Openings and Closings

New Construction, North Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

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A reader sends along this photo of the very brightly painted new structure now up at the corner of Montrose and W. Clay, where the much-tamer red-and-yellow Golden Room Thai restaurant used to be.

According to the Golden Room website, when the restaurant reopens it will have the same ownership and food but a new name: Khun Kay Thai-American CafÃ©.

77019, Montrose, New Construction, North Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

Apartments

10/24/08 5:14pm

The Hanover Company: Closing Up Shop?

Commercial Real Estate, Hazards, Openings and Closings

Apartments, Hazards, Multifamily Developers, Openings and Closings

It’s Friday afternoon . . . and the rumors are flying! It’s looking like the shelving of the company’s planned Boulevard Place apartment highrise is only the beginning of a much-more-serious towering hangover for Hanover. Word has begun to spread that the private multifamily developer is shutting down its local office. The Hanover Company is based in Houston.

Employees with brand-new pink slips: Got any details you’d like to share? Swamplot’s completely anonymous tell-all line is open.

The Hanover Company
Hanover Uptown Apartment Tower: Officially on Hold [Swamplot]

Commercial Real Estate

10/21/08 2:46pm

Circuit City Threatens To Pull the Plug

Leasing, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail

Commercial Real Estate, Leasing, Openings and Closings, Retail

CIRCUIT CITY THREATENS TO PULL THE PLUG “One out-of-court solution the company is studying would likely lead to the closing of at least 150 stores and the elimination of thousands of jobs, said people familiar with the company’s plans. This would let the retailer liquidate about $350 million in inventory, which it could use to pay off certain real-estate costs, such as leases on abandoned sites. It would then hope to press existing landlords to renegotiate leases, many of which Circuit City regards as overpriced. Circuit City’s investors have homed in on those leases as a threat to the company’s health. Many were negotiated when real-estate prices were booming earlier this decade. Roughly 90% of the leases don’t expire until 2014 or later, and about 80 are for vacant locations.” There are 714 Circuit City stores in the U.S., 15 of them in Houston. [Wall St. Journal]

Openings and Closings

10/21/08 2:21pm

Linens-N-Things White Flag Sale

Quicklink, Retail

Openings and Closings, Retail

LINENS-N-THINGS WHITE FLAG SALE Yes, all 600 Linens-N-Things stores nationwide are shutting down — for good: “Employees were notified of this development by store management on Thursday, October 16th, after a last-ditch attempt to sell the company on the prior day failed and Linens-N-Things was forced to liquidate its remaining stores. The stores are expected to be completely gone by the end of the year. The ten stores left in the Houston area are currently holding liquidation sales, with items marked down 10% to 30% and the shelves are already becoming bare.” [Houstonist]

Galleria

10/17/08 10:41am

Westgate Resorts Closes Its Houston Sales Office

Office Buildings, Openings and Closings, Real Estate Marketing

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JPMorgan Chase Bank Building, 5177 Richmond Dr. at Sage, Houston The HBJ’s Allison Wollam reports that the Westgate Houston Preview Gallery, a large timeshare sales center in the JPMorgan Chase bank building on Richmond at Sage, has closed:

The gallery, located at 5177 Richmond Ave., offered a full-size model with a living room and kitchen styled after Central Florida Investmentsâ€™ timeshare properties.

The Houston location, which opened in 2004, was the first offsite sales center for Orlando-based Central Florida Investments. The company owns Westgate Resorts, which operated the preview gallery.

Almost 3 weeks ago, CFI founder and CEO David Siegel told the Orlando Sentinel that financial troubles had recently begun at the company — with the suddenness of “a heart attack.”

Until that time, Siegel apparently thought he was doing pretty well.

77056, Galleria, Office Buildings, Openings and Closings, Real Estate Marketing, Sales Centers, Timeshares, Uptown

Downtown

10/17/08 9:20am

A Soft Opening for Houston Pavilions

Malls, Mixed Use, New Construction, Nightlife, Office Space, Openings and Closings, Retail, Shopping Centers

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House of Blues at Houston Pavilions, Downtown Houston

Walkways at Houston Pavilions, Downtown Houston

At the new House of Blues last night: Jay-Z. And three blocks away, Books-A-Million and a roman-numeral flagship version of Forever 21 are now open! But between them in Downtown’s brand-new mixed-use street-hovering mall? Not much going on . . . yet:

The developers of the three block long Houston Pavilions said the pavilions will be the place to go, but for now it’s mainly a lot of space.

“It’s different because you don’t have a lot of nightlife down here. But with the restaurant, the Foundations Room, and the music hall at the House of Blues, we are going to bring people to the Pavilions,” [said] Deb Eybers, President of the House of Blues.

They wonâ€™t just bring people. Tenants will also be coming to the area. But for now there are just a handful of businesses.

More are slated to come on line in December and even more in the spring. Then the complex will be at 60 percent capacity.

