What’s that? The metal scrap heap formerly known as the Tavern on Gray (and before that, Blue Agave and several other temporary food-and-drink installations). Coming next to the corner of West Gray and Waugh: this 5-story Hanover West Gray apartment complex. The Tavern on Gray is now the Tavern on Milam, at 3017 Milam in Midtown.
More reader pics of the North Montrose scene the bar left behind, from over the weekend and early this week:
A delightful backyard scene at this home in the Galleria-area Del Monte subdivision. But hmmm . . . what’s that lurking behind the wood fence at the rear of the property? Could it be . . . the first of 19 stories of a new luxury apartment tower working its way to the sky? Or something more modest? Strangely, the listing for the just-on-the-market $576K home, at 5237 Chesapeake Way, includes this photo but no further details of the backyard goings-on. And yet there’s a crane and plenty of highrise construction action on the former parking lot on Brownway behind the home, between Sage and Yorktown, just west of the Walgreens on the corner of Sage and Westheimer. A Swamplot reader was kind enough to send in some photos of the project so far — along with a plea that someone who knows something about it provide some details:
A popular local dance move, caught on camera. Sent in from a reader who was shopping at the West Gray Kroger over the weekend: what looks like the final curtain call for the former Houston Ballet building a block to the west at 1916 West Gray. The Ballet’s new building opened Downtown earlier this year. Going up in place of its destroyed former home, which was previously a clothing factory: apartments.
Photo: Nate Frizzell
A few memorial photos, from a reader who’s been marking the death and burial of the former J.B. Earthman funeral home at 5740 San Felipe at Bering, across from T.H. Rogers Elementary:
A new 6-story apartment building is being planned for the now-cleared Midtown block surrounded by Elgin, Smith, Rosalie, and Louisiana streets — one block north of the Calais at Courtland Square apartment complex and a block west of High Fashion Fabrics. A variance request for the 147-unit building doesn’t name the developer or show any renderings, but indicates that the bottom 2 stories of the building will consist of a parking garage, topped by 4 floors of apartments wrapped around an interior courtyard.
That’s similar to the configuration of some sections of the Calais — notably the dramatic arched streetfront along Smith St. (shown in the photo above), which contributes a dynamic tableau of headlights, bumpers, license plates, and the occasional hood ornament to passersby at street level. (The view changes daily.) The developers of this new apartment building are looking to recreate some of that Calais streetside magic, according to the variance:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON MOD LOVERS’ GOOGIE CONDO COLLECTIVE “OK mod lovers, this is your ONE BIG CHANCE. How many of you have commented on Swamplot that you would love to buy that about-to-be-torn-down mod home if you only could afford it? Six of you guys put your heads together and buy this place. You can each have a 1,000+ SF condo unit in an iconic building in a great neighborhood for less than $125,000 per person.” [Bernard, commenting on Penguin Arms, Houston’s Only Googie Apartment Building, Is Now for Sale]
Arthur Moss’s 1950 Penguin Arms Apartments at 2902 Revere St. behind the Kirby Dr. Whole Foods is now on the market. Sadly, no pix showing the condition of the interior are included with the listing, though the agent’s reference to “lots of deferred maintenance” — along with the comments of a former tenant — should provide a clue. What gives this unique building its Googie cred? Well, a photo of it was included in the original 1952 House and Home magazine article that gave the style its name (amidst complaints about its “orgiastic” and “organic” features, of course). Penguin Arms “looks like something that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for George Jetson,” Chron columnist Lisa Gray declared a few years ago. These days, that’s considered a compliment.
Here’s a shot of the now-vacant corner of Weslayan and West Alabama, where PM Realty Group has announced it’ll be constructing a 35-story apartment building and parking garage — with a restaurant and “service retail” — beginning next year. The 2.6-acre site is the former location of the Confederate House at 2925 Weslayan, later known as the State Grille, which was torn down in 2008. PM Realty bought the site from Giorgio Borlenghi’s Interfin Cos. last month. No renderings from PM Realty’s architects, RTKL, have been passed around yet.
