03/25/14 12:15pm

Proposed Memorial Green Mixed Use Development, 12505 and 12601 Memorial Dr., Houston

Site of Proposed Memorial Green Mixed Use Development, 12505 and 12601 Memorial Dr., HoustonA 13-and-a-half-acre park-like lot on Memorial Dr. just north of the Ethan’s Glen condo complex and across the street from the Lantern Lane Shopping Center where Fresh Market took over a former Rice Epicurean market is the planned site of a new mixed-use development. A joint venture between the property’s longtime owner, Methodist Hospital, and the developer of nearby CityCentre is behind Memorial Green, which is meant to include apartments, offices, and restaurant and retail space, as well as single-family homes. “The project will center around an urban green space, which connects the uses in a pedestrian environment,” reads a description of the project in the annual report of Midway Companies.

“Local dog owners will be devastated,” notes a Swamplot reader. The lot has long been used as an informal dog park. Surveyors have been seen at work on the property, which is sprinkled with tall pines.

A couple of blocky renderings (above and below) of early concepts for Memorial Green, planned for Methodist’s lots and 12505 and 12601 Memorial Dr., were also included in Midway’s annual report.

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Memorial Green
03/17/14 3:45pm

Surface Parking Lot at Travis St. and Preston, Market Square, Downtown Houston

Surface Parking Lot at Travis St. and Preston, Market Square, Downtown HoustonHere’s some evidence that Hines Residential is ready to go ahead with construction of its 33-story apartment tower at the corner of Travis and Preston, catty-corner from Market Square: The surface parking lot on that site closed down over the weekend. “The lot’s money machine and parking lot signage are gone,” reports the reader who snapped these views. “I’m sure better fencing and gates will soon arrive.” In the meantime, newly installed curbstops are blocking the driveways.

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Unpaving Paradise, Putting Down a Parking Lot
03/17/14 10:30am

Proposed Studemont Midrise, 1011 Studemont St., Memorial Heights, Houston

Morrison Heights Midrise, 2802 Morrison St., Woodland Heights, HoustonThe developer behind the Morrison Heights midrise building (pictured at left) now under construction in the southeast corner of Woodland Heights has plans to build a similar “apartment and condo” complex at the southwest corner of Studemont and Center St., just north of Washington Ave. Like its neighbor to the northeast, the Studemont Mid-Rise would be a 4-story structure of 36 units mounted over an open parking area underneath. To fit the proposed building on the lot at 1011 Studemont St., however, Fisher Homes needs a variance from the city that would allow a reduced setback on either Studemont or Court St. Its application was deferred at a meeting earlier this month, and is up for consideration by the planning commission this Thursday.

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All the Single Bedrooms
03/10/14 10:15am

THE NEW BAKER HUGHES HEADQUARTERS NEAR THE NEW EXXONMOBIL CAMPUS Map of Springwoods Village, Showing Possible Location of New Baker Hughes Headquarters, Houston“Sources” are telling reporter Catie Dixon that oilfield services company Baker Hughes is planning to build a new headquarters for itself far north of its current home (in the America Tower along Allen Pkwy.). A new 400,000-to-500,000-sq.-ft. building, she reports, appears to be under development on a piece of land “just south” of the site where Southwestern Energy has its new offices under construction hugging I-45 just north of the Grand Parkway. That’s just a bit southwest of the site of ExxonMobil’s new campus (where the first employees are moving in this month), as indicated in the older marked-up area plan shown here. Following Dixon’s description, the Baker Hughes tract would likely be the one marked “UC” (for “under contract”) just south of the SWN site in the plan. However, reps from Springwoods Village developers Coventry Development tell her that “Baker Hughes doesn’t have any property under contract in Springwoods Village, and declined to comment on any activity on the aforementioned tract.” [Real Estate Bisnow; previously on Swamplot] Map: Jones Lang LaSalle

