HELPING CEOS WITH THAT VISION THING 
The head of the giant monkey wrench is still under construction Downtown, but already Hines has lowered rents and begun looking for smaller-scale tenants at MainPlace, Nancy Sarnoff reports. And now . . . they’re staging it!
“Hines has built out mock offices on three floors so prospective tenants can get a better idea of what their offices may look like.
Depending on the audience, the models can make an impression.
‘If you bring over a CEO, it registers with them a little more,’ said Chrissy Wilson, vice president of leasing for Hines.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Skyscraper Page user Johnme
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Electric-shuttle entrepreneur Erik Ibarra is worried about a new draft ordinance— due to be discussed by a city transportation committee on Tuesday and voted on by city council later this month — that he says raises the required minimum capacity for jitneys from 4 to 9 passengers. (The new provision appears to have been included at the request of taxi companies.) The founder of Rev Eco-Shuttle tells Swamplot officers of the city’s Administration and Regulatory Affairs department have told him the two 6-seater emissions-free carts his company currently uses to shuttle passengers around Washington Ave and the Downtown and Midtown areas at $5 a pop would be grandfathered under the new ordinance, but that any additional vehicles of the same design would be ineligible.
The department’s plan appears to be to regulate any new shuttles (along with pedicabs) under a separate set of rules for low-speed vehicles, but Ibarra says a draft of those rules is nowhere in sight, and he’d like to be able to expand his current business.
Ibarra had been encouraging the city to revise the jitney ordinance because of the hassles he experienced trying first to identify and then to comply with the existing rules. The entrepreneur famously spent 2 1/2 years trying to get the city of Houston to give him some kind of permit for his 2 all-electric vehicles, collecting plenty of citations from city officers along the way. His 2 carts finally received permits in December. Ibarra tells Swamplot both were actually revoked by the city in May, but he expects to receive new jitney permits within a few days.
- Previously on Swamplot: The Little Downtown Electric Shuttle Service Earns a Badge, REV Houston Downtown Shuttle: No Fare, No Emissions, Just Tips and Tickets, REV Houston: Street Illegal, Tips Only: Downtown-to-Midtown Zero-Emission Shuttle
Photo: Rev Eco-Shuttle
A Swamplot reader who has some familiarity with the terms of the deal has expressed surprise at the 10-year lease the federal government’s General Services Administration recently signed for 132,539 sq. ft. of office space Downtown. The arrangement appears to leave the GSA paying rent on 2 separate Houston office locations for the U.S. Attorney — for 2 years. The U.S. Attorney’s office, located in the office building at 919 Milam since 1994, will move early next year to offices on the 23rd through 27th floors of Wells Fargo Plaza at 1000 Louisiana St. — space formerly occupied by Dynegy, according to a report in Globe St.:
The GSA . . . considered more than 40 potential locations before touring seven buildings and then narrowing it down to four final buildings. Wells Fargo Plaza stood out because of its location, which is two blocks from the federal court building, along with its access to the downtown tunnel system and its 25,000-square-foot floorplates.
The GSA was represented in lease negotiations by the Houston office of Jones Lang LaSalle. Bruce Rutherford is a managing director in the office:
“The building is a short walk to the federal courts, and when it’s really hot or raining, the lawyers can use the tunnel to get there,†Rutherford says, adding that Wells Fargo Plaza is also a “straight shot†by cab if necessary.
But the reasons for the move cited in the article — which include an impending lease expiration, proximity to the federal courthouse, desire for a more efficient use of space as well as enhanced technology and security, and tunnel access — “just don’t add up” for our source, who notes that the Wells Fargo Plaza location is only one block closer to the federal court building at 515 Rusk than the Attorney’s current offices, which also have access to the underground tunnels.
Renovations are scheduled to begin in the next few weeks on Downtown’s Houston House Apartments at 1617 Fannin, according to a notice distributed to residents yesterday:
These renovations will include, but are not limited to ALL APARTMENT UNIT INTERIORS, plumbing, HVAC system, domestic hot water, sprinkler systems, the lobby, 9th and 10th floors and the building’s exterior. There will be significant additions to our amenities as well.
Here’s the fun part: Everybody gets to relocate!
At last! An answer to a question posted on Swamplot just last October. (Note to potential tipsters: You’ll generally get a much quicker response to questions you submit here if you include a photo or 2 or 3.) But better late than never. That curvy-swervy structure going up near the 59 exit ramp on Main St. south of Midtown, across from the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft is now available, reports Vincent Biondillo of Norhill Realty, who’s marketing the property:
This building is being developed by Dr. Anna Munne to house her periodontal practice. The first floor space with the curved wall up front will be leased retail space, which would be great for a salon or bar. The 2nd floor space will house Dr. Munne’s practice and will also offer 2768 SF of leasable office space.
Funny, our original tipster did note that the building appeared to be rooted into the ground with rather substantial columns.
A reader sends us this view from the scene of the YMCA on Louisiana and Pease Downtown. A fire broke out in a resident’s room on the 9th floor of the 67-year-old building early this afternoon after someone left a lit candle unattended, according to news reports. YMCA officials tell Channel 2 News that 16 residents will need to be relocated as a result of the damages.
Of course, all 135 residents of the YMCA will need to be relocated after the new YMCA down the street at 808 Pease St. (at Milam) opens this October. The YMCA plans to demolish the Louisiana St. building, then sell the vacant 85,000-sq.-ft. property to Chevron, which owns the shiny former Enron building next door. The new Tellepsen Family Downtown YMCA now under construction contains no residences.
