Apartments

Apartments
06/29/12 2:53pm

The Finger Apartments Behind the Montrose Whole Foods Market

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New Construction, North Montrose
32 Comments

From a perch in the American General Life Building off Allen Parkway, a reader sends this view of the “HUGE property” at 2900 West Dallas, behind the new Whole Foods Market on Waugh. Construction work has been going on for about a month, reports the photographer. Going up: 431 apartment units in a 6-story block from the Finger Companies. Judging from these 2 renderings of the project, the apartments won’t end up looking much like the Whole Foods or the American General office campus directly to the north:

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Apartments
06/28/12 1:05pm

Regent Square-ish Apartment Tower Possibly Breaking Ground in 2 Weeks

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Highrises, North Montrose, Proposed Developments
15 Comments

A reader passes onto Swamplot an unconfirmed report that a groundbreaking ceremony for the Sovereign, the 21-story apartment tower from the developers trying to kickstart Regent Square that Swamplot reported on back in April, is scheduled for July 11th. That date’s not too far off from the June window predicted in a Houston Business Journal story earlier this month. The site is a cleared lot on West Dallas St. between Rosine and Rochow, where a surviving portion of the Allen House Apartments was recently demolished.

Is the Sovereign the first piece of GID Development’s long-stalled Regent Square development? It fits within the massive North Montrose mixed-use project’s eastern boundary, but the 4-year-old drawings for Regent Square show only low-rise apartments on that spot. On the other hand, the 2 projects are listed separately on the Boston company’s website. And the proposed 290-unit highrise appears to sport more modern look in its renderings than the images of brick-caked structures still floating around in old Regent Square drawings.

Here’s a view of the site from the 1000 block of Rochow, looking toward West Dallas:

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Apartments
06/26/12 11:18pm

Comment of the Day: Pack Them In

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Comments, Lancaster Place, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail
35 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: PACK THEM IN “Swamplotters crack me up. If this site were home to a bunch of crack houses and Fiesta wanted to tear them down and build this exact strip center (with or without decades of deferred maintenance) with a giant parking lot out front, every one would be up in arms about because it’s not dense enough, or urban enough, mixed use enough or pedestrian friendly enough. I see an eyesore going away, just [like] that dump that used to be across the street. I see $40-50 million of additional tax base that will toss another $1 million each and every year toward HISD and local government. I see room for 500-600 new residents in Houston’s core who will drop countless millions of dollars into bars, restaurants and retail stores and help Houston become an even more dynamic and vibrant city. I see progress. And I like it. Companies are hiring in Houston. People WANT to live in Houston. I say we accommodate them rather than force them to the next mile of empty prairie in the suburbs while letting our own city rot from the inside out.” [Bernard, commenting on Montrose Fiesta on Dunlavy Will Close Forever in Less Than a Month]

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Apartments
06/26/12 1:35pm

Montrose Fiesta on Dunlavy Will Close Forever in Less Than a Month

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Lancaster Place, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Retail
53 Comments

Fiesta Mart announced today that it will shut down its store at the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama — across the street from the newly built modern H-E-B Montrose Market — on July 15th. Developer Marvy Finger plans to build a 6-to-8-story “Mediterranean-style” apartment complex on the 3.68-acre site, which he bought last fall. Fiesta has operated the former Weingarten grocery store on the site since 1994.

Photo: Candace Garcia

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Apartments
06/06/12 1:24pm

The Rotting Drywall Is Flying at Park Memorial

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Condos, Demolitions, Redevelopment, Rice Military
14 Comments

“There are at least 3-4 dozers making fast work of the demo” of the abandoned Park Memorial Condos on Memorial Dr. at Detering, reports Swamplot reader and real-estate agent David Hille, who lives nearby and snapped these photos of the onsite action this morning. The sale of the festering, overgrown property — which required the willing or resigned participation of 108 locked-out condo owners — was completed last month, and demo permits for 4 of the structures were granted yesterday.

