Proposed Developments

12/28/07 10:19am

Sterling Senior Condo Sales Staff Retires

Highrises, Memorial Villages, Proposed Developments, Senior Living

Sales Sign for Sterling at Memorial Villages Remember that fancy 27-story condo tower planned for Voss between San Felipe and Woodway? The one that was “for seniors only” and featured three floors of assisted living? Where you could buy a spacious 950-square-foot unit for just a tad under $500K?

Well, neither did we.

But if you were too busy pursuing an active lifestyle to notice that the sales center had shut down and the website disappeared, today’s Houston Business Journal makes the official announcement: The Sterling at Memorial Villages is dead, for lack of interest.

The project site holds a shuttered retail facility where a Chipotle formerly operated. The western-most part of the site, which is not owned by [Sterling developer] Sunrise Senior Living, is being marketed for sale by McDade Smith Gould Johnston Mason + Co. The eastern portion of the property — where the condo was to be built — is now being marketed by Wheless Properties.

The public company will see what offers it gets for the land, but [Sunrise Senior Living rep Jamison] Gosselin says it also is considering developing a rental property at the site.

Not mentioned in the article: Links to The Sterling of The Woodlands on the company website no longer work either.

Condo project flops as seniors fail to buy in [Houston Business Journal]
The Sterling

Photo: HAIF user BuilderGeek

77057, Canceled Projects, Condos, Highrises, Memorial Villages, Proposed Developments, Senior Living

Apartments

12/21/07 4:15pm

Galleria-Area Apartments Coming to Site of Galleria-Area Apartments

Demolitions, Development Strategy, Galleria, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments

Apartments, Demolitions, Development Strategy, Galleria, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments

Le Maison on Revere

Uptown renters: Were you planning on staying in your apartment for a while?

A sharp-eyed reader notes that ZOM — the developer of the Bel Air on Allen Parkway and the new Katrina Memorial apartments planned for Revere St. near Kirby and Westheimer (pictured above) — is also planning a 250-unit apartment complex somewhere near the Galleria. The company’s going to stick with its strategy of buying existing apartment complexes, demolishing them, building newer apartments in their place, and then selling them off, ZOM’s Trip Stevens tells Globe St.‘s Amy Wolff Sorter:

“It’s the only way to go in that submarket,” Stevens says. But then he adds real news:

Stephens says ZOM will do the same thing to get its third Houston project into the Galleria submarket. He says the closing for the existing apartment complex should occur late in the first quarter. The plan is to start scraping the three-acre site around midyear.

That’s information a few Galleria-area renters who live in three-acre apartment complexes will probably want to know.

ZOM Starts $90M Project; Another Coming in â€™08 [Globe St.]
From New Orleans, with Love: Le Maison on Revere [Swamplot]

Commercial Real Estate

12/17/07 10:31am

Secret Midtown Boy Scout Sushi Location Revealed

Midtown, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Restaurants

1911 Bagby St., Midtown, Houston

Earlier this month, Rhea Wheeler told the Houston Business Journal about his plans to open three restaurants in existing buildings in the greater downtown area: Gastropub Hearsay next to Market Square, a Texas cuisine restaurant called White House at Austin and Elgin in Midtown, and . . .

What was that third location? The HBJ wouldn’t say:

The company’s third location is a secret ingredient in the restaurant mix. Wheeler does not want to reveal the location of the large Midtown property, which was purchased two years ago, because he’s trying to buy the surrounding properties.

Below the fold: oops — where it is!

77002, Midtown, Renovations, Restaurants

Apartments

12/13/07 3:01pm

Heights Village: Parking Lots Are the New Main Street!

Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Houston Heights, Mixed Use, New Construction, Parking, Proposed Developments, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Washington Corridor

Heights Village Parking Lot on Yale St., Houston Heights

Looks like a lot of pedestrian action going on in these marketing drawings for Orr Commercial’s new Heights Village, a five-acre restaurant, retail, office, and “upscale housing” development slated for the current site of the Sons of Hermann hall just south of I-10, between Heights Blvd. and Yale St. and an adjacent parcel abutting railroad tracks to the south.

Why, with all those people in the drawings walking to and fro, it looks like this development will have all the charm of a small old-town Main Street . . . or at the very least all the charm of an old small town that decided to build a multi-level parking garage, but still turned its Main Street into a parking lot anyway, just to hedge its bets.

After the jump: more parking-lot pedestrians!

77007, Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Houston Heights, Mixed Use, New Construction, Office Space, Parking, Parking-Garages, Proposed Developments, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Washington Corridor

Fifth Ward

12/06/07 4:45pm

Reader Report: More New Construction Coming in the Fifth Ward

Homes for Sale, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Townhomes

77020, Fifth Ward, Homes for Sale, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments

Townhouse at 3421 Gillespie St., Under Construction

There’s more from our Fifth Ward correspondent, who’s been poking around properties near the MDI site:

InTown has various other project coming up in the 5th Ward/East End. The Cage/Gillespie property is now listed on HAR. They also plan on building English style bungalows at 619 Meadow St. However, they are in replatting stages now.