03/07/14 11:15am

THE MIDTOWN GARDEN PLOT THAT WENT FOR JUST SHORT OF A MILLION Midtown Community Garden, Baldwin and Drew St., Midtown, HoustonCraig Hlavaty’s writeup on the abrupt closing of the Midtown Community Garden has a few additional details about the fate of the 3-and-a-half-year-old garden space at the corner of Baldwin and Drew, in amongst his chronicling of the efforts of member gardeners to yank out their tubers before the property was shuttered: The 13,000-sq.-ft. vacant-but-for-vegetables lot that Swamplot reported on earlier in the week was sold to developer Urban Living for $975,000. (On MLS, the asking price was $799,000.) The company plans to build townhomes on the site. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Update, 11:30 am: According to this later version ($) of the story, 2 garden-friendly potential buyers of the property who submitted offers were outbid. Photo: Swamplot inbox

03/03/14 12:45pm

Eighteenth Bar, 2511 Bissonnet St., University Place, Houston

Note: Story updated below. Midtown Auto Care, at 2519 Wroxton St., is still open for business.

The Eighteenth Cocktail Bar is the latest bar to die at at 2511 Bissonnet St., just east of Kirby Dr. Previous short-lived tenants at that location included the Antique Bar and a reprise version of the Gallant Knight. But this will likely be the last of the dying breed — at least in the property’s current incarnation. An LLC run by the owners of local Tex-Mex restaurant chain Escalante’s purchased the property late last year — along several neighboring parcels. Add those lots to the office building at 5311 Kirby, which the same entity has owned for a couple years, and you have about an acre and a half of land surrounding the Chevron station at the corner of Kirby and Bissonnet, with frontage on Kirby, Bissonnet, and Wroxton.

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At the End of the Eighteenth Bar
03/03/14 11:15am

Sign, 2019 Washington Ave., Old Sixth Ward, Houston

Tyler Flood, 2019 Washington Ave., Old Sixth Ward, HoustonThe DWI defense specialist whose enormous “Do Not Blow” billboard presided over Washington Ave early this decade (in the words of the Houston Press) “as the enormous and bespectacled eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg looked out on The Great Gatsby‘s Valley of Ashes,” has just purchased the long-vacant 11,604-sq.-ft. wedge-shaped former car lot at 2019 Washington Ave in the Old Sixth Ward. Attorney Tyler Flood (shown standing his ground on the lot, at left) plans to build a 6,700-sq.-ft. 3-story building on the corner of Washington and Henderson — with a café space on the first floor, lease space on the third floor, and his own law firm on the second. He’s hired Element Architects to design the building, which should look something like this:

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Do Not Blow It
02/27/14 12:30pm

Micro Center, 1717 West Loop South, Houston

Micro Center Parking Lot, 1717 West Loop South, HoustonTwo days after Swamplot reported the local-tech-nerd-soul-crushing rumor that Amegy Bank has purchased the Post Oak Park–West Loop site of computer retailer Micro Center, a few new and possibly conflicting (but maybe not) pieces of information have emerged about a possible deal. Yesterday, in response to a reader question posted on the Micro Center Facebook page, the company posted what at first appears to be an outright denial of the rumor:

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Amegy Coming, Micro Center Moving?
02/27/14 11:00am

Proposed Design for 6 Houston Center Office Tower, on Block Surrounded by Walker, Caroline, Rusk, and San Jacinto Streets, Downtown Houston

Mimicking the pipe-wrench-jaw-like multistory balcony near the top of BG Group Place (seen in blocky form at right in the rendering above), there’ll a tree-toothed notch carved into the eastern edge of the top floors of the just-unveiled design for 6 Houston Center. But this new $250 million spec office tower won’t just be a little more roughly cut than its neighbor — it’ll be a bit shorter, too. The 30-story structure is planned for the block surrounded by Rusk, Walker, Caroline, and San Jacinto streets, directly north of the LyondellBasell Tower at 1 Houston Center, on what’s currently a surface parking lot.

