A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO SELLING THIS HEIGHTS BUNGALOW FOR $150 
Three weeks since the announcement, and with a little more than a week remaining before the June 13 deadline, more than 2,000 essays have come in from would-be buyers requesting that Heights real estate agent Mark Wachs sell his Heights bungalow at 213 E. 23rd St. to them for one heartening reason or another. But writing in The Leader, Kim Hogstrom reveals a more curious development: The vast majority of the applicants either can’t or don’t want to follow Wachs’s instructions — or never bothered to look at them too closely. Only about 500 of the submitted 200-word essays came with the required $150 application fee. With enough fees coming in from also-rans, some fortunate buyer would be able to purchase the 2-bedroom, 1,056-sq.-ft., 2-bedroom, 1-bath bungalow for just $150 (plus title and closing costs) — and still allow Wachs to receive what he thinks the house is worth, which he hints is somewhere between $265K and $550K. On the website he set up for the offer, Wachs states that application fees will be refunded if he doesn’t end up with a buyer using this method; he also indicates he might extend the deadline. [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Mark Wachs
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Buying and Selling
HOW TO BUY A HOUSE IN THE HEIGHTS FOR $150 
Or just pay $150 and don’t get a house at all! No, there are no missing zeros or Ks in that sale price, but there is a catch: Real estate agent and Houston Heights resident Michael Wachs says he’s accepting offers until June 13th, each accompanied by a nonrefundable offer fee of $150, for his family’s 2-bedroom, 1-bath bungalow at 213 E. 23rd St. The decision of which one to accept, he indicates, will be made by judging the best 200-word essay that accompanies it, not the offer amount. The required essay, he writes, should explain “why we should sell the house to you,” but include no names or identifying information: “The fee is nonrefundable if we find a buyer via this process. If we do not, we will refund the offer fee.” (He’s also discouraging his family and friends from applying: “It just would be fishy if our parents happened to have the best essay,” he notes.) Included on the website he set up to explain the sale — along with a handy form for collecting email addresses for his real-estate business and a bit of encouragement to support some hearing-aid legislation now under consideration in the Texas House — are a few photos of the property, a sellers disclosure, inspection report, and mold remediation certificate. Why’s his family selling? “We had longterm plans to fix-up our little place or build on the lot, but our baby is now going to school across the city and we don’t want to deal with traffic. (It’s a very Houston reason to move.)” HCAD values the 1,056-sq.-ft., 1920 home with 2-car garage on a 5,300-sq.-ft. lot at $394,129. [$150 House] Photo: Terrence Foster
RIVER OAKS BAPTIST SCHOOL BRINGS WAYWARD WESTHEIMER WALGREENS INTO THE FOLD 
A long-contemplated drugstore-to-Baptist-School handover finally took place last month. Back in January, Swamplot reported that the River Oaks Baptist School was in the process of buying the Walgreens at 3900 Westheimer Rd., in order to fit a “possible parking garage and secondary exit onto Westheimer†onto the 1.8-acre site. In announcing the transaction, however, the school hasn’t said precisely what it will do with its new digs — or when or whether the now-vacant drugstore building will be demolished. It is, however, developing a new master plan for the campus. The Walgreens relocated into the former Fresh Market across the street and on the other side of Weslayan — at 3745 Westheimer — in March. Photo: Swamplot inbox
TAKARA-SO COMPLEX BACK ON THE MARKET, THIS TIME WITH NEW UTH UPGRADE 
If you were thinking its purchase by a SoCal investment firm almost exactly 1 year ago meant the pseudo-Japanesee 1962 apartment complex at 1919 W. Main St. would be shielded from the evict-and-redevelop cycle for a few years, think again. Apartment Income Investors has put the Takara-So Apartments, which sit on most of the block surrounded by Hazard, W. Main, Colquitt, and McDuffie, back on the market — with a twist. Though on-site signs have not been changed, the complex is described as the Takara South Apartments in a sleek set of marketing materials produced by Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, the firm that’s marketing the 77-unit, 10-building, 1.22-acre property once owned by Allen Stanford. Why unload the storied complex now? So much has happened in a Montrose year: There’s that $2.05 million jump in the property’s tax appraisal. And maybe some profits to be made: Though no asking price is listed, included comps indicate the sellers are likely aiming for offers between $8 and $10.8 million. The purchase price was listed on company documents as $5.51 million. [LoopNet; previously on Swamplot]Â Photo: Newmark Grubb Knight Frank
HOUSTON CHRONICLE BUILDING GOES ON SALE TOMORROW, THE CHRONICLE REPORTS 
The 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
Is it Rice’s manifest destiny to extend its land holdings all the way from the Texas Medical Center to West U? The university already owns a bit of frontage on Kirby Dr., on West U’s eastern border, between University Dr. and Amherst St., but the holdings between that far outpost of the Village Arcade and the main campus are a little spotty. Two recent purchases — and accompanying demolitions — appear poised to make the swath more continuous, however.
