Renovations are scheduled to begin in the next few weeks on Downtown’s Houston House Apartments at 1617 Fannin, according to a notice distributed to residents yesterday:
These renovations will include, but are not limited to ALL APARTMENT UNIT INTERIORS, plumbing, HVAC system, domestic hot water, sprinkler systems, the lobby, 9th and 10th floors and the building’s exterior. There will be significant additions to our amenities as well.
Here’s the fun part: Everybody gets to relocate!
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Tenants in the sixties-era building are being promised at least 30 days’ notice before work begins on their particular unit. Then they’ll be given the choice of terminating their lease or transferring to an unrenovated unit on a lower floor. If you transfer, you’ll be able to move back into your original unit once the work is complete; the building’s management promises not to jack up your rent until your lease expires.
The memo indicates the owners have been trying for some time to refinance the 30-story building so that they could begin the rehab. A tenant tells Swamplot the renovations are “much needed.”
Here’s the memo:
Photo: Flickr user telwink [license]; memo: Swamplot inbox
Glad to see it renovated versus abandoned and eventually condemn.
Having been a former tenant, I suggest they fix the 7 and 8 foot tall ceilings by making some units 2-stories.
You will have to pay a cleaning or damage fee for an apartment they are going to gut out????
The exterior!? will they make it look: not hideous?
“..the building’s management promises not to jack up your rent until your lease expires.”
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I thought that was the purpose of having a lease–so that your rent can’t be jacked up during the lease term ? ? ?
Shortly after this building opened, in what? ’66 or so, I went there with a friend to visit someone. I was amazed at the tiny space that was called a one bedroom.
The father of the gal we visited thought his daughter would be safer in the Houston House than in one of the garden apartment types. Maybe so. But, I had 2 or maybe even 3 times the space at about one third the price. And, I probably had way more fun in my Alabama area apartment. Still, she had a fantastic view and I didn’t.