesting.

I'm sure JMazz or someone with local residential knowledge could better answer that question. Bryan has great areas. I would argue the highs are higher than CS, but the lows are a lot lower. It will be interesting to see if the Oney Hervey development moves further east. If so, there will be very few "in town" low income areas of CS.

Again, I think the thing that is slowly killing Bryan is the growth of Houston. DT Bryan is great, but 10 miles from most in CS and growing longer. Bryan is growing east west/ CS is growing south. Businesses have shown a preference for south towards Houston.

I know they use census and survey data along with TXDOT traffic flow maps. What Bryan needs is a large corporation to move in to alter that pull. They need something like a Dell that creates a business campus.

The biocorridor etc are all great in concept, and bring in great research dollars, but there hasn't been a lot of payoff. Heck, of the 4 people I know in the HSC, the two profs live outside of CS, and the 2 suppliers live in Houston. It's starting to look like the biocorridor is a great place for companies to make money, not individuals. GSK is employing almost all international or A&M faculty/students for research. The thousands of jobs that were supposed to be created exist, they just didn't go to locals (of either city).

Brett Cornwell is the person to talk to if you have questions about the biocorridor. He is head of tech commercialization for the A&M system.

MaysAggie2015, you have some great points, but when you say that Houston is killing Bryan, you do know that the population of Bryan is growing right? Just wanted to make sure.

I don't agree with "Houston killing Bryan, " I see Houston doing the opposite for Bryan.

Bryan is working on attracting higher income families by offering incentives for larger houses being built in the city.

Bryan is behind, but you make it seem like the city is dying. The city has come a long way over the past 15 years. I can remember a point in Bryan just 15 years ago where basically the only places that you could go shopping was at Walmart or Bealls (Not counting grocery stores). All and when I say All I mean ALL shopping had to be done in College Station. It was a sad an depressing time for a city the size of Bryan to have none of the big box stores College Station had. I think it all started when Bryan let Post Oak Mall leave for College Station.

As of now, I think the city is on the right track, I would just like to see it pick up the pace a lot more.

Maybe not killing.... Polarizing the two. Bryan is a great city. It's just getting left behind. It is growing at a slower pace and at a lower income level. In real estate, you'd consider that as a bad leading indicator.

I'd like Bryan to focus more on cleaning up the bad, and putting developers in the position to do it. Right now, they would rather protect the 200 unit run-down apartment complex with signs saying 24 hour police monitoring than to say enough is enough, tear down the blight, and turn it into something people that drive past look at and go "wow, I really like Bryan."

When you travel down 6 through Bryan (like TX Ave), it's easy to when one stops and the other starts. Again, I think it is a local zoning issue and a macro Houston issue. Bryan needs to learn that just because it can be built doesn't mean it should be built. Same goes for the structures in place.

I can't remover the JP for that precinct (I think precinct 2?), but I remember she was a raging PITA if you looked like you were from a property mgmt company, development company, etc. Heck, "I don't care about leases, just people" was a direct quote from her during one of our wonderful experiences. Boyette was the complete opposite.

So, maybe it is more than just economic.

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It's not a bias, it's a developers decision on what will make a store successful. Walgreens and CVS are great examples. They want out of Bryan so bad they can't see straight.

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What??? The Walgreens across from Bryan High is one of the most profitable and its the only 24 hour Walgreens out of all the location in Bryan and College Station.

CVS did have plans for a new store in Bryan at the corner of Villa Maria and 2818 (north east corner), I don't know if that is still happening.

If what some of you are saying is true (retailers don't look at Bryan's Population) then Bryan could support a lot more retail and needs to start recruiting businesses to the Bryan side of the border.

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Where's the CVS that was supposedly going to replace the old Safeway at Briarcrest and 29th?

They could probably squeeze one into the old Seafood Mama's / Oxford Street location.

POTD

But what if it caught fire?

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It's not a bias, it's a developers decision on what will make a store successful. Walgreens and CVS are great examples. They want out of Bryan so bad they can't see straight.

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What??? The Walgreens across from Bryan High is one of the most profitable and its the only 24 hour Walgreens out of all the location in Bryan and College Station.

