Most “complete” suburb in Houston? (Sugar Land, The Woodlands: live, zoning, bars)

[NigerianNightmare]

Katy is significantly a step up compared to the development in the majority of unincorporated Houston suburbs. I will say Cypress, especially the areas that are considered only Cypress and not the border zones, are really nice, and the change between South of 290 and North of 290, and the haphazard development works similar to Katy. But much of the rest of Houston, we have next to zero discernible “Downtowns” or anything like that, and it’s just developers piggybacking off each other.
Spring/Klein, Unincorporated Montgomery, Cypress, Richmond and CDPs like Atascocita all struggle in one way or another by not being actually large cities. Whether theirs a lack of cohesiveness, no definable city center, or no interesting sites/restaurants all of these cities suffer from that relative to the incorporated cities. Heck a few of the cities like Pearland, League City, Pasadena, Friendswood and Mo City aren’t doing much especially compared to to some Dallas or Austin area suburbs to improve their communities significantly.

I do think League City has a massive opportunity to improve itself with its current location and its sizable ETJ, it could or will easily be the largest suburb of Houston in a few years. Only Pearland has similar growth potential for incorporated towns.


Pasadena also has a chance, as far as I know crime isn’t too high for a poorer area and it could be great for redevelopment being largely a grid.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by NigerianNightmare

I do think League City has a massive opportunity to improve itself with its current location and its sizable ETJ, it could or will easily be the largest suburb of Houston in a few years. Only Pearland has similar growth potential for incorporated towns.


Pasadena also has a chance, as far as I know crime isn’t too high for a poorer area and it could be great for redevelopment being largely a grid.

You’re sleeping in Conroe

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

So how are they attracting all these big companies then? Serious question btw. And I also saw they just renamed to City Place.

It's been a recent phenomenon that large office tenants have been gravitating to new, high-quality buildings in walkable mixed-use developments, even when they have cheaper options in decent buildings available. CityPlace has capitalized on this trend. They've been able to capture companies moving out of the North Houston District (formerly Greenspoint) and the Chasewood area (the HPs) which only have older buildings and aren't set up for walkable mixed-use. They must have determined that CityPlace would be more accessible for where their workforce resides than The Woodlands Town Center.

Similarly, note how companies have been moving to CityCentre / Memorial City and filling up new buildings while Energy Corridor languishes. I have to think Marathon's move from its old namesake building was partly because that building wasn't in the walkable mixed-use part of Uptown. (Also, they probably thought CityCentre was an easier commute for their workforce since it's on two highways.)

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

You’re sleeping in Conroe

It will be very interesting to see what happens in Conroe. They're revitalizing their historic downtown while also building a new one at Grand Central Park.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

It's been a recent phenomenon that large office tenants have been gravitating to new, high-quality buildings in walkable mixed-use developments, even when they have cheaper options in decent buildings available. CityPlace has capitalized on this trend. They've been able to capture companies moving out of the North Houston District (formerly Greenspoint) and the Chasewood area (the HPs) which only have older buildings and aren't set up for walkable mixed-use. They must have determined that CityPlace would be more accessible for where their workforce resides than The Woodlands Town Center.

Similarly, note how companies have been moving to CityCentre / Memorial City and filling up new buildings while Energy Corridor languishes. I have to think Marathon's move from its old namesake building was partly because that building wasn't in the walkable mixed-use part of Uptown. (Also, they probably thought CityCentre was an easier commute for their workforce since it's on two highways.)

Off topic but Crown Castle’s old building was 80K Sq Ft. the new one is 400K+. Just a fun fact . They moved in 2019-2020.

[DabOnEm]

Originally Posted by NigerianNightmare

Katy is significantly a step up compared to the development in the majority of unincorporated Houston suburbs. I will say Cypress, especially the areas that are considered only Cypress and not the border zones, are really nice, and the change between South of 290 and North of 290, and the haphazard development works similar to Katy. But much of the rest of Houston, we have next to zero discernible “Downtowns” or anything like that, and it’s just developers piggybacking off each other.
Spring/Klein, Unincorporated Montgomery, Cypress, Richmond and CDPs like Atascocita all struggle in one way or another by not being actually large cities. Whether theirs a lack of cohesiveness, no definable city center, or no interesting sites/restaurants all of these cities suffer from that relative to the incorporated cities. Heck a few of the cities like Pearland, League City, Pasadena, Friendswood and Mo City aren’t doing much especially compared to to some Dallas or Austin area suburbs to improve their communities significantly.

I do think League City has a massive opportunity to improve itself with its current location and its sizable ETJ, it could or will easily be the largest suburb of Houston in a few years. Only Pearland has similar growth potential for incorporated towns.

Pasadena also has a chance, as far as I know crime isn’t too high for a poorer area and it could be great for redevelopment being largely a grid.

Yeah and I think it's due to the region's culture overall. It's amazing how Sugar Land was able to stand out and for a long time was the only incorporated suburb in the region that resembled some sense of long range city planning.

I agree that League City seems to have a great opportunity. I wouldn't sleep on Pearland either as I think some of their city leaders may have taken a trip to the DFW burbs or SL because planning there has gotten better too. Pearland is also diverse so give it some time and I think you'll see it become the hub of ethnic offerings in the south metro area even with Houston and the SW being nearby. Then going south as Manvel and Iowa Colony grow I think they'll look to newer Pearland as a guide.

As PS mentioned, Conroe is another that shouldn't be slept on as they are really planning for that city to become a true satellite city for the Houston metro. It has the most attractive landscape out of all Houston suburbs too which is good as a marketing tool to lure companies from outside the region. Plus it has the central downtown area that is lacking in most Houston suburbs.

What I think is happening is a lot of the Houston suburbs, even the unincorporated ones being built by developers, is people demand better planning to not look like Houston.

I like that you mentioned Atascocita. I wonder how different the area would look if it was all Humble city limits. Probably a lot better and then downtown Humble would have more to offer. Same thing if Spring was an actual city.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

Off topic but Crown Castle’s old building was 80K Sq Ft. the new one is 400K+. Just a fun fact . They moved in 2019-2020.

Yes, that one stood out as apart from the crowd. And some firms (engineers mostly I think) have moved to new random-box-by-the-freeway space in Katy. But you can't look at the overall data and not see what has been going on in term of office location.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

Yes, that one stood out as apart from the crowd. And some firms (engineers mostly I think) have moved to new random-box-by-the-freeway space in Katy. But you can't look at the overall data and not see what has been going on in term of office location.

I’d say both styles are popular. West Chase has attracted just as many large companies as Springwood. The difference is that City Place/Springwood only takes in large campuses while West Chase does both extremely large campuses (Phillips 66, Honeywell, etc) as well as smaller ones.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

I’d say both styles are popular. West Chase has attracted just as many large companies as Springwood. The difference is that City Place/Springwood only takes in large campuses while West Chase does both extremely large campuses (Phillips 66, Honeywell, etc) as well as smaller ones.

Westchase has done better than the Energy Corridor, but believe me they're both looking at CityCentre and CityPlace with some jealousy. Of course, the former two have a lot of legacy buildings from the 1980s, so that's part of it.

[Redlionjr]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

You’re sleeping in Conroe

To be fair Conroe was it's own mature town before it started annexing into Houston MSA. Had it been closer to Houston city limits it would probably look and feel no different than most of the burbs that surround the city.