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  #1  
Old Posted Aug 31, 2011, 7:00 PM
paulsjv paulsjv is offline
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Mueller to get new HEB in 2013

Announced this morning. Here's a blog about it in the Statesman.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...ind_store.html

Quote:
H-E-B plans first-of-its-kind store at Mueller
By Gary Dinges | Wednesday, August 31, 2011, 10:45 AM

The wait for an on-site supermarket is almost over for residents of the Mueller development.

H-E-B, the region’s dominant grocery chain, put an end to years of speculation this morning, announcing it will build a first-of-its-kind store at Mueller, part of a 110,000-square-foot shopping center planned for the southeast corner of East 51st Street and Berkman Drive.
Work on the 75,000-square-foot H-E-B will begin late next year, and the store is scheduled to open in 2013. Details on the store’s look and feel, as well as its selection of unique-to-Mueller offerings, are still being worked out, the grocery chain said.
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  #2  
Old Posted Aug 31, 2011, 8:30 PM
hookem hookem is offline
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Originally Posted by paulsjv View Post
Announced this morning. Here's a blog about it in the Statesman.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...ind_store.html
Low flow toilets, high efficiency A/C and drought tolerant landscaping? I don't see what is so "first of it's kind about that". Sounds pretty run of the mill, actually, and those things are just going to save money on their utility bills.

Now if they'd put in a parking garage instead of surface parking,THAT would be something to remark about. Especially given the goals of density at Mueller! But this is just another HEB. Kind of lame, actually.
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  #3  
Old Posted Aug 31, 2011, 9:14 PM
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Originally Posted by hookem View Post
Low flow toilets, high efficiency A/C and drought tolerant landscaping? I don't see what is so "first of it's kind about that". Sounds pretty run of the mill, actually, and those things are just going to save money on their utility bills.

Now if they'd put in a parking garage instead of surface parking,THAT would be something to remark about. Especially given the goals of density at Mueller! But this is just another HEB. Kind of lame, actually.
Yeah, it would be nice to see some serious differences with this H-E-B...It would be great if they carried a lot of local/organic items as well.
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  #4  
Old Posted Aug 31, 2011, 10:18 PM
chancla chancla is offline
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Great news. I used to live in that hood but hated that the closest heb was that congested hancock store.
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  #5  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2011, 2:11 AM
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Yeah it really is lame, and the Fiesta Mart isn't even that far away. It's not like there's no shortage of a grocery store near there.
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  #6  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2011, 3:47 PM
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http://m1ek.dahmus.org/?p=671


Mueller Grocery – Suburban or Urban?


Posted on September 1, 2011 by m1ek




Urban or suburban?


This image is from the 2010 presentation of the Mueller “market district”. The big box in the lower right is the grocery store, which is now apparently going to be an HEB.


But the most important question by far: will it be urban or suburban? Let’s ask our old friend David Sucher of City Comforts:


Urban Starts With The Location Of The Parking Lot


 


As Chris put it,
Quote:

The parking lot will be much nicer than average, but this makes the development merely suburban chic not urban.

Sadly, par for the course for our supposed ‘new urban showcase’. I’ve covered Mueller irregularly in the past as has Chris. Notice we’re in 2011 now; no sign of the Town Center; relatively little multi-family development; but the single-family homes and strip malls – they are still there and doing fine. Sigh.


As for how green and sustainable this will be, what with energy efficiency, water efficiency, etc.; a wise ass man on twitter once said this:


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  #7  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2011, 6:15 PM
paulsjv paulsjv is offline
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The Mueller community seems to be very aware of this and hopefully they will stay on the ball with it and help make the project a urban success.
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  #8  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2011, 6:28 PM
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Mueller is a complete and total disappointment.

By the way, my mom works up at the Petsmart at Mueller. She says there is NOTHING to eat around there. There's a Which Wich and some other place to eat, but no restaurants and even the fast food options are slim to none. I was talking about how they should have placed 4 and 5 story buildings there with retail on the first or 2nd floors topped by office space, residential and hotel space and had restaurants at street level. My mom's usually cold the idea of urbanism, but she did see my point in how badly they used the land they had available to them. Even within that relatively small area (Mueller is ~700 acres), she would have to drive anywhere there to find food, and would likely have to go outside of Mueller. This is because she doesn't have enough time on her lunch break considering how few options there are there. It's nice that an HEB is coming there, but it's more of the same apparently.

My brother on the other hand works for a company in a rented space along 5th Street I believe just east of downtown. He said a few days ago that he had ordered some sandwiches from the Jimmy John's at 6th & Congress. He said they don't deliver to areas east of downtown since their delivery guys ride bicycles. So my brother asked if they would meet him at the Lottery Commission near 5th & Sabine. They agreed, and my brother walked over. In less than 15 minutes he said the guy was already there walking out of the Lottery Commission building thinking that's where he would be. He had 6 sandwiches ready in less than 15 minutes. My brother told me the more time he spends working in and around downtown and enjoying his commutes, the less he enjoys the suburbs.
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  #9  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2011, 7:04 PM
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Lightbulb

I'll agree the Mueller development isn't "urban" in any way. As more of it gets built, it's looking more and more like a nest of suburban apartment complexes.

Which brings up this question, why is the city wishing to build urban rail to a suburban nest of apartment complexes? There is or will be little of the promised mixed use buildings for the urban rail line to move passengers to and from all day. Might as well build a suburban commuter rail line with a service aimed for commuters during peaks, cause that's the only time there will be sufficient passengers to sustain any trains in Mueller.
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  #10  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2011, 7:19 PM
paulsjv paulsjv is offline
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I think part of the problem with Mueller is that it is "yet to be seen" as in nothing is built yet to support it's vision of "new ubranism." I would agree that right now there's really not many food options (Jamba Juice, Frozen Yogart, soon to be Greek, Which Which, Starbucks, Chipotle, then there are the 3 food trucks at Mueller central, coffee, sandwiches, mexican).

