Buildings for Sale

Buildings for Sale
04/25/18 2:45pm

Downtown Houston’s Foremost Abandoned Building Now Listed for Sale

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Downtown, Hotels
18 Comments

The Holiday-Inn-turned-Days-Inn-turned-Heaven-on-Earth-Hotel at 801 St. Joseph Pkwy. has now been posted to CoStar by commercial broker CBRE following a 2-week period of higher-than-usual on-site cleanup activity. Crews removed debris from its garage and pool late last week; and just yesterday, 2 workers scaled nearly all 31 stories of its western face to take down the semicircular light box of the Days Inn sign that once hung near the top of it (see photo above).

The seller, SFK Development, bought the property in 2012 — becoming the building’s third owner in its post-Maharishi era. (The building — which for a time was home to a Vedic school run by the former Beatles spiritual advisor — was shut down by the city in 1998.) Since then, it has been fertile ground for numerous urban explorers, as well as the imagination of several would-be redevelopers.

The sale listing includes images of possible makeovers:

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Heaven On Earth Up for Grabs
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Buildings for Sale
02/15/18 4:30pm

Two Homes-Turned-Retail on W. Gray and Stanford, Now Waiting for Their Next Gig

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Montrose, North Montrose, Retail
1 Comment

If the Platform Group has settled on a plan for redeveloping the corner of W. Gray St. and Stanford, it hasn’t made it known yet. An entity connected to the developer bought the white corner building home to the Traci Scott hair salon and the former Skinny Rita’s restaurant adjacent to it last December. The firm’s website now explains it’s “in the early stages of feasibility studies” for the pair of 2-stories at 615 and 607 W. Gray.

The 2 buildings share the parking lot visible in the snow-capped aerial above with entrances on W. Gray as well as one on Stanford, behind the hair salon. Not pictured is a narrow patio that runs along the chop shop’s Stanford side. A larger fenced-off seating area and upper deck currently front W. Gray outside the former restaurant, which closed last February after just under a year in the building.

Here’s a closer up view of Skinny Rita’s seating taken from the parking lot entrance between the 2 buildings just after the restaurant vacated the premises:

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Skinny Rita’s Plus One
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Buildings for Sale
11/27/17 2:30pm

A Flood-Ready NYFD Cabin Compound Hideout in the Friendswood Woods

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Friendswood
3 Comments

11 partly-elevated cabins off Deepwood Dr. are on the market for $69,499 to $89,499 each, or $680,000 for the whole set. The mini-neighborhood was built between 1955 and 1960, reportedly for members of the New York Fire Department who came to Friendswood (at that time, home only to a small community) for training exercises. Each house is partially, if not entirely, built on stilts.

The lowest address number, 1301, sits halfway down Deepwood, across from the Friendswood Public Works Department. From there, the complex extends southeast. 7 properties, including 1311 Deepwood, shown at top, front the road. The other 4 are accessible only by unpaved paths that branch off into the wooded area adjacent to and behind the street.

The largest, 1,300 sq. ft. at 1315 Deepwood, is one of those 4:

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Stilted Listings
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Buildings for Sale
04/10/17 11:30am

Lenten Offerings at Near Northside Church Now Include Sanctuary, Nearby Buildings

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Churches, Near Northside
4 Comments

Bible Days Church, 501 Quitman St., Near Northside, Houston, 77009Bible Days Church, 501 Quitman St., Near Northside, Houston, 77009

Bible Days Church, 501 Quitman St., Near Northside, Houston, 77009Showing up on the market this month, just in time for Easter: a couple of buildings and lots belonging to Bible Days Revival Church, formally located at or around 501 Quitman St. in Near Northside. The church gives 1935 as the construction date for at least one of the included structures up for grabs, which sit on a block along the northern light-rail line next to a formerly Exxon-branded gas station. Along with the sanctuary, the new listings include a few multifamily structures and empty lots: 

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Come Into the Light-Rail
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Buildings for Sale
03/20/17 2:00pm

Heights Waterworks Work Could be Paired with Chase Bank Sale Chaser

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Houston Heights
5 Comments

Chase Bank at 500 W. 20th St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

Heights Reservoir land saleAs the digging around has started recently across the road, the Chase Bank on W. 20th street has gone up for sale, a reader notes. Most of the land west of Nicholson St. between 19th and 20th streets is owned by Chase (which has a drive-in on the block), as is the parking lot on 20th across Lawrence. The property is wedged in with those 2 pieces of Heights Waterworks land (outlined here in red) that the city sold last year to Alliance; the apartment developer’s plan for the catty-corner sites includes a pair of 8- and 6-story midrises plus a conversion of the protected reservoir structure itself for restaurant and-or retail use. The signage at the corner of 19th and Lawrence St. (shown above) note that the bank will be seeking its fortune elsewhere.

