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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The New Whole Foods at West Dallas and Waugh

May 14, 2008 – 9:18 am

Northwest Corner of West Dallas and Montrose, Houston

Whole Foods Market has just signed a 25-year lease with the Finger Companies for land at the northeast corner of West Dallas and Waugh in North Montrose. The company plans to build a new 50,000-sq.-ft. store there, reports the Chronicle’s Nancy Sarnoff. That’s the same size as the new Whole Foods that recently opened in Sugar Land, but the new Uptown store the company is planning as part of Boulevard Place will be 50 percent larger.

The North Montrose location is only a few blocks east of the site planned for Regent Square. And Finger has more ideas for the full 11 acres fronting West Dallas it bought from Knickerbocker Corp. earlier this year:

Plans for the site also call for 60,000 square feet of additional retail space and hundreds of apartments. The Finger Cos. will build a six-story, 445-unit multifamily complex on the property. Construction will start early next year.

A ring road will be created in the center of the development to tie into the AIG complex, located to the north of the site.

A future phase includes a high-rise apartment tower for the land closer to Montrose. Developer Marvy Finger said the building could be similar to his company’s 20-story Museum Tower on Montrose near the Museum District.

Photo of the corner of West Dallas and Montrose, proposed site of Finger highrise: Charles Kuffner

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9:18 am | 6 Comments | Read more about Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Land Development, Neighborhoods: Montrose, Neighborhoods: North Montrose, Proposed Developments, Retail
Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Going Straight: Regent Square Follows a New Path

May 13, 2008 – 7:58 am

Axonometric of Proposed Regent Square Development, North Montrose, Houston

This new drawing provides a sneak peek of the latest plans for Regent Square in North Montrose. And it shows a few changes from earlier views of GID Urban Development Group’s new 24-acre mixed-use project.

Earlier drawings showed several new streets cutting diagonally through the site of the recently demolished Allen House Apartments. But this latest leaked drawing of the complex’s first phase shows a straightened north-south axis coming off Allen Parkway, resulting in buildings with fewer odd angles.

This new drawing dates from late April. Our tipster reports:

. . . they will have some pretty cool apartments there in addition to condos and retail. This pic shows allen pkwy on the far right. The 2 shadows are the condo towers. The apartments will be 5 and 8 stories in multiple buildings and will have some awesome amenities including the rooftop pool you can see there.

After the jump: Closeups of the new drawing, plus a longing last look at those kinky old plans!

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7:58 am | 2 Comments | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Mixed Use, Neighborhoods: Montrose, Neighborhoods: North Montrose, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Streets
Thursday, May 8, 2008

The Secret New Downtown Tower Hidden on the Web

May 8, 2008 – 9:30 am

Rendering of New Hines North Tower, Downtown Houston

The L-shaped glass building at the center of this drawing is apparently a new 742,000-square-foot office tower planned by Hines for the northeast corner of Main and Capitol Downtown. But Hines hasn’t officially announced it yet. Houston Architecture Info Forum user ChannelTwoNews found the drawing earlier this week — only a few days after it had been posted on the website of an engineering firm working on the project. Fellow forum user lockmat later spotted it again . . . in a Hines presentation from February posted on the Texas A&M Real Estate Center website. By the end of the day yesterday, the engineering firm’s site had been scrubbed of all information about the building.

The tower is planned for a corner most recently occupied by a languishing sales trailer for the appropriately named Shamrock Tower, and a full-size McDonald’s before that. At the far end of the block is the vacant Texas Tower, which the new Hines building appears to wrap around.

The drawing shows a view looking northwest. The tower looks like 28 or so office stories perched atop a parking garage of . . . maybe 10 levels? After the jump, a closeup . . . and an even closer-up, so you can count the floors for yourself.

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9:30 am | 2 Comments | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Highrises, Neighborhoods: Downtown, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments
Thursday, May 1, 2008

That Nineties Retro Tower Coming to the West Loop

May 1, 2008 – 10:56 am

Proposed Office Tower at 1600 West Loop South, Uptown, Houston

From Ziegler Cooper Architects’ website: Renderings of a 20-story office tower the firm designed back in the early 1990s.