CVS did have plans for a new store in Bryan at the corner of Villa Maria and 2818 (north east corner), I don't know if that is still happening.

If what some of you are saying is true (retailers don't look at Bryan's Population) then Bryan could support a lot more retail and needs to start recruiting businesses to the Bryan side of the border.

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Where's the CVS that was supposedly going to replace the old Safeway at Briarcrest and 29th?

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I always thought that CVS going there was a joke because people always say where there is a Walgreens, CVS will build near by.

That Walgreens isn't top 25 in the state or close. It isn't the top in the region or even the district (no longer exists when they eliminated their RE development arm).

The CVS is dead. The university location is killing it, and liklely why Walgreens pressed so hard to get into Loupots and the new midway development. I know CVS and Walgreens on TX avenue in Bryan at Villa Maria are looking to relocate.

Usually the distance is 2-3 miles. CVS filled a lot of holes when they bought out Eckerds, and ever since IMO has completely out gamed Walgreens. They are willing to go non-traditional, smaller store, odd hours, etc. Walgreens wants the cookie cutter far corner with x number of sq ft, x number of parking spaces, a curb cut x feet from the intersection, and not visible intrutions for .25 miles. Last I heard, the CVS on university was filling in a week what VM put out in a month.

Students have to go somewhere....and they don't prefer the quack shack.

In TX typically CVS follows Walgreens. BUT like I said earlier, that's all space kept even. CVS is much more flexible with their store design and layout.

The Walgreens Express Scripts debacle only helped CVS take it to them even more.

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Usually the distance is 2-3 miles. CVS filled a lot of holes when they bought out Eckerds, and ever since IMO has completely out gamed Walgreens. They are willing to go non-traditional, smaller store, odd hours, etc. Walgreens wants the cookie cutter far corner with x number of sq ft, x number of parking spaces, a curb cut x feet from the intersection, and not visible intrutions for .25 miles. Last I heard, the CVS on university was filling in a week what VM put out in a month.

Students have to go somewhere....and they don't prefer the quack shack.

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The CVS on Northgate is going gangbusters because it filled in a niche that was unfilled since the Albertsons had pulled out a decade and a half prior, namely a full pharmacy and a better grocery department than what the run-down convenience stores had to offer. There's also no competition, whereas the VM CVS has to fight against both the Walgreens catty-corner AND the H-E-B.

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Maybe not killing.... Polarizing the two. Bryan is a great city. It's just getting left behind. It is growing at a slower pace and at a lower income level. In real estate, you'd consider that as a bad leading indicator.

I'd like Bryan to focus more on cleaning up the bad, and putting developers in the position to do it. Right now, they would rather protect the 200 unit run-down apartment complex with signs saying 24 hour police monitoring than to say enough is enough, tear down the blight, and turn it into something people that drive past look at and go "wow, I really like Bryan."

When you travel down 6 through Bryan (like TX Ave), it's easy to when one stops and the other starts. Again, I think it is a local zoning issue and a macro Houston issue. Bryan needs to learn that just because it can be built doesn't mean it should be built. Same goes for the structures in place.

I can't remover the JP for that precinct (I think precinct 2?), but I remember she was a raging PITA if you looked like you were from a property mgmt company, development company, etc. Heck, "I don't care about leases, just people" was a direct quote from her during one of our wonderful experiences. Boyette was the complete opposite.

So, maybe it is more than just economic.

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Some good points here. A minority faction on the Bryan City Council continuously fight with the majority about good development. They fought against Traditions. They fought against development of the muni golf course boondoggle and subsequent redevelopment of the College / Villa Maria area. Whenever the majority on council try to do something nice for the city, the minority howls about them being pro development. They start letter writing campaigns to The Eagle and stir everybody up. People who don't even live in Bryan show up at the council meetings and berate the council.

Sage and Westheimer makes the CS location look like an 8th grade JV lineman tackle going against Myles Garrett.

Same with Ballpark at Arlington and William Canon and Congress and they aren't 24 hour locations. They are both midnight close.

Techno, I honestly never thought I'd blue star you. But when you're right, you're right.

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Techno, I honestly never thought I'd blue star you. But when you're right, you're right.

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The problem is, everybody else is usually wrong ....

