09/21/09 12:33pm

The Swamplot Price Adjuster needs your nominations! Found a property you think is poorly priced? Send an email to Swamplot, and be sure to include a link to the listing or photos. Tell us about the property, and explain why you think it deserves a price adjustment. Then tell us what you think a better price would be. Unless requested otherwise, all submissions to the Swamplot Price Adjuster will be kept anonymous.

Location: 1617 Fairview St., Cherryhurst
Details: 3-4 bedrooms, 2 baths; 1,810 sq. ft. on a 5,000-sq.-ft. lot
Price: $475,000
History: On the market for almost a month and a half.

Note: We now have a response from the seller! See updates below.

The reader who nominated this expanded bungalow on Fairview likes the place, but . . .

What’s not evident from the photos are the basic problems with this house at this asking price:

[First, it’s ] across the street from Wilson Elementary. Not such a bad thing if you have kids who might attend Wilson, but otherwise a drag. School buses have a tendency to idle in front of the property. Noise and trash coming from, well, kids. Every Saturday and Sunday morning, year in and year out, a litany of soccer matches, volleyball tournaments, Frisbee “flag football”, etc. emit a constant din. You know, just what you want when you’d like to sleep in a bit.

Some opinions about the home’s other immediate neighbors, too:

The townhomes aren’t that big of deal other than the residents can peer into your backyard and house. But, the house to the east is a nightmare. . . . Overgrown yard, house falling in on itself. Great for Boo Radley’s house. I can imagine prospective buyers looking at the thing next door and immediately saying, “Nope.”

So . . . what might be a better price?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/15/09 10:11am

A few details on that new Whole Foods Market planned for the corner of West Dallas and Waugh, just south of the now AIG-sign-free America Tower: Finger Companies, the owners of the land, says the new store will be 40,000 sq. ft. — slightly smaller than reported when the company first announced the project more than a year ago. Also: The store will have “a variety of eco-conscious elements and tons of inviting space for neighbors to congregate.”

The Finger Companies says the Whole Foods will be built “in conjunction with the developer’s proposed new luxury apartment project.” That project, also announced in the spring of 2008, was slated for the eastern portion of the site, closer to Montrose Blvd.

Image: The Finger Companies

09/14/09 12:10pm

A reader snaps this photo of the former pink Taco Cabana drive-thru at the corner of Montrose and Westheimer, “now painted white w red stripes at the bottom” — and asks if we know what’s going in there. Fortunately, another reader has the answer:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/08/09 9:22am

DO NOT RESUSCITATE; MOVE TO HARWIN A reader who’s been intermittently monitoring the vital signs of the DNR European Cafe and Deli in Chelsea Market on Montrose reports that the restaurant has closed: “There is a sign out front announcing the impending opening of a new restaurant called ‘Chelsea Grill.'” Meanwhile, a notice on DNR’s listing at restaurant website B4-u-eat notes that DNR will be opening “soon” at 10400 Harwin Dr. [Swamplot inbox]

08/31/09 2:18pm

“Looks like someone’s getting ready to build,” reports a Swamplot reader about this lot on the corner of Westheimer and Helena, at the very lowest end of Lower Westheimer:

All of the brown earth you see in the photo was formerly a tree or bush of some type. See the steel gate I’m taking the picture through? Just on the other side of it (about 3 yards from the steel gate), there was a chain link fence that provided shade, shelter and ‘hideability’ to local bums. If I had taken that photo the day before, you would have seen a lot of brush, bums and beer cans.

Even the bushes in the ‘sidewalk’ area (the sidewalk stops at this lot) were removed.

It could just be a beautification or bum-preventative project, but due to the midtown/downtown/Montrose location, I’m guessing that someone plans to construct a business there.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

08/28/09 3:23pm

Note: Story updated below.

Developer (and Swamplot advertiser) Carol Isaak Barden says to give her latest project another week or 10 days before it’s ready — the paint isn’t quite dry yet. But all the peppers, candles, and watermelons are certainly in place for these fancy photos she sent us.

