11/20/14 3:15pm

Galleria-blue-lot-jewel-box

As of December 1, Galleria tenants and workers who park in the Blue Garage fronting Westheimer (labeled “Construction Zone” in the above site plan) will have to find another place to stash their rides. Explains an official “communiqué from the management office” of Unilev, operators of Galleria Tower II: “This relocation is to due to impending construction by Simon Properties of a free-standing retail structure that will be erected on the surface lot directly above the Blue Garage.” That structure will be going on the 14,000-sq.-ft. pad site in front of the portals to the Cheesecake Factory; it’ll be known colloquially as the “luxury jewel box.” Simon Properties intends the building to house up to 3 high-end retailers.

A user going by the name of JJ18 posted these renderings of the proposed structure to HAIF back in March:

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Bling!
10/07/14 12:00pm

BIGGER GALLERIA APPLE STORE FOR BIGGER IPHONES OPENS THIS WEEKEND Apple Store Closed for Construction, Houston Galleria, HoustonOnly a few weeks after beginning sales of a pair of embiggened iPhones, Apple is ready to unveil its latest enlargement: the newly expanded Galleria Apple Store. That’s it hiding on the second level in the photo at left, behind the 60-ft.-long black wall. A grand reopening is scheduled for this Saturday. The store moved to a temporary location over the summer to allow for the widening, described in detail here. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: David Ruiz

07/29/14 1:00pm

Interior of GreenStreet, Downtown Houston

Swamplot reader Marc Longoria has pics of some of the greenery added recently to the revamped interior of the former Houston Pavilions mall downtown, now known as GreenStreet. The rebranding of the mixed-use complex, which extends 3 blocks east from the Main St. rail line in a Discovery Green-ish direction, signifies more than just the infusion of cash from the new owners who are rescuing the project from bankruptcy, the Midway Companies (the folks behind CityCentre) and Magic Johnson’s Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds: There’s the notable addition of striped-green roofs over the escalators (above), for one thing. And more new plant-ish color has been added nearby:

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Artificial Turf, Salads, and More
06/13/14 11:30am

Aerial View of Planned Construction at the Galleria, Houston

Sure, there are plenty of highrise towers to live in in the Galleria . . . area. But what if you want to live in the Galleria mall itself? As in, step out the front door and take in a little Burberry, L.K. Bennett, or Apple Store, maybe still in your Neiman Marcus PJs? The folks at Simon Property Group, the mall owners, began mentioning the possibility of a 300-unit residential highrise at the corner of West Alabama and Sage last fall, when they announced the big Galleria III redo (going on now), which is scooting Saks Fifth Avenue over to the former Macy’s spot fronting Sage and open up about 100,000 sq. ft. of new retail space in its wake. And now they’ve gone and shown on a map where the new tower might go.

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Mall Residential or More?
09/06/13 10:00am

Remember that unusable and really vague tip sent to Swamplot back in January? The one promising that a “major (non-residential) Houston property is about to make a significant change”? And it wasn’t Macy’s? Well, the in-the-know tipster now reports, we can let that cat out of the bag, since the Houston Business Journal and Houston Chronicle already have: The “Houston landmark” the tipster couldn’t tip us off about is the Galleria — which, it was announced yesterday by developer Simon Property Group, will be undergoing extensive renovations and partial demolition to create about 100,000 new sq. ft. of retail and restaurant space.

The plan calls for the Galleria III portion where Saks Fifth Avenue is currently located to be demolished — though the tipster says the Philip Johnson façade will be maintained — to make room for a bumped-out food court (shown in the rendering above). That freed-up Saks space will provide room for 35 new retailers and restaurants. Meanwhile, Saks will be moving into the Macy’s spot on Sage, and that Macy’s will be merging with the other Macy’s on Hidalgo. (Makes sense.) Also, a standalone box will be built in the parking lot for a few tenants who can afford to be more conspicuous to the stop-and-go crowd on Westheimer.

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04/05/13 9:56am

Houston Pavilions is to be renamed in honor of 2 urban features the troubled 5-year-old Downtown outdoor mall had so far shunned, its new owners announced yesterday: greenery and streets. The newly dubbed GreenStreet appears to be taking a few cues also from Discovery Green, the younger but far more successful urban attraction a few blocks to the east. Midway, which with Magic Johnson’s Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds bought the 3-block-long mixed-use center out of bankruptcy last August (and the adjacent parking garage on Clay St. between Main and Fannin a few months later), plans 6 to 9 months’ worth of renovations to the property as well, to turn it into a CityCentre-style event hub.

The new design, by Houston architects Muñoz + Albin and the Office of James Burnett, a local landscape firm, will try to soften and connect the 3 separated interior courtyards and make them come across as more park-like. Additional changes won’t exactly make the famously inward-looking mall turn itself inside-out, but they do appear to make a few stabs at poking through to Dallas St., adding signage, storefront windows in some places, and a few outdoor seating areas along its northern edge.

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07/18/12 12:39pm

Does the conversion of 2 former Borders Books locations (or at least part of them) into some sort of medical facility constitute a trend? Texas Children’s Pediatric Associates is building a clinic in the former Borders mezzanine space in the not-in-River-Oaks Centre at River Oaks at the corner of West Alabama and Kirby. And Kelsey-Seybold announced yesterday it’ll be turning the former Borders store in Meyerland Plaza — along with the long-vacant Planet Music space above it — into a new medical clinic and pharmacy. Of the 72,000 sq. ft. in the new “Multi-Specialty Care Center,” 27,000 will be used as warehouse space, according to a company press release.

