Highland Village

Apartments
02/21/12 11:17am

First Sign of the 35-Story Apartment Tower Coming to Weslayan and West Alabama

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Highland Village, Highrises, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Retail
34 Comments

Here’s the sign that’s gone up on the northeast corner of Weslayan and West Alabama, where PM Realty plans to start construction later this year on the 35-story apartment tower it announced last year. The tower, PM Realty’s first in Houston, will have 12,500 sq. ft. of retail space on the first or second floor, 250 apartments, and a 3,000-sq.-ft. fitness center, according to a Houston Business Journal report last year. On the 2.6-acre site, which the company bought from Interfin last August: the remains of the State Grille restaurant. New on-the-scene blog Going Up! City has these pix of the site:

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Buying and Selling
01/12/12 3:46pm

Changing Buildings on Mid Lane

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Highland Village, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Retail
8 Comments

A reader passes on the rumor that the retail buildings along the west side of Mid Lane north of Westheimer, from Capone’s Bar and Oven (above) up to but not including Crapitto’s Cucina, are under contract to a developer — with a closing scheduled for this month. Purported plans for the properties: demolition and the construction of a highrise, with new retail spaces at the bottom. No rush, though, apparently: “They can’t do anything for 16 months because of the leases.”

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Highland Village
01/03/12 1:00pm

Highland Village Apple Store Reboot

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New Construction, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail
13 Comments

HIGHLAND VILLAGE APPLE STORE REBOOT Did you know the shiny new Apple Store with the glass roof and front and back walls in Highland Village was scheduled to open very soon? Well, not any more, says Nancy Sarnoff. A source tells her the opening of the first Houston-area non-mall store has been pushed back until March. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Drawing: Jeffrey Djayasaputra

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Construction Materials
12/09/11 11:40am

Highland Village Apple Store Update: Back Door, Hidden Chambers

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Highland Village, New Construction, Retail
1 Comment

Dedicated Houston Apple Store sleuth Tracy Evans has posted a revised sketch of the glass-ceilinged retail space going up at 4012 Westheimer Rd. in the Highland Village Shopping Center, showing a number of details he’s figured out from careful study. The new sketch shows the store’s glass facade extending beyond the front of the bookending limestone-clad slabs on the east and west sides, as it does in the Upper West Side store this location is clearly modeled after. And contrary to an apparently mistaken report from another source, Evans says the Highland Village Apple Store will feature an entrance in its all-glass back wall, facing the back parking lot and Marmi and Francesca’s behind it.

The 3,100-sq.-ft. Houston store across Drexel St. from Crate and Barrel will be Apple’s first glass-ceiling structure to have glass walls and entrances at the front and back. So where will the back-of-house space go? Evans thinks it’ll be masquerading as part of the cupcake shop next door:

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Churches
12/08/11 9:19pm

Comment of the Day: Apple’s Crystal Cathedral

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Comments, Highland Village, New Construction, Quicklink, Retail
2 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: APPLE’S CRYSTAL CATHEDRAL “Also, does anyone else think that the design looks more than a little like a protestant church, with the vaulted roof, minimal design, and the identical tables setup in rows looking like pews?” [JL, commenting on Comment of the Day: Apple Store Symbolism]

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Comments
12/07/11 11:27pm

Comment of the Day: Apple Store Symbolism

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Construction Materials, Highland Village, Quicklink, Retail
4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: APPLE STORE SYMBOLISM “Given that none of Apple’s execs are women, a glass ceiling is entirely appropriate.” [Brad, commenting on Highland Village Apple Store Will Have Glass Ceiling, Front, and Back]

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Construction Materials
12/07/11 12:37pm

Highland Village Apple Store Will Have Glass Ceiling, Front, and Back

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Highland Village, New Construction, Retail
30 Comments

How might a Houston building with an all-glass roof stand up to the Gulf Coast’s formidable sun, heat, and gloppy rainfall? We all should be able to find out after Apple’s Highland Village store opens early next year. Thanks in part to the sleuthing of Houston production company owner Tracy Evans, the building going up at 4012 Westheimer next to the Sprinkles cupcake store has been identified as a smaller and somewhat altered version of the patented design for the Apple store the company opened 2 years ago on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Unlike that design, however — which lists the late Steve Jobs as one of its creators — the company’s first outside-of-a-mall store in Houston will feature not just a glass ceiling and facade, but a glass back wall as well.

Evans’s friend Jeffrey made the napkin sketch above showing the likely appearance of the finished building — based on Evans’s description of what he saw at the Highland Village construction site. Here are a couple of views of the UWS store:

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Apartments
09/29/11 1:06pm

A West Alabama and Weslayan Kickoff to the Next Highrise Apartment Growing Season

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Buying and Selling, Highland Village, Highrises, Land Sales, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments
22 Comments

Here’s a shot of the now-vacant corner of Weslayan and West Alabama, where PM Realty Group has announced it’ll be constructing a 35-story apartment building and parking garage — with a restaurant and “service retail” — beginning next year. The 2.6-acre site is the former location of the Confederate House at 2925 Weslayan, later known as the State Grille, which was torn down in 2008. PM Realty bought the site from Giorgio Borlenghi’s Interfin Cos. last month. No renderings from PM Realty’s architects, RTKL, have been passed around yet.


