New Construction

Featured Posts
07/03/18 4:00pm

Stanley Park Soil-Shufflers Tagged for Jumping the Gun After Mayor Puts Floodplain Neighborhood Construction on Hold

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New Construction, Timbergrove Manor
7 Comments

At last week’s city council meeting, Mayor Turner told residents that the Stanley Park subdivision now on the rise in the 100-year floodplain south of Timbergrove Manor “is currently on hold. I know Harris County Flood Control has put a hold on it. We have also put a hold on it to take a look at it.” But as of Monday morning, site work was still continuing on the 12-acre parcel — according to StopStanleyPark, an organization nearby residents set up to oppose the project — until the red tag pictured above was issued for it in the afternoon.

A pair of dump trucks, along with an excavator were the latest visitors to the job site at the end of Shirkmere Dr.:

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Splash of Color
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Downtown
07/02/18 12:15pm

Here’s 2 Years of HSPVA Construction Crammed into 30 Riveting Seconds

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New Construction, Schools, Theater District
6 Comments

From start to finish, the video above fast forwards through about 2 years of construction on the Kinder High School for Performing and Visual Arts’ new building at 790 Austin St. Following an official groundbreaking in late 2014, workers stacked 5 floors atop a 2-story underground parking garage (which took on about 10 in. of water during Harvey) — leaving space in the front face on Austin St. for a multistory jigsaw-like window.

That opening started out as more of a hole:

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Assembly Period
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Apartments
06/28/18 12:15pm

7-Story Apartment Now Plopping Itself Down Atop Vacant Field on Austin St.

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Midtown, New Construction
8 Comments

Here’s what’s now being stabbed onto the vacant Midtown block bounded by Gray, Austin, Webster, and LaBranch streets catty-corner to the parking lot fronting St. Joseph Professional building and its recently-fallen cross: a 216-unit apartment building. The 5-story brick-and-stucco structure — pictured in the rendering above from architect Steinberg Dickey Collaborative — rests on 2 stories of parking. Its developer Winther Investment bought the full block along with the adjacent one southeast of it in 2013, where it plans to plant another residential building once this current cube is complete.

Rendering: Steinberg Dickey Collaborative

Stack of Bricks
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Featured Posts
06/27/18 9:30am

Where a New Timbergrove Neighborhood Is Now Springing Up, Across 610 from the Northwest Mall

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New Construction, Timbergrove
19 Comments

A Swamplot reader reports that construction vehicles have started pushing dirt around on the east side of 610, opposite the Northwest Mall. That marks some down-to-earth progress on developer David Weekley Homes’ plans to turn the 5.4-acre northeast corner (indicated at top) into something homelier than what its encompassing 33.6-acre tract (indicated above) is now: vacant.

Weekley filed plans last month to create a new subdivision dubbed Heights at Minimax that’s entered where Salford Dr. now terminates in a roundabout. Those whereabouts set the neighborhood back some from the West Loop, beyond an undeveloped buffer zone.

You can see where the west end of that zone butts up against the highway behind the Miller Lite billboard in the photo below, taken back before construction wrapped up on 610’s elevated northbound feeder lanes above Hempstead Dr. last March:

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Heights at Minimax
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Featured Posts
06/25/18 1:30pm

Sprawled-Out Sam Houston State Art Facilities Make a Break for New All-in-One Studios

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New Construction, Schools
3 Comments

At least one imaginary student couldn’t be more excited for Sam Houston State University’s new Art Complex. It’s not up and running yet, however; construction on the 4-floor studio and gallery space began earlier this month, after the school’s Board of Regents okayed Kirksey Architecture’s plans for the building in February.

When finished, it’ll consolidate the art facilities now spread across 7 separate campus buildings, mapped out below:

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Kilns Out Back
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Downtown
06/25/18 11:30am

Le Meridien Hotel’s Next-Door Garage Neighbor Now Nearly Moved-In Along Walker St.

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New Construction, Parking
2 Comments

Construction is almost a wrap on the 13-story parking garage bounded by Fannin, Rusk, and Walker streets — and neighbored by the Le Meridien hotel shown above to the east. Looking from the southwest, you can see the 2 structures shouldering up close to each other. But aside from their proximity on the block, there’s not much else they have in common: The garage serves the Jones on Main complex, a WeWork-inclusive renovation of the Gulf Building and adjacent Great Jones building, both 2 blocks away.