As we reported in February, the Novati Group plans to build the 500,000-square-foot spec tower, along with an 8-level parking garage, at 1600 West Loop South — next to Post Oak Motor Cars, on land purchased from Landry’s. The only changes from the original design will be adjustments so the building can qualify for LEED Silver certification.

So what if the design is old? Worrying that your brand new building already looks dated is so . . . last decade!

After the jump: the marble in the lobby will be old, too!

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10:56 am | Comment | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Green Design and Development, Highrises, Houston Architects, Neighborhoods: Galleria, New Construction, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments
Monday, April 28, 2008

Building Smaller, Building Green, Adapting, and Reusing: The Home Depot Way

April 28, 2008 – 7:18 pm

Site of Fallbrook Distribution Center, 8103 Fallbrook Dr., Houston

Just add punchline: If all goes as planned, Home Depot will soon be operating a LEED-certified distribution center just south of the Sam Houston Race Park in Northwest Houston.

Pennsylvania REIT Liberty Property Trust began constructing the enormous 535,000-square-foot Fallbrook Distribution Center at the southwest corner of Fallbrook Dr. and Fairbanks-North Houston on spec, and plans to submit it to the U.S. Green Building Council for core & shell certification. Home Depot will be leasing the entire facility.

But Home Depot wanted a few changes made . . .

Liberty Property . . . switched gears in the middle of construction to make the facility — originally planned as 615,000 square feet — smaller to suit the long-term tenant. “We disassembled the east side of the building and relocated tiltwall concrete panels to create a larger employee parking area,” [Liberty Property’s Joe] Trinkle says. “We had to take apart the building to accommodate their need.”

The west side of the building was also disassembled and reconstructed in order to add a third loading dock, he says.

Gary Mabray, an industrial broker with Colliers International, says it is unusual for a construction project to undergo as many changes as this one did.

“That building was basically finished,” Mabray says. “They had to go back in and demolish slab and everything.”

Liberty Trust, a real estate investment trust, offered the tenant a build-to-suit option at another site so the building would not have to be converted, but Trinkle says the timing was off.

Photo of Fallbrook Distribution Center under construction: Liberty Property Trust

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7:18 pm | Comment | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Green Design and Development, Industrial Properties, Neighborhoods: Northwest Houston, New Construction, Real Estate Marketing, Renovations
Thursday, April 17, 2008

Corner of Hazard: The Fall of Martha Turner Properties

April 17, 2008 – 11:19 pm

Demolition of Former Martha Turner Properties Building, 1902 Westheimer Rd., Houston, April 17, 2008

Swamplot reader Buildergeek sends pictures from the demolition of the former Martha Turner Properties building at the corner of Westheimer and Hazard.

Whatever’s happening to the site, it sure doesn’t sound like what Nancy Sarnoff reported a year and a half ago in the Chronicle:

The old headquarters of Martha Turner Properties near River Oaks has been sold for the third time in as many years to a florist who plans to gut the property, add a floral showroom and lease out space to other businesses.

The owners of Plants ’n’ Petals, a 25-year-old flower shop located near Highland Village, purchased the former real estate office at 1902 Westheimer for an undisclosed amount. . . .

The renovations will include installing windows on the Westheimer-facing facade, gutting the interior and adding a mezzanine for offices.

The building will have about 12,000 square feet of space when it’s finished by the end of 2008.

After the jump: Clearly, the building was too close to the street!

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11:19 pm | 1 Comment | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Hazards, Neighborhoods: Winlow Place, Proposed Developments, Streets
Monday, March 31, 2008

Logos and Lines: Cypress Outlet Mall Reader Reports

March 31, 2008 – 5:46 pm

Houston Premium Outlets, Cypress, TX

Reader photos and reports from the Houston Premium Outlets opening on 290 last weekend:

I had heard somewhere that the mall was supposed to have a Southwest theme, but with all the logos plastered over the entrance towers, it looks like they might have been aiming for Early NASCAR. Aside from that, though, it’s a surprisingly nice place. Yeah, there were lots of people there, but once you get out of your car, the mall handles crowds well. It’s much nicer than a lot of Houston non-outlet malls, and a whole lot less cheesy or pretentious.

