“I’m inclined to believe the owner on this one. Who knows better what Sharifi plans to do with the property, than Sharifi himself? It’s not just that he said there were no immediate plans to develop the property – how many times have we heard that one — it’s the good brick award and the quip about townhomes that does it — for me at least.
The real story here is the level of mistrust that exists between the public and the building community (developers but also architects, engineers, and contractors). It’s a nationwide phenomenon that’s especially strong here in Houston. There’s a common misconception that our lack of zoning leaves us more vulnerable. We’ve suffered a lot of bad development since the 1960s. It has made us paranoid. And with affordable garden apartments Inside the Loop falling one-by-one to luxury mid rises, it’s understandable that people in complexes like the Gramercy Place Apartments would be especially paranoid.” [ZAW, commenting on The Confusing Continuing Story of the Gramercy Place Apartments]
There sure have been some conflicting reports coming in lately about Gramercy Place. Since the old apartments on the 200 block of Portland St. behind the Museum Tower were sold last month to an LLC controlled by Hungry’s Cafe and Bistro owner Fred Sharifi, we first heard that they’d be torn down and replaced by 2 midrise residential towers. Around that same time, it seems, a real estate agent was sending a letter to Gramercy Place tenants claiming something similar and offering to help everyone find a new place to live.
“Builders started 6442 homes, but how many have been finished?
One house on my street broke ground almost exactly a year ago and as of today, it has a foundation, framing, Tyvek wrap, most of a roof, a little plumbing, and a little drywall. The house and its ‘dry’wall have been open to the elements for a few months now, including during the torrential rains of a few weeks ago.
There have been only 2 workers working on it at a time, and no one has been working on it at all in the past couple weeks.
It’s not like I’m in a slow-moving undesirable area; on the contrary, I’m near the border of 77098 and 77006 where houses are going under contract within a week of landing on the MLS, and asking prices are 1.5x –- 2x what they were 5 years ago.
That there’s some pretty bad Feng Shui going down in this commercial for Honda, which was filmed in Vancouver and shown on teevee and the web beginning last October. The man behind the wheel of the CR-V sure is driving some bad chi into the gullet of the far-from-the-prairie home at the end of the T-intersection, to the encouraging narration of Garrison Keillor. But isn’t the house kinda asking for it anyway, what with all that glimmering vortex-popping and all?
And gee, doesn’t the hole stabbing through the house look a heck of a lot like . . . that temporary sculpture that stood on Montrose Blvd. in Houston a few years back? Portal to another dimension? Naah — from here it looks more like a shortcut to Grant St.
Last week, this sign showed up in the window at the old Sophia restaurant on W. Main and Mandell, indicating that something or someone called Faustian Bargain intends to serve Montrose some devil juice — er, liquor. Sophia closed here at the end of February, you’ll remember, and Café Artiste mysteriously disappeared several years before that. Some sleuthing by a Swamplot reader — later echoed by Eater Houston and Culturemap — turned up that 2 of the likely new owners of the 2,400-sq.-ft. standalone near the Menil Collection are Omar Afra and Jagatjit Katial of Free Press Houston and Fitzgerald’s fame. Inquiries for more information haven’t been returned.
The other tenant in this new retail center at Westheimer and Dunlavy will be Space Montrose. Owner Leila Peraza says that by August the artsy and crafty retailer at 2608 Dunlavy will be relocating from this spot behind Cafe Brasil into the 4,800-sq.-ft. building under construction at the corner about 200 ft. away. Space Montrose will take up 1,200 sq. ft. of that and share a wall with what a pending liquor license names Leaven & Earth, a pastry cafe from well-schooled, globe-trotting chef Roy Shvartzapel. Recently, 2608 Dunlavy has been an art gallery and yoga studio; Peraza says she heard a book store is next.
A rep from Edge Realty Partners says that that new retail center that’s now under construction at Westheimer and Dunlavy will have 2 tenants. The primary one, occupying 3,600 sq. ft. of the new building’s proposed 4,800, will be a well-bread pastry cafe from Roy Shvartzapel, the globe-trotting chef profiled recently in Eater Houston. A TABC permit application, filed April 17, suggests that the cafe will be called Leaven & Earth.
And the other tenant? The Edge rep says that names can’t yet be named, but that a lease is all but complete for a “boutique” retail shop that’s already in Montrose to relocate inside the remaining 1,200-sq.-ft. suite that’s depicted in the rendering here as right next to Agora.
Here’s what Fred Sharifi, the new owner of the Gramercy Place apartments on Portland St., has to say about those rumors that the old apartments will be torn down and replaced by something as tall as the Museum Tower on Montrose that they sit behind: “[T]here will be no midrise built,” Sharifi’s property manager writes in an email, “and he has no plans at this time to redevelop the property. If he does eventually build on the property it will be town homes . . . .” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
It looks like that retail center that’s replacing the art gallery that burned down is beginning to shape up. And it looks like at least one of the future tenants intends to serve adult beverages. The sign behind the chain-link at the site names the applicant as Leaven & Earth, and a rep from the TABC confirms that the application, filed on April 17, is pending. The original plans for the site here at 1706 Westheimer describe a 4,829-sq.-ft. building — with 36 parking spaces behind it, accessible from Dunlavy — designed to replace the Galerie Mado Chalvet, which was lost in a fire and immortalized on a backpack in 2012.
