The skeleton of a new strip center across the street from the Alexan Yale St. apartments — dubbed Heights Village by a banner attached to its construction fencing — is now rising on the corner of Yale and W. 5th St. Construction began on the just-under-an-acre parcel last month, reports the Swamplot reader who snapped the above photo of the site from outside the Alexan complex. The corner — on the opposite end of the block from where Better Luck Tomorrow opened last year — had been vacant since 2010, when a warehouse on the site was demolished.
The aerial rendering above from Cisneros Design Studio shows what an upper-story Alexan Yale St. resident might see out the window when the retail center is complete. Parking lots hug the building on 3 sides and include entrances on Yale, 5th. St., and Yale Ct. — a short dead end that runs behind the property. Patio seating is shown fronting the chamfered corner on the building’s northwest quadrant, and an elevated walkway runs along its storefronts, a few steps up from the lot.
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The same name was used on a never-built parking-lot-in-front retail center proposed for section of Yale to the south 10 years ago.
Photos: Ellen Schultz. Rendering: Cisneros Design Studio
Those bastards! They put the parking in front like this was Katy! Don’t they know they have to hide the parking in the back in the Heights???
Swamplot, here’s a better story for you on Yale:
The Fisher Homes tower on Yale is now fenced off and all construction has stopped. Fisher Homes of Texas website is down, Yelp shows their offices closed permanently across the street. Please tell us what you know or have heard, thanks in advance.
OMG they put the parking in front, of all the horrors!
Tim Cisneros should have his architectural license revoked for drawing this horrific blight on the Heights. His flat-facade, front-parked, uninspired and outdated design has no place anywhere in inner loop Houston in 2018.
For good measure, these developers should also be barred from owning land in the future. It’s in the public interest.
God rest their souls.
And Katyville continues to expand… Typical Houston Crap.
Beach front property during Harvey
Future home of a Mattress Firm and Nail Salon, exactly what we need :-).
This plan shows a paved Yale Court with traffic accessing these businesses. It’s a dead end dirt alley! Too narrow for 2 way traffic. Who says they can incorporate it into their plans? There are at least 3 homeowners who use that alley for access to their property. The drawing also shows landscaping across the alley, where there are fences, not shown, belonging to those homeowners. WTF? City allows this Crap?!
By the way, this entire lot was under as much as 5 feet of water contiguous with White Oak Bayou during Harvey, and the intersection of Yale & 5th drains so poorly it becomes a lake in even an average rain event. It is within the 100 year flood plain. Good luck with that!
@crosscreek now that’s a story! They also pulled all listings for 829 Yale off the market. The project was always an eyesore and created a mess along Yale. Then again anything ever touched by Fisher has been a disaster.
There is a big stormwater line that runs North/South through that site. Its on the GIMS maps, I hope they expand it.
I’m having trouble telling which comments about the site layout are sarcastic, and which are sincere. While I’d rather see this fronting the street, and closer to the 1000 or so potential customers across Yale, most of the area dedicated to surface parking is in the 100-year floodplain.
AFAIK, Yale Ct is platted all the way through to 6th St, but in order to handle two-way traffic, they’ll need to relocate some power lines.
@Angostura: Assume any comments mentioning “Katy” are sarcastic. They aren’t, but life will be if we pretend they are.
The best looking shopping center in the area, finally something that looks clean and modern, welcome to the neighborhood.
Is amazing to see how easy people talk bad about a project and other people work, for sure they don’t even know the reason or the background is the building but you how it is haters gonna hate. Maybe there is a reasons why the shopping center is the way it is. Sincerely I think that is a great addition to the area and is a nice looking building. Welcome to the Heights and very nice job.
BG – yes nicer than what was there, but not appropriate for the neighborhood, and we have no control of this. That is the problem. This style strip center is fitting for the suburbs not a transitioning urban neighborhood with high hopes and potential. So it’s extrememly disappointing that developers push these strip centers (not street fronting and parking in the front) down our throats, completely against the will of the neighborhood. What’s worse is that the city does nothing, in fact Houston’s policies encourage this crap.
“against the will of the neighborhood” LOL!
What a boring, mundane, characterless, ugly development. In other words, what a typical suburban strip mall development
Any word on what’s going in here?