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Maybe not killing.... Polarizing the two. Bryan is a great city. It's just getting left behind. It is growing at a slower pace and at a lower income level. In real estate, you'd consider that as a bad leading indicator.

I'd like Bryan to focus more on cleaning up the bad, and putting developers in the position to do it. Right now, they would rather protect the 200 unit run-down apartment complex with signs saying 24 hour police monitoring than to say enough is enough, tear down the blight, and turn it into something people that drive past look at and go "wow, I really like Bryan."

When you travel down 6 through Bryan (like TX Ave), it's easy to when one stops and the other starts. Again, I think it is a local zoning issue and a macro Houston issue. Bryan needs to learn that just because it can be built doesn't mean it should be built. Same goes for the structures in place.

I can't remover the JP for that precinct (I think precinct 2?), but I remember she was a raging PITA if you looked like you were from a property mgmt company, development company, etc. Heck, "I don't care about leases, just people" was a direct quote from her during one of our wonderful experiences. Boyette was the complete opposite.

So, maybe it is more than just economic.

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Some good points here. A minority faction on the Bryan City Council continuously fight with the majority about good development. They fought against Traditions. They fought against development of the muni golf course boondoggle and subsequent redevelopment of the College / Villa Maria area. Whenever the majority on council try to do something nice for the city, the minority howls about them being pro development. They start letter writing campaigns to The Eagle and stir everybody up. People who don't even live in Bryan show up at the council meetings and berate the council.

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I don't think it's fair to lump anti-development NIMBYs in with trying to close down the golf course. Remember, that was defeated in the polls, but in a way Bryan reminds me a lot of Waco. Waco was very old money, and that crippled the city for years. They built the Alico and the Waco Suspension Bridge years ago when they were big projects and when Waco and Dallas were the same size, but what ended up happening was by the early 2000s, Waco had been stunted in growth, had completely stagnated its central core, and much of the city (buildings, infrastructure) was wildly out of date. This has been changing (possibly due to Austin influence), where new restaurants have been coming in along the Interstate 35 corridor, which is now anchored by a large stadium. Granted, a lot of which are old hat (a new Chick-fil-a, Gander Mountain, a few others), but even enough to get some exports from the Dallas or Austin area (In-N-Out Burger, Twisted Root, even Torchy's came first). Even Fuego has made a stand there, and even if it has lost a lot of ground, there's always new construction.

It was shot down in the polls because it was presented as a way to "preserve parkland."

Just looked and Westheimer and Sage is #1 and Montrose in Houston is #2. CS isn't top 50.

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Maybe not killing.... Polarizing the two. Bryan is a great city. It's just getting left behind. It is growing at a slower pace and at a lower income level. In real estate, you'd consider that as a bad leading indicator.

I'd like Bryan to focus more on cleaning up the bad, and putting developers in the position to do it. Right now, they would rather protect the 200 unit run-down apartment complex with signs saying 24 hour police monitoring than to say enough is enough, tear down the blight, and turn it into something people that drive past look at and go "wow, I really like Bryan."

When you travel down 6 through Bryan (like TX Ave), it's easy to when one stops and the other starts. Again, I think it is a local zoning issue and a macro Houston issue. Bryan needs to learn that just because it can be built doesn't mean it should be built. Same goes for the structures in place.

I can't remover the JP for that precinct (I think precinct 2?), but I remember she was a raging PITA if you looked like you were from a property mgmt company, development company, etc. Heck, "I don't care about leases, just people" was a direct quote from her during one of our wonderful experiences. Boyette was the complete opposite.

So, maybe it is more than just economic.

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Houston doesn't have zoning either, and there are definitely some bad parts of it, worse than Bryan (Gulfton comes to mind), but a lot of those problems aren't resulting from zoning. I hate to say it, but apart from the new developments on the fringes of Bryan (anything west of 2818 or east of Highway 6), there's nothing about Bryan that's particularly nice or charming.