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Tree-Lined Sky Views
02/20/14 11:00am

Proposed Alterations to Uptown Park, Post Oak Blvd., Uptown Houston

The owner of Uptown Park, Houston’s favorite Europe-in-a-parking-lot shopping center, plans to add a sleek dash of density to the collection of stucco-and-styrofoam-fronted pad buildings. AmREIT has announced that it is teaming up with an unnamed “major national developer” to replace the parking-space fronted shopping island at the northwest corner of the complex with a “contemporary” highrise residential tower. Currently, Baker Furniture, Peluche Decor, and the Bella Rinova Salon occupy the single-story structure on that spot.

But the addition of residents directly above Uptown Park shouldn’t take away from the shopping opportunities below: Renderings included in a promotional video released by the company show that the tower will have replacement retail spaces on the ground floor, and possibly on a second level as well — though the shopping pod’s existing head-in parking and adjacent spaces would be replaced by a porte-cochère and garage entrance ramp.

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Towers in the Parking Lot
02/19/14 1:15pm

Proposed Menil Drawing Institute by Johnston Marklee, West Main St., Montrose, Houston

The Menil Collection released details of the low-slung design L.A. architects Johnston Marklee have put together for the new Menil Drawing Institute, which is being touted as the “first freestanding facility in the United States created especially for the exhibition, study, storage, and conservation of modern and contemporary drawings.” And staring at the renderings, the institute’s future sure looks bright. There’s the bright exterior walls, lit by the Houston sun; the white steel-plate roof that’s supposed to look like it’s hovering over the building and 2 surrounding courtyards — “rather like a folded sheet of paper,” in the architects’ words. But the inside of the building, where the drawings are displayed, it’s going to be dark.

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A New Menil, Facing West Main St.
02/14/14 3:30pm

3737-buffalo-spdwy-fence

Construction and don’t-touch-these-oaks fencing have gone up at the corner of Richmond and Buffalo Speedway, where the PM Realty Group has been planning to build a new 18-story office building attached to a 7-level parking garage on the open space and parking lot at the northern end of the site. The site plan shows retail space — likely for a restaurant — fronting Buffalo Speedway; the development is being called 3737 Buffalo Speedway.

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3737 Buffalo Speedway, Going Up
02/12/14 2:45pm

Future Site of Hunky Dory and Foreign Correspondents, 1819 N. Shepherd Dr., Houston Heights

With today’s knocking of the Salmex Auto & Truck Sales building at 1819 N. Shepherd Dr. (pictured above from earlier today), the great used-car-lot-to-restaurant-row transformation of North Shepherd begins! Er . . . continues. On the site of this spot will flourish: a parking lot! And a pretty big one. But further in on 18th St. is the planned site of Foreign Correspondents, which bills itself as a “farm to table” Thai restaurant. Further in and attached to it will be tavern and whiskey bar Hunky Dory from the operators of DownHouse and Feast alumnus Richard Knight.

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Used Cars to Whiskey, Farm to Table
02/11/14 11:00am

Proposed Energy Core Apartments, Hwy. 6 at Grisby Rd., Energy Corridor, Houston

Does this new 4-story apartment complex that Dallas apartment developer Duke, Inc. is planning along the west side of Hwy. 6 just south of I-10 look a little urban to you, what with its sprinkling of metal siding, balcony action, and all those decoy pedestrians hanging around in front? Take away the high-speed car traffic racing by and the actual configurations of things and its setting might seem so too. Immediately north and slightly west of the site, fronting the Katy Fwy., are the Energy Crossing I and just-built Energy Crossing II office buildings. Cross Hwy. 6 on foot — not an actual suggestion; we’re just imagining here — and you can wander through the quaint little restaurant village along Grisby Rd., anchored by the original Lupe Tortilla. Heck, even Sam’s Club and the Waffle House are just a leisurely stroll north, across I-10!

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More for the Energy Corridor
02/10/14 1:45pm

Ella Creek Apartments, 2121 Ella Blvd., Shady Acres, Houston

The Ella Creek Apartments at the corner of Ella and 22nd St. (and just a block of away from a jog in that creek called White Oak Bayou) have been completely vacated, a reader tells Swamplot: “On a recent drive by I noticed there were no cars in the parking lots and the complex looked even worse than usual. It is a very large tract, and I’m wondering what the future land use will be.”

Guesses, anyone?

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Shady Acres