Late Update: Our correspondent sends in a later photo from the scene:
Converted from an office building to apartments in 2004 by NBC Holdings’ Tracy Suttles and The Randall Davis Company, the Kirby Lofts at 917 Main Downtown went condo a little later. How did that ball get rolling? The federal government’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force suggests one answer: a few “sham sales” from January to October 2006. Indictments charging Veronica Frazier, Robert Veazie, and Felton Greer with several counts of conspiracy and wire fraud were unsealed Friday.
Frazier, 42, of Pearland, allegedly recruited buyers with good credit in 2006 to act as straw borrowers and use false information to apply for home loans, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. She and other unnamed co-conspirators then allegedly used the loan proceeds for themselves and to pay kickbacks to the fake borrowers.
AT RISK ON RUSK 
Earlier this month Cameron Management lost the 2000 St. James Place office building to foreclosure; now CEO Dougal Cameron is trying hard not to lose the Houston Club Building Downtown. So the Cameron-controlled limited partnership that owns the 18-story 62-year-old office building at 811 Rusk is declaring bankruptcy. Cameron had visions of converting the building into a hotel or high-end apartments when his investment group bought it from JPMorgan Chase in 2007; more recently the company hired PageSoutherlandPage to plan an “educational facility” to take over several floors. The building has 5 levels of parking. The Houston Club, which counts George Bush as one of its members (and as the name of one of its rooms), has a low-cost lease on four floors that expires in five years. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Silberman Properties
“So the Eco-Shuttle looks a little funny with the new #Jitney decals,” tweet the folks behind the REV Houston service. Why are those little white electric vehicles that drive passengers around Downtown, parts of Midtown, and the Washington Corridor for tips only now wearing Jitney decals?
Because the REV shuttles, long a favorite citation target of city permitting officials, are now street legal. And here’s the technicolor medallion to prove it:
- Previously on Swamplot: Drive-By: The Cop Copter Inside Headquarters
Video: Christian Sheridan, Brave/Architecture
How has that condo conversion of the former Commerce Building at the corner of Main St. and Walker Downtown been working out?
The building has 122 finished units and a two-story-tall penthouse that has not been built out yet.
A total of 69 units have been sold, and another 25 have been leased. [Commerce Towers sales and leasing agent Susan] Speck said some of the renters are interested in buying.
Prominent Houstonian Jesse Jones built the first part of the structure in 1928, and added onto it in the 1930s, Speck said.
An entity named Premier Towers bought the building in 1999. It was redeveloped by New York-based Whitney Jordan Group with Tarantino Properties Inc. of Houston.
The first condo units were finished and people starting moving in during 2002.
- Commerce Towers goes back to sales push [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Eye-Opening Parking Garage Design
Photo of Commerce Towers, 914 Main St.: Sandra Gunn Properties
The Houston Business Journal‘s Jennifer Dawson is reporting that a hotel developer out of Fort Worth is purchasing the 22-story office building at 806 Main St. Downtown with plans to gut it, renovate it, and reopen it as a hotel. The building is approximately 100 years old, but its top 10 floors were added in the 1920s. The stone, terra cotta, and brick structure was dressed in a marble-and-glass slipcover about 60 years later. Directly across the street from the tower is the construction site of Hines’s MainPlace development.
The city has designated 806 Main as a landmark. It’s connected to the Downtown tunnel system, but has remained mostly empty in recent years. The last of 40 recent tenants is scheduled to move out this week. Building manager Betty Brown tells Dawson that only the Christian Science Reading Room and Domino’s Pizza on the ground floor will be left — their leases run out in 9 to 12 months.
With the exception of the Embassy Suites in downtown Fort Worth featured prominently on its website, Pearl Real Estate has built or redeveloped mostly suburban-style hotels. The 10-year-old company typically operates its own properties and serves as its own general contractor.
What kind of hotel is Pearl planning underneath this slipcover?
The Chronicle’s Chris Moran finds inmates on the move at 1200 Baker St.:
They were working, waiting in line for the dentist, moving to other floors to appointments (medical, dietician, counseling, therapy) getting processed for release or shuffling off to a court appearance. In fact, my guess is I saw fewer inmates inside cells than on the move.
As a result, it seemed as though nearly as many uniformed detention officers, sheriff’s deputies and mental health and medical professionals were moving and monitoring as well.
The concrete halls amplify and echo sound, so any time someone raised his voice it startled me a bit. And the rattling of leg irons always sounded as if it were coming from just a few feet behind me even if the inmates were far away.
HOUSTONIANS NOW EAT THEIR VEGETABLES IN THE STRANGEST PLACES 
Food and travel writer Salma Abdelnour, who grew up here, takes New York Times travel section readers on a tour of 5 Houston restaurants carved out of former something-or-others: the car dealership that became Reef, the ice house that became Beaver’s, the burlap factory that became Textile, the appliance warehouse that became Block 7 Wine Company. Somehow the spaghetti-western-themed strip center that ultimately became Stella Sola gets mixed up in this crowd (Abdelnour calls the building a “town house”). She adds: “In the film ‘Urban Cowboy,’ based in Houston and nearby Pasadena, the mother of the John Travolta character told him, ‘You just can’t get good vegetables in Houston.’ You certainly can now.” [New York Times] Photo of Stella Sola: 2Scale Architects
Young man, you can start singing now. Except the new and smaller Tellepsen Family YMCA under construction Downtown at 808 Pease St., won’t exactly be a place you can stay.
A couple more views . . .
