Proposed Developments

Development Regulations
04/24/12 11:36am

Freeway-Hovering Audi Dealership Headed for the Greenbriar Curve

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Proposed Developments, Upper Kirby
44 Comments

A North Carolina company that already operates 18 car dealers in the Houston area plans to build the largest “flagship” Audi dealership in the U.S. on the north side of Hwy. 59 just east of Greenbriar. The dealership would consist of a 7-story building fronting the Southwest Freeway and containing offices, parts and service departments, a parking garage, and a ground-floor showroom. A more dramatic showroom, though, will be on the top floors, where drivers stuck in freeway traffic can ogle recent Audi models parked on display. A fenced-in parking lot for 87 cars would sit behind the building on the north side of Lexington St.

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Franchises and Chain Stores
04/24/12 9:26am

No, Dunkin’ Donuts Is Not Coming to the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy

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Leasing, Montrose, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Restaurants, Retail
12 Comments

NO, DUNKIN’ DONUTS IS NOT COMING TO THE CORNER OF WESTHEIMER AND DUNLAVY Did yesterday’s announcement that Dunkin’ Donuts plans to open 16 new franchises in Houston over the next 5 years add fuel to the persistent rumor that one of them is headed for the recently cleared northwest corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy in Montrose? A leasing agent who says he’s negotiating with “a couple of very strong retailers” to get them into the new 4,829-sq.-ft. center planned for the site by owner SFT Investments is ready to quash it. “I will tell you that at no time were we in negotiations with Dunkin Donuts,” Jed Mandel of Edge Realty Partners tells Swamplot. “I do not know how that rumor was started but I still get phone calls on the property begging us not to put them in.” [Swamplot inbox] Rendering: Edge Realty Partners

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Franchises and Chain Stores
04/23/12 12:13pm

Dunkin’ Donuts’ Big Texas Push

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Restaurants
45 Comments

DUNKIN’ DONUTS’ BIG TEXAS PUSH Franchise group 521 Interests plans to open 16 Dunkin’ Donuts stores in Houston — as part of plans by the nation’s largest bagel retailer to double the number of U.S. locations over the next 20 years. No rush, though: The first new Houston store won’t open until next year; the 15 others should all be open by 2018. Five Dunkin Donuts locations are already open in the Houston area. Also coming to Texas: 9 new franchises in San Antonio, as well as 50 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the next 5 years under a limited partnership agreement with the family of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Troy Aikman. [Dunkin’ Donuts] Photo of Bellaire location: Jimmy W.

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Buying and Selling
04/20/12 2:08pm

What’s Brewing at AstroWorld? Chunk of Former Amusement Park Site Sold to Unidentified Developer

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Commercial Real Estate, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Reliant Park
4 Comments



A 20-or-so-acre piece of the 104-acre part-time parking lot across the South Loop from Reliant Park formerly known as AstroWorld has traded hands, a developer tells HBJ reporter Jennifer Dawson. But the buyer hasn’t identified itself, and Dawson couldn’t get any of the parties involved to tell her who it is (Dawson says she spoke to 15 people to report her story). Who owns the remaining 80 or so acres of the giant parcel on the south side of the South Loop, between Kirby and Fannin, at the end of the rail line? At last report, a partnership controlled by Fort Worth’s Mallick Group, who bought it in 2010 for $10 cash — and a willingness to assume the previous owner’s $74 million loan.

But a consultant who claims to be involved in redevelopment efforts on the property would only refer to the owner of the main portion of the vacant lot as “an out-of-state land investor” — who has now, she says, created a master plan for the site. Heather Schueppert tells Dawson that details of a proposed mixed-use project — probably combining office, retail, medical and hospitality components — will be revealed quietly in the next couple of months, but won’t be unveiled to the general public for at least a year.

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Apartments
04/17/12 1:57pm

Finger Going After Finger’s Ben Milam Hotel Downtown

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Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions, Downtown, Hotels, Houston History, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment
27 Comments

Already busy with 3 local apartment projects, including one just beginning construction next to the new Whole Foods on Waugh, a 399-unit development to replace the Montrose Fiesta on Dunlavy, and another on the site of the old Art Institute of Houston building at 1900 Yorktown, developer Marvy Finger says he’s planning to build Downtown as well, reports Real Estate Bisnow‘s Catie Dixon. In the works: an 8-story midrise at the corner of Texas and Crawford St. Yes, that’s the site of the 1926 Ben Milam Hotel, a long-vacant 10-story building remembered as the first Houston hotel ever to feature air conditioning.

