A 16,000-sq.-ft. “pet resort” near Bush Intercontinental Airport appears at the top of Houston’s sold permit list yesterday — in the very same week that Dreamworks and Nickelodeon’s new Hotel for Dogs movie is set to open nationwide. Coincidence? Or evidence of a frighteningly sinister marketing plan?
And just what sort of pet amenities do the owners have in mind for the new Airport Pet Park planned for 7111 Will Clayton Parkway?
THE TRANS-TEXAS CORRIDOR IS DEAD But maybe it’ll come back, with a new name! “In response to public outcry, the ambitious proposal to create the Trans-Texas Corridor network has been dropped and will be replaced with a plan to carry out road projects at an incremental, modest pace, a state transportation official announced today. ‘The Trans-Texas Corridor, as it is known, no longer exists,’ said Amadeo Saenz, Jr., executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation a forum in Austin. The state, he said, will carry forward with modifications to proposed projects and will rely heavily upon input from Texans through more town hall meetings and an updated Web site. He also made clear that, should toll lanes be added to various roads, tolls will be assessed only on those, and not existing lanes. The renewed effort now will operate under the name ‘Innovative Connectivity Plan.’ Saenz also said the state will continue to pursue various projects, including the Interstate 69 project. If, however, more lanes are needed along U.S. 59, the state will simply widen that roadway, Saenz said.” [Houston Chronicle]
POST OAK LANE PARK DOLLAR TIMELINE: ALL THE OFFERS AND COUNTERS Following up on the overview of the controversy he and Carolyn Feibel published last week, Bradley Olsen provides this updated summary of all the offers made for James and Jock Collins’s 7,230-sq.-ft. property at the the corner of San Felipe and Post Oak Ln., adjacent to Boulevard Place: “In April 2002, the Uptown Development Authority offers the Collins brothers $289,000 for their property to widen San Felipe and for other purposes (they bought it for $363,750 in 1982). They declined. In February 2004, Uptown offers the Collins brothers $398,035 for their property. They declined. Wulfe & Co. begins negotiations with the brothers to buy the property in 2004. In early 2006 (one side says March, the other says May), Wulfe and Co. offered the Collins brothers $1.985 million, which included a $1.46 million cash offer plus financing of $525,000 over five years. The brothers declined that offer, both sides confirm. The brothers counter-offer by asking for $1.7 million in cash, according to Cary Gray, their attorney. In June 2006, Wulfe and Co. responded with a $1.46 million cash offer, which they withdraw in July, according to both sides. In October 2006, the city notifies the Collins brothers of its intent to seize the land through eminent domain powers. Before filing its eminent domain lawsuit, the city gives the brothers a final offer in May 2007 of $433,800. They declined. In February 2008, a panel of special commissioners appointed in Harris County Civil Court voted to award the Collins brothers $723,000. They declined. The legal proceedings between the city and the brothers are still ongoing and are in the discovery phase.” [Houston Chronicle]
Here’s something we can all feel tingly and nostalgic about: Developer Bobby Orr’s Heights-ish fantasy — of brand-new old-timey storefronts facing long streetside parking lots off Yale St. and Heights Blvd. just south of I-10 — is dead. The Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff drops news of the demise of the Heights Village dream as an aside to her update on the stalled-out High Street development.
The entire 4.9-acre property, across Heights Blvd. from the ArtCar Museum, is back on the market, at $75 a square foot.
Sadly, Cushman & Wakefield’s listing for the property doesn’t include any misty watercolors to memorialize what might have been. But Swamplot remembers! Here’s a brief trip down invented-memory lane . . . in 3 quick images:
Problems getting credit have stalled or dashed hopes for many Houston developments, leaving vacant sites, ratty construction fences, and more than a few misleading “coming soon” signs touting unachievable goals. Off Westheimer just west of Mid Lane, though, we’ll have a much bigger and longer-lasting reminder of changed fortunes to look at, for a good long while: The steel frame of the first building in Trademark Property’s High Street project.
Work has stopped.
What happened?
Tenants have already begun moving out of the Wakeforest Apartments just north of 59, reports the Michael Reed in the River Oaks Examiner. The Upper Kirby District TIRZ board voted last week to buy the 101-unit complex, tear it down, and build a new “civic complex” on the property, which sits at the eastern edge of Eastside St.’s Levy Park.
A few farewell views sent in by a reader:
The used-restaurant parts yard at the northeast corner of Kirby and 59 will sprout a new upscale neighborhood restaurant by late spring, reports Cleverley Stone. Rhea Wheeler and Debbie Jaramillo hope to open Haven in a brand new building at 2502 Algerian Way. No transfats will be used in its construction:
“Houston does not have a restaurant like this yet. We want to make the building as green possible. Since we are building a new structure we have the opportunity to incorporate many green concepts in the construction and design, from the building materials to the interior textiles, surfaces and lighting.”