Images: “Random Property Gossip” (top); City of Houston (bottom)

Banking on Heights Densification
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Buildings for Sale
11/17/16 1:15pm

Start Houston’s Old Eado Headquarters, Robot Human Hand Mural Up for Grabs

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East Downtown
No Comments

Start Houston HQ, 1121 Delano St., East Downtown, Houston, 77003

The current East Downtown home of startup kickstarter Start Houston is on the market at the moment, as the organization looks for a new space to host its growing techie crowd. A rep tells Swamplot that the group can’t say yet where the new digs will be — but the old digs at 1121 Delano St. are currently listed for sale at around $795,000. The 1963 building’s features include the human-robot peace wall facing Dallas St.:

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Starting Again Elsewhere
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Bars and Clubs
08/22/16 1:30pm

Buffalo Fred’s Ice House Price Now Down to $3.25 Million on N. Shepherd

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Buildings for Lease, Buildings for Sale, Houston Heights
2 Comments

Buffalo Fred's Ice House, 2708 N. Shepherd Dr., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

Buffalo Fred's Ice House, 2708 N. Shepherd Dr., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008After a month or so on the market at $3.75 million, the asking price on Buffalo Fred’s Ice House has dropped by half a million as of early last week. The 37,500 sq.ft. property, positioned right across the northern boundary of the potentially moistening Heights dry zone at 2708 N. Shepherd Dr., sits a few blocks north of the ongoing culinary redevelopment zone near the recent Fiesta Mart breakup. The HAR sales listing notes that leasing the space is an option (and a matching LoopNet leasing listing has been added for the property in the last few weeks).

The listing claims the early-1980s ice house is now running on a month-to-month lease; the bar building is up for grabs along with the 2,100-sq.-ft. building formerly occupied by Speedy Cycle Lube (on the right hand side, both above and below):

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Room to Roam in Houston Heights
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Buildings for Sale
07/25/16 4:00pm

Digging Up a Little Dirt on the Uncle Johnny’s Good Cars Lot in Near Northside

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Land for Sale, Near Northside
1 Comment

1901 N. Main St., Near Northside, Houston, 77009

Chris Andrews has caught a few snapshots of what appears to be a soil sampling crew at work at 1901 N. Main St., formerly the site of Uncle Johnny’s Good Cars. Most of the 37,679-sq.-ft. property, occupying the block on the east side of N. Main between Hogan and Gargan streets (including the 1950s auto shop and the next door 1930s Beer’s Building), was transferred to a legal entity called Cerveza Four in May of 2015. Shortly thereafter, Keller Williams Realty posted the cheerily-soundtracked video listing below showing the ins and outs of the property, nestled between the Casa De Amigos city health clinic to the south and the former home of Alamo Thrifty Bail Bonds (now bike shop HAM Cycles 2) across Gargan:

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Movement on N. Main
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Buildings for Sale
12/15/15 10:45am

Last Chance Looms To Mail On Yale

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Houston Heights, Quicklink
4 Comments

LAST CHANCE LOOMS TO MAIL ON YALE Yale St. Post Office Closure NoticeRegular customers of the seriously-named Heights Finance Station US post office at 1050 Yale St. got an early Christmas present this month: a letter from management, tucked into each P.O. box with care, informing them that the branch is shutting down at the end of the month. The facility will dispense its last book of stamps at 5 P.M. on December 30; come 2016, Heights-area postal operations will be consolidated at the remodeled T.W. House Carrier Annex at Bevis and W. 19th St. in the distant wilds of northern Shady Acres, a 2-mile drive northwest from Yale station. The 6,161 sq.-ft. Yale building is for sale; the property occupies an acre of central Heights turf, standing across W. 11th Street from neo-diner Lola and across Yale from open-any-day-now ice house 8 Row Flint. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox; Notice: MKultra25 via HAIF

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Airports
04/20/15 5:15pm

Half Hangar, Half Home by Hooks Airport Now Boarding, Looking for $3.5 Million Takeoff

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Buildings for Sale, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Mixed Use, Spring
3 Comments

8303-thora-01

8303-thora-02

When the listing of an expansive 2002 property in Spring says it has an “oversized, attached” garage, believe it. In this case, it’s referring to the airplane hangar in back (top). The mixed-use building’s informal first level features residential floorspace with aviation storage just steps away. The more formal living space upstairs has a bird’s-eye view of the inventory (top). Runway access to David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport is immediately adjacent to the property, which is located, fittingly, off Steubner-Airline Rd. and north of Spring-Cypress Rd. Since February, a re-listing has held to a steady course pointed toward $3.5 million, the asking price set in a November-to-January initial sortie.