[Tuesday] Swamplot reported “Cline and Fall of Eight Houses“. These are about 2 blocks from the MDI site and there is a variance request up for subdivison renaming. I did some research and it seems they are owned by Lanterra Homes. They were supposed to have a project called Deca but looks like it may have been scrapped. Lanterra has built homes near InTown homes before.

Cage Gillespie Place [InTown Homes]
Deca [Lanterra Homes]
Daily Demolition Report: Cline and Fall of Eight Houses [Swamplot]
Fifth Ward: New Urbanists Meet Old Toxic Waste [Swamplot]

Photo: 3421 Gillespie, for sale on HAR

Development Strategy

12/06/07 2:35pm

Fifth Ward: New Urbanists Meet Old Toxic Waste

Environmental, Fifth Ward, Hazards, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, Proposed Developments, Toxic Sites

Residences at Seventh at 5th, by DPZ

A reader who lives in the neighborhood points us to drawings and information from New Urbanist planners Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. about the firm’s designs for the former MDI Superfund site in the Fifth Ward. DPZ, of course, is most famous for the enormous small-town-sized stage-set the company designed for the 1998 Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show, which became so popular that it was kept on and is now used as a Florida Panhandle resort named Seaside.

InTown Homes and Lovett Homes owner Frank Liu bought the MDI site — a former metal foundry and spent-catalyst “recycling” facility famously polluted with lead and several thousand chemistry sets’ worth of other toxic substances — from the EPA late last year, with promises that he’ll spend a couple of years and $6.7 million remediating the property before letting Houstonians live there. Still, 36+ acres of inner-loop land at $5 a square foot doesn’t sound like too bad a deal.

After the jump: a look at DPZ’s MDI plans, plus large grains of salt.

77020, Development Strategy, Environmental, Fifth Ward, Hazards, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, New-Urbanism, Proposed Developments, Superfund-Sites, Toxic Sites

12/06/07 10:54am

Stanford Lofts: Your Parking Lot Is Safe from the Dynamo

Downtown, Lofts, Parking, Proposed Developments

Balcony of Stanford Lofts Unit 409

A resident of the Stanford Lofts just east of Downtown writes in to make sure everyone knows, after all, that the building’s view of Minute Maid Park is not going to be obstructed by . . . a view of a new soccer stadium for the Houston Dynamo directly across the street.

No, no official deal’s been announced. But this tidbit from a Chronicle story has allowed condo owners to breathe a sigh of relief:

The Dynamo first set sights on land owned by the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority just east of Minute Maid Park and U.S. 59, but have since decided against the property, which the Astros lease for stadium parking.

“We know for a fact (the property) is no longer being considered,” said Sports Authority head Kenny Friedman, who added that the Sports Authority is not actively involved in the negotiations.

The team might be looking to purchase private land near the same general area as the county-owned property, although Luck declined to confirm or deny it, saying only that a downtown venue is still planned.

So where will the Dynamo stadium go? Keep reading below the fold:

77003, Condos, Downtown, Dynamo Stadium, Lofts, Minute Maid Park, Proposed Developments, Stanford-Lofts

Buying and Selling

11/19/07 11:52am

Metro Chief Very Excited About Sprawl

Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Freeways and Toll Roads, Katy, Land Development, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Investing, Sprawl, Transportation

Aerial View of Wolff Companies Projects Along I-10

Sure, Metro talks a lot about transportation in this city’s central districts. But a Houston Business Journal profile shows us Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority Chairman David Wolff is also enthusiastic about Houston’s westward spread:

Many developers are building various types of commercial properties west of Houston and beyond.

The city of Katy, with an estimated population of 205,000, sits square in the path of Houston’s westward growth pattern.

“The whole city is going that way,” Wolff says. “I think Katy is going to be the next Sugar Land.”

He recalls the creation of Park 10, and how much the area has grown over the last three decades.

Says Wolff: “It was just rice fields. That was really the edge of the world then.”

After the jump, the METRO Board Chairman’s exciting projects way out west, plus how to get folks in the “next Sugar Land” to build freeway on- and off-ramps for your developments!

Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Freeways, Katy, Land Development, Metro, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Investing, Sprawl, Transportation

Attractions

11/14/07 10:15am

The Secret Plan To Redevelop the Astrodome

Development Strategy, Historic Preservation, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, Reliant Park

Paczki, A Polish Jelly Donut

By now everybody knows the full story about the latest proposal to turn the Reliant Astrodome into a wacky, gondola-and-balloon-filled convention-hotel donut, right? Sure, it took the Astrodome Redevelopment Corporation four years to work out the plan — and okay, the would-be redevelopers might be a little stingy about actually showing anybody what the thing is supposed to look like. But the proposal’s clear enough that when the Rodeo and the Texans say they don’t like the project we know enough about the plan to understand what they’re objecting to. Right?

Well, maybe not.

