A reader writes in to let Swamplot readers know the unpublished asking price for the 8-unit apartment building going up on the ashes of The Norman apartments at the corner of West Alabama and Stanford, featured here last month. Pssst: It’s $875,000, all stucco colors shown included. The building is expected to be complete next month. And here’s one of the last pics of its hot hot predecessor, taken during a little incident last August:
MAYOR PARKER TO WALMART: START TALKING “This is not yet a done deal. The property has been assembled for a major retail venture. When that moves forward, there will be careful review for impact on traffic, mobility and city infrastructure. I encourage Wal-Mart, or any other retailer interested in the property, to open dialogue with the Greater Heights and Washington Avenue Super Neighborhoods 15 and 22 as well as other neighborhood groups and civic clubs in that area.” [Hair Balls; previously on Swamplot]
Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:
We’ll post any more reader questions we get on Tuesday. Send us what you’ve got before then!
Photo of Kroger, 239 W. 20th St.: Swamplot inbox
We have a correction on the location of the new Walmart headed for the area just south of I-10 and the Heights. Our source was off by a block: The property in question is bounded by Yale on the east, Koehler on the north, Bonner on the west, and the railroad tracks to the south. That’s a much bigger site than the former Sons of Hermann property a block east. A proposed development plan obtained by Nancy Sarnoff at the Chronicle indicates there’ll be plenty of pad-site fun in the project too. The site plan from the Ainbinder Company and Moody Rambin Retail shown above also shows a much-fattened Bass Ct. connecting the development to a new east-bound feeder road along I-10.
The plans show a 152,000-sq.-ft. Walmart (that’s almost 3 1/2 acres of floor space, but who’s counting?) and a 664-car parking lot. according to Sarnoff. “A Wal-Mart spokeswoman confirmed the company’s interest in the site, but would not provide additional details,” she writes.
A 25-acre Trinity Industries steel fabrication plant was the last development at this location. A portion at 107 Yale was home to the Heights Armature Works, where flickr photographer meltedplastic caught these cozy scenes, featured on Swamplot last year:
The Norman apartment building at 717 West Alabama at Stanford St. caught fire and burned last August. The 8-unit Montrose building, which the Houston Press saw fit to declare the city’s “Best Apartment” back in 2004, showed up in Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report just before Christmas. A reader sends in pics of the new multicolored stucco-and-foam construction going up in its place and notes:
It appears that they were quick to rebuild, It looked to me that they used the old piers, and just added the support beams for a (pier & beam foundation). Glad to see that they took advantage of the exsiting foundation.
And look, new foam quoins at the corner, to hold the stucco rainbow together! Are they fireproof?
Having displayed a remarkable ability to minimize outside participation in the “open call” for Astrodome redevelopment proposals it conducted half a decade ago, the brilliant and methodical minds behind the Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation now appear ready to demonstrate similar mastery of the process of public-opinion polling. The corporation is counting actual votes in the online poll it set up last week, which allows website visitors from any country to choose from one of 2 kitchen-sink redevelopment proposals — or the garbage-disposal option pictured above. With 5,800 “votes” cast, longtime corporation executive director Willie Loston notes that the “save the Dome” options are winning by a landslide. But wait! Maybe they just haven’t been asking the right people?
To solicit more participation, Loston has asked some of Reliant Park’s tenants — the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Houston Texans and the Offshore Technology Conference – to encourage their constituents to take the survey.
Asked if that could be construed as an attempt to manufacture support for a more costly park makeover, Loston said he does not see it as an attempt to shape the survey’s outcome.
Note to contracted visitors: Local Zip Codes begin with “770.”
Drawing of flattened Astrodome: Reliant Park
Note: Story updated below.
The owners of the original Carrabba’s Italian Grill on Kirby between West Main and Branard plan to demolish the restaurant, rebuild it, and construct 2 more restaurants on adjacent blocks. First step: building a new 275-car parking garage one block to the north, at the northwest corner of Branard and Argonne. Next, a new and larger Carrabba’s (marked [A] in the site plan above) would go up directly south of the existing building, which would remain open during construction. Once the new digs are complete, they’ll tear down the existing restaurant and put in a parking lot and porte-cochere in its place. Two more restaurants — one possibly named Grace’s, and one with office space upstairs — are planned for blocks north of Branard, one facing Kirby and the other at Argonne.
The Kirby Carrabba’s is one of 2 still owned by the family of co-founder Johnny Carrabba. All other Carrabba’s Italian Grills — more than 200 in 27 states — are owned by OSI Restaurant Partners, the same company that runs Outback Steakhouse and Fleming’s.
