Not directly applicable but close. To me this is a compelling article.

https://selbertperkins.com/entertainment-districts-the-new-american-neighborhoods/


"You have to consider the audience and plan experiences for each person. There is the person who is there to party with friends. There is the person who just wants to take their significant other to a nice place. Then there is the family… who wants to create lasting memories. We have to look at what's the experience of all of these different types of audiences and design "wow" moments for them all." John Lutz, Partner, Selbert Perkins Design

"As an upgraded tailgate party experience, the eateries, shops and all manner of entertainment options are available for people to enjoy themselves and each other, even on non-game days. They become a catalyst for people to have fun and build memories."

"Residential properties within the district provide opportunities for people to live within that energy and life experience. These new versions of the American neighborhood are quite popular, beckoning everyone from young professionals to retired sports fans to call them home."

"One of the keys to creating successful entertainment districts is in storytelling. Not some fantastical tale… it's about creating authentic stories of the place, people and team and then amplifying their inherent energy."

Sounds like a wonderful Northgate 2040 to this one member of council.

That you are looking to those projects as inspiration is a horrible news. I pray the others on council are more sensible. Otherwise taxpayers are fixing to get run through the ringer.

We have facilities that somewhat resemble some of the stuff you have talked about about. TAMU's ability to avoid CS City Hall's micromanagement has allowed them to spawn Century Square (a thriving mixed-use spot) and Brookshire Brothers (with outdoor stage and a 20 foot tv where people can watch games).

I don't know what it is about the bureaucracy, regulation, and process that CS makes developers go through, but for whatever reason College Station City Hall involvement in development seems to be poison. Please do not use mountains of taxpayer dollars to put a bureaucratically designed square peg into a round hole.

That land has too much high-value potential for a bunch of bureaucrats and councilfolk to play theme park tycoon with taxpayer money. Let us do productive stuff with the amazing potential that the university provides.

Knock it off. Please. I beg you.

Sounds like the city council needs to go up to Fayetteville and check it out. Have they looked at other college towns to see what they do? OU (Norman) has a nice area as well.

There have been so many mistakes by previous city councils. I hope they don't make the biggest one of all.

TAMU1990 said:

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Sounds like the city council needs to go up to Fayetteville and check it out. Have they looked at other college towns to see what they do? OU (Norman) has a nice area as well.

There have been so many mistakes by previous city councils. I hope they don't make the biggest one of all.

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We haven't discussed Northgate as an entertainment district. We haven't compared it to what other communities have and/or want to have. We haven't really approached it that way at all. I've mentioned Nashville and Freemont street and maybe a few others from the dais as I recall. However, a visioning exercise for an entertainment district, what IS an entertainment district, could we have a bona fide entertainment district- we haven't done any of that.

We've discussed pedestrian flow and made some moves to address that as proposed by our police department. We've talked about conditional use permitting and passed it. Staff engaged bar owners and an Aggie developer and had the makings of some elements of an entertainment district, but never really discussed it in that context that I know of.

I think we need to before selling the city lot. I think we need buy in on what it should be and could be. How we can leverage the private sector to make it something special. That's my opinion as one member of council.

Captn_Ag05 said:

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I'd love to see Northgate to develop into an area similar to the Clayton and College Avenue area in Athens, GA. But, that is up to private developers and development.

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Yes, contrary to Brian Alg's assertion, no one is advocating for the city to pour millions into Northgate. The city does need to do some infrastructure improvements there, but at this unique moment in time the private sector would likely do most of that too.

An entertainment district could be had and it could be built by the private sector and the taxpayer could even be paid for it. Such a massive opportunity.

Brian Alg said:

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That you are looking to those projects as inspiration is a horrible news. I pray the others on council are more sensible. Otherwise taxpayers are fixing to get run through the ringer.

We have facilities that somewhat resemble some of the stuff you have talked about about. TAMU's ability to avoid CS City Hall's micromanagement has allowed them to spawn Century Square (a thriving mixed-use spot) and Brookshire Brothers (with outdoor stage and a 20 foot tv where people can watch games).

I don't know what it is about the bureaucracy, regulation, and process that CS makes developers go through, but for whatever reason College Station City Hall involvement in development seems to be poison. Please do not use mountains of taxpayer dollars to put a bureaucratically designed square peg into a round hole.

