Industrial Properties

Industrial Properties, Openings and Closings, Warehouse Space

7 Comments

This metal-sheathed warehouse at 2032 Karbach St. in the industrial area off Dacoma St. near Dyer Stadium used to be home to craft and imported beer distributor C.R. Goodman. Now a bunch of former Goodman employees have transformed it into the Karbach Brewing Company brewery — which held its inaugural tour over the weekend. Among the commitments of Karbach and its brewer, former Flying Dog CEO Eric Warner: Keeping their 5 craft brews in metal. Karbach beers are available only at area bars and restaurants so far (delivered in kegs by the company’s single delivery truck); starting in January 3 of them should be available for purchase in aluminum cans, too.

77092, Breweries, Dacoma, Industrial Properties, Openings and Closings, Warehouses

Air Quality

09/06/11 2:12pm

Picking Up Cash for the Chemical Spew

Deer Park, Industrial Properties, Lawsuits, Pollution, Quicklink

4 Comments

PICKING UP CASH FOR THE CHEMICAL SPEW How did Harris County government swing half a million dollars in cash from Shell Chemical? The company is turning over that amount as part of a settlement covering 5 unreported chemical releases between April 2008 and March 2010 at the company’s Deer Park plant on Hwy. 225 just east of Beltway 8. According to Harris County’s lawyer on the case, Shell Chemical also made an “important concession,” which will likely result in more advance warning of similar future windfalls headed our way: Shell says it’ll now alert the county’s local pollution control office, and not just state officials, of “pollution events.â€ [Pasadena Citizen]

77536, Air Quality, Chemical Plants, Deer Park, Harris County Government, Lawsuits, Pollution

Hitchcock

09/02/11 10:49am

Big Plans for Condensation at the Blimp Base

Industrial Properties, Proposed Developments

10 Comments

A division of a Houston company called PowerMax Green Technologies (which may or may not be related to this Florida company with a similar name and similar products) is hoping to set up a manufacturing plant in Hitchcock to build atmospheric water generators, or machines for extracting drinking water from humid air. Even better: Galveston County Daily News reporter Laura Elder has identified the site the company is interested in as the former Blimp Base at 7526 Blimp Base Rd., just off FM 2004 — where the Navy once developed and stored blimps for spotting German submarines in WWII, and which is now an approved Foreign Trade Zone. Officials with the Green Environmental Management have been meeting with area officials about their plans to build 2 facilities totaling 160,000 sq. ft., Elder reports.

Pulling water, jobs out of thin air? [Buzz Blog]
About Us [The Blimp Base]

Site photo: The Blimp Base

77563, Hitchcock, Houston History, Industrial Properties, Proposed Developments, Water

Commercial Real Estate

08/04/11 3:08pm

The Top-Secret Real Estate Developments Possibly Coming to a Location Near You

Industrial Properties, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing

No Comments

THE TOP-SECRET REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENTS POSSIBLY COMING TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU So sorry, but we can’t tell you about Project Crawfish, Project Cabot, Project Computer Virus, Project Delta, Project Goldbeam, Project Race Car, or Project Texas H2O. They’re all hush-hush, you know. But Gil Staley of the Woodlands-area Economic Development Partnership says together they “represent 1,568 jobs and $335 million in capital investment” — the kinds of projects states and cities dig up tours, videos, and tax incentives for. Reporter Jennifer Dawson can, however, reveal the company behind the formerly mysterious Project 21, whose previously unidentified planners were snooping around Cedar Crossing in Baytown last year to see if the industrial park might work for an unspecified $200 million facility. Project 21 turned out to be a project of Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, but they ended up building the thing in Memphis instead. [Houston BizBlog; previously on Swamplot]

77523, Baytown, Cedar Crossing, Commercial Real Estate, Industrial Properties, Real Estate Marketing

East Downtown

07/28/11 6:28pm

East Downtown’s 8th Wonder of the Craft Brewing World

Industrial Properties, Renovations

9 Comments

This single-story warehouse building at 2202 Dallas St. will be the home of a new craft brewery founded by Houston food-truck veterans the Eatsie Boys. The 5,000-sq.-ft. building at the corner of Hutchins is near the site of Dynamo Stadium and a short walk to Minute Maid Park, but the brewery will be named after the empty and forlorn former home of the Astros further south: 8th Wonder Brewery. When the lease was signed in April, there was a different name behind it. But “Heady Brewing Company” ran into a few trademark issues, so they’re going with the Dome. The buildout should be complete at the end of this year, with the first 8th Wonder beers appearing around town in 2012.