An update: Though the other rumor suggests that the Gramercy Place apartments behind the Museum Tower on Montrose Blvd. will be torn down and replaced by 2 residential midrises, a tenant there reports that the new owners of the 5 buildings on the 200 block of Portland St. have seemed “adamant” that the 31 apartments will remain as rental units and have said they intend “to respect” their “historical quality.” [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inboxUpdate, 2:15 p.m.: The owners confirm what the tenant had heard. Read more here.
Culturemap’s reporting that Bocados on West Alabama is closing after a party on Cinco de Mayo. Bocados owners and friends from their days at across-the-street University of St. Thomas Terry Flores and Lily Hernandez tell Culturemap that though they’ll be leaving the restaurant at 1312 West Alabama where they’ve been for 15 years, they’re considering buying a Heights property where they might bring Bocados back. Moreover, reports Whitney Radley, the pair says they plan to open this summer “in a yet-undisclosed location” downtown a restaurant they’re calling The Red Ox Grill. And what’s up next for the Bocados building? Radley writes that it’ll be The Brick and Spoon, a restaurant coming to Montrose by way of Lafayette, Louisiana, on June 1. [Culturemap] Photo: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
What’s left of the Gramercy Place apartments on the 200 block of Portland St. were sold this month. A few of the apartment buildings, which date to 1935, were torn down before being replaced in 2002 by the Museum Tower on Montrose. Now, the seller’s agent says that the remaining 5 buildings and 31 units that records show have been owned for the past 15 years by an entity controlled by Rebecca Parsons were closed on two weeks ago.
And the buyer? The seller’s agent wouldn’t say. But a Swamplot reader with knowledge of the transaction shares a document and some rumors that suggest the buyer is an LLC presided over by Hungry’s Cafe and Bistro owner Fred Sharifi. And the document states an intent to smash the rest of the apartments and put up “residential rental midrise buildings.”
Regretting what he calls “too much shitty visual culture” in Montrose, artist Cody Ledvina has spent the past few months approaching businesses with ideas for murals as a way of changing that culture, wall by wall. (You might remember Ledvina’s redone Mary’s mural before the leather bar was closed to make way for Blacksmith.) The most recent mural is this elongated weiner dog stretching out on the side of EJ’s Bar at 2517 Ralph St. The photo’s taken from Kueter St. beside Buffalo Exchange and that fenced-in vacant lot on Westheimer near Dunlavy. Also shown here is part of a mural — that’s askyline silhouette, there — on the side of Urban Leasing & Realty’s building at 1901 Vermont St.
It’s parched and scruffy, sure, and there’s an abandoned slab without any load-bearing walls to keep it company, but this less-than-a-half-acre patch of grass on Yoakum Blvd. could be the site of a 3-story office building: A rep from Owens Management Systems says that a variance application for the site just west of Castle Court in Montrose has been approved by the city planning commission, and a commercial architecture firm is considering moving to what’s being dubbed the Yoakum Enclave. The 0.4-acre lot backs into Mt. Vernon St. and up against the U.S. 59 barrier wall at the very end of the 4300 block of Yoakum, south of the University of St. Thomas and the construction site on Richmond Ave. of the 6-story Campanile South.
Swamplot covers real estate, home design and renovation, architecture, and the landscape of Houston, Texas. Swamplot did not flood during Allison — or Ike! Honest! Read more
Why has the Belgium-by-way-of-Montrose Jeannine’s Bistro stopped serving those moules-frites? Culturemap, it appears, has been following the Westheimer Rd. restaurant’s self-demotion on Facebook: “Earlier posts,” reports Whitney Radley, giving a breathless blow-by-blow, “
Here’s what Fred Sharifi, the new owner of the Gramercy Place apartments on Portland St., has to say about those rumors that 
Note: More 
Culturemap’s reporting that Bocados on West Alabama is closing after a party on Cinco de Mayo. Bocados owners and friends from their days at across-the-street University of St. Thomas Terry Flores and Lily Hernandez tell Culturemap that 
Comment of the Day: An Atmosphere of Mistrust
“I’m inclined to believe the owner on this one. Who knows better what Sharifi plans to do with the property, than Sharifi himself? It’s not just that he said there were no immediate plans to develop the property – how many times have we heard that one — it’s the good brick award and the quip about townhomes that does it — for me at least.
The real story here is the level of mistrust that exists between the public and the building community (developers but also architects, engineers, and contractors). It’s a nationwide phenomenon that’s especially strong here in Houston. There’s a common misconception that our lack of zoning leaves us more vulnerable. We’ve suffered a lot of bad development since the 1960s. It has made us paranoid. And with affordable garden apartments Inside the Loop falling one-by-one to luxury mid rises, it’s understandable that people in complexes like the Gramercy Place Apartments would be especially paranoid.” [ZAW, commenting on The Confusing Continuing Story of the Gramercy Place Apartments]