Mixed Use

Buying and Selling
04/14/11 8:40pm

The Finger Offer That Never Came: How the Owners of Otto’s Ended Up Settling for Much Less

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Commercial Real Estate, Fraud, Lawsuits, Mixed Use, New Construction, Restaurants, Retail, Rice Military, Shopping Centers
19 Comments

The longtime owners of the now-shuttered original Otto’s Bar B Que and Hamburgers on Memorial Dr. filed suit on Tuesday against their former broker, Cushman & Wakefield executive director David Cook, claiming that he failed to let them know about several offers to buy their property. As a result, the lawsuit claims, the owners ended up selling their real-estate holdings for — and settling into retirement with — only a third of the money they might have otherwise received. Marcus and June Sofka originally listed their restaurant at 5502 Memorial Dr. and some adjacent property with Cook in August 2007. Two months later, according to the suit, the Ponderosa Land Development Co. submitted a written offer for the land to Cook for $105 a sq. ft. But the Sofkas claim they didn’t hear about that offer until much later. Why wouldn’t Cook have given them such good news?

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Apartments
03/29/11 4:26pm

Hanover at Rice Village: What’s Going Up Over Bolsover

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Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Rice Village, Streets
22 Comments

In 2007, Houston’s city council sold a block of Bolsover St. in the Rice Village to the developers of Randall Davis’s Sonoma project so that it could be used as a private drive and restaurant plaza linking two phases of the development. Davis and Lamesa Properties did manage to demolish the neighboring buildings, but Sonoma was never built. Now, the Hanover Company is saying it’s ready to build portions of a 6-story mixed-use building directly on top of part of that street. Plans for the new project, called Hanover at Rice Village, show a large plaza with restaurant seating on the eastern portion of what used to be Bolsover, facing Morningside. But the west half of the block is slated for retail space, apartments, and a private courtyard for residents:

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Houston Heights
01/25/11 11:44pm

Studewood Place: Some New Building Behind the 11th St. Someburger

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Mixed Use, Proposed Developments
121 Comments

Details on the 6-story mixed-use building being planned for the corner of Studewood and 11th 1/2 St. in the Heights will be announced “very soon,” a representative of the new property owner promises Swamplot. A couple readers wrote in earlier today with questions about the new construction fence that just went up on the 25,000-sq.-ft. lot, directly behind the Someburger stand on 11th St. Here’s all the owner, a new firm called Vita Nuova, is willing to say about the project — dubbed Studewood Place on city permits:

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Commercial Real Estate
01/03/11 2:34pm

Everybody Out: The Ghost Town at 3400 Montrose

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Mixed Use, Montrose, Office Buildings, Openings and Closings, Public Safety, Retail
18 Comments

A reader tells Swamplot a sticker on the front door of the 10-story mixed-use building at 3400 Montrose notes the building is unsafe and does not have a working fire-alarm system:

They have gated off the garage and also all the first level tenants have now moved out. Any word on what is going on? Is the building being closed up? Torn down?

Renovated?

The building’s highest-profile (and -altitude) tenant, Scott Gertner’s Skybar, moved out over the summer, after complaining that the building’s new owner, a company out of Waco called FH Properties, wasn’t responding to maintenance concerns.

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Apartments
12/29/10 12:24pm

A Plaza View for the Rice Village: Hanover Plans Smaller Development in Place of Sonoma Screwup

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Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Restaurants, Retail, Rice Village
33 Comments

The Village News is reporting that the Hanover Company has purchased the 4.5-acre site in the Rice Village once slated for Randall Davis’s Sonoma development, and is ready with plans to build a large — though far less grandiose — retail-and-apartment project on the site. Davis and partner Lamesa Properties made a mess of the site 2 years ago, purchasing a stretch of Bolsover St. from the city and demolishing several buildings’ worth of retail and office space before facing the credit markets and figuring out they wouldn’t be able to get financing for the project.

Hanover’s project, called Plaza View Hanover at Rice Village, is scheduled to include 385 “high-end” apartments, 14,000 sq. ft. of retail or restaurant space, and a multi-level parking garage, all in what its designers label a pedestrian-friendly design. What’s that plaza we’ll be viewing? An almost-17,000-sq.-ft. public space along Morningside, with a “water feature, grass lawn, large trees, and restaurant dining spaces.” According to Hanover executive veep John Garibaldi, 55,000 sq. ft. of retail space, 34,000 sq. ft. of office space, and an 8,000-sq.-ft. grocery store were cut from the earlier Sonoma plans. Much of the towering nouveau pomposity of the Sonoma design has been cut too. Along Kelvin St., Hanover’s buildings will reach 6 stories tall; 5 stories along Morningside and Dunstan.

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Attractions
11/22/10 7:52pm

Comment of the Day: Sugar Land Shopping Outings, Between Innings

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Comments, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Shopping, Strip Centers, Sugar Land
4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SUGAR LAND SHOPPING OUTINGS, BETWEEN INNINGS “Maybe this is a new suburban form of mixed use development. Who says you can’t pick up your prescriptions, grab a venti latte and watch a ball game all at the same place?” [Matt, commenting on New Sugar Land Minor League Stadium Easily Assembled from Standardized Suburban Parts]

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CityCentre
10/06/10 1:27pm

The Next 2 Buildings at CityCentre

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Mixed Use, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments
17 Comments

Early renderings are out for the next round of construction — promised for 2011 — at CityCentre, Midway Companies’ mixed-use assortment on the former site of the Town and Country Mall. The 3rd and 4th office buildings in the complex will together be called CityCentre 3, and they’ll go on the leftover patch of grass just west of the Hotel Sorella, sidling up to Beltway 8. Like the others, the two new 6-story buildings will feature retail space on their ground floors: more than 33,000 sq. ft. out of a total 250,000. The feeder-road view:

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Development Restrictions
08/16/10 12:48pm

Must See This: Billboard Bunny Pushes Back New Montrose Office Tower

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Mixed Use, Montrose, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Streets
12 Comments

The art-gallery building at 4411 Montrose, just north of the bridge over the Southwest Freeway, stands only a few feet back from the front sidewalk. But just one block south, the Midway Companies is planning to plant its new 13-story office tower (which, like 4411 Montrose, will feature a restaurant space on the ground floor and gallery spaces upstairs) a full 25 feet back from the Montrose Blvd. property line. But that’s not because Midway is shy about getting any variances necessary to get around mandated city setbacks.

No, Midway director Shon Link tells Swamplot the M Fifty-Nine building must stand clear of the bright yellow Clear Channel billboard that pokes out from the southwest corner of the property. Restrictions require the billboard to have a clear view of oncoming traffic driving south on Montrose. Currently peeking out from the bottom part of the billboard: The Nesquick Bunny.

Behind Montrose, M Fifty-Nine won’t be so shy with the streets:

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Mixed Use
08/11/10 12:05pm

A New Gallery-Ready Office Tower at Montrose and 59

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Montrose, Office Space, Proposed Developments, Retail
23 Comments

That’s 4,000-sq.-ft. of art-gallery space on the second floor of M Fifty-Nine, a new 13-story office building Midway Companies is planning for the northeast corner of Montrose Blvd. and the Southwest Freeway. This view is from the southwest, looking toward Downtown (in the lower left, you can see the ghostly image of a portion of the Montrose Blvd. bridge that would actually be in the foreground). The design, by local architects Muñoz + Albin, includes 64,000 sq. ft. of office space and 7,000 sq. ft. of “restaurant ready” retail on the ground floor facing Montrose. Behind the gallery space: an enclosed parking garage for more than 200 cars. Midway Companies, the developers of CityCentre, hopes to begin construction on the project early next year.

What’s on the site now?

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Cancellations and Delays
06/14/10 8:26am

Green and Wiggly AstroWorld Redevelopment Plan Coulda Been a Contender

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Green Design and Development, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Reliant Park
19 Comments

The ambitious mixed-use “eco urban” project shown here — intended for the site of the former AstroWorld — was the idea of a south Florida developer who had the property under contract for an extended period of time, a source tells Swamplot. Called Epicentre Houston, Vantage Plus Corp.’s gargantuan development was meant to be a “city within a city” — combining typical mixed-use elements (1.6 million sq. ft. of shops, 5.2 million sq. ft. of offices, 1500 hotel rooms, and 1840 residences) with 1.9 million sq. ft. of medical space, all within walking distance of Reliant Park, the light-rail line, and the South Loop Sam’s Club.

The developer was scheduled to close on the property approximately 5 months ago, but was unable to, says the source. The 104-acre lot just south of the South Loop has since been sold to Fort Worth developer Michael Mallick, who doesn’t appear to be hiding any fancy renderings of transparent banana-shaped multipurpose buildings up his sleeve.

Oh, but what might have been! More zoomy images of the theme-park redo:

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Cancellations and Delays
04/05/10 2:02pm

Comment of the Day: Still Waiting for Park 8 To Arrive in the Land of Oz

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Chinatown, Comments, Condos, Highrises, Mixed Use, Parks, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Retail, Strip Centers
3 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: STILL WAITING FOR PARK 8 TO ARRIVE IN THE LAND OF OZ “Do you have any update on this project? I’m very curious to find out more about the status and what the projected outcome will be for the many buyers of this condo that is 3 years behind schedule.” [Caroling, commenting on Park 8 Chinatown Condo Project: Parked?] Rendering: Marketing Park8

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Art
03/18/10 12:50pm

Pearland Heads Cut Off: The WaterLight District’s Giant Presidential Bust

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Cancellations and Delays, Financing, Foreclosures, Mixed Use, Parks, Pearland, Proposed Developments, Public Art
14 Comments

President Heads above Mud at Presidential Park and Gardens, Waterlights District, Pearland, Texas

The property intended to be home to the Waterlights District — the proposed mixed-use shopping and eating extravaganzorama in Pearland — has been posted for foreclosure by its main creditor, Amegy Bank. The 1.9 million-sq.-ft. development was to feature condos, luxury apartments, office buildings, retail space, restaurants, 2 hotels, a conference facility, a “water wall,” and a Venice-like “Grand Canal.”

The site, off the Shadow Creek Pkwy. exit on the west side of Hwy. 288, has been marked for more than 2 years now by a curious semicircle of David Adickes sculptures, a preview of the development’s Presidential Park and Gardens. That park was to feature giant white busts of all 38 U.S. Presidents. But unlike Adickes other presidential suite, I-45’s Mount Rush Hour just north of Downtown Houston — in which each of the sculptor’s busts rests on its own podium — in the Waterlights grouping the 7 Presidents moved to the site appear from the freeway to be buried in the earth up to their chests, somehow managing to keep their heads above the often-times-soggy land around them. Yes, it was the perfect marker for a freeway-side development buried in debt and treading quicksand just to keep itself afloat:

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Attractions
01/27/10 6:03pm

Dynamo Plan B: The Stadium at Bellaire Station

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Bellaire, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Public Transportation
20 Comments

More details on that newly proposed alternate location for Dynamo Stadium that the soccer team is now apparently considering: It’s a 30-acre parcel at the southeast corner of Westpark and S. Rice Blvd., across from the Sam’s Club parking lot and Bubba’s Texas Burger Shack. That’s just southwest of the intersection of 59 and the 610 Loop, and right next to the planned location of the Uptown and University light-rail lines’ Bellaire Station — at Westpark and North 1st St.

Brad Feels, CEO of Midway Companies, tells the Chronicle‘s Chris Moran he’s envisioning a mixed-use development there somewhat like Dallas’s Mockingbird Station, which sits just across the Central Expressway from SMU’s Ford Stadium, and which features restaurants and retail, office buildings, apartments, and a movie theater complex. (Midway is the developer of CityCentre, now pretty much complete at the site of the former Town & Country Mall.) Feels first contacted the Dynamo’s Oliver Luck with information about the property in October or November of last year.

What’s happening with plans to build a Dynamo Stadium in East Downtown?

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Galleria
11/04/09 2:54pm

Mixed Use for the New Uptown Corridor: A Better Perennial Portrait

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Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Transportation
14 Comments

Here they are: More renderings of the Perennial, the mixed-use development the Redstone Companies is hoping to fit onto a block at 2200 Post Oak Blvd. just north of the Galleria — on the former site of the Compass Bank building, which was imploded in a small ceremony earlier this year. Does this thing look familiar? An earlier drawing of the project appeared on the SkyscraperPage forum and was featured on Swamplot in May. Now HAIF poster Urbannizer digs up a leasing brochure for the property from the development’s otherwise password-protected website.

What’s for lease? Two separate buildings: a 20-story office tower incorporating an 8-level parking garage as well as lots of retail space at the base; and a separate hotel tower to the north — combining just under 300 guest rooms and 100 residences. In all, the developers are counting just under 74,000 sq. ft. of retail space, including 3 levels meant to face the action on Post Oak.

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Comments
08/27/09 9:04pm

Comment of the Day: Missing That High-Density High Density

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Development Strategies, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Quicklink
16 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: MISSING THAT HIGH-DENSITY HIGH DENSITY “Houston has a lot of high-density *potential*. Unfortunately it isn’t developing out that way. Instead, high-density developments [are] being put in low-density areas. Which makes them pockets of density without the benefits. West Ave., Regent Square, and the infamous Ashby Highrise are all examples. For urban density to work, it must reach a ‘critial mass’ of proximity, diversity of commerce, employment, and on-the-spot residences all within walking distance. Put the three developements above near each other, and near downtown, and you’d have a true move toward urbanism. Alone, none are big enough to be self-sustaining as a true urban lifestyle. Putting them in lower-density areas and residential neighborhoods dilutes the effect, greatly reduces the benefits of density, and causes a lot more strain on infrastructure this isn’t adequate for the density. If Houston want’s to become a true urban city, it won’t happen in the disjunctive manner we’re currently seeing. Our current path will only lead to those that want traditional neighborhoods upset with large-scale develpers and those that want true urbanism not getting it either.” [Dave McC, commenting on Boyd’s Wilshire Village Prayer, with Photos]

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