A reader sends a couple photos of “what will soon no longer be a nice understated commercial building” at 315 W. Alabama, just south of the Westmoreland Historic District west of Midtown:
I watched the remodel work inside going on for a while and was a little shocked to see the brick facade receiving prep work to be refaced in stucco. You can see the nice bit of decorative garland in the process of being knocked off by the end of today.
The Brennan’s Restaurant building at 3300 Smith St. in Midtown — designed in 1930 by Houston architect John Staub — was originally the home of Houston’s Junior League. A fire during Hurricane Ike left it a brick shell. But now the owners say they’ll rebuild.
Alex Brennan-Martin — and the Brennan’s website — have said as much a number of times before. But today he announced it at a press conference with the mayor. An unspecified “80 percent” of the building will be restored. The new Brennan’s is expected to open in October, its old courtyard oak replaced with a free-range model imported from Hermann Park.
Also snuck into the press conference: the 2 new restaurants Brennan-Martin be opening with partners in the aptly named CityCentre, the Town & Country Mall replacement parked at the crotch of I-10 and the Beltway. Café Rosé and Bistro Alex should open inside the new Hotel Sorella there in July.
Photo of Brennan’s after Hurricane Ike: Flickr users hannu & hannele
Midtown’s lone island of light-rail-lining nightlife will likely be expanding one block north, Jay Lee reports:
The folks who brought you The Continental Club, Sig’s Lagoon, Tacos-A-Go-Go and Shoeshine Charley’s Big Top Lounge are at it again. This time right next door @ 3600 Main.
The new owners of the long-vacant one-story building have discovered some Deco-ish detail underneath the more recent stucco.
If you squint just right and imagine it with some paint to bring out the original design you can just make out what a wonderful space this is going to be. There’s already plans for a coffee shop and a pizza/burger joint and if Pete [Gordon, manager of the Continental Club] has his way, a new club called “Wallpaperâ€â€¦
Houston art blogger Sean Morrissey Carroll remixes a glowing profile of the Isabella Court Apartments at Main and Isabella — penned recently by Corilyn Shropshire for the Chronicle — with resident Cathy Matusow’s terse response in Hair Balls. The result? Pure magic.
Here’s a taste, with source indicators removed for full effect (but really, it’s not too tough to figure out which lines come from which report):
When Vernon Caldera walked through Isabella Court’s ornate wrought-iron gates and spotted the courtyard that seemed magically transplanted from his grandmother’s hometown in Nicaragua, he gasped.
Then he fell in love.
The picturesque 80-year-old building in Midtown, a Spanish Colonial with original porcelain sinks and no-two-are-the-same apartments, “had me at hello,†he said.
When I first heard the Chronicle was doing a story on the building I live in, Isabella Court, I thought, “Oh great, is rent going up now?”
BIG TIME FOR THE BIG TOP: MIDTOWN ISLAND DISC At last, that little island of happening in Midtown has its very own song! “I Found My Weakness in You” was penned by Nick Gaitan, who lives above the Continental Club at 3700-3718 Main — and recorded by his employer, Billy Joe Shaver. Fellow “Island” resident Chris Gray sets the scene: “With surroundings like the 59 spur, Holy Rosary Catholic Church, a row of appointment-only antique stores and reams of vacant property — both lots and buildings — it can feel pretty isolated. An average Sunday night around 8 p.m., say, is as lonely as the desert in a John Ford flick (only with more trees). The streets are empty, save the strays making their way to and from the halfway house around the corner or the quick-marts at Fannin and Alabama for lottery tickets and 24-ounce cans of Bud or Olde English. It ain’t the Midtown you may have read about in glossy advertorial mags that tout valet parking and ridiculously overpriced cocktails, that’s for sure.” [Houston Press; hear the song here]
The Christus Foundation for HealthCare appears to be hawking two distinct visions for the family health center it hopes to build at the corner of Fannin and McGowen in Midtown. That’s the same location where the complex that contained the Fu Kim Grand Palace Restaurant was torn down last year. On fundraising materials for the San José Clinic — a charity clinic that currently operates across the street from Minute Maid Park Downtown, and which will move into the new center in Midtown when it’s completed in 2010 — there’s a rendering of what looks like a 3-story stucco Alamo-meets-UT mini-resort building set behind a parking lot.
