COMMENT OF THE DAY: SETTING THE STANDARDS TOO HIGH “Have people gone from midgets to monsters in the few years that this place went from being fully occupied to empty? Before it closed were people banging their heads on the roof? did any of the previous tenants died of melanoma due to asbestos? Should we blow up any building that has asbestos in it? Do you realize that would be just about every building in the city? I realize the ceilings are lower than what is considered to be in style today, but that doesn’t mean the place needs to be torn down. The price of the building, plus the cost of demo, is much higher than the land alone was worth. There is no way that the value of the structure doesn’t warrant it being saved. If you clean the place up and turned it into offices, it would be full in about 15 seconds. Low ceilings and all. It’s not the asbestos or low ceilings keeping it from being taken care of and fixed up. It’s unrealistic expectations of what the building needs to be in order to be considered satisfactory to the city.” [Codys bar, commenting on Will 3400 Montrose Rise from the Dead?]
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Office Buildings
ARCO OFFICE GOING DOWN; DOWNTOWN HOUSTON CLUB BUILDING WILL STAY PUT 
Dismemberment of the former ARCO office building west of Eldridge at 15375 Memorial Dr. should begin sometime within a month or two, Catie Dixon reports. What will new owner Skanska USA do with the 21-acre site — rumored as a possible location for the new Phillips 66 headquarters? Skanska is currently hunting for an architect to provide a master plan, Dixon writes, “potentially with a couple of offices.” Meanwhile, the other pre-owned office building purchased recently by the Swedish construction firm appears safe from the wrecking ball: The company’s regional manager tells Dixon he expects to begin remodeling the Houston Club building at 811 Rusk St. downtown by the end of 2012. [Real Estate Bisnow; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Houston Club building: Silberman Properties
WILL 3400 MONTROSE RISE FROM THE DEAD? 
On assignment a couple of months ago to document the office building at 3400 Montrose that once housed Scott Gertner’s Skybar, photographer Patrick Bertolino wrote that the 10-story vacant structure across Hawthorne St. from Kroger reminded him “of what a building might look like after a zombie apocalypse, minus the zombies.” But, um, zombies always come back, don’t they? And now here’s a hint that something might be stirring: Workers were giving the parking structure behind the building a new coat of paint yesterday, reports Swamplot picture-snapper Candace Garcia. Photo evidence above. [Patrick Bertolino; previously on Swamplot] Photo of parking garage: Candace Garcia
EXXONMOBIL’S HUMBLE GIFT TO THE CITY? 
What will happen to its well-shaded 44-story downtown headquarters building at 800 Bell St., once ExxonMobil decamps for the new campus the oil giant is building at Houston’s northern reaches? The company “has not announced what will happen to its downtown building,” writes longtime real estate reporter Ralph Bivins about the iconic 1963 tower that houses at its top the storied Petroleum Club. “One of the most interesting rumors we’ve heard about it is that Exxon Mobil will donate the building to the City of Houston for municipal offices. You know, we can’t sell it, so let’s just give it to Annise Parker instead.” [Culturemap] Photo: Flickr user lc_db
ConocoPhillips refining offshoot Phillips 66 will build a new headquarters facility no more than 10 miles away from the company’s current location, “within the I-10 and Beltway 8 corridors,” according to an email sent to employees this morning. The company had already indicated that Phillips 66 employees would leave the company’s iconic current facility at Dairy Ashford and Eldridge, but the announcement that the oil company’s headquarters will be built from scratch is new.
THE OFFICE BUILDING APPRAISAL DISCOUNT 
“Across the city, prime office buildings are selling for far more than their tax values, leaving billions in potential tax revenue on the table at a time when city and county budgets are stretched,” writes business columnist Loren Steffy. “It’s almost as if there’s two sets of books: one for the buyers and sellers, and one for the tax man. A random sample of more than 40 office buildings that sold in the past five years found 2011 appraisals trailing market value by about 40 percent, or more than $1.6 billion in unrecognized taxable value.” A state law prohibits county appraisers from taking into account certain “intangibles” — including leases and occupancy rates — in valuing commercial property. [Houston Chronicle, via Off the Kuff] Photo of Heritage Plaza: Waymarking
REPAIRS DONE, WEDGE AS IT WAS 
The Swamplot reader who noted a color change in the panels at the top of the WEDGE International Tower at Louisiana and Bell St. downtown last week informs us that they’ve since been returned to their original appearance, and submits this pic from a perch at the Tellepsen YMCA a couple of blocks away to prove it: “Presumably, as one of the commenters surmised, they were just running through some routine maintenance.” We now return to our regularly scheduled Swamplot programming. Photo: Swamplot inbox
Is some sort of paint job underway on the WEDGE International Tower at Louisiana and Bell St. downtown? Or is some new material being installed on the building exterior? A reader who wants to know sends in these spandrel surveillance pics from a perch at the new Tellepsen YMCA.
Is the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy the busiest intersection in Inner Loop real estate right now? Two months after the opening of the new H-E-B Montrose Market on the former site of the Wilshire Village Apartments on the southwest corner of that intersection, and just a week after developer Marvy Finger’s official announcement of his plans to replace the Fiesta Food Mart on the southeast corner with a 6-to-8-story “Mediterranean” apartment building, there is a report that the 2 apartment complexes on the northeast corner may be next to fall. It may be a bit more than a rumor: While taking these photos yesterday, Swamplot’s Candace Garcia came across workers who appeared to be surveying the site. For what?
The rather plain-looking headquarters of the Dominic Walsh Dance Theater company at the corner of Dunlavy and Fairview is getting more than just a new coat of paint. The building at 2311 Dunlavy is slated for a redesign by another building tenant, DiNunzio Lifestyle Architecture, which will create a new entrance facing Fairview and add several new materials to the exterior. “It is going to really catch your eye when it’s done!” reads a note on the architecture firm’s Facebook page.
