The Facts reporter John Tompkins visits the 4-year-old non-denominational Biker Church in Manvel, which operates out of a strip-center wedding and event facility on Highway 6, just east of FM 1128:
Instead of shirts, ties and Sunday dresses, Biker Church members wear vests, leather pants and sport tattoos. And instead of coming to church in the family car, most participants roll into the Jordan Center, where the church services are performed, on motorcycles and line them up in front of the door.
“If you walked into our church with a suit and tie, people would look at you funny,” said the church’s pastor, David Wright.
Robert “Tree” Perot said he started attending Biker Church after a member saw him on the side of a highway praying by his motorcycle. The man handed him a necklace with a cross fashioned from nails and asked him to come to Biker Church.
Photo of Biker Church parking at Jordan Event Center, 20709 Hwy 6 in Manvel: Biker Church
Read more about: 77578, Churches, Manvel, Religious Facilities, Strip Centers
A reader sends in a pic of the action at the renovated but long-suffering strip center at the southwest corner of Kirby and Richmond, which looked to be getting awfully lonely again after the departure of its lone tenant, Hue Vietnamese restaurant, in March.
But Hue is back as Kata Robata Sushi and Grill, and that white banner on the opposite leg indicates that the Dessert Gallery has moved in. Off camera, to the right, signs announce that the endcap is slated for a Texas Community Bank, but our reader reports seeing no sign of any money inside.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Read more about: 77098, Leasing, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
What’s this — another deserted Second Life strip center? No: just a rendered view of Venture Commercial’s proposed new South Heights Retail Center, forwarded to Swamplot by a reader. The 32,100-sq.-ft. project promises to bring together a motley assortment of existing buildings into a single 2.2-acre development, all of its components refaced and decorated using what appears to be the latest in texture mapping technology.
The project is planned for the north side of White Oak Dr. between Studewood and Oxford St., bridging the great spatial and cultural divide between Fitzgerald’s and the Onion Creek Coffee House. The magic ingredient is a new 76-car parking lot on the south side of the street, directly behind Jimmie’s Place.
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77007, Houston Heights, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Strip Centers
March 17, 2009 – 12:16 pm
A couple of readers have written in to let us know that Hue Vietnamese Restaurant — otherwise known as the first but hopeful occupant of the revamped but still extremely lonely strip center at the southwest corner of Richmond and Kirby — has closed. One writes:
I have a feeling it was a casualty of a low occupancy building with additional damage inflicted by continual Kirby Ave roadwork. It’s a shame, the food and drink were mighty tasty and the building itself has some nifty lighting. Better looking than most new builds.
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77098, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
Here’s a surprise: a construction permit for a new 23-story Chinatown Asiatown condominium tower was issued yesterday for Park 8 Place. Remember Park8? That’s the freeway feeder megastrip project planned for just across Brays Bayou from Arthur Storey Park, along Beltway 8 south of Bellaire Blvd. The one that called itself “The Land of Oz.”
The entire development was supposed to include three 20-something-story residential towers, a hospital, two 2-story retail-and-office strips, and a couple of parking garages — all in a quaint freeway-and-park-side setting. A foundation was poured for the first condo building last year, but Park 8 CEO David Wu put the project on hold after he was unable to secure financing. So the construction crane came down.
Continue Reading This Story >
9:23 am
|
|
Read more about Cancellations and Delays, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Highrises, Hospitals, Medical Buildings, Mixed Use, Neighborhoods: Chinatown, Proposed Developments, Retail, Strip Centers
Read more about: 77072, Asiatown, Canceled Projects, Chinatown, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Highrises, Hospitals, Medical Buildings, Mixed Use, Parks, Proposed Developments, Retail, Strip Centers
Following up on Swamplot’s story from yesterday, the Houston Press’s Richard Connelly sizes up the bigger-and-better Kroger that’ll be going into the Merchants Park Shopping Center at the corner of North Shepherd and 11th St. in the Heights.
. . . says Kroger’s Gary Huddleston, the new place will be 96,000 square feet, more than double what the store is now.
That would make it the biggest Kroger in Houston, and almost as big as the 110,000-square-foot monsters the chain has opened in Pearland and Missouri City. . . .
The refurbished store should be finished in a year, he says. The current operation will remain open during the renovation, which will slow things down a bit.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Read more about: 77008, Demolitions, Grocery Stores, Houston Heights, Redevelopment, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
A reader sends in photos from the southwest corner of North Shepherd and 11th St., where the Kroger is getting ready to expand into the site of a few vanquished neighbors:
the gas station that was in front of the kroger was demolished earlier this year and within the past couple weeks part of the strip center next to the kroger has started to be demolished. I called the kroger last week and the lady on the phone informed me that they are expanding and the store is going to be very nice - will have a starbucks, sushi bar, salad bar, etc and a kroger gas station will be built where the gas station was demolished. heights area residents can’t wait!!
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77008, Demolitions, Grocery Stores, Houston Heights, Redevelopment, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
February 17, 2009 – 5:23 pm
Ready to see some fun pix from around town? Here’s the guardhouse for the loading dock at the Igloo plant in Katy, as captured a while back by blogger Donna B.
A few more:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77006, 77007, 77494, Hazards, Houston Heights, Industrial Pollution, Katy, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Parking-Lots, Restaurants, Strip Centers, Westheimer
December 29, 2008 – 12:02 pm
Here’s something we can all feel tingly and nostalgic about: Developer Bobby Orr’s Heights-ish fantasy — of brand-new old-timey storefronts facing long streetside parking lots off Yale St. and Heights Blvd. just south of I-10 — is dead. The Chronicle’s Nancy Sarnoff drops news of the demise of the Heights Village dream as an aside to her update on the stalled-out High Street development.