In the latest installment of the Chronicle‘s “Oh, by the way, we failed to mention” series on the latest Dome redo efforts, reporter Bill Murphy drops this little nugget about twenty-three paragraphs in:

The rodeo’s [Chief Operating Officer Leroy] Shafer said he understands that officials in his organization might be viewed as “obstructionists” because of their opposition to the plan. But the public, he said, would understand the rodeo’s stance if officials of the group could speak freely about what they see as the project’s problems. Rodeo officials had to sign confidentiality agreements before they were allowed to review details of the plan.

Hey, Harris County residents should feel lucky: we got to see a drawing of the project without all of us having to sign non-disclosure agreements! If we all promise to sign and keep our mouths shut, can we find out about the project secrets too?

But there’s more:

77054, Astrodome, Attractions, Development Strategy, Historic Preservation, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, Reliant Park

New Construction

11/13/07 12:34pm

Spa-Fitness Category Killer Stalks The Woodlands

Proposed Developments, The Woodlands

VillaSport in the Woodlands, Texas

Here it comes: A 87,000-square-foot sports behemoth. On more than 12 acres. A gym, aquatic and athletic center, kiddie playground, and spa, all wrapped into one . . . membership fee. The Wal-Mart of health clubs — without the low prices, of course.

Construction of the VillaSport Athletic Club and Spa will begin early next year and open in early 2009 on Technology Forest Dr., across from the Fox Network Center in The Woodlands. The VillaSport website features an interactive tour of the first facility — in Colorado Springs — which is slated to open later this month.

With indoor and outdoor spaces including an indoor soccer field, indoor and outdoor zero-entry kiddie pools, hot tubs, saunas, a Pilates studio, water slides, and a pro shop, VillaSport appears to merge features of an athletic club, spa retreat, sports lounge, country club, resort, water park, and summer camp. All in a gigantic compound you’ll easily be able to lose your family in.

The Woodlands set for VillaSport facility [Houston Business Journal]
VillaSport Athletic Club and Spa

77381, Health Clubs, New Construction, Proposed Developments, Resorts, The Woodlands

11/09/07 1:27pm

Forty-Two New Condos in the Old First Ward

Development Strategy, First Ward, Homebuilders, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Parking, Proposed Developments

Site Plan for Sawyer Brownstones by Terramark Homes at 2110 Shearn St., Houston

How do you pack so many condos into an old warehouse building in Houston’s First Ward? Easy! You knock the warehouse down, build a gate around the block, and pack â€™em in!

Permit in hand, Terramark Homes begins construction on the Sawyer Brownstones at 2110 Shearn St. The forty-two units will take up the block surrounded by Shearn, Hemphill, Spring, and Henderson Streets, just south of I-10.

No images of the outside yet, so it’s hard to say if these brownstones will indeed have brown stone or just be brownstone-like. But continue after the jump and we’ll show you the secret to shoehorning so many townhome-style condos into a single block!

77007, Construction Materials, Demolitions, Development Strategy, First Ward, Garages, Homebuilders, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Parking, Proposed Developments, Townhomes

Attractions

11/09/07 10:28am

Hotel Astrodome: Rides and Hot Air

Historic Preservation, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, Reliant Park, Tourism

Gondolas

Hidden in today’s Chronicle update on the Dome’s status are a few more exciting details about the Astrodome Redevelopment Corporation’s still-mysterious plans to remake the former home of the Astros and Oilers into a convention hotel. It’s gonna be like a county fair!

Company CEO John Clanton casually mentions that the new hotel will have seven restaurants and an amusement park, possibly including a ride to “near the top of the Dome,” plus tethered hot-air balloons, a batting cage, and gondolas.

It’s unclear whether Clanton is referring to Venetian-style gondolas for navigating all the new waterways inside, or the kind you see on ski slopes, for crossing the ~~ballfield~~ central fairgrounds. More details on the Astrodome Redevelopment Corp. website!

Oh . . . that’s right. There isn’t one.

After the jump, the real reason County Judge Ed Emmett doesn’t want to demolish the Dome.

77054, Astrodome, Attractions, Historic Preservation, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, Reliant Park, Tourism

Apartments

11/08/07 1:49pm

High on Westheimer?

Commercial Real Estate, Highland Village, Mixed Use, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers

Drawing of Proposed High Street Development at 4410 Westheimer, Houston, near Highland Village

Trademark Property has released this new image of its High Street development, slated for the site of the demolished Central Ford dealership at 4410 Westheimer, just west of Highland Village. So . . . is it really gonna happen?

The project had been on hold. It’s now described as “a 6-acre, pedestrian-oriented urban village featuring 93,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space combined with Class A offices and urban residences.” The Fort Worth developer — who also developed Market Street in the Woodlands — had planned to break ground this past spring. Instead, the company has leased part of the site to the sales trailer for the Highland Tower, and politely thrown a picture of that condo building into the background of the new drawing as well.

Don’t confuse High Street with the River Oaks District, a similar but larger project planned for next door.

Continue reading for a site plan and lots more images!

77027, Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Highland Village, Mixed Use, Office Space, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers, Westheimer

11/08/07 11:22am

The Titan: Rocketship Condos on Post Oak

Galleria, Highrises, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing