NO PLANS TO REDEVELOP GRAMERCY PLACE APARTMENTS, SAYS NEW OWNER 
Here’s what Fred Sharifi, the new owner of the Gramercy Place apartments on Portland St., has to say about those rumors that the old apartments will be torn down and replaced by something as tall as the Museum Tower on Montrose that they sit behind: “[T]here will be no midrise built,” Sharifi’s property manager writes in an email, “and he has no plans at this time to redevelop the property. If he does eventually build on the property it will be town homes . . . .” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
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Proposed Developments
Central Square Plaza has been sold, and new owner Keeley Megarity, whose LLC closed on the 1-acre Midtown property at 2100 Travis St. about a week ago, says that a decision about how to renovate these buildings — and what to renovate them into — will be made in the next 30-45 days.
Note: More here.
It looks like that retail center that’s replacing the art gallery that burned down is beginning to shape up. And it looks like at least one of the future tenants intends to serve adult beverages. The sign behind the chain-link at the site names the applicant as Leaven & Earth, and a rep from the TABC confirms that the application, filed on April 17, is pending. The original plans for the site here at 1706 Westheimer describe a 4,829-sq.-ft. building — with 36 parking spaces behind it, accessible from Dunlavy — designed to replace the Galerie Mado Chalvet, which was lost in a fire and immortalized on a backpack in 2012.
- Previously on Swamplot: Burned Building Next to Agora on Westheimer Returns — As a Backpack, No, Dunkin’ Donuts Is Not Coming to the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy, The Commotion at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy
Photos: Allyn West
TENANT: GRAMERCY PLACE APARTMENTS TO REMAIN RENTAL UNITS An update: Though the other rumor suggests that the Gramercy Place apartments behind the Museum Tower on Montrose Blvd. will be torn down and replaced by 2 residential midrises, a tenant there reports that the new owners of the 5 buildings on the 200 block of Portland St. have seemed “adamant” that the 31 apartments will remain as rental units and have said they intend “to respect” their “historical quality.” [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox Update, 2:15 p.m.: The owners confirm what the tenant had heard. Read more here.
ADIOS, BOCADOS 
Culturemap’s reporting that Bocados on West Alabama is closing after a party on Cinco de Mayo. Bocados owners and friends from their days at across-the-street University of St. Thomas Terry Flores and Lily Hernandez tell Culturemap that though they’ll be leaving the restaurant at 1312 West Alabama where they’ve been for 15 years, they’re considering buying a Heights property where they might bring Bocados back. Moreover, reports Whitney Radley, the pair says they plan to open this summer “in a yet-undisclosed location” downtown a restaurant they’re calling The Red Ox Grill. And what’s up next for the Bocados building? Radley writes that it’ll be The Brick and Spoon, a restaurant coming to Montrose by way of Lafayette, Louisiana, on June 1. [Culturemap] Photo: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
This rendering of the apartment building that Hines is replacing Cafe Adobe with isn’t current, says a company rep. And details about the building are few — though the rep says that the midrise Hines is planning for the soon-to-be-former restaurant and parking lot at Westheimer and South Shepherd will contain 215 units and no retail space.
Before construction can begin next month on this 4-story apartment complex planned for the southwest corner of Cypresswood Dr. and the Tomball Pkwy., some things have to go. Developers Embry and Stonelake Capital appear to have in mind an unscraped 15.4-acre site that’s thick with trees, and Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that the demise of an “existing structure” is imminent. But she doesn’t say which one. And neither has Embry. But: The manager at the Arby’s there on Cypresswood says it’s not the Arby’s.
Note: Read an update to this story here.
What’s left of the Gramercy Place apartments on the 200 block of Portland St. were sold this month. A few of the apartment buildings, which date to 1935, were torn down before being replaced in 2002 by the Museum Tower on Montrose. Now, the seller’s agent says that the remaining 5 buildings and 31 units that records show have been owned for the past 15 years by an entity controlled by Rebecca Parsons were closed on two weeks ago.
