2100 MEMORIAL RESIDENTS PROTEST BY PAYING THEIR RENT, STAYING HOME 
Singing “We shall not be moved,” a group of residents remaining at the 2100 Memorial senior-living apartments just west of Downtown marched into the 14-story building’s leasing office one by one today to deliver their rent checks, Florian Martin reports. A notice delivered 15 days ago to residents of the tax-credit facility owned by the Houston Housing Authority gave them 5 days to move out of the building, but a spokesperson later told Swamplot that the authority would not enforce that deadline. In the meantime, a lawsuit filed just before the move-out date seeking to force the authority both to make repairs to the electrical system and to allow residents to remain in their homes has been revised and expanded to 17 named resident plaintiffs. Flooding compromised the former Holiday Inn building’s fire-safety and electrical systems; the Housing Authority says it is working with residents to find them new places to live. [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot] Photo: 2100 Memorial
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Senior Living
A spokesperson for the Houston Housing Authority tells Swamplot the city agency is not and will not be enforcing the previously announced 5-day deadline for all residents of 2100 Memorial to move out with their belongings. A notice delivered earlier this week by the building’s owner, an affiliate organization of the agency, to all 188 residents of the low-income-housing-tax-credit senior living facility labeled the structure “totally unusable for residential purposes due to health and safety reasons” after it was discovered that floodwaters had damaged the 14-story former Holiday Inn’s fire, electrical, and water systems.
The move-out deadline has not been altered, but the agency says it “understands it will take time to pack and move so they are working closely with the residents to help move in an orderly fashion.”
The photo at top shows the setup for a well-attended emergency meeting held yesterday afternoon on the second level of the building’s parking garage. At the meeting the HHA’s Board of Commissioners approved a $250,000 loan to the building’s management for relocation expenses, which it will then ask FEMA to cover. The funds will provide movers at no cost to residents to help them relocate their belongings to available residences in “Greater Houston” it has identified: 230 tax-credit units with similar rules to those governing 2100 Memorial — or 250 affordable housing units of other types.
Residents who have already hired their own movers, the spokesperson says, will be reimbursed. The agency says displaced residents will be given preference in returning to the building when it can be determined to be safe.
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Inside 2100 Memorial, Where More Than 180 Elderly or Disabled Residents Have 2 Days Left To Move Out;Â Residents of 2100 Memorial Senior Highrise Now Have 5 Days To Move Out of Their ‘Uninhabitable’ Apartments
Photos:Â Swamplot inbox (meeting setup) Realtor.com (building)
Sixth Ward Exodus
The monumental earthwork undertaking at 9339 Buffalo Spdwy., just south of Murworth and a bit north of the intersection with Main St., appears to be nearing completion. This is the 12-acre site where Dallas-based developer Tradition Senior Living is planning to plant its first Houston facility. A reader panning a camera from north to south this weekend from a spot on the Buffalo Spdwy. edge of the precipice shows the expansive extent of the enormous new dirt gap:
Digging In for Tradition
A group of 7 residents of the Renoir and Gotham Lofts, 2 separately themed Randall Davis condo towers north of the Shepherd Curve just south of W. Dallas St., filed a lawsuit early last week against the company planning to build a senior living facility between the 2 buildings. Bridgewood Property Company’s Village on Shepherd at River Oaks (also called the Village at River Oaks in company documents) will fit on the site of the former RR Donnelley printing company building at 1015 S. Shepherd, which was torn down this week. (The photos above and below, taken from the Gotham yesterday, show what’s left of that building, against the Renoir’s undressed southern flank.)
RR Donnelley Site
Construction is well underway at the site of the torn-down Studewood Fiesta on the Village of the Heights. This updated (and softer) rendering shows the 4-story, 103-unit senior living facility as seen from near the intersection of 14th and Studewood; it will be bordered on the north by Algregg. A rep from developer Bridgewood Properties — which operates 3 similar facilities in Houston — says that the 1st floor will be devoted to a clinic for “memory care,” and the 2nd floor will include a fitness center, library, beauty salon, and assisted-living suites; the top 2 floors will be reserved for apartments, ranging from 1-bedroom, 524-sq.-ft. spaces to 2-bedroom, 753-sq.-ft. ones.
Here’s a view of the senior living and memory care facility that will go up in place of the Heights Fiesta that’s now coming down at 14th and Studewood: Though what’s being called the Village of the Heights was initially described to the Leader by “boutique senior living developer” Bridgewood Properties as “Craftsman style” with 80 units, descriptions accompanying this rendering omit any mention of style — and add 23 units. Either way, it’s supposed to be up and running next summer; Real Estate Bisnow reports that money to get construction going is in place.
Meanwhile, the sacking of that long-standing Fiesta continues:
This is the rendering for Harbor Hospice, what Three Square Design Group and Camden Construction are saying they hope will serve as a kind of template for similar facilities to be built in Texas and Louisiana. The whole 24,000-sq.-ft. thing will have room for 32 beds and a 5,000-sq.-ft. outpatient clinic; Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that construction could begin as early as this summer. A site plan from Camden shows the hospice going up outside the Loop southeast of Sunnyside, across from the Houston Amateur Sports Park on Mowery Rd. That’s west of Hwy. 288, between Airport Blvd. and W. Orem.
- State-of-the-Art Hospice to Break Ground [Real Estate Bisnow]
Rendering: Camden Construction
Ah, Friday: Why not take a stroll down Binz St. in the Museum District and have a look at what’s going on? Let’s head east from here: the corner of La Branch and Binz, near the Children’s Museum.
