02/23/12 1:14pm

A mere four-and-a-half years after it first announced the project, Atlanta REIT Post Properties says it’s just about ready to begin construction on a somewhat revised 5-story, 242-unit apartment building on Richmond Ave, just west of the Downtown Spur. The latest First Montrose Commons Newsletter features these black-and-white images of the project, along with a few more details that were announced to the neighborhood organization last month. Unlike the Post Midtown, this building on the 5-sided block surrounded by Richmond, Jack, Colquitt, Garrott, and Milam won’t include any retail space. A parking garage tucked into the structure will have 1 1/2 spaces per bedroom and point driveways toward Richmond and Colquitt. The Wheeler light-rail station sits 3 blocks east of the construction site, on the other side of Spur 527.

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02/23/12 9:30am

Photo taken near St. Charles St.: Christopher Newsom [license] via Swamplot Flickr Pool

02/22/12 10:14pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: ABOUT THAT 35-STORY TOWER ABOUT TO GO UP DOWN THE STREET “I need some opinions. A friend of mine owns a patio home on W Alabama next to this site. Will this help or hurt her property value? There’s a one acre tract between this development and hers, and we don’t know what it’s going to be. I figure it might help her value because it will be near retail and probably a restaurant or two, but who knows?” [Bill, commenting on First Sign of the 35-Story Apartment Tower Coming to Weslayan and West Alabama]

02/22/12 1:15pm

PHOTOGRAPHERS: SHOW US WHAT HOUSTON REALLY LOOKS LIKE How tough is it to get your photo featured on Swamplot? Not very: Just submit your pix to the Swamplot Flickr pool. That’s where we’ll be looking for great images to use atop our daily Headlines posts. If we like one of yours, we’ll post it and credit you. Be sure to label every photo you submit so it’s clear where it was taken and what it shows. We already have way too many glowy tall-tower shots and downtown-skyline sunsets to choose from, thanks. What we’re looking for instead: Pix that show the greater Houston landscape as it really is, or as you experience it. Everyday places that maybe haven’t been photographed so much; your little pieces of the city. Photo: Sohail Rizki [license]

02/22/12 12:20pm

That stolen 1985 Fiero GT that HPD officers pulled from the bottom of Lake Houston last summer after a 22-year soak is now available for sale online, a reader notes. Damaged-car auction site Copart (pronounced “CO-part,” not “COP-art”) features the mangled, muddy mess in an extensive photo gallery, and pegs the car’s actual cash value (before the minor flooding incident, of course) at $2,000 — same as the estimated cost to repair. Minimum bid for the fiberglass-paneled former vehicle: $175. Houston’s Art Car Parade is less than 3 months away.

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02/22/12 9:30am

Photo of Sam Houston Tollway overpass: Andres Lombana [license]

02/21/12 1:55pm

Turns out this “mysterious construction” going up on the corner of Technology Forest Blvd. and Research Forest Dr. in The Woodlands isn’t meant to house some company’s secret R&D project — instead, it’ll house investigations of a more familiar technology. No name has been announced, but the operator of 2 Sakekawa Japanese Steak House & Sushi Bars (there’s another one Indian Springs Village already) bought the 1.21-acre pad site last year. These photos came from a Swamplot reader who was curious about the unidentified project — but then answered her own question by uncovering the secret sushi plot for us:

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02/21/12 11:46am

HOW HARRIS COUNTY STARVED THE ASTRODOME It’s not that county officials weren’t looking for some big new thing to do with it, argues Cynthia Neeley. The big problem was they stopped taking care of it while they waited for the sports stadium’s grand new future to arrive: “Let’s add up just a few things: $18.8 million for the lease buy-out, $517,000 for repairs to qualify for temporary occupancy for the Rodeo, $3,210 for that final inspection and permit, $50,000 for a workshop to study future use of the Astrodome, $50,000 more for consultants to study the workshop study; grand total is $19,420,210. . . . Does it bother anyone else that . . . the Sports & Convention Corporation spent that whopping amount and we still have a building doing nothing? And that millions upon millions of potential revenue have been lost? And that whatever grand plan is in its future is going to cost us millions more? In 2007, the year before Astrodome was closed, there were only seven events in the building for a paltry annual net income of $103,596.  Did anybody see ads that the Dome was available for lease for private parties or events? Were there promotions or incentives publicized? Did anyone know that you could have rented the field for a bar mitzvah? (Someone actually did, for a reported $15-18,000.)” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jeff Balke

02/21/12 11:17am

Here’s the sign that’s gone up on the northeast corner of Weslayan and West Alabama, where PM Realty plans to start construction later this year on the 35-story apartment tower it announced last year. The tower, PM Realty’s first in Houston, will have 12,500 sq. ft. of retail space on the first or second floor, 250 apartments, and a 3,000-sq.-ft. fitness center, according to a Houston Business Journal report last year. On the 2.6-acre site, which the company bought from Interfin last August: the remains of the State Grille restaurant. New on-the-scene blog Going Up! City has these pix of the site:

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02/21/12 10:29am

Is this the right address? As Swamplot noted last week, Trader Joe’s received a sales-tax permit for a Memorial-area location at 1440 S. Voss at the end of last year. But the company hasn’t officially announced the locations for its Houston stores yet. Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia poked around the scene on Voss between San Felipe and Woodway over the weekend, to scope out any preparations going on there for a TJ’s landing. There didn’t appear to be any.

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