But the Christus Foundation’s website features something entirely different on its Living the Legacy fundraising page:
REV HOUSTON: STREET ILLEGAL “REV Houston does not have a special license to drive the electric carts. Already, the city has given the company three tickets with numerous citations, including operating a taxi without a license. The city defines a taxi cab as any automobile or motor-propelled vehicle used for the transport of passengers for hire, explained Blanton Daniels, manager of the city’s transportation division. . . . ‘They’re trying to circumvent the regulation by saying they’re working for gratuities,’ said Daniels, adding that he sees no difference between a taxi for hire and a taxi that works for tips. It’s still money changing hands.” [Houston Chronicle, via Off the Kuff; previously]
A correspondent sends in this bit of over-the-counter intelligence about Midtown geek-gathering favorite Tropioca:
Tropioca on Milam at Drew is in the process of looking for a new home. They are looking around the midtown area but also at a location near U of H at Cullen and Leeland.
I overheard someone behind the counter saying that their rent has gone up almost 80% and not gradually over a few years, but all at once.
I will be sad to see them go if they leave midtown because they make the BEST frozen cappucino coffee drink inside the loop.
Photo: Yelp user Jill N.
A Chrysler GEM all-electric vehicle is now shuttling passengers between the Rice Lofts Downtown and the Coffee Groundz coffeehouse and El Patio restaurant on Brazos St. in Midtown. If you’re trying to get from one to the other, you can catch a free ride.
Well, almost free. REV Houston drivers happily accept gratuities — in the form of cash, credit cards, or prepaid “key tags.” To order service, you can call the REV Houston hotline (1.877.Go.REV.Go) or send a text message indicating your location. Details are on the REV Houston website.
How long is this gonna last? As long as the startup can sell ads on the vehicles. And REV Houston hopes to expand. Reports Startup Houston:
[Cofounder Erik] Ibarra also mentioned that the company plans to test additional markets within Houston for expansion, such as Rice Village, Washington Avenue and Westheimer in the future.
Photo: REV Houston
The St. Joseph Professional Building, which looms over the Pierce Elevated, will be getting some sort of face lift soon, reports Amy Wolff Sorter in Globe St.:
The building, which underwent a $10-million renovation in the past year, will get an additional $7.8 million of upgrades from its new owners.
Alex Brown Realty of Baltimore and locally based Mission Equities GP LLC are taking on the 44-year-old building at 2000 Crawford St. St. Joseph Professional Building has a mix of retail and medical office space. . . .
Upgrades to the 18-story building will include replacements of the HVAC and sprinkler systems. Also on tap are upgrades to the elevator, life-safety system, exterior façade and interior common areas. The renovations are anticipated to be completed within six to nine months.
A reader writes in wanting to find out what is planned for the “gigantic” and newly cleared block at the northwest corner of the 59 South feeder road and Richmond, just west of Midtown. The block surrounded by Richmond, Colquitt, Garrott, and Jack is the planned site of The Courtyard on Richmond, a midrise apartment complex by Post Properties that’s just a short walk away from the Wheeler light-rail station.
Back in October, the Chronicle‘s Betty Martin reported on the project: a 5-story, 200-unit structure with two courtyards, sandwiching a parking garage. The story included this comment:
It would be similar to “that property in Midtown that everybody likes – Midtown Square – that has a restaurant on the ground floor, brick sidewalks,” [Post Properties developer Bart] French said.
