Retail

Eastwood
02/26/10 11:49pm

A Whole New Ball Game: Fingers Back and Open for Business

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Houston History, Museums, Openings and Closings, Retail
3 Comments

Almost a year after shutting down all its operations, Finger Furniture — or at least another company using the same name and run by the same family — is open again. Owner Rodney Finger is claiming the newly renovated 600,000-sq.-ft. facility at 4001 Gulf Fwy. at Cullen near Eastwood is now the biggest furniture store in Texas. And that’ll likely be true for a bit longer — until the warehouse portion of that million-sq.-ft. Rooms To Go on I-10 past Katy opens in another month or so.

But at 200,000 sq. ft., Finger’s showroom is 5 times the size of the one at Rooms To Go. And then there’s that museum inside:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Commercial Real Estate
02/24/10 9:14am

The Coming Migration of the Buffalo Grille?

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Leasing, Parking, Quicklink, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, West University
No Comments

THE COMING MIGRATION OF THE BUFFALO GRILLE? Is the Buffalo Grille, left as the lone strip-center survivor at the corner of Bissonnet and Buffalo Speedway after the recent invasion of the new H-E-B Buffalo Market, looking to shuffle off to a new location? An H-E-B representative did tell the West U city council the restaurant would stay where it’s been for the last 26 years — but that was last May. More recently, restaurant co-owner John McAleer says H-E-B managers have “expressed concerns” about there not being enough parking for the grocery store. So he’s looking into a possible new location for the West U breakfast joint — namely, a portion of the former JMH Market less than a mile to the southwest, at the corner of Edloe and Rice Blvd. “McAleer said the restaurant has not received official word from the grocery store about what will happen in April 2011 when its lease expires. There’s still the chance that The Buffalo Grille will stay put, but the family is exploring all its options . . . ‘They’re worried some of our customers are taking their spots, and their customers are going over to Kroger, which is obviously their biggest competitor,’ he said.” [Instant News West U; previously on Swamplot]

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Malls
02/19/10 3:53pm

The Best Buy in Meyerland

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Meyerland Plaza, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail, Shopping Centers
7 Comments

THE BEST BUY IN MEYERLAND No, that isn’t another gun store with shooting range moving into the empty Circuit City space at the Meyerland Plaza shopping center. Reports a reader: “There has been some activity in the empty space lately, and today I asked a worker who was out in the parking lot what store was going in, and he said Best Buy.” [Swamplot inbox]

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Avondale
02/18/10 1:28pm

Dressing Up Those Little Montrose Drive-Ups

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Commercial Real Estate, East Montrose, Leasing, Montrose, Renovations, Retail
7 Comments

Vespa-riding Montrosian Brittanie Holland is curious about two retail buildings in her ’hood recently dressed up for lease:

We live in the northeast part of the Montrose. I was sad when the Hyde Park Supermarket shut down (across from Ziggy’s on Taft and Fairview) because they sold St. Arnold’s and Mexican Coke and were within walking distance. Plus the Pakistani (?) guys who worked there were so nice and knew me by name. Back when Ziggy’s was BYOB having the store there was, well, convenient.

The building has been vacant since summer but over the past few months workers have painstakingly removed all the original brick, refurbished the structure and the rebricked it with most of the original brick. It’s kind of an interesting mid-century building — it looks like it might once have been a garage, and there is a sign for business lease outside but I can’t believe the owners would do all that refurbishing without a [tenant] in mind. This is right down the street from Boheme and the new Deans, and has ample parking, so maybe they’re hoping to draw some similar high-brow ventures? Is Midtown continuing it’s fast encroachment on my filthy Montrose? (We’ll always have Lola’s. Hopefully.)

The other building probably needed a much more extensive cleaning:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Commercial Real Estate
02/18/10 8:50am

Shooting in Circuit City

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League City, Quicklink, Renovations, Retail
3 Comments

SHOOTING IN CIRCUIT CITY This summer gun store the Arms Room will be moving into the former Circuit City store it just bought, off the northbound I-45 feeder just south of FM 646 in League City. The store specializes in military collectibles, concealed handguns, and tactical weapons. “At 20,000 square feet, the new store will sell firearms and have a 15-lane indoor shooting range rated for rifles and pistols. Sounds a little like a bowling alley. ‘It is very similar,’ said general manager Travis James. ‘You’re in a lane for an hour and you shoot to your heart’s content. You just dont have to change your shoes.’” [Prime Property]

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Lanier Place
02/17/10 1:19pm

What Could Possibly Take the Place of Chicken N Egg Roll?

