[M1EK]

Thanks again for the kind words. Please don't mistake my briefness for brusqueness; I'm in a rush this AM.

Originally Posted by Komeht

The design of Berkman itself is actually quite good and conducive to pleasant walk (building, small yard, sidewalk, tree, bike lane, raised concrete barrier, on-street parking, traffic - that will be a very pleasant and well designed blvd once complete).

(read in Monty Python voice): "This is what I'm on about!" - this is the definition of a nice SUBurban walk. Building, yard, sidewalk, tree, bike lane, on-street parking; nothing to look at on the way; cars going fast in the travel lanes because there's nothing going on with the street-wall. New urbanism is rolling over in its grave.

BTW, this isn't the first time they've refused to go urban. In Houston's Montrose neighborhood the neighbors begged and pleaded and city tried and tried to get HEB to do the same and they balked there as well with similar results. I agree it can be done, I agree that Mueller would have been a good place to start - but I can't fault Catellus for ultimately deciding to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Perhaps they should have courted Trader Joes more.

Then tell them to take a hike. This is not supposed to be a "as urban as we can get with minimal effort" development; and the presence of the HEB means there will be no credible grocer in the Town Center, ever, so it's not just the perfect being the enemy of the good here; it's the bad preventing the good from ever happening. There's not going to be much walking to this HEB (it's too far away from the denser areas of Mueller), but it's going to pull enough prospective Town Center business away by people driving there from the denser areas that it'll kill future competition before it's ever born.

If that seems harsh, and you're thinking I don't care enough about the people in Mueller being able to drive one mile instead of three to an HEB, then step back and think about it - you're concerned about their drive - how much more suburban can you get?

3. Whether the town center gets built first or dead last doesn't matter in the long view.

It tells you the priorities of the developer and the planners. (And the concept of 'planning' a Town Center to this degree is loathsome anyways - this is not how real urbanism happens of course - this is how planned suburban communities are built). It also means you should be skeptical of promises made, moving on to:

4. 5 years ago the world was on the cusp of a financial melt down which stopped many projects cold and killed many others.

Heard this many times. Not impressed. Tons of Austin developments happened during this period. Mueller kept building lots of suburban tract homes in the meantime, despite this.

5. It was my impression that the town center plans are actually more ambitious, with higher levels of density, taller buildings, more opportunities for retail, etc. than there were previously. Is that not the case?

Nope.

6. I don't think it's fair to call Mueller a suburb since, it's centrally located (2 miles from UT, 3 miles from the CBD), and well within city limits and basically urban in form. That is is medium density is without question - is a step up from the low density that is currently allowed w/n 80 or 90% of Austin and a vast improvement over concrete runways.

It's not basically urban in form. It's suburban in form - strict horizontal separation of uses, remember?

7. Finally, Mueller isn't the only force in the area. Revitalization is creeping down Manor lot by lot. Its easy to see that in 10 years all of Manor between Airport and IH35 could be quite a strip of VMU. Can that jump across Airport and link right up to Mueller? Idk, but Contigo makes a good case that it can and will eventually.

Nope. Nothing can jump across Airport - it's a huge barrier that the neighbors designed to keep Mueller on one side and keep VMU slowed down to a crawl on the other side. Manor VMU isn't happening at all - the only thing that's been going on is repurposing of existing buildings; the neighbors were pretty vigorously against sensible VMU and that's one of the big reasons I thought routing urban rail out that way was incredibly stupid.