Proposed Developments

Apartments
05/24/12 9:44am

The 29-Story Apartment Tower Hanover Is Really Building at BLVD Place

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Galleria, Highrises, Proposed Developments
17 Comments

Okay, scratch that image displayed here yesterday of the Hanover Company’s new apartment tower in BLVD Place from your memory banks — it was just an early study. Replace it with these 2 images, showing the updated design by Chicago architects Solomon Cordwell Buenz. And plug in this measurement as metadata: 29 stories. The drawing above shows how the 358-unit building would look from Post Oak Ln., just behind the long-promised Galleria Whole Foods Market. The view below is from one of the Four Leaf Towers to the north, at San Felipe and Skylark:

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Attractions
05/23/12 6:21pm

New Life — or Death — for the Astrodome, Now at a Discount

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Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, Quicklink, Reliant Park
20 Comments

NEW LIFE — OR DEATH — FOR THE ASTRODOME, NOW AT A DISCOUNT Notable in the options presented in today’s report from the latest group of consultants to study the future of the Astrodome: lower prices. The cost estimate for demolishing the vacant sports stadium has been marked down to $68 million from the $128 million cited in a 2010 study (possibly in part because the new figure doesn’t include retiring the debt the county still owes on the building). And turning the Astrodome into a multipurpose sports and exhibition facility (the top recommendation from the consultants at Dallas’s Convention Sports and Leisure) is now predicted to cost just $270 million, down from the $324-to-$374-million range cited in the same 2-year-old report. But the consultants also suggested spending an additional $385 million to replace Reliant Arena; they’d also like to get a private developer to build a hotel on the grounds of Reliant Park. [Click2Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia

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Apartments
05/23/12 1:58pm

Hanover’s Next Apartment Tower for BLVD Place

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Galleria, Proposed Developments
20 Comments

Here’s the rendering Houston’s Hanover Company passed around to drum up the $40 million equity investment its website now indicates is committed to building the structure as part of BLVD Place, just north of the Galleria. The 358-unit apartment tower at the corner of Sky Lark and Post Oak Ln. is listed as a “midrise” in company materials, but it’s all relative: The 20-something stories depicted make the new version a bit shorter than the 57-story design the company had prepared for the site in 2007, as well as the 37-story model announced a year later, before the project got put on hold.

Image: Hanover Co.

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Apartments
05/21/12 10:24am

Cats Still Hanging Around West U Apartments, Unaware of Redevelopment Plans

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Critters, Demolitions, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Redevelopment, Sunset Terrace, West University
50 Comments

CATS STILL HANGING AROUND WEST U APARTMENTS, UNAWARE OF REDEVELOPMENT PLANS A group of 25 or so cats still hanging around the 2-and-a-half-acre grounds of the recently vacated Courts at West University apartments at 3810 Law St. have apparently not been informed of the 5-story Alexan West University complex set to go up on their old stomping grounds. An animal advocacy group concerned that the cats may get in the way when the existing buildings are demolished early next month has sounded the alarm, requesting donations and assistance in setting up a feeding station away from the demo site, as well as finding adoptive and foster homes for the uninformed animals. [West University Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Elmo at Courts of West University: Kathy Golding

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Apartments
05/18/12 11:57am

The Numbers on That 35-Story Tower Planned for Weslayan and West Alabama

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Highland Village, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments
48 Comments

Here’s a better look at the 35-story designed-in-Dallas residential tower PM Realty Group is putting on the northeast corner of Weslayan and West Alabama, where the State Grille and rebel predecessor Confederate House stood until a few years ago. Inside, at last report: 250-ish fancy apartments, a 3,000-sq.-ft. fitness center, a parking garage attached at the belly, and 12,500 sq. ft. of restaurant space on a bottom floor or two. The tower is being called either 2900, 2801, or 2800 Weslayan, depending on whether you follow that sign posted on the property earlier this year, a recent correction applied to it (below), or the project’s bid documents, which went out late last month and are due soon.

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Franchises and Chain Stores
05/16/12 2:03pm

Trader Joe’s Less-Loved Cousin Moving into Houston in a Big Way

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Retail
17 Comments

TRADER JOE’S LESS-LOVED COUSIN MOVING INTO HOUSTON IN A BIG WAY Aldi isn’t exactly Trader Joe’s without the hype, but the 2 grocery chains are owned by sister companies from Germany. (Aldi Nord operates 1,200 stores in the U.S., mostly in the eastern half; Trader Joe’s is owned by Aldi Süd) Both of them specialize in private-label products. And they’ll be traveling in some of the same circles too: While Trader Joe’s is opening a measly 3 stores in the Houston area this year, its bigger and cheaper cousin has just announced a much grander Houston-opening gambit (after plans for a store outside Katy’s Oak Park Trails subdivision were met by protests from some neighbors earlier this year). The company now says it plans to invest $100 million to open 30 new Aldi stores in the Houston area over the next 3 years. And at least 10 of them should be open by next spring. There are already 37 Aldis in Texas, mostly near Dallas and Fort Worth. [Instant News Katy; PR Newswire] Photo: Garth Schweizer

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Art
05/15/12 2:30pm

Midtown Arts Center Interim Design Review: How Do You Like It Now?

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Attractions, Institutional Buildings, Midtown, Proposed Developments
42 Comments

San Antonio’s Lake Flato Architects and Houston’s Studio Red have completed what they’re calling a schematic design for the new 59,000-sq.-ft. Midtown arts center planned for the full city block at 3400 Main St., adjacent to the Ensemble/HCC light-rail stop. And that means: Yes, presentations to the board of the Independent Arts Collaborative, but also the follow-on posting of the design on the organization’s Facebook page — to see what further reactions come in. The latest plans elaborate on the design team’s concept of separate spaces connected by an open-air central breezeway (the tall structure at right in the above image, viewed from the corner of Main and Holman), but make clear that the theaters are the project’s focus.

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Proposed Developments
05/14/12 9:59am

7-Story Southwest Freeway Audi Dealership Gets Go Ahead, Will Split Momentum

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Upper Kirby
41 Comments

Expect to see workers moving dirt on the 1.5-acre site at the northeast corner of Greenbriar and 59 within the next few weeks; the city’s planning commission last week voted to approve a variance granting permission for a 7-story auto dealership building at 2120 Southwest Fwy. to poke a few feet further toward Greenbriar (at left in the above rendering) than regulations allow. The result: the country’s largest — and tallest — flagship Audi dealership, featuring a 2-story car display case on the corner of the third and fourth levels that’ll bring the latest models up to eye level for drivers on the raised freeway who aren’t looking where they’re going.

More views:

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Idylwood
05/11/12 10:28am

Planned Walmart on Wayside Taps Feeder Again, Puts on Square Footage

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Proposed Developments, Retail, Uncategorized
8 Comments

“A couple things still remain up in the air,” about the new Walmart going in just south of Idylwood, reports East End blogger Lauren H. from that neighborhood’s front lines: “Like whether they are going to hire security or whether they are going to be able to sell alcohol.” After recent plan changes, the neighborhood’s southern border will end up with a buffer of at least 61 ft. from the big-box store’s parking lot. The store has grown, too: an additional 35,000 sq. ft. from a reduction announced early last year, made easier after the company bought the property directly on the corner of Wayside and the Gulf Fwy. feeder. It’ll end up at approximately 185,000 sq. ft., according to the recent plans she’s posted on her site. The corner purchase makes possible a second entrance from the feeder road, and resulted in a shift of the store’s garden and auto center to its Idylwood side:

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Houston Architects
05/10/12 10:21am

University of St. Thomas’s New Performing Arts Center Moving in Next to Menil Campus

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Institutional Buildings, Proposed Developments, University of St. Thomas
21 Comments

Here’s a view of the 4-story, 93,760-sq.-ft. performing arts center the University of St. Thomas plans to build on the northwest corner of its Montrose campus, on the full city block bounded by West Alabama, Yupon, Sul Ross, and Graustark. A feature article on the project in the university’s magazine describes the site provocatively as being “adjacent to the Menil Collection,” but it’s really catty-corner to the Menil block that contains the Rothko Chapel, a long block east of the Menil’s famed shielded-by-bungalows main building. In the drawing above you’re looking at the new UST center from high above the Rothko Chapel’s east lawn, toward the corner of Sul Ross and Yupon.

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Bayous and Waterways
05/03/12 3:22pm

Off-Trailing with Houston’s Northwest Bike Path Pioneers

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Proposed Developments, Transportation
8 Comments

Harris County Housing Authority interim CEO Tom McCasland takes a visitor from Portland along the path of the bike trail he hopes will soon connect Downtown Houston seamlessly to the city’s northwestern suburbs. From Georgia’s Market downtown they head out the MKT Trail into the Heights, which dead ends near the Shepherd-Durham overpasses. “The lot turned into a truck path, which ended at a decrepit railroad bridge. We took a sharp right down a singletrack path along the edge of the bayou far below us,” writes Elly Blue, who’s been touring U.S. cities to assess their bikeability. McCasland, an advocate for expanding Houston bikeways, tells the Houston Press‘s John Nova Lomax that “part of the city’s latest grand biking plan is to dynamite [that burned-out bridge] and rebuild it as a bike/pedestrian thoroughfare. The trail will then continue along White Oak Bayou’s banks and connect with the existing trail that begins at West 11th and TC Jester and heads north through Timbergrove, Garden Oaks, Oak Forest and all the way up to Acres Homes.”

