Articles by

Christine Gerbode

Notices
12/14/16 5:15pm

Special Achievement in Parking: The Official 2016 Ballot

by
18 Comments

It’s Wednesday — and it just so happens we’re now over the hump on the ballots for the 2016 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate, too. Quick refresher: So far voting has begun for Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, the “Where Are They Now?” Award, and Best Industrial Incident. The official list of nominees for this year’s Award for Special Achievement in Parking is now ready for your perusal, too; thanks again to everyone who joined in to help round up the contenders.

Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate Ribbon LogoRemember, you can stuff the ballot box by voting 4 times for this award — that’s once by commenting below, once by shooting us an email, and once each by Facebook and by Twitter. Get the complete details here to make sure your votes count, and don’t forget to ask your friends to help push your nominee to the top! All votes are due by 5PM on Tuesday, December 27th. 

Who made the greatest strides this year in the oft-stagnant field of parking? Take your pick from the nominees below:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

The 2016 Swampies
, ,
Energy Corridor
12/14/16 12:45pm

BP Moving Onshore HQ Out of Houston, Way Further Onshore

by
6 Comments

BP MOVING ONSHORE HQ OUT OF HOUSTON, WAY FURTHER ONSHORE Helios Plaza, Energy Corridor, Houston, 77079BP announced today that it plans to move the main office for its onshore oil and gas branch to Denver at the start of 2018, starting with about 200 employees (compared to about 450 currently in the Houston office). The company announced late this summer that it was pulling its employees out of the WestLake 4 tower (about 7 years before that lease would’ve been up); that news was followed up a few days later with an announcement that BP would also sell off its LEED-platinum Helios Plaza building (pictured above), which it built in 2010 as a trading office. The plan at the time was to lease back space in Helios from the new owner; the rest of the company’s Energy Corridor employees will stay in the WestLake 1 office tower, which BP also owns. [BP Media Affairs via Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Helios Plaza at 201 Helios Way: BP

, , , , , ,
Buildings for Lease
12/14/16 10:45am

Now Leasing: Long Sing Supermarket in East Downtown

by
2 Comments

Long Sing Market Leasing Flier, 2017 Walker St., East Downtown, Houston, 77003

The Long Sing Supermarket building is now up for grabs, per a fresh leasing listing that appeared last week. The 8,260-sf.-ft. retail space and its internal lunch counter sit across Walker St. from physicist-mascotted Neil’s Bahr, and next to Little Woodrow’s EaDo (visible in yellow to the right, with its face toward the corner with St. Emanuel St. where Warehouse Live hangs out). The pagoda-topped grocery store was listed for sale a few times since 2014 — back before the glassy Marriott Marquis highrise started photobombing the building’s listing shots from across 59, as it does in the photo below:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Market To Market
, , , , ,
Notices
12/13/16 5:30pm

Best Industrial Incident: The Official 2016 Ballot

by
23 Comments

We’re off to a good start already with voting in the first 3 categories of this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: Ballots for Favorite Design Cliché, Best Demolition, and the “Where Are They Now? Award opened last week. Now, which of the candidates will clean up in the Best Industrial Incident category?

Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate Ribbon LogoAs with all of this year’s award categories, there are 4 ways to vote for your favorite nominee. (You can even do all 4, if you’re really enthusiastic about a candidate!) Vote by leaving a comment below, by sending us an email, and by blasting your choices to Facebook and Twitter. Don’t forget to send your friends to the polls, too — just be sure you all get your choices in by 5 PM on Tuesday, December 27th. Check out this year’s complete voting guidelines, if you need a refresher on the specifics.

What qualifies a nominee as a strong contender for Best Industrial Incident? Was it the most visually stunning event? The one that touched the most Houstonians? Or the one with the most interesting fallout? That’s up to you — now check out the official nominees:
CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

The 2016 Swampies
, ,
East Downtown
12/13/16 2:30pm

East Downtown’s East Village To Get Even More Liquored Up

by
2 Comments

East Village leasing and renderings

The latest sketchup of the site plan for Ancorian’s East Village project in East Downtown shows what may be a second distillery nestled into the 2 blocks of warehouses now in various states of conversion between Polk and Lamar streets along St. Emanuel and Hutchins. Meanwhile, a group of rum distillers going by the name Revolution Rum has laid claim to an address next to the development (in a warehouse just north of 8th Wonder Brewery’s, across Hutchins from the planned Houston location of chain craft vodka distillery Our/Vodka). It’s not clear whether the spot marked on the leasing flier is a separate project, or if one of the 2 potential liquor operations might have a satellite storefront in the complex, facing St. Emanuel St.