Note: Story updated and corrected below.
Anadarko Petroleum announced to its employees last week that the company is ready to begin constructing a second office tower just west of its existing headquarters building in The Woodlands Town Center, a source tells Swamplot. The new building will fit on the corner of Lake Robbins Dr. and Woodloch Forest Dr., just south of The Woodlands Mall, and like the current tower will be visible from miles south on I-45. At the announced 31 stories, the new structure would be one floor shorter taller.
According to the report, parking will account for the building’s first 10 floors, though the renderings included in the announcement (above) appear to show a garage a bit shorter than that. The remaining floors are planned to accommodate company growth. Construction is expected to be complete by the spring of 2014. Anadarko did not announce the building’s contractor or architect.
Update, 1:25 pm: Groundbreaking is expected in a few weeks, our source adds; workers are beginning to clear the lot this week.
Renderings: Swamplot inbox
Workers began taking down the engraved stone Stanford Financial Group sign embedded in the facade of the company’s former headquarters building at 5050 Westheimer last Friday, reader Andrew Tyler reports with this tweeted photo. Federal law enforcement officials raided the building and Stanford Financial offices in Galleria Tower II almost 3 years ago; company founder Allen Stanford was arrested 4 months later. In July of 2010, Woodlands-based Black Forest Ventures bought the 3-story, 71,000-sq.-ft. structure across the street from the Galleria for $12.5 million.
- 5050 Westheimer [Black Forest Ventures]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Black Forest Mix, Comment of the Day: Inside the Stanford Financial Group Offices at 5050 Westheimer, Westheimer Office Building and All: Allen Stanford Says Sell!, Feds Now Raiding Stanford Financial Group Offices in the Galleria
Photo: Andrew Tyler
There are no good accessible viewing areas for this weekend’s scheduled implosion of the Houston Main Building at 1100 Holcombe, the folks at M.D. Anderson insist. (That space they’re squeezing media reps into to watch the big bang? Too small.) But why get up so early on a Sunday morning just to catch a few lungfuls of white powder anyway? Instead, you can watch the festive destruction of the iconic former Prudential Building live on the web from this link. The dynamite is scheduled to go off January 8th at 7:52 am (unless, of course, one of those Life Flight helicopters is coming in). And there’ll be higher-res video available later.
- Previously on Swamplot: M.D. Anderson: Prudential Building Demo Site Will Sit Vacant for Years, Med Center Prudential Tower Skeleton Will Survive Through End of Year, M.D. Anderson Tower Will Go Out with a Bang, Kill It in One Big Boom, Or Piece by Piece?, M.D. Anderson’s Quiet Preservation Effort: Peter Hurd’s Prudential Mural Has Left the Building, Sure Looks Like Demolition This Time: M.D. Anderson Begins Taking Down the Prudential Tower, Will M.D. Anderson’s Contractor Bungle the Largest Fresco Rescue Ever?, The Prudential Tower’s Grand Entrance, Before Its Not-so-Grand Exit, Update: M.D. Anderson Not Demolishing Former Prudential Tower Yet, Just Hacking Away at It a Bit, Report: M.D. Anderson Begins Demolishing Med Center Icon
Photo: Candace Garcia
Walking by the vacant site on the corner of Binz and Chenevert on the way to Hermann Park, reader David Hollas notes that the large sign advertising a 75,000-sq.-ft. medical-offices-and-retail development planned for the site has been taken down. Meanwhile, the surrounding neighborhood has been peppered with Ashby-Highrise-style signs protesting Balcor Commercial’s planned 6-story Parc Binz building and parking garage at 1800 Binz St— and “hi-rise buildings” in general. Opposition to the development got some media attention last year, but Hollas has seen sign changes on the property before: “About 2 years ago, the signs offered the sale of townhomes that were to be built imminently, but never materialized. After a period of inactivity and weed growth, the city came and decked out the site with code violation placards. Eventually the site was mowed and trash removed, and the city signs and townhome signs disappeared.”
An M.D. Anderson Cancer Center official tells the HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson that the UT institution will likely wait 3 to 10 years before putting any new structure on the site of the former Prudential Tower it’s been working diligently all year to knock down. Workers were moved out of the 18-story structure — renamed the Houston Main Building — last year. The hulking remains of the iconic 1952 Kenneth Franzheim building at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. will come down in a cloud of dust after several rounds of dynamite blasts on January 8th.
M.D. Anderson senior VP Dan Fontaine says the Med Center institution doesn’t even have a design yet for the 2 new structures — likely for outpatient care — that will eventually be built in that location. Until the institution finds a better use for it, the demo site will be turned into a “park-like setting.”
- Hospitals hesitate on billions of dollars of construction [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Med Center Prudential Tower Skeleton Will Survive Through End of Year, M.D. Anderson Tower Will Go Out with a Bang, Kill It in One Big Boom, Or Piece by Piece?, M.D. Anderson’s Quiet Preservation Effort: Peter Hurd’s Prudential Mural Has Left the Building, Sure Looks Like Demolition This Time: M.D. Anderson Begins Taking Down the Prudential Tower, Will M.D. Anderson’s Contractor Bungle the Largest Fresco Rescue Ever?, The Prudential Tower’s Grand Entrance, Before Its Not-so-Grand Exit, Update: M.D. Anderson Not Demolishing Former Prudential Tower Yet, Just Hacking Away at It a Bit, Report: M.D. Anderson Begins Demolishing Med Center Icon
Photo: Karen Lantz
