Is there more change coming to lower Richmond?
The former Shell station and grocery at 1810 Richmond Ave known until recently (formally) known as Richwood Market and (informally) as “Freaky Foods” is boarded up and graffiti-tagged:
Here they are, straight from your submissions: the official nominees in the first category of the seventh annual Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. That, of course, is Favorite Houston Design Cliché. Thanks to all of you who contributed! These awards wouldn’t happen without you.
If you’ve voted in the Swampies before, please note we’re making a slight tweak to our voting rules this year. You can still vote up to 4 times in this category by 1) leaving a comment below this post; 2) sending us an email; or by expressing your preference on 3) Twitter or 4) Facebook. This year, however — to encourage signups — we’ll only be counting votes submitted through the first 2 methods from voters who’ve signed up for the Swamplot email list. (If you haven’t done so already, you can through this link or the box at the top left of this page). Make sure your vote counts by reading and following our voting instructions.
Just as important as the votes you cast, though, are the explanations you provide with them. Tell us why you’re voting for who you’re voting for! What you write may sway other readers to vote as you did. And if your candidate wins or comes in second place, your clever comments might be included in our round-up post.
Here, then are the 2014 nominees for favorite Houston design cliché:
Here is the lot plan for University Grove, a 39-lot single-family development to go in at the corner of Leeland St. and Cullen Blvd., across the Gulf Freeway from UH, just across the street from Mandola’s Deli, right behind the Polk St. Kroger and hard by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway line.
Landowner Leeland Baking Company, Inc. is listed as a subsidiary of Flowers Foods Inc., the Thomasville, GA-based mega-bakery behind such brands as Nature’s Own, Whitewheat, Wonder Bread, Cobblestone Mill, and Tastykake.
Previously remodeled and recently tidied, a Norhill cottage is attempting a flip with a twist — and a big finish. Having last sold in mid-October, for $416,000 after a $369,900 listing, the 1928 property popped up again over the weekend with an asking price more than $200K higher: $640,000. Could the price escalation be an example of how frighteningly frothy the local housing market has become, a reader asks? See if you can spot the updates . . .
An excavator yesterday was hard at work scraping the 3300 block of the west side of Kirby clean.
Bounded by West Main St. and Colquitt St. and Lake St. to the rear, this block was long the site of a Settegast-Kopf funeral home, but like that seemingly straitlaced great-aunt with the closet full of empty gin bottles, the staid mortuary and adjacent buildings descended into drink, spending their final years as taverns Roak, Hendricks Pub, and the OTC Patio Bar.
Here’s what the Kirby frontage looked like in both its sober and lush incarnations:
A reader sends in a pic of this variance request sign and vacant lot, possibly heralding the advent of another apartment complex in the Brunner Addition block bounded by N. Durham Dr. and Sandman St. and Center St. and Nett St., in the immediate environs of Soma Sushi, Bethel Church, Woodrow’s Heights and the Esperanza School.
Proposed land use? Mixed-use, multifamily and commercial.
Listing her home caps a whirlwind 5 months for Theresa Roemer. Back in June, The Woodlands socialite threw open the doors to her 3-story, 3,000-sq.-ft., $500k “she-cave” to a blogger from Neiman-Marcus, a move that would eventually attract both scorn and “You go, girl!” sentiments from around the world.
A burglar struck soon thereafter, and then attempted to blackmail her by threatening to tell the world that at least some of the haul of allegedly designer goods from her opulent trove were mere fakes, a threat the as-yet-unapprehended thief eventually carried out.
Around the same time, Roemer sued her estranged stepson for defamation of character. That matter has since settled, but the upheaval isn’t over: Roemer is now selling her home in the Carlton Woods subdivision of The Woodlands.
And when we say Roemer is selling her house, we mean just that: she is the listing agent for the 17,315 sq.-ft., 9-10 bedroom, 10 full and three half-bath, one 3-story closet manse at 47 Grand Regency Dr. The asking price: $12.9 million.
You’ve seen the pics on teevee, Culturemap and on newspapers from around the world. Here are real-live listing pics, and not just of the closet, but the whole house!
