Agreed.
Rip out all that visual blight on the other side of Scott Street, and build exactly what you just described there!
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An H‑E‑B or Aldi would be great.
I agree with the entertainment district by UH but downtown Houston by 2027 will be great bc they are blocking off 7 blocks to make a hip bar/ restaurant scene etc., with light rail going from UH to downtown so that is a fall back.
Downtown will be great!
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Indeed, we have mentioned it a billion times. What is interesting is that past and current students want it. This has been a problem, major problem probably since UH started. It is not about getting drunk but about letting some steam out. All of the campus improvements are fantastic but it does not make sense that this lack of “entertainment” has never been fully addressed. With 40k+ students that is plenty of customers to make this viable.
There’s an heb and Aldi in that neighborhood
HEB on MacGregor and Aldi on OST are both within a 2 mile radius of campus. Gulfgate HEB within a 3 mile radius.
I don’t see another HEB coming to Scott, especially not “off the beaten path” (off the freeway).
On the other hand, an Aldi on Scott near Elgin might make sense. I think the problem for anyone trying to do a reasonably sized shopping center is assembling the land.
The Aldi on OST is ~1.7 ac. Since all the land West of Scott is generally single family lots, you’ve got to purchase 15-20 contiguous lots. One holdout will sink the plan.
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Aldi/HEB have built in clients year round, the mythical entertainment district, would only be served 9 months out of the year? Restaurants and bars are the toughest to stay in business in. Unless that district is also supported by the locals year round, I don’t see it happening.
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I know that it wouldn’t happen but moving the Catholic and Baptist groups to another part of campus and developing that whole block all the way towards the law school, starting with the Den would be an awesome spot.
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There doesn’t seem to be a developer interested in building a entertainment district around campus, especially when EADO and Main street are building such environments.
Those other schools who say they are getting an entertainment district around their campus, have nothing else to do in their little cow towns.
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Part of the issue is that the school just isn’t really built for students to hang out on-campus when they’re not in class. It’s deeper than just not having bars — I’ve said this here before, but bars are a red herring. There are UH students all over Midtown every weekend; nightlife is not our lack. When I compare UH to more “traditional” places like Penn State and Auburn and Georgia Tech, the thing that I notice they have and we don’t is places to hang out during the day. I’m gonna focus on Auburn because it’s the one of those that I actually attended — they have student lounges in nearly every building. When I was a student at UH, the only one I saw in any of the CLASS buildings that might have qualified was the upstairs area at McIlhenny, and it wasn’t great. From an architectural standpoint, Agnes Arnold, Farish, Cullen, and Heyne all basically screamed “yeah, if you don’t gotta be here, don’t be.” At Auburn, the library was packed during the week; at UH it was a ghost town outside Finals. In short, Auburn’s campus is designed to be a social space while UH’s felt antisocial by design.
Places with vibrant student life got that way by making themselves into a place where students want and need to spend time. They tend to be densely-packed not only with bars, but bookstores, cafes, and grocers. If you’re a student at Auburn, living on-campus makes your whole life easier, because nearly all of your time as a student will be spent on or immediately adjacent to campus. By contrast, the UH campus is designed for commuting in architectural ways that are hard to overcome, and if you can figure out getting to/from campus, your life is probably easier as a commuter than as an on-campus student. UH’s strategy for overcoming that has largely been to build more dorms and hope the project fixes itself.
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But Auburn isn’t a commuter school. UH has majority of its students from the Greater Houston area, so they can go home or go to work or whatever, as opposed to Auburn kids who live there and are pro a sly majority from other places.
The thing is, the stated aim of our administration is to make UH not a commuter school, and they’ve done a pretty poor job of that. “Just build more dorms” is to improving student life what “just add another lane” is to traffic management. Even as someone who’s skeptical of the “we need to be a more traditional (whatever that means) school” narrative, it’s a valid criticism that campus life sucks at UH.
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Yes, I was just pointing out that auburn isn’t the best comparison at the moment. But hopefully they can continue to change that about UH.
Downtown is just a light rail away or short trip and with the 2026 World Cup they are sprucing it up so it’s really going to be the destination for UH students starting next yr if they want that. Longterm with the 45/59 rebuild , they are adding more to the downtown atmosphere plus east end and both are accessible by rail.
It’s at least a great fallback even if UH does nothing.
Along with this , UH prob only needs a few hangouts by campus then it’s enough of a mix.
Posting the 7 blocks again which will be cool
I wouldn’t expect changes to downtown to affect UH’s campus life; things that aren’t on or immediately adjacent to (i.e. within a couple blocks of) campus might as well be in The Woodlands in that respect. If something isn’t close enough that you could walk there and back in an hour or so break between classes, going there means you’re not going back to UH for the day.
That said, as a resident of Downtown, walkability is critically important to me, so this is good news in its own right.
I’m not sure when you were in school at UH. I was there in the late 80’s/early 90’s (more in the 90’s than I should have, but that’s a different story for a different day). When I was there, this was 100% true. I lived at home or in an apartment. I had no desire to live on campus. The dorms were a dump and there was nothing to do outside of the UC.
My son is a junior in high school. We took a campus tour about a month ago. Outside of the football and basketball games, I haven’t gone into the interior of the campus in a long time. There are plenty of places for kids to congregate during the day. The student center is amazing. There were a bunch of kids on the “social floor” of the library. There are hangout places in the dorms. If I was an incoming freshman, I wouldn’t hesitate to live on campus.
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Generally true so I’d say if we just had a few bars or hangouts clustered in 1 area that would help bc we do have to keep it in business. Since they are focused on a residential campus , I think it’s a topic the admin should look into. Maybe have a survey from all students on what they’d want.
The thing we’re discounting is as downtown or the city goes , so does UH. The better downtown gets, it helps UH. Take Tulane for ex. They do have local bars near Tulane but Tulane piggybacks off the New Orleans thriving bourbon st area also. It’s why Tulane is considered a great party school. Downtown Houston is about to go thru a major renaissance in the next few yrs and it can only help UH. City schools piggyback off the city they are in to some degree.
T-Moar, why are you comparing Auburn University to U of H? Why? They could not be more different. Go to google earth and immediately you see the difference.
The City of Auburn including Auburn University has a population of 87,256.
What is the City of Houston population’s?
Our campus is basically landlocked. The Auburn University campus is so spread out that you could probably fit three UH in it.
What is the solution to make UH more “students” friendly?
A week or so ago UHVictoria was absorbed by atm.
Can you imagine if TSU would be part of UH? Isn’t what inclusion is all about? Two neighbors tied by history and separated…What if tomorrow uta or atm absorb TSU? Adding bars, supermarkets/mini markets, can be possible…in fact it has already happen from the days I went to school.
One more thing T-Moar, do you even know that more UH students live in dorms now than uta and atm? Commuter school it was, no long my friend.
Forgot to take a picture but I was on campus today and the construction fence is up for the new dorm.
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