Another shot taken from 1001 McKinney’s 12-story garage — catty corner to the new structure — looks north up Fannin to show more of the concrete exterior:

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Surface Lot, All Grown Up
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Featured Posts
06/25/18 9:30am

New Retro Shipping Container Planted on Grassy Middle Ground Between Nourish + Kalos, Wendy’s off I-10

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Houston Heights, New Construction
3 Comments

A Swamplot reader stopping by Nourish + Kalos’s coffee and juice venue this weekend sends a photo of a new shipping container that’s now filling in the food gap between the beverage spot and Wendy’s’s drive-thru, visible on the south side of Cornish St. above. The box landed recently in the western end zone of a third-acre field off Durham — adjacent to GH Leather’s tan warehouse — that’s been starved for attention, save for that of the occasional food truck. Another less recent and less visible development for the container-containing parcel: an electrical permit filed on it in late April.

While the property housing the container — as well as a 5,000-sq.-ft. vacant lot abutting it — have been owned by the same entity since 2012, the grass-less corner lot shown beyond newly-installed black fencing in the photo above is in the hands of a different party. Nothing’s been built on any of the flatlands in over a decade, even as the neighboring strip building home to Gumbo Jeaux’s, Vape HQ, and Nourish + Kalos went up to the north in 2014.

Photos: Jason Cockerell

Need a Box for That?
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Apartments
06/22/18 5:00pm

Construction Crews Now Craning Above Broadstone Studemont Apartments Site off Elongated Summer St. Segment

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Houston Heights, New Construction
10 Comments

About 2-and-a-half floors of the soon-to-be-5-story Broadstone Studemont apartment building are now standing on a 4-acre parcel between Hicks and Summer streets. The shot above takes a look at the complex from an extension of Summer St. laid down west of Studemont — and Kroger — prior to the apartments’ groundbreaking in February.

The road segment cuts between the north side of the apartments and the planned Studemont Junction retail center opposite them, highlighted in the site plan below:

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Graveside Mid-Rise
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Featured Posts
06/19/18 2:00pm

How Much Progress Has Been Made on Holocaust Museum Houston’s New Flat-Topped Backyard Building

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Museum District, Museums, New Construction
17 Comments

Photos from the 13th floor of the office tower at 1200 Binz St. look northeast to show the state of things at Holocaust Museum Houston’s construction site off Caroline St. Peeking out behind the chimney-like roof cylinder on the existing wedge-shaped building, you can seek 3 stories of steel now standing behind it. They make up a nearly three-times-larger structure now taking shape where the museum’s previous single-story northern building was torn down earlier this year. In its place, the new 57,000- sq.-footer designed by Mucasey & Associates will house a 200-seat theater, bigger exhibition spaces, more classrooms, a larger library, and more offices than its predecessor.

It’ll abut the existing ramped building as shown in the elevation below, with an entrance in between the 2:

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3-Story Steel
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Featured Posts
06/18/18 1:00pm

Uptown Bus Lane Makes First Concrete Stride Down the Middle of Post Oak Blvd. North of San Felipe

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New Construction, Public Transportation, Uptown
23 Comments

The first stretch of concrete is down along a northern portion of the dedicated bus route that’s set to run up the middle of Post Oak Blvd. between Westpark Dr. and the West Loop. The photo at top looks north to show the freshly-paved southbound lane lying in the middle of the existing roadway, where it’s now making a stop at San Felipe St.

Its next drop-off point: Ambassador Wy., as indicated in the map below:

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Trailblazing
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Featured Posts
06/13/18 12:45pm

Builders Get Go-Ahead on Colombe d’Or’s 34-Floor Backdoor Tower Set To Peek Over Hanover Montrose Next Door

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Montrose, New Construction, WAMM
19 Comments

Permits were approved yesterday for construction on the 285-unit apartment tower Hines and TH Real Estate plan to build behind the La Colombe d’Or mansion-turned-hotel on Montrose Blvd. The rendering at top views all 34 floors of the new building — designed by Houston architectural firm Muñoz + Albin — from above Harold St. (opposite the recently re-domed Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral). That puts it 4-stories higher than the adjacent and somewhat stockier Hanover Montrose apartments shown greyed-out on the right.

