Recent Comments

09/30/11 7:54am

Daily Demolition Report: Disappearing Act

Just a couple of house losers:

Apartments

09/29/11 1:06pm

A West Alabama and Weslayan Kickoff to the Next Highrise Apartment Growing Season

22 Comments

Here’s a shot of the now-vacant corner of Weslayan and West Alabama, where PM Realty Group has announced it’ll be constructing a 35-story apartment building and parking garage — with a restaurant and “service retail” — beginning next year. The 2.6-acre site is the former location of the Confederate House at 2925 Weslayan, later known as the State Grille, which was torn down in 2008. PM Realty bought the site from Giorgio Borlenghiâ€™s Interfin Cos. last month. No renderings from PM Realty’s architects, RTKL, have been passed around yet.

Luxury high-rise apartments planned inside the Loop [Houston Business Journal]
Tower to rise on former Confederate House site [Prime Property]
PM Realty Group Unveils Plans for New High-Rise Multifamily Project [PMRG]
Previously on Swamplot: State Grille Demolition: Just for the Hell of It, State Grille Closing Down; 27-Story Tower Going Up?

Photo: Candace Garcia

77027, Apartments, Buying and Selling, Highland Village, Highrises, Land Sales, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments

Condos for Sale

09/29/11 10:23am

Ken and Linda Lay’s Penthouse Condo Now Available for Nearly Half Off

14 Comments

That thump you heard? The sound of this 33rd-floor Huntingdon penthouse once owned by Ken and Linda Lay dropping another million dollars. Over the weekend the asking price for the 12,827-sq.-ft. castle in the air fell to $6.99 million. Enron founder Ken Lay died in 2006, shortly after being convicted of 10 counts of securities fraud and related charges. His widow first put this little pied-Ã -terre at 2121 Kirby Dr. on the market in the fall of 2009, for $12.8 million. By the beginning of this year, it had floated down to $8,875,000.

77019, Condos for Sale, Enron, Interiors, Ken Lay, Price Reductions, The Huntingdon, Upper Kirby

Landscape

09/29/11 8:56am

City To Crack Down on “Litter on a Stick”; Dick Snaps Back

17 Comments

In time for campaign season, Mayor Parker announced yesterday that the city would begin cracking down on bandit signs placed on public property by fining violators under an existing city ordinance that — as far as she knows — has never been enforced. Political candidates will be given 24 hours’ notice for each violation before being charged $200 a pop, she said. Collected funds will be used to defray the cost of removing the signs — which reached $450,000 in 2009.

Landscape, Mayor Parker, Signs, Streetscapes

09/29/11 7:55am

Daily Demolition Report: Arresting Development

Chip, chip, chipping away. Try these spots next:

Apartments

09/28/11 5:06pm

Ashby Highrise Appears Ready To Rise Again, This Time as an Apartment Tower

41 Comments

The development company behind a proposed 23-story residential tower at 1717 Bissonnet near Southampton known as the Ashby Highrise submitted its plans to the city again today, after taking a 2-year break. Buckhead Investment partner Matthew Morgan tells the West U Examiner‘s Michael Reed that the plans sent in today are mostly identical to those submitted in August 2009. Those plans, which the city ultimately approved, were for a version of the tower that axed some of the buildings’ commercial features, including retail and office space and a pedestrian plaza in front of the building. The lawsuit Buckhead filed against the city early last year, challenging the repeated rejection of its earlier plans for the building, is still pending in U.S. District Court.

There is one notable difference in the new plans: The units will be rented, not sold, Morgan says.

They’re back! Ashby high-rise developers renew permitting process [Your Houston News]
Timeline of Salient Events [Buckhead Investment Partners]
Ashby Highrise coverage [Swamplot]

Rendering: Buckhead Investment Partners

77005, Apartments, Ashby Highrise, Boulevard-Oaks, Development Strategies, Highrises, Lawsuits, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southampton

Buildings for Lease

09/28/11 1:40pm

The Last-Ever Sale at Harold’s in the Heights Is Over

9 Comments

The new owners of the Heights building at the corner of 19th St. and Ashland that for 61 years housed the Harold’s in the Heights men’s clothing store have wasted no time in advertising the modern structure for lease or “redevelopment.” The Chronicle‘s David Kaplan reports that a partnership led by local development firm Braun Enterprises bought the property from the family of Harold Wiesenthal last week; a flyer for the 13,600-sq.-ft. property, which comes with a parking lot in back, hawks restaurant or retail space in chunks as small as 1,750 sq. ft. The glass-front building includes a 3,000-sq.-ft. second-story office space. Harold’s closed its doors for good in August.