After the jump: those logo-festooned towers and more on-the-spot pix! Plus: Chicken Now: Here. Now!

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5:46 pm | 2 Comments | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Malls, New Construction, Openings and Closings, Parking, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers

North Montrose and Memorial Heights: Look at Us Now

March 31, 2008 – 11:52 am

Alley Behind Townhomes Between Clay and W. Dallas, Houston

If you’re curious what the upper reaches of Montrose Blvd. look like from the viewpoint of an actual pedestrian, you’ll want to see blogger Charles Kuffner’s recent annotated photo walking tour of the area. Kuffner, who lived on Van Buren St. in the nineties, describes more recent developments on and around Montrose and Studemont — from West Gray north to Washington:

I did this partly to document what it looks like now - if you used to live there but haven’t seen it in awhile, you’ll be amazed - and partly to point out what I think can be done to make the eventual finished product better. . . .

My thesis is simple. This is already an incredibly densely developed corridor, and it’s going to get more so as the new high rise is built [see Swamplot’s story here] and several parcels of now-empty land get sold and turned into something else. It’s already fairly pedestrian-friendly, but that needs to be improved. And for all the housing in that mile-long stretch of road, there’s not enough to do.

Kuffner’s guide is a Flickr photo set. You’ll get the most out of it if you view it as a slideshow with the captions turned on (on the link, click on Options in the lower right corner, then make sure Always Show Title and Description is checked).

After the jump: A few more photos from Kuffner’s tour, plus an ID on those new condos behind Pronto!

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11:52 am | Comment | Read more about Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Development Strategy, Neighborhoods: Memorial Heights, Neighborhoods: Montrose, New Construction: Residential, Redevelopment
Friday, March 28, 2008

Borlenghi: Houstonians Unclear on the European Concept

March 28, 2008 – 11:34 am

Arturo’s Uptown Italiano Restaurant in Uptown Park, Houston

Interfin Companies president Giorgio Borlenghi, who developed Uptown Park and the Hotel Granduca, explains how it’s done:

. . . developers must not forget the principles we Houstonians like so much such as ease of access to the various components of the building and plentiful and readily available parking. As an example, when we planned Uptown Park, we decided to keep it exclusively retail to allow our patrons to park directly in front of the shops and restaurants without having to deal with multistory parking structures.

Keeping Uptown Park “exclusively retail,” of course, meant that his luxury hotel had to go across the street:

I created Hotel Granduca as a unique, elegant and extremely exclusive boutique hotel for the Uptown/Galleria area. I wanted it to be very different from all the other hotels: It had to feel very Italian, of course, and to have a true residential setting, so that it could be someone’s home away from home. What surprises me is that a number of people in Houston are still not understanding this very European concept and somehow think that Granduca is not a regular hotel, but some type of apartment building.

Photo of Arturo’s Uptown Italiano restaurant in Uptown Park: Flickr user heyjebbo

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11:34 am | Comment | Read more about Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Hotels, Mixed Use, Neighborhoods: Galleria, Parking, Real Estate Marketing, Retail, Shopping Centers
Thursday, March 27, 2008

Outlet Mall Grand Opening: Cypress Will Never Be the Same

March 27, 2008 – 6:38 pm

Drawing of Houston Premium Outlets in Cypress, TexasIf the popularity of our story earlier this week about the Houston Premium Outlets is any guide, the new outlet mall off 290 in Cypress ought to be absolutely swamped this weekend. And hey — we didn’t have much to say about it, other than to report that the mall opens today. (And no, Swamplot isn’t offering any discounts, either.)

Evidently, a lot of people want to find out about this place.

So if you do decide to brave the crowds this weekend and have a look around yourself, feel free to send us your reports, videos, or photos — so we can share them with the Googling hordes online.