I do think once it's more built out or all built out that's when judgement could be passed about how "urban" it is. But you have to remember that Mueller is "new urbanism" so I wouldn't expect it to be like downtown and I wouldn't expect it to be like the burbs. I would expect it to be a mix of both, which I think is the direction it's going.
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  #11  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2011, 8:52 PM
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Not even close. Mueller's final build-out will be more of what's there now - disconnected spots of a few multifamily areas with some medium-density suburban tract homes on small (for Austin) lots. The Town Center may never happen; the other things moving in will be disconnected from each other and from the grid (childrens' museum, etc).
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  #12  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2011, 1:08 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsjv View Post
The Mueller community seems to be very aware of this and hopefully they will stay on the ball with it and help make the project a urban success.
I sure hope so.
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  #13  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2011, 1:49 AM
paulsjv paulsjv is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M1EK View Post
Not even close. Mueller's final build-out will be more of what's there now - disconnected spots of a few multifamily areas with some medium-density suburban tract homes on small (for Austin) lots. The Town Center may never happen; the other things moving in will be disconnected from each other and from the grid (childrens' museum, etc).
Not saying you're wrong or right.. but I would say that's their definition of "new urbanism" don't like it, too bad, not much you can do about it.
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  #14  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2011, 1:51 AM
paulsjv paulsjv is offline
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Originally Posted by ahealy View Post
I sure hope so.
On the Mueller community forum a user posted this, which I find interesting. Hopefully, this is good for going the right direction with the new HEB.

http://vimeo.com/10757073

Here's the thread that the video and other information is in if you'd like to go and read what the community is saying about it. Just be nice.

http://www.citicite.com/index.php?mo...ID=6496&page=1
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  #15  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2011, 4:52 AM
migol24 migol24 is offline
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What is the Town Center? Never heard about it.
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  #16  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2011, 3:00 PM
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Originally Posted by paulsjv View Post
On the Mueller community forum a user posted this, which I find interesting. Hopefully, this is good for going the right direction with the new HEB.

http://vimeo.com/10757073
That's the same video I captured the image out of. The plan is for a suburban crap grocery store. Putting buildings up on some of the parking lots later on is not only never really going to happen, it wouldn't help the real problem anyways - you want an urban grocer to have an entrance on the sidewalk where the pedestrians already are (i.e. Berkman in this case).

This isn't that hard. Hyde Park's Fresh Plus already does it - parking on the side, entrance on the front on the sidewalk of 43rd.
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  #17  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2011, 5:46 PM
paulsjv paulsjv is offline
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Originally Posted by M1EK View Post
That's the same video I captured the image out of. The plan is for a suburban crap grocery store. Putting buildings up on some of the parking lots later on is not only never really going to happen, it wouldn't help the real problem anyways - you want an urban grocer to have an entrance on the sidewalk where the pedestrians already are (i.e. Berkman in this case).

This isn't that hard. Hyde Park's Fresh Plus already does it - parking on the side, entrance on the front on the sidewalk of 43rd.
Well I guess if that's the direction they decide to go with the store then it's a good thing that you don't live there!
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  #18  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2011, 1:01 PM
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Mueller was never intended to be another downtown. It was intended to be an exemplary mixed-use NEIGHBORHOOD.

Urban Rail is proposed to extend to Mueller because it is planned to have at least 10,000 residents and 10,000 jobs on 700 acres at build out. That's roughly 14 residents per acre or 9000 / sq mile.

By comparison, Census Tract 3.02 (Hyde Park and Hancock) has a population of 4,939 on 504 acres. That is roughly 10 persons / acre or 6400 / sq mile. If you add Census Tract 3.05 and 3.04 (North Loop) that, together with Census Tract 3.02 makes up Zip Code 78751, you get 14,385 residents and only 6,828 jobs on 1430 acres. Still only 10 persons / acre. (Economic Census data is only available down to zip code level).

Current projections indicate that Mueller will actually build out around 13,000 residents and 13,000 jobs (18 persons/acres or 11,500 / sq mile). An increase of 30% over the planned projection.

With the introduction of urban rail, Mueller could exceed 15,000 residents and 15,000 jobs within the trip limits established by the TIA in the PUD zoning. That is roughly 21 persons / acre or 13,400 sq / mile. That is 50% greater than the plan, and twice the density of 78751, with more than twice as many jobs.

Because the City is a partner with Catellus in the Master Development Agreement, they receive all of the upside profit of the additional density, in addition to the increased tax base.

Last edited by SecretAgentMan; Sep 3, 2011 at 1:05 PM. Reason: spelling
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  #19  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2011, 2:57 PM
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I forgot to add:

The town center IS happening. Look forward to an announcement on that in the near future. There will be a lot of construction activity at Mueller in the next couple years.

I will admit that some of what has been built so far at Mueller does not meet the highest expectations of good urban design, but most of that is due to the fact that they chose to build out the least dense areas first.
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  #20  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2011, 9:47 PM
austlar1 austlar1 is offline
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The disappointing thing about Mueller is that whatever has been built or is going to be built is INSIDE of a very defined area that is not well connected to the existing street grid that surrounds the area. Mueller may end up being somewhat dense and even walkable (maybe, just maybe), but it will never be connected to the surrounding Austin neighborhoods except via feeder roads that lead in and out of the development.
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