THE WOODWAYS AND THE WESTHEIMERS “I sometimes think that Woodway is made nicer by the fact that Westheimer exists. There are certainly numerous suburbs and exurbs where the Westheimers look like Woodways. Oh, there’s retail, but it’s set back from the street, perhaps behind a tree buffer, with tasteful monument signage out front. I’ve always found such environments to be stifling. It’s so obviously contrived. All-night, six- and eight-lane arterials are SUPPOSED to have large illuminated signs. They’re SUPPOSED to have ratty businesses alongside the nice ones. Every suburb has a Target and a ratty convenience store. Westheimer has a Target and twenty ratty convenience stores, plus ’24 hours video and news.’ I’ve never been in there, but its existence tells me that this strip is whatever it wants to be. This holds true of Woodway. It’s not a pure residential drive; there is retail, much of it even with tasteful signage. The signage follows from the road – Westheimer has large signs because it’s big and straight and a larger sign means higher visibility. Put up a larger sign on Woodway and it’d just be obscured by trees. Some people think of Westheimer (and other streets like it) as ugly. I don’t, but I understand where they’re coming from. Perhaps if they wanted to do something about it, they should plant trees instead of making rules about commercial signage. Proactive versus restrictive. Woodway is a nice drive because it was built to very nice design standards (10′ median with staggered trees) and because the people who own stores and homes along Woodway want to keep it pleasant. And so it is.” [Keep Houston Houston]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Retail
Caught on camera: Sighting of actual male customer inside Sugarbaby’s Cupcake Boutique on S. Shepherd, recorded by a blogging customer (and apparent accomplice), who offers this advice on visits in mixed company:
Okay, so the uber-girly decor may nauseate your male companion, but you can get the cupcakes to-go!
Some of that uber-girlishness:
“Our primary emphasis is a dedication to achieving an overall balance between the interior and outdoor living environment,” reads the copy on the home page of the Mecox Gardens website.
A tour of the new Mecox Gardens store that just opened in the Highland Village Shopping Center reveals part of the magic Mecox formula for achieving that inside-outside balance: Bring in the prints of animals. And bring in the animal prints!
Paloma Contreras, who runs Houston’s La Dolce Vita blog, took these photos on a recent visit. Mecox Gardens features “vintage and reedition” home and garden furnishings.
So here’s a reader challenge:
Azzarelli’s Restaurant has fled the Tuscan-styled Villagio Town Center in Cinco Ranch, reports InsideKaty blogger Helen Eriksen — leaving behind a delinquent-rent notice on the front door . . . and some sort of lawsuit:
Inside the spacious eatery, napkins, bread plates and wine glasses are neatly arranged on the tables. Christmas decorations are also still in place but it’s unclear if the closing is permanent.
Efforts to reach [owner Frank] Triola were unsuccessful as of this blog posting. The person who answered the phone for the leasing agent, Villagio Partners, said she would have to check to see if someone could call me back because there is ongoing litigation in the matter.
Meanwhile, commenters have sighted a new Azzarelli’s just off the Katy Freeway:
However, driving down 1-10 heading west from Houston, the Barker Cypress exit has a new strip center and what do you know… Azzerelli’s is opening up a new restaurant! I think that the rent was very high at the Villagio Town Center and they are moving to a lower cost building. ??
Tuscan theming doesn’t come cheap. Another giveaway: the flashing “I-10 Location Coming soon!” notice on the Azzarelli’s website.
- Katy restaurant shut down [InsideKaty]
- Azzarelli’s Restaurant
- Developer To Take “Tuscany in a Parking Lot†Concept Nationwide [Swamplot]
- Know Your Tuscan-Themed Shopping Centers, Part One: Villagio Vs. Villaggio [Swamplot]
Photo: Azzarelli’s
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?
HOUSTON’S LONELY STRIP CENTERS
Has the nail-salon bubble finally burst? Retail space in so many area strip centers lies vacant: “In the Houston area, much of the problem lies in strip centers built during the recent commercial real estate boom when inexperienced developers were throwing up small centers in areas close to new residential growth. In the third quarter, Houston-area strip centers recorded the lowest occupancy of all retail property types at 80.4 percent, according to the Colliers report. Some of these buildings went up away from highly coveted traffic corners, and before any tenants were signed — a risky proposition should something go wrong.” [Houston Chronicle]
What effects have difficulties with bank financing stemming from the global financial crisis had on some of those big new developments planned for Houston? The Houston Business Journal‘s Jennifer Dawson weighs in with a “Where Are They Now?” roundup:
- Regent Square: That big design change meant a year’s delay; the first parts of the 24-acre Inner Loop development are now scheduled to start construction in the second quarter of 2009. A marketing center will open at 1203 Dunlavy next month, but have some more official kickoff in February.
- Sonoma: “Called off — for now,” but you already knew that. According to Dawson, it wasn’t so much the banks but the developer that grew skittish: CONTINUE READING THIS STORY
The River Oaks version of Michael Reed’s Examiner story about Sonoma’s failed financing efforts quoted here yesterday has an additional Walgreens update appended. The halt in plans for developing the Sonoma won’t change anything:
Meanwhile, Walgreens spokesman Robert Elfinger said Monday the Rice Village store will close Dec. 31 as planned and will not be relocated.
