Apartments

04/18/14 12:30pm

This Skinny 39-Story Apartment Tower Will Squeeze in Next to the New Marriott Marquis Downtown, Behind Discovery Green

Discovery Green, Downtown, Highrises, Proposed Developments

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Proposed 39-Story Residential Tower on Crawford and Walker Streets, Downtown Houston

It looks like engineers have begun soil testing the thin strip of land left along Crawford St. downtown between the Hess Tower parking garage and the surface parking lot where the new Marriott Marquis hotel is about to go up. Conveniently for the rendering above showing Ziegler Cooper Architects’ design for a 39-story residential tower on that 72-ft.-wide site, there’s nothing there yet to block the view of the building’s lower portions from Discovery Green — but without the hotel in place the skybridge drawn in at the second level connecting across Crawford to the nonexistent second story of a parking lot does look a little strange.

The new apartments are being developed by Trammell Crow. They’ll sit on a 12-story garage podium. Some of its 314 units will have views of the Texas-shaped “lazy river” on the Marriott Marquis’s upper deck, but they’ll also have their own pool piece above the garage, with this view of Discovery Green and the George R. Brown:

Trammell Crow Downtown

77010, Apartments, Discovery Green, Downtown, Highrises, Proposed Developments

04/09/14 4:01pm

A Med Center Hotel and Apartment Tower Next to the Best Western on South Main St.

Highrises, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Southgate, Texas Medical Center

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Proposed Hotel and Apartment Tower at 6750 S. Main St., Texas Medical Center, Houston

Update, 9:30 pm: It appears the new hotel tower will fit entirely on the lot directly to the south of the Best Western Plaza Hotel at 6700 S. Main St. We’ve updated this story accordingly.

Medistar and an affiliate of the Redstone Companies are out today with this rendering of the 22-story hotel and apartment tower the firms are planning together for the west side of S. Main St. across the street from the western campus boundary of the Texas Medical Center. Unlike the 40-story hotel and condo tower Medistar had proposed for S. Main across the street from the Texas Medical Center back in 2008 — which stirred up a bit of a fuss with neighbors in neighboring Southgate — this new building, designed by HOK’s Roger Soto, will be set away from the neighborhood’s entrance. It’ll sit next to the Best Western Plaza Hotel, on theÂ 1.35-acre lot at 6750 S. Main St., on the southern end of the block bounded by S. Main, Old Main St., and Travis St. The taller tower Medistar planned in 2008 was intended for a site one block to the north, at the corner of S. Main St. and Dryden.

The Latest Medical Tourism Hotspot

77030, Apartments, Highrises, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Southgate, Texas Medical Center

04/09/14 2:15pm

A Block of Midrise Apartments for a Vacant Block in the Southeast Part of Downtown

Downtown, Proposed Developments

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Proposed Block 365 Apartments, Austin at Pease St., Downtown Houston

Here’s a drawing of the new apartment block Dallas architecture firm Hensley Lamkin Rachel is designing for a Dallas developer on the block surrounded by Caroline, Austin, Pease, and Jefferson streets downtown, a few blocks southwest of the Toyota Center. There’s a surface parking lot with a few shade structures on the lot now. Leon Capital Group is hoping to get a piece of the city’s $15,000-per-unit tax rebate program for the 220 units in the 6-story structure. A note on the company’s website says the project “is planned to begin” at the end of this year.

Block 365 â€“ Downtown Houston Multifamily Development [Leon Capital Group, via HAIF]

Rendering: Hensley Lamkin Rachel

Block 365

77002, Apartments, Downtown, Proposed Developments

03/28/14 10:15am

What a Place at the Sovereign Will Cost You

Highrises, Leasing, New Construction, North Montrose, Quicklink

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WHAT A PLACE AT THE SOVEREIGN WILL COST YOU Sovereign at Regent Square Under Construction, 3233 West Dallas St., North Montrose, Houston A couple of readers have written in noting their own sticker shock at the pricing announced for the 290 apartments at the still-under-construction 21-story Sovereign at Regent Square tower. One bedrooms will start at $2070 a month, two bedrooms at $3070, and studios at $1615. A temporary leasing office run by Boston-based Windsor Communities will open in a couple of weeks; the first units at 3233 West Dallas St. should be ready for occupancy by July 15th, the company says. [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Alonso Ortega

77019, Apartments, Highrises, Leasing, New Construction, North Montrose, Regent Square

03/27/14 2:00pm

She Didn’t Start the Axis Apartments Fire, but She Was Trying to Fight It

Fires, North Montrose

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Axis Apartments, 2400 West Dallas St., North Montrose, Houston

Axis Apartments, 2400 West Dallas St., North Montrose, Houston What do you say when the apartment complex you’re featured on teevee news complaining is being built too close to gravesites bursts into flames the very next day? “I don’t think anything I said was incendiary,” feng-shui expert and holistic-life-coaching grad student Trisha Keel tells Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg, the day after the 368-unit Axis Apartments burned to the ground.Â “Although I’m a passionate person about this city,” she adds.

