Upper Kirby

Streetscapes
05/02/12 10:10am

Where the Sidewalk Takes a Little Break

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Upper Kirby
14 Comments

Sure, send us anything: “I think I read in your blog recently that you wanted people to send you photos of blocked or unpassable sidewalks in Houston,” writes the reader who sent in these images. They show a tiny community garden — which appears to support its own utility pole — implanted in the sidewalk area on Ferndale St. just south of Westheimer, across the street from the River Oaks Plastic Surgery Center. The sidewalk break fits between 2712 Ferndale St. and its big brother next door, The Belle Meade at River Oaks condo building, at 2929 Westheimer.

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Development Regulations
04/24/12 11:36am

Freeway-Hovering Audi Dealership Headed for the Greenbriar Curve

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Proposed Developments, Upper Kirby
44 Comments

A North Carolina company that already operates 18 car dealers in the Houston area plans to build the largest “flagship” Audi dealership in the U.S. on the north side of Hwy. 59 just east of Greenbriar. The dealership would consist of a 7-story building fronting the Southwest Freeway and containing offices, parts and service departments, a parking garage, and a ground-floor showroom. A more dramatic showroom, though, will be on the top floors, where drivers stuck in freeway traffic can ogle recent Audi models parked on display. A fenced-in parking lot for 87 cars would sit behind the building on the north side of Lexington St.

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Condos for Sale
04/12/12 6:04pm

Upper Kirby Condo: Floor It and You’re on the Freeway

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Homes for Sale, Upper Kirby
15 Comments

With a giant piano illuminated atop a neighboring property’s parking lot, it’s easy to miss the little griffin statue pictured atop a brick column here. It serves as sentry to the unassuming gate of LeMans Townhomes, located on the south feeder road of the Southwest Freeway, just east of Buffalo Speedway. The 1965-built property has a courtyard shaded by trees in place for decades. Today, the canopy buffers part of the complex from passing traffic and from some of the signage for fast food restaurants and strip centers sharing the stretch of freeway.

A new listing asks $72,5000 for a first floor unit that looks out onto the complex’s landscaped commons.

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Attractions
03/29/12 4:59pm

Aurora Picture Show Finds Its Own Space in Upper Kirby

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Leasing, Upper Kirby
2 Comments

For the first time since 2008, when Aurora Picture Show left the converted church in Sunset Heights currently commandeered by 14 Pews, the quirky flickhouse founded by microcinema pioneer Andrea Grover will be gaining its own dedicated moviehouse. In the interim, Aurora’s succeeding directors have been organizing film programs from a bungalow on the Menil campus at 1524 Sul Ross. But starting this June, the organization will have a new home with a big screen. It’s a metal-clad building at 2442 Bartlett St. currently used as a studio and gallery by artist and former Aurora board member Molly Gochman, in the small arts compound she owns just east of Kirby.

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Memorial
03/29/12 12:36pm

The 3 Trader Joe’s Grocery Stores Coming to the Houston Area

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Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers, The Woodlands, Upper Kirby
19 Comments

Trader Joe’s has at last confirmed the second and third of the 3 stores that’ll constitute the idiosyncratic grocer’s Houston invasion. If you’ve been following Swamplot, you already know about these locations: In addition to the already announced shopping-center add-on in The Woodlands (recent construction photo at top), there’s another to be constructed in suburban-style big-corniced splendor (midde photo, above) on Voss just north of San Felipe. And yes — the company is now ready to admit — one in the just-decimated hollows of the once-grand Alabama Theater, last known as the Alabama Bookstop bookstore (bottom photo above).

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Demolitions
03/22/12 4:33pm

There Won’t Be Much Left of the Alabama Theater Interior After Weingarten’s Through Gutting It

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Historic Preservation, Renovations, Retail, Upper Kirby
13 Comments

Isn’t Weingarten Realty going to preserve some of the interior of its landmarked Alabama Theater as it makes the space ready for Trader Joe’s — or if that deal somehow falls through, some other tenant? Sure: The lobby and theater ceilings are being left alone, and a decorative plaster “medallion” on the north wall is supposed to remain in place — though it’ll be stripped of some outer layers. An upper section of the balcony will also stay, along with some light fixtures in the lobby. But other than those items, the entire 1939 theater space — or rather, what’s left of it after Weingarten encased the auditorium’s preserved sloped floor in concrete last year — is being gutted, according to plans drawn up for the project by Heights Venture Architects. A permit for the conversion of the historic Art Deco building to a retail “shell” was granted by the city earlier this week.

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Crime
03/12/12 12:57pm

Stolen from a Closely Guarded Garden

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Critters, Quicklink, Restaurants, Security, Upper Kirby
13 Comments

STOLEN FROM A CLOSELY GUARDED GARDEN Yes, those bees were under camera surveillance; don’t even think they aren’t watching the radishes too. A beehive on the small garden campus adjacent to Haven Restaurant on Algerian Way near the corner of Kirby and the 59 feeder was stolen in the early morning hours Saturday, by someone driving a dark truck with a camper — reports chef Randy Evans after reviewing security footage. Film at 11 5, promises KTRK reporter Miya Shay. [Twitter] Photo: Miya Shay

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Condos for Sale
01/26/12 12:57pm

Back, Slashed: Ken and Linda Lay’s Huntingdon Penthouse

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Interiors, Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
17 Comments

Good news for those of you saddened by the disappearance of Ken and Linda Lay’s gargantuan 33rd-floor Upper Kirby condo from the MLS rolls at the end of last month: Your opportunity to watch the asking price on the castle-in-the-sky penthouse float down to earth is back! Where had it gone? “It appears the Huntingdon high-rise condo at 2121 Kirby was removed from the multiple listing service for a few days so it could be relisted without showing that the price was reduced . . . again,” reports the HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson. “That seems to be a common trick of the trade with Realtors.”