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06/20/12 11:37am

Dancers ranging through the 100,000-sq.-ft. former JCPenney at the West Oaks Mall — now known as the West Oaks Art House — “got pretty vigorous,” explains local art blogger Robert Boyd, who attended one of the inaugural performances in Houston’s newest, largest, and loneliest independent arts facility. One of them kicked the hole in the wall pictured at right. No grief from the free-range arts center’s laid-back L.A. landlord, though: “I kind of love the hole in the wall,” Pacific Retail’s Sharsten Plenge tells him. “It is like a souvenir of the energy that Suchu graced WOAH with.” (Yes, Plenge is an artist herself.)

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05/31/12 2:13pm

The very first event at the brand-new West Oaks Art House takes place this Friday night, when the Suchu Dance company performs its first work in the eerie fluorescent-lit cavern left behind by JCPenney when it gave up on its freestanding building at the West Oaks Mall in 2003. The performance kicks off the appropriately named Big Range Dance Festival. It’s not just the repositioning dance of the vacant mall department store: 16 Suchu dancers will range around the enormous space in a piece called “Afternono.” To counter claims that this event is a bit too “way-out” for Suchu’s usual East Downtown audiences, the company is commandeering a trolley-style bus to bring audience members from the Spring Street Studios north of Downtown to the West Houston mall at Westheimer and Hwy. 6.

LA artist Sharsten Plenge, who’s been working to transform the abandoned 100,000-sq.-ft. store into some sort of arts center — in part by offering free rent to artist groups willing to venture so far from their usual haunts and set up shop or exhibits there — tells Swamplot she hopes the inaugural Suchu performance (as well as additional ones on subsequent Saturday afternoons) “marks the beginning of what we hope to be many more unique projects” in the building, which now bears the acronym WOAH.

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05/11/12 9:34am

CITYCENTRE OWNER BUYING HOUSTON PAVILIONS Houston’s Midway Companies, along with an unnamed New York Partner, is set to acquire Houston Pavilions from the receiver who took over the Downtown mall last year, according to a report in today’s HBJ. Reporter Jennifer Dawson notes reports to the bankruptcy court indicate that the development’s retail space is now 66 percent leased, and the property has a positive cash flow — before debt service. In the year before its default, Pavilions’ original developer made no payments on its original $120.6 million 2007 loan. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Haynes-Whalley

03/22/12 12:27pm

THE DEEP RETAIL DISCOUNTS AT HOUSTON PAVILIONS Four years after its opening, the troubled Downtown mall-office complex known as Houston Pavilions may sell for $50 to $75 million below the cost of its construction. To avoid foreclosure on a loan valued at $130.7 million, the developers turned the property over to a receiver late last year; Transwestern is now marketing the project for sale. Offices are fully occupied, but the big problem is the 59-percent-vacant retail portion of the project, says Real Estate Alert: “More than half of the retail tenants haven’t been paying full rent because the overall retail occupancy rate remains below the prescribed threshold cited in their leases. A buyer could convert about 42,000 sf of vacant retail space into offices to exploit downtown Houston’s booming office market . . . However, a conversion of all the retail space isn’t an option, because doing so would make it impossible to meet the retail occupancy threshold necessary for the existing tenants to pay full rent.” [Real Estate Alert; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user cjt3

02/24/12 12:17pm

A LONG GOODBYE FOR THE WOODLANDS MALL SEARS The Woodlands Mall location is among the 11 anchor stores around the country Sears announced it will sell to mall operator General Growth Properties. All of the stores will remain open until 2013; a closing date will be announced within the next several months. [Retail Traffic] Photo: City-Data

02/01/12 1:27pm

H&M LANDING IN HOUSTON, BUT STAYING OUTSIDE THE LOOP Fashion retailer H&M this morning officially announced its first 2 stores in Houston, both in malls. A 19,400-sq.-ft. slot at the Baybrook Mall already mentioned on the company’s website is scheduled to open sometime this spring. Next: a 25,600-sq.-ft. store in the Willowbrook Mall. The company press release didn’t refer to any plans for inner-loop locations. [Shop Girl; previously on Swamplot]

11/17/11 10:03pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: FEEDING THE WEST OAKS MALL JCPENNEY ARTS BEHEMOTH “At 100,000 square feet, it is more than twice as big as all the alternative/artist-run spaces currently in existence in Houston combined. If it can actually be filled with stuff and events in a compelling, convincing way, it moves the center of gravity for Houston art to the west purely by virtue of its size. The more I think about it, the challenge will be figuring out ways to effectively use that space. Usually the issue for an art exhibit is a lack of space — a show at, say, Labotanica can feel uncomfortably cramped. For a curator or artist, this space presents the precise opposite problem. A good model in this regard might be Mass MOCA, the enormous museum in North Adams, MA. Filling the cavernous old factory buildings required big, bold artworks. Are there Houston artists who could step up to this challenge? I’d say yes — for example, Sharon Engelstein’s inflatables.” [Robert Boyd, commenting on New Arts Complex Planned for Abandoned JCPenney at West Oaks Mall] Photo: Sharsten Plenge