Keel, who runs a blog featuring feng-shui no-nos she encounters around town, had posted pics showing graves in the Magnolia Cemetery just steps away from north-facing ground-floor patios of the complex at 2400 West Dallas St. Among the dead: members of the Bammel, Wortham, and Halliburton families. “The dead are NOT good neighbors!” she wrote on her blog and Tumblr underneath the photo reproduced at top. “Their decaying energy feeds off your vital life force. Do not live among the dead.” Then she brought her complaints to the Â mayor’s office to complain. And a reporter at TV station KHOU.

Words That Burn

77019, Apartments, Cemeteries, Feng Shui, Fires, North Montrose

03/26/14 11:30am

The Sorry Scene on West Dallas St., the Morning After the Axis Apartments Fire

Construction Problems, Fires, North Montrose

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Burned Axis Apartments at 2400 West Dallas St. and Montrose Blvd., North Montrose, Houston

A reader reports this morning on the aftermath of the blaze yesterday that destroyed the Axis Apartments — from a balcony perch west of Montrose Blvd.: “The firemen are packing up this morning on West Dallas after continuing to fight the fire through the night. I live in one of the townhouses across the street from the fire yesterday. I got home from work in the evening to find my house in good shape, a little smokey and singed and a broken window but otherwise fine. The firemen sprayed down the fronts of the houses to keep them cool.”

Here’s an amazing sequence of views of the same section of the 5-story apartments JLB Partners was building at 2400 West Dallas, from before the fire:

Pictures of a Disappearance

77019, Apartments, Construction Accidents, Fires, North Montrose

03/26/14 10:15am

Here’s That Dramatic Video of the Last-Second Rescue at the Axis Apartments Fire

Construction Problems, Fires, North Montrose

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This video uploaded to YouTube by Karen Jones shows a construction worker seemingly trapped on a fourth-floor balcony of the blazing Axis Apartments in North Montrose yesterday afternoon. According to a construction supervisor working on the neighboring Finger Properties apartment complex who spoke to a Houston Chronicle reporter, the fire started on the northeast corner of the L-shaped structure’s roof. Jones doesn’t identify her filming location in the video, but it appears to be taken from an upper floor of a low-rise office building along Rylis St. in the American General complex. That would mean the imperiled worker was on a balcony facing north, and that the rescuing fire worker was on a ladder truck in the parking lot immediately west of the Magnolia Cemetery.

Jumping from the Flames

77019, Apartments, Construction Accidents, Fires, North Montrose

03/18/14 1:45pm

New North Montrose Apartments Leave Hanover, Move to River Oaks

Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, North Montrose, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, River Oaks

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NEW NORTH MONTROSE APARTMENTS LEAVE HANOVER, MOVE TO RIVER OAKS AMLI River Oaks, 1340 West Gray St., North Montrose, Houston Residents of the recently opened Hanover West Gray apartments at 1340 West Gray got an unexpected notice in their mailboxes this month: Their new homes at the corner of West Gray and Waugh (replacing the Tavern on Gray and some neighboring structures) now feature a River Oaks address. Hanover sold the 275-unit structures effective March 13 to AMLI. And the new owner is calling the complex AMLI River Oaks, after the tony no-apartments-please neighborhood whose eastern border is three-quarters of a mile to the west. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Hanover Company

77019, Apartments, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Names, North Montrose, Real Estate Marketing, River Oaks

03/17/14 3:45pm

Hines Market Square Takes Over a Surface Parking Lot Downtown

Downtown, Highrises, Proposed Developments

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Surface Parking Lot at Travis St. and Preston, Market Square, Downtown Houston

Surface Parking Lot at Travis St. and Preston, Market Square, Downtown Houston Here’s some evidence that Hines Residential is ready to go ahead with construction of its 33-story apartment tower at the corner of Travis and Preston, catty-corner from Market Square: The surface parking lot on that site closed down over the weekend. “The lot’s money machine and parking lot signage are gone,” reports the reader who snapped these views. “I’m sure better fencing and gates will soon arrive.” In the meantime, newly installed curbstops are blocking the driveways.