Other additions to the siteplan include the name of Agricole Hospitality, now on the map at the corner of Dallas and St. Emanuel (and embellished with the logos for the group’s existing Heights trifecta of Revival Market, Coltivare, and Eight Row Flint). Fort Worth-rooted beer and burger joint Rodeo Goat and Dallas-based trailer-bar Truck Yard have territories staked out as well, next to a thin slice of retail space labeled Poku. The architects at māk have also released another few renderings up of design ideas for various parts of the 2 block complex, including a shiny restaurant mockup depicted along Polk St. near the now-silver-skinned Secret Group comedy club:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Spirits of EaDo
, , , , , , ,
Montrose
12/13/16 11:15am

Scenes from a Public-ish Meeting of the Montrose Management District

by
8 Comments

SCENES FROM A PUBLIC-ISH MEETING OF THE MONTROSE MANAGEMENT DISTRICT Montrose District Bike Houston Bike Rack, Montrose, HoustonYesterday’s mid-day Montrose Management District monthly meeting involved a good deal of waiting around, Nancy Sarnoff reports, as more than a dozen of the Montrose property owners who signed the most recent petition to dissolve the district showed up to chat publicly with the organization’s board members. Some of the owners who had planned to speak reportedly left before doing so, however, as the board started the meeting with a closed executive session that the group’s past agendas and meeting minutes imply usually happens near the end of the monthly sessions. Sarnoff writes that once the board opened the meeting back up for public comments, “many of those who spoke made a similar plea: ‘Accept my petition or drop me from the assessment rolls.‘” A rep from the district says the recent court findings that some of the district’s founding documentation is invalid won’t cause any changes in the organization’s immediate plans (nor cause them to return any of that collected $6.6 million) until any upcoming appeals are finalized; while a final judgment document has been signed in the current case in the 333rd District court, the proceedings are still technically ongoing, as the MMD filed a document last week asking the judge to please change his mind. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of bike rack in Montrose: Montrose Management District

, ,
Featured Posts
12/12/16 4:45pm

Your Chance To Get Galveston Tourists To Help Pay Your Mortgage

by
3 Comments

2427 Market St., Galveston, TX, 77550

Atop the retail-harboring ground floor of this 1878 building now for sale in Galveston is a living space — or several, the listing suggests, if you’re willing to get creative. The 2-story mixed-use RF Martin & Company building at the southeast corner of 25th and Market streets (a few blocks south of the Strand, and of the Galveston Ship Channel cruise terminals) went up for sale early last week. The asking price is currently set at $1.4 million — though the listing says that can be offset by income from the street-level tenants (currently including eclectic cafe Eatcetera and stationary station Betsy by Design), or a potential conversion of the space into condos or a boutique hotel.

Here’s the view from Market St.:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Market St. Market
, , , , , ,
East Downtown
12/12/16 1:00pm

The Blue and Sandy Fields of EaDo’s Next Play-Your-Own Sports Bar

by
8 Comments

HTX Sports Creek, 2619 Polk St., East Downtown, Houston, 77003

A 3-block jaunt from the proposed site of the recently reincarnated Ivy Lofts development will land you at 2619 Polk St., where do-it-yourself sports bar Sports Creek is setting up. The developers look to be planting a series of sand volleyball courts and blue-turfed soccer fields on the long-paved-over block bounded by Polk, Live Oak, Nagle, and Dallas streets (catty-corner from the former Kings warehouse building slated for a wholesale-to-retail makeover).

One of the involved developers recently told Maggie Gordon that the new place should open in January, and that there will be 3 volleyball courts; the above rendering shows the latest published update to the bar’s planned layout of the space (though it appears to show 4 courts instead). It’s also not totally clear which side of the development that drawing is meant to show, as none of the site’s depicted neighbors appear to quite match up with the array of townhomes, warehouses, and electrical substation that ring the block.

Older renderings released earlier this year showed the business with only 1 and 2 fields and courts respectively, on a much skinnier piece of land:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Courting Polk St.
, , ,
Featured Posts
12/12/16 11:15am

Braun Nails Down Fastener Warehouse at I-10 and W. Loop for Heights Market, Brewery, Food Hall

by
8 Comments

Rendering of Heights Market, 7122 Old Katy Rd., Hempstead Industrial, Houston, 77055

7122 Old Katy Rd., Hempstead Industrial, Houston, 77055

Here’s a peek at what the old Delta Fastener warehouse at 7122 Old Katy Rd. might look like once Braun Enterprises gets done with it. The property — located just inside the W. Loop in that wedge of industrial parks hemmed in by I-10 and Hempstead Rd., west of Cottage Grove — was snagged by Braun at the end of November. A handful of renderings from Tipps Architecture (also behind the design for another of Braun’s not-in-its-namesake-neighborhood redevelopments) depict the 57,845-sq.-ft. warehouse done over in brown and bearing the label Heights Market.

