A MIX OF RESTAURANTS AND RETAIL ON POST OAK 
“When we first opened and the bar was so crazy, there were girls giving men their cards trying to take them to the restroom. It was so out of control that I had to close the restaurant early. I had to ask them to leave. I didn’t know there were all friends. This older woman, about my age, came up to me and said ‘you don’t know who you’re dealing with. You can’t ask us to leave.’ I said, who are you? She said, ‘I take care of these girls.’ I said, you have to leave. I thought, oh my gosh. This is a big business. I didn’t know all these random girls all knew each other. . . . They all work together. I still have customers on Thursday nights that are mad at me for getting rid of The Show. That’s what they call it. They said ‘Mimi, we had a fun time on Thursdays. We were fishing.’ I said, ‘what do you mean fishing?’ He said, ‘It’s called catch and release.’ I said, I don’t know with some of these girls if you could release them, because they looked very serious. It was wild. They would say something like ‘Let’s go down the street to shop,’ because they wanted to go to Hermès. I’m so naïve. I thought, oh you’re going to Hermès, that’s amazing. My husband doesn’t ever take me there. I didn’t get it. It’s merchandise instead of cash gifts.” — Mimi Del Grande, hostess and co-owner of RDG + Bar Annie in BLVD Place. [Eater Houston] Photo: BLVD Place
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Galleria
What will the long-awaited BLVD Place mixed-use development just north of the Galleria end up looking like now that Apache is building a 33-story office tower and parking garage — and reserving space for a second tower — on a huge chunk of the land facing Post Oak Blvd.? Like a considerably smaller retail complex than what Wulfe & Co. advertised from 2007 until the Apache purchase announcement this June. The development now appears to be split into 3 functionally distinct blocks: A Whole Foods-anchored shopping center with office space above it wrapped around a parking garage on the corner of San Felipe and Post Oak Blvd.; the Apache office complex to the south of that on land formerly occupied by the Pavilion at Post Oak; and a bank of 4 apartment or condo towers (including Hanover’s) and maybe a hotel hanging in back, behind Post Oak Ln. The only incongruity will be the portion of BLVD Place that’s already been built: the 4-story retail-and-office building in the Apache zone at the project’s southeast corner, which will now be separated from the rest of the retail by the Apache Tower.
No, the Turnberry Tower luxury highrise planned for a prime Galleria spot next to the Water Wall Park never got off the ground, but office workers and shoppers nearby have been able to enjoy a good old-fashioned Houston-style sendoff for the project. The 5-year-old, 12,000-sq.-ft., multimillion-dollar sales center for the toilet-heavy tower at 5048 Hidalgo St. is being demolished. Hines, the new owners of the property, will have no use for the structure in the new 7-story One Waterwall apartment complex it’s building there and expects to complete in 2014:
From a tall perch nearby, a reader sends Swamplot this shot of the future site of BLVD Place, where — it appears — site work has begun on the land slated to become the second phase of the mixed-use development, including the long-awaited Galleria Whole Foods Market and more than 150,000 sq. ft. of shops. The camera is pointed down San Felipe, looking east toward Post Oak. Here’s another view of the site from the south, from another reader:
GALLERIA RICHARD’S BECOMES SPEC’S, AND OTHER RICHMOND AVE. SWITCHES 
“The Richard’s Liquors off Richmond Avenue and Chimney Rock turned into a Spec’s almost overnight,” begins a reader report on recent happenings in the area. More turnovers in the commercial landscape, from our tipster: “It seems like Richmond Avenue is going through redevelopment since the Taco Cabana and Jack in the Box closed, and they too were by the Chimney Rock intersection. Also the new apartments going up called Avenue R off Barrington have started to build the wooden frames and a large parking garage. The Jack in the Box actually turned into a ‘TitleMax’ title loans shop and it’s painted blue. The old Taco Cabana building is just sitting there and empty but a gas station would be nice there.” The Galleria-area Richard’s rebranding took place last week; other locations of the Spec’s-owned local liquor chain appear to be holding onto the Richard’s name — for now. [Swamplot inbox] Photo: Spec’s
WAITING FOR A GALLERIA WHOLE FOODS 
Has Whole Foods Market finally signed a lease for the store on Post Oak Blvd. near San Felipe that the developers of BLVD Place have been promising since 2007? Yesterday Whole Foods announced it had signed leases for new grocery stores averaging 37,500 sq. ft. in 12 cities, including Houston. Whether that means a new location near the Galleria or somewhere else in the city, it could still be a while before it opens: “These stores,” says the press release, “currently are scheduled to open in fiscal year 2014 and beyond.” [MarketWatch; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Wulfe & Co. Update, 2:50 pm: The new store will be in Champions.
OUT WITH MAMA NINFA’S, IN WITH MAGGIE RITA’S 
What’s behind the rebranding of the 3 non-Navigation Ninfa’s Mexican Food restaurants — on Kirby at Richmond, Post Oak north of San Felipe, and the Gulf Fwy. feeder Rd. at Winkler — into Maggie Rita’s Grill & Bar locations, and the attendant replacement of the well-known Houston restaurant’s Tex-Mex classics with . . . tapas? Besides freeing himself and co-owner Carlos Mencia from licensing payments for using the Ninfa’s name, Suave Restaurants’ Santiago Moreno explains, switching to the Maggie Rita’s chain means a lighter menu that customers might be able to eat from as often as 3 times a week. But by his calculation the food switch may not make much of a difference anyway: “We’ve found out consumer decisions are made by women,” Moreno tells Eric Sandler. “When we track what makes a woman decide where to eat Mexican food, it has to do with margaritas. It has nothing to do with food.” The changes won’t effect Ninfa’s on Navigation, which has been owned since 2007 by Legacy Restaurants. [Eater Houston] Photo of Ninfa’s at 1650 Post Oak Blvd.: AmREIT
Okay, scratch that image displayed here yesterday of the Hanover Company’s new apartment tower in BLVD Place from your memory banks — it was just an early study. Replace it with these 2 images, showing the updated design by Chicago architects Solomon Cordwell Buenz. And plug in this measurement as metadata: 29 stories. The drawing above shows how the 358-unit building would look from Post Oak Ln., just behind the long-promised Galleria Whole Foods Market. The view below is from one of the Four Leaf Towers to the north, at San Felipe and Skylark:
Here’s the rendering Houston’s Hanover Company passed around to drum up the $40 million equity investment its website now indicates is committed to building the structure as part of BLVD Place, just north of the Galleria. The 358-unit apartment tower at the corner of Sky Lark and Post Oak Ln. is listed as a “midrise” in company materials, but it’s all relative: The 20-something stories depicted make the new version a bit shorter than the 57-story design the company had prepared for the site in 2007, as well as the 37-story model announced a year later, before the project got put on hold.
- Hanover Blvd Place [Hanover Co., via Going Up City!]
- Previously on Swamplot: Galleria Pocket Park Fight Ends with TIRZ Reaching into Pocket, Putting Off the Ritz: Boulevard Place Towers Stalled, Hanover Apartment Tower at Boulevard Place: 37 Stories
Image: Hanover Co.