The complex extends from Main St. to Caroline between Dallas and Polk — only a few surface-parking-lot blocks from the Toyota Center and Discovery Green.

77002, Downtown, Houston Pavilions, Malls, Mixed Use, New Construction, Nightlife, Office Space, Openings and Closings, Retail, Shopping Centers

Alief

10/09/08 2:36pm

Delinquent Debt: West Oaks Mall Sale!

Commercial Real Estate, Financing, Foreclosures, Fraud, Malls, Openings and Closings, Quicklink

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DELINQUENT DEBT: WEST OAKS MALL SALE! Here’s another chance to clean up some of the wreckage left by mysterious investor Edward Okun: “West Oaks Mall in Houston . . . has $81.3 million in delinquent debt attached to it in the form of commercial mortgage-backed securities. Joseph Luzinski, the federally appointed bankruptcy trustee for West Oaks Mall, said he hopes to sell the mall by year’s end, though store closures continue to hamper its value. [The mall] . . . is about 80% occupied, having lost a J.C. Penney, Linens ‘n Things and Whitehall Jewelers. The mall recently cut a deal to keep its Steve & Barry’s LLC store open amid that retailer’s bankruptcy. The special servicer for the mall’s debt, LNR Partners Inc., attempted to foreclose in September 2007, but Mr. Okun forestalled the move by putting the mall into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection the next month. A federal grand jury indicted Mr. Okun on fraud charges last March after his 1031 Tax Group LLP, a company that helped facilitate tax-free real-estate deals for small investors, collapsed into bankruptcy and didn’t return $132 million of investors’ money.” [Wall St. Journal; previously]

1031 Exchanges, 77082, Alief, Bankruptcy, Edward H. Okun, Financing, Foreclosures, Fraud, Malls, Openings and Closings

Galleria

10/08/08 11:34am

No Bice: Still Behind on the Rent

Leasing, Malls, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail

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Bice Ristorante, Houston Galleria

An austere bit of stationery is taped to the door of Bice Ristorante in the Galleria, indicating that mall owner Simon Property Group has changed the locks until Bice comes up with $164,731.37 in rent. The letter is dated from mid-July. And somebody has finally noticed!

“Seriously, how do you fall this far behind on rent?,” asks Tasty Bits author Misha. A few pix below:

Galleria, Galleria Mall, Leasing, Malls, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Uptown

Apartments

10/03/08 3:07pm

JPI: Nothing Doing

Bellaire, Commercial Real Estate, Openings and Closings

Pool, Jefferson Estates at Bellaire Apartments, Houston

More real-estate-firm troubles you haven’t read about in the newspaper: JPI, a multifamily developer based in Irving, Texas, earlier this week shut down or canceled all new development and construction projects — and laid off development, design, and construction teams. Existing projects already underway will be “completed and wrapped up by a small team that will remain behind until they are complete,” according to a company email provided to Swamplot. The email blamed “the ongoing credit crisis” and “the inability to obtain credit at any price” for the closings.

JPI did not appear to have any projects planned for Houston, but JPI Living does operate Jefferson Estates at Bellaire, an apartment complex at 4807 Pin Oak Park, just inside the Loop between Bissonnet and the Southwest Freeway.

JPI [via Swamplot inbox]
Jefferson Estates at Bellaire [JPI Living]

Photo of Jefferson Estates at Bellaire: JPI Living

77081, Apartments, Bellaire, Commercial Real Estate, Openings and Closings

Homebuilders

10/03/08 12:34pm

Royce Builders: Back in Business?

Bovine Abortions, Homebuilders, Openings and Closings, Royce Builders

Openings and Closings

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A couple of tipsters are telling us that Royce Builders is back in business, only a little more than a week after shutting everything down! Members of the Speer family, say our sources, have started up a new company with about 10 employees in the same Royce Builders building on Beltway 8, in the space formerly occupied by Royce’s sister company, Hammersmith Financial.

Even more fascinating is the name of the new company, which one of our sources says is Vestalia. If that’s true, it’s a terrific choice! In ancient Roman mythology, Vesta was the virgin goddess of hearth and home. How appropriate!

Well, sort of. Vestalia is actually the name of a holiday that celebrated Vesta. Wikipedia provides the . . . uh, gory details:

On the first day of the festivities the penus Vestae (the curtained sanctum sanctorum of her temple) was opened, for the only time during the year, for women to offer sacrifices in. Such sacrifices included the removal of an unborn calf from a pregnant cow.

Can’t wait to hear what sort of business this new company will be!

Fraud

10/02/08 12:30pm

Bill Heard Chevrolet: Nothing Must Go!

