No need to remake this hurricane-batteredsign after all! Wachovia Bank’s retail operations are being bought by Citigroup, ahead of any FDIC action. Which means all 30 or so Houston-area Wachovia retail locations will become Citibanks before the year is out.
The exact structure of J.P. Morgan’s acquisition of WaMu’s deposits wasn’t immediately known, except that the New York bank, which has long coveted WaMu as a way to secure a footprint on the West Coast, will assume most of the thrift’s deposits and branches, as well as some other operations. Unlike many of the 12 bank failures that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has overseen this year, the J.P. Morgan-WaMu transaction isn’t expected to impact the agency’s national deposit-insurance fund.
Car-shark favorites Landmark Chevrolet — on I-45 North near Gulf Bank — and Bill Heard Chevrolet — on the Southwest Freeway at 90 in Sugar Land — are both closing as part of a nationwide 13-dealership shutdown orchestrated by the pair’s parent company, Bill Heard Enterprises, which is based in Georgia. The move should make a lot of former customers very happy.
Available soon: A few more of those 9.9-acre stormwater-special feeder-road concrete lots?
99 Cents Only Stores’ 5-year Texas experiment is over, says the company. It’ll be closing down all 20 stores in Houston, and 28 more in other parts of the state.
This too-cute-for-Disneyland drawing depicts Allegro Builders’ new Wild Wild West-y development at the northwest corner of Studewood and 10th in the Heights. It’s going up just north of Allegro’s headquarters building, which is home also to the Glass Wall restaurant, and is known for its vaguely-historicist facade of valet-parked SUVs.
A few vans may front the new building at 1001 and 1003 Studewood, but it’ll only be in 2 spots of handicapped parking: The main lot is in back. That’ll likely be a relief for local filmmakers, who are no doubt eager to film Universal Studios-authentic spaghetti-western-style gunfights off those front balconies.
All of which makes this new retail-with-office-above confection an ideal location for Robert Gadsby’s new restaurant, Bedford, named after the chef’s birthplace in . . . uh, England.
After the jump: The interior is gonna be . . . modern!
A correspondent sends in this bit of over-the-counter intelligence about Midtown geek-gathering favorite Tropioca:
Tropioca on Milam at Drew is in the process of looking for a new home. They are looking around the midtown area but also at a location near U of H at Cullen and Leeland.
I overheard someone behind the counter saying that their rent has gone up almost 80% and not gradually over a few years, but all at once.
I will be sad to see them go if they leave midtown because they make the BEST frozen cappucino coffee drink inside the loop.
Wabash Antiques & Feed, the Daily Grind, El Rey Taqueria, that big new Benjy’s, and more: Katharine Shilcutt Gleave’s hungry person’s guide to Washington Ave., illustrated: “. . . the first thing you’ll notice is the abundance of new construction. Not only homes, but restaurants, banks, strip malls — a mad jumble of conflicting styles and materials that assaults the eyes. But if you look past the ubiquitous boxes of townhomes and the spaghetti-like telephone wires that crazily line the street, you’ll catch glimpses of old Houston in the tiny row houses, old brick storefronts and 1930s-era tile street signs along the curbs: Houston in a nutshell.” [Houstonist]
Walking from their car to the front door of the Circuit City on San Felipe, Bunny Bungalow resident Annie Sitton and her husband notice a crack in the stucco covering a pilaster at the front of the building. Looking closer, they notice that . . .
“Sonoma is mystery,” proclaims Randall Davis near the end of an excruciatingly long promotional video posted at the project’s recently updated website. Part of the mystery, of course, has been when — or whether — construction might actually begin on the 7-story condos-shops-and-parking Rice Village layer cake. Since the buildings on the site were demolished and the block of Bolsover between Kelvin and Morningside was fenced in last fall, not much has happened.
Nancy Sarnoff has some details on the delay:
Sonoma, an upscale condo and retail project planned in Rice Village, was supposed to break ground in April.
The land has been cleared to start building, but the developers have a loan commitment for just half of what it will take to build it.
“We’re ready to put a shovel in the ground,” said Julie Tysor, president of Lamesa Corp., owner of the project. “The speed of the changing lending markets wasn’t really anticipated by any of the people involved.”
A reader notes that a sign offering “13,000 sq feet of restaurant/retail for lease” is up at the Alabama Bookstop, and asks if plans for the location have been announced. Bookstop owner Barnes & Noble is building a new store on West Gray, on the former site of the River Oaks Shopping Center’s north curve.
That 13,000 sq. ft. figure makes it clear the sign isn’t referring to a different space in the Alabama Theater Shopping Center. According to leasing info on the Weingarten website, that’s the approximate size of the Bookstop’s space.
Whole Foods Markets’ recently announced plans to scale back some of its planned store openings will not disturb plans for new Houston stores on West Dallas at Waugh and in Boulevard Place — according to a report in the Houston Business Journal:
Scott Simon, executive marketing coordinator for Whole Foods, says this announcement will not impact any of the company’s plans in Houston.
The Austin-based health foods supermarket chain is planning to develop a 78,000-square-foot store at the southwest corner of Post Oak and San Felipe.
“Our Post Oak store would very likely not open until 2010 anyway, so this decision doesn’t affect our Houston plans,” says Simon.
No word yet about the diner next door, but the West U. Examiner reports that the Avalon Drug Store on Westheimer just east of Kirby will be calling it quits in 2 weeks:
Pharmacist Bill Morris, who has run the independent pharmacy for 36 years, said “a confluence of events” prompted his recent decision.
Morris is 67 years old — for one thing — and insurance “has made it harder” on independent pharmacy operations, which have low profit margins.
He also pointed to leasing rates that are rising due to the plethora of new construction in the Upper Kirby area.
Update: As owner Coy Ramsey notes in the comments, Avalon Diner is not going anywhere. More from the River Oaks Examiner and Houstonist.
In one fell soup, Bennigan’s has apparently shuttered all of its U.S. locations. And the store is taking its sister restaurant, the ailing Steak & Ale, along with it. The chains’ are filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Both are subsidiaries of Metromedia Restaurant Group, based in Plano.
Over at Houstonist, Katherine Shilcutt Gleave surveys the confusion resulting from the unannounced overnight shutdowns:
Houston is home to at least 20 Bennigan’s restaurants in the city and surrounding metropolitan areas. Calls placed this morning by Houstonist to the locations netted the same result each time: a phone ringing off the hook and no answering service. Only one location answered the phone when we called: the Bennigan’s in Greenspoint off Beltway 8. The befuddled-sounding manager at that location politely told us that they were, in fact, closed. He further confirmed that all other Bennigan’s in Houston were closed as well.
Swamplot covers real estate, home design and renovation, architecture, and the landscape of Houston, Texas. Swamplot did not flood during Allison — or Ike! Honest! Read more