Post Properties built Midtown Square, so you might expect the new project will be similar . . . well, except for that part about restaurants on the ground floor. The plans we’ve seen don’t show any retail, except for a leasing office at the corner of Richmond and Milam. And a Planning Department document dating from January refers to the Courtyard on Richmond as a 252-unit residential-only project.
After the jump: those plans!
Here’s one advantage if you’re one of the not-so-large number of retail centers in Houston that doesn’t have a parking lot in front: If business ain’t so hot, you can always sell the highly visible adspace on your facade!
A reader sends in this photo of an ad for Red Bull’s Art of Can competition on the streetfront of a retail center on Elgin, across from the Calais apartments in Midtown. The Maple Leaf Pub is two doors down.
Is this the future of retail real estate? Sure, we’ve all seen ads painted onto the sides of old buildings and the giant window stickers on David’s Bridal storefronts, but doesn’t this go a bit . . . beyond that? Think of the possibilities: Stores . . . with ads covering their entire fronts, advertising . . . other stores. Or anything.
Forget billboards, graffiti, and wheatpaste posters. When this new market really kicks in, we’ll see Houston for its revenue-generating possibilities: We’ve got acres and acres of exploitable advertising space.
Tyvek Housewrap was only the beginning.
What comes after Tuscan-themed shopping centers? Billboard-themed shopping centers!
After the jump: a second photo, so you can get your Red Bull straight.
More details about Crosspoint Properties‘s expanding developments at the corner of Elgin and Louisiana in Midtown: Catty-corner across Elgin from the building that’s already under construction is this new fence advertising the “Mix @ Midtown.” The Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff writes that Crosspoint — whose owners also rule the High Fashion Home/Fabric empire down the street — is planning an additional 50,000 square feet of retail space in the recently fenced block, though construction won’t start until 2009 at the earliest.
A commenter on HAIF suggests announcing the Mix might be a good way to drum up more interest in 3201 Louisiana — the building that’s already going up. A 24 Hour Fitness “Super Sport” — which will include a basketball court and swimming pool and occupy the entire second and third stories of that building — is the only tenant Crosspoint’s George Levan is mentioning. Still available, apparently: retail space on the entire 25,000-sq.-ft. ground floor.
Photo: HAIF user ricco67
Wielding a copy of Stephen Fox’s Houston Architectural Guide, transit buff Christof Spieler writes in to report that the vacant and graffiti-laden Hoa Binh Center in Midtown — targeted by Camden Property Trust for a new apartment complex — has an important story behind it. He quotes from Fox’s writeup of the shopping center, which was built in 1923:
What distinguishes this building is that it was the prototype of the 20th century American suburban shopping center: it introduced the concept of off-street parking, toward which the grocery store itself was oriented.
Spieler adds:
In other words, Camden may be about to tear down the world’s first strip mall. Now that’s a historic building.
And it’s certainly worth at least a nice plaque somewhere on those new apartments going up on the site!
But before all you preservationist types get up in arms about the impending demolition of the mother of all strip malls, keep in mind that an equally important part of this structure’s history and legacy will almost certainly be preserved, cherished, and celebrated. Sure, the building will probably end up in a pile of rubble off Loop 610. But all those historic off-street parking spaces? They’ll be moved into a nice new garage at the Camden Travis, where residents of the new apartments and their guests will be able to enjoy them for generations to come.
After the jump: Spieler spills more Hoa Binh history!
For years, Camden Property Trust has been talking about a giant mixed-use project the company is planning for the “superblock” bounded by Main, Anita, McGowen, and Travis in Midtown. And the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff reported this weekend that Camden is ready to go ahead with its Midtown development.
Except the new Camden project isn’t on the vacant superblock. And it won’t be mixed use. It’s a four-story, 253-unit, $45 million apartment complex called the Camden Travis, planned for the site of the former Hoa Binh supermarket building, the dilapidated and heavily tagged vaguely-moderne-looking shopping center one block to the west, at 2830 Travis.
