Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
It’s all business. And business removal.
Sign up for the Newsletter
- Audits Investigating Funding, Bidding Processes at University of Houston’s New $128M Football Stadium [Houston Chronicle]
- Percentage of Young College Graduates in Houston Increased at Twice the National Rate from 2000 to 2012, Finds City Observatory [Houston Chronicle]
- Map Shows Where Property Tax Assessments Have Risen or Fallen Since 2010, by Zip Code [Click2Houston]
- Dallas-Based Roofing Supply Group Expands To Katy with New Warehouse in Grand Pkwy. Industrial Park [Houston Chronicle]
- PJ’s Coffee of New Orleans Opening at at 2155 Durham Dr. Delayed [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- YES Prep Builds New Schools from Former Bank, Church, DHL Truck Warehouse, Kroger, and Furniture Store [Houston Public Media]
- First Phase of Tomball Tollway from North of Spring-Cypress Road to North of FM 2920 Set To Open Sometime This Spring [Houston Chronicle]
- Work Begins on 2-Way Bike Lane Along Lamar Street Downtown To Link Bicyclists Between Area Trails [Houston Chronicle]
- Study Ranks Houston 15th Among 70 U.S. Cities for Number of Ways People Can Get Around Without a Car [Houston Public Media]
- Street Artists To Paint Gorilla-Themed Murals on 4 Inner Loop Buildings To Promote Houston Zoo’s New Gorilla Environment [Glasstire]
- No Maps Included in Presentation of Draft Vision of New General Plan for Houston [OffCite]
- PODS of Houston, Houston Arts Alliance Team Up To Turn Storage Containers into Traveling Art Shows, Currently on Antoine Dr. [The Leader]
Photo: Jackson Myers via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
32 OF 77 HOUSTON AREA RADIO SHACKS ARE ON THE CLOSURE LIST ALREADY 
Will that Radio Shack near you be closing, now that the electronics chain has declared bankruptcy? Probably. Of its 4,000 U.S. stores, up to 1,750 appear to be slated to become locations for mobile phone company Sprint. Separately, Radio Shack released on its website a list of 1,784 “potential store closures” — without noting explicitly if the identified locations, listed in 3 separate tranches, were headed for rebranding or outright shuttering. 32 of those stores are in the Houston area. [Quartz; list] Photo of Radio Shack at 4367 Kingwood Dr. (not on the closure list): Ms. Ruby O
Among the big game in Sherwood Forest (the close-to-the-Loop Memorial-area neighborhood, not the royal hunting spread poached by Robin Hood) sits an updated 1965 contemporary on its third initial asking price: $4.29 million. A 2013 listing took aim at $4.995 million, which dropped to $4.39 million for a few months. Last summer, the $4.375 million ask trimmed back to $4.32 million two weeks later in a listing lasting 2 months. One wing curves its window wall around the groomed front lawn and clipped landscaping (middle). Pool, terrace, and tennis court extend from the back of the stucco home, which has a 2-story wing for the bedrooms (above).
Open Season
Thor Equities came out with a video this week showing whiz-around views of the Kirby Collection, its ready-to-go but (as of late January)Â still seeking construction financing mixed-use complex on the Kirby Dr. block surrounded by W. Main, Colquitt, and Lake St. And the New York development group is at long last dropping the (big) name of the design architect for the long-promised $125 million project: Richard Keating Architecture, which operates out of L.A. (Houston’s Kirksey Architecture is producing the construction documents.)
Kirby Collection
Will an auction accomplish what a previous listing didn’t for this Stern and Bucek-designed modern mansion in Southampton? The property had stuck to a $3.75 million asking price from September 2013 to June 2014 before calling a timeout. Its relisting by a new agent last week notes that when the auction kicks in later this month, the minimum starting bid will be . . .
Auction Action
- Signorelli Co. Looks To Transform Sleepy Porter Suburb Near Grand Pkwy. Extension into Economic Juggernaut [Houston Business Journal]
- Memorial Hermann Wants To Sell and Lease Back 11 Houston-Area Medical Office Buildings Totaling More Than 1M SF [Prime Property]
- Unilev Capital Corp. To Make Improvements to Westchase Office Building 1500 CityWest, Hires CBRE To Handle the Leasing [Prime Property]
- Most Houston-Area Single-Family Homes and Condos Qualify for a Down Payment Assistance Program, Finds Report [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Developers Increasingly Tout Proximity To Major Grocery Stores as an Amenity [Houston Chronicle]
- DoubleTree by Hilton Opens DoubleTree by Hilton Galveston Beach on Seawall Blvd. [Realty News Report]
- Lasco Enterprises Indeed Taking Over Arturo’s Uptown Italiano in Uptown Park, Anjeo Will Open March 1 [Culturemap]
- Clutch City Squire Closing This Saturday, The Commoner To Take Over Space at 410 Main [Eater Houston]
- City, Preservation Group Fail To Reach Agreement over Freedmen’s Town Bricks in Court-Ordered Mediation [Houston Public Media]
- Houston Metro Area Accounts For More Than Half of the $5.5B in Requests to the State’s Water Planning Agency for Help Funding Water-Supply Projects [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston TV Has Been Attacked By Potholes [mikemcguff.com]
Photo of Bishop’s Palace, Galveston: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Hardwood floors, according to the listing, are hiding throughout most of this 1955 mod. But there’s nothing secret about the midcentury aquamarine hues that flow out from the kitchen — the color pops against the mostly milk white interior. Owned by one family for 6 decades, the property landed on the market a week ago, with a $277,500 price tag.