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Apartments
06/05/12 11:09pm

Comment of the Day: Short-Term Apartments

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Comments, Memorial Heights, Quicklink, Redevelopment, Washington Corridor
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SHORT-TERM APARTMENTS “Wait. When this place was built it was out of place because it was a brand spanking new apartment complex in the Washington Corridor which (with a few exceptions) was a dead area / no man’s land of heavy industrial uses and crumbling residential shacks. Now these well maintained, 20 year old garden apartments are woefully obsolete and cry out for demolition because they aren’t dense enough, hip enough, or mixed use enough for surrounding neighborhood. How can you not love this city?” [Bernard, commenting on Archstone Memorial Heights Clearing Out Residents Again for Bigger Buildings, 4 Years After First Attempt]

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Apartments
06/04/12 2:26pm

Archstone Memorial Heights Clearing Out Residents Again for Bigger Buildings, 4 Years After First Attempt

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Demolitions, Memorial Heights, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Washington Corridor
22 Comments

The long-delayed piece-by-piece redevelopment of the 28-acre Archstone Memorial Heights compound at the corner of Studemont and Washington Ave. into a denser style of apartment complex appears to be back on track. Residents of the 3 existing 3-story “garden-style” buildings in the southwest corner facing Heights Blvd. have received notice that they will need to vacate their apartments by August 1st. (“I was trying to figure out why rent prices went up $300 in 5 months,” a resident quips to Swamplot: “Now I know why.”) Did those letters from management sound familiar? Residents of the same buildings were cleared out in March 2008 in anticipation of a similar redevelopment. A letter sent to Memorial Heights tenants refers only to a new 4-story apartment building planned for the site of those structures: Buildings 7, 8, and 9.

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Apartments
05/24/12 3:19pm

Out of Limbo: Creepy, Abandoned Park Memorial Condo Property Sells, Finally

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Buying and Selling, Condos, Land Sales, Rice Military
5 Comments

After more than 3 years of negotiations and court battles, the fenced-off 4.85-acre property covered with overgrown and vandalized buildings once known as the Park Memorial condos has at last been sold. Owners of the 108 properties at 5292 Memorial Dr. who were able to hold onto their units after the city declared them unsafe and barred anyone from living there in 2008 (or who snatched them up for low, low prices later) should be receiving their checks soon. The buyer is JLB Properties from Dallas, developers of the Ava apartments on Highmeadow near Hillcroft. The company is reportedly planning a new apartment complex on the Park Memorial site, which sits north of Buffalo Bayou at the corner of Memorial Dr. and Detering.

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Apartments
05/24/12 9:44am

The 29-Story Apartment Tower Hanover Is Really Building at BLVD Place

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Galleria, Highrises, Proposed Developments
17 Comments

Okay, scratch that image displayed here yesterday of the Hanover Company’s new apartment tower in BLVD Place from your memory banks — it was just an early study. Replace it with these 2 images, showing the updated design by Chicago architects Solomon Cordwell Buenz. And plug in this measurement as metadata: 29 stories. The drawing above shows how the 358-unit building would look from Post Oak Ln., just behind the long-promised Galleria Whole Foods Market. The view below is from one of the Four Leaf Towers to the north, at San Felipe and Skylark:

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Apartments
05/23/12 1:58pm

Hanover’s Next Apartment Tower for BLVD Place

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Galleria, Proposed Developments
20 Comments

Here’s the rendering Houston’s Hanover Company passed around to drum up the $40 million equity investment its website now indicates is committed to building the structure as part of BLVD Place, just north of the Galleria. The 358-unit apartment tower at the corner of Sky Lark and Post Oak Ln. is listed as a “midrise” in company materials, but it’s all relative: The 20-something stories depicted make the new version a bit shorter than the 57-story design the company had prepared for the site in 2007, as well as the 37-story model announced a year later, before the project got put on hold.

Image: Hanover Co.

