Downtown

10/16/14 2:15pm

Inside the Stacked Theaters and Studios of the New HSPVA, About To Go Up Downtown

Proposed Developments, Schools

15 Comments

New High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Caroline St. and Rusk St., Downtown, Houston

Here’s a cutaway view looking into what’s being called the final design of the new Downtown campus for Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Escalating construction costs have spurred HISD to accelerate the 2012 bond program that’s paying for the new HSPVA campus along with rebuilding programs at approximately 40 schools. So construction on the 5-story, 168,000-sq.-ft. building designed by the Houston office of Gensler is expected to begin within a few weeks, and end shortly after the 2017 school year begins.

Show and Tell

77002, Downtown, HISD, Proposed Developments, Schools

Demolitions

10/15/14 11:30am

Hulking Remains of Houston Club Building Downtown Will Get Dynamited Early Sunday Morning

Downtown, Highrises, Office Buildings

7 Comments

Partially Demolished Houston Club Building, 811 Rusk St., Downtown Houston The denuded 18-story frame of the former Houston Club Building at 811 Rusk St. (pictured above before storms blew away much of its blue clothing early last week) will vibrate and then collapse after 520 lbs. of explosives detonate in and around the structure shortly after 7 am this Sunday, October 19th. If you’re a controlled-demolition gawker hunting for a spot to watch it all go down — and maybe take in all the dusty aftermath, you might want to note that streets will be shut down more than 2 blocks away in every direction before the blast. Although many nearby office buildings will close up late Saturday evening, they may not kick out all workers who have arrived earlier. “Project managers discourage anyone from coming down to see the implosion in person for safety reasons,” notes Click2Houston’s Syan Rhodes. Her station is promising to broadcast a livestream of the implosion on its website that morning.

Former Houston Club building to be demolishedÂ [Click2Houston];
Previously on Swamplot: The Clubbing of the Houston Club Building Begins;Â Skanskaâ€™s New Downtown Office Tower;Â Houston Club Tunnel Tenants Making Their Escape;Â Houston Club Building To Be Demolished, Say Auctioneers;Â Downtown Houston Club Building Will Stay Put;Â Skanska Goes for a Houston Office Building Hat Trick;Â Skanska Helping Houston Club to Early Exit;Â Will Skanska Knock Down the Houston Club?;Â At Risk on Rusk

Photo: Marc Longoria

Ka-Blooey

77002, Demolitions, Highrises, Implosions, Office Buildings, Redevelopment

10/06/14 5:15pm

Georgia’s Market Downtown Is Closed for Now

Openings and Closings, Retail

13 Comments

Georgia's Market Downtown, 420 Main St. at Rusk St., Downtown Houston

The number of grocery-store-type places open Downtown is down by one: Georgia’s Market, the cafe-and-bar-with-staples at the corner of Rusk and Main St., shut down at the end of last month. A note on the door at 420 Main St. informs customers that the 3-year-old establishment has closed for some sort of “revamp,” and refers patrons to the company’s website for “days open and future plans.” But the website isn’t much more helpful. “Thank you all for your past patronage and healthy intentions. Please stay tuned to further development at the Downtown location,” it notes dryly. The Georgia’s Market Memorial Village (now atÂ 9201 Katy Fwy. at Piney Point; the one at Dairy Ashford closed) remains open.

Welcome to Georgiaâ€™s Market Downtown [Georgia’s Market]
Previously on Swamplot:Â Peeking in on Georgiaâ€™s Downtown

Photo: EaDo Life

77002, Cafes, Downtown, Grocery Stores, Openings and Closings, Retail

Condos for Sale

10/02/14 5:00pm

How Bill Stern Turned Space at the Top of the Four Seasons Hotel into a Sleek Downtown Penthouse

by CALwords

Downtown, Highrises, Houston Architects, Interiors

6 Comments

1111-Caroline-PH-3007-02

1111-Caroline-PH-3007-19

Four Seasons Hotel, 1111 Caroline St., Downtown Houston By day and by night, a swish penthouse in the 1982 Four Seasons tower downtown ensures a panoramic view from rooms throughout the open floor plan. Understated, light-filled, and seamlessly sleek in its 2006 design by notable Houston architect Bill Stern, who died last year, the luxury condo maxes out minimalism. In mid-September, after its owners left town, theÂ highrise home’s asking price dropped to $3.85 million;Â its initial ask in April was $4.6 million.