Drawing of Houston Premium Outlets: Chelsea Premium Outlets

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6:38 pm | Comment | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Malls, Neighborhoods: Cypress, New Construction, Openings and Closings, Retail, Shopping Centers
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Houston Premium Outlets: The New Outlet Mall in Cypress

March 25, 2008 – 7:12 pm

Houston Premium Outlets, Cypress, Texas

Update: On-the-spot reader reports!

Fairfield residents: You picked the right location! Just outside your neighborhood’s front gates, a huge new outlet mall is scheduled to open . . . in just two days!

What’s going to be there? The Ecko Unltd. outlet store! The Juicy Couture outlet store! The Under Armour outlet store! Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom! And Chicken Now! They’re all opening this Thursday, March 27th!

Well . . . almost. As a commenter on HAIF points out, you’ll apparently have to wait for Chicken Now, which on the Houston Premium Outlets website is listed only as “opening soon.” The site indicates 100 stores in the 427,000-square-foot outdoorish highwayside complex will be ready for this weekend’s grand opening. 13 more are slated to open later.

After the jump: you’ll look askance at the plans!

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7:12 pm | Comment | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Malls, Neighborhoods: Cypress, Neighborhoods: Fairfield, New Construction, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers
Monday, March 24, 2008

Sanctioned by the Congregation: The Office Building Next to First Baptist

March 24, 2008 – 11:25 pm

Rendering of Proposed Hines Office Building Adjacent to First Baptist Church, Houston

A reader directs our attention to this proposed 16-story office building facing the south side of the Katy Freeway, just outside the Loop — on the current site of a Houston’s First Baptist Church parking lot.

Hines plans to build the office building and an 11-level, 1,500-car parking garage on the lot, which the developer would lease from the church. The congregation has already voted to authorize church representatives to finalize and sign a 99-year ground lease for the property.

The garage would help solve the church’s chronic parking problems: According to the HFBC website, 300 cars currently park off-site on weekends. With the Hines development, the church would lose the 480 spaces in the lot now available during the week, but gain 1,500 spaces for church use on weekends and after office hours.

Below the fold, lots more images of the proposed office building and garage on HFBC property.

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11:25 pm | Comment | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Houston Architects, Neighborhoods: Bayou Woods, Neighborhoods: Memorial, Office Buildings, Parking, Proposed Developments
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Cullen’s Upscale: The Big Green Restaurant in Clear Lake

March 18, 2008 – 12:35 pm

Rendering of Cullen’s Upscale American Grille on Space Center Blvd., Houston

A restaurant scheduled to open today just beyond Beltway 8’s southeastern elbow is the first “Certified Green Restaurant” in Houston approved by the Green Restaurant Association. Cullen’s Upscale American Grille completed 17 of the GRA’s environmental guidelines.

The grille’s proprietor is first-time restaurant owner Kevin Munz, who previously built a chain of 13 Houston-area pawn shops. He sold the Mr. Money Pawn shops to Cash America International in 2006. Two years before that, he bought 92.8 acres of undeveloped land at the eastern edge of Ellington Field and began planning Clearpoint Crossing, a series of strips along the west side of newly extended Space Center Blvd., featuring retail/lease space, a professional-office park, and a multifamily residential project.

Cullen’s is intended to be Clearpoint Crossing’s main attraction: a 37,000-sq.-ft. Las Vegas-style eatery with seven private dining rooms — including one built of glass and suspended over the main dining area — a ballroom, space for outdoor dining, and seating for 700 diners. Customers will have their choice of china: Wedgwood, Versace, or “the Titanic.” Munz spoke to the Houston Chronicle’s David Kaplan about his plans for Cullen’s last year:

“I’ve been all over the U.S. and looked at restaurants. It’s the best of a bunch of different concepts and putting them into one, Munz said. “It’s the same thing I did with pawnshops.”

Munz told the South Belt-Ellington Leader he hopes to attract customers driving from as far northeast as Baytown and as far south as Galveston to his green restaurant, saying he “wouldn’t have done this in town.”

Munz expects the Clearpoint Crossing’s land value to “go up the day I open the restaurant,” he told Kaplan. That would be today!

After the jump, a plan of the whole Clearpoint Crossing development. Plus, a few of the restaurant’s green features!