Openings and Closings, Retail, Sugar Land

Bill Heard Chevrolet Dealership, Sugar Land, Texas

Security Guard, Bill Heard Chevrolet Dealership, Sugar Land, Texas On the lot at the shuttered Bill Heard Chevrolet off the Southwest Freeway in Sugar Land Saturday: a couple of armed security guards, hired by GM to make sure nothing leaves the lot.

Inside the dealership’s main offices it looks as though the entire showroom floor was frozen in time. Deflated balloons hang off of cubicle corners and showroom models. A loan application sits on a desk, unfinished. A framed picture of a family going down a roller coaster at Sea World hangs above an uncleared desk, one of many family photos that indicate the suddenness of the announcement.

If you’re to believe one of the managers of this particular dealership, the employees stayed late into the night helping customers get their plates processed and out the door. Contradicting this is an article from Wednesday in the Houston Chronicle in which the operations manager of Bill Heard Sugar Land, Linda Patterson, claimed they were selling vehicles into the night and would continue to stay in business. But by the next morning it was announced they would be closing, possibly for good.

After the jump: More on Bill Heard’s collapse, plus photos from Jalopnik’s (how’d they get?) behind-the-scenes report!

77037, Fraud, Openings and Closings, Retail, Sugar-Land

Openings and Closings

10/01/08 12:05pm

Uptown Park Does Barbershop

Quicklink, Retail

UPTOWN PARK DOES BARBERSHOP Keith Scullin, owner of the recently opened Gentlemen’s Tonic in Uptown Park, talks to HBJ reporter Allison Wollam: “. . . the store was designed as a place where ‘men can be men’ in a discrete and relaxing environment. The barbershop offers traditional services such as a wet shave, beard trims, hair and scalp conditioning, haircuts and coloring and head, neck and shoulder massages. Grooming services include facials, back treatments, hair removal, eyelash tinting, eyebrow shaping and manicures and pedicures. Head and body massages and sports massages are also offered.” [Houston Business Journal]

77056, Openings and Closings, Retail, Uptown Park

Houston Heights

09/30/08 11:16am

Heights Restaurant Report: Textile Opens, Vietnam Expands

Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail

Vietnam Restaurant, 605 W. 19th St., Houston Heights Phase 2 of Scott Tycer’s Heights food empire launches tonight, as his new upscale restaurant, Textile, opens — next to his newish bakery in the former mattress factory turned textile mill at 22nd St. and Lawrence:

“The rent is a lot lower here – a third of what I paid at Aries,” he said. “I didn’t take out huge loans to do this restaurant. So really, the only pressure is to be 100 percent as good as we can be.”

Textile is housed in the 114-year-old Oriental Textile Mill, 611 W. 22nd. The restaurant occupies a small corner of the historical structure with a clock tower and smokestack. Most of the 10,000-square-foot space is devoted to Tycer’s Krafts’men, a wholesale bakery that supplies restaurants, including Cafe Annie, Da Marco, Benjy’s and Mark’s. He plans to open a Krafts’men retail outlet in the textile mill, he said.

The Chronicle‘s Dai Huynh also reports a new Kraftsmen retail store — at Kirby and Westheimer.

Just a few blocks south on 19th St., Vietnam Restaurant is expanding into the retail space next door. Bunny Bungalower Annie Sitton reports the new space is scheduled to open in November.

A few of Sitton’s early photos of the Vietnam build-out:

77008, Houston Heights, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail

Attractions

09/29/08 1:03pm

Hurricane Ike Turns a Warehouse into a Haunted House

Crosby, Disaster Aftermath, Industrial Properties, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Retail

Last week Hair Balls blogger Dusti Rhodes reported that most Houston-area haunted-house attractions were faring pretty well after Hurricane Ike — and managed to elicit this gem from the owner of haunted-house chain Phobia:

Our customer base is still screwed over. We bet theyâ€™ll be happy to hear that the fake houses in the area have their power back.

Now from Crosby comes a different kind of Hurricane Ike haunted house horror story: A warehouse attached to auto accessories shop B&M Accessories received so much damage from the storm that the owners decided to scrap their plans to expand their store into it. Instead, they’re turning the entire building into . . . yes, a haunted house:

â€œWhen we first came and walked through, my son said it looked like a haunted house in here,â€ [co-owner Billy] Maness said.

Though the power was out around much of the community, two light bulbs flicked on at the mention of Halloween.

After some discussion it was decided: the eerie warehouse was to become Crosbyâ€™s House of Terror, a 9,000-square foot maze of Halloween fun and fear.

While others are mourning the loss of their homes and businesses, the duo turned their misfortune around, giving the entire community something to scream about. Since Sunday, theyâ€™ve been hard at work, not cleaning up, but ramping up the Halloween spirit unleashed by Hurricane Ike.

The Halloween attraction will open to the public on October 3. Less than a year ago, the building at 117 Ulrich Ln., off FM 2100 in Crosby, was Shooters Bar. Before that, it was called the Chicken Coop.

After the jump: design touches from Hurricane Ike!