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Friday, May 16, 2008

Hanover Apartment Tower at Boulevard Place: 37 Stories

Hanover Company 37-Story Apartment Tower at BLVD Place, designed by Solomon Cordwell BuenzToday’s Chronicle has details on that apartment tower the Hanover Company has been planning for Boulevard Place, Ed Wulfe’s Post Oak redevelopment just north of the Galleria. Doing the math, your average 1,650-sq.-ft. apartment in the glass tower will rent for more than $4,000 a month.

That’s before it goes condo, of course.

At 37 stories, the 236-unit Hanover tower may end up even taller than the slender Ritz-Carlton planned directly to the south.

More info from Nancy Sarnoff:

Solomon Cordwell Buenz of Chicago is designing the building, which will have “boutique hotel style” amenities, including a concierge and bellman, as well as a lounge and catering kitchen.

A 19,000-square-foot rooftop pool terrace will be atop an attached parking garage.

The units will be similar to those in 7 Riverway, another Hanover project in the area. They will include stainless steel appliances, granite slab countertops, crown molding, hardwood floors and travertine tile, but will be larger and have additional features and amenities.

Hanover chose to design the building with larger units because it said there was considerable demand at 7 Riverway for oversized kitchens and living spaces.

After the jump: Where it’s going to land!

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Going Straight: Regent Square Follows a New Path

Axonometric of Proposed Regent Square Development, North Montrose, Houston

This new drawing provides a sneak peek of the latest plans for Regent Square in North Montrose. And it shows a few changes from earlier views of GID Urban Development Group’s new 24-acre mixed-use project.

Earlier drawings showed several new streets cutting diagonally through the site of the recently demolished Allen House Apartments. But this latest leaked drawing of the complex’s first phase shows a straightened north-south axis coming off Allen Parkway, resulting in buildings with fewer odd angles.

This new drawing dates from late April. Our tipster reports:

. . . they will have some pretty cool apartments there in addition to condos and retail. This pic shows allen pkwy on the far right. The 2 shadows are the condo towers. The apartments will be 5 and 8 stories in multiple buildings and will have some awesome amenities including the rooftop pool you can see there.

After the jump: Closeups of the new drawing, plus a longing last look at those kinky old plans!

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

This Used To Be Real Estate, Now It’s Only Fields and Trees

Where, where is the town? Now, it’s nothing but flowers.

From a proposed amendment to the Houston’s development ordinance:

A plat restriction limiting the use to residential or single-family may be amended to permit the use of that property only for landscape, parks, recreation, drainage or open space.

I thought that we’d start over
But I guess I was wrong

Lyrics: Talking Heads

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Friday, April 11, 2008

State Grille Closing Down; 27-Story Tower Going Up?

The State Grille, the restaurant at the corner of Weslayan and W. Alabama, will be shutting down a little earlier than expected. Cleverley’s Blog and Jennifer Dawson of the Houston Business Journal report that the restaurant will serve its last meal on May 31st.

Restaurant owners Frankie Mandola and Joe Butera sold the property to Giorgio Borlenghi’s Interfin Cos. in October 2006. The HBJ reported at the time that the restaurant had a lease agreement lasting until the end of 2008. Whatever happened to those last 6 months, Mandola doesn’t sound too happy about it now:

Mandola says he asked “a bunch of times,” but Interfin would not extend the State Grille lease scheduled to expire in July.

Interfin won’t say what the company’s plans for the property are, but . . .

According to Mandola, Interfin plans to tear down the building as soon as the restaurant clears out and construct a 27-story building of an undetermined type.

After the jump: There’s more to the property!

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Monday, March 31, 2008

North Montrose and Memorial Heights: Look at Us Now

Alley Behind Townhomes Between Clay and W. Dallas, Houston

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 Studemontfrom 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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