That land has too much high-value potential for a bunch of bureaucrats and councilfolk to play theme park tycoon with taxpayer money. Let us do productive stuff with the amazing potential that the university provides.

Knock it off. Please. I beg you.

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No one is advocating spending taxpayer money.

Brian Alg said:

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I looked up Fayetteville because of this thread yesterday since it was brought up (and I have been there, it is nice).

As I suspected, Fayetteville does not subscribe to the insane zoning policies pushed by College Station. They actually allow university complimentary activity around most of the campus.

Fayetteville:
https://maps.fayetteville-ar.gov/viewer/index.html?webmap=9ebc61d26e8841fda0b4c1699da6f7a1
College Station:
https://cstx.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=1b2d3c188cd5479e9dbc61b6448f714b

I suspect Norman has a similar story if it has similar stuff going on as Fayetteville.

CS City Hall's insistence on limiting to a miniscule section of the perimeter of campus has manifested high-rises and higher-than-would-be prices per sq. foot in the areas near campus (the two are interconnected). As a result, regular main street/downtown style activity has to outbid students who are trying to avoid long commutes on multiple trips per day.

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Wow, Brian. I voted against conditional use permitting. One of the few to do so. I want to turn the market free in Northgate as it pertains to the original proposal. I don't want taxpayer funds spent beyond routine infrastructure improvements, and there's a distinct chance even that would be partially or even completely funded by free market forces.

I don't think you have a read on this situation at all. Now, if you're saying we should simply sell the surface lot to the highest bidder no matter what they want to do there, yes I suppose we are opposed.

Have any of y'all walked through the streets behind Northgate? They're soulless and have a ghost-town vibe.

Turn the NG parking lot into a green space with a small amphitheater for music. Make all parking on streets in the NG area free 24/7 - and maybe even see if Texas A&M would be willing to make one of its parking lots across the street open to the public for metered parking.

This will preserve the Northgate feel, add more reason for people to go there, generating tax dollars, and it will look much better than another soulless high rise.

The City of College Station should think BIGGER than just "sell the land and pocket some money".

Justin2010 said:

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Have any of y'all walked through the streets behind Northgate? They're soulless and have a ghost-town vibe.

Turn the NG parking lot into a green space with a small amphitheater for music. Make all parking on streets in the NG area free 24/7 - and maybe even see if Texas A&M would be willing to make one of its parking lots across the street open to the public for metered parking.

This will preserve the Northgate feel, add more reason for people to go there, generating tax dollars, and it will look much better than another soulless high rise.

The City of College Station should think BIGGER than just "sell the land and pocket some money".

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Yes I've been there a lot lately. Thanks for the feedback.

Bob Yancy said:

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Justin2010 said:

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Have any of y'all walked through the streets behind Northgate? They're soulless and have a ghost-town vibe.

Turn the NG parking lot into a green space with a small amphitheater for music. Make all parking on streets in the NG area free 24/7 - and maybe even see if Texas A&M would be willing to make one of its parking lots across the street open to the public for metered parking.

This will preserve the Northgate feel, add more reason for people to go there, generating tax dollars, and it will look much better than another soulless high rise.

The City of College Station should think BIGGER than just "sell the land and pocket some money".

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Yes I've been there a lot lately. Thanks for the feedback.

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I lived in Downtown Fort Worth for a while. Sundance Square is fantastic. Live music all the time - some orchestra, some country, some rock, some big band. If you go on certain mornings it's a person leading an aerobic workout group. You walk down the streets anywhere on the north side of Downtown and you can hear it, and it adds something that's just incredible. They have arts festivals, farmers markets, so much happens there.

There's ZERO reason the Northgate lot couldn't be turned into something incredibly valuable for the community - albeit on a smaller scale.

It kills me that the City would consider pissing that opportunity away for some money that will disappear into the general fund.

Northgate is currently a bar district - not an entertainment district. The city should consider what turning it into a true entertainment district might offer for its residents - both students and permanent residents.

Brian Alg said:

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Justin2010 said:

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Have any of y'all walked through the streets behind Northgate? They're soulless and have a ghost-town vibe.

Turn the NG parking lot into a green space with a small amphitheater for music. Make all parking on streets in the NG area free 24/7 - and maybe even see if Texas A&M would be willing to make one of its parking lots across the street open to the public for metered parking.

This will preserve the Northgate feel, add more reason for people to go there, generating tax dollars, and it will look much better than another soulless high rise.