Barden calls the home, which is available for sale in a non-MLS kinda way, the “Tree House.” The architects are Erick Ragni and Scott Strasser. The 4,150-sq.-ft. home (3,500 if you don’t count the oversized garage) is on a 50×100-ft. lot at 1608 Indiana, across the street from HISD’s Wilson Montessori School.

What’s so tree-ish about it?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

08/21/09 12:17pm

Antiques fan Spencer Howard takes readers on a tour of a Hyde Park house full of them: the home of his former boss, architect John Zemanek.

The home’s design “falls somewhere between a Texas farm house and Japanese Tea House,” writes Howard:

However, the landscape, structure and furniture are accented with mysterious objects. Some are recognizable and easily comprehended, but most are not — engaging the viewer to imagine the story behind the piece.

What mysterious objects? A few choice rusting relics of Zemanek’s Fort Bend County childhood: a hunk of the engine from the family’s 1923 Buick; parts of old farming implements; the family typewriter, on a pedestal by the front door.

Wanna quick tour of the place?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

08/13/09 3:41pm

WHEN WESTHEIMER WAS FOR CRUISING John Nova Lomax reminisces: “This was Oil Bust Houston, and it looked then like Montrose might become a full-on slum. There were no condos along ‘Theimer (as it was often called by the mullet set) and few fancy restaurants. From Montrose Boulevard all the way to what is now called Midtown, Westheimer was lined with little more than one “modeling studio” after another, and it seems like there were even more tattoo shops than there are now. The denizens and visitors to these businesses (not to mention the street hustlers, drag queens, punks and Guardian Angels that still lurk in the area) provided plenty for the hordes of suburbanites — getting their first taste of freedom and big city life — to gawk at from the safety of their Blazers and Cutlasses. . . . on weekend nights, Westheimer would be bumper-to-bumper from Bagby to well past Buffalo Speedway, and sometimes all the way out to the Galleria, a phantasmagoria of teenage hormones and sound-collisions: car-horns, engines revving, and squealing girls, the hiss-and-almost-subsonic bass rumble of ‘Paul Revere’ booming from a Jeep Cherokee interlocking with a Honda CRX chirping out that inane ‘Two of Hearts’ pop ditty or the root canal Teutonic skronk of that ‘Warm Leatherette’ monstrosity.” [Hair Balls]

08/11/09 9:01pm

“I do always seem to be showing you houses that few of us can really afford,” Houston interior-design blogger Joni Webb admits to her readers:

But the secret truth is, nothing gets me more excited than seeing a house which is NOT expensive yet looks like it was designed by a professional! Nothing is better because it affirms what I fully believe, style is not about money.

So Webb sets out to find a few inside-the-Loop homes dressed to meet her style standards — and priced between $300K and $500K. How long does it take her? Two days, poring through “hundreds, if not thousands” of HAR listings.

What does she find?

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06/26/09 5:15pm

Hey, what’s happening to those fancy solar-powered recycled shipping containers on the corner of Hyde Park and Waugh, meant to attract eco-minded buyers to the $400K+ condo units in the Mirabeau B.?

Up and away they go! Did the Mirabeau B. meet its sales target? Nope . . . but it’s time for construction anyway, developer Joey Romano tells Swamplot:

Our financing is in place and we have signed our contract with Mission Constructors who have commenced work on the site. If all goes to plan at the City, the building work will begin in the next few weeks.

How’d that happen? With a little switch: to rental. But Romano says none of the project’s “green” features will be changed:

We’ll still plant our green roof; our 15 KW solar PV system will still power all common areas; and our rainwater retention system will still irrigate our native Gulf Coast plants. Our units will be large, open, and spacious, offering unique, high-grade finishes, high-end energy efficient appliances, and natural light in every bedroom.