The El Campo home featuring what is billed as the world’s largest backyard swimming pool could be yours for $5m, along with 40 acres of Coastal Bend land and a 5-bedroom, 7,329 sq.-ft. mansion, and more.
In case you missed them late last month, here are a few renderings of Park Place at Buffalo Bayou, the 18-story office tower Pinto Realty Partners is putting up on Willia St., atop the rim of the Spotts Park bowl at Memorial Dr. and Waugh Dr., just north of Buffalo Bayou and atop the dust of the demolished Masterson YWCA.
According to Harris County Clerk documents, the Peacock & Plaza apartments at 1414-1416 Austin St. downtown across the street from Root Memorial Square were sold late last month to a Colorado-based development company.
The two Spanish-tinged, red-brick pre-war buildings — one of which is adorned with an eye-catching tile mosaic of a proud peacock, both of which are studded with dark green and white awnings — hold a total of 32 studio apartments.
There’s no off-street parking, but that’s offset in part by “crazy low rents in a prime location,” according to a reader. Prime it is indeed, just across Root Memorial Square from the Toyota Center and blocks from Discovery Green and the convention center. And cheap it is indeed too, at least as of last year, when units were being advertised for $520 a month.
“I found him!” declares reader Kristen W. The portrait she happened upon, captioned “Jesus, I trust in you” over draped ankles, had originally been noted by Swamplot readers 4 years ago in ready position adjacent to a redevelopment site on Shepherd Dr. at Center St., just north of Washington Ave. (See smaller photo above right; similar sightings were also reported at the time in Lindale Park and on Westpark between Fondren and Gessner.) Later, the icon’s purported property-restoring powers were noted in its nomination for the Washington Ave Award in that year’s Swampies.
Kristen W. reports the latest visitation: “He’s just hanging out on the east side of Huffmeister Rd. south of Fleur de Lis Blvd. among the cattle and horses. . . . I was making the long trek up north for a job interview [Friday] morning and had to turn around to snap a few photos because I couldn’t believe it.”
Houston Alternator’s West Heights location is getting a tuneup. Owners of the 6,000-sq.-ft. auto center, located on the busy N. Shepherd–W. 19th St. intersection’s southwest corner, are remodeling the 1960 vintage building for restaurant and retail use. But remixing N. Shepherd’s former auto care zone of used car dealerships and repair shops won’t stop there.
In the tragically out-of-print The Last American City: An Intrepid Walker’s Guide to Houston, magazine writer and editor and Rice German professor Douglas Milburn took a break from his bipedal tours of Montrose, the Galleria, downtown and the Med Center to share his hard-won, footsore knowledge of Houston’s finest convenience stores, circa 1979.
It was a propitious moment for the convenience store concept; gas stations had yet to erode their share of the quick and easy food and drinks market, so Milburn had plenty to choose from, not least, from among dozens of U-Tote’Ms.
Guided by Leroy Melcher, U-Tote’M was arguably Houston’s most beloved homegrown convenience store chain, albeit one bearing a name and totem pole imagery that would be considered wildly offensive by today’s standards.
A Tulsa U-Tote-M made a cameo in The Outsiders:
And here is how Tema hopes all of its developments will fit together one day on the northern edge of Hermann Park.
That just-begun 7-story apartment building — “Phase I” above — is going in at 1699 Hermann Dr., immediately west of Tema’s thirtysomething-year-old, 35-story Parklane Houston Condos tower.
Phase II — also 7 stories, groundbreaking TBA — slots in behind the 7-story building and looks over Ewing St. towards downtown.
And then there’s the proposed tall and twisty Tower at Hermann Place, the 42-story behemoth that was once slated to be up by the middle of next year…
Construction commenced earlier this week on Tema Development’s Hermann Park Residences you see rendered above. The 7-story building is going up at 1699 Hermann Dr. overlooking the park and a heartbeat or two east of the Health Museum, a little to the west of Tema’s 35-story Parklane tower, and possibly within earshot of the lions roaring at the zoo.
The Residences are intended to be the first of Tema’s three-phase plan for their 6.8 acre plot. That twisty 42-story tower Tema has proposed is still 4-6 years away, according to a company spokesperson.
 for $12.9 Million... "Pin It")