Side Doors
- 70 W. Broad Oaks Dr. [HAR]
The new brick building across from the Cavalcade station on Fulton St. that went up next to the former Dairy Queen corner spot known as Dairy Land is meant for Dairy Land, new lettering attached to the recently completed replacement structure attests. The signage went up shortly after the old building at 310 Cavalcade St. (pictured below) was demolished last week.
Cavalcade & Fulton
Residents near the section of 7th St. between Yale St. and Heights Blvd. have been discussing plans to turn the group of warehouse buildings long held by Pappas Restaurants into a 4-building “creative neighborhood and shopping destination” called Heights Mercantile. The Finial Group, which bought the properties from Pappas and a few other landowners last year, hired Austin architect Michael Hsu to come up with plans for renovating 3 of the buildings lining 7th St., tearing down the long warehouse lining Yale St. and replacing it with the new 2-story structure pictured above. The new project is a joint venture between Finial and a local investment firm called Radom Capital.
A notable feature of the 1.4-acre site plan is 3 stretches of head-in parking along 7th St. The plan shows 36 spaces on the north side of the street, facing the row of wooden bollards lining the hike-and-bike trail converted from the path of the former MKT rail line and 2 banks of 11 spaces in a row on the opposite side. Although head-in parking configurations dominate in some portions of the city (Rice Village, for example), new stretches of more than 4 spaces in a row have been prohibited by city regulations for decades.
The Pappas warehouses have head-in parking along 7th St. The developer not only wants to preserve and adjust that arrangement for the new development, but is asking the city to count these on-street spaces toward the required number of off-street spaces. The planning commission is scheduled to rule on the associated parking variance application this afternoon.
Here’s a site plan:
Retail Revamp
- Houston the Third Best U.S. Market for Commercial Real Estate, Behind Denver and San Francisco, in Coldwell Banker Report [Prime Property]
- Pearland Economic Development Corporation Predicts 13,000 New Residents Will Move to Pearland in the Coming Years [Prime Property]
- High End Houston Stores Not Worried About Slump in Oil Price; Construction Boom Will Offset Oil Bust, Declares Women’s Wear Daily [Culturemap]
- Toll Brothers, J. Patrick Homes To Build 45 Homes in Sienna Plantation’s Village of Sawmill Lake [Prime Property]
- Marvy Finger’s Midrise Apartment Project the Susanne Set To Open Monday on Former Dunlavy Fiesta Site [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- 40K-SF Walmart ‘Neighborhood Concept’ Will Anchor Retail Development on League City’s West Side [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- U.S. Capital Advisors To Occupy Top One-and-a-Half Floors of a 5-Story River Oaks District Building [HBJ]
- Texas Cafeteria Closing After 50 Years To Make Way for 2 New Businesses at 2400 N. Shepherd [Houstonia]
- Lucille’s Owner Chris Williams Opening Gastropub Scrappy Brown’s in Museum Park at 4830 Almeda [Eater Houston]
- Velvet Taco Now Under Construction at 4819 Washington Ave [Eater Houston]
- Mary’z Lebanese Cuisine Now Open on Washington Ave [Eater Houston]
- Mayor Says Houston’s Roads a ‘Crisis Situation’ as City Has 3,667 Open Work Orders for Potholes, Asphalt Repair [Houston Chronicle]
- 1,000-Ft. Urban Slide Setting Up Near the Elysian Street Viaduct for a Weekend Next Month [Houston Chronicle]
- Electricity from Some 15K Texas Wind Turbines Now Accounts for About 11% of the State’s Total [Houston Public Media]
- Allen Pkwy. Improvement Plans To Be Presented at Public Meeting Tonight [Downtown Redevelopment Authority]
- Tiny Holdout Seattle House Used To Promote Movie ‘Up’ May Go Up for Foreclosure Auction [KHOU]
- Wichita Man Who Paid $600 Property Tax in Tightly Rolled $1 Bills Accused of Disrupting Tax Operations, Arrested [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of the AstroWorld Bridge: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
- 5203 Fieldwood Dr. [HAR]