The entire 4.9-acre property, across Heights Blvd. from the ArtCar Museum, is back on the market, at $75 a square foot.
Sadly, Cushman & Wakefield’s listing for the property doesn’t include any misty watercolors to memorialize what might have been. But Swamplot remembers! Here’s a brief trip down invented-memory lane . . . in 3 quick images:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77007, Cancellations and Delays, Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Houston Heights, Mixed Use, Parking, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Washington Corridor
November 24, 2008 – 12:20 pm
Has the nail-salon bubble finally burst? Retail space in so many area strip centers lies vacant: “In the Houston area, much of the problem lies in strip centers built during the recent commercial real estate boom when inexperienced developers were throwing up small centers in areas close to new residential growth. In the third quarter, Houston-area strip centers recorded the lowest occupancy of all retail property types at 80.4 percent, according to the Colliers report. Some of these buildings went up away from highly coveted traffic corners, and before any tenants were signed — a risky proposition should something go wrong.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
November 19, 2008 – 2:54 pm
“Houston’s first Smashburger is going into an unnamed strip center at the intersection of Main Street and Kirby Drive, right beside Reliant Center,” reports Globe St.’s Connie Gore:
[Ryan McMonagle, Smashburger's CFO] tells GlobeSt.com that Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston each will start with two “grade A-plus locations” this year and reach eight to 10 before 2009 ends, putting the new chain on “a clear path to 30 over the next three-year period” in each city.
What’s a Smashburger?
Jason Sheehan of the Houston Press’s sister publication Denver Westword says it’s a burger joint where
the burgers are truly smashed — thrown and mashed onto the flat-top grill with a press that I at first thought was for show, then realized played an important role. When a half-pound of ground, nicely fatty Angus beef is whacked onto the hot steel, it produces a flood of meat juice that caramelizes instantly into a crispy halo of blood and fat around the edge of the burger. It’s like meat candy, the delicacy you lose when a burger is cooked on a slotted grill — the traditional cooking surface for burgers smashed by hand.
Photo of Denver Smashburger interior: Flickr user johnny_nissan [license]
Read more about: 77030, Fast Food, Franchises, Openings and Closings, Reliant Center, Restaurants, Retail, Strip Centers
November 10, 2008 – 1:45 pm
A Heights-area reader alarmed by the “Notice of Public Hearing” sign that appeared in front of the 100-plus-year-old converted home at the northeast northwest corner of Heights Blvd. and 11th St. has done some sleuthing and sends Swamplot a report:
No, the 1903 Victorian at 1101 Heights Blvd. won’t be torn down . . . the owner has received approval from the historic commission to move the building one lot to the north. And then to jack it up a few more feet, so cars can be parked underneath. Why hadn’t the Victorians thought of that?
Why the need for parking? To accommodate the brand-new strip center the developer wants to slide in between the new location for the home and the corner, facing 11th St. On the corner itself: Parking.
One observer who’s seen the plans says the house will end up “awfully close” to the back of the strip center. The developer apparently has promised to “restore” the home, though it may be leased out as office space. The project is scheduled to go before the planning commission a week from this Thursday: November 20th.
More photos from the scene:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77008, Housemoving, Houston Heights, Parking, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Retail, Strip Centers
October 27, 2008 – 11:15 am
The wise folks behind Greenway Commons — the new shopping center replacing the old HISD headquarters building at the corner of Richmond and Weslayan — have apparently taken some extra-special steps to make sure the new development (which includes a brand-new Costco) is super-friendly to pedestrian visitors!
Making everything welcoming to people arriving on foot makes sense — the project had been criticized for exhibiting suburban-style development patterns in a location that some dreamers had imagined would be a street-fronting mixed-use center. It’s already a busy corner, and Metro’s new University Line will have a stop only a short walk away.
But “easy to access” can also mean “boring.” So it’s comforting to see these pictures of the project’s street edge sent in by a reader, which show a gentle, fun infrastructure-themed obstacle course taking shape along the new Weslayan and Richmond sidewalks in front of Trammell Crow’s grand development:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77027, Big Box Stores, Commercial Real Estate, Greenway Commons, Greenway Plaza, Mixed Use, New Construction, Retail, Richmond-Avenue, Shopping Centers, Sprawl, Strip Centers
September 18, 2008 – 4:37 pm
Sandwich franchise Pita Pit has a store tucked inside a Greenway Plaza office building. Two more locations debuted recently: one at Highway 6 and Williams Trace in Sugar Land (opened in May) and another in the tunnel beneath McKinney St. Downtown (opened in July). A new store in a strip center at Westheimer and Fountainview is listed as “coming soon” on the company website.
Now a source reports that a total of 10 Pita Pit franchises are planned for the Houston area — including one in the shopping center at 3939 Montrose Blvd., just north of the Hurricane-Ike-swept Diedrich’s Coffee, near Marble Slab.
Photo of Sugar Land Pita Pit: Pita Pit
Read more about: 77002, 77006, 77478, Downtown, Downtown Tunnels, Fast Food, Franchises, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Sugar-Land
Comment of the Day: White Oak Deco Strip
“Per HAIF, the tower rendering on this sign has been replaced by a rendering of a renovated version of the current retail center.” [ArlingtonSt, commenting on White Oak Tower: It Was All Just a Bad Drawing]