This week occasioned the demolition of the house at 5606 Chaucer Dr., 2 blocks west of Rice Stadium, directly over the back fence from Little Woodrow’s on Morningside Dr. The home appeared in this morning’s demo report — along with a neighbor at 5608 Chaucer St. (at center left and left in the top photo). County tax records show that an entity connected to Rice purchased both houses late last year. (The second house is listed as 5612 Chaucer St. on the tax rolls).
Tales of Chaucer
Katherine Feser has the inside scoop on how the $7 million strip center portrayed above — but loaded with a Dunkin’ Donuts, a dry cleaner, and — yes, a mattress store — is coming to land in its rightful place along the south side of Memorial Dr. just east of Westcott, 2 doors down from the MFAH’s Bayou Bend Collection. Developer Amir Taghdisi tells Feser he and his brother Alan chose not to build a 3- or 4-story office building with below-grade parking on the site “because it would have been an outdated format from the beginning.” Instead, the 10,000-sq.-ft. strip center is now under construction at the back of the three-quarters-of-an-acre lot, with rows of parking facing Memorial Dr. and Knox St.
Why think so small? “I had all the big names wanting to do a 30-story high-rise for lease,” Taghdisi tells Feser. But he says the homeowners association of Bayou Bend Towers, directly to the south, wouldn’t let him.
The Towers and the Strip
DIGGING INTO THE DIRT AROUND THE OLD CODE ENFORCEMENT BUILDING IN MIDTOWN 
A soil testing crew was spotted earlier this week boring into the earth adjacent to the city’s 2-story former code enforcement building at 3300 Main St., a block north of where the new MATCH arts center is under construction. The city sold the building to the Midtown Redevelopment Authority in 2011. In November of last year, PM Realty Group said it had put the property under contract, but the transaction does not appear to have been completed yet. Photo: Bob Russell
With 2 years to go on its current lease in a Bayou Place II space at 315 Capitol St. downtown, the Architecture Center Houston has begun searching for a new home. Buy and renovate or build? Sure — as long as it’s a “long term solution,” the center’s director tells Swamplot. A new HQ should have more space than its current 5,000 sq. ft. spot (through the main doors under the canopy in the photo above), plus “more visible street presence and a better parking situation than we have now,” writes Rusty Bienvenue.
The new digs don’t have to be downtown: “Our membership doesn’t mind being pioneers and we believe we bring a cool factor to an area that few other organizations can match.” But it’s now or . . . back to plain ol’ office space, he adds. If the center, which combines gallery and meeting space with the Houston offices of the American Institute of Architecture and the Houston Architecture Foundation, can’t find something to buy in the next couple of months, it’ll go back to looking at lease space.
This flyer detailing the options went out to members last week:
Pioneers?
The community garden at 803 Kipling St. in Audubon Place listed for sale earlier at the end of last month is set to be purchased by the City of Houston and turned into a neighborhood park, according to its owner. William Winkler tells Swamplot he and the city have settled on a price and he’s signed off on a letter of intent; he says he’s now waiting for a formal purchase contract. The 8,400-sq.-ft. lot at the southwest corner of Kipling and Stanford, known as Greenleaf Gardens since Winkler first built raised beds and leased them out in 2012, was previously the site of a 2-story home that burned in 2008. It’s still listed on MLS for $630,000.
