Land for Sale

Buying and Selling
08/01/11 8:11am

Flip This Bomb Shelter!

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Homes for Sale, Land for Sale, Security, Tanglewood
9 Comments

Only a few days after it sold, the 1961 Tanglewood home and bomb shelter on Brown Saddle St. featured on Swamplot back in January has been put back on the market. Only this time, the listing doesn’t mention the shelter or the abandoned pipeline slicing through a portion of the property — or really anything about the building itself. No more interior pics, either. The low-slung modern structure is now tagged as “not liveable” and won’t be shown — though the agent does fess up to having a key. The asking price? Only $550K more than what the property sold for earlier in the week, when the home and its interior were touted as sales features. At 38,263 sq. ft. (that’s actually been marked down a few thousand sq. ft. from the earlier sale), the lot is advertised as the biggest in Tanglewood.

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Demolitions
05/12/11 11:01pm

Elementary School Demolishings and Closings

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Land for Sale, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Schools, South Park
2 Comments

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DEMOLISHINGS AND CLOSINGS HISD plans to begin demolishing the old Bastian Elementary School on Calhoun Rd. just south of the South Loop within the next few weeks, in an effort to make the 6-acre property more appealing to possible buyers. The South Park campus has been vacant since 2007, when a new Bastian Elementary was built a mile south on Bellfort. At one point, Lynn Walsh reports, “the property was listed for sale for $825,000, according to an online multiple listings service search, or slightly more than a third of the county’s appraised value for it.” Meanwhile, the HISD board voted this evening to close Grimes, Rhoads, McDade, and Stevenson elementary schools. Some students from Stevenson Elementary will begin classes next year at Love Elementary in the Heights, which had previously been threatened with closure. [Texas Watchdog] Photo of Bastian Elementary: Dikombi Gite

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Art
11/02/10 2:18pm

How You Can Help Large-Scale Graffiti in Midtown Get Off the Ground

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Buildlings for Sale, Graffiti, Land for Sale, Midtown, Public Art
22 Comments

Street artist Daniel Anguilu hopes to cover the entire surface of this 4-story Midtown building with his distinctive animal-friendly murals. Anguilu — also known by his nom-de-spray, weah — began painting the former Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority building at 2850 Fannin St. in June. But it’s not exactly a stealth project: Anguilu was invited to take on what he’s calling the Public Decor Project by commercial real-estate broker Adam Brackman, whose family owns the building. And Brackman’s been providing him with mistinted no-VOC paint from New Living, the Rice Village green-home-supplies store where Brackman’s a partner.

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Homes for Sale
10/01/10 3:59pm

For Sale: What the Esperanza School Is Leaving Behind

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Houston Heights, Land for Sale, Schools
4 Comments

The little ’uns have left the buildings: The Infant House, the Little Treasures House, the Wee-Bits House, the Toddler House, and the Bloomer & Sunflower House are all vacant now. The Esperanza School, a Heights daycare institution, has moved west to the former Ben Milam Elementary at 1100 Roy St., leaving its unique campus cobbled together from Heights Blvd. and Harvard St. houses behind. Founded in a grand Lovett Blvd. home in Montrose, the school moved to Heights Blvd. in the mid-eighties, expanding into adjacent and nearby kiddie cottages one at a time. And now they’re all for sale, in little mortgage-bite-size pieces!

Well, almost: all except the main school house at 639 Heights Blvd. (now under contract, snatched up before it could be listed), and the Discovery House at 429 Heights Blvd. (which the owner is keeping).

But 5 of the 6 listed and deed-restriction-free properties form an almost-contiguous (okay, there’s an alley down the middle) 35,700-sq.-ft. plot across 7th St. from Donovan Park. One reader comments: “The two on Harvard back up to two on the Blvd., so that is at least a dozen townhomes. No law against a high rise, either.” A quick tour of the homes standing in the way:

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Buildings for Sale
07/19/10 10:56am

Swamplot Price Adjuster: Some Unfinished EaDo Business

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East Downtown, Foreclosures, Land for Sale, Price Adjuster, Townhomes
26 Comments

The Swamplot Price Adjuster runs on your nominations! Found a property you think is poorly priced? Send an email to Swamplot, and be sure to include a link to the listing or photos. Tell us about the property, and explain why you think it deserves a price adjustment. Then tell us what you think a better price would be. Unless requested otherwise, all submissions to the Swamplot Price Adjuster will be kept anonymous.

