Results tagged “congressavenue”

So, you might have heard about this already, but the story is too good to pass up: There was a power outage in the north end of downtown early Thursday morning, and it was caused by a raccoon trying to raid a bird nest. It happened around 12:30 a.m. at CenterPoint Energy's Gable Street substation in the 500 block of McKee when the unfortunate raccoon got electrocuted, plunging more than 1,500 customers north of Congress Avenue into darkness, including UH-Downtown, the main post office and the city and county jails.

While walking down South Congress Avenue on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Austin at SXSW last month, Houstonist came up upon the unofficial Houston music showcase. We decided to hang out for a while, grab a beer and some chips and queso, and catch some great local acts. We chatted with the host of the showcase, Pete Lippincott, who just happens to be the man behind the band Petesimple. Petesimple recently released their second CD...

More on yesterday's news that Metro is now in the business of land investing: According to county tax officials, the transit agency could end up having to pay taxes on two blocks of Midtown property it's holding for a private developer for several months. Metro's board approved the purchase of the property in question, a two-block, $7.2 million parcel bordered by Main, Holman, Travis and Winbern, on March 22. The seller is developer Robert H. Schultz's RHS Interests, which plans a mixed-use development for the site. RHS can buy the property back from Metro within a year for $7.2 million; for six months after that, the price will be $7.2 million plus interest; and after 18 months, Metro may do whatever it wants to with the property. For Schultz, the deal has two big benefits: The price of the land is locked for 12 months — and during that time, while Metro is holding onto the property, he won't have to pay taxes on it.

Problems are still being worked out at the newly renovated Juvenile Justice Center downtown — including a broken pipe that meant the scent of raw sewage frequently wafted through the building. And you thought it was the giving off that smell!

So the All-Star Weekend is officially over and we all made it though — didn't we? Houstonist ventured downtown this weekend and we were a little surprised at how many people were there. As we watched traffic inch down Congress Avenue and nearly got run down by another Escalade Limo, we started thinking maybe we'd tripped and landed in LA — except that it was about 10 degrees below zero. No kidding.