10/29/07 11:07am

Belle Meade at River Oaks Elevation Drawing

Belle Meade at River Oaks on Westheimer

A permit was issued late last week. And so sitework begins for the 119-unit, 168,398-square-foot Belle Meade at River Oaks, on Westheimer between Ferndale and Sackett, developed by Grayco Partners:

The project is a 6-story epicore (light steel) construction on top of a 2-story podium garage. The boutique building will resemble the look of turn of the century, old New York hotels in brick with cast stone details, while spacious interiors will include such amenities as hardwood floors, 10-foot ceilings, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and individual wine chillers. Community amenities will include conditioned interior corridors, heated pool, fitness facility, business center and a resident recreation room.

Grayco is also developing Museum Place, at Fannin and Oakdale in Midtown—a “contemporary design” also on a two-story podium. And Braeswood Place, on North Braeswood just east of Stella Link: the more usual four-story stick apartments hugging a parking garage, but it’ll also include 21 townhouses. It’s meant to look like Rice. All three properties will be managed by Camden Property Trust.

10/25/07 8:00am

Kirby Old Spanish Trail Apartments

Isn’t mixed use great? On Old Spanish Trail at Kirby, where Target and Garden Ridge used to be, Simmons Vedder is ready to go with this exciting version of a retail-and-residences mix. They company is leasing the land back from the Texas General Land Office.

Yes, that’s three stories of apartments above a brand new strip center facing O.S.T. No need for fake towers at the corners on this one!

Residents won’t have far to travel for shopping: just walk to your car in the seven-level garage, then pull out and park in front!

Not pictured: the drug store with drive-thru next door. See the full site plan after the jump.

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10/03/07 10:41am

The Retreat at the Heights

This, reports Houston Architecture Info Forum member Porchman, is a drawing of the $30 million, 195-unit, five-story apartment complex about to go up on the former site of the Kaplan’s Ben Hur department store on Yale, which was demolished back in June. Except it’ll be different: That giant yellow steel Y bracket you see won’t be there. And the retail indicated on the building’s ground floor is apparently just for show.

The Retreat at the Heights, the newest “Retreat” development from Allied Realty Services, will reportedly feature an equal mix of one- and two-bedroom units, a pool and fitness room, residents willing to shell out an average of $1500 a month, and a two-level parking garage. One of those levels will be below grade (detention-pond parking, anyone?) and each will be accessed from a separate street.

Notable: Top floors are shown with metal siding, a nod to the many simple metal warehouses that littered the Heights before they were replaced with historic homes.

Porchman adds:

Another developer is going to put 4 townhomes on the lot west of Long John Silvers, which is currently being currently being used as the construction lot. They’re targeting the fried fish lovers market . . .

10/02/07 10:30am

The Retreat at Cypress Station

When it was shopped around to investors last year, there weren’t too many offers for the Retreat at Cypress Station, a 296-unit apartment complex on an 18-acre site north of FM1960 near I-45. How come?

Hendricks & Partners’ principal Jim A. Hearn says the two-year-old asset at 18200 Westfield Place Dr., assessed at $22.7 million by Harris County, was on the market with another brokerage firm about one year ago, but was pulled due to lack of buyer interest. “By luck, this property was in lease-up during Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and the owners took on a significant number of corporate leases,” Hearn explains. As the corporate leases ran out, he says vacancies went up. “Some of the buyers were spooked,” he says.

What would happen when all those Katrina-era leases expired? Boo!

Apparently, some residents were spooked as well—by local crime. Back in January, an anonymous resident posted this gem about the complex to the Apartment Ratings website:

The shooting that occured on Wednesday was due to a damn drug deal.. If I understand correctly, the resident will NO longer be living here… BE SMART, take your damn valuables out of your vehicle and keep an eye out for your neighbors… This is a very good property for the area, yes you pay for it… It is worth it…

Well, now only 20 percent of the apartments are vacant. And the complex has just been bought by a fund managed by Boston’s TA Realty Advisors—even before Allied Realty Services, the company that built it, was able to put it back on the market.

09/27/07 8:27am

Ambition Killed the Cat Wall Decal from BlikPicky property managers won’t let you paint the walls of your apartment? MarketWatch’s Ruth Mantell suggests you stick it to them:

Renters with an inflexible landlord, or those who want to avoid the mess of painting, can try wall decals, suggests Annette Hannon, founder of a Burke, Va.-based design firm.

She likes the removable decals available through Web sites such as whatisblik.com and modernwallgraphics.com. The decals come in geometric and free form patterns, with designs such as flowers, and patterns inspired by Rococo style and artist Keith Haring. A multicolored three-pack of Haring’s “Pack of Dogs” costs $23 on whatisblik.

“It’s those kinds of things that are quirky and fun, and very much something that shows your personality,” Hannon says.

“When it’s time to move, they come off really easily. And you’re not spending so much money that you become so invested in it.”

Of course, with designs like multicolored Rainbow Poops (yes, you read that right), some renters might be tempted to leave a colorful grid of decals on the wall when they move anyway—just to send a special message to that special landlord.

