11/03/09 10:15am

Let’s see . . . there was today’s planned foreclosure auction for Wilshire Village. What else does Matt Dilick of Commerce Equities have going on?

Swamplot’s neighborhood correspondent for Bellaire reports on Commerce Equities’ proposed development on one portion of a couple of long-vacant tracts at the northeast corner of Bissonnet and Newcastle:

The plots of land at 4400 and 4500 Bissonnet, between Newcastle and the Centerpoint service center, are being cut up and sold. . . .

Evidence of surveying and subdivision in recent weeks has recently given way to signboards indicating that the north third of the open land at 4500 Bissonnet will be cut up into six residential lots while the two-thirds fronting Bissonnet is reserved for commercial. The next block over, across Howard Street, commercial space is being developed to open before April of 2010. According to flyers on broker David Nettles’s website, approximately 62% of the 20,000-some-odd square feet of office space is still available.

But the two parcels — totaling almost 4 acres — have more of a connection to Wilshire Village than just the involvement of Dilick.

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10/27/09 3:55pm

Snapped from the porch of Lola at 11th and Yale last week by a Swamplot reader: this photo of the 1903 Perry-Swilley House, formerly known to reside at 1101 Heights Blvd., and headed for 1103.

The city architectural and historical commission gave permission last year for the home to be moved one lot to the north. Swamplot reported on the owner’s plans for the site last November.

Why is the home being raised? So parking for that strip center planned for the corner can fit underneath.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

08/17/09 11:07am

You were maybe planning to stop by the Bookstop in the old Alabama Theater on Shepherd for one last browse before the store closes on September 15th? Do a little clearance-sale shopping, grab a coffee up on the balcony and look out over that live-on-stage magazine stand?

It may be a little too late for that now. On the Houston Press Twitter feed this weekend, Katharine Shilcutt reported that the upper levels of the store are already cleared and closed . . . for good.

Photo: Houston Press

08/06/09 2:36pm

That summer clearance sale that’s been going on at the Bookstop in the Alabama Theater Shopping Center on South Shepherd is uh, final. The store will be closing for good on September 15th. The new Barnes & Noble in the River Oaks Shopping Center on West Gray will be opening the next day (a bit sooner than was announced earlier), but no unsold books from the Bookstop location will be making the trip north.

So what happens to the Alabama Theater after then?

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07/27/09 5:15pm

Houston radio host and blogger Lance Zierlein snaps photos of the lockout letters on two separate storefronts in the Shops on Sage strip center at 2800 Sage, on the corner of West Alabama. The notices, demanding that delinquent rent be paid before the stores can be reopened, were apparently posted by center managers Hunington Properties last Wednesday.

Who’s locked out? Lebanese restaurant Mint Cafe . . . and a Quiznos, which Zierlein reports on Twitter is already vacant.

But . . . what’s this? Someone from the nearby Subway in the Yorktown Plaza shopping center on W. Alabama has been kind enough to post a menu on the Quiznos door, with this pertinent Subway tagline featured prominently: “At Subway restaurants, we have your fresh interests at heart.” Plus, a handwritten invitation to visit!

Zierlein’s line: “Subway vultures picking over the carcass.”

Photo: Lance Zierlein

07/17/09 3:07pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: FREEWAY TRAFFIC BACKUPS BRING THE CUSTOMERS “I visited the store the first weekend it was open, and overheard the general manager talking about how much more foot traffic the store is getting. He stated the obvious, which I’m surprised no one has commented on yet–think of the hundreds of thousands of people who are stuck in traffic every day on the elevated portion of 59 across from the store. The store’s sign is eye-level to those commuters (whereas it’s actually harder to see the stores on ground level), and you gotta think at least some of them are going to be interested in the store’s wares. Compare that to a low-profile location on Portwest that probably gets 1/10000th the traffic of 59. This is a rare case where being on the second floor of a strip center actually helps a company in Houston.” [Triprotic, commenting on The Finest Strip-Center Recital Hall in Houston]

07/13/09 11:29am

Hidden upstairs in that new double-decker strip center on the south side of 59 between the Kirby CVS and the feeder-road Chick-Fil-A, nestled between a hair salon and a spa, is a brand-new recital hall, outfitted with a 7-foot-5 Hamburg Steinway Model C grand piano and room for up to 100 fans of fine classical music. Leave the curtains on the back wall open, and performers can appreciate a sweeping view of the freeway traffic as they play.

The hall is inside the brand-new Dowling Music, a gifts-and-sheet-music store run by concert pianist Richard Dowling, who recently returned to his hometown and bought the Houston branch of Pender’s Music (which Pender’s had bought from the local Wadler-Kaplan Music Shop in 2000).

The strip center and its neighbors were built on the former Kirby Dr. site of Westheimer Transfer & Storage, which former Rockets star Hakeem Olajuwon bought in 2002. Olajuwon demolished the building and flipped the land, parceling it out in pieces to suburban-style developers.