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Apartments
05/21/12 10:24am

Cats Still Hanging Around West U Apartments, Unaware of Redevelopment Plans

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Critters, Demolitions, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Redevelopment, Sunset Terrace, West University
50 Comments

CATS STILL HANGING AROUND WEST U APARTMENTS, UNAWARE OF REDEVELOPMENT PLANS A group of 25 or so cats still hanging around the 2-and-a-half-acre grounds of the recently vacated Courts at West University apartments at 3810 Law St. have apparently not been informed of the 5-story Alexan West University complex set to go up on their old stomping grounds. An animal advocacy group concerned that the cats may get in the way when the existing buildings are demolished early next month has sounded the alarm, requesting donations and assistance in setting up a feeding station away from the demo site, as well as finding adoptive and foster homes for the uninformed animals. [West University Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Elmo at Courts of West University: Kathy Golding

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Apartments
05/18/12 11:57am

The Numbers on That 35-Story Tower Planned for Weslayan and West Alabama

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Highland Village, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments
48 Comments

Here’s a better look at the 35-story designed-in-Dallas residential tower PM Realty Group is putting on the northeast corner of Weslayan and West Alabama, where the State Grille and rebel predecessor Confederate House stood until a few years ago. Inside, at last report: 250-ish fancy apartments, a 3,000-sq.-ft. fitness center, a parking garage attached at the belly, and 12,500 sq. ft. of restaurant space on a bottom floor or two. The tower is being called either 2900, 2801, or 2800 Weslayan, depending on whether you follow that sign posted on the property earlier this year, a recent correction applied to it (below), or the project’s bid documents, which went out late last month and are due soon.

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Apartments
04/30/12 11:35am

Highrise Replacing Allen House Remnant? The Latest Rumblings Around Regent Square

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Demolitions, Highrises, North Montrose, Proposed Developments
18 Comments

Here’s a late addition to the demolition of the Allen House Apartments, the first portions of which went down in 2007, in anticipation of the giant Regent Square mixed-use development in North Montrose that never happened — or rather, hasn’t yet. The smashing of one Allen House’s 2 remaining buildings is now taking place across West Dallas from Teala’s Mexican Restaurant, just beyond the back windows of the Piedmont at River Oaks condos on Rosine St. A Swamplot reader sent us the above photo last Friday. Does this mean the long-dormant Regent Square is at long last ready to stir?

The North Montrose Civic Association announced in a recent newsletter that a “big announcement” about Regent Square is due in May: “Rumors are that a high rise residential [tower is] being planned as [the] first building.” Separately, Regent Square developer GID Development has promised additional details in May or June about this 21-story highrise apartment building, called the Sovereign, which happens to feature a large number of dog-friendly amenities, including canine wash/dry facilities, a pet grooming room, and a private doggie park:

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Apartments
04/17/12 1:57pm

Finger Going After Finger’s Ben Milam Hotel Downtown

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Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions, Downtown, Hotels, Houston History, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment
27 Comments

Already busy with 3 local apartment projects, including one just beginning construction next to the new Whole Foods on Waugh, a 399-unit development to replace the Montrose Fiesta on Dunlavy, and another on the site of the old Art Institute of Houston building at 1900 Yorktown, developer Marvy Finger says he’s planning to build Downtown as well, reports Real Estate Bisnow‘s Catie Dixon. In the works: an 8-story midrise at the corner of Texas and Crawford St. Yes, that’s the site of the 1926 Ben Milam Hotel, a long-vacant 10-story building remembered as the first Houston hotel ever to feature air conditioning.

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Apartments
03/16/12 12:24pm

Peeling Off a Corner Near 22nd and Yale

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Construction Problems, Houston Heights
2 Comments

Repair work on the exterior of the 2125 Yale apartments in the Heights, built 4 years ago on the site of Kaplan’s Ben Hur, has been taking place all week. Gone already: the aluminum panels on the building’s northwest corner, facing 22nd St. But: Couldn’t find any explanation of what’s going on in the complex’s newsletter for residents, a neighbor reports.

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