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New Construction, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail
9 Comments

A hungry reader writes in wanting to know about the new concrete-block building going up at 2802 S. Shepherd, just across Harold St. from the Houston Wine Merchant. Half of the lot is the site of the former Chicken N Egg Roll. Because the neighboring house on Harold was carted away, the new lot is twice as deep.

I have confirmed that it is a commercial establishment, but can’t find any additional info. Do you know? It looks too small to be a restaurant, but one can hope . . .

Here’s one clue our reader will be happy to hear: The original demolition report from last April listed the owner or occupant of the property as Toyama Japanese Restaurant.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Home Decor
02/10/10 3:49pm

Kay O’Toole’s House in Back

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Houston Architects, Interiors, New Construction: Residential, Retail, Winlow Place
5 Comments

Ubiquitous design blogger Joni Webb hyperventilates over the March issue of Veranda magazine, which features actual interior pics of the house Kay O’Toole had built behind her Kay O’Toole Antiques & Eccentricities shop. The shop is in the building with the rounded corners next to the Firkin & Phoenix Pub parking lot at 1921 Westheimer:

I had heard the blogosphere mumbling about this Veranda showing Kay O’Toole’s new house and that was what had my mouth watering like Edward’s whenever Bella is around. Honestly, I’ve been waiting over two years for this issue!

O’Toole owns a French antique shop housed in a 1920s brick building that was once home to several different businesses. Through the years, she eventually acquired the entire building and tore down the dividing walls – creating a long and narrow haven for the best of what France, and now Belgium, Sweden, and Italy have to offer.

O’Toole’s single-story, one-bedroom stucco home — designed by Murphy Mears Architects — is another long and narrow haven, modeled after something O’Toole saw in New Orleans’s French Quarter: It’s one room deep, and backs up to the property’s back fence.

Couldn’t Webb have just charmed her way inside, camera in hand? Oh, she’d tried that:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Leasing
02/09/10 10:24am

The Suburban Commercial Real Estate Bust Is Kiddie Paradise

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Quicklink, Retail
1 Comment

THE SUBURBAN COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE BUST IS KIDDIE PARADISE “With the tens of millions of square feet of vacant commercial real estate lining our roadways out in the ‘burbs, I am seeing a glut of “bounce houses.” Combine free or reduced rents, low start-up costs and thousands of laid-off middle and upper management types reaching career endpoints due to layoffs, I think we are experiencing a new economic bubble.” [Lou Minatti] Photo: Monkey Joe’s

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Baytown
02/01/10 5:19pm

Desolate Feeder Road Car Lot Landscapes

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Crime, Hidden Valley, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail
5 Comments

DESOLATE FEEDER ROAD CAR LOT LANDSCAPES What’s become of the 20-some Houston-area car lots dealers have shut down over the last year or two? Here’s a sampling: “‘My mother lived here 27 years, and we never had any trouble with Landmark Chevrolet,’ said Rhys Everett, who was cleaning out his mother’s former residence in the Hidden Valley neighborhood behind the defunct dealership. ‘But now it is filled with vagrants who have taken everything that wasn’t nailed down, and it’s a jumping-off point for crime in our neighborhood.’ The dealership, one of 13 outlets nationwide that Bill Heard Enterprises closed in September 2008, sprawls for blocks near the intersection of Gulf Bank and the North Freeway. It looks as if it had been hit by a cyclone. The main showroom’s exterior and interior windows are shattered. Ceiling tiles are torn away, exposing duct work that dangles like limp straws. Awnings hang in tatters. . . . The ravaged Chevrolet dealership’s antithesis can be found on Interstate 10 in Baytown, where the defunct Baytown Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge dealership is preserved in near-pristine condition.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]

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Parking
01/28/10 4:40pm

Comment of the Day: The Great University of Houston Structured Parking Boom

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Retail, University of Houston
2 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GREAT UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON STRUCTURED PARKING BOOM “Many more garages are in the works. The newest bid just went out for the Athletic garage which will be build between Robertson Stadium and Hofheinz Pavilion. Will provide parking for up to 2,200 cars and will have a retail component. Rumored tenants are Raising Cane’s, Starbucks, and Chipotle…” [doofus, commenting on That East Garage Spirit: Pride of Parking at the University of Houston]