Dowling, who performs about 60 concerts a year around the world, can’t have expected much walk-in business from visitors patronizing other establishments in the strip center. Downstairs from his store is the Methodist Breast Imaging Center; an Israeli martial arts studio, a weight-loss clinic, a GolfTEC indoor golf clinic, and the Pasha Snoring & Sinus Center round out the second floor. But Dowling tells the West University Examiner‘s Steve Mark that traffic has doubled since he moved the store from its Portwest Dr. location:

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07/07/09 12:22pm

AND JULY IS MEAT CANDY MONTH Its first Houston store (at Main and Kirby) apparently a patty-smashing success, 3 new Smashburgers are now ready to open in a few other strip centers: “First up is a restaurant in the Westchase area at 10705 Westheimer, Suite C, opening on July 15. A second will open July 22 in the Energy Corridor at 1635 Eldridge (Eldridge and Briar Forest). And a third, located at 5520 Buffalo Speedway (Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet) in the West University area, will open July 29.” [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot]

07/06/09 12:10pm

The Facts reporter John Tompkins visits the 4-year-old non-denominational Biker Church in Manvel, which operates out of a strip-center wedding and event facility on Highway 6, just east of FM 1128:

Instead of shirts, ties and Sunday dresses, Biker Church members wear vests, leather pants and sport tattoos. And instead of coming to church in the family car, most participants roll into the Jordan Center, where the church services are performed, on motorcycles and line them up in front of the door.

“If you walked into our church with a suit and tie, people would look at you funny,” said the church’s pastor, David Wright.

Robert “Tree” Perot said he started attending Biker Church after a member saw him on the side of a highway praying by his motorcycle. The man handed him a necklace with a cross fashioned from nails and asked him to come to Biker Church.

Photo of Biker Church parking at Jordan Event Center, 20709 Hwy 6 in Manvel: Biker Church

06/15/09 4:58pm

A reader sends in a pic of the action at the renovated but long-suffering strip center at the southwest corner of Kirby and Richmond, which looked to be getting awfully lonely again after the departure of its lone tenant, Hue Vietnamese restaurant, in March.

But Hue is back as Kata Robata Sushi and Grill, and that white banner on the opposite leg indicates that the Dessert Gallery has moved in. Off camera, to the right, signs announce that the endcap is slated for a Texas Community Bank, but our reader reports seeing no sign of any money inside.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

03/23/09 4:39pm

What’s this — another deserted Second Life strip center? No: just a rendered view of Venture Commercial’s proposed new South Heights Retail Center, forwarded to Swamplot by a reader. The 32,100-sq.-ft. project promises to bring together a motley assortment of existing buildings into a single 2.2-acre development, all of its components refaced and decorated using what appears to be the latest in texture mapping technology.

The project is planned for the north side of White Oak Dr. between Studewood and Oxford St., bridging the great spatial and cultural divide between Fitzgerald’s and the Onion Creek Coffee House. The magic ingredient is a new 76-car parking lot on the south side of the street, directly behind Jimmie’s Place.

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03/17/09 4:05pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHITE OAK DECO STRIP “Per HAIF, the tower rendering on this sign has been replaced by a rendering of a renovated version of the current retail center.” [ArlingtonSt, commenting on White Oak Tower: It Was All Just a Bad Drawing]

03/17/09 12:16pm

A couple of readers have written in to let us know that Hue Vietnamese Restaurant — otherwise known as the first but hopeful occupant of the revamped but still extremely lonely strip center at the southwest corner of Richmond and Kirby — has closed. One writes:

I have a feeling it was a casualty of a low occupancy building with additional damage inflicted by continual Kirby Ave roadwork. It’s a shame, the food and drink were mighty tasty and the building itself has some nifty lighting. Better looking than most new builds.

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03/13/09 9:23am

Here’s a surprise: a construction permit for a new 23-story Chinatown Asiatown condominium tower was issued yesterday for Park 8 Place. Remember Park8? That’s the freeway feeder megastrip project planned for just across Brays Bayou from Arthur Storey Park, along Beltway 8 south of Bellaire Blvd. The one that called itself “The Land of Oz.”

The entire development was supposed to include three 20-something-story residential towers, a hospital, two 2-story retail-and-office strips, and a couple of parking garages — all in a quaint freeway-and-park-side setting. A foundation was poured for the first condo building last year, but Park 8 CEO David Wu put the project on hold after he was unable to secure financing. So the construction crane came down.

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03/11/09 5:41pm

Following up on Swamplot’s story from yesterday, the Houston Press‘s Richard Connelly sizes up the bigger-and-better Kroger that’ll be going into the Merchants Park Shopping Center at the corner of North Shepherd and 11th St. in the Heights.

. . . says Kroger’s Gary Huddleston, the new place will be 96,000 square feet, more than double what the store is now.

That would make it the biggest Kroger in Houston, and almost as big as the 110,000-square-foot monsters the chain has opened in Pearland and Missouri City. . . .

The refurbished store should be finished in a year, he says. The current operation will remain open during the renovation, which will slow things down a bit.

Photo: Swamplot inbox