The site plans for the complex at 203 Church Ave (Church and First) has been submitted to the city for approval. It is a 23-story, 208-unit apartment with ground floor retail and is called The Opus. I have not been able to find any sketches of what it will look like yet.

I am disappointed that the ground floor retail is only set to be 3,000 square feet. So, it won't be a grocery store or city Target type space. Maybe the next high-rise!

Captn_Ag05 said:

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The site plans for the complex at 203 Church Ave (Church and First) has been submitted to the city for approval. It is a 23-story, 208-unit apartment with ground floor retail and is called The Opus. I have not been able to find any sketches of what it will look like yet.

I am disappointed that the ground floor retail is only set to be 3,000 square feet. So, it won't be a grocery store or city Target type space. Maybe the next high-rise!

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I don't think they're building anymore CityTarget-sized stores anymore. As for grocery stores, the best chance for that is building something in the old Albertsons spot. (I still wish they had gone through with the original plan and reopened it like they had planned to do.)

Site plan for "Opus at College Station" is in the new development list for January. Looks to be 23 floors with 208 units and 554 beds total. This is the project that received a height variance.

https://www.cstx.gov/common/pages/DownloadFileByUrl.aspx?key=CmWjOP8h%2bAQp48llhm3qXrWU%2bjWI3SRdZ5Sg8gsmrPfJzmbTiDKnFptx96OWYRm2Kemw80E1QG9QO1%2bOdS3L29GPPxPpSy47SDpcD5qLh5NVYkr8v9Nb5AdwglFYSZD9GeDJqaeacmX4DASXeaMQY3EoQmtIk0zaYAEnU%2bcv9kJxqJV3N2zHTE1tpnJF6tJjedogcA%3d%3d

Demolition has begun for the Nova Northgate tower

A little more information on the Nova Northgate project located at Wellborn and University, which is apparently being re-branded as Aspire A&M II.

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Aspire A&M will feature a 19-story structure encompassing 11,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, 718 garage parking spaces, and a comprehensive amenity package including two rooftop pools, fitness facilities, study rooms, a theater, and a game lounge

The Aspire A&M project site is located on University Avenue, within the Northgate Entertainment District, providing students with walking access to the College of Engineering, Mays Business School, and nearby attractions including the Memorial Student Center, Kyle Field, Student Recreation Center, and local dining destinations. The significant enrollment growth at Texas A&M University underscores the demand for quality student housing in the area.

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That looks great.

A view of the planned rooftop of the Aspire II or whatever they are calling it.

Captn_Ag05 said:

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A view of the planned rooftop of the Aspire II or whatever they are calling it.

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May it be a siren call for more students in NG.

It looks like a great place to study.

There have been several site plans and height variance requests submitted for mid/high-rises. By my count there is one currently under construction and four in the works.

1) Aspire II (in red) at Wellborn and University - currently under construction. 19-stories

2) 201 Boyett (in green) at Boyett and Church - height variance recently approved. 23-stories

3) 201 Church Ave. (in blue) at Church and First. Site plans recently submitted. 23-stories

4) 303 S. College (Hurricane Harrys location). Site plans recently submitted. 8-stories

5) 415 College Main. Site plans submitted in April. Called the Pinecrest. 20-stories



Am I missing any?

mason12 said:

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That is a heck of a description about being close to engineering, Kyle Field, and Mays business school. Technically, yes, you can walk to all those, but that's walking from one end of campus to the other.

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I certainly walked those places when I lived in the northside dorms 50 yrs ago.

Just listened to our Aggieland board's own Councilman Yancy on WTAW. He discussed Northgate development a bit. One thing that stood out was his mentioning the potential for a very exciting, non disclosable project at University and S. College in Century Square next to PopStroke. That is probably the most prime piece of available land left along University, so I look forward to hearing about it if it comes to fruition. I hope it involves a grocery store.

The whole interview is worth a listen, but Northgate discussions start around 5 minutes: https://wtaw.com/city-of-college-station-update-on-wtaw-226/

Captn_Ag05 said:

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I hope it involves a grocery store.

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I'm hard pressed think of anything that would make sense with the size of the space and grocers which are expanding. Besides, they already have a full supermarket off West Campus.

Especially if it's a mixed use project.

Buford T. Justice said:

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Councilman,


I appreciate your communication with us via this forum. With it in mind, I would like to share an opinion with you that might be met with resistance. In my opinion, there isn't any charm or historic nostalgia with the Northgate area, and the city should not try and preserve any portion of it. Let the market make the decision. Another bar and entertainment district will develop, just as Northgate did years ago.

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I do agree with this. The few "historic" (read: old) buildings have already been altered beyond recognition. The Northgate Cinema got an unfortunate wood siding re-do in the 1990s and changed further with a rooftop patio. Loupot's got the same thing. The "Sparks Building" once had a variety of tenants and was cleaned up some point in the 1990s or 2000s to have new green signage for its multiple tenants (including a camera shop that lasted into the early 2000s), but now all those multiple tenants are gone, even the stuff there in the early 2010s--the barber shop accessed from the outdoor staircase is gone, Potato Shack is gone, to that little antique clothing store that you had to use a spiral staircase to access to is gone, and so forth, now it's just a bar with sticky floors and old beer hanging in the air. It does have some food but it's nothing to write home about.

Dixie Chicken/Dry Bean/Duddley's Draw are pointless to keep around once those businesses shuffle off the mortal coil.

On a broader range, some of the continued attempts for the city to have its hand in guiding Northgate development have turned out to be either washed away or rendered irrelevant, like building a big interconnected patio and then finding out that it encouraged open consumption of alcohol, which they had to crack down on in the 2000s because things were getting out of hand, redoing College Main with brick pedestrian crossings and bike lanes, and by the time Bryan got their act together with the same thing the whole road was made useless when College Station closed off a crucial block to making it a functional street...the various attempts at redeveloping the former Albertsons (including everything from the reopening of the store as a new Albertsons to a hands-on science museum inspired by San Francisco's Exploratorium).

The city has no consistent idea or vision of what they want in Northgate, and everything they've tried (almost always without voter approval) usually has some obvious drawback that somebody has to pay for one way or another.

Respectfully, I would counter that it has been gone for a long time.

Buford T. Justice said:

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Respectfully, I would counter that it has been gone for a long time.

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Actually it's still there. I've been there several times recently.

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We will have failed as a community if we don't work closely with the private sector to carefully plan a future for Northgate that captures the will of all of you.

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Why should constituents have confidence that any dabbling in real estate or business by the city will not end up a mess?

There are people that would prefer everything look the same like Century Square.

any chance for some nicer hotels in North Gate given the new realities you describe above?

Agreed

2wealfth Man said:

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any chance for some nicer hotels in North Gate given the new realities you describe above?

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Yes! :-)

TAMU1990 said:

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So, the convenience store is going away? I used that store quite a bit back in the day.

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its already gone its just an empty patch of land right now

Obviously understand you can't give details on the project next to PopStroke you referred to in the WTAW interview, but any idea on a timeline of when we might hear something publicly about it?

CEAg78 said:

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mason12 said:

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That is a heck of a description about being close to engineering, Kyle Field, and Mays business school. Technically, yes, you can walk to all those, but that's walking from one end of campus to the other.

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I certainly walked those places when I lived in the northside dorms 50 yrs ago.

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I biked once to twice a day from down Agronomy Road to the O&M building and Zachery for three years. These days, there is no need to walk long distances.

The Delux Diner got a lot of my business.