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12:35 pm | 11 Comments | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Green Design and Development, Land Development, Mixed Use, Neighborhoods: Clear Lake, New Construction, Openings and Closings, Real Estate Marketing, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers
Monday, March 17, 2008

New Memorial Hermann Tower: Great Location for a Head Office

March 17, 2008 – 9:54 am

Memorial Hermann Tower at I-10 and Gessner Under ConstructionNewspaper and radio technology answer guy Jay Lee snaps this photo of the new 30-story Memorial Hermann tower going up along I-10 next to the Memorial City Mall . . . then posts it to the “Look Like a Robot” photo pool on Flickr.

Does he realize offices in that robot-head are available for rent? From a January report in the Houston Business Journal:

Marshall Heins, Memorial Hermann’s real estate guru, says he gets asked about the cone at least four or five times a day by inquiring citizens.

The top three floors of the cylinder will house mechanical systems, but the bottom three floors will house small offices. . . .

The cone’s footprint is 2,500 to 3,000 square feet, while the office floors below in the main building have a 25,000-square-foot floor plate.

Building developer MetroNational Corp. will lease the three small floors to tenants, but Memorial Hermann will not be one of them. No word yet from MetroNational on who might occupy the special space.

After the jump: what the whole thing’s supposed to look like when it’s finished!

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9:54 am | 3 Comments | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Highrises, Medical Buildings, Neighborhoods: Memorial City, New Construction, Real Estate Marketing
Friday, March 14, 2008

More Surface Deals Surface

March 14, 2008 – 8:44 am

From Abc13’s Wayne Dolcefino:

To get the winning hand, it helps to have the luck of the draw. Maybe that’s what Michael Surface has.

In January of 2005, one of his corporations buys an old H-E-B store on Antoine. The appraised value — $1. 2 million.

Two months later, Harris County announces it’s looking for a big building to replace Commissioner Lee’s Annex A in the same neighborhood that Michael Surface now owned his old H-E-B.

Maybe it was just a lucky hand for Mr. Surface. But years earlier, he was the guy in charge of Harris County’s building department.

(Hey, isn’t this the same guy who brought in the proposal to redevelop the Astrodome into a hotel? Good thing he’s outta there, so that deal can go forward!)

. . . tax records show [Surface] sold the [H-E-B] building and land to a corporation called HC5815 for $2.2 million. That corporation, in turn, got the winning hand months later. The head of that corporation was David Blumhardt from Dallas, who we’ve learned got the winning hand in at least nine Harris County real estate deals. His local representative on the Antoine project was the guy whose name we found on a worn out real estate sign — Jason G. Hall, Weston Partners, Ltd.

Where have I heard that name before?

Jason Hall used to work for Michael Surface at Harris County. Now, his real estate operation is located in Michael Surface’s offices.

When Jason Hall worked for the county, one of the projects he evaluated was 2525 Murworth. It’s now the home of Children’s Protective Services, part of a $35 million county real estate deal developed by Michael Surface just months after he left county government.

After the jump: a longer view!

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8:44 am | Comment | Read more about Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Public Buildings, Real Estate Investing
Thursday, March 13, 2008

Houstonian Texas Medical Center: Slow Multimedia Reveal

March 13, 2008 – 10:23 am

View from Main St. of New Houstonian Hotel and Condominiums, Texas Medical Center, Houston

From fuzzy video stills to washed-out photocopies: In the agenda handout for today’s Planning Commission hearing are hazy images that provide even more details about the new 40-story hotel and condo tower Medistar wants to build on Main St. in the Medical Center, at the eastern boundary of Southgate.

The drawing labels identify the hotel as the Houstonian Texas Medical Center, or Houstonian TMC for short. The architect is the Hill Glazier Studio of HKS, out of California. And a section drawing gives an actual height for the tower.

After the jump: It’s very tall!

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10:23 am | Comment | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Highrises, Hotels, Neighborhood Associations, Neighborhood Disputes, Neighborhoods: Southgate, Neighborhoods: Texas Medical Center, Proposed Developments