November 5, 2009 – 1:26 pm
Communications director Vance Muse tells the River Oaks Examiner’s Michael Reed that the foundation’s board won’t replace the bargain-rent Richmont Square Apartments in a way that’ll change the character of the Menil campus:
“It’s on our mind that we could, in a low-key Menil way, build a (residential) property along Richmond Avenue,” he said.
Apartments at Richmont Square range from $650 for one-bedroom, one-bath units of 575 square feet to $955 for two-bedroom, two-bath units of 1,064 square feet. Deposits are between $250 and $300.
Asked about the possibility of the Menil plan including dwellings that are priced similarly to what would be replaced, Muse said specifics have not been discussed yet.
“We’d like to keep it bohemian, if at all possible,” he said. “There has always been a commitment (by Menil) to offering a break.”
Photo of Richmont Square parking lot, 1400 Richmond Ave.: River Oaks Examiner
Read more about: 77006, Apartments, Menil Collection, Redevelopment, Renting, Richmont Square
October 23, 2009 – 12:22 pm
With its most recent achievements, the Mosaic earns its place in Houston’s spec-development record books: Last month the 29-story condo tower near Hermann Park — wedged between Almeda and 288 — scored the loan-default trifecta, having notched a bankruptcy, mass foreclosures, and an attendant bank failure to its credit all within a single calendar year.
Chicago’s Corus Bankshares, which held a $71 million loan for the Mosaic, foreclosed on all 271 unsold units (out of 394 total in the building) in September, just days before the bank itself was seized by the FDIC. A few weeks later, the federal agency sold 40 percent of the bank’s real estate loans to a team of private-equity firms calling itself Northwest Investments and led by Starwood Capital Group — for 60 cents on the dollar.
Any further fun at the Mosaic will be courtesy of the FDIC, reports Nancy Sarnoff:
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Read more about: 77004, Apartments, Bank Failures, Bankruptcies, Condos, Financing, Foreclosures, Hermann Park, Highrises, Mosaic and Montage, New Construction: Residential
October 2, 2009 – 5:08 pm
The Richmont Square apartments on Richmond Ave. get knocked down in the new master plan for the Menil Collection campus. Speaking at a public forum last night, British architect David Chipperfield referred to the Menil’s big multifamily property as “this thing getting in our way.”
Cite magazine’s Raj Mankad describes more details of the Chipperfield plan:
The car park along Alabama would be strengthened with the new bookshop, cafe, and auditorium nearby. The key change would be to connect West Main across the site [to Yupon] through the area occupied by the northern end of Richmont Square. The complete street grid would surround a new green space that would also be made possible by the clearing of the north side of the apartments. It would connect, slightly off axis, with the current Menil park between the main building and the Rothko. The Drawing Institute and Study Center and Single Artist Studios would be sited around the new green space. And along Richmond itself, the plan calls for dense residential and commercial development.
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Read more about: 77006, Apartments, Art, Institutional Buildings, Menil Collection, Museums, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Richmond Ave., Richmont Square
October 2, 2009 – 3:50 pm
Swamplot reader ms. rosa reports on tonight’s scheduled demolition of the 1906 Savoy Apartments building (later the Savoy-Field Hotel) at Main St. and Pease Downtown: “Just spoke with Cherry [Demolition]. They will start tearing down the building tonight (Friday, October 2, 2009) at 7:00pm. It will not be imploded (as hoped!)” [Swamplot; previously]
Read more about: 77002, Apartments, Demolitions, Downtown, Environmental, Hazards, Vacant Buildings
September 24, 2009 – 11:17 am
City officials have decided to give the owner of the original 1906 Savoy Apartments building on Main St. Downtown an extra week to knock down the structure before going ahead with their own emergency demolition plan. The building’s owner — listed in Harris County records as Michael Nassif — will now have until midnight next Friday, October 2nd, to have a contractor of his own choice begin dismantling the structure. If that doesn’t happen, the city-selected contractor will complete the demo that weekend — and leave the property with a lien for the $448,600 cost.
While negotiations have focused on how quickly work can begin, residents of the Beaconsfield across Pease St. may be more interested in how long the demo will take — and how it will be done. Architect David Hall, who has studied the building for several developers, spoke to abc13 reporter Gene Apodaca about the asbestos embedded in the building’s crumbling interior plaster:
“It’s full of environmental issues. There are pathogens that are a result of the pigeon droppings, there are areas of the building I measured where pigeon droppings were six inches thick,” said Hall.