While Houston has lots of run-down looking strip malls, but they usually have tasty places to eat or are in deceptively high-rent, high-traffic areas (Westheimer Road comes to mind). With Inner Loop Houston you get the Heights, Montrose, University Place, and River Oaks, trendy places that are extremely expensive to live in, but in Bryan you don't. You drive down College Station and find relatively common strip malls and restaurants. Walmart, Church's Chicken, Kroger, McDonald's, Firestone, Target, H-E-B, Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond, Chili's, Exxon, Fairfield Inn. When you start crossing over Bryan past Rosemary, the landscape changes. A run-down comics shop. Smoke shops. Empty strip malls. Loan places. Dollar stores. It doesn't get any better, and the more you travel, generally older and more run-down places await. Downtown Bryan remains a small enclave generally surrounded by run-down homes and businesses.

The only other big investment I've seen in "true" Bryan besides the redevelopment of Manor East Mall and downtown is Townshire, which even after they've filled the spot of an incredibly ill-advised Albertsons is still mostly empty besides a dollar store, Cici's Pizza and Alph@graphics*, which really isn't even a retail store.

* replaced character to avoid tripping word filter

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Bryan is falling behind because Houston is growing, the university is growing, and money is moving out. It happens all over the country across time. It's the problem with 2 cities that are adjacent to each other.
One USUALLY goes one direction while the other goes the opposite
(Midland/Odessa , Richmond/Rosenberg, etc)

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I see what you're saying and agree to some extent, BUT... I think it's a little more complex than Bryan vs CS. There are plenty of parts of College Station I would not want to live in, whether it's b/c of college students or run down parts (like the state named streets). CS is pumping money south and development south. I went to high school in Dallas, house after house type developments are very unappealing to me. South CS honestly feels like a burb of Dallas or Houston - pack as many houses in as we can and give them a new HEB.

Parts of Bryan are worse, when talking about ghetto/run down etc. However, Bryan really is 2 separate pieces - west of Hwy 6 and east of Hwy 6. Each half is very different. Texas Ave in Bryan is what it is b/c there's no draw, nothing bringing a ton of traffic through (like the A&M campus in CS). Not much they can do at this point with that part of town, but they have revitalized downtown Bryan. Bryan does have their own utilities (which are cheaper than CS and not outsourced). We also don't have the traffic that CS has.

My wife and I bought a house in Bryan (east of 6) and love it. We've got trails, a movie theater, groceries, a few good restaurants, and nothing is far in B/CS. We can hop on and off Hwy 6 and get anywhere just about in 15 minutes. We moved here from Austin and couldn't be happier. Call me crazy, but we like the slower growth.

Everybody's different though, but we're happy here.

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To me, I think that in a way, both cities stunt each other's growth. Bryan's refusal to update and invest itself save for a big push in the 2000s hurts College Station's otherwise college-based demographics in getting nicer things, and College Station's growth in turn hurts Bryan's, which continues to stagnate. Or something like that, really.

College Station is very suburban. That's not bad, and that's a reason why suburbs have continued to grow and be popular in the U.S. for the last past 60-70 years. But suburbs are also notoriously boring, which is why a lot of people head to...what city? All Bryan's got is downtown in terms of draws, and there's not much to that than some nightlife and a few antique stores. A symbiotic "city-suburb" relationship is still possible if Bryan steps up to the plate and pulls in some cultural activities (theater, orchestra?), non-college sports (no major leagues yet of course, but it could benefit hotels and restaurants on the football off season), maybe a big conference center/hotel that CS was angling for, and mid-rise office buildings. Maybe some of the historic areas around Bryan could clean themselves up and become swanky neighborhoods (seriously, some of the neighborhoods in Dallas or Houston make Miramont look cheap).

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Maybe not killing.... Polarizing the two. Bryan is a great city. It's just getting left behind. It is growing at a slower pace and at a lower income level. In real estate, you'd consider that as a bad leading indicator.

I'd like Bryan to focus more on cleaning up the bad, and putting developers in the position to do it. Right now, they would rather protect the 200 unit run-down apartment complex with signs saying 24 hour police monitoring than to say enough is enough, tear down the blight, and turn it into something people that drive past look at and go "wow, I really like Bryan."

When you travel down 6 through Bryan (like TX Ave), it's easy to when one stops and the other starts. Again, I think it is a local zoning issue and a macro Houston issue. Bryan needs to learn that just because it can be built doesn't mean it should be built. Same goes for the structures in place.