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Demolitions
04/16/12 4:58pm

The Commotion at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy

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Montrose, Proposed Developments, Retail
32 Comments

The antique-bearing bungalow at the northwest corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy was demolished over the weekend. Due to replace it — and the site of the former-duplex-turned-art-gallery next door, which was destroyed in a fire last summer — a 4,829-sq.-ft. retail center. The planned new building will hold the same front sidewalk line along Westheimer as its neighbor, Agora. That’s likely a plus for fans sidewalkable Montrose. But will Westheimer get a front door? Edge Realty Partners is leasing the space for developer SFT Investments; the company’s brochure shows the 36-car parking lot tucked behind the building, facing Dunlavy:

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Art
04/13/12 12:34pm

New Menil Building Likely Going South

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Institutional Buildings, Menil Collection, Montrose, Proposed Developments
No Comments

Where exactly on the Menil Collection campus in Montrose will the new 18,000-sq.-ft. Drawing Institute building be built? That’s for one of 4 architecture firms to decide. The organization announced late yesterday that Mexico City architect Tatiana Bilbao, LA’s Johnston Marklee, 2010 Pritzker Prize winner SANAA from Tokyo, and Menil master plan designer David Chipperfield Architects are the finalists to get the commission. Chipperfield’s 2009 plan for the campus doesn’t dictate a particular site for the new structure, which will combine exhibition areas, offices, storage, and conservation space for the Menil’s growing collection of drawings. But a Menil spokesperson tells Swamplot that the southern portion of the campus is a likely location, and that the building’s footprint “will be similar to that of the Twombly Gallery.”

Photo of Richmond Hall and Richmont Square Apartments on Richmond Ave: Raj Mankad

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Proposed Developments
04/12/12 12:21pm

Unraveling the New Caney $500 Million Dinosaur Theme Park Confidence Game

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Uncategorized
45 Comments

Schemes for half-billion-dollar eco-resort theme parks are delicate things. To make them happen, it sure helps if everyone believes! Close your eyes and wish it, then: a 500-acre eco-themed, dinosaur-flavored earth science fantasyland, resort, conference center, and retail development just 30 miles northeast of Downtown Houston on Hwy. 59, and just a short drive from Bush Intercontinental airport. Imagine the synergy: Rides, a water park, a museum and scientific institute, ecotourism, a volcano and retreating glacier, shops, restaurants, and shows! Pterodactyls!

But darn, wouldn’t you just figure a ragtag bunch of cynical, self-proclaimed investigating journalist types would get in the way, asking all sorts of annoying questions? Like: How come the East Montgomery County Improvement District has been funneling millions of dollars to various development entities connected to the proposed EarthQuest Resort in New Caney, a hefty chunk of which appears to have been spent on lavish travel junkets for the developers, EMCID officials, and their families — to view theme parks in Las Vegas, Florida, Canada, the Bahamas, Japan, China, and Vietnam? And: How come EMCID officials now claim not to know the current status of the now apparently bankrupt EarthQuest Institute, which for several years listed the EMCID’s address as its own on tax forms, and when the 2 organizations have the same board chairman? And: Who’s even gonna build this thing now that the landowner has declared bankruptcy and the developer won’t show up to community meetings?

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Memorial
03/29/12 12:36pm

The 3 Trader Joe’s Grocery Stores Coming to the Houston Area

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Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers, The Woodlands, Upper Kirby
19 Comments

Trader Joe’s has at last confirmed the second and third of the 3 stores that’ll constitute the idiosyncratic grocer’s Houston invasion. If you’ve been following Swamplot, you already know about these locations: In addition to the already announced shopping-center add-on in The Woodlands (recent construction photo at top), there’s another to be constructed in suburban-style big-corniced splendor (midde photo, above) on Voss just north of San Felipe. And yes — the company is now ready to admit — one in the just-decimated hollows of the once-grand Alabama Theater, last known as the Alabama Bookstop bookstore (bottom photo above).

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Clear Lake
03/28/12 12:23pm

Hakeem Olajuwon’s Dream for the Jim West Mansion: Flagship Clothing and Furniture Store?

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Historic Preservation, Houston History, Houston Landmarks, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Retail
23 Comments

Update: Olajuwon’s DR34M store is now open.