Our guide, Swamplot reader David Hollas, provides the photos and the observations:
NIMBY IN PASADENA 
This scruffy corner at Genoa Red Bluff and Space Center, right on the border between Pasadena and Houston, is the proposed site of a few 90- to 150-unit housing developments for low-income residents — a category which can include seniors and those with disabilities, reports teevee’s Samica Knight. But one potential neighbor Knight interviews doesn’t seem likely to prepare any welcome baskets: “‘If I had been looking for a new home and there had been low income property across, I wouldn’t have chosen this neighborhood,‘ said Pasadena resident Janet McClellan. ‘I would be afraid of crime, more crime. . . . Everybody does have to have a place to live, but I just think there are better more appropriate places to build those kinds of homes.'” [abc13] Photo: abc13
ONE FINAL FIESTA FIESTA 
It’s adios for the 60-year-old Heights market — Bridgewood Properties is building a 4-story senior-living complex in its place — but there will be one more flicker before the lights go out: Bridgewood President Jim Gray tells the Leader he pushed back the start of construction “so that the Houston Heights Association could hold its annual Candlelight Dinner & Auction … the Heights’ premier social function.” Gray adds: “It seemed like the right thing to do.” [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
Weingarten Realty has at last sold the 2.08-acre parcel under the Fiesta Mart on Studewood at 14th St. — to a Houston developer of assisted-living and independent-living complexes. Bridgewood Properties, the company behind the Village of Meyerland complex under construction at 4141 N. Braeswood Blvd. near Stella Link on the site of the former Rutlege Apartments and the Village at the Woodlands Waterway, plans to build a 4-story, 80-unit building in place of the grocery store — with independent-living apartments on the top floor, a bottom floor for “memory care” patients, and 2 floors of assisted-living units sandwiched in between. Fiesta’s lease expires in January; Bridgewood plans to begin building a “Craftsman style” structure in its place shortly thereafter, which should take 16 to 18 months to finish.
- Goodbye Studewood Fiesta; hello boutique senior living [The Leader]
- *Updated* New use in store for Heights Fiesta Mart [Prime Property]
- 1407 Studewood [Moody Rambin]
- Communities [Bridgewood Properties]
- Previously on Swamplot: Heights Grocery: Not Gone Yet
Photo: Swamplot inbox
MAYBE SIENNNA IS AVAILABLE? Marketing new themed apartments has got to be tough these days — all those great Southern European-y names are already taken! “Out-of-state developers thought they had coined a great name for their senior living apartments in Katy. Then they found out a nearby master-planned community had already claimed the same name. A joint venture led by Georgia-based Formation Development Group LLC broke ground in May on The Sienna at Cinco Ranch apartments at 24001 Cinco Village Center Blvd., west of Houston. But the site was a little too close for comfort to the Sienna Plantation master-planned community located south of Cinco Ranch in Fort Bend County. So Formation Development formulated a slight change of plans — The Sienna at Cinco Ranch is now going to be called The Solana at Cinco Ranch. ‘There was a little bit of confusion,’ says Karen Thompson, a spokeswoman for the development firm. ‘They wanted to have something that was going to be unique to their property.'” [Houston Business Journal]
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
Houston’s middle-age spread continues:
- Just north of I-10 at the Grand Parkway, Kickerillo is starting a large residential development called Grandeur Park. It’ll be across the street from The Grand, Simon Property Group’s new mall. Homes there will cost 300 to 600 Grand.
- Houston will soon stretch to Sealy:
Silvestri Investments of Houston has purchased 1,375 acres just west of Firethorne, which is a mile south of Interstate 10 on FM 1463.
The new owner will hold the land for future development.
“With the historical trend of development in Houston, it was only a matter of time before someone purchased land in the next logical pattern of growth,” said Michael Carroll, president of Riverway Properties, who brokered the deal. The price was not disclosed.
- Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood Development Company has bought Sienna Plantation South. What we’ll get there: about 7,000 single-family homes on the 3,827-acre site. Included in that total: 300 acres for offices and retail, 100 acres for schools and churches, and 1,000 acres of parks and open space. No breakdown available on the acreage of cul de sacs, lakes, or driveways.
- The fourth Del Webb retirement compound in Texas will be near Richmond, at Highway 59 and Thompson Rd. Fifteen hundred homes on 500 acres. You’ll need to be at least 55 years old to live there, and drive at least 55 to get there.
- It’s tough building slabs in Texas City:
After what developers described as a “minor slowdown,†the 574-home Grand Cay Harbour project in Texas City is back on track.
Persistent rain during the summer was part of the problem. But project manager Norman Reed didn’t elaborate about what other factors led to a long stretch of inactivity at the development. The project is on 250 acres beside Galveston Bay at the end of the Texas City levee system.
And don’t you worry about flooding after the construction’s done. This gated community will keep out the tides, too.
- Kickerillo Closes on Land Deal for a Community at I-10 and the Grand Parkway (PDF) [Kickerillo Companies]
- Commercial market still active [Houston Chronicle]
- Project targets older adults [Houston Chronicle]
- North Texas Real Estate Company Buys Sienna Plantation South [Fort Bend Now]
- Grand Cay Harbour sails ahead after delay [Galveston Daily News]
Plan of Grandeur Park: Kickerillo Companies
An upscale hotel opens in the Galleria’s backyard.