The City of College Station should think BIGGER than just "sell the land and pocket some money".

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I suspect the reason why people don't develop that area is because it is exorbitantly expensive to develop there.

If you factor in the costs associated with the back-and-forth with the city to (fingers-crossed) get something approved by P&Z and then (fingers-crossed) hopefully get the City Council to not put the kibosh on it right before you get to the finish line (thinking about the 2021 Graham Road mixed-use proposal which probably cost a fortune get to that point).

Paying for architects, consultants, attorneys, and lining up financing for an uncertain shot at being able to build means that it is only worthwhile to try when the payoff is exorbitant. Four stories of flexibly mixed-use square footage (which would be amazing to see in that area) is not going to cut it. Going through the CS bureaucratic rigmarole is only worth it for massive high-rises with giant expected payoffs.

If you want to see private developers do cool stuff on a smaller scale, the city needs to make the process easy and predictable.

It has been a while since I've spoken with anyone involved with the process, but the stories I have heard about the process the city makes people deal with behind closed doors (to force developers to jump through hoops based on the whims of bureaucrats and councilfolk) were awful. Those are real costs. Stories about Navasota in 2020 were a big contrast. And I think what's been going on in Navasota shows how that strategy gets much better results.

The key to getting a thriving Northgate (and city generally) is not just to put the land in private hands ("sell the land and pocket the money"). The city has to actually let property owners do high-value stuff.

I know there is an impulse to mandate 15 year master plans via force of law. But if the city would just let people do cool stuff the entrepreneurs would knock our socks off in ways we could never have planned.

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Several months ago I attended a p&z meeting and I witnessed exactly what was described in the previous post.
Land owner had met all requirements according to staff. Spent no telling how much money on engineering and surveys and one member of p&z lived close to the subject property and did not like the idea. And several others mentioned they would support his decision.
I was shocked the one member did not recuse himself.
Staff spoke and reminded p&z the citizen had met all requirements and they still voted him down.
There is definitely something wrong with our Cities management.

I witnessed a similar situation around ten years ago when I was still an Asst Scoutmaster, I took my son and a couple other Scouts to the CS City Council meeting to satisfy one of the requirements for their Citizenship in the Community merit badge. I remember on the agenda that night was the council was being asked to approve a new development one what is known today as Holleman Drive South but I think was still IGN road at the time. Several other developments had already been built along 2818 and down IGN and this gentlemen was just trying to build the next one. After much debate and despite the P&Z recommending they approve it, the council denied the request because that area "was getting overcrowded and the infrastructure and roads were getting too crowded" - paraphrasing of course. So despite the fact that this guy had spent a lot of money on design and engineering plans, the council denied his request. He was clearly expecting it to be approved and was stunned to say the least. In fairness, over the past decade much work has been done to upgrade roads and infrastructure in that area and there has been lots of development since then. Maybe this guy eventually got his development approved, who knows.

Fast forward to today and at Northgate we have high rises popping up like mushrooms...

The city finally has a chance to turn a rare profit on a real estate deal after losing millions over the years on one bad investment after the other, and everybody freaks out.

One more high rise isn't going to make things worse over there. And one little parking lot is not going to transform Northgate into the River Walk.

FYI - there is already a police substation in Northgate. It is a property on Church St that St. Mary's owns. They have basically given it away for free (rent of like $100 a year or something).

techno-ag said:

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The city finally has a chance to turn a rare profit on a real estate deal after losing millions over the years on one bad investment after the other, and everybody freaks out.

One more high rise isn't going to make things worse over there. And one little parking lot is not going to transform Northgate into the River Walk.

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Sorry but no. That parking lot in close proximity to Northgate's core is vital. It's more than the actual spots, it's the optics and perception to both regulars and especially tourists.

woodiewood said:

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Bob Yancy said:

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techno-ag said:

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The city finally has a chance to turn a rare profit on a real estate deal after losing millions over the years on one bad investment after the other, and everybody freaks out.

One more high rise isn't going to make things worse over there. And one little parking lot is not going to transform Northgate into the River Walk.

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I'm not opposed to having an entertainment district that happens to have some student housing in it. I'm opposed to a student housing sale with entertainment as an "also ran."

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The sale of that 0.91 acres of land for around $3 million is a drop in the bucket in the city's revenue stream. To me it would be better to leave as a parking lot or create a small park there with a small performance stage and scattered tables and benches.