Hakeem Olajuwon hasn’t officially announced what he plans to do with Clear Lake’s landmarked Jim West Mansion, which he bought along with the surrounding 41-acre property at 3303 NASA Pkwy. in 2006. But a teaser website suggests that the former Houston Rockets center intends to transform the oil and cattle baron’s former estate — which served for a time as NASA’s Lunar Science Institute — into a flagship store for DR34M, the clothing line he introduced before a New Year’s Eve Rockets game in 2010, but that hasn’t drawn much attention since.

“The DR34M Spring 2012 Collection will launch online and in our new Houston flagship store,” announces the website at Dr34m.com. It’s illustrated with a photo of the 17,000-sq.-ft. Italianate mansion, which was designed by Houston city hall architect Joseph Finger and completed in 1930 not far from the current site of Houston’s Johnson Space Center. “We are busy designing a new line of clothing, collaborating on a collection of leather bags and accessories and sourcing modern furniture,” reads the brief copy, which is accompanied by Olajuwon’s signature.

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Attractions
03/27/12 12:23pm

Goodbye, Robertson Stadium: Replacement UH Football Venue Gets Go-Ahead

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Demolitions, Proposed Developments, University of Houston
24 Comments

UH’s new $120 million football stadium will go up on the current site of Robertson Stadium at Cullen and Holman Sts., the university’s board of regents decided today. An alternate plan to build the facility instead on intramural fields along Cullen Blvd. next to I-45, which would have cost an additional $40 million, was rejected. According to a timeline announced previously, Robertson Stadium will be demolished this December; construction of the new stadium would be complete by the summer of 2014.

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Energy Corridor
03/20/12 11:03am

Phillips 66 Will Build a New Headquarters in Houston

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Office Buildings, Proposed Developments
2 Comments

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.

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Apartments
03/13/12 11:35am

Ashby Highrise Agreement Is Final, Mayor Says

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Boulevard Oaks, Development Regulations, Development Restrictions, Highrises, Lawsuits, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southampton
82 Comments

Neighborhood residents hoping to weigh in on the details of the proposed settlement announced 2 weeks ago in the lawsuit filed against the city of Houston by the developers of the proposed Ashby Highrise were greeted at last night’s meeting with Mayor Parker with news that the agreement had already been finalized. The settlement requires the city to approve and permit a 21-story mixed-use tower at 1717 Bissonnet St., as long as the predicted traffic it generates meets a few prescribed limits. The agreement also puts a few restrictions on traffic flows in and out of the building on separate driveways facing Bissonnet and Ashby St., and requires developers to build an 8-ft. fence and camouflage the 5-story parking garage behind it with greenery where the building backs up against homes on its south and east sides. Also included: some lighting and noise-mitigation requirements, and a free morning and afternoon weekday shuttle service for the project’s future residents to and from the Med Center.

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Institutional Buildings
03/06/12 11:36am

Big Expansion of Child Sexual Abuse Prevention and Treatment Coming to the Rice Village

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Proposed Developments, Rice Village
10 Comments

The Children’s Assessment Center is passing around this sketch showing the huge expansion the child-sexual-abuse resource center is planning at 2500 Bolsover in the Rice Village, just east of Kirby. (The view is along Bolsover, with Kirby at the far left.) The existing 55,000-sq.-ft. building, shown on the far right, opened in 1998. An additional 75,000 sq. ft. of space will go in a 4-story structure that’ll sidle up to it and connect to the existing floors. A new conference and training center will fit inside, along with space for the 44 partner agencies the CAC works with. To make room for the addition, the existing 330-car parking garage will be torn down; a new 420-car garage will go up along the Kirby side, right behind the new Frost Bank built on a portion of the former Village Plaza Shopping Center.

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Boulevard Oaks
03/02/12 5:32pm

Mayor Parker: City Will Settle for an Ashby Highrise 2 Stories Shorter

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Highrises, Lawsuits, Proposed Developments, Southampton
38 Comments

In a letter sent to Southampton residents, Mayor Parker says she is recommending that the city settle the lawsuit filed against it by the developers of the proposed Ashby Highrise. “Unfortunately, the city has no legal basis for stopping” the building from being constructed, she writes: “Even success in the courtroom in the City’s litigation against the developers . . . would not halt the project, since the developers would still be able to proceed with their current permit application, which mirrors that which the city was compelled to approve in 2009.”

Instead, Parker writes that the settlement will allow the city to “ensure some control” over certain aspects of the multi-story residential tower: “It will also eliminate any possibility that the developers can build a project as large as that sought in 2007, or that the City may be subject to damages for its failure to approve that permit applications, either of which can happen if the City loses the current litigation.”

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