77003, Breweries, East Downtown, Industrial Properties, Renovations

Harbordale

07/25/11 12:30pm

At the Sign of the Apple: Largest Food Bank Ever

Industrial Properties, Institutional Buildings, Openings and Closings, Renovations

7 Comments

The silver apple went up late last week on the enormous new Houston Food Bank location carved out of the former Sysco Foods warehouse at 535 Portwall St., just northwest of the I-10 East-610 Loop intersection. The 310,000-sq.-ft. facility will include a cafe, a community room and training center that’s open to the public, and a volunteer program called Serving for Success that’s open to inmates and probationers. The organization hopes to use its new space to double the amount of food it distributes (to 120 million lbs. a year) by 2018. Official opening date: September 23rd.

77029, Distribution Centers, Harbordale, Houston Architects, Industrial Properties, Institutional Buildings, Nonprofit-Development, Openings and Closings, Renovations

07/20/11 5:20pm

Disasters Seek Redemption in Harris County Second-Chance Warehouse

Fires, Industrial Properties, Insurance, Northwest Houston

1 Comment

Looking for a safe place to keep its voting machines after the previous storehouse on Canino Rd. was destroyed in a mysterious fire last year, county officials have at last found the perfect uh, match: a 1980-vintage tilt-wall car-storage facility owned by the estate of a billionaire plaintiff’s attorney who died in a car crash. No harm came to the $250 million worth of cars John M. O’Quinn kept in this warehouse at 11525 Todd Rd. after he was killed in an accident on Allen Parkway 2 years ago, but the building was available. One of 3 suites in the 123,930-sq.-ft. structure near the Hempstead Highway and 34th St. currently serves as the black-box home of the Houston Academy of Dramatic Arts. The county is paying O’Quinn’s estate $4.35 million for the facility, with some of that money coming from the fire-insurance claim. Also moving into the building, after a $2 million renovation: county tax assessor-collector Don Summers and his collection of old license plates and tax records.

County voting machines find a home [Houston Chronicle]
Warehouse blaze still a mystery and Police: O’Quinn driving nearly twice the speed limit [Houston Chronicle]
Voting machine fire not arson [Houston Politics]

Photo: LoopNet

77092, Buying and Selling, Fires, Harris County Government, Industrial Properties, Insurance, Northwest Houston, Warehouses

07/15/11 5:48pm

Walmart Buys Back Its Biggest Boxes

Cedar Crossing, Industrial Properties, Leasing, Quicklink

16 Comments

WALMART BUYS BACK ITS BIGGEST BOXES Walmart’s ridiculously humungous Cedar Crossing distribution center near Baytown now belongs to . . . Walmart. Last month the company bought the facility back from its landlord, Texas’s Permanent School Fund, for $104.5 million, or just $4.5 million more than the government entity paid Walmart for it in 2005. The complex consists of 2 separate 2-million-sq.-ft. buildings — encompassing more floor space than 9 Astrodomes — on a 473-acre tract. Under the 30-year lease for the property the company signed with the school fund after the original leaseback, the facility had been exempt from property taxes. [Houston Business Journal; background; awards] Photo: Force Engineering & Testing

77523, Baytown, Buying and Selling, Cedar Crossing, Distribution Centers, Industrial Properties, Leasing, Property Taxes

Cottage Grove

06/22/11 11:56am

The New Craft Brewery Coming to Cottage Grove

Industrial Properties, Proposed Developments, Renovations

20 Comments

Startup Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co. will be located much closer to I-10 than to its namesake waterway, but founder Rassul Zarinfar says that’s by design. A Swamplot commenter dug up the address yesterday: The company has leased a 7,800 sq. ft. warehouse at 5301 Nolda St., at the corner of Detering, in Cottage Grove.

