The big blue sign wrapping around the lot at the northeast corner of Montrose Blvd. and Marshall St. got decorated with a dayglow red tag from the city this week, calling for the banner’s removal. The sign is advertising the midrise condominium building planned for the lot at 3615 Montrose, formerly the site of the River Cafe; the Philip Johnson/ Alan Ritchie design’s footprint also extends into the lot to the north, whose slated-for-destruction 1910 brick house is currently gigging as a sales center for the development. The shot above looks due south at the angled northernmost portion of the sign, toward the intersection of Montrose and W. Alabama St.
Tags from a city inspector call out the “130 x 8 x 10”-ft. ground sign, as well as its smaller next-door companion piece, which refers to the condo building as “The Glass House” (no, not that one). Here’s what the whole scene looks like from up in the air, from the Parc IV tower across Montrose:
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Here’s a close-up of the smaller sign, standing in the driveway of the sales center house:
That sign gets its own red tag:
- It’s Not Just Where You Live [3615 Montrose]
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Bigger Condo Building Now Planned for River Cafe Spot on Montrose Blvd. Has Bigger Site, Bigger Name Architecture Firm;Â Developer Says Proposed Garage Wall Streetfront for 3615 Montrose Condo Tower Will Be Green or Arty, Not Blank;Â Latest Condo Building Planned for Former River Cafe Spot Offers Montrose Blvd. a Garage Wall Streetfront;Â Daily Demolition Report: Swept Away
Photos: Swamplot inbox
If only the city would ‘red tag’ and remove many of the hideous billboards around town that blight the city and obstruct panoramas. The city and its inspectors clearly have misplaced priorities (misplaced billboards, too).
Good grief. They have time to flag signs, but can’t put new striping on the streets, or install proper crosswalk signals at intersections, or…
Not like those signs will be there forever, just until that godawful thing gets built.
I can’t believe there is a “Sign Administration” department at COH. Agree with honest .. especially those close to street/eye level such as the billboard on Westheimer just east of Dunlavy .. tacky tacky.
I’m pretty sure the word ‘iconoclastic’ doesn’t mean what they think it means.
Who did their branding? The copy on that billboard is hilarious. Do they know that there is already a Philip Johnson Glass House? One that he actually designed? This building is enthusiastically hideous and it wouldn’t be the worst thing if it never gets built.
@ Honest: If you only knew how much the City has gone through to reduce billboards. Their billboard ordinance was pioneering. Existing billboards in the city are under an abatement condition – if you take one down, you can’t replace it. However, many billboards are highly, highly profitable, and the industry has a formidable lobby to defend what they already have, and try to reinstate the ability to add billboards where they’ve been banned or removed. From a property rights perspective, sign regulation is already an iffy business. So while yes, most of us would like to see further reduction in billboards, please try to appreciate what’s already been done.
This is absurd. The owner could go out and hire a crew to put up a fence in this exact same place, and because it wouldn’t have any pictures or words on it, it would be fine, because it’s just a fence.
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make that fence work for you by advertising, and whoa, now you’ve done it! It’s as silly as having to get a permit to put a sign on the outside of your building, but hang that same sign inside a window facing outside, and it’s okay.
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so stupid.
Bohemian and iconoclastic?
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I know this is Montrose and all, but really? You’re buying a $1MM+ luxury condo in a gentrified, old & wealthy neighborhood.
@localplanner I appreciate your insight. We’ve come along way with visual noise reduction.
My question is, why now? These signs have been up for months. Did permits fall through or is the city this slow to address illegal signage?
Fingers crossed this development pushes through. A nice addition to the Hanover property.
Red tag seems justified given the they don’t understand the meaning of “iconoclastic”. I think they were looking for “iconic”?
Former Mayor Parker MADE the COH building inspectors ( on their off hours/weekends tag even remotely un-permitted projects all over town, in an attempt to extort MORE fees from property owners. This is per a well known local home builder(Memorial Villages custom homes/Inner Loop town houses /custom homes). I said Annise Parker was controller during Mayor Laniers / Browns / Whites/ administrations and KNEW how deep in debt the COH really is: over $26 BILLION . And did very little to curtail run away spending / ballooning debt by the City officials. Of course she had /has political aspirations and wouldn’t tell the TAXPAYERS the whole truth ,for fear she’d be un-electable -which is real easy : show footage of the horrible streets left in her 2 terms in office, She could have proposed a 4 BILLION bond issue to FIX the street infrastructure .SO what if we’re debt $2 billion more. At least the streets wouldn’t eat our vehicles. This sign tagging is but a mere distraction. As ugly as the signage all over town is, they bring in millions in revenue.. When the anti-sign police accomplished their agenda and eradicated lots of billboards, they also KILLED 3-5000 JOBS. That produced fees/taxes for t he COH. But their agenda is more important than the CIty’s economic health…
Every time I drive by those sad, lazy buzzwords in 1,000-pt type in front of the future home of that luxury, prestige, elite, exclusive, white-a-riffic Montrosity, I want to take a knife to the sign. How was it still up as of yesterday? We’re already overbuilt in Montrose. Why do we even need this place?