Spring Branch

Office Buildings
04/12/13 1:00pm

A Look at the New Outdoors Around the Old Great Indoors

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Office Space, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Spring Branch
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This flag-flying 12-story tower planned for the under-development Block 10 West Office Park might end up hiding the renovations underway on the former Great Indoors, which you can see peeking out in the distance in the rendering above. Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that Hicks Ventures is building out the out-of-business big box into a 2-story, 245,000-sq.-ft. spec office building. Plans include the construction of a 5-level parking garage behind the new building and a 6-level garage between it and this proposed I-10-facing tower.

Here’s an aerial view of the park and its neighbors:

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Buying and Selling
02/13/13 9:30am

Admiral Linen Leaving Montrose Location for Northwest Houston?

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Commercial Real Estate, Industrial Properties, Office Buildings, Spring Branch
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Will the recent purchase, a reader wants to know, of a 105,000-sq.-ft. building out near Spring Branch by Admiral Linen & Uniform Services mean anything for the company’s much-smaller headquarters at 2030 Kipling St.? Well, Admiral Linen isn’t available for comment.

The company closed just after Christmas on the building at 8020 Blankenship Dr., near Hempstead and Bingle. Since 1998, according to city records, it’s owned the three-building, 24,000-sq.-ft. headquarters a block west east of South Shepherd and directly behind the Randalls on Westheimer.

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Comments
02/08/13 12:45pm

Comment of the Day: Recreating Great Moments in Big Box History

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Quicklink, Renovations, Retail, Spring Branch
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: RECREATING GREAT MOMENTS IN BIG BOX HISTORY “Ironically the glass facade is strikingly similar to a designed, but never built Great Indoors store prototype that was slated to open in 2004. The prototype coincided with the merger of Sears with Kmart when all new concept development (and gross profit) for Sears ceased. Pity.” [Hdtex, commenting on Great New Indoors Replacing The Old Great Indoors]

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Homes for Sale
12/18/12 11:50am

Tri-Polar Spring Branch Home Rocks On

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Interiors, Shadow Wood, Spring Branch
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As multiple personalities go, this spread in Spring Branch exhibits 3 faces of eaves. The modified ranch-style home’s straight-laced street facade (top) with porte-cochère and circular driveway gives way to a playful resort-like setting (above), with rocky waterfall, tiki hut, pool, and palm trees — as well as quarters way, way out back on the acre-and-a-half corner lot. A 1985 remodeling raised the roof of the 1962 main home and added a super-sized, Hill-Country-inspired, somewhat-sunken den (above right) with an across-the-back wall of full-height windows facing the well-shaded, placid-meets-partytime yard.

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Institutional Buildings
09/20/12 2:00pm

New Bigger Showroom at MAM’s Resale Shop Is Open Now

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Openings and Closings, Retail, Spring Branch
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Construction of the complex’s overall expansion isn’t quite finished yet, but a new section of the resale shop at the Memorial Assistance Ministries in Spring Branch will open officially for the first time this weekend anyway. And oh, by the way, says the group’s marketing manager, in advance of that the shop at 1625 Blalock Rd. north of Long Point is actually open already. The new section adds 4,000 sq. ft. of retail space to showcase more of the used clothing and household stuff people keep donating. Another 4,200 sq. ft. was also added to the warehouse area to sort through it all. New totals: 14,000 sq. ft. for the store, plus 8,400 sq. ft. in the warehouse. The program’s executive director says the store typically generates enough income to fund MAM adult education programs and other assistance for more than 800 families.

The new store space, designed by Kirksey, is at the northern end of the complex’s original building (in the front at right in this new photo):

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Campbell Woods
05/14/12 11:00am

Cooking with 270 Degrees in a Campbell Woods Kitchen

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Home Design, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Spring Branch
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Countertops beneath a high overhang of cabinetry leave an open view in 3 directions from this otherwise ringed-in kitchen in Spring Branch’s Campbell Woods area.  The streamlined setup accommodates a breakfast bar doubling as space for food prep and cleanup. Beyond the oven tower, meanwhile, there’s a service window into the dining room.

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Openings and Closings
03/26/12 10:13am

The End of Houston’s Great Indoors

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Quicklink, Retail, Spring Branch
16 Comments

THE END OF HOUSTON’S GREAT INDOORS You’d think images of a solid, giant big box store marked “The Great Indoors” set behind an enormous freeway-side parking lot would be fodder for local photographers hoping to capture views of Houston in all its ironic suburban splendor. Alas, no pix of the hulking, 130,000-sq.-ft. home furnishings megastore on the north side of I-10 just inside Beltway 8 appear to be available online. Quick, take a few while you still can! And send them to Swamplot — we need one to go at the top of this story, which it appears will serve as the very first announcement in Houston media that the store will be closing forever. Parent company Sears Holdings dropped the news back in February that all 9 remaining Great Indoors stores would be shut down. But the news, like the store itself, failed to catch much attention around here. A reader alerted Swamplot to the closing just over the last weekend, noting “big sales are just starting.” [Home Textiles Today] Photo: Send one you’ve taken here

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Development Strategies
11/23/11 2:26pm

Memorial Assistance Ministries Spreading New Wings, Courtyard, Parking Lot in Spring Branch

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Institutional Buildings, New Construction, Spring Branch
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With $3.3 million already raised, Memorial Assistance Ministries began construction last week on the first phase of a $4 million, 17,000-sq.-ft. expansion: a new and bigger parking lot extending onto what used to be an open field. Early next year, the nonprofit, which helps out families in need and serves as a last backstop before homelessness for many of its clients, will begin adding 3 separate Kirksey-designed wings to the tilt-wall building the same architecture firm designed for it 6 years ago at 1625 Blalock, north of Long Point in Spring Branch. First up: filling in the building’s back yard with more administrative work areas, more warehouse space for the MAM resale store, and an enclosed courtyard. Once that portion is complete, builders from Brookstone Construction will move on to enlarge the resale store, add a new educational wing called the Center for Family Independence, and insert a drop-off area between them, closer to the new parking area on the north side of the building:

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Commercial Real Estate
10/17/11 1:56pm

Meanwhile, Across the Freeway from the MetroNational Death Star

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New Construction, Spring Branch
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What large-scale construction project is that about to go up on the north side of the Katy Freeway opposite the 35-story spike-headed Memorial Hermann Tower, a reader wants to know. A sign for MetroNational contractor Anslow Bryant recently went up on the Gessner Rd. site, which was until last year the home of the Gessner Place Shopping Center and Korean grocery store Komart. “It appears that a portion of it (the immediate corner) has been fenced off & the construction signs have gone up,” asks the reader, who also sent in these photos. “My guess is whatever goes here will be vertical.”

A bit east of the tower, and on the opposite side of I-10, Anslow Bryant is currently constructing a 14-story tower for future MetroNational tenant Nexen Petroleum.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

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