Haroldâ€™s, â€œmodern landmarkâ€ on 19th Street, finds buyer [Prime Property]
Harolds in the Heights [Braun Enterprises]
Previously on Swamplot: Haroldâ€™s in the Heights Is Closing Down

Photo: Braun Enterprises

77008, Buildings for Lease, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Houston Heights, Modern Design, Retail

Crime

09/28/11 11:51am

Possible Scam Targeted Katy-Area HOAs

77494, Crime, Estates of Avalon at Seven Meadows, Homeowners' Associations, Katy

4 Comments

POSSIBLE SCAM TARGETED KATY-AREA HOAS Complaints from 3 suburban homeowners’ associations — including the one for the Estates of Avalon at Seven Meadows gated community west of the Grand Parkway near Fry Rd. in Katy — have been filed against Arrow Community Management, alleging the Cinco Ranch management company misappropriated HOA funds. Arrow’s owner, Taggert Mayfield, received a sentence of 3 years’ deferred adjudication earlier this month after he pled guilty to mishandling $20,000 in HOA funds. Sgt. David Schultz of the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office tells reporter Deborah Wrigley that one new report he’s investigating claims an Arrow-managed HOA is missing about $120,000. The company, which appears to have shut down its operations, had contracts with more than a dozen HOAs in Harris and Fort Bend Counties. [abc13] Photo of Estates of Avalon at Seven Meadows: Keller Williams Premier Realty

09/28/11 9:14am

Daily Demolition Report: Zip

1 Comment

Update: Demos are in! See below.

The city’s permit database ~~appears to be down; today’s demo list will have to remain a mystery — until it’s~~ is back up and running.

Comments

09/27/11 6:36pm

Comment of the Day: Inside The Knowles Family’s Walmart Home for the Holidays

COMMENT OF THE DAY: INSIDE THE KNOWLES FAMILY’S WALMART HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS “That sitting area by the fireplace looks familiar — is that where they filmed the commercial with the band members/family opening up all their gifts from Wal-Mart?” [Hellsing, commenting on Is This the House Behind the House of DerÃ©on? Beyonceâ€™s Mom Tina Knowles Selling Farnham Park Mansion]

77024, Comments, Farnham Park, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Memorial, Real Estate Marketing, TV-Commercials

Dacoma

09/27/11 2:28pm

Karbach Brews Houston’s Newest Beer Can Warehouse

7 Comments

This metal-sheathed warehouse at 2032 Karbach St. in the industrial area off Dacoma St. near Dyer Stadium used to be home to craft and imported beer distributor C.R. Goodman. Now a bunch of former Goodman employees have transformed it into the Karbach Brewing Company brewery — which held its inaugural tour over the weekend. Among the commitments of Karbach and its brewer, former Flying Dog CEO Eric Warner: Keeping their 5 craft brews in metal. Karbach beers are available only at area bars and restaurants so far (delivered in kegs by the company’s single delivery truck); starting in January 3 of them should be available for purchase in aluminum cans, too.

77092, Breweries, Dacoma, Industrial Properties, Openings and Closings, Warehouses

Art

09/27/11 12:07pm

Finding the Art in Independence Heights

3 Comments

After taking in this weekend’s open house at the thriving shipping-container art colony ensconced in Stephen and Thedra Cullar-Ledford’s Independence Art Studios at 419 Janisch Rd. between Shepherd and Yale (above), fine-arts hound Robert Boyd pokes around a few more streets in Independence Heights — and finds a lot more art lurking in the neighborhood’s big lots. Boyd writes: “I think we can say that this is a little hidden art neighborhood. And if it follows the pattern of other art neighborhoods like Montrose and Rice Military, in 25 years or so, it will be full of expensive townhomes.”

Mysterious North Houston Art Colony Discovered [The Great God Pan Is Dead]
Studios [Independence Art Studios]

Photos: Robert Boyd. Sculpture: Jonathan Clark

77018, Art, Art Studios, Independence Heights

09/27/11 7:50am

Daily Demolition Report: Beverlyhill Bullies

That, and a couple of garages get taken to the woodshed:

Comments

09/26/11 10:50pm

Comment of the Day: Cougars on the Prowl