- Sonoma and its off-again financing [River Oaks Examiner]
- Sonoma Developers: We Were So Close, Really! [Swamplot]
Photo of demolition on Bolsover St. last year: Jackson Myers
Sonoma’s would-be developers try to explain to West U Examiner reporter Michael Reed why the Rice Village retail-and-condo project was put “on hold” only a few weeks after the sales team sent out an email to prospective buyers claiming it had received financing:
Julie [Tysor], president of the Appelt Companies, said in an e-mail response to Examiner questions about the financing, “We had secured a substantial majority of the financing for the south building through the cooperation of some local lenders who have also supported this project since its inception.â€
She said a number of factors contributed to the financing falling through, “not the least of which is historical world economic crisis that is unprecedented…â€
So what’s going to happen to the site — which includes that block of Bolsover St. purchased from the city — now?
“Houston’s first Smashburger is going into an unnamed strip center at the intersection of Main Street and Kirby Drive, right beside Reliant Center,” reports Globe St.‘s Connie Gore:
[Ryan McMonagle, Smashburger’s CFO] tells GlobeSt.com that Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston each will start with two “grade A-plus locations” this year and reach eight to 10 before 2009 ends, putting the new chain on “a clear path to 30 over the next three-year period” in each city.
What’s a Smashburger?
Jason Sheehan of the Houston Press‘s sister publication Denver Westword says it’s a burger joint where
the burgers are truly smashed — thrown and mashed onto the flat-top grill with a press that I at first thought was for show, then realized played an important role. When a half-pound of ground, nicely fatty Angus beef is whacked onto the hot steel, it produces a flood of meat juice that caramelizes instantly into a crispy halo of blood and fat around the edge of the burger. It’s like meat candy, the delicacy you lose when a burger is cooked on a slotted grill — the traditional cooking surface for burgers smashed by hand.
- Smashburger Makes Texas Next Stop for Expansion (PDF) [Globe St.]
- Cow Town [Westword]
- Smashburger, 7811 Main [HAIF]
- Real Estate [Smashburger]
Photo of Denver Smashburger interior: Flickr user johnny_nissan [license]
Yesterday’s City Council vote wasn’t even close — which means that Houston will no longer allow “attention-getting devices” on commercial property, effective January 1st of 2010. The ban excludes fake quoins, oversized Alamo-shaped parapets, and strip-mall turrets, but it pointedly includes the inflatable menageries that are so much simpler to put up and take down.
Houston sure knows how to destroy its architectural history! In honor of the passing of this singular era, which exhibited such a flowering of the local decorative arts — and in advance of the less-than-spectacular demolitions that are soon to follow, Swamplot presents this short photo salute to Houston’s soon-to-be lost commercial landscape:
First, they came for the giant apes!
Houston’s City Council may vote today to ban the use of inflatable cartoon characters to draw traffic to local businesses. A law that’s already on the books requires permits for these “attention-getting devices,” and restricts their use. But there’s no money to fund enforcement.
The new law would prohibit more than just large blowup animals:
If approved, the ban also would prohibit flashy and motion-driven devices, such as dancing wind puppets, spinning pinwheels, pennants, streamers and strobe and spotlights. . . .
[Balloon vendor Jim] Purtee said his clients report sales increase 30 to 100 percent in the weeks after installing a giant balloon. “You can’t ban balloons without banning car wraps, those planes flying over Houston with trailing banners or people standing on the corner in a clown costume,” Purtee added. . . .
Officials said holiday displays and residential lawn decorations would be exempted from the ban. The prohibition would apply only to attention-getting devices used for commercial purposes.
That troubles Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck. She asked how the city would distinguish between attention-getting devices and the holiday lights, bows and sparkly stars installed in Rice Village and the Galleria area.
The back door of the Hunan River restaurant — which also serves as the front door of Back Door Sushi — now features a stern letter from landlord Weingarten Realty, reports a reader who sent Swamplot a photo. The two restaurants share the kitchen of a small building in the back of the River Oaks Shopping Center, facing Peden.
“Your rentals are in fact delinquent and we have therefore changed the lock to your door pursuant to the provisions of Section 93.002 of the Texas Property Code,” reads the letter. It’s dated November 3rd, which means whatever’s locked inside has had plenty of time to marinate.
BILL HEARD BID HEARD The Sugar Land location of bankrupted Bill Heard Chevrolet has a new owner. And the new place is gonna be . . . a car dealership! “[Jean] Durdin, who owns Parkway Chevrolet in northwest metro Houston, outbid fellow Houston dealer Mac Haik for the Heard store in southwest Houston. Durdin added more than $7.7 million to Haik’s original bid to buy the store for $20 million, not including vehicle and parts inventory. Durdin also outbid two other competitors, but [turnaround consultant Fred] Caruso declined to name them.” [Automotive News, via Swamplot inbox; previously]