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Apartments
04/30/12 11:35am

Highrise Replacing Allen House Remnant? The Latest Rumblings Around Regent Square

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Demolitions, Highrises, North Montrose, Proposed Developments
18 Comments

Here’s a late addition to the demolition of the Allen House Apartments, the first portions of which went down in 2007, in anticipation of the giant Regent Square mixed-use development in North Montrose that never happened — or rather, hasn’t yet. The smashing of one Allen House’s 2 remaining buildings is now taking place across West Dallas from Teala’s Mexican Restaurant, just beyond the back windows of the Piedmont at River Oaks condos on Rosine St. A Swamplot reader sent us the above photo last Friday. Does this mean the long-dormant Regent Square is at long last ready to stir?

The North Montrose Civic Association announced in a recent newsletter that a “big announcement” about Regent Square is due in May: “Rumors are that a high rise residential [tower is] being planned as [the] first building.” Separately, Regent Square developer GID Development has promised additional details in May or June about this 21-story highrise apartment building, called the Sovereign, which happens to feature a large number of dog-friendly amenities, including canine wash/dry facilities, a pet grooming room, and a private doggie park:

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Boulevard Oaks
04/26/12 11:49am

A List of Gentle Ashby Highrise Protest Methods

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Highrises, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Southampton
105 Comments

A LIST OF GENTLE ASHBY HIGHRISE PROTEST METHODS A settlement of its lawsuit with the city earlier this year guarantees that developers of the 21-story residential highrise planned for the corner of Ashby and Bissonnet (at right) next to Southampton will be able to receive building permits. But Culturemap editor Clifford Pugh reports that neighbors still opposed to the project have approved and sent a letter to the developers of the highrise at 1717 Bissonnet that includes a laundry list of the proposed tactics they plan to take to stop the project from being built — or to make things difficult for the company, Buckhead Investment Partners, if it proceeds with the project. Among them: filing their own lawsuit against the developers; appearing at the businesses and homes of the project’s investors and lenders (“as soon as we can identify [them]”), contractors, and other service providers to demonstrate opposition; monitoring and reporting construction violations; picketing the building’s leasing office whenever it is open; sending regular communications to tenants “to let them know that they are not welcome in our neighborhood”; challenging the permits of the building’s restaurant tenant; boycotting the restaurant and — if it’s a chain — all of its other locations; appearing at the homes of the restaurant’s owners, investors, and chef to demonstrate opposition; and (possibly worst of all:) posting “unfavorable reviews” of the restaurant online. [Culturemap; more from the West University Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia Update, 10 pm: The most recent draft of the “open letter” has been toned down a bit, reports the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff. The new draft makes no mention of the homes of the project’s investors, lenders, contractors, and service providers, or its restaurant’s owners, investors, or chef; says the leasing office will be picketed only “regularly”; and (most notably) drops any suggestion that area residents might post negative restaurant reviews online.

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Demolitions
04/26/12 10:27am

The Restaurant Replacing Ruggles Grill on Westheimer

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Houston Architects, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Proposed Developments, Restaurants
5 Comments

Fresh off its work transforming the former Monarch Cleaners/Fox Diner/Cafe Serranos Cantina/Crome/Pravada building on Shepherd into Triniti Restaurant (with the help of some colorful perforated metal), Houston’s MC2 Architects is now designing its second restaurant — this time from scratch. It’s a “contemporary building with a rustic farmhouse feel” that’ll take the place of the shuttered and soon-to-be-dismantled Ruggles Grill at 903 Westheimer, just east of Montrose. Inside will be a new (yes) rustic American restaurant for the same owners — called Brande, Triniti chef Ryan Hildebrand announced yesterday. All that rusticity will take time, of course: The scheduled opening season is a far-off fall 2013.

Photo: Candace Garcia

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Midtown
04/25/12 11:47am

Austin Rejection Artist and Bar Partners Opening Midtown Nightclub

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Nightlife, Proposed Developments, Renovations
18 Comments

Two-time The Bachelor star Brad Womack is planning to open a nightclub with his business partners in Midtown Houston, right across the street from the Metro Midtown apartments, at the corner of Bagby and McIlhenny. Womack’s twin brother Chad, brother Wes, and partner Jason Carrier — they call their company Carmack Concepts — own Sixth St. bars Chuggin’ Monkey, Dizzy Rooster, Molotov, and Dogwood in Austin. Their Houston bar, which they’ll call Dogwood Houston, will be a transformation of a small 1956 commercial building at 2403 Bagby St.

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