Photo: “Ambition Killed the Cat” decal at Blik

09/26/07 9:52am

Le Maison on Revere Apartments

Worried that there still aren’t going to be enough places to live near the corner of Westheimer and Kirby after all the construction is done? Relax. The Texas division of Orlando, Florida’s ZOM Development just got a slew of construction permits approved yesterday for their next fancy apartment complex just a few blocks to the east of that busy intersection, at the corner of Revere and Cameron, at 2701 Revere St. (Cleverly, the address on the permits is listed as 2727 Revere. Why would they give it that number?)

Going up: Le Maison on Revere, 431 rental units on a just-under-six-acre site, a five-story mix of “flats and high-end loft units.”

But it looks like there’s more to it. Not satisfied with the Beaux-Arts-meets-the-Alamo stylings of the Bel Air Apartments they recently developed and filled up not too far away on Allen Parkway, the sleek modern look of the 2727 Kirby tower now going up across the street from their new development, or the apparent Superman-in-Gotham City theme of West Ave on the other side of Kirby, ZOM has apparently decided that their new complex will, at last, point out the absurdities of the area’s stylistic hodgepodge.

How? By theming the building with a higher, more symbolic purpose in mind.

That’s right: The Le Maison on Revere apartments will be marketed and dressed up to look like “New Orleans garden style apartments,” and thereby perform the public service of reminding residents of the former glory of their neighboring city and the dangers of living at low elevations in a high-water town.

Expect the top floors to fill up first.

09/21/07 10:23am

Aerial View of Blvd Place

Having trouble leasing upscale retail space in your giant mixed-use redevelopment project? No prob. Just build sleek new quarters for your existing tenants first. When they move, demolish their old building and build your new project in its place. Somebody else has gotta sign up by then, right?

The Houston Business Journal gives some details of Wulfe & Co.’s plans at the Galleria-area Boulevard Place:

The first building will rise at the project’s southern boundary, at the northwest corner of Post Oak Boulevard and Ambassador Way. The 70,000-square-foot building will house seven tenants currently in the Pavilion on Post Oak and Fashion Place retail centers that are relocating to Blvd Place — including Cafe Annie, Americas and Hermes. Once the tenants move, the older retail centers will be demolished and the remainder of Blvd Place will go under construction.

Retail, of course, is just part of the picture. There’s a hotel, condos, and an apartment building in the project . . .

Wulfe would not disclose the hotel name because the hospitality company wants to make the announcement, probably in about a month. However, he did reveal that the 225-room luxury hotel will include 175 to 200 high-end condominiums on the upper floors.

Wulfe also said it is “pretty definite” that the apartment building will be developed by Houston-based Hanover Co. An industry source says Hanover plans to buy Wulfe’s land for a 55-story apartment tower, making it the second-tallest building in the Galleria area behind the Williams Tower.

But what about the rest of that retail?

Whole Foods Market Inc. announced last year that it will build a 78,000-square-foot flagship store at the southwest corner of Post Oak and San Felipe. There are currently no other new tenants signed.

No other new tenants signed? That leaves just over 350,000 square feet of planned retail space in the development still available. No word in the article either about the 120,000 square feet of boutique office space, mostly on two stories above the retail. And construction is scheduled to start next month.

Wulfe joked at last week’s Commercial Real Estate Women luncheon that come Oct. 1, “somebody’s going to be shoveling something” at the site . . .

After the jump: renderings of that superbig, supermod Whole Foods that ate Eatzi’s, plus more Boulevard Place images.

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09/20/07 8:16am

Cartoon of Highrise Planned for 1717 BissonnetOne advantage of keeping your Houston-style Big Tower in a Wealthy Residential Neighborhood project secret: You can plat the property, prepare traffic-impact studies, and upgrade utilities before anyone notices. One downside: Media-savvy neighbors might catch on and announce your project before you do. Or at least release renderings.

Here’s what Buckhead Investment Partners is saying about the 23-story mixed-use tower the company is planning for the current site of the Maryland Manor apartments, on the south side of Bissonnet near Dunlavy: A six-story base will include a 467-car parking garage, space for retail and a restaurant on the ground floor, and five live-work townhomes. An “amenity plaza” level on the sixth floor will have an exercise room, spa, and office space. Above it all: 17 floors of either apartments or condos.

Rainwater collection. LEED-Silver rating. Red-brick exterior with cast-stone details. But best of all is the spin:

The project design has been chosen so that all building residential units will be above the tree line, ensuring the greatest level of privacy for the surrounding neighborhood and the maximum view of Houston’s skylines and tree canopy from the units.

Emerging Boulevard Oaks development strategy: You won’t be able to see us, because we’ll be above the trees.

08/10/07 7:29pm

Street Perspective of Proposed River Oaks District Development by Oliver McMillan

Aerial View of Proposed River Oaks District Mixed Use DevelopmentThe Houston Business Journal gives more details on the River Oaks District, a 15-acre, $600 million mixed-use development proposed for Westheimer just inside the loop, on the site of the Westcreek Apartments, between Highland Village and the Galleria. It’s hard to imagine River Oaks moving further west than that. Once you get to the other side of the loop of course, you might as well call yourself Tanglewood.