The new Kirby restaurant complex may be the first in the city to take advantage of the “transit corridor” incentives passed by city council last year. In return for building a 15-ft.-wide pedestrian area and street-front entrance along Kirby, designers get to push 2 of the buildings close to the street, well into the normal 25-ft. setback. The planning commission approved the site plan earlier this month — along with several related parking variances — even though the transit corridor itself (the University Line on Richmond) hasn’t even started construction yet.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WRITE-IN ADDITION TO THE NEW KITCHEN-SINK ASTRODOME REDEVELOPMENT PLAN “How about turning the Astrodome into the Smithsonian Museum of Energy and Power? Just like the National Air & Space Museum, it could collect the actual artifacts of the industry that calls Houston home and that plays such an important part in all of our daily lives. You could put a whole supertanker, a few notorious drilling rigs, some significant parts of an oil refinery, working solar panels and several generations of windmill turbines inside. Divide up the concourse spaces for offices (alternative energy business incubators, etc) Could be really interesting and also an appropriate use for the facility.” [SCL, commenting on Latest Astrodome Redevelopment Proposal Features Large Domed Space for People To Mill About, Wondering What To Do with Astrodome]
It was only closed for a few evenings during construction, but the Merchants Park Kroger at 11th and North Shepherd in the Heights is marking today as its grand re-opening. Work on the project began 13 months ago. A new section of the store, which was expanded by 39,184 sq. ft., opened last October. Today, all the expansions and renovations on the 24-hour market are complete. Total tally: 88,988 sq. ft.
What’s new? A Starbucks with free wi-fi; a “Kitchen Place” featuring small appliances, cookware, and dinnerware; and the now-de-rigueur drive-thru pharmacy. Plus: an “open-air” seafood market, an order-on-the-computer deli kiosk, a “Cheese Shoppe” with more than 300 cheeses, and an Artisan Bread gallery that features store-made tortillas in your five favorite flavors: white, wheat, butter, salsa and cinnamon sugar.
There’s more:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE EASY ASTROWORLD REDEVELOPMENT PLAN “A giant farm. Organic local produce, chickens/eggs, goats for milk. Some cows. A pavilion for events. Call it Astro Village Acres. Moo.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on Comment of the Day: 104-Acre Vacant Former AstroWorld Site Is a Developer’s Dream]
Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:
Some fine sleuthing and rumor-mongering by Swamplot readers this week! Here’s what you dug up about the 2 properties in question:
The location currently going up on the CostCo pad site is an Iberia Bank ground lease. The property located at Richmond and Weslayan is owned by BBVA Compass, which operates the drive thru behind it and will eventually build a location there.
What about that Heights church building?
First it was up, then it sat unfinished for a good long time, then it was down, and now it’s been . . . resurrected! Viula from the Heights Life blog sends in the latest photo of the corner townhouse unit in the former Waterhill Homes development at 8th St. and Nicholson in the Heights (where 8th Avenue Elementary School used to be):
Remember the one they were breaking down on the end? Well, they built it back up again. My husband thinks the ground floor (garage) is the same but I disagree.
Real progress doesn’t always follow a straight-line path, no? Last time we studied this well-weathered unit, you’ll remember, it was indeed on its way down:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOT SIZE AND THE ROAD TO DEMOLITION 
“. . . The owners of the above pictured house realized a LONG time ago that the value of their 10,000 SF lot was the same with or without the existing structure. THAT is the point when maintaining the structure becomes uneconomical. THAT is when repairs stop. THAT is the starting point on the path to real decay and eventual demolition.
Interestingly, the economics of a townhouse give their owners MORE incentive to keep up with repairs. Their ratio of structure-value to land-value is higher meaning that going forward they should have MORE economic incentive to keep their structures maintained.
Even a $100,000 structural repair on a townhouse on a 1,800 SF lot isn’t likely to push it into teardown status. Making the repair is still economically rational. You’d be far less likely to affect a similar repair on a single family home on 5,000 SF lot in the same neighborood.” [Bernard, commenting on Up and Down in Hyde Park] Photo of former property at 1212 Hyde Park Blvd.: fortbendtomontrose
When last Swamplot visited the tiny Freeland Historic District at the foot of the Heights almost a year ago, Samantha Wood and her husband, architect Jack Preston Wood, had just given up on plans to purchase a little bungalow at 536 Granberry St., demolish it, and replace it with a new 1-1/2-story bungalow. The Woods’ earlier plans — to build two 4-story townhomes on the property — stirred up protests from neighbors and a rejection from the city historical commission.
Did all that hullabaloo in the newly-minted historic district scare off potential buyers? A Freeland neighbor says no — and suspects most of the neighborhood’s new attention is coming from builders:
525 Granberry Street (now listed on the tax rolls and MLS as 525 E. 5th 1/2 Street) went on the market last week. So many offers have been received they ask that final bids go in tomorrow, April 16.
Why would builders be so interested in this property?
WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO 
From Michael Reed, the River Oaks/Bellaire/West University/Memorial Examiner newspaper reporter who’s been covering the long, strange tale of the Wilshire Village Apartments all the way from the evictions last year to the recent mysterious weed-tag flare-up: “You know, I figure if all the Wilshire stories combined have caused just one person to rent ‘Blow Up’ my work is complete.” [Swamplot inbox] Photo: Michael Reed, River Oaks Examiner
