March 31, 2008 – 11:52 am
If you’re curious what the upper reaches of Montrose Blvd. look like from the viewpoint of an actual pedestrian, you’ll want to see blogger Charles Kuffner’s recent annotated photo walking tour of the area. Kuffner, who lived on Van Buren St. in the nineties, describes more recent developments on and around Montrose and Studemont — from West Gray north to Washington:
I did this partly to document what it looks like now - if you used to live there but haven’t seen it in awhile, you’ll be amazed - and partly to point out what I think can be done to make the eventual finished product better. . . .
My thesis is simple. This is already an incredibly densely developed corridor, and it’s going to get more so as the new high rise is built [see Swamplot’s story here] and several parcels of now-empty land get sold and turned into something else. It’s already fairly pedestrian-friendly, but that needs to be improved. And for all the housing in that mile-long stretch of road, there’s not enough to do.
Kuffner’s guide is a Flickr photo set. You’ll get the most out of it if you view it as a slideshow with the captions turned on (on the link, click on Options in the lower right corner, then make sure Always Show Title and Description is checked).
After the jump: A few more photos from Kuffner’s tour, plus an ID on those new condos behind Pronto!
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Read more about: 77006, Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Development Strategy, Highrises, Land Sales, Memorial Heights, Montrose, Pedestrians, Redevelopment, Streets, Tours
Armed with only a camera and a healthy sense of curiosity, Swamplot reader and longtime Memorial Heights Apartments resident Michael W. Jones pokes around his apartment complex and unearths evidence of Archstone-Smith’s redevelopment plans. His conclusions:
- Buildings 7, 8, and 9, in the southwest quadrant of the complex facing S. Heights Blvd, will be the first to come down. All tenants have been out of these buildings since March 1. The first of six new four-story apartment buildings will be built here.
- The dingbat-Modern-style office building at 225 S. Heights Blvd. outside the complex will likely be torn down:
The fact that the building is not on the tax roll leads me to believe that 225 is actually owned by Archstone-Smith, and will be brought down as part of the redevelopment. The current state does give sign that there may have been some interior demolition already done, and it’s waiting for the wrecking crew to come in to finish the job.
- Though tenants have been hit with some large rent increases in the last two years, Archstone-Smith isn’t going out of its way to let them know what’s happening to their homes:
To date, other than the tennants in the buildings affected by the pending demolition, the rest of the complex has not been made aware of the pending changes. It is only through research and infomation from other sources have I been able to piece the information you see here together.
After the jump, photos — and a few more details — from Jones’s report.
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Read more about: 77007, Apartments, Demolitions, Memorial Heights, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Washington Corridor
February 25, 2008 – 7:36 am
Archstone still isn’t saying much about its plans to redevelop the Memorial Heights Apartments at Studemont and Washington, but the Houston Business Journal’s Allison Wollam digs up a little more detail:
While members of SuperNeighborhood 22 support the redevelopment, they are concerned that the project’s suburban design — which calls for the back of the residential components to face Washington Avenue — is hurting efforts to transform the avenue into a walkable, pedestrian-friendly destination.
Read more about: 77007, Apartments, Memorial Heights, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Washington Corridor
February 12, 2008 – 9:40 pm
Archstone is planning to redevelop the 28-acre Memorial Heights Apartments complex fronting Studemont, Washington Ave., and Heights Blvd.:
The current plan to be realized over a 5-year period features mid-rise mixed-use at the Washington/Studemont corner, and a series of six mid-rise residential nodes with incorporated garages on a new internal central Paseo that will parallel Washington Avenue mid-way through the complex. Archstone suggests visiting their nearly completed Esplanade project on Hermann Drive west of Almeda for a representation of product quality.
Hey, that’s a pretty short life for the apartments. They were built in 1996.
Read more about: 77007, Apartments, Memorial Heights, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Washington Corridor
January 30, 2008 – 3:14 pm
This is the best image we’ve been able to find online of the 25-story apartment tower about to go up at the site of the former Ed Sacks Waste Paper Co. at 440 Studemont, just north of Memorial Dr.
And it makes you wonder: Do these out-of-town developers really know what they’re doing here? First they give the project a name — “Legacy at Memorial” — that makes it sound like a funeral home, in a town where death is already a major industry. Then . . . they think Houston residents will stand for 15 percent of the units in the combination highrise-lowrise development being marketed as “affordable housing.” But weirdest of all . . . it looks like they forgot to give their building a theme!
Memo to Legacy Partners and your California retiree funders: Your tower is going up against some aggressively themed competition. When renters can go next door and feel like they’re in Italy, or go down the street to get a little stucco taste of New Orleans, or cross Allen Parkway for a full-fledged Beaux-Arts Alamo resort revival, just who do you expect is going to want to want to live in an apartment that looks like . . . a building in Houston, Texas?
More on the tower that forgot to put on its clothes and makeup . . . after the jump.
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Read more about: 77007, Affordable Housing, Apartments, Development Strategy, Highrises, Memorial Heights, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Style, Theming
