Eminent Domain

Eminent Domain
05/04/18 4:15pm

Uptown Bus Lanes Will Drive Through Newly-Shuttered Chick-fil-A Drive-Thru at 610 and Richmond

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Public Transportation, Restaurants, Uptown
5 Comments

The 2 new METRO bus lanes — linking a proposed Bellaire transit center to the new middle-of-the-road path up Post Oak Blvd. — won’t run over the actual building at Chick-fil-A’s Richmond Ave location, but they will cut through the property. Last month, the fast-food company agreed to vacate its spot at 5005 Richmond after the State of Texas initiated an eminent domain proceeding against it — and the location subsequently closed. (The 4 strip tenants in Weingarten Realty’s surrounding Richmond Square Shopping Center — BestBuy, Mattress1One, Cost Plus World Market, and Luggage & Leather — are also targeted in the proceeding.)

Adding the new transit route (shown in the map below as a vertical orange line partly covered-over with yellowish-gray) is part of a whole tangle of changes TxDOT has planned for the 610-59 interchange:

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Eminent Domain
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Buying and Selling
08/02/16 11:45am

Land Purchases Beginning Along Proposed Houston-to-Dallas Bullet Train Route

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Eminent Domain, Proposed Developments, Public Transportation, Quicklink
29 Comments

LAND PURCHASES BEGINNING ALONG PROPOSED HOUSTON-TO-DALLAS BULLET TRAIN ROUTE Tokaido Shinkansen Tokyo Osaka LineTexas Central Railway’s CEO tells Realty News Report’s Ralph Bivins that owners of some properties in the projected path of the planned Houston-to-Dallas 200mph rail line have already agreed to sell their land to the company, which is hoping to get started on construction of the 90-minute route next year. Tim B. Keith says he’s “encouraged with the progress” of what he refers to as the project’s “voluntary land purchase program.” He notes that “Texas’ Constitution and state statutes have long granted eminent domain authority to railroads such as Texas Central, as well as pipeline companies, electric power companies and other industries,” but calls eminent domain “a last resort.” The line’s Houston station is now planned for “the area along the 610 Loop between 290 and I-10″ after a Federal Railroad Administration review rejected the idea of a Downtown stop because of projected high costs and environmental impacts. [Realty News Report; Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Tokaido Shinkansen Tokyo-Osaka line: Texas Central Railway  

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Eminent Domain
05/05/15 4:45pm

HCC Grabbing All It Can Eat at Denny’s, Pizza Hut, Schlotzky’s, V Star Buffet, Entire Woodridge Plaza Shopping Center

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Gulfgate, Lawsuits, Shopping Centers
3 Comments

Woodridge Plaza Shopping Center, 6969 Gulf Fwy., Houston

Woodridge Plaza Shopping Center, 6969 Gulf Fwy., HoustonKing Dollar, Pizza Hut, Sherwin-Williams, Sun Loan, Mini’s Cleaners, Ruchi’s Taqueria, Schlotzky’s, Tiendo Rio Lempa, Denny’s, Hairtex & Nails, Nancy’s Cake Designs, Nationwide Insurance, Edible Arrangements, Todo Jewelry, Video Square, V Star (pictured here), and all of the businesses in the Woodridge Plaza shopping center at 6969 Gulf Fwy. — they’re all going away. The Houston Community College System wants to expand its Southeast College East Side Campus onto the 5.7-acre property to its south, on the north side of I-45 near Gulfgate. A reader who isn’t involved in the legal tussle, but who’s looked through the records on the county clerk’s website, describes the back-and-forth as laid out in the documents: “It looks like the special commissioners valued the shopping center at $12,500,000. Both the landowner, Compass Investors Group LLC, and HCCS objected and are seeking a trial for a higher, and a lower valuation, respectively. Texas Capital Bank is owed about $3.5 million on a mortgage on the property and also intervened. The landowner lawsuit is in Cause number 1043516 in County Court 4. HCCS also filed condemnation actions against all the tenants (cause 1057330 in County Court 4).”