Dubbed the Residences at La Colmobe d’Or, the tower takes the place of the once-adjacent Le Grand Salon de la Comtesse ballroom erected and decked out by the hotel’s owner Steve Zimmerman. It’s shown here in the Colombe d’Or’s backyard, before crews stripped it down and demolished it in March:

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18 Hotel Rooms Included
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East Downtown
06/11/18 11:00am

New Northbound 45 Flyover to 59 Portends East Side Freeway Future

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Freeways and Toll Roads, New Construction
7 Comments

I-45’s new, longer flyover is creeping steadily west toward 59 north following about 7 months of work to get there. The farther-away photo above looks south from the corner of Hutchins and Jefferson streets to show where the partly built roadway currently drops off, about 2 blocks east of its planned merge with 59.

The existing ramp toward 59 north — which diverges from the Gulf Fwy. just east of Emancipation — shut down last December 1. Its soon-to-be-built successor branches off from 45 a few blocks further east, giving drivers more time to swerve onto it than they had previously:

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Cliffhanger
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Featured Posts
06/08/18 4:30pm

Where the Broadstone Heights Waterworks Apartments Builders Are Parking Their Dirt

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New Construction, Timbergrove
1 Comment

Mounds of dirt are stacked high next to the West End Roofing building off Ella between 12th St. and Grovewood, which the developers of the Broadstone Heights Waterworks midrise a mile and a half away are using as a dumping ground for earthen debris involved in their project. A TCEQ notice posted by the dirt piles states that a plan was in place to prevent too much stomwater from running off the property between January 9 and June 1.

The new 8-story Broadstone building is planned on a portion of the original Heights Waterworks at the northwest corner 20th and Nicholson streets that Alliance bought from the city a few years ago. It’ll go up, catty-corner to the development Braun Enterprises has planned on the neighboring soon-to-be reworked waterworks parcel, as indicated in the map below:

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Timbergrove
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Featured Posts
06/05/18 2:00pm

Piles of Fill Dirt Now Giving Rise to Lovett Homes’ 77-Lot Neighborhood in White Oak Bayou Floodplain

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Flooding, New Construction, Timbergrove
38 Comments

Hillocks of dirt dot the landscape west of T.C. Jester, adjacent to the train tracks near the end of Shirkmere Dr. where Lovett Homes is now elevating some of the 77 lots that’ll make up its new Stanley Park subdivision. Since receiving a commercial fill permit from the city in April, the developer has stacked soil across the site — which lies entirely within White Oak Bayou’s 100-year floodplain and has never before been built on.

Also included in that flood-designated realm: the Timbergrove Manor neighborhood just north of the development. Its southernmost street, Queenswood Ln., had it up to here during Harvey:

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Next to Timbergrove Manor
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Apartments
05/31/18 11:00am

HHA’s First New Mixed-Income Complex in a Decade Debuts at Crosstimbers and N. Main

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New Construction, Quicklink
15 Comments

HHA’S FIRST NEW MIXED-INCOME COMPLEX IN A DECADE DEBUTS AT CROSSTIMBERS AND N. MAIN The Houston Housing Authority has finished building its first development in 10 years: the 154-unit Independence Heights Apartments. Situated at the southeast corner of Crosstimbers and N. Main St., the garden-style complex has units available to tenants who earn less than $41,500 per year and have qualified for public housing vouchers. (The median household income in Independence Heights is around $25,000.) Mayor Turner okayed the project back in November, 2016 — 2 months after he killed a similar mixed-income complex that had been proposed for Briargrove, in place of one of the housing authority’s own office buildings on Fountain View Dr. That decision prompted a federal investigation in which HUD eventually found that the city’s rejection “was motivated either in whole or in part by the race, color or national origin of the likely tenants.” Of the $45 million Houston has received from HUD since 2011 (in response to Hurricane Ike) only $12 million has been spent — all of it on this just-built project. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of Independence Heights Apartments under construction: Apartments.com

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