The city’s permitting records show that the land beneath soon-to-close Kay’s Lounge (and that recently freed-up cute lot next door) have been sliced into a total of 6 new pieces (not counting the shared driveway running down the middle). The application for the property line redraw, noted by a reader, was submitted last October and approved a few weeks later. The same records say the 2-turned-6 lots at 2332 and 2324 Bissonnet St. are intended for single family residences; the properties were bought last May by an entity connected to Frasier Homes. Kay’s last night in action will be Saturday the 3rd, providing final visitors with a Labor Day recovery buffer.Â
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Kay’s Lounge Closing in Less than 3 Weeks;Â Kay’s Lounge Evicts Septuagenarian Companion on Bissonnet St.
Photo: Thomas C.
Last Calls on Bissonnet
Disgusting.
Dear future residents, Have fun getting in and out of your overpriced narrow driveway at rush hour douchebags!
Feh.
First, they tear down Blanco’s for a parking lot. Now Kay’s for some cheap townhouses. What’s next? They gonna tear down La Carafe to put in a quick mart?
I thought Houston learned to quit tearing everything down way back in the 80’s? Guess we forgot?
Step by step instructions to save your favorite watering hole:
1. Form an LLC.
2. Write a business plan.
3. Raise money from everyone else like you who hates townhomes.
4. Offer the property owner more money than the other guy and buy the land.
5. Run your new (old) bar for fun and profit.
.
Alternatively, you can just complain on the internet all day about how everything is awful and if only Houston would “just do x”, you just *know* it would be better. As long as it’s not townhomes. Because everyone knows townhomes are all cheap and evil, having been sent here by the devil to ruin all that is good and lovely, along with pedestrian crossings on Allen Parkway and liquor sales in the Heights.
I love how everyone who hates new townhomes either 1) Already has a place in one of these inner loop neighborhoods. 2) Does not want to live there anyways. What about the folks who want to get in these neighborhoods and dont have 1 million and didnt live here to buy one for a good price 10 years ago? You hate on the folks who commute from the burbs, then shame dense developments which allow more people avoid the burbs.
Probably a victim of the surge in property taxes on land. We inner-loopers can only afford a tiny piece of land, thus the subdivide.
@ Rex, I get it, I was in the same boat in 2000. However instead of buying something shrink-wrapped and “target-marketed” with questionable building quality in an already established neighborhood I took a risk in a “transitional” one. There’s tons of ’em still around that haven’t yet been ruined by realtors with names like EaDo… You just have to be willing to nurse an older home for a while and keep nothing in your car.
@ meh, Spoken like a true developer. I have attempted just what you describe, though not for a bar. However a group of “indigenous peoples” can never compete with the likes of some commercial developers. I have had all documents, buyers, financiers and paperwork ready be signed only to be sniped by a developer with deep pockets and the right phone numbers.
The problem with the argument that townhomes are an affordable way to get your foot in the door inside the loop is that it’s not true. My corner of Montrose is still undergoing townhomification. What’s happening is that livable bungalows (as in, someone was living in them immediately prior) are being sold for $450K-600K, torn down, and replaced with two or three townhomes that are being sold for $800-900K each.
How will the property tax revenue to the county from six new townhouses compare with whats coming in from Kay’s and the adjacent commercial buildings being removed?
Not a developer, and not involved in real estate at all. But this is how markets work; there are winners and losers. I do grow tired of hearing the same people decry the suburbs from one side of their mouths and townhomes/apartments on the other, however. This is what increasing urban density looks like, and if you want to change the outcome, the only way is to take part in the process, which yes, is very difficult and involves the risk of failure from other people with more more money and better connections. The solution to that? Network yourself, make the connections, find the money. The ones who bought out from under you got there the same way.
Meh – you must not be from the area.
@GoogleMaster Those two or three townhouses add to the inventory. Added inventory helps with the supply problem and potentially oversupply. Over-supply is good thing because it will mean a drop in prices for Houston as the expense of the drive by developers. The way to get your foot in the door is to get a 1990s or 2000s era townhome. Still expense, but not a lotto dream like the new ones. Oh, and if those new 3 story townhomes really are crap, then we have our cheap housing problem solved 20 years from now.
@Rex, thanks, but I got my foot in the door 25 years ago buying a crappy starter house that was being used as a rental, slightly outside the boundaries of the neighborhood I really wanted to live in. Lived there until I could afford to move up and over into my desired neighborhood, and then did so.