Zarinfar tells Swamplot he was happy to find a location that wasn’t “on the outskirts of town in a super-corporate industrial project.” The company plans to hand-deliver all the kegs it brews themselves, so highway access mattered. Having a location people could easily walk or bike to was also important to him. “Plus,” Zarinfar adds, “we wanted a warehouse that didnâ€™t feel too much like a warehouse, but instead more like an art studio (since beer is art!).”

77007, Breweries, Cottage Grove, Industrial Properties, Proposed Developments, Renovations

Attractions

04/25/11 4:26pm

On the Beach in Oak Grove

Industrial Properties, Oak Grove

14 Comments

Tucked into that sorta-industrial area just south of Garden Oaks, behind the warehouse at 954 Wakefield: A brand-new array of beach volleyball courts under construction. The reader who sent in this photo of the scene wants to know what’s up — or at least whose serve it is. A closer view of the nets:

77018, Attractions, Industrial Properties, Oak Grove

03/14/11 11:45am

Goodbye, Uncle Ben: East Side Silos Are Coming Down

Demolitions, Houston Ship Channel, Industrial Properties

8 Comments

The new owner of Texas Rice’s old Fidelity St. property has already begun demolishing the grain silos on the site, which are just visible from the East Freeway. A reader sends Swamplot this photo taken late yesterday of the view from Market St., just southeast of the intersection of I-10 east and the 610 Loop. McCorvey Real Estate Holdings bought the 22-acre industrial facility last October, and is spending about $600,000 to upgrade warehouses on the site. The company plans to spend a similar amount on improvements for future tenants, then $5 million more within the next couple of years on 130,000 more sq. ft. of industrial space. There’s 141,280 sq. ft. of space there already, though that figure includes the silos that are coming down.

77029, Buying and Selling, Demolitions, Houston Ship Channel, Industrial Properties, Silos, Warehouses

Air Quality

02/08/11 2:50pm

What’s Really Hot in Mont Belvieu Right Now

Fires, Industrial Properties, Mont Belvieu

No Comments

Raw helicopter footage from abc13 of the fire currently raging at the Enterprise Products natural gas fractionation facility at 135 Sun Oil Rd., just east of Hwy. 146 in Mont Belvieu. By 3:55 in, the view gets better, and you can hear the commentator noting that the fire was visible from above Hobby Airport, just 30 miles away.

Explosion, fire burning at Mont Belvieu facility [abc13]
Plant burns in Mont Belvieu [Houston Chronicle]

Video: abc13

77580, Air Quality, Explosions, Fires, Hazards, Mont Belvieu, Refineries

02/08/11 10:47am

Get Ready for a Studemont Kroger

Commercial Real Estate, Industrial Properties, Land Sales

63 Comments

Kroger has bought 8.5 acres of former industrial land on Studemont, just south of I-10, the Chronicle‘s Purva Patel reports. The land, which was once part of Houston’s Sixth Ward, sits just north of Arne’s Warehouse and Party Store and across the street from Grocers Supply. Kroger closed on the larger portion — a 7.2-acre cleared parcel at 1400 Studewood, listed for sale at $15.7 million — just last week. A spokesperson for the grocery chain wasn’t ready to announce a new store on the site, but did say the company had already taken possession of 1.3 acres just to the south, at 1200 Givens St. If Kroger does build a new supermarket there, the parking lot would have 450 ft. of frontage on Studemont; other industrial properties, many of them accessed from Summer St., would still be sandwiched between it and the Sawyer Heights Target.

77007, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Grocery Stores, Industrial Areas, Land Sales, Sixth Ward

Industrial Properties

01/04/11 2:52pm

Straight Outta Pasadena, Texas: Your Favorite Brands of Bottled Water