Unpaving Paradise, Putting Down a Parking Lot

77002, Apartments, Downtown, Highrises, Market Square, Parking-Lots, Proposed Developments

03/17/14 10:30am

Studemont Condo Building Wants To Squeeze in Just North of Washington Ave

Condos, Memorial Heights, Proposed Developments

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Proposed Studemont Midrise, 1011 Studemont St., Memorial Heights, Houston

Morrison Heights Midrise, 2802 Morrison St., Woodland Heights, Houston The developer behind the Morrison Heights midrise building (pictured at left) now under construction in the southeast corner of Woodland Heights has plans to build a similar “apartment and condo” complex at the southwest corner of Studemont and Center St., just north of Washington Ave. Like its neighbor to the northeast, the Studemont Mid-Rise would be a 4-story structure of 36 units mounted over an open parking area underneath. To fit the proposed building on the lot at 1011 Studemont St., however, Fisher Homes needs a variance from the city that would allow a reduced setback on either Studemont or Court St. Its application was deferred at a meeting earlier this month, and is up for consideration by the planning commission this Thursday.

All the Single Bedrooms

77007, Apartments, Condos, Memorial Heights, Proposed Developments, Variances, Washington Corridor

03/06/14 4:45pm

New Apartments Just Scratching the Surface of the Site Where the New Fire Museum Was Supposed To Go

Midtown, New Construction: Residential

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View of Midtown from Downtown, Including Site of Proposed Alexan Midtown, Main St. at Hadley, Midtown, Houston

Some earth-moving work has begun on the half-block surrounded by Main St., Hadley, and Travis, where a new red-colored 7-story apartment block called the Alexan Midtown is about to go up on land once reserved for a Houston Fire Museum expansion. “Not exactly the January groundbreaking we were expecting, but I’m glad it is finally happening,” writes the photographer who sent in this aerial view from the north. The 1.44-acre apartment site is the naked dirt portion smack dab in the center of the photo, on the near side of parking lot. Here’s a zoomed-in view:

Looking Down on Midtown

77002, Apartments, Houston Architects, Midtown, New Construction: Residential

02/20/14 11:00am

Uptown Park Will Go ‘Contemporary’ with New Mixed-Use Highrise

Galleria, Highrises, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers

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Proposed Alterations to Uptown Park, Post Oak Blvd., Uptown Houston

The owner of Uptown Park, Houston’s favorite Europe-in-a-parking-lot shopping center, plans to add a sleek dash of density to the collection of stucco-and-styrofoam-fronted pad buildings. AmREIT has announced that it is teaming up with an unnamed “major national developer” to replace the parking-space fronted shopping island at the northwest corner of the complex with a “contemporary” highrise residential tower. Currently, Baker Furniture, Peluche Decor, and the Bella Rinova Salon occupy the single-story structure on that spot.

But the addition of residents directly above Uptown Park shouldn’t take away from the shopping opportunities below: Renderings included in a promotional video released by the company show that the tower will have replacement retail spaces on the ground floor, and possibly on a second level as well — though the shopping pod’s existing head-in parking and adjacent spaces would be replaced by a porte-cochÃ¨re and garage entrance ramp.

Towers in the Parking Lot

77056, Apartments, Galleria, Highrises, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Retail, Shopping Centers, Uptown, Uptown Park

02/11/14 11:00am

Big City Attractions, Minus the Bother, in the Energy Core Apartments Planned for Hwy. 6

Energy Corridor, Proposed Developments

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Proposed Energy Core Apartments, Hwy. 6 at Grisby Rd., Energy Corridor, Houston

Does this new 4-story apartment complex that Dallas apartment developer Duke, Inc. is planning along the west side of Hwy. 6 just south of I-10 look a little urban to you, what with its sprinkling of metal siding, balcony action, and all those decoy pedestrians hanging around in front? Take away the high-speed car traffic racing by and the actual configurations of things and its setting might seem so too. Immediately north and slightly west of the site, fronting the Katy Fwy., are the Energy Crossing I and just-built Energy Crossing II office buildings. Cross Hwy. 6 on foot — not an actual suggestion; we’re just imagining here — and you can wander through the quaint little restaurant village along Grisby Rd., anchored by the original Lupe Tortilla. Heck, even Sam’s Club and the Waffle House are just a leisurely stroll north, across I-10!

More for the Energy Corridor

77077, Apartments, Energy-Corridor, Proposed Developments

02/10/14 1:45pm

What’s Happening to the Ella Creek Apartments, Now Drained of Residents

Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Shady Acres

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Ella Creek Apartments, 2121 Ella Blvd., Shady Acres, Houston

The Ella Creek Apartments at the corner of Ella and 22nd St. (and just a block of away from a jog in that creek called White Oak Bayou) have been completely vacated, a reader tells Swamplot: “On a recent drive by I noticed there were no cars in the parking lots and the complex looked even worse than usual.Â It is a very large tract, and I’m wondering what the future land use will be.”

Guesses, anyone?