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Plane and Simple
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Buildings for Sale
04/06/15 3:45pm

Houston Chronicle Building Goes on Sale Tomorrow, the Chronicle Reports

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Buying and Selling, Downtown, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing
23 Comments

HOUSTON CHRONICLE BUILDING GOES ON SALE TOMORROW, THE CHRONICLE REPORTS Houston Chronicle Building, 801 Texas Ave., Downtown HoustonThe Houston Chronicle’s 10-story downtown headquarters and neighboring parking garage will be listed for sale tomorrow — with the Hearst newspaper’s reporters and other employees still working away inside. “Chronicle executives said prospective buyers have already expressed interest in the property and that more are expected once word spreads that the building at 801 Texas and an adjacent parking garage are up for sale,” writes real estate reporter Nancy Sarnoff from somewhere inside the complex. Indeed, company executives have already suggested to her the story’s conclusion: “’This building is likely to be torn down and replaced with a modern skyscraper that will generate more revenue for the city. It’s in a prime location,’ Paul Barbetta, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Houston Chronicle Media Group, said Monday.” Chronicle employees will be allowed to exit the building and take their belongings with them to a revamped, smaller, outside-the-Loop just-inside-the-Loop facility before that happens. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Walter P Moore

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Buildings for Sale
03/13/15 11:45am

Off-Menu Special at Georges Bistro on Westheimer: The Whole Shebang

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First Montrose Commons, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Restaurants
2 Comments

OFF-MENU SPECIAL AT GEORGES BISTRO ON WESTHEIMER: THE WHOLE SHEBANG Georges Bistro, 219 Westheimer Rd., Lower Westheimer, Montrose, HoustonGeorges Bistro co-owner Monique Guy tells Eater Houston’s Jakeisha Wilmore that the French restaurant in the space formerly occupied by whole-hog-HQ Feast — and before that by Guy’s Chez Georges — is not on the verge of closing. Who could be spreading rumors to the contrary? Well, there is that online listing for the 3,114-sq.-ft. converted foursquare that houses the property at 219 Westheimer that went up a few weeks ago, offering the building, the 5,500-sq.-ft. lot, and the restaurant, including all fixtures, furniture, and equipment, for $1.295 million. Guy, who with her husband, Georges, owns the building and operates Georges, tells Wilmore the couple only listed the property “to see what kind of interest it would generate.” She declined to say if they had received any notable offers. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: LoopNet

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Buildings for Sale
11/24/14 10:30am

Houston Chronicle Complex Downtown Going on Sale — A Year or 2 Too Late?

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Buying and Selling, Downtown, Quicklink
15 Comments

HOUSTON CHRONICLE COMPLEX DOWNTOWN GOING ON SALE — A YEAR OR 2 TOO LATE? Houston Chronicle Building, 801 Texas Ave., Downtown HoustonThe Houston Chronicle‘s former real estate reporter says Hearst is putting the Chronicle complex at 801 Texas Ave. up for sale at a less-than-ideal time. Ralph Bivins reports that the newspaper’s parent company has just selected brokerage firm HFF to market the building, on the block surrounded by Milam, Travis, Texas, and Prairie, and its separate parking garage. But “Hearst would have met stronger demand by putting the Chronicle property on the market a year or two ago,” Bivins writes. “Hearst moved too late to catch the crest of the wave. The price for the Chronicle property is expected to be less than $50 million.” In July, the company announced the newspaper’s offices would be moved to revamped facilities in the former Houston Post complex at 4747 Southwest Fwy. [Realty News Report; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Ralph Bivins

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Buildings for Sale
10/21/14 5:15pm

Now on the Market: A Midtown Building Where Successive Printing Companies Have Left Their Marks

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Commercial Real Estate, Midtown
2 Comments

7345-sims-after-20

2325-fannin-sign

2325-fannin-boot detail

Hunkered down behind a tagged security curtain, a bunker-like commercial building in Midtown’s mid-section popped up on the market overnight with a $585K asking price in a “lot-priced” listing. The corner building of uncertain vintage fronting Fannin St. has a history with commercial printers (and insurance companies), and more recently, shoe repair. Adkins Printing struck an exterior inlay on the building’s forehead (above) that’s still visible behind current signage, as is some faint lettering from its days as the offices of Pound Printing and Stationery. More recent signage attached the building’s blank north side (at right) touts available “stationary,” a spelling more appropriate perhaps to Al’s Handmade Boots, the store now occupying half of the building, than to the location’s printing history.

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Imprinted
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