I can't remover the JP for that precinct (I think precinct 2?), but I remember she was a raging PITA if you looked like you were from a property mgmt company, development company, etc. Heck, "I don't care about leases, just people" was a direct quote from her during one of our wonderful experiences. Boyette was the complete opposite.

So, maybe it is more than just economic.

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Houston doesn't have zoning either, and there are definitely some bad parts of it, worse than Bryan (Gulfton comes to mind), but a lot of those problems aren't resulting from zoning. I hate to say it, but apart from the new developments on the fringes of Bryan (anything west of 2818 or east of Highway 6), there's nothing about Bryan that's particularly nice or charming.

While Houston has lots of run-down looking strip malls, but they usually have tasty places to eat or are in deceptively high-rent, high-traffic areas (Westheimer Road comes to mind). With Inner Loop Houston you get the Heights, Montrose, University Place, and River Oaks, trendy places that are extremely expensive to live in, but in Bryan you don't. You drive down College Station and find relatively common strip malls and restaurants. Walmart, Church's Chicken, Kroger, McDonald's, Firestone, Target, H-E-B, Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond, Chili's, Exxon, Fairfield Inn. When you start crossing over Bryan past Rosemary, the landscape changes. A run-down comics shop. Smoke shops. Empty strip malls. Loan places. Dollar stores. It doesn't get any better, and the more you travel, generally older and more run-down places await. Downtown Bryan remains a small enclave generally surrounded by run-down homes and businesses.

The only other big investment I've seen in "true" Bryan besides the redevelopment of Manor East Mall and downtown is Townshire, which even after they've filled the spot of an incredibly ill-advised Albertsons is still mostly empty besides a dollar store, Cici's Pizza and Alph@graphics*, which really isn't even a retail store.

* replaced character to avoid tripping word filter

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What would you do to change Bryan being this way?

Will widening Texas Ave to 3 lanes on the Bryan side help?
Burying power lines?
Code enforcement?
Not allowing people to live in shacks? Tearing down shacks?
Not allowing trailer/mobile homes anywhere?
If the ghettos are cleared out and redeveloped, where will those people relocate to?
How does College Station handle similar problems?

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Maybe not killing.... Polarizing the two. Bryan is a great city. It's just getting left behind. It is growing at a slower pace and at a lower income level. In real estate, you'd consider that as a bad leading indicator.

I'd like Bryan to focus more on cleaning up the bad, and putting developers in the position to do it. Right now, they would rather protect the 200 unit run-down apartment complex with signs saying 24 hour police monitoring than to say enough is enough, tear down the blight, and turn it into something people that drive past look at and go "wow, I really like Bryan."

When you travel down 6 through Bryan (like TX Ave), it's easy to when one stops and the other starts. Again, I think it is a local zoning issue and a macro Houston issue. Bryan needs to learn that just because it can be built doesn't mean it should be built. Same goes for the structures in place.

I can't remover the JP for that precinct (I think precinct 2?), but I remember she was a raging PITA if you looked like you were from a property mgmt company, development company, etc. Heck, "I don't care about leases, just people" was a direct quote from her during one of our wonderful experiences. Boyette was the complete opposite.

So, maybe it is more than just economic.

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Houston doesn't have zoning either, and there are definitely some bad parts of it, worse than Bryan (Gulfton comes to mind), but a lot of those problems aren't resulting from zoning. I hate to say it, but apart from the new developments on the fringes of Bryan (anything west of 2818 or east of Highway 6), there's nothing about Bryan that's particularly nice or charming.

While Houston has lots of run-down looking strip malls, but they usually have tasty places to eat or are in deceptively high-rent, high-traffic areas (Westheimer Road comes to mind). With Inner Loop Houston you get the Heights, Montrose, University Place, and River Oaks, trendy places that are extremely expensive to live in, but in Bryan you don't. You drive down College Station and find relatively common strip malls and restaurants. Walmart, Church's Chicken, Kroger, McDonald's, Firestone, Target, H-E-B, Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond, Chili's, Exxon, Fairfield Inn. When you start crossing over Bryan past Rosemary, the landscape changes. A run-down comics shop. Smoke shops. Empty strip malls. Loan places. Dollar stores. It doesn't get any better, and the more you travel, generally older and more run-down places await. Downtown Bryan remains a small enclave generally surrounded by run-down homes and businesses.