Two luxury hotels are on tap. The five-star properties will have a total of 500 guest rooms, and 150 condominiums for sale at the top of one tower.

Another building will hold 300 upscale apartment units. A 10-story office building with 250,000 square feet of space also is part of the mix. And since the Galleria is synonymous with shopping, the developer plans 350,000 square feet of mostly ground-level retail space.

San Diego developer OliverMcMillan says groundbreaking is scheduled for a good year-and-a-half from now. So there’s plenty of time for this project to morph into a more typical Houston-style mixed-use project: maybe a stylish Sam’s Club next to some shiny new apartments?

After the jump, plans and more flashy drawings!

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08/07/07 11:05pm

Former HISD Central Administration Building on Richmond

Proposed Costco on Richmond

The building was simply too big, too lavish, too expensive, too outmoded, and too hot a property for a school district to keep. The site was prime real estate, near the projected path of a new rail line, and perfect—said the buyers—for a dense “New Urbanist-style” mixed-use center. The big concrete box surrounded by parking just didn’t seem to make sense. So after HISD sold its Central Administration building on Richmond at Weslayan, Trammell Crow Co. had it razed last year to make the site ready for new, fresher, denser development.

And the new development is . . . a Costco! With an LA Fitness above it! Plus some outside-the-mall-style pad sites in a big surface parking lot facing Richmond! A small parking garage too. Oh, and an apartment complex tucked in back.

What happened?

[Trammell Crow project manager Craig] Cheney said the project had quietly shifted direction some time ago.

“We looked around, and we had all these competing projects with integrated residential, office and retail, all competing for the same few retailers,” he said. “Life is too short to get into that kind of situation.”

So the project — which had an initial design including a hotel, high-rise and garden homes, a bookstore, grocery store and other features integrated into one “village” — took on a different form.

Shorter version: Costco wanted the site, so the developers jumped at the chance for some of that inside-the-loop big-box excitement.

After our jump, dreamy architect sketches of Paseo, the mixed-use European-style “lifestyle center” Trammell Crow and the Morgan Group waved in front of us for a brief, shining moment in our—yes, too-short lives.

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08/01/07 6:00pm

Elder Street Artist Lofts in the Former Old Jefferson Davis HospitalSome residents of the new Elder St. Artist Lofts (formerly the Old Jefferson Davis Hospital) in the First Ward are upset with the building’s management:

“To me it’s not an artist loft anymore,” says one resident who’s been there since the beginning. “We receive the newsletters from ArtSpace in Minneapolis and we see the artist live-work spaces that are opening up in Buffalo, New York and in San Francisco and other parts of the country, and they’re active and they’re artist-run and they’ve got the support of the city, they’ve got the support of the community and they’re vibrant. And we’re not on that level, and I don’t know if we ever will be.”

Current and former tenants gripe to the Houston Press that the resident managers play favorites and will only rent month-to-month, and that there aren’t enough artists in the building.

Photo of Elder St. Artists Lofts: Greater Houston Preservation Alliance

05/21/07 9:57am

View Down West Ave

The teaser website for the apartments-and-retail complex slated for that large, recently scraped site at the southwest corner of Kirby and Westheimer is up! What will you find there? For starters, a trance soundtrack you’ll have a tough time figuring out how to turn off, plus slick rendered views and a whizzy video of a dark and urban-looking streetscape where pedestrians wield shopping bags and hover precariously on balconies.

This is the former site of the River Oaks Tennis Center. The development is named West Ave, and to prove it they’re putting in a new street by the same name just west of Kirby, extending from Kipling to Westheimer. Of course the big news is the two floors of retail space facing Kirby, West Avenue, and Westheimer. On top of that: five stories of apartments, managed by Gables Residential. The parking garage is tucked in back.

After the jump: The plan and more images.

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05/14/07 9:49am

The great southern Med Center land grab continues: Moody National Companies has bought a one-and-a-quarter acre site at the corner of Woodbury and Cambridge—about a quarter-mile southwest of the Spires. What for? How about . . . a new 200-unit apartment tower? Globe St. reports:

The fact the parcel is situated within 100 feet of the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine’s proposed 2.7 million sf [new campus] is underwriting the project’s potential as are the proposed rents. “We’ve projected rents at around $1.65 per sf, with an average unit measuring somewhere around 950 sf,” Moody tells GlobeSt.com. “We want to offer a lot of variety from smaller studio units to larger luxury units.” He adds that Moody will manage and lease the tower.

No architect yet. No general contractor. Early-2009 opening.

05/09/07 8:46am

Calais at Courtland Square Interior CourtyardLooking for apartments? Can’t decide between, say, the Calais in Midtown, the Meyer Park or Meyer Park Lakeside, the Beverly Wilshire, or the Seasons on Hollister Road?

Why not buy them all? How about if we throw in a couple of complexes in Richmond, four more near Dallas, one in New Braunfels and another in San Antonio? That’ll make it easy for you, right?

Oh, and if you’ve got around $400 mil in cash that’ll make it a whole lot easier.