The Lookout

77002, Condos for Sale, Four Seasons, Home Design, Houston Architects, Interiors, Luxury Highrises, Penthouses

Apartments

09/29/14 11:30am

The Hamilton Apartments Are Going Up on a Freeway-Wrapped Corner in Downtown’s Far Southeast

Downtown, New Construction

27 Comments

Site of Hamilton Apartments, 1800 St. Joseph Pkwy. at Chenevert, Downtown Houston

With nary an announcement, preliminary sitework appears to have begun for the 148-unit Hamilton Apartments, on a 1.12-acre lot at the southeasternmost corner of downtown (actually, the southern corner if you don’t pretend, as most direction-givers do, that the downtown grid has no tilt to it). The block, hugged gently by a flying overpass at the intersection of I-45 and Hwy. 59, is surrounded by Hamilton, St. Joseph Pkwy., Pierce, and Chenevert streets.

Overpass Pads

77003, Apartments, New Construction

09/25/14 11:00am

How the Hobby Center Garage Can Stop Traffic After the Curtain Falls

Parking, Streetscapes

12 Comments

Traffic Signal on Rusk St. Outside Hobby Center for the Performing Arts Parking Garage, 800 Bagby St., Downtown Houston

hobby-garage-signal Occasional downtown parker Monica Savino notes the recent traffic signal now operating outside the north exit of the Hobby Center parking garage facing Rusk St. just west of Bagby (pictured above and at left), and wonders how other midblock parking garages with difficult exits might be able to get in on this kind of automated car-stopping action: “I’m sure it’ll be very helpful for that mass exodus after an event but was wondering about a couple things.Â How does a parking garage get its own traffic signal? Also, who funds this infrastructure? Is this a private initiative or a CoH move? I imagine that there are several other downtown parking garages that would like a signal of their own especially if the City’s providing them.”

Photos: M. Kusey

Please Wait

77002, Downtown, Parking-Garages, Streetscapes, Traffic

Apartments

09/22/14 10:30am

Second Downtown SkyHouse Highrise Will Go Up on Main St. Just South of the First

Downtown, Highrises, Proposed Developments

31 Comments

Proposed SkyHouse Main Apartment Tower, Main St. at Pease St., Downtown Houston

Atlanta’s Novare Group, known for planting glassy crowned apartment towers in Sunbelt cities, is about to build its third in Houston. If the SkyHouse Main the company is planning for the block surrounded by Main, Fannin, Pease and Jefferson (across the light-rail line from the Beaconsfield) looks familiar, that’s because the new 24-story, 335-unit project appearsÂ identicalÂ to the SkyHouse Houston building it just completed a block to the north. That means a multi-level parking garage on the east side of the block, and retail space on the ground floor, fronting the rail line.

SkyHouse Main would be the company’s third SkyHouse in Houston: SkyHouse River Oaks is currently under construction southwest of River Oaks, on the site of one of the former Westcreek Apartments just east of the West Loop.

Novare Starting Another High-Rise Residential Tower in Downtown Houston [Realty News Report]
SkyHouse #3 (SkyHouse Main) Planned for Block 368 [HAIF]
Current Projects [Novare Group]
Previously on Swamplot:Â What the SkyHouse River Oaks, Not Far from River Oaks, Will Actually Look Like;Â New â€˜River Oaksâ€™ SkyHouse Apartment Tower Wants To Snuggle Up Between Target and the West Loop off San Felipe;Â The Street Shops in Store for SkyHouse Houston, Now Under Construction Downtown;Â Downtown SkyHouse Clearing the Ground First;Â Where Downtownâ€™s New Residential Tower Will Go

Rendering:Â Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart

SkyHouse Main

Apartments, Downtown, Highrises, Proposed Developments

09/19/14 11:30am

The Real Estate Secrets Buried Around Market Square

Houston History

19 Comments

Building Details at Block Surrounded by Preston, Prairie, Milam, and Travis, Downtown Houston

What tales of real-estate scandal are buried beneath the blocks surrounding Market Square? In 1988, theÂ Bethje-Lang building at 316 Milam St., better known as the site of the Warren’s Inn bar, was torn down without so much as a permit by its new owner, Guardian Savings. According to an account enshrined on the Downtown District website, the soon-to-be-defunct S&L was able to wrest the building from its previous owner, Warren Trousdale, only after a multi-year campaign of harassment that included mysteriously cemented-up sewer lines. (Trousdale’s sister established the current Warren’s Inn, across Market Square on Travis St., in his — and the building’s — memory.) Guardian Savings was never able to build the development it planned for that site, but the parking lot it left behind was ripped out this past summer for construction of the 40-story Market Square Tower.