Location: 2312 Sperber Ln., East Downtown
Details: 3 bedroom, 3 1/2-bath, 2,006-sq.-ft. unfinished townhome on a 1,400-sq.-ft. lot
Price: $151,700
History: Current listing up since mid-April

For your consideration: this special property, just over the tracks from EaDo. Submitted by a reader, who comments:

Here’s another one from the Waterhill debacle. There’s a set of 3 townhouses in the corner of this EaDo neighborhood that all appear to be in tear down condition.  HAR description states “Great opportunity for investor or builder to purchase 3 partially completed townhomes, never lived in.” HA!  I beg to differ!  I bet homeless people have been living there off and on for the last 2 years! HAR lists this stand-alone unit for $151,700.  Is it really worth that?

Then . . . well, what is it worth?

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

AstroWorld in Pieces

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Development Strategies, Land for Sale, Quicklink, Reliant Park
No Comments

ASTROWORLD IN PIECES Want to know what new owner Michael Mallick might do with the former AstroWorld site across the South Loop from Reliant Park? It’s none of your business: “As head of a small private real estate investment group based in Forth Worth, Mallick emphasizes the word ‘private’ and won’t even say if he owns any other properties in Houston. . . . Mallick says he would be just fine if nobody ever knew his group acquired the Astroworld site. But word got out and his phone has been ringing for the past two weeks since the deal was completed. ‘We have a few groups that have come to us that have proposals that want portions of it,’ says Mallick. . . . He’s not sure what will become of the land, but says a decision will probably be made around the end of the year. The group might hold the property for three to five years. Or perhaps sell the entire parcel once the market turns around. Or maybe sell off the defunct theme park in pieces.” [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]

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Comments
06/08/10 3:00pm

Comment of the Day: Kickin’ Back at the I-10 and Studewood Bayou Lounge

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Houston Heights, Land for Sale, Parks, Quicklink
3 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: KICKIN’ BACK AT THE I-10 AND STUDEWOOD BAYOU LOUNGE “Park or Strip Club? You make the call!! Before this gets out of hand, please rest assured that all attempts have been made to the Houston Parks Board, Annise Parker, Bill White, Ed Gonzalez, Greater Houston Offroad Bike Association and the list goes on and on. I have been working for 2.5 years to make this a public-use site. I urge ‘you people’ to, instead of defacing property, get the facts first and please take this up with the “Parks and Woods” people you speak of. Make it happen. Therefore, go at it: *City of Houston* -CouncilMember Ed Gonzalez – 832.393.3003 -Mayor Annise Parker – 713.837.0311 *Houston Parks Board* -Exec. Director Roksan Okan-Vick – 713.942.8500 -Chairman Tom Bacon – 713.533.5860 -Whatever does happen with the site, I can ASSURE you that it will be in good taste and a benefit to this great City of ours….as long as I have anything to do with it. Feel free to email me with thoughts, suggestions….or with money! -Now that I am done pursuing greenspace, I am leaning towards a nice place to sit on a deck and relax with a toddy, look at the skyline from the best angle imagineable. Perhaps walk down the bike trail in the AM, grab a cup of coffee and read my paper . . . Ohhhh there will be plenty of trees left on site since I will need a place to mount my hammock. How does that sound to ‘you people’??” [JEzer, commenting on This is Woods. Park Is Not Available Right Now. May I Help You?]

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Houston Heights
06/08/10 10:32am

This is Woods. Park Is Not Available Right Now. May I Help You?

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Land for Sale, Signage
41 Comments

What is it with the signage for Metro Realty Group properties? It’s attracted gentrifying Shepherd Jesus over by Center St.; and (as commenter Nord noted yesterday) this bit of snarky graffiti in the woods by White Oak Bayou at the Studewood overpass, just north of I-10.

Oh, and it looks like there’s more to say on the other side:

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Commercial Real Estate
06/07/10 2:15pm

Waking the Mattress Giant: CAC Takes Village Plaza To Assess the Children

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Institutional Buildings, Land for Sale, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Rice Village, Shopping Centers
3 Comments

Everybody out by the end of October, the owners of the Village Plaza Shopping Center have told all remaining tenants. Fuzzy’s Pizza and City Dance Studio, of course, are long gone from the center at 5925 Kirby, a block north of Rice Blvd. The Bike Barn has already picked out more than 10,000 sq. ft. in the former Hollywood Video in Weslayan Plaza, at Bissonnet and Weslayan. Kids Kuts will cut south to Bellaire and Stella Link; the UPS Store is looking at a new place “on Bissonnet.” Ticket Stop and Susan Nail & Facial are hunting for space nearby. Mattress Giant just doesn’t want to talk about it.

