Headlines
02/16/18 8:30am

Stocking Up on Buses for Post Oak; Local Foods’ Heights Mercantile Debut; Chase Tower’s Private Sky Lobby To Welcome Visitors for Charity

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Photo of construction on bike and pedestrian path at Mason Park, Lawndale: Leonid Notax via Swamplot Flickr Pool

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Buildings for Sale
02/15/18 4:30pm

Two Homes-Turned-Retail on W. Gray and Stanford, Now Waiting for Their Next Gig

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If the Platform Group has settled on a plan for redeveloping the corner of W. Gray St. and Stanford, it hasn’t made it known yet. An entity connected to the developer bought the white corner building home to the Traci Scott hair salon and the former Skinny Rita’s restaurant adjacent to it last December. The firm’s website now explains it’s “in the early stages of feasibility studies” for the pair of 2-stories at 615 and 607 W. Gray.

The 2 buildings share the parking lot visible in the snow-capped aerial above with entrances on W. Gray as well as one on Stanford, behind the hair salon. Not pictured is a narrow patio that runs along the chop shop’s Stanford side. A larger fenced-off seating area and upper deck currently front W. Gray outside the former restaurant, which closed last February after just under a year in the building.

Here’s a closer up view of Skinny Rita’s seating taken from the parking lot entrance between the 2 buildings just after the restaurant vacated the premises:

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Skinny Rita’s Plus One
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Featured Posts
02/15/18 2:00pm

Meet Heights Village, the New Strip Center Going Up at Yale and 5th St.

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The skeleton of a new strip center across the street from the Alexan Yale St. apartments — dubbed Heights Village by a banner attached to its construction fencing — is now rising on the corner of Yale and W. 5th St. Construction began on the just-under-an-acre parcel last month, reports the Swamplot reader who snapped the above photo of the site from outside the Alexan complex. The corner — on the opposite end of the block from where Better Luck Tomorrow opened last year — had been vacant since 2010, when a warehouse on the site was demolished.

The aerial rendering above from Cisneros Design Studio shows what an upper-story Alexan Yale St. resident might see out the window when the retail center is complete. Parking lots hug the building on 3 sides and include entrances on Yale, 5th. St., and Yale Ct. — a short dead end that runs behind the property. Patio seating is shown fronting the chamfered corner on the building’s northwest quadrant, and an elevated walkway runs along its storefronts, a few steps up from the lot.

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Yale Retail
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02/15/18 12:00pm

Swamplot Sponsor: Just Buyers Houston

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Today Just Buyers Houston — a local real estate firm that represents buyers only — is sponsoring Swamplot. Thanks for the support!

Just Buyers Houston’s Judy Thompson has comments on a number of recent stats in the local market — which she tracks regularly on the company’s website:

Over the last six months, she writes, resale properties in the Midtown area (77004) sold the fastest with an average of 37 days on the market, with the Med Center area (77025) second with an average of 38 days on the market and the Garden Oaks/Oak Forest area (77018) third with 44 days on the market. The Afton Oaks area (77027), the Tanglewood area (77056), and River Oaks area (77019) took the longest to sell.

In the number of sales, she adds, the Heights area (77008) and the Memorial Park area (77007) have led the way with more sales than other Zip Codes — with 298 and 214 respectively. (“When will the Heights cool off?” she asks: “Median prices in 77008 are now approaching $500,000. Maybe that will throw a little cold water on 77008? Time will tell.”)

To find the complete data set for 20 popular Houston Zip Codes, check out the days-on-market page at Just Buyers Houston — one of several regularly updated pages of tabulated and helpful current and historical data you can find on the website. And if you’re looking for an experienced, data-minded agent to represent you in real estate purchases, give Judy Thompson a call.

How many days has your inventory been sitting on the market? Become a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day and get it moving faster!

Sponsor of the Day
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Featured Posts
02/15/18 9:30am

UH’s Phone Survey Pollees Want To Make Flood Record a Given in Home Sales

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UH’S PHONE SURVEY POLLEES WANT TO MAKE FLOOD RECORD A GIVEN IN HOME SALES Here’s a tidbit from the UH Hobby School of Public Affairs’ new post-Harvey telephone questionnaire: 90 percent of Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Montgomery County residents who responded think sellers should be required to disclose prior flood damage to their homes and prior flooding in the surrounding neighborhood. Aren’t sellers already obligated to reveal their homes’ flood histories? Well, almost. State law requires most sellers to spill the details — but only if their home was previously occupied (and not if it was foreclosed on or if they’re selling it to execute someone’s will). For developers selling newly-built homes — sometimes in entirely new subdivisions — the rules are foggier: not all surrounding flood designations need to be disclosed to buyers. Among those details that can be withheld: whether the home is located in a flood pool, an area of land prone to inundation when water builds up behind a reservoir dam like that of the Addicks and Barker, as Lise Olsen wrote in the Chronicle last year. [University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs] Photo of home at 8th St. and Arlington during Harvey: Swamplot inbox

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Headlines
02/15/18 8:30am

Houston’s Costly Home Sales Down; More Floody Houses on the Rise

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Photo of old grain silos on N. Nagle St., East End: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
Cypress
02/14/18 4:00pm

New Coworking Space Plays Houston City Limits

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Here’s a good spot for people doing business in both Cypress and Houston: new coworking space The Work Well. The 23,000-sq.-ft. shared workspace takes up the top floor of the 3-story office building shown at top on Wortham Center Dr., just off the northwest tentacle of Houston’s jurisdiction, which runs along the Northwest Fwy. and links the city to Cypress. The red arrow on the map above indicates where The Work Well sits at 13100 Wortham Center, east of Goode Co.’s Cy-Fair location and just inside the city’s territory. Nearly all structures beyond the red shaded zone — save for a few along other major roads Houston keeps for itself — are outside of Houston city limits and inside unincorporated Harris County.

The Work Well’s first business day was back in December. A grand opening is now planned for March.

Photo of 13100 Wortham Center Dr.: LoopNet. Map: Houston Map Viewer

The Upper Reach
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Featured Posts
02/14/18 11:45am

Braun To Swap Out Brown Brick Next to Johnny’s Gold Brick, Redo Warehouse Behind It All

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Braun Realty is gearing up to replace Johnny’s Gold Brick’s next door neighbor and redo the warehouse behind the 2 structures as part of a new retail development it has planned for the corner of Yale and Aurora. An entity connected to the developer snatched up the property on Yale — as well as a few adjacent parcels east on Aurora — last October. The site plan above taken from Braun’s leasing flyer for the complex now indicates all 3 buildings decked out with new adjacent patios. East of the buildings, a parking lot sports entrances on both Aurora and an alley that runs north of the site.

The photo at top shows the front door to Johnny’s Gold Brick next to the brown brick building that Lucas Craftsmanship contractors moved out of in 2015. Here’s the view from the corner of Yale and Aurora showing the 2-story structure that’s slated to replace the former construction office:

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Heights Corner Shake-Up
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Headlines
02/14/18 8:30am

Astrodome Revamp Full Steam Ahead; More FEMA Funds Up for Grabs; RG Homes Facing Lawsuits

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Photo of the Elysian Viaduct: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool

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