Greenleaf Gardens
Last week a for-sale sign went up at the 8,400-sq.-ft. vacant lot at the corner of Kipling and Stanford that’s been used for the past several years as an Audubon Place community garden. And there it was on MLS, available for $630K: the former homesite William Winkler had bought in 2012 and parceled out for neighborhood veggie-growing efforts, now offered as “the only lot in the Audubon Place Historic District that’s available to build a new construction home.”
Greenleaf Gardens began operating on the site in May 2012, after Winkler purchasing the lot for $300,000. Subscribers rented out 4-ft.-by-20-ft. raised-bed plots on the property.
Winkler considers the garden operation a success; he says he’s selling only because of a change in his personal financial situation. Several users of the garden have indicated they’d be willing to pay significantly higher annual subscription fees. Earlier this week, Winkler sent out an email indicating he’s open to another option: selling the property to a nonprofit that would keep the garden running.
Greenleaf Gardens
Rice U.’s real estate appetite for Rice Village property just picked up another choice tidbit: 2445 Times Blvd. That’s the 1955 flat-topped 7,500-sq.-ft. retail property on the southeast corner of Times Blvd. and Kelvin Dr. that’s spooned by mega-neighbor Village Arcade (which Rice also owns). In its listing by Davis Commercial, seller Rinkoff Rice Village LP’s asking price for the “trophy” corner was $3.995 million, though it initially sought $4.2 million. Who’s currently on display behind all the storefront windows?
Miss Saigon Goes to Rice
Residents of the Georgian Apartments in Highland Village are still up in the air about a possible sale of the 1965 courtyard complex, which sits just behind the Cadence Bank building at the corner of Westheimer and Weslayan. Last July, the River Oaks Management Company sent residents of the apartment for the over-55 set a notice indicating that an agreement to sell the 3.4-acre property had been reached and that the closing date would be in December. Residents heard rumors of a 40-story highrise planned for the site. Then in mid-December, according to a source, word came that the sale was off and that no other buyer had expressed interest.
But shortly after Christmas came another twist: the unidentified prospective purchaser has been granted an extension. “Closing would likely occur in early spring if the purchaser is satisfied with their final evaluations and decides to go forward with the purchase,” reads the latest note sent to residents.
Highrise Site?
The last date to order cheese enchiladas at Los Dos Amigos, the Mexican restaurant that’s stood at 5720 Washington Ave at the corner of Birdsall for the past 39 years, is February 28th. In early December, the longtime owners of an L-shaped group of parcels spanning the entire north side of the Washington Ave block between Birdsall and Malone — along with an adjoining “L” around the corner facing Birdsall (see map above) — sold the whole thing to a developer out of Dallas operating under the name of a partnership calling itself OSF Washington. Among the other entities linked to the buyers: Vintala Partners, which has developed apartments in the past.
Also on the block and going away: the Premo’s Grocery building at 5702 Washington. The entire site, including both buildings and parking lots, measures 26,675 sq. ft.
Developers from Dallas
ATLANTA COMPANY UPGRADING ENERGY CORRIDOR, WOODFOREST APARTMENT COMPLEXES FROM COUNTRY TO CITY 
A note on the purchase of 2 Houston apartment complexes by Atlanta’s Radco Companies noted in this morning’s roundup of Headlines: Urbanization — in advance or in recognition of actual changes-on-the-ground — appears to be part of the plan. In taking over the properties from Fannie Mae, Radco has renamed the 122-unit Country Place apartments at 1015 Country Place Dr. in the Energy Corridor to City Terrace. And the 458-unit Saddle Ridge apartments (pictured here) at 12800 Woodforest Blvd. at the northern tip of Riviera East, east of Uvalde Rd., is shedding its rural shadings under new ownership as well: It’s new name is City Crossing Apartments. The company also plans to spend an average of $13,300 per unit in upgrades. [Real Estate Bisnow; more info] Photo: Radco Companies