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Read more about: 77002, Apartments, Demolitions, Downtown, Environmental, Hazards, Vacant Buildings
September 21, 2009 – 3:00 pm
How hot are those apartment specials? “One complex is pushing a concept that’s even more unusual: a clothing optional sun deck. ‘I don’t know if anybody uses it or not,’ said George Renfro, who leased a two-bedroom apartment at the French Quarter-style complex called La Maison at River Oaks. ‘It’s up on the top floor and in a very secluded area.’” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: 77098, Apartments, Leasing, Real Estate Marketing, Upper Kirby
September 18, 2009 – 5:50 pm
Houston’s first-ever highrise apartment building will be demolished next Friday, September 25th, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department announced today. Neighborhood Protection inspectors have determined that structural problems with the vacant-and-crumbling 1906 Savoy Apartments building (later the Savoy Hotel) require it to be taken down as quickly as possible. The Houston Press’s Craig Malisow reports:
[HPD's Mark Curran] said the police have had difficulty contacting the owner, who is currently in Lebanon. (Curran didn’t remember his name off-hand, but a 2007 Press story identified him as Michael Nassif). The owner has 10 days to file an appeal, Curran said.
The nearby Metro line will need to be closed during the demolition – hopefully not longer than Friday-Sunday, Curran said.
Curran also said that the building would be guarded continuously until it is torn down.
The original Savoy Houston’s first public building to have electricity. Not included in the demolition order: the building next door with the big Savoy Houston sign on top. After that portion was built in 1961, the entire complex was operated as the Savoy-Field Hotel.
Photo of 1906 Savoy Apartments, in front of 1961 Savoy-Field Hotel: Flickr user oooch2
Read more about: 77002, Apartments, Demolitions, Downtown, Houston History, Vacant Buildings
September 15, 2009 – 10:11 am
A few details on that new Whole Foods Market planned for the corner of West Dallas and Waugh, just south of the now AIG-sign-free America Tower: Finger Companies, the owners of the land, says the new store will be 40,000 sq. ft. — slightly smaller than reported when the company first announced the project more than a year ago. Also: The store will have “a variety of eco-conscious elements and tons of inviting space for neighbors to congregate.”
The Finger Companies says the Whole Foods will be built “in conjunction with the developer’s proposed new luxury apartment project.” That project, also announced in the spring of 2008, was slated for the eastern portion of the site, closer to Montrose Blvd.
Image: The Finger Companies
Read more about: 77019, Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Land Development, Leasing, Montrose, North Montrose, Proposed Developments, Retail, Whole Foods
September 9, 2009 – 4:24 pm
Globe St.’s Amy Wolff Sorter says the buyer of the foreclosed Greenbriar Park North apartments near Greenspoint has “a strong track record” of rehabbing complexes. That should help:
Wade Schmitz with Hendricks & Partners’ Houston office tells GlobeSt.com that CNC Investments was the former owner and like many owners during the mid-2000s, had bought too much with too much debt that couldn’t be refinanced. Schmitz, who marketed the asset for Bank of America adds that the 1980s complex at 818 Richcrest Dr. attracted a great deal of interest. . . .
“There were down units that needed to be brought back online,” Schmitz says. “The property had been neglected, and needed someone to take care of it.”
How neglected? Of 400 units in the complex, only around 60 are occupied.
Don’t want to miss out on all the foreclosed-apartment-complex rehab fun? Be patient, more is coming:
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Read more about: 77060, Apartments, Buying and Selling, Foreclosures, Greenspoint, Renovations
August 31, 2009 – 1:42 pm
Robert Boyd’s original remarks on the scraping of the Wilshire Village Apartments briefly mentioned another older apartment complex that Matt Dilick redeveloped and now runs: the Bayou on the Bend Apartments, at 5201 Memorial, just west of Shepherd. Boyd’s link to discussions of that complex at ratings website Apartment Ratings sparked a quick note from a reader:
It looks like Apartment Ratings attracts tenants who want to complain, but it seems like most of the gripes about other apartments focus on managers who are hard to deal with, thin walls, neighborhood crime, that sort of stuff. Have you read the reviews of Bayou on the Bend?
Bayou on the Bend gets a 35 percent positive rating from readers who have written in to comment — certainly not the lowest number for a large Houston complex. Here are a few choice excerpts:
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Read more about: 77007, Apartments, Bayou on the Bend, Buffalo Bayou, Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Hazards, Hurricane Ike, Memorial Drive, Mold, Swimming Pools
August 21, 2009 – 5:32 pm
Note: Story updated below.
The 11th time’s the charm! According to Abc13 reporter Miya Shay, the city today gave the developers of the Ashby Highrise the final approval they needed to begin construction of the 23-story residential tower at the corner of Ashby and Bissonnet, next to Southampton.
Okay now everybody, show us your cards!
Update, 5:49 p.m.: Some details about why the most recent plans were approved, from a city news release via the River Oaks Examiner:
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Read more about: 77005, Apartments, Ashby Highrise, Boulevard-Oaks, Condos, Development Regulations, Highrises, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southampton, Traffic
Comment of the Day: Apartment Model Showings
“If ‘Nudist sundeck + 1 hired model –> 100% occupancy’ was the case, then the Core (on Washington Ave) and Bel Air (on Allen Parkway) and many others in the similiar ’scene’ and price range would be at 100% occupancy too. But they are not. BTW, the Bel Air pool is really really nice!” [irfan, commenting on Taking More Than Half Off at Those Apartments with the French Quarter Look]