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Dunvale
01/26/10 11:43am

The Neighborhood Walmart and Sam’s Club Made

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Retail, Shopping Centers
1 Comment

Walmart shut down its Sam’s Club Business Center pilot program late last week — and closed the program’s only store — the Sam’s Club at Dunvale and Westheimer. The HBJ‘s Casey Wooten surveys the wreckage:

[Walmart spokesperson Susan] Koehler attributes the poor performance of the Dunvale Sam’s Club to its location. In April 2008 when the concept was unveiled, however, the company touted its proximity to major commercial centers on Houston’s west side as a reason it was selected to be the test store for the business center concept. . . .

Lance Gilliam, managing director at Moody Rambin Interests, who has worked with real estate clients in that area, says the Dunvale/Westheimer intersection is one of the busiest areas of the city, boasting heavy traffic and a dense daytime population, largely thanks to the Walmart, Sam’s Club and AMC Theatres that were built around the same time.

“It used to be considered a no man’s land, but once they located there, there were a lot of developments,” says Gilliam.

Now, development in the area may make it difficult for Wal-Mart to find a use for the building, says Gilliam.

Photo: Walmart

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Cancellations and Delays
01/21/10 3:11pm

Otto’s Bar B Que Really Closing for Good This Time, Except of Course for the Hamburgers

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Commercial Real Estate, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail
4 Comments

A little more than 2 years after announcing they’d be closing down, demolishing the restaurant and selling the land underneath it, and 9 months after reopening the almost-60-year-old institution with great fanfare, the owners of Otto’s Bar B Que are now saying the restaurant at 5502 Memorial Dr. will be closing for good. Sort of:

Otto’s has a long list of customers, including former President George H. W. Bush. He came by yesterday to get a final plate of food before the business closed. The building will be demolished and replaced with a bank. The owner told us it was hard to say goodbye.

“We have some wonderful people here in the City of Houston that have supported us for hundreds of years. It’s a little, a little emotional,” said owner June [Sofka].

You will still be able to order a hamburger from Otto’s at that location for a few more months.

Photo: Flickr user tamtam.afropunx

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Art
01/15/10 3:33pm

Isabella Court’s Art Palace Makeover

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Midtown, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail
4 Comments

ISABELLA COURT’S ART PALACE MAKEOVER As of tonight’s grand opening opening, the ground-floor retail space of the Isabella Court Apartments will now be home to four functioning spaces for contemporary art: Inman Gallery, the new Inman Annex space, CTRL Gallery, and the just-moved-here-from-Austin Art Palace, run by the conveniently named Art Palacios. Art Palace has taken over the long-vacant space at 3913 Main St. last occupied by Finesilver Gallery. [Arts in Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Art Palace

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Openings and Closings
01/14/10 10:17am

Gaslight Won’t Be Turned On Again

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Quicklink, Retail, West University
No Comments

GASLIGHT WON’T BE TURNED ON AGAIN The operator of Gaslight News & Video at 3519 Bellaire has achieved the distinction of being the first person to receive a criminal conviction as a result of Houston’s sexually oriented business ordinance, which was passed in 1997 but cleared court challenges only more recently. Eugene Etheridge has been prohibited from reopening the store. “The arcade, which consisted of individual pornographic video viewing booths, was closed last summer after the city obtained an injunction against his operation. Etheridge voluntarily closed his adult retail shop at the same location. Defense attorney Phllip Slaughter said Etheridge has been released on bond pending appeal. Etheridge, 60, continues to face civil and criminal cases stemming from his operation of a second sexually oriented business, the Big City News & Video at 10105 Gulf Freeway.” [Houston Chronicle, via Hair Balls]

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Brookshire
01/11/10 3:11pm

New Rooms To Go on I-10, Just Minutes from Downtown Houston

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Furniture, Katy, Openings and Closings, Retail
12 Comments

The city’s official new “Welcome to Houston” sign for travelers approaching from the east west was moved further west to Brookshire over the weekend, as the ginormous new Rooms To Go Super Center facing the Katy Freeway opened for business. The distribution center and store stretch a mere 1,600 ft. along the I-10 frontage road, directly across from the Igloo plant and almost 6 miles west of the Katy Mills Mall. The entire facility takes up more than 1,000,000 sq. ft. A quick partial drive-by view:

Photos: Pankaj (top) and JimmyxBoi (bottom)

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