NOT-SO-LOCAL TREASURES ON THE WESTHEIMER STRIP 
Included in the lawsuit filed yesterday by Houston and Harris County attorneys against the owners of Treasures, which labels the Westheimer strip club a public nuisance and attempts to shut it down: allegations that the venue is a site of “human trafficking” — of dancers from Vegas. From Cindy George’s report: “The trafficking allegations stem from police probes revealing that some of the dancers are transported from Nevada to Texas, then from club to club within Houston, and reside in Galleria- area apartments and condos ‘where they are maintained by the pimps,’ [city attorney David] Feldman said at a news conference. . . . ‘They masquerade as legitimate businesses, but these high-end strip clubs like Treasures really are hubs of human trafficking,’ he said, later noting that the establishment averages $20 million in annual alcohol sales. ‘Treasures happens to be the most prominent of these clubs. It’s the largest. It is clearly the most visible and most notable and prominent. . . . We are hopeful that with this action, we serve notice not only on Treasures, but the other clubs out there that Houston-Harris County is not going to put up with this type of criminal activity.'” [Houston Chronicle]
KELLER WILLIAMS’S NEW OFFICES ARE IN THE OLD STANFORD FINANCIAL GROUP BUILDING 
“To this day, people still refer to 1400 Smith as ‘the old Enron building,’ even though the company collapsed more than a decade ago and Chevron now owns the property. Will 5050 Westheimer face a similar fate? That’s the building that housed Stanford Financial Group, whose founder, R. Allen Stanford, is awaiting a jury verdict on federal charges that he ran a $7 billion investment fraud. . . . Bruce Kink of Keller Williams said the company chose the space for its prime location directly across from the Galleria mall. He doesn’t focus on who used to occupy it. ‘They removed the name out front,’ Kink said. ‘To us it’s 5050 Westheimer.'” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
ALLEN STANFORD’S UPTOWN STAGECRAFT 
“The place was always odd. There was always more elegance, more shine . . . and yet there weren’t always people to fill the desks. There was more real estate than people. There was just such pomp. It felt like 1955, the way people were dressed and were ushered in and offered coffee in fine china. They had a private dining room — everything was over the top . . . and you’re like, OK, maybe some of these enterprises are making some money. In retrospect, it was like a Hollywood town. It was like the front, but if you peek around the back, it’s just two-by-fours holding it up.” — Houston videographer Dave Henry, who plans to craft a documentary using footage he created for the Stanford Financial Group, describing the company’s former headquarters on Westheimer. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Still: Magpie River Films
Note: Story corrected below.
Houston’s transit agency is scheduled to close next month on the twice-delayed $550,000 purchase of a 3,589-sq.-ft. strip of land across Post Oak Blvd. from the Waterwall Park — even though the Uptown Line, the light-rail line the land would be used for, isn’t part of its current construction contract, and isn’t even expected to be complete before 2020, according to Metro documents. Negotiated under the real-estate happy regime of Metro’s previous administration, under Metro’s current administration, under an authorization approved by its earlier real-estate-happy board, the contract Metro signed for the property at 3009 Post Oak prohibits the agency from backing out of the purchase — even if its plans or route alignment have changed. But a Metro spokesperson tells Memorial Examiner reporter Michael Reed that the purchase still makes sense, and turns out to be a less expensive option for it than using eminent domain to acquire the parcel later. Going up next door to the site: a 20-story office tower for its owner, the U.S. subsidiary of Swedish development firm Skanska.
- New Metro, old land lament: Taxpayers must buy strip of ground on Post Oak [Memorial Examiner]
- Previously on Swamplot: First Sign of Skanska: Where the New Spec Office Tower Near the Galleria Will Go, Trimming Uptown Trees and Driveways: Where Metro Is Shopping for Land on Post Oak Blvd.
Photo: Memorial Examiner
Where’s Randall Davis gonna find buyers for the glitzy condos in this new 24-story Uptown highrise he’s planning — you know, the kinds of carefree, fun-loving sophisticates who’d regularly leave all the lights on in their bedrooms at night just to make sure the whole building glows like this? In other countries, probably. But they’ll be moving to Houston soon!
Workers began taking down the engraved stone Stanford Financial Group sign embedded in the facade of the company’s former headquarters building at 5050 Westheimer last Friday, reader Andrew Tyler reports with this tweeted photo. Federal law enforcement officials raided the building and Stanford Financial offices in Galleria Tower II almost 3 years ago; company founder Allen Stanford was arrested 4 months later. In July of 2010, Woodlands-based Black Forest Ventures bought the 3-story, 71,000-sq.-ft. structure across the street from the Galleria for $12.5 million.
- 5050 Westheimer [Black Forest Ventures]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Black Forest Mix, Comment of the Day: Inside the Stanford Financial Group Offices at 5050 Westheimer, Westheimer Office Building and All: Allen Stanford Says Sell!, Feds Now Raiding Stanford Financial Group Offices in the Galleria
Photo: Andrew Tyler