And the buyer? The seller’s agent wouldn’t say. But a Swamplot reader with knowledge of the transaction shares a document and some rumors that suggest the buyer is an LLC presided over by Hungry’s Cafe and Bistro owner Fred Sharifi. And the document states an intent to smash the rest of the apartments and put up “residential rental midrise buildings.”
HOMEBUILDERS PLAYING THROUGH OLD KATY GOLF COURSE 
Just flip the sand traps to sandboxes and the water hazards to water features, and you’re most of the way there: A 440-home master-planned community, reports The Rancher’s Zach Haverkamp, is aimed for the site of the old Green Meadows Golf Course in Katy: Lennar Homes, Meritage Homes, and Village Builders have started construction on the first model homes of the Falls at Green Meadows on the 242-acre, 36-hole course groomed out of the prairie near Franz Rd. and Avenue D. The course was open from 1965 to 2008. Developer Tim Fitzpatrick tells Haverkamp: “We wanted to be in the heart of Katy, and if you look around, this is one of the few tracts . . . that remain.” [The Rancher] Photo: Zach Haverkamp
Architect John Kirksey has an idea for building a park on 36 blocks in south Downtown — just north of the Pierce Elevated, between Louisiana and Caroline. But he doesn’t own the land, and he’s not proposing to buy it up. So Kirksey’s plan isn’t for a single park space — it’s for a bunch of linear walkways. Okay, call it a series of extra-wide sidewalks on the east-west streets. Here’s how it might look, driving through:
In the middle of last summer, Interfaith Ministries closed on almost 76,000 sq. ft. of Midtown property spanning 2 catty-corner blocks just north of HCC, including the PrimeWay Federal Credit Union building shown here at 3303 Main St.; the organization says it’s closing in on the $12.5 million needed to fund the renovation of the 39,000-sq.-ft. bank into its headquarters and the construction of a new 14,000-sq.-ft. Meals on Wheels distribution center at Elgin and Fannin.
Well, that was quick: This bygone apartment complex from the 1950s at 4118 Center St. — which you might recognize from this morning’s Daily Demolition Report — has come down. What was the rush? To make way for Allen Trace, apparently: Last Thursday, the city planning commission approved an application to divide the not-quite-half-an-acre West End property into 10 parcels for single-family townhomes.
A reader sends more photos of the cleansing of the palate:
This flag-flying 12-story tower planned for the under-development Block 10 West Office Park might end up hiding the renovations underway on the former Great Indoors, which you can see peeking out in the distance in the rendering above. Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that Hicks Ventures is building out the out-of-business big box into a 2-story, 245,000-sq.-ft. spec office building. Plans include the construction of a 5-level parking garage behind the new building and a 6-level garage between it and this proposed I-10-facing tower.
Here’s an aerial view of the park and its neighbors:
MAYOR PARKER’S PLAN FOR A BIGGER, FRIENDLIER UPTOWN TIRZ 
Why not both? Yesterday, Mayor Parker announced a $556 million plan that, if approved by city council on April 24, would fund the seemingly unrelated instead-of-light rail Post Oak BRT and Memorial Park reforestation: Uptown would annex 1,768 acres of property into the TIRZ, and a gradual increase in tax revenue over the next 25 years would help to keep the BRT operational and implement a program of park improvements. Those would include, says Houston Parks and Rec director Joe Turner in a city press release, “erosion control, removal of invasive non-native plants, the reestablishment of native grasslands and forests and facility needs.” Still: Only 36 acres of the property roped in for annexation would be taxable. And does this plan mean that BRT — first thought to be up and running by 2017 — will be delayed? Don’t worry, says Uptown Management District president John Breeding. Besides what will be generated by the more environmentally friendly TIRZ, money for BRT will come from TxDOT and — if approved by a vote on April 26 — Transportation Improvement Program grants from the Houston-Galveston Area Council. [City of Houston; previously on Swamplot] Drawing of Post Oak BRT: Uptown Management District
What’s going on here? From behind a window across W. Dallas, a reader sends this photo and wants to know. According to a construction manager on site, the work to this point has involved utility excavation for what will be, he says, “Class A apartments.”