Images: Moseley Commercial

The Taking of Woodridge Plaza
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Eminent Domain
06/12/13 12:05pm

TxDOT Says No Mor Chicken, Need Mor Road

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Freeways and Toll Roads, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Transportation, Webster
11 Comments

The 11-year run is coming to an end: According to a letter signed by franchise operator Charles Gibson and posted in the store’s window, June 14 will be the last day for this Webster Chick-Fil-A. The letter explains that TxDOT has purchased the property with plans to expand I-45. Across that freeway from the Baybrook Mall, this Chick-Fil-A is the northernmost chain of that cluster of ’em accessible via the feeder from Bay Area Blvd.

Photo: Panoramio user MrQuick

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Attractions
01/19/11 1:29pm

Out of the Way, Tiny Soldiers, Here Comes the Grand Parkway: Katy’s Forbidden Gardens Is Closing Down

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Eminent Domain, Katy, Katy Prairie, Museums, Openings and Closings
21 Comments

Segment E of Houston’s new Grand Parkway — more commonly known as the new ring-road highway planned to cut through the Katy Prairie to link the Katy Mills Mall to the Houston Premium Outlets mall in Cypress (and to facilitate cultural exchange programs between those two institutions) — has its first casualty, and it’s not an Attwater prairie chicken. One of Katy’s quirkiest and most beloved attractions, Forbidden Gardens, has announced it will close. The Chinese history and cultural museum’s peculiar but convenient location on a former rice field along Franz Rd. just off the Grand Parkway’s stub end likely wasn’t “just off” enough. Forbidden Gardens’ last day open will be January 30; a note on its website says the closing will “make way for the Grand Parkway expansion.” Forbidden Gardens opened in 1996.

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Eminent Domain
09/10/10 1:12pm

92 Eminent Domain Cases on 3 Lines: Metro’s Light Rail Land Acquisition Scorecard

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Quicklink, Southeast Houston, Transportation
3 Comments

92 EMINENT DOMAIN CASES ON 3 LINES: METRO’S LIGHT RAIL LAND ACQUISITION SCORECARD Nick Boulos’s former Shell station on the corner of MLK and Old Spanish Trail “is among 133 pieces of property [Metro] has acquired along the Southeast Corridor, including 27 in which Metro invoked eminent domain. Of those, 21 (including Boulos’) were settled by negotiation. Another 7 remain to be mediated or possibly settled in court. In the East End, METRO has obtained 135 parcels, filed 47 eminent domain cases, and settled 33 by negotiation, leaving 14 for mediation or the courtroom. On the Northside, METRO has acquired 113 total pieces of property, filed 18 eminent domain cases, and settled 16 by negotiation, leaving 2 for mediation or the courtroom.” [Fox 26] Rendering of Southeast Line on MLK between Griggs Rd. and OST: Metro

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Buying and Selling
06/01/10 11:43am

Green Fee Doubled at Quail Valley Golf Club

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Eminent Domain, Missouri City, Quail Valley
2 Comments

The price Missouri City is paying to purchase the former Quail Valley Country Club from golf-course speculator Mark Voltmann’s Renaissance Golf Group was adjusted from $3.1 million up to $7.4 million last week — 2 years after the city acquired the 390-acre property by eminent domain, and one day before a dispute over the price was set to go to trial. Renaissance claimed the property was worth about $14 million, but at the time of the sale it was listed for $6.59 million by the appraisal district.

Renaissance’s plans to rezone a 17.5-acre portion of the site to allow for a development of 54 Ryland Homes homesites were rejected by the city’s planning and zoning commission in 2006.

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Buying and Selling
05/03/10 9:37am

Cash for Kashmere Gardens

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Demolitions, Eminent Domain, Fifth Ward, Flooding, Kashmere Gardens, Quicklink
4 Comments

CASH FOR KASHMERE GARDENS A few residents of Kashmere Gardens are fighting Harris County Flood Control District plans to buy and demolish 40 homes in the upper Fifth Ward neighborhood: “The $175 million Project Hunting will widen and deepen a half-mile stretch of the bayou and create a 75-acre stormwater detention basin. The district plan purports to remove 5,000 homes from a 100-year flood plain. The engineer-speak means those homes currently face a 1 percent chance of flooding each year. The 1 percent happened to at least some neighborhood homes during Allison and Hurricane Ike. It also happened, according to district information, in 1979. And 1980. Again in 1983. And again in 1989, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2006 and 2007. But a group of holdouts does not believe that. Their homes flooded only during Allison, they said. The real numbers the district is acting on have dollar signs in front of them, residents said. Houses in their neighborhood can sell for as little as $30,000. ‘(The district) wants to go cheap because they consider Kashmere Gardens as poor, poor people,’ neighborhood resident Deborah Butler said. District officials insist the buyouts are about protecting residents, not cutting corners.” [Houston Chronicle; map]

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Eminent Domain
01/21/10 4:28pm

Metro’s University Line Acquisition Line-Up: What Stays and What Goes Along Richmond Ave.

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Proposed Developments, Transportation
40 Comments

Did 3.2 acres of acquisitions along Post Oak Blvd. for the new Uptown Line sound like a lot to you? Then look at this: The Final Environmental Impact Statement for the new University Line says Metro’s “locally preferred alternative” route will need to acquire 23 acres of land from approximately 212 separate parcels on that route, most of it along Richmond Ave. (Only 7 of those parcels will need to be acquired in full, according to the report.) Plus: 100 businesses, 30 residences, and 38 mixed-use structures will need to be relocated.

Potential acquisitions and displacement are expected at signalized intersections and at some transit stations. Every transit station located on the street will have a traffic signal. Additional right of way will be needed to accommodate left-turn lanes at key signalized intersections.

You can find the complete list of affected properties beginning on page 146 of this document. Maps of the targeted properties along the entire route — similar to the bit along Richmond Ave. at Montrose Blvd. shown above — are in the engineering drawings section.

Find anything interesting in there? Let us know in the comments!

Map: Metro Solutions (PDF)

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Eminent Domain
01/20/10 4:13pm

Trimming Uptown Trees and Driveways: Where Metro Is Shopping for Land on Post Oak Blvd.

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Galleria, Proposed Developments, Transportation
21 Comments

Metro’s most recent street reclassification plan indicates that the transit authority will need a grand total of about 3.2 acres of land on Post Oak Blvd. to squeeze in its new Uptown rail line, reports the River Oaks Examiner‘s Mike Reed.

The most notable target of Metro acquisition efforts will likely be a roughly 14-ft.-wide swath of tree-lined land along the Post Oak edge of the newly minted Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park, pictured above. The Williams Tower immediately to the north is due the same sort of trim, because the Hampton at Post Oak assisted living facility across the street is located much closer to Post Oak.

An even bigger bite would be taken out of the west side of Dillard’s if the current design goes forward: a 29,476-sq.-ft. strip that “would appear to include the ramp leading to the second-story of the garage,” Reed reports. The Galleria itself would lose only 1,019 sq. ft.

There’s a whole lot more in the plan. In all, pieces of 48 separate parcels are on Metro’s Post Oak shopping list so far:

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Eminent Domain
02/24/09 10:02am

HISD Neighborhood Lunch Program: The Eating of Glenbrook Valley

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Glenbrook Valley, Institutional Buildings, Proposed Developments, Schools
14 Comments

In a letter demonstrating the virtues of direct and forthright language, HISD has notified the owners of 8 homes on Glenloch St. in Glenbrook Valley that the new Lewis Elementary School will eat up their property:

This letter is to inform you that growth in Houston has created a serious shortage of permanent space within the Houston Independent School District (“HISD”). In a response to this need for space necessary to provide the best education for our children in your area, HISD will be replacing the Lewis Elementary School facility and it will be necessary to expand the existing school site.

The Superintendent of Schools has recommended, and the HISD Board of Education has designated, a tract of land for this expansion. This tract includes property you may own (see attached map).

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