For instance, Randy will have a garden on site that will be irrigated with rainwater collected by cisterns.
Randy is executive chef Randy Evans, formerly of Brennan’s.
Haven’s neighbors will be the shuttered Bennigan’s, Mai Thai, Lupe Tortilla, the Mucky Duck, and Taco Cabana — plus a small 6-plex apartment operated by would-be methadone-clinic proprietor Jared Meadors.
Photo of 2502 Algerian Way: Swamplot inbox
Just line that short central driveway through your new power-center parking lot with a small number of stores and head-in parking. Fortify the freeway frontage with an FM-1960-worthy strip of more than the usual number of pad sites, and build the whole thing next to a mall! Next problem?
Introducing the new Katy Main Street, a just-announced 86-acre shopping center named for the short strip of 4 retail buildings meant to line its gullet.
The mixed-use development is designed to include 485,000 square feet of retail space, 500,000 square feet of office space and a full-service hotel and convention center at the southwest corner of Interstate 10 and Pin Oak Road in Katy.
All this . . . just across the street from the Katy Mills Mall!
It’s been obvious for some time that economic conditions and credit problems have placed a giant question mark next to almost every major proposed new development in town. But it sure is fun to revisit them one by one!
A week after Swamplot posted renderings of the new building the Houston Ballet has been planning for a Downtown block near the Wortham Center it bought last year, the Houston Press‘s Richard Connelly made some inquiries with Houston Ballet PR manager Melissa Carroll about the building. In reply came this very brief message:
NOT GOING WEST The Energy Corridor won’t be extending to Katy just yet. KBR’s big move to a new 8-building campus a mile east of the Katy Mills Mall has been scrapped — “for now”: “‘We hope it is a delay, not a change in plans,’ said Will Holder, president of Trendmaker Homes. The development division of the company is building Cross Creek Ranch, a 3,200-acre master-planned community in Fulshear. KBR announced its project in May, saying it wanted to be closer to its growing employee- and customer-base in west Houston, where it would be joining the likes of BP and ConocoPhillips. The campus was designed to include more than 910,000 square feet of space in a series of low-rise buildings at the southwest corner of Interstate 10 and Grand Parkway. Construction was expected to start by year’s end, with estimated completion in 2010. The company was going to lease the facility from developer Trammell Crow Co., which was going to build it on a 123-acre parcel along with shopping centers, restaurants, additional office buildings and hotels.” [Houston Chronicle]
The newly revealed design for that $7 million pedestrian bridge over Buffalo Bayou near Montrose makes a brilliant metaphor for the appeal of this city, no? From a distance, it doesn’t seem like Houston is really . . . “passable,” either! But once you’re looking at it up close . . . sure, it’s all right: You can make it through. An excellent message to send prospective Houston tourists! Plus: Wasn’t that how the Houston Ship Channel got started too?
Official name of this Memorial Heights TIRZ project: The Tolerance Bridge. Perfect!
EMPTY SONOMA SITE UPDATE One possible future for the site of the shelved Sonoma development in the Rice Village: nothing — for a long time. “The 2400 block of Bolsover could remain undeveloped and in the possession of Lamesa Properties another seven-and-half years, according to the terms of the ordinance approving the street’s abandonment. A spokesman for the city said Monday in addition to the five years the agreement allowed for the completion of the retail-residential project and some traffic-related construction, an additional three-year extension can be granted at the ‘sole discretion’ of the director of Public Works. Under the terms of the sale of the street, the additional time could be allowed ‘for extenuating circumstances,’ city spokesman Alvin Wright said.” [West University Examiner]
THE FEDEX IRVINGTON SITE GOES TO AVENUE CDC Avenue Community Development Corp. will be working with the Houston Housing Finance Corp. to build 80 to 100 homes and 180 to 250 apartments on the site of a former FedEx facility it bought near Moody Park. “The redevelopment of the 20-acre tract at 4004 Irvington Blvd., just south of Calvacade Street, is the nonprofit organization’s biggest to date, according to Avenue CDC. . . . Construction will begin in 2009.” [Houston Business Journal]
What’s the Houston Ballet’s new $53 million, 120,000-sq.-ft. Downtown headquarters building going to look like? Two renderings of the 6-story building planned for the block between Smith, Louisiana, Congress, and Preston Sts. have appeared on an architecture website based in the U.K.
A connecting skybridge would prevent tutus from wilting on the long journey between the new ballet practice facilities and the Wortham Center, which is catty-corner to the site. The new building will also house the ballet’s offices and wardrobe shop, as well as the the Ben Stevenson Academy.
The two views of the building don’t exactly gibe — a likely sign that the design is not final:
Now available on the Asia Society website, amid pix of dragon dancers and Yao Ming shoveling dirt at the groundbreaking last spring: 2 more renderings of architect Yoshio Taniguchi’s design for the society’s new 38,000-sq.-ft. Texas Center in the Museum District.
The view from Southmore St. at Caroline, in 2010:
