- 5105 S. Acres Dr. [HAR]
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Real Estate Marketing
SKYHOUSE MANAGEMENT: THAT’S FUNNY, NOBODY SAID ANYTHING ABOUT OUR PICTURE WINDOW TOILETS BEFORE 
Sure, the SkyHouse Houston features from-the-street views of window-side toilets on the second and third floors of the new Downtown highrise. But a spokesperson for the management company in charge of the 24-story tower and 2 other largely identical SkyHouses still under construction in Houston tells the Chronicle‘s Craig Hlavaty that the prominent display of bathrooms was not part of any marketing strategy. Simpson Property Group’s Thornton Kennedy says he wasn’t aware that anybody had even noticed the toilet views before Swamplot readers began writing about them: “We have nearly 10 [SkyHouses] completed from Florida to the Carolinas and over to Texas and we’ve never gotten a call about this,” he says. “But we get it.†Kennedy’s explanation for the Pease St. display involves a reference to window coverings in the photo (above) published earlier this week on Swamplot. “Those units that were photographed are not yet occupied, and therefore those blinds are open all the time,” he explains. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Swamplot inbox
HOUSTON CHRONICLE BUILDING GOES ON SALE TOMORROW, THE CHRONICLE REPORTS 
The Houston Chronicle’s 10-story downtown headquarters and neighboring parking garage will be listed for sale tomorrow — with the Hearst newspaper’s reporters and other employees still working away inside. “Chronicle executives said prospective buyers have already expressed interest in the property and that more are expected once word spreads that the building at 801 Texas and an adjacent parking garage are up for sale,” writes real estate reporter Nancy Sarnoff from somewhere inside the complex. Indeed, company executives have already suggested to her the story’s conclusion: “’This building is likely to be torn down and replaced with a modern skyscraper that will generate more revenue for the city. It’s in a prime location,’ Paul Barbetta, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Houston Chronicle Media Group, said Monday.” Chronicle employees will be allowed to exit the building and take their belongings with them to a revamped, smaller, outside-the-Loop just-inside-the-Loop facility before that happens. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Walter P Moore
The dude with the squinchy eyes and razor-deprived face plastered along the side of the former ticket booth at 1311 Polk St. downtown is hawking highrise condos in Randall Davis and Roberto Contreras’s 20-story Marlowe building, meant to go up on that very site, across Caroline St. from the eastern end of GreenStreet. And Marlowe is his name, too. “Marlowe is smarter than you,” declares the accompanying website:
Stylized
HOW THE 610 LOOP EARNED ITS PRESTIGE 
“I’ve heard 610 called a lot of things, but never ‘prestigious,'” writes a Swamplot reader who is curious to learn how the phrase “the prestigious 610 Loop” nevertheless came to appear in Wikipedia — in the entry for Hines’s gated Somerset Green complex, now under construction on 46 acres of an old industrial operation at 7002 Old Katy Rd., just east of the Houston Design Center. Ah, but such is the value of Wikipedia’s references and external links sections: The source of the phrase turns out to be Hines itself. A press release that predates by a couple of years the billboards now seen advertising the 500-home development along a few (less-prestigious, no doubt) Inner Loop highways still bears the implicit declaration in its headline: “Hines to Develop 46-acre Planned Community Inside Houston’s Prestigious 610 Loop.” And so it is. [Wikipedia; press release] Photo of the 610 Loop: PINKÉ (license)
Snickers and awkward guffaws are likely to be heard all the way from the Northside to Afton Oaks next week, once state transportation officials sign off on the addition of another name to the 11.9-mile segment of State Hwy. 59 within Houston’s Inner Loop: Interstate Highway 69. New signs announcing I-69 proudly to the world will subsequently be erected along in-town stretches of the freeway, where they’ll likely be targeted for pointed display in neighborhood bars, strip clubs, or dorm rooms.
Once complete, I-69 will connect the highway’s head at the Canadian border in Port Huron, Michigan, to its tail along the Mexican border, where it will spread into 3 separate paths to Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville. Planners hope the availability of a smooth, continuous ride from north to south and back again along the eventual federally sanctioned route (sometimes called the NAFTA Superhighway) will stimulate and ease trade among the entwined nations.
Making the Link
Give the lawsuit filed by 7 residents of the costumed Gotham and Renoir Lofts buildings along the Shepherd Curve just south of West Dallas St. some credit. News of the legal action has spurred the defendant to do something it previously hadn’t: release to the public an actual rendering of the 8-story senior living facility it’s about to construct between the 2 Randall Davis condos, once it finishes clearing away the remains of the RR Donnelley printing company building at 1015 S. Shepherd Dr. And here it is, showing almost exactly how Bridgewood Property’s Village of River Oaks will look a few years from now — when you view it from Google Street View, that is.
Google Street View Rendering
OFF-MENU SPECIAL AT GEORGES BISTRO ON WESTHEIMER: THE WHOLE SHEBANG 
Georges Bistro co-owner Monique Guy tells Eater Houston’s Jakeisha Wilmore that the French restaurant in the space formerly occupied by whole-hog-HQ Feast — and before that by Guy’s Chez Georges — is not on the verge of closing. Who could be spreading rumors to the contrary? Well, there is that online listing for the 3,114-sq.-ft. converted foursquare that houses the property at 219 Westheimer that went up a few weeks ago, offering the building, the 5,500-sq.-ft. lot, and the restaurant, including all fixtures, furniture, and equipment, for $1.295 million. Guy, who with her husband, Georges, owns the building and operates Georges, tells Wilmore the couple only listed the property “to see what kind of interest it would generate.” She declined to say if they had received any notable offers. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: LoopNet
WHY HOUSTON COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE THINKS IT’LL DO JUST FINE, THANK YOU 
Deeply embedded Houston real estate reporter Catie Dixon comes back from a panel event sponsored by her employer with a clickworthy account of 5 reasons Houston (commercial real estate) will survive the latest oil bust. Included in the list: attractiveness to foreign investors whether prices fall or not; this boom wasn’t as big as the one before the last big bust; the industry doesn’t rely on short-term gains; industrial real estate is still healthy; and — yes — data centers! (But things will be tough for developers for a year to a year and a half, maybe.) [Real Estate Bisnow] Photo: Russell Hancock
Update, 2/19: Weingarten says the brochure was a “vision book” that was released to the public in error.
“The time is right for redevelopment” of the Sears at 4000 N. Shepherd Dr., declares a brochure published online earlier this week by Weingarten Realty. The brochure, which appears to be part of a proposal to Sears, which owns the 11.7-acre western portion of the site, says the REIT plans to partner with the retailer to turn the sleepy department store and the Pine Forest Business Park directly to its east into a “wonderfully connected and designed retail shopping destination for Garden Oaks, Oak Forest and neighborhoods around it,” including a new grocery store and restaurants.
No site plan is included in the presentation, but Weingarten notes that it plans to keep “the 2nd longest operating Houston Sears” open in some form throughout the redevelopment. “Weingarten’s vision is to acquire adjacent land,” then “temporarily relocate Sears into an existing building” — the Family Bingo Center at 641 W. Crosstimbers — before scraping and redoing the whole site.
Oaks on Shepherd
Here’s a shadow sighting sure to knock the winter doldrums out of any emerging groundhog: Signs are up at the West U Court townhomes marketed by Urban Living at the corner of Weslayan and Law streets, dangling hefty Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware, and Best Buy gift cards — among other prizes — free, with your casual purchase of townhome. “It appears from the flier and the website that only one of the units has sold so far; they start at $699,900,” notes the reader who sent in these pics of the festooned not-sold-yet properties. . . . It looks like Urban Living is offering the same incentives on all of their properties.”
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Shiny!
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW YOUR PHOTOS TOO CAN OOZE THAT SLICK BUT OTHER-WORLD-Y REAL ESTATE LOOK 
“1.) Get a wide lens
2.) Shoot with a 7 stop bracket
3.) Comp exposures and tone in 8 bit
4.) Crank up to 32 floating point because you read somewhere that was good
5.) Boost your shadows as far as the dial will take you
6.) Compress, no, demolish your highlights
7.) Huff on nails and polish on thy hairy chest. . . . You’re now a big time real estate photographer.” [Toby, commenting on Catch All the Angles on a $1.1 Million House on a St. George Place Corner]
THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING, ONCE YOU DRIVE ALL THE WAY OUT THERE 
The latest event in the growing trend of establishments far from the center of the city adopting names that convey an aura of centrality comes from the firm turning the former Camp Strake Boy Scout facility just south of Conroe into a large suburban residential development. Henceforth, Johnson Development announced today, the 2,046-acre property just west of I-45 and south of Loop 336 — north of The Woodlands — shall be known as Grand Central Park. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jones Lang LaSalle
ONE MAN’S THRIVING GAYBORHOOD IS ANOTHER’S MONTROSE VALUE-ADD PORTFOLIO 
What is the Montrose Value-Add Portfolio? “48 apartment-units, 13 townhomes, 1 quadraplex and 5 rental homes with 8-units that include 2 garage apartments; for a total of 73 units, 67,960 rentable square feet, with a land tract of 2.09 acres.” Writes a reader who came across the listing: “This is where I live. I love the phrase ‘The Montrose Value Add Portfolio,’ it practically screams ‘knock it down!’ So much for my old gayborhood!” The properties are all within walking distance of the MVAP’s listed address: 409 Stratford St., a stone’s throw from the always-hopping cluster of bars and clubs on Pacific St. to the north and but a little farther from Numbers and Indika to the south. No asking price is indicated in the marketing materials. [Loopnet; brochure (PDF)] Photo: Transwestern.
What happened to that Fortress French development of enormous $2.2-million-plus townhomes (pictured at top) planned for the former site of Urban Retreat across the street from River Oaks on the corner of San Felipe and Revere St.? Builder Rohe & Wright has scrapped plans for the 10-unit Saint Honoré at 1900 Revere St. — in favor of a reconfigured development that will lack its predecessor’s continental pretensions:
Wilde Associations
