New Construction

Apartments
01/20/15 3:30pm

Hines’s 32-Story Apartment Tower Catty-Corner from Market Square Is Going Up Now

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Downtown, New Construction, Proposed Developments
19 Comments

Construction of Hines Market Square Tower, Travis and Preston Streets, Downtown Houston

Construction of Hines Market Square Tower, Travis and Preston Streets, Downtown Houston

Proposed Hines Market Square Tower, Travis and Preston Streets, Downtown HoustonA week later than promised, trucks and equipment have been moved onto the southeast corner of Preston and Travis streets downtown, ready to carve a 32-story highrise apartment building out of this surface parking lot, a reader reports (sending the above pics).

Meanwhile, Ziegler Cooper’s design for the tower has grown more brick-y and a bit less sleek and Mod than renderings featured a year ago on Swamplot appeared to show. The building has contracted since then as well: It’s now 1 floor shorter, and — at 274 units — 15 apartments lighter than indicated previously.

The building will still feature street-facing retail space on the ground level of its (now) 8-floor garage podium, and a pool deck above, according to the architects:

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One Market Square
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Demolitions
01/15/15 1:30pm

Serial Renovator Decides To Knock Back a Couple in Midtown, Start from Scratch

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Midtown, New Construction, Redevelopment, Townhomes
21 Comments

Excavator, 1707 Holman St., Midtown, Houston

The Komatsu has arrived at the doorstep of this 1941 bungalow at 1707 Holman St., in the southeast corner of Midtown. Once it disposes of the property, the excavator will work its way through another home abutting this one’s back yard — at 1706 Francis St. And once the land is clear, Jared Meadors and Tony Tripoli will start building this development of 6 close-but-not-touching townhouses fronting a long driveway extending all the way from Holman to Francis:

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New Townhome Row
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Apartments
01/15/15 11:45am

Never Mind the Oil: Med Center Area Y-Plan Apartment Tower To Start Climbing in Less Than 2 Weeks

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New Construction, Proposed Developments, Texas Medical Center
6 Comments

Proposed Millennium Tower Apartments, 1911 Holcombe Blvd., Texas Medical Center, Houston

If you’re scoring which large residential projects are going ahead — despite concerns about a price-of-oil-induced downturn — and which ones are being quietly shelved, score this apartment tower from the Dinerstein Companies in the first column. “The medical center will shield us from the oil situation,” Dinerstein marketing director Emily Prevost declares to HBJ reporter Paul Takahashi. Construction on the Millennium Tower on a vacant lot at 1911 Holcombe St., just southeast of the Brays Bayou border of the official Texas Medical Center campus, is scheduled to begin on January 26th.

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The Scrubs Will Shield Us
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Featured Posts
01/13/15 2:30pm

Pickard Chilton Amegy HQ on Former Micro Center Site Will Reflect, Brand Clouds with Bank Logo

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New Construction, Office Buildings, Post Oak Park
11 Comments

Rendering of Amegy Bank Tower, 1717 West Loop S., HoustonHere’s the first image most of us have seen of the 24-story office tower New Haven architects Pickard Chilton have been quietly designing for Amegy Bank. The site is the former West Loop stomping grounds of Micro Center at 1717 West Loop South, just north of San Felipe. The foundation was poured for the building this past weekend; construction is expected to be complete by the end of 2016.

The tower will contain 350,000 sq. ft. of space; Amegy is expecting to use more than two-thirds of that total. The bottom floors of the tower will contain a parking garage.

Rendering: Amegy Bank

First Look
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Featured Posts
01/12/15 3:00pm

The Future of Midtown Art and Theater Productions Is Now Framed in Steel

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Institutional Buildings, Midtown, New Construction
2 Comments

Construction of Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston, 3400 Main St., Midtown, Houston

Here’s a pic showing construction of the new midtown arts center, taken from the corner of Holman and Main St. last week. And the folks behind MATCH are happy to walk you through the steel-outlined spaces of the building-in-progress, designed by Lake Flato and Houston’s Studio Red: “The breezeway is on your left; the café is at your feet and the backstage corridor for Theatre A stretches into the distance on your right where you can see the plumbing stub outs for the laundry and the Theatre A dressing rooms. The high steel in the foreground at 12 o’clock is Theater A and the high steel off to the left at 10 o’clock is Theatre D. The dirt area to your left is the future home of the South building where the offices, gallery and rehearsal rooms will be.”

Construction of the facility at 3400 Main St. is expected to be complete by fall, with or without the last $2+ million of the $25 million budget the organization still needs to raise.