Northgate is just a bar district with a few average bars a few with commercial kitchens with basic cooked foods.
Many of the bars are just shot bars with no food served...not even pretzels or peanuts. Any many of them have
Many have limited open hours during the summer months. A couple that have commercial kitchens open the bar but don't cook in the summer months.

It would not be a place that most people would bring their family to spend a few hours on a Friday night.

It's also not an area that you would take a visiting person to for a fine dining experience...you might stop in a bar or two before or after eating?

In those two case, downtown Bryan on a Friday or Saturday evening has many more entertainement opportunities, restaurants, and some bars. Lots of action on weekends, Often there are budding artists performing on the street corners.

Years ago, you could have bought a block of buildings in downtown Bryan for the back taxes. Now, even if one came on the market, you couldn't afford it.

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I'd offer that's because the city of Bryan had a vision for their downtown and acted upon it.

Respectfully,

Yancy

Many of the venues in downtown Bryan are struggling. Some have closed; some are for sale.

A quick check of public tax record discloses that the taxes yielded from the venues in DTB pale in comparison to the taxes yielded from the venues in Northgate.

I should pause to say that I love DTB's vibe and the effort that's being made, but numbers don't have feelings and always tell the truth.

What many keep forgetting or simply overlook is that Northgate, albeit not popular with locals, is VERY popular with 25-70 year old tourist/visitors to town. A weekend visit on a big weekend shows families, children, the whole enchilada.

When there's youth sporting events on campus and at Veterans, many of the teams' families frequent Northgate to see bottlecap alley, the snake at the Chicken, and the kids play games in the back area of The Backyard.

Locals consider it to be all students, so they are never down there to see all of this.....

Connect East and West Harvey with biking and running trails, redo Wolf Creek Ampitheater, and make the mall the trailhead for parking and food truck city, and you've got a heck of a deal.

And, if you connect west Harvey, with east Harvey, you also connect east University, and Veterans Park, from a potential consumer perspective. It's a home run. If I had investment money, I'd be in on this already. I just happen to be a poor "idea guy."

You know, I'm really not sure how I want Northgate to look in 2040. I do however have a fondness for the area, and lot of thoughts. Here are a few...

Northgate as we currently know it as a bar district is a relatively new thing. Historically, it was one of the three main off-campus urban centers with retail, worship, entertainment, and offices. Heck, the first off-campus City of College Station offices (precursor to city hall) were upstairs at 115 College Main. And of course, big names in local retail like Holick's Boots, Loupot's Books, the Campus Theater, etc. Sadly, most of these are long gone and our recent memories really just include bars whose names and character (if you can call it that) change every couple of years. With the exception of Dixie Chicken/Dudley's/Dry Bean, the Texas Aggie Bookstore, and the Northgate Barber Shop, none of the current businesses have much historic significance (again, sadly).

Also, keep in mind that Northgate is not the only possibility for a premier retail/tourism/entertainment area near campus. As I mentioned, there are three other "gates" that used to be thriving. One of which, Southgate, is arguably closer to Kyle Field and student housing. And all of which should be utilized better than they currently are.

Listen, I would love for the city to have a world class entertainment district similar to Mule Alley in Fort Worth (I'm sure there are many others around the country--this just happens to be one I recently visited). That said, I don't know the best way for us to get there and can understand peoples' unwillingness to support their government spending millions to create something like this out of thin air. That said, I think this is what a lot of people would enjoy, especially if it could somehow incorporate some TAMU/College Station history into it. There would surely be many challenges though, and I'm not familiar enough with these things to offer any suggestions beyond "it sure would be nice."

Finally, I will say that it seems to me Northgate may already be too far developed to remain viable as a designated tourism center, sadly. Although this didn't start with the high-rises (I think it started with the longstanding businesses leaving to make way for bars), they may have been the final nails in the coffin. There really aren't enough core fixtures left that are worth keeping. Let's face it, most of the bars haven't been there all that long and will probably have different names within five years anyway. And what kind of enjoyable entertainment district can you really have with 25 story high-rises on every corner? Again, there are some exceptions to this (like Dixie Chicken, which I love), but overall, I'm kind of sad about what Northgate has become because I see the market inevitably taking it in a different direction.

BUT, I could be totally wrong and/or others likely have different thoughts and opinions. These are just some of mine. I'm not dead set on any one particular vision for Northgate 2040.