TAKARA-SO COMPLEX BACK ON THE MARKET, THIS TIME WITH NEW UTH UPGRADE 
If you were thinking its purchase by a SoCal investment firm almost exactly 1 year ago meant the pseudo-Japanesee 1962 apartment complex at 1919 W. Main St. would be shielded from the evict-and-redevelop cycle for a few years, think again. Apartment Income Investors has put the Takara-So Apartments, which sit on most of the block surrounded by Hazard, W. Main, Colquitt, and McDuffie, back on the market — with a twist. Though on-site signs have not been changed, the complex is described as the Takara South Apartments in a sleek set of marketing materials produced by Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, the firm that’s marketing the 77-unit, 10-building, 1.22-acre property once owned by Allen Stanford. Why unload the storied complex now? So much has happened in a Montrose year: There’s that $2.05 million jump in the property’s tax appraisal. And maybe some profits to be made: Though no asking price is listed, included comps indicate the sellers are likely aiming for offers between $8 and $10.8 million. The purchase price was listed on company documents as $5.51 million. [LoopNet; previously on Swamplot]Â Photo: Newmark Grubb Knight Frank
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How long can an old-timey Wabash Feed & Garden Store hold out on a totally transformed Washington Ave.? Until the 25,551-sq.-ft. site stretching between Birdsall and Malone gets snatched up. A new commercial listing for the property at 5701 Washington Ave. was posted recently by Boyd Commercial. (Wabash was the voted recipient of the Washington Ave. Award in the 2010 Swamplot Awards.)
- 5701 Washington Ave [Boyd Commercial]
Photo: Boyd Commercial
Who’s been tagging the former Malloy’s Register Company building at the corner of Polk St. and St. Emanuel St. in East Downtown with Simpsons graffiti, an assortment of wheatpaste posters, and a TABC license application? The building’s future tenants, who bear the mysterious name The Secret Group. For now, The Secret Group has been arranging and promoting a series of comedy and music performances in various spots around town. But come November, the promoters plan to open up their own native bar, comedy club, and music venue in the building at 2101 Polk St.
Neighbors and passers-by have been curious about the renovations taking place at the strip center at the corner of Lower Westheimer and Helena St., where the Hollywood Food & Cigars #3 convenience store at 202 Westheimer Rd. — and its neighbor Tejas Boots — kicked off a couple years ago. The building, once home to Baby Giant #2, has recently been painted a bright white; its sign has been denuded, and sidewalk reconstruction work is underway:
The little windowless Montrose building across from the University of St. Thomas at the corner of Richmond and Mt. Vernon known as Talk of the Town III (pictured above as it appeared in 2011, shortly before much of it burned in a fatal fire) will soon join the ranks of the original Kirby Dr. Carrabba’s, Divino Italian Restaurant at 1830 West Alabama, and L’Olivier Restaurant and Bar at 240 Westheimer as yet another former Inner Loop adult bookstore turned legit non-porn restaurant. But it’ll be no staid European cuisine going into 1201 Richmond Ave. Former Brooklyn meatbrowner John Avila plans to open a barbecue joint in the building that incorporates a range of Texas food styles; he may or may not call it El Burro & the Bull. Culturemap’s Eric Sandler has a little fun describing the building’s repurposing: “Together with his wife Veronica, Avila plans to remodel the space to expose its original brick and to build a new kitchen and pit room onto the back of the structure. He’s already begun the process of pulling permits for the project and hopes to be open as soon as September.”
- Montrose makeover continues: Acclaimed BBQ pitmaster plans new restaurant in former porn shop [Culturemap]
Photo: ClutchFans poster juicystream
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
There’s a little piece of something for everyone. Real estate bounty.
- 4919 Wigton Dr. [HAR]
Now we know why the Morgan Group, the developer that applied for a variance last year to allow for a Pearl on Smith apartment complex to fit onto the block surrounded by Elgin, Smith, Brazos, and Rosalie streets, later withdrew the request: To expand the project so that it could include a 40,000-sq.-ft. Whole Foods Market on its ground floor. And here’s a rendering of the design of the whole thing by Houston’s Ziegler Cooper Architects.
One advantage of tearing down the Pierce Elevated: Doing so would bolster the argument that the station that’s about to take over as Houston’s central post office — after the Barbara Jordan Post Office closes later this month — should be considered a part of Downtown. For now, though, Sam Houston Station (pictured at top) is pretty clearly in Midtown, at the corner of Hadley and LaBranch streets, across the street from the former VA building that now houses the La Branch Child Development Center. The address is 1500 Hadley St., and the Zip Code is still 77002, though USPS officials for some reason have confusingly labeled it 77005 in several recent notices. 77001 boxholders exiled from their longtime home at 401 Franklin St. Downtown (pictured directly above) took up residence here at the beginning of the month:
A couple of brick walls adjacent to the Lower Fifth Ward home of online retailer Spectrum Audio are now graced with a mural meant to pay tribute to an earlier Upper Fifth Ward audio enterprise. Peacock Records, founded in 1949 by Don Robey, captured recordings by Big Mama Thornton, James Booker, Little Richard, and other jazz and gospel artists at its studio at 2809 Erastus St. — now the home of Charity Baptist Church. A couple miles to the southwest at 3301 Cline St., artist Wiley Robertson painted a version of the record label’s Peacock logo — adjacent to another of his signature “Love” murals:
- 78 Batesbrooke Ct. [HAR]
What better encapsulation of the recent trajectory of Midtown could you find than today’s news that Whole Foods Market plans to build a new 40,000-sq.-ft. store on the former site of the city’s Social Security Office (pictured above) at 3100 Smith St. in Midtown?
Well, a few details to the story of the ramshackle block surrounded by Smith, Brazos, Elgin, and Rosalie give it even more color as a Houston gentrification parable: Noting, for example, that the former government office, across the street from a couple of bars, had been shuttered by the feds a couple years ago. Or that plans for a Morgan Group apartment complex on the same site were submitted to the city and then abandoned sometime last year. (It would have been called the Pearl on Smith.) Also: When it opens at the end of 2017, Whole Foods Market’s new Midtown location may turn out not to be a Whole Foods Market. The company says it’s developing an unnamed “sister chain” of smaller stores targeting younger buyers, but did not indicate whether the Midtown Houston store would be part of it.
- Whole Foods to open in Midtown [Houston Chronicle]
Photo: O’Connor & Associates
Remember that incident last July when real estate investor and renowned neighbor-dismemberer Robert Durst — the Rice Village’s best-known resident — decided to spread his own bodily fluids in the CVS at 6011 Kirby Dr.? Thanks to the enterprising and patient reporting team at KPRC, surveillance video of the episode is now available for all to see. Together with the shocking scene included at the end of the HBO documentary The Jinx — in which Durst, retreating to the bathroom from an interview while wearing a still-live mic, appears to confess to multiple murders — the footage paints a portrait of a man prone to urination surprises. Durst pleaded no contest to charges of criminal mischief for the CVS episode, after he allegedly exposed himself to a cashier and then peed on a display of candy.
The newly released footage isn’t the clearest (and mercifully, any potentially offending images are blurred out) but it does reveal a few things, including where Durst stood when he began urinating — in case that matters to future customers of that CVS Pharmacy.