The renderings show some new windows, large and small, sliced into exterior of the 1940s warehouse, and an existing loading dock redone as a cafeteria space:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Changes for Delta
, , , , , , , ,
Notices
12/12/16 9:15am

Update on the 2016 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate

by
No Comments

Nominations for all remaining categories in the 2016 Swampies closed on Friday; last week we also kicked off the actual voting, starting with the first 3 of this year’s 8 awards: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition of 2016, and the “Where Are They Now?” Award.

Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate Ribbon LogoThanks to everyone who’s joined in the fun so far, by submitting ballot-worthy choices and by voting! Your participation what makes these awards happen.

All this week we’ll be opening up more ballots for the remainder of this year’s categories; that’ll give you some time to get your votes in, and maybe do a little campaigning for your favorite nominees, before the holidays hit. Check here if you need a refresher on the 4 different ways to vote — just remember that the polls will close for all awards at 5 PM on Tuesday, December 27th. After that, we’ll ring in the new year by announcing the winners.

,
Notices
12/09/16 5:30pm

The ‘Where Are They Now?’ Award: The 2016 Official Ballot

by
22 Comments

Unexpected comebacks and inglorious fade-outs abounded in your nominations for this next category in the 2016 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: the “Where Are They Now?” Award. Thanks to everyone who contributed! Now, it’s time to whittle down the list to that single winner.

Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate Ribbon LogoThe nominees for this award are people, places, and things which have made a noteworthy transition of one variety or another. As with this year’s other categories, there are 4 ways to vote for your favorite nominee  — and if you really want to give your favorite a boost, you can do all 4. Make your voice heard by leaving a comment below, by sending us an email, or by shouting out your choices to Facebook and the Twittersphere — and, of course, by getting your friends in on the action to help. Be sure to send your votes in by 5 PM on Tuesday, December 27th.

Any questions? Read up on the complete voting guidelines, if so. Now, on to the nominees for the 2016 “Where Are They Now?” Award:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

The 2016 Swampies
, ,
Openings and Closings
12/09/16 12:15pm

Alamo Drafthouse Says It’ll Open 4 More Houston Spots Now that Vintage Park Is Off Its Hands

by
2 Comments

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE SAYS IT’LL OPEN 4 MORE HOUSTON SPOTS NOW THAT VINTAGE PARK IS OFF ITS HANDS Imperial Market, Sugar Land, TX 77478Alamo Drafthouse followed up this week’s confirmation that its Vintage Park theater is becoming a Star Cinema Grill by announcing that it plans to open 4 more Houston area locations. Details on where and when are still murky (other than a reiteration that plans for the Imperial Market spot in Sugar Land are still on), but a rep told Kyle Hagerty earlier this week that the company has already signed 3 leases. That may or may not include the 10-year lease signed back in 2013 for a spot in the long-stalled Regent Square development — which did get some permits this fall, as somebody at Morris Architects previously claimed would happen. [Previously on Swamplot] Rendering of proposed Alamo Drafthouse in Sugar Land: Imperial Market

, , , , , ,
Featured Posts
12/09/16 10:45am

In Search of the Elusive Midtown Boundary, at the W. Gray and Webster Split

by
6 Comments

Midtown Entry Portal site, W. Gray at Matthews St., Midtown/Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

Where exactly, these days, does Fourth Ward end and Midtown begin? That may be a little bit clearer before long (depending on how you define the 2) — a reader notes that someone looks to be getting ready to stake a visible claim for Midtown on the narrow strip of land at the crotch of Webster and W. Gray streets, just west of Matthews St. and the latest add-on to the Post Midtown Square development. (The yellow signage of that recently scorched Fuzzy’s is visible on the left.)

The silt fencing rimming the median segment as of late comes with a construction sign calling the spot “Midtown Entry Portal — Site 3.” That grassy sliver does sit at the end of a short but pointy finger of land jutting out of the northwestern boundary of the area’s tax increment reinvestment zone, which as of 2009 is shaped about like this:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

TIRZspotting
, , , , , ,
« Previous Page Next Page »