The only other big investment I've seen in "true" Bryan besides the redevelopment of Manor East Mall and downtown is Townshire, which even after they've filled the spot of an incredibly ill-advised Albertsons is still mostly empty besides a dollar store, Cici's Pizza and Alph@graphics*, which really isn't even a retail store.

* replaced character to avoid tripping word filter

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What would you do to change Bryan being this way?

Will widening Texas Ave to 3 lanes on the Bryan side help?
Burying power lines?
Code enforcement?
Not allowing people to live in shacks? Tearing down shacks?
Not allowing trailer/mobile homes anywhere?
If the ghettos are cleared out and redeveloped, where will those people relocate to?
How does College Station handle similar problems?

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Road widths are irrelevant, as are power lines (even the Westheimer example has power lines).

The lack of development has created the apartment/ghetto problem because in a functional market, if new apartments are being built at a regular pace, one is built, one is demolished, and the rest move down a notch. Honestly, probably the best solution is to convert the worst ones to parkland and offer incentives to developers to build more housing around Bryan. The market should equilibrate...hopefully.

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All Bryan's got is downtown in terms of draws, and there's not much to that than some nightlife and a few antique stores.

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Actually, Downtown Bryan has quite a bit more than that. Take a look at the map.

http://downtownbryan.com/about/map/

One other thing to think of, how will the new Blinn campus affect this perception? West Bryan should get a boom in growth for the campus and housing. The current campus is land-locked without room for the growth.

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All Bryan's got is downtown in terms of draws, and there's not much to that than some nightlife and a few antique stores.

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Actually, Downtown Bryan has quite a bit more than that. Take a look at the map.

http://downtownbryan.com/about/map/

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That was a bit of an exaggeration. I know it has some decent dining options (admittedly, I've never been to the German restaurant, but it's a bit embarrassing that they feel the need to mention Chicken Express, which isn't even that close to downtown) and some gift shops (that I have ZERO interest in), and the Carnegie center (which I DO like, because I'm that type of person). Since the list of businesses have dredged up this little bit of trivia from my brain, I think it's rather telling that they admitted Arsenal Tattoo as an "art gallery".

Chicken Express is a member of the Downtown Bryan Association, which is why they're listed on the map. They border the "official" boundaries of downtown. As for Arsenal, stop by there sometime. Cliff Collard and his wife Stacy are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. They did a fantastic job of remodeling the old service station, and Cliff is, indeed, an artist who does more than tattoos. His artwork is on the walls.

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All Bryan's got is downtown in terms of draws, and there's not much to that than some nightlife and a few antique stores. A symbiotic "city-suburb" relationship is still possible if Bryan steps up to the plate and pulls in some cultural activities (theater, orchestra?), non-college sports (no major leagues yet of course, but it could benefit hotels and restaurants on the football off season), maybe a big conference center/hotel that CS was angling for, and mid-rise office buildings. Maybe some of the historic areas around Bryan could clean themselves up and become swanky neighborhoods (seriously, some of the neighborhoods in Dallas or Houston make Miramont look cheap).

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People who say this don't remember when downtown Bryan really was a desert. Its come a long way...a LONG way. The Village, Downtown Uncorked, and Harvest are great places to hang out...if you prefer the more generic places in strip malls, fine. Lots of people don't. The renovation of the lofts has attracted people to live there. Murphy's Law and Proudest Monkey also have their followers. No its not a "city," but what it is is an alternative for an older-but-not-old crowd that has moved past Northgate, and CS's generic interchangeable strip malls. Oh it could be better, but at the risk of taking hits, I'd rather see it go more hipster than "swanky." Dallas has all the "swank" one could want, and frankly they can keep it up there.

My concern is that our growth pattern takes us into something more like Texarkana...a gigantic soulless pile of crap (with all due respect to anyone unfortunate enough to be from there).

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I never said downtown Bryan hasn't improved. However, a lot of that is the result of that 2000s push and not what the city is currently doing. Why is north of 23rd Street still mostly vacant?

Meanwhile, for College Station, it's about the fourth time in two months where the new development list has come up empty (prompting this topic)