Photo: MATCH

MATCH Going Up
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Apartments
12/24/14 11:00am

Up in the Air and Rotating at the Corner of Montrose and Hawthorne

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Montrose, New Construction, Quicklink
3 Comments

UP IN THE AIR AND ROTATING AT THE CORNER OF MONTROSE AND HAWTHORNE Construction Crane, 3400 Montrose Blvd., Montrose, HoustonHere’s your photo proof that the construction crane for Hanover’s new 30-story 3400 Montrose apartment building going up at 3400 Montrose Blvd., on the site of the 3400 Montrose office building torn down earlier this year, went up before Christmas 2014. A reader sends in this shot from the catty-corner corner at cross street Hawthorne. The crane was assembled on site last week. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox    

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Featured Posts
12/09/14 11:59am

The Gravesite of the Quirky PoMo Masterson YWCA to Sprout an 18-Story Office Tower

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Memorial Heights, New Construction, Office Buildings
11 Comments

willia-st-pinto-2

In case you missed them late last month, here are a few renderings of Park Place at Buffalo Bayou, the 18-story office tower Pinto Realty Partners is putting up on Willia St., atop the rim of the Spotts Park bowl at Memorial Dr. and Waugh Dr., just north of Buffalo Bayou and atop the dust of the demolished Masterson YWCA.

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Willia Look At This
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Featured Posts
11/12/14 12:00pm

A New Park Is About To Sprout by the Freeway in the Fifth Ward

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Fifth Ward, New Construction, Parks, Public Housing
10 Comments

Proposed Community Park at Kelly Village Housing Development, 3118 Green St., Fifth Ward, Houston

Signs are now up along the feeder road of the East Fwy. near Gregg St., a reader tells Swamplot, announcing an impending construction project on the site where last year demolition crews removed 63 units belonging to the Kelly Village Apartments that had been left to decay after sustaining damage from Hurricane Ike. Scheduled to go up soon in its place is the $800,000 freeway-side park illustrated above, which was announced last year. The 3-acre site near the confluence of I-10 and Hwy. 59 will include a playground, jogging and walking trails, exercise spots, and a community garden.

Rendering: Houston Housing Authority

A Park at Kelly Village
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Apartments
10/29/14 12:00pm

Chelsea Montrose Tower Kicks Off Construction with a New Name

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Museum District, New Construction, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing
9 Comments

CHELSEA MONTROSE TOWER KICKS OFF CONSTRUCTION WITH A NEW NAME Rendering of Proposed The Carter, Formerly Chelsea Montrose, 4 Chelsea Blvd., Museum District, HoustonPrompted by a press release, the HBJ and the Chronicle announced yesterday that construction has begun on the new apartment complex at 4 Chelsea Blvd., just east of Montrose Blvd. along the southern edge of Hwy. 59. in the Museum District. The 305-unit, 20-story building will be called The Carter, both publications reported. That’s a new name — so new, in fact, that the website for the developer, Dallas’s StreetLights Residential, still identifies the project by its former title, Chelsea–Montrose. The Chelsea name and its NYC pedigree may have conjured up unpleasant images of unmade beds, ugliness, and loud music among prospective tenants, but the new name has its own rich NYC backstory — though an entirely fictional one. As a commenter on HAIF notes, “the Carter” was the name of the complex Wesley Snipes spends the first act of the early-nineties movie New Jack City turning into a vertically integrated crack-producing-and-marketing enterprise. More recently, the appellation has come to be used as an affectionate nickname for troubled residential projects seen to be slipping into similar directions. [Houston Chronicle; Lansing City Pulse; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: StreetLights Residential

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Attractions
10/06/14 1:30pm

This Mystery Steel Structure on I-10 Between Bunker Hill and Blalock Is a UFO

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New Construction, Spring Branch
5 Comments

iFLY Indoor Skydiving Facility Under Construction, 9540 Katy Fwy., Spring Branch, Houston

A mere half-dozen readers have written Swamplot to ask about this strange multi-story steel-framed structure that’s been going up next to the Lowe’s on I-10 between Blalock and Bunker Hill — or its twin on the site of the former Casa Elena restaurant across the freeway from The Woodlands at 26824 Interstate 45 North. And we’re guessing a few more of you are curious as well, but just haven’t had the time to send in your photos and speculation. Capitalizing on the freeway mystery, the company behind the structure has set up a website at GuessWhatThisIs.com. (With indoor-skydiving facilities in 9 other U.S. cities already, iFLY has been through the drill before.)

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Indoor Skydiving
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Dacoma
10/02/14 1:15pm

Why the New Karbach Brewery Building Was Smoking Today

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Fires, Industrial Properties, New Construction
4 Comments

Smoke Over New Karbach Brewery, Dacoma St. at Karbach St., Dacoma, Houston

If you’re wondering, like the person who took this photo earlier today, what the story is behind the smoke seen here coming out of the top of the new Karbach Brewing Co. building under construction at the corner of Karbach St. and Dacoma St., just west of Mangum Rd., there’s no need to worry: A small fire at the the construction site was put out quickly a short while ago with minimal damage, according to a company rep.

Karbach was rated last year as one of the fastest-growing craft breweries in the U.S. The new 2-story, 19,000-sq.-ft. brewery building adjacent to its existing facility was designed by Three Square Design Group, and will include a public tap room and kitchen, along with a special-event space upstairs.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Your Beer Is Safe
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Apartments
09/29/14 11:30am

The Hamilton Apartments Are Going Up on a Freeway-Wrapped Corner in Downtown’s Far Southeast

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Downtown, New Construction
27 Comments

Site of Hamilton Apartments, 1800 St. Joseph Pkwy. at Chenevert, Downtown Houston

With nary an announcement, preliminary sitework appears to have begun for the 148-unit Hamilton Apartments, on a 1.12-acre lot at the southeasternmost corner of downtown (actually, the southern corner if you don’t pretend, as most direction-givers do, that the downtown grid has no tilt to it). The block, hugged gently by a flying overpass at the intersection of I-45 and Hwy. 59, is surrounded by Hamilton, St. Joseph Pkwy., Pierce, and Chenevert streets.

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Overpass Pads
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Apartments
09/12/14 12:45pm

A Few Months After Completing Demolition of 3400 Montrose, Construction Crews Begin Building 3400 Montrose

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Highrises, Montrose, New Construction
19 Comments

3400-montrose-const-fence

3400-montrose-diggingConstruction appears to have begun on the site at 3400 Montrose Blvd., where a 30-story apartment tower by Hanover named 3400 Montrose will replace the 10-story 1953 office building formerly on the site. That building was named 3400 Montrose as well, but was also also referred to as “That building with the Skybar on the top floor,” or (later in its life) “Don’t walk along that sidewalk or you might get hit on the head by a limestone panel.” Demolition was completed this past spring. A reader sends Swamplot these views of the corner of Montrose and Hawthorne, where a wooden construction fence has recently gone up.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

3400 Montrose
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Downtown
08/22/14 4:30pm

1400 Truckloads of Concrete Are Going into This Downtown Hole Over the Weekend

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Highrises, New Construction, Office Buildings
13 Comments

Construction Site at 609 Main St., Downtown Houston

Rendering of Pickard Chilton Design for 609 Main St., Downtown HoustonUpdate, 8/26: The headline has been corrected.

If you’re wondering what the late-night traffic holdup is in and around Main St. and Texas Ave. over the weekend, here’s your explainer: 180 mixing trucks are going to be lining up to pour a continuous stream of concrete onto this site surrounded by Main, Texas, Fannin, and Capitol streets downtown, where D.E. Harvey builders is putting together a little office building — now slated to rise 48 stories — for the Hines CalPERS Green development fund. The action starts at 7 pm on Saturday and should finish up around 3 in the afternoon the next day.

In all, about 14,000 cubic yards of concrete will go into the mat foundation of the 609 Main St. building during those 17 hours. The Texas Tower, formerly known as the Sterling Building, was dismantled on a portion of the site earlier this year.

Photo: Hines. Rendering: Pickard Chilton

609 Main
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Featured Posts
08/19/14 1:15pm

Electrifying Yale St. Expansion Set To Transform Neighborhood Around Alexan Heights Apartments

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Houston Heights, New Construction, Utilities
4 Comments

Substation Expansion, 612 Yale St., Houston Heights

Without making a big alert-the-neighbors fuss about it, CenterPoint Energy appears to have begun expanding the electrical substation across the street from the new Alexan Heights apartment complex going up on Yale St. into an adjacent vacant lot, a reader reports. Crews began breaking up the 6,600-sq.-ft. lot’s concrete surface yesterday. CenterPoint has owned the lot at 612 Yale St. since 2004, according to county tax records, though the neighboring 6th and Yale Collision and Repair shop had often used it as parking space.

The lot appears at the top center of this recent aerial view of apartment construction and the substation:

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Not Shocking
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