The block likely held the remnants of other storied escapades, but a Swamplot reader says it’s all gone now: “The entire site [was] bulldozed, excavated and historically sanitized in a matter of a few days. During the excavations red brick foundations were exposed to a depth of about 15 feet and destroyed. There was no sign of any archeological due diligence by the developer before or during the demolition.”

But if you like digging in Houston real estate dirt, there’s still plenty left to explore beneath an adjacent parking lot:

Unearth, or Let them Lie?

77002, Downtown, Houston History, Market Square

Demolitions

09/16/14 12:30pm

Pennzoil Place’s Sticky Damage Control Plan

Downtown, Office Buildings, Quicklink

7 Comments

PENNZOIL PLACE’S STICKY DAMAGE CONTROL PLAN Yellow Stickers on Pennzoil Place, 711 Louisiana St., Downtown Houston Chronicle real-estate reporter Nancy Sarnoff has answers to a couple of questions Pennzoil Place tenants, visitors, and passers-by might be asking right about now: 1) Why is this iconic double-towered downtown office building at 711 Louisiana St. downtown now covered with small, round yellow stickers? and 2) If the building gets scuffed up during the implosion of the remaining hulk of the Houston Club Building across the street, how will property managers be able to distinguish new nicks and scrapes from all the old ones? [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photos: Nancy Sarnoff

77002, Demolitions, Downtown, Implosions, Office Buildings

09/11/14 12:30pm

With Actors and Company Gone, the Alley Theatre Catches Fire

Fires, Quicklink

9 Comments

WITH ACTORS AND COMPANY GONE, THE ALLEY THEATRE CATCHES FIRE Fire at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas Ave., Downtown Houston Fire broke out late this morning at the Alley Theatre at 615 Texas Ave. fronting Jones Plaza downtown. The acting ensemble is performing at UH this season, to allow workers to complete a $46.5 million renovation of the brutalistÂ concrete building and its parking-lot-tower appendages. Fire department officials are reporting that construction workers spotted smoke streaming from the building’s duct work, apparently from an electrical fire.Â Shortly before the fire started, construction photos of the roof being opened up above the main theater space were posted to the organization’s Facebook page [Click2Houston; Alley Theatre] Photo: Emma Q

77002, Downtown, Fires, Theaters

Condos

09/09/14 4:30pm

Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Sand Trap

Downtown, Homes for Sale

8 Comments

View from 914 Main St. Unit 1601, Commerce Towers, Downtown Houston

914 Main St. Unit 1601

77002, Condos, Downtown, golf, Homes for Sale, Swimming Pools

Comments

09/09/14 2:15pm

Comment of the Day: More Than Ready for the Next Big Boom Downtown

Demolitions, Downtown, Quicklink

14 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: MORE THAN READY FOR THE NEXT BIG BOOM DOWNTOWN Drawing of Dynamite “I cannot wait until they implode the Houston Club Building. Everyone who works in Pennzoil Place is currently on the verge of losing their minds because of the constant jackhammering on the building to prepare it for demolition. Weâ€™re happy the end appears to be in sight, but another six weeks of this is going to be tough to handle. I hope the construction workers are well-protected from the noise and dust this project is creating. If weâ€™re going nuts, then I canâ€™t imagine how they must feel.” [Courtney, commenting onÂ Blowing Up the Houston Club; Dismantling a Radioactive Barge in Galveston] Illustration: Lulu

77002, Comments, Demolitions, Downtown, Implosions

09/03/14 11:30am

What’s Getting Thrown Out the Window at the Abandoned Days Inn Downtown?

Highrises, Hotels

24 Comments

Former Heaven on Earth Plaza Inn, 801 St. Joseph Pkwy., Downtown Houston

Will all the gawkable dark mystery disappear from Downtown once the last few long-abandoned towers standing get cleaned up or knocked down? Maybe, but in the meantime we have these latest events to consider, around and about the former Heaven on Earth Plaza Inn at 801 St. Joseph Pkwy. (at Travis), which was operated by an organization affiliatedÂ with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for most of the nineties (before the city shut it down, in 1998).

A couple of readers have reported seeing some recent activity in and around the 31-story building, which was built as a Holiday Inn in 1971 and later converted to a Days Inn — before taking a different spiritual path:

Falling to Earth from Heaven on Earth

77002, Abandoned Properties, Downtown, Highrises, Hotels

09/02/14 5:15pm

A Chick-fil-A Is Going Inside Pennzoil Place