Photo: Candace Garcia
The development company behind a proposed 23-story residential tower at 1717 Bissonnet near Southampton known as the Ashby Highrise submitted its plans to the city again today, after taking a 2-year break. Buckhead Investment partner Matthew Morgan tells the West U Examiner‘s Michael Reed that the plans sent in today are mostly identical to those submitted in August 2009. Those plans, which the city ultimately approved, were for a version of the tower that axed some of the buildings’ commercial features, including retail and office space and a pedestrian plaza in front of the building. The lawsuit Buckhead filed against the city early last year, challenging the repeated rejection of its earlier plans for the building, is still pending in U.S. District Court.
There is one notable difference in the new plans: The units will be rented, not sold, Morgan says.
Rendering: Buckhead Investment Partners
Reader Brian Thorp sends in a couple of photos documenting the final hours of what he’s now labeled the “holiest” church in Houston — it was, at least for a time today. The Central Presbyterian Church at 3788 Richmond Ave. was designed in 1962 by Astrodome architects Wilson, Crain, Morris and Anderson; it sits on the site where the Morgan Group is ready to build a new apartment complex. By 9 am this morning (above), the church had developed a few punctures in its side. By noon, much of the dust, and a good portion of the church’s walls, had cleared:
Construction fencing has already gone up around the Central Presbyterian Church at 3788 Richmond near Greenway Plaza, a reader reports. The Modern church campus was designed in 1962 by Wilson, Morris, Crain and Anderson — just a few years before the same local architecture firm set to work on a small project called the Astrodome. Two years ago the congregation moved a couple miles northwest to merge with the St. Philip Presbyterian Church, just outside the Loop on San Felipe. Houston Mod fans have been trying to save the vacant church from demolition ever since.
But the church buildings won’t be sticking around for long.
Development firm Read King is “gearing up to break ground on” a mixed-use project at the southwest corner of Shepherd and West Alabama, across the street from the shopping center that houses the vacant Alabama Theater. Real Estate Bisnow‘s Catie Brubaker says preleasing has already begun for 30,000 sq. ft. of “high-end” retail; the development would also include 250 luxury apartments. The targeted opening date is in the middle of 2013, so it shouldn’t much matter that the design “is still in flux,” right? The placeholder rendering appears to show 5 stories of apartments perched above 2 retail floors.
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Galleria: The HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson reports that ahem, “distracting food smells” from “a fragrant cafeteria” that recently moved onto the same floor as the Houston CPA Society in the office building at 1700 West Loop South are what drove the professional association to leave its offices of 33 years for new digs on Post Oak Blvd. Sadly, the article doesn’t identify the cafeteria or the exact nature of the wafting “spicy aromas” that sent all those accountants packing. Any guesses?MIDRISE APARTMENTS, BEHIND THE WATERWALL The developers behind the flopped Turnberry Tower Houston gave up on plans for their Uptown 34-story plumber-friendly luxury condo project 3 years ago, but waited until last month to sell off the 3-acre site at the corner of Hidalgo and McCue, between the Waterwall Park and the Galleria. The new owner, Hines, says it plans to start construction early next year on 300 units in a 6-to-8-story apartment complex there. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Atlanta’s Post Properties has announced that it’s ready to get started with a third phase of its Midtown Square mixed use development, notes Houston’s InnerLooped blog. A rendering of the project on the front cover of a recent company financial report (above) may not be the latest, though — that looks like a 2005 date scribbled in the bottom right corner. The $21.8 million development will include 124 apartments and 10,864 sq. ft. of street-level retail and should begin opening mid-to-late next year, the company says. The apartment units should run a little smaller on average than those in the existing Post Midtown Square complex at 302 Gray St. Post Properties hasn’t responded to our request for details about the development’s exact location, but the rendering appears to show the view looking east from the narrow corner of West Gray and Webster in the Fourth Ward, a few blocks west of Post’s existing outpost of street activity.
Rendering: Post Properties
