Self-taught Houston designer, cabinet-maker, boat-builder, and entrepreneur Robert Cohen passed away last weekend at the age of 91, a couple of months after the death of his wife, Jean, and a little less than 2 years after his singular creation, Meyerland’s ultra-fab Carousel House, was demolished.
Swamplot’s new “Bottom” of the Fifth Ward correspondent Vaughn Mueller reports from the site of the old Bruce Elementary School, where a sign indicates the property is for sale. A source tells Swamplot that a few details need to be worked out before it’s “officially” on the market, but an HISD web page provides some information about the property.
The school, which was closed at the end of the spring 2007 semester, sits along Cage and Bringhurst on the I-10 feeder road, and comprises a little more than 2 blocks. Mueller reports that the new Bruce Elementary (built by a 2002 HISD bond) less than a mile away on Jensen opened its doors in the fall of 2007.
Why the move?
The Swamplot Price Adjuster needs 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: 4901 Evergreen St., Bellaire
Details: 6,890 sq. ft. lot, marred by only by existing house. “BEING SOLD AS LOT VALUE ONLY***DRIVE BY ONLY***Great Corner Lot***Lots of Trees**”
Price: $700,000
History: Listed at the current price since late May.
Note: Story updated below.
The reader who’s nominating this Bellaire lot wonders why it’s priced like a Bellaire house:
This is probably priced more than double what it should be. While Bellaire is not a cheap neighborhood, there are plenty of nice 3700-4000 square foot homes selling in Bellaire for this same price or lower. It isn’t even a big lot. The appraisal district appraises it at $254,069 for a price difference of $445,931 . . .
It is also a corner lot, and there is a stop sign in front of the house. I know there is an older house on the lot, but the agent is selling it “As-is” without scheduling appointments . . .
There is a beautiful 4400 sq foot house also on Evergreen a block or two away (5113 Evergreen) on a similar size lot that
is selling for 825[was recently reduced to $799K].
What would be a better price for this little piece of Bellaire?
That plan by the owners of Otto’s Bar B Q and Hamburgers on Memorial Dr. to shut down the restaurant, sell the land, and retire on the proceeds didn’t end up going so well after all, the Houston Business Journal‘s Allison Wollam notices. The 58-year-old restaurant
was slated to be demolished to make way for the sale of the high-profile Memorial Drive land, but the restaurant has now fully reopened after the owners were unable to find a buyer for the property. The hamburger side of the two-sided restaurant has remained in business, but the portion selling barbecue closed for a time. A sign on the door says the barbecue side of the restaurant celebrated a grand reopening on April 15.
But word of the reopening seems to be spreading slowly. The once-bustling parking lot of the restaurant, for example, was only sparsely populated during lunchtime on a day earlier [last] week.
The owners, June and Marcus Sofka, were told they might be able to get as much as $150 a square foot for their property when they listed it with Cushman & Wakefield at the end of 2007. But a real estate broker tells Wollam the 1.3-acre Otto’s property at 5502 Memorial Dr. and the 17,000-sq.-ft. shopping center the couple owns next door might be worth a little less than half of that today.
Photo: Flickr users Bob & Lorraine Kelly
CLEANING UP AFTER THE WESTHEIMER PARK APARTMENTS “Austin-based Falcon Southwest expects the demolition to be complete by July on the 185-unit complex at 9235 Westheimer, between Fondren and Gessner. Phil Capron, president of Falcon Southwest, says the property was under contract late last year to an apartment developer who wanted to build a five-story complex on the 4.8-acre site. The developer, whom he won’t name, could not get financing because of market conditions. Falcon Southwest will plant grass on the site before relisting it because “it will show better totally clean,†Capron says. He hopes to sell the tract for $30 to $35 per square foot, which would put the price between $6.3 million and $7.4 million. Falcon Southwest also owns the next door Westheimer Terrace Apartments, which are not for sale now, but Capron says will be at some time in the future.” [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
Those long-lingering plans by the Simon Property Group to build a mall called “The Grand” on 134 acres wedged between I-10 and the threatened Grand Parkway — catty-corner to the Katy Mills Mall — appear to be uh . . . “in question.” The Houston Business Journal‘s Jennifer Dawson reports:
The circular acreage surrounded by a mall ring road has at various times been earmarked for an outlet mall, regional mall, lifestyle center and mixed-use center.
Simon recently began marketing the vacant land for sale through local retail brokerage firm Page Partners.
Hmmm . . . how best to spin this?
Nancy Sarnoff reports that the U.S. Postal Service is putting its entire 16-acre downtown facility on the market, including the classic modern main building. The building was designed by Houston’s own pseudo-brutalists Wilson, Morris, Crain and Anderson in 1962, when precast concrete fins were all the rage.
There are a few stipulations to the sale:
Whoever buys the property at 401 Franklin must build a replacement processing facility for the postal service, as well as provide a retail location near the existing site where consumers can mail packages and buy stamps.
The Fiesta on the corner of Studewood and 14th St. in the Heights still has “a couple more years” left on its lease, but Weingarten Realty has put the property up for sale.
The 28,466-sq.-ft. grocery store sits on a 1.76 acre site. Also included: 2 neighboring lots off Algregg St. used for parking and a third with a bungalow-turned shop on it.
Some of you may be ready for a refresher: What does a $5 million teardown look like again? Here’s one answer: It looks a lot like a very large lot in a tony neighborhood that doesn’t like the land, at least, to be chopped into smaller pieces.
This 1962 estate on more than 3.3 acres in Sherwood Forest, designed by Houston society architect John Staub, showed up in Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report this morning, which means it received a demo permit on Friday. The permit report identifies the owner as developer Giorgio Borlenghi, but HCAD records indicate Borlenghi sold the property in October 2007 to an entity known as ALV Interests, Ltd.
Only 2 months after that sale, the 7,334-sq.-ft. home went on the market — at $6 million. And it’s still listed, now for $1 million less. Though these photos, included with the listing, now might be slightly out of date:
General Growth Properties owns Baybrook Mall, Deerbrook Mall, First Colony Mall, Willowbrook Mall, The Woodlands Mall, and half of The Woodlands. And it’s holding onto all of those properties for now. But Jennifer Dawson reports in the Houston Business Journal that General Growth is trying to unload one of its specific growths: a portion of Bridgeland, the company’s 11,400-acre residential spread out in Cypress.
The name of the offered section is Lakeland Village, and it’s Bridgeland’s first, 2,370-acre phase.
Here’s a 15,000-sq.-ft. plot of West U. land at the corner of Kirby and Plumb across the street from Rice Village, offered in 2 separate parcels for a total of $750,000.
We know what you’re wondering: Is there a closeup of the property?
And you’re in luck! The HAR listing provides one:
What will happen to the Kirby Court Apartments just west of Whole Foods? The 1949 garden apartments on oak-lined Steel St. make up the major portion of a 5.744-acre parcel at the northwest corner of Kirby and Alabama being offered for sale or ground lease, the River Oaks Examiner reports. Also included in the parcel being sold by the Dickey Estate: retail properties facing Alabama, Kirby, and Kipling.
Cushman & Wakefield’s flyer for the property brags that there’s “potential to abandon Steel Street for an additional 33,750 sq. ft.” How much abandonment could those oaks survive?