The property’s owner is its eastern neighbor, the Children’s Assessment Center. A planned expansion to the John M. O’Quinn campus, which now faces Bolsover, would eat the deeper chunk of the shopping center, leaving 0.8 acres on Kirby for somebody else to develop. Here’s the part that’s toast:

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Apartments
04/27/10 12:47pm

Lovebird Hideaways: 3 Out of 4 Fourplexes on West Gray

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Buildings for Sale, Land for Sale, North Montrose, West Gray Terrace
17 Comments

Three fourplexes in a row, plus a vacant lot that used to hold one, are for sale on West Gray between Stanford and Taft, across the street from Barnaby’s and next to the West Gray Café. And Swamplot brings you this exclusive color commentary from a former tenant:

. . . they’re roach motels inside. Plus, the back parking has potholes deep enough for cars to get stuck in. The maintenance was horrible while I lived there, and then they jacked up the rent. But, for the price, the apartments were quite large with central AC. Just had to ignore the mice, roaches, ants and leaks.

No idea why, but there have been instances of lovebirds using the back parking lot to get some privacy in the past. Guess they drank too much at Cecil’s.

Why is the listing agent insisting all 4 properties “must be sold together”?

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Buildings for Sale
03/24/10 10:43am

More Real Estate Wisdom from Joel Osteen: Let Them Get Comfortable with the Transaction, and Show Them My Smiling Face

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Buying and Selling, Greenway Plaza, Land for Sale, Leasing, Real Estate Investing, Religious Facilities
21 Comments

From the Twitter feed of KHOU reporter Alex Sanz, Swamplot hears news that Houston’s city council has postponed a vote on a proposal to sell the former Compaq Center at 3700 Southwest Fwy. in Greenway Plaza to Lakewood Church, for an-appraised-but way-below-assessed-value price of $7.5 million. As Swamplot explained yesterday, the church has more than 20 years left on a prepaid lease for the property and an option to extend the lease for an additional 30 years after that for a little more than $22 million — both of which significantly affect the present value of the property to the city.

Is the postponement of the sale a setback for Lakewood? Why should it be!? Followers of church pastor Joel Osteen, who’s now written 3 books filled with real-estate investment advice, know that he advocates patience — especially in complicated sale or purchase situations. Why wouldn’t he want councilmembers to feel entirely comfortable with the decision they come to?

Here’s how Osteen explains it in a relevant passage from his latest book, It’s Your Time:

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Buildings for Sale
03/23/10 11:47am

Real Estate Lessons from Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church: It Is Better To Lease, Then To Buy

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Greenway Plaza, Land for Sale, Leasing, Real Estate Investing, Religious Facilities
18 Comments

You might be thinking, “How can I buy me some prime Greenway Plaza real estate from the city for, say $12.50 a square foot?” If, as expected, city council approves the sale in tomorrow’s meeting, that’s the amount Lakewood Church will pay for the Southwest Freeway building it’s currently leasing.

Lakewood took out a 30-year lease on the property — which formerly served as home court for the Houston Rockets, first as the Houston Summit, and later as the Compaq Center — in 2001. Lakewood prepaid the entire $11.8 million lease amount, then spent more than $80 million to turn the former basketball arena into a proper TV-worthy megachurch. But the key to Lakewood’s current real estate good fortune is the lease extension it negotiated: an option to extend the lease for an additional 30 years for $22.6 million.

Since the city likely won’t receive any income (or tax revenue) from the property until the year 2061, city real estate managers think selling the 606,000-sq.-ft. property on more than 7 acres at 3700 Southwest Fwy. to the church is a good idea. The price? A value only net-present-value adherents, real-estate appraisers, and the Lakewood faithful could love: $7.5 million.

Feeling a little inspired by the church’s ability to swing such a deal? It is yet another testament to the remarkable real-estate skills of Houston’s leading property-investment guru, Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen. In this passage from his latest book, It’s Your Time, Osteen virtually screams, “GET IN FIRST, BUY LATER”:

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Lancaster Place
03/10/10 2:45pm

Looks Like That Publicity Campaign for the New Montrose H-E-B Has Already Begun

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Land for Sale, Neighborhood Disputes, Parks, Proposed Developments, Quicklink
25 Comments

LOOKS LIKE THAT PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN FOR THE NEW MONTROSE H-E-B HAS ALREADY BEGUN If H-E-B can figure out a way to keep this sort of thing going even after the new store is built, that Fiesta won’t have a chance: “The Montrose Land Defense Coalition will hold a rally this weekend at Menil Park to raise awareness of H-E-B’s plans to build a new store on the site of the long-gone Wilshire Village apartment complex. The group will walk from the park to the property at the southwest corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy on Saturday around 1:30 p.m. Last week, H-E-B confirmed that it’s under contract to buy the nearly eight-acre site across from a strip center anchored by a Fiesta. Resident Maria-Elisa Heg recently formed the Montrose Land Defense Coalition to call attention to the property and attract investors who might be interested in buying it with the city of Houston for use as a public space.” [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]

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