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Condos for Sale
01/18/12 11:24am

Where O Where Has Ken Lay’s Condo Gone?

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Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Upper Kirby
4 Comments

WHERE O WHERE HAS KEN LAY’S CONDO GONE? Accustomed to seeing Ken and Linda Lay’s castle-like penthouse suite on the 33rd floor of The Huntingdon at 2121 Kirby for sale at a steadily decreasing price month after month (it’s been on the market since the fall of 2009), a reader is shocked to discover that the 12,827-sq.-ft. trifle — at last note listed at $6.99 million, nearly half off its original asking price — is no longer listed on MLS: “Did it sell?” [Swamplot inbox] Photo of 2121 Kirby Dr. Unit 33: HAR

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Adaptive Reuse
11/11/11 5:59pm

Weingarten Decommissions the Alabama Theater: Is Trader Joe’s Out of the Picture?

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Development Strategies, Historic Preservation, Houston Landmarks, Interiors, Leasing, Retail, Upper Kirby
14 Comments

In a late-Friday afternoon press release that doesn’t mention Trader Joe’s at all, Alabama Theater owner Weingarten Realty is announcing that the company has begun construction on the landmarked 1939 Art Deco building at 2922 S. Shepherd to “create a more desirable space for future retail tenants.” What does that mean? Apparently, removing the few elements of the interior that made the building suitable as a movie theater: The entire screen wall along with the murals flanking both sides of the screen, and the auditorium’s sloped floor.

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Adaptive Reuse
11/04/11 1:21pm

The Auditorium of the Former Alabama Theater Is Now a Giant Sandbox

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Historic Preservation, Interiors, Renovations, Retail, Upper Kirby
8 Comments

If any ghosts of Alabama Theater moviegoers were still intent on haunting the spaces once occupied by their old seats, they’d be buried in sand by now. A Swamplot reader and theater buff shows us the current state of the building’s innards — as seen yesterday from strategic views through the front and rear glass doors. On its way to a new level and Trader Joe’s-worthy surface, the auditorium’s basement and raked floor have been transformed into what now appears to be the city’s largest indoor sandbox. (From the photos, it looks like only a single motorized sand toy gets to play in it, though.)

A new, permanent concrete floor ordered by the owners of the landmarked 1939 Art Deco building, Weingarten Realty, will replace the removable raised-floor system put in place in the early 1980s, when the theater at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr. was transformed into the Alabama Bookstop bookstore.

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Demolitions
10/31/11 10:14am

Did Weingarten Realty Just Bury the 1939 Art Deco Interior of the Alabama Theater in Concrete?

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Historic Preservation, Interiors, Leasing, Renovations, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
30 Comments

It sure looks like it: Here’s a photo of the theater’s west parking lot, sent to Swamplot by a reader who noted that a concrete pour began on Saturday morning. Earlier this month, Weingarten received a permit for “Landlord Improvements — Infill/Leveling,” though the permit’s title doesn’t make it clear what kind of leveling the national REIT wanted to do to the landmarked structure at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr., which is expected to be transformed into Houston’s first Trader Joe’s market.

Why would Weingarten want to pour a thick layer of concrete onto the floor of its historic building — and how much demolition of the theater’s interior might be accompanying this work?

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Demolitions
10/28/11 9:12pm

Building To Suit: New Dress for Success HQ in Upper Kirby

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Houston Architects, New Construction, Upper Kirby
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Going up in place of those 2 mod office buildings at 3210 and 3310 Eastside St. east of Greenway Plaza that were scraped earlier this week: this 2-story, $6.3 million home for Houston’s branch of Dress for Success, a national charity that provides support services, career help, and a free store of interview-appropriate attire for women in need of a working-world boost. Once it’s complete, the Houston Dress for Success will be the first of the organization’s 80 U.S. affiliates to own its own land and building. Included in the upgrade from the current leased warehouse at 3915 Dacoma St.: a larger store and dressing-room area, more clothing storage and sorting space, more meeting space, a babysitting area, and much better access to public transportation. Crews demolishing the 2 existing buildings took a break for Tuesday’s groundbreaking ceremony, where fundraisers announced that pledges covering 97 percent of the cost of the Ziegler Cooper-designed structure have already received.

Rendering: Ziegler Cooper Architects

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Demolitions
10/25/11 9:57am

Late to the Demolition Party on Eastside St.

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Office Buildings, Upper Kirby
6 Comments

“I missed all of the fun,” complains the reader who sent in these photos of yesterday’s demolition extravaganza at 3210 and 3310 Eastside St. between Richmond and Alabama east of Greenway Plaza. “Not sure what the plans are, but apparently there was a ceremony to commemorate the event. The [above] photo shows an event tent with chairs in their abandoned parking lot. . . . It was essentially a large party tent & it looked as if several dozen chairs were being put away.” What was this place?

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