Photo: Candace Garcia

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Highland Village
08/19/11 11:35pm

Looscan Library Leakage

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Public Buildings, Quicklink, Renovations, River Oaks
7 Comments

LOOSCAN LIBRARY LEAKAGE Why is the Looscan Neighborhood Library at 2510 Willowick near Highland Village closing for 4 months of renovations — only 4 years after it was built? Problems with water infiltration. “When it rains pretty good, water gets into those walls and into that doorway,” a library spokesperson tells Charlotte Aguilar. Both entrances will get new exterior canopies, and the lobby will get a new walk-off mat system to catch tracked-in water and prevent slipping. Plus: new moisture-resistant wall finishes and stone baseboards. Work begins a week from Saturday. [River Oaks Examiner] Photo: River Oaks Examiner

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Demolitions
06/03/11 5:12pm

Just Dropping in Again To Say Hello

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Highland Village, Quicklink, Retail
3 Comments

JUST DROPPING IN AGAIN TO SAY HELLO Business is booming at Sprinkles, next door to the site of the future Apple Store in Highland Village, David Kaplan reports. During the demolition of the vacant retail building on the site, pieces of structural steel crashed into the cupcake shop on 3 separate occasions. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]

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Demolitions
04/19/11 12:19pm

Force Quit, Restart? Apple Scrapes New Retail Building on Site of Planned Highland Village Store

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Highland Village, Proposed Developments, Retail
25 Comments

Maybe that spec retail block at the Highland Village Shopping Center wasn’t good enough for Apple, after all. A couple of readers have written in to report that the never-been-occupied eastern portion of the relatively recent building at 4012-4018 Westheimer — where Houston’s first-ever mall-free Apple Store is supposed to go — has been torn down completely. The foundation and portions of the parking lot have been jack-hammered, writes one reader: “It’s like someone took a big pair of scissors and cut it off, through the beams, etc. The rest of the structure that houses Sprinkles, Paper Source, and what will be Restoration Hardware is still there. But the end where the Apple Store is/was going to be is gone.”

A permit for the “partial” demo of the building at 4012 Westheimer appeared on Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report back on Valentine’s Day. An Apple retail fan site notes that according to its sources the Highland Village store when it opens “will bear some resemblance to the Scottsdale Quarter store.” Which looks like this:

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Highland Village
02/17/11 11:12am

The Next Moves at Highland Village: Apple Store, Restoration Hardware, Tootsies Replacement

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Leasing, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers
7 Comments

Apple fans, don’t be distracted — as Swamplot was earlier this week — by the construction being set up on the west side of the newish Highland Village Shopping Center building that houses Sprinkles Cupcakes at 4012-4018 Westheimer. Unless, of course, you’re wanting to know where the new Restoration Hardware will go once it relocates from across the street. The newly expanded housewares store will take up all of the space on the Galleria side of Paper Source.

Meanwhile, here are your verified coordinates for Houston’s first non-mall Apple Store: After a little bit of demo work, it’ll go on the east side of the same building (shown above), at the Drexel driveway. Across the street, there appears to be less urgency now that Tootsies has fled to West Ave, but the shopping center’s management still plans to tear down the stylish but now-vacant building the women’s clothing boutique occupied at 4045 Westheimer:

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Highland Village
02/14/11 12:12pm

The New Apple Store on Westheimer: Where the New iPads Will Hit the Street in Highland Village

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Leasing, Retail
28 Comments

Apple signed a lease last month on a storefront in the Highland Village Shopping Center, a source tells Swamplot. Houston’s first-ever not-in-a-mall Apple Store is heading for the street-front retail block that houses Paper Source and Sprinkles Cupcakes, across Westheimer from the old Tootsies, in a location that formerly housed the Gap. But which side of that building? There’s evidence of construction activity on the west end of the block (shown in the foreground above), but rumors dating from last summer — as well as the “partial” exterior demo permit for the space that appeared in this morning’s list of demolitions — point to the east side of the structure, adjacent to the shopping center’s Drexel St. driveway. That’s where this older map from Gary Allen’s Apple retail fan website had placed it:

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Highland Village
01/12/11 11:49am

The Sweet Deal Waiting for Tootsies at West Ave

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Leasing, Retail, Upper Kirby
2 Comments

Highland Village owner Haidar Barbouti “probably didn’t get hung up on the legal nuances” of how to shake Tootsies free of its Westheimer store when its lease ended, a source explains to Swamplot. But both he and Tootsies owner Mickey Rosemarin are ready to move on. Now that the court skirmish over the eviction and the store’s subsequent request for a restraining order have been formally resolved in Tootsies’ favor, Rosmarin’s clothing boutique will be able to stay at its Highland Village location through the end of the month. At which point, according to a store spokesperson, “The store will close one night and open the next business day” at West Ave. The new mixed-use complex at Kirby and Westheimer reportedly lured the retailer into a lease with generous terms: forgoing base rent in exchange for a percentage of Tootsies’ sales.

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Highland Village
01/10/11 1:41pm

Tootsies Beats Back the Landlord: The Sale Must Go On!

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Lawsuits, Openings and Closings, Shopping Centers
15 Comments

There’s a whole lot more drama to the Highland Village Tootsies shutdown battle than just that little overnight lockout, jackhammered walkway, and side-door goodbye sale customers got to enjoy late last week: The Chron‘s Purva Patel reports Tootsies sought a restraining order against the Highland Village Shopping Center, claiming the center was “interfering with its business.” Oh, but that was only after the landlord began eviction proceedings against the women’s clothing boutique on January 4th, a full 5 days after the long-term lease on its only Houston store expired.

The store paid rent of $159,834 at December’s end, but Highland Village plans to return the money, according to court records. The store plans to send it again.

Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia has pics of the scene in front the store at 4045 Westheimer from Saturday morning, just as workers were beginning to scrape off what sure looks like a fresh coat of black paint from the store’s windows. Oh, but that’s not all the trouble Highland Village CEO Haidar Barbouti‘s merry band of graffiti artists caused for its extended tenant. Painted over, and possibly beyond recovery: those “Tootsies Parking” signs on the curb in front!

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