- LA-Based Stockdale Capital Partners Picks Up Sugar Land Office Park, Looking For More Houston-Area Assets [Houston Business Journal]
- 7% of Houston Retail Space is Vacant, Down from Historical Average of 12%, According to CBRE [Prime Property]
- Officials Hoping Residents Drawn Downtown By the Subsidized Apartments Will Then Lure Retailers [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- League City Sorting Out $1.7M Refund for Current, Former Magnolia Creek Subdivision Property Owners [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- The $515K Meyerland Home with an In-Ground Bomb Shelter [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- City Seeks Public Input on Medical Center Traffic Congestion [Houston Public Media]
- Rice University Awarded $3.1M by Houston Endowment To Research Centennial Gate Proposal [Click2Houston; previously on Swamplot]
- National Hurricane Center To Roll Out a Potential Storm Surge Flooding Map During 2014 Hurricane Season [Click2Houston]
- After Rice University Demo, University of Texas at Dallas Art Advocates Try To Save Their Own Art Barn [Glasstire]
Photo of Hilcorp building construction at former Downtown Macy’s site: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
“While the market overall is steady, Keener expressed a concern about an overabundance of emergency clinics and urgent care facilities taking space traditionally reserved for restaurants and shops. He noted five within one mile of each other in Sienna Plantation.”
….
Not surprised by this statement at all. Seems that there are emergency and urgent clinics everywhere you look. Although those places can make a ton of money, there will become a point of over saturation.
As I posted here before, there’s still time to plan move the Rice Media Center (the twin building to the Rice Art Barn). The structure should be around for a few more years while the new Fine Arts building is being constructed where the tennis courts currently are (just on the other side of the Media Center’s parking lot).
Meanwhile, along the eastern edge of Upper Kirby, there is retail space that has been vacant for years. Examples:
– the space at 3116 S. Shepherd at W. Alabama from which Land, Sea, and Sky moved five years ago
– almost all of Shepherd Plaza (Richmond between S. Shepherd and Greenbriar) has been empty for years; all that’s left is Stag’s Head, Tuesday Morning, Amy’s, Freebirds, a yoga place, and a physical therapy place. (Is the Cactus/Davenport/McElroy’s building part of Shepherd Plaza? Its sign says Sandman Center.) Even Le Peep left last year. The Sound Warehouse / Blockbuster Music / Wherehouse has been vacant for so long that I had forgotten that it was briefly a party supply store. The entire front of the complex facing Richmond is vacant.
Overall, the situation has improved a little since this article from 2009, but not much, and some of it is worse.
http://swamplot.com/all-that-empty-retail-on-south-shepherd-a-drive-by-photo-tour/2009-06-25/
so who has the cost tally on the Centennial Gates project for the ship channel. just wondering how much of our taxpayers’ money could have contributed to the Gates if it wasn’t wasted on a failed bayport cruise terminal by the Port of Houston.
and yeah, hilarious regarding lack of retail space since as usual it always depends on location and type of retail. tons of empty vacant retail center in this city, just perhaps not in the highest demand areas. but is this really a problem? all the stores I used to spend money at have been rapidly closing up shop in the past few years and there’s still a lot of people behind the curve on shifting their spending from in-store to online. i thought this is why we have zoning ordinances that ensure our retail market can easily expand and meet demand as needed? if another high-end retailer can’t afford space in the highland and rice villages due to high occupancy rates then I assure you no Houstonian will be harmed in this loss. urgent care clinics have a right to expand and meet demand as much as any other retail group so not sure why that was even mentioned. last i checked you don’t see people sitting around complaining about too many hospitals being built with medicare money.