So where are the shipping containers headed?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/25/09 3:55pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: BOOKSTOP FULL STOP “A few comments from a reliable source who actually knows a few things about River Oaks SC and Alabama Theater. 1. Barnes and Noble owns Bookstop. They are closing it to move to the new location at ROSC. 2. Weingarten has no intent of demolishing the Alabama Theater. They have been marketing the space for re-use. They intend to restore the facade when a new tenant signs on. 3. The new portion of ROSC was designed by Altoon + Porter (of the Fashion Show flying saucer mall in Vegas fame) out of Los Angeles. Weingarten did not want the usual EIFS crap that the Houston architects do. 4. Weingarten’s long term interest in ROSC is to achieve the highest and best use for this property. They want to bring a higher density to the center that they feel is appropriate for its location. 5. Before the crash last fall they were working on a plan to improve the walk-a-bility of the ROSC through landscaping and art. I believe the project is on hold right now. Its interesting how everyone is in favor of density (less driving and more walking) except when it affects something in your backyard. If you don’t like the scale of the building or the lack of protection of historic structures in the city, call the mayor and the planning department. Disclosure: I do not work for Weingarten and don’t always agree with their decisions, but thought that this info would be useful. Flame on everyone!” [mt, commenting on Coming Soon to the River Oaks Shopping Center]

06/25/09 12:36pm

Armed with a camera, two enterprising Swamplot readers set out to document the retail carnage along South Shepherd, between 59 and the Shepherd Curve:

The sheer number of businesses that have disappeared along Shepherd in 4 months has been stupefying. This is with a large, new, empty Weingarten development at one end …and the chronically empty Shepherd Plaza at the other. Hell, we have gone from 4 Starbucks to 3!!

That’s a 25 percent reduction in mocha lattes alone. How about in some of the other sectors?

Granted, there have been some new businesses, a Hallmark store, a dance studio, and something seems to have filled the lingerie place at Welch and Shepherd, but the vacancy rate now stands at 22%!!! We counted 172 retail “units” and found 37 of them to be empty. As recently as February, I remember only about a dozen vacancies.

What are the sights?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/10/09 12:15pm

A Swamplot correspondent, concerned that readers of this site

so often have “before” and “after” photos, but rarely a “during”

sends in these action shots from this morning, showing the demolition-in-progress of the University of St. Thomas’s Augustine Living-Learning Community at 4119 Graustark.

UST’s news department reports that the building’s destruction will at last allow the liberation of the programs formerly sequestered within:

. . . the heart of the Living-Learning Community, an intensive experience in the integration of faith, academics and life, will continue to beat in a program bearing a new name – Augustine-Without-Walls.

“The name signifies more than the removal of the residence’s brick exterior: the program will now be open to all UST students who want to share in Augustine events, which focus on integrating academic learning with faith convictions and real everyday life,” said Sister Paula Jean Miller, FSE, Augustine-Without-Walls Program director.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/03/09 12:02pm

A reader calls attention to the listing for 902 Rhode Place Unit C, heralding a brand-new 4-story multi-pack townhome with a singular location:

UNIQUE 4 STORY ROOF TOP TOWNHOUSE OVER LOOKING DOWNTOWN AND MEMORIAL PARK. 1 BLOCK FROM MEMORIAL PARK‘ALLEN PKWY AND TAFT.

The listing photos include the requisite Downtown skyscraper and Memorial Park jogger views shown above. So . . . what else is within eyeshot?

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06/02/09 5:08pm

A reader sends in a photo of the Arch-Con tilt-up office building going up at 1335 West Gray just west of Waugh, across from The Tavern on Gray — and asks:

This has got to be the first ever tilt up building inside the loop, right?

The 21,000-sq.-ft. building was planned to house the Houston headquarters for general contractor Arch-Con on the third floor, next to the terrace. Scraped bungalows will make room for an adjacent surface parking lot. The architect’s website notes there will be “additional parking on the first floor.” Stream Realty has two 7,466-sq.-ft. floor plates listed for lease.

Renderings of the finished building, from Ziegler Cooper Architects:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY