Swamplot Archives by Tag: 77027

Monday, August 11, 2008

Costco $17K Left Turn Green Light

   

The new Costco on Richmond gets on okay for tree-free left turns: “According to Craig Cheney, spokesman for partner-developer Trammell Crow, nine bald cyprus and three other trees will be removed from the Weslayan median and replanted elsewhere. The developer will ‘buy out’ three live oaks that will be cut down on Richmond to make way for two left-turn lanes for a total of $17,000, a spokesman for the city said. [River Oaks Examiner, previously in Swamplot]

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Friday, July 25, 2008

Highland Village Sprinkles

   

Sprinkles Cupcakes, The Original Cupcake Bakery, opens in Houston this winter at 4010 Westheimer in Highland Village. Let’s see, we have Sugar Baby’s, Crave and Ooh La La Dessert Boutique (they’re actually in Katy, TX, but it’s a suburb of Houston so we’ll count it) and now Sprinkles, the one who started the cupcake craziness in 2005 in Beverly Hills.” What’s next — Pinkberry? [Cleverley's Blog]

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Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Left Turns at Weslayan and Richmond: Trees Get in the Way

Costco at Richmond and Weslayan Under Construction

Street trees in medians on Weslayan and Richmond will likely be disappearing soon, reports Sarah Kortemeier in the offline-only Village News. Three left-turn lanes on Weslayan and two on Richmond are planned for the new Greenway Commons Costco-powered Power Center under construction on the northeast corner of that intersection:

Trammell Crow Managing Director of Retail Development Craig Cheney says that the company was required by the City of Houston to put the turning bays in for traffic mitigation purposes, and his company was not made aware of any extra permitting required to remove trees. . . .

The median does not appear to be wide enough to accommodate extra lanes without removing trees. Cheney says that Trammell Crow is “open to any suggestions [the City] might have” about relocating or mitigating the effect on trees, but that the turning bays cannot be constructed without removing or relocating at least some of the trees.

Photo of Costco construction: Flickr user Graustark

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Friday, June 27, 2008

The Loneliest Doctor in Houston

River Oaks Physician Plaza

Medistar’s brand-new River Oaks Physician Plaza adjacent to the just-shuttered River Oaks Hospital has just one tenant, reports Monica Perin in today’s Houston Business Journal:

The 105,000-square-foot, five-story River Oaks Physician Plaza was intended to house offices for River Oaks Hospital physicians as well as a sports medicine center, sleep lab and an endoscopy and pain management center, all operated by River Oaks Hospital, which was originally set to lease space in the building. . . .

But, according to Dr. Leroy Sterling, a physician investor in River Oaks Hospital, there is currently only one tenant — a physician — in the building.

Colliers is now trying to lease the building to commercial tenants. Space is listed at $21 a square foot, triple net. The building has been renamed River Oaks Plaza.

Photo of River Oaks Physician Plaza: River Oaks Hospital

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

59 Feeder AT&T: A Starring Role in the iPhone Ecosystem

Apple’s Where To Buy Page for the iPhone, Showing the AT&T Store between Edloe and Weslayan

A Swamplot reader who’s been itching for one of them new 3G iPhones points us to this page on the Apple website, designed to show where you’ll be able to buy an iPhone. On July 11th, the new phones will be available at Apple Retail Stores and at AT&T outlets.

Naturally, Apple illustrates the two store options with photos of the most glamorous examples of each type. The Apple Store shown is the famous glass cube on 5th Avenue in New York City. And the AT&T store is . . . the AT&T Experience Store on the side of the Southwest Freeway between Edloe and Weslayan!?

Our reader comments:

And no, it doesn’t look that good in person. It’s on at least its third incarnation as a cellphone store: first it was a pretty boring two-story concrete box for Houston Cellular, then it got some outlandish rooftop decoration with a rebranding to Cingular, and then it changed brands (and colors) to ATT.

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Hospital Formerly Known as Twelve Oaks Is Dead

River Oaks Physician Plaza, Houston

Looking to lease medical offices near the Southwest Freeway? Medical Properties Trust — which last year bought the former Twelve Oaks Hospital building just west of Greenway Plaza and the 6700 Bellaire building in Sharpstown from Hospital Partners of America and leased them both back to the River Oaks Hospital — may soon have a lot of space available! HPA announced yesterday that both of its River Oaks Hospital locations are closing.

Be sure to check out Medistar’s brand-new River Oaks Physician Plaza (above), designed by Kirksey — also part of HPA’s complex!

Photo of River Oaks Physician Plaza: River Oaks Hospital

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Highland Tower: Go Ahead

Proposed Highland Tower, Houston

Is it going to happen? A construction permit for Pelican Builders’ Highland Tower was approved by the city last week.

A couple purty drawings of a unit, after the jump.

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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Highland Village: Work Above Waterworks, Filling the Gap Gap

Construction on Top of Waterworks, Highland Village Shopping Center, Houston

A reader who lives near the Highland Village Shopping Center reports that work on “the structure being built (so slowly) on top of Waterworks” at the corner of Drexel and Westheimer appears to have started up again, after a long period of nothing-going-on. Plus: he hears it’s going to be a French restaurant. Wasn’t last year’s rumor that it was going to be a wine bar?

And speaking of rumors, the same reader wants to know what’s going to happen on the opposite corner of the same intersection, where the Gap used to be:

I have hear that it will be either a 5 story boutique hotel or 2 story retail, and, as of a few weeks ago, that they would be deciding between retail vs hotel by mid May.

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Thursday, May 1, 2008

A Walk Down Cheezy Street: Richmond Avenue, Past Its Prime

Corner of Richmond and Fountainview, Houston

Pedestrian scribe John Lomax and Marfa City Council candidate David Beebe have, by this time, earned the right to make a few sweeping statements about various Houston neighborhoods. And Lomax exercises that right in his chronicle of the pair’s latest adventure on foot, along Richmond Avenue from Mission Bend to Midtown:

. . . the epicenter of H-Town cheese is the corner of Fountainview and Richmond. A four-story, day-glo, red, white, turquoise, and tan building looms over the southeastern corner there, and it houses a Sprint shop, a little downstairs bar with the godawful name Identity, a scalper’s office, a massage therapist, and a huge Darque Tan outlet.

Sure, Westheimer’s got some cheese, and is a little tattered around the edges in spots, but there’s a veneer of gentility as expressed by old-line businesses like Christie’s Seafood. Richmond, by contrast, used to have that sub-Landry’s fried seafood emporium King Fish Market, which despite the incessant awful commercials that polluted local airwaves circa 1999, is now out of business and practically in ruins. The whole lot of it is a great vat of rancid Velveeta.

As is much of the Richmond Strip. That giant sax outside of Billy Blues is looking more and more like the torch sticking out of the sand at the end of Planet of the Apes.

After the jump: how’s the nightlife?

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That Nineties Retro Tower Coming to the West Loop

Proposed Office Tower at 1600 West Loop South, Uptown, Houston

From Ziegler Cooper Architects’ website: Renderings of a 20-story office tower the firm designed back in the early 1990s.

As we reported in February, the Novati Group plans to build the 500,000-square-foot spec tower, along with an 8-level parking garage, at 1600 West Loop South — next to Post Oak Motor Cars, on land purchased from Landry’s. The only changes from the original design will be adjustments so the building can qualify for LEED Silver certification.

So what if the design is old? Worrying that your brand new building already looks dated is so . . . last decade!

After the jump: the marble in the lobby will be old, too!

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Friday, April 11, 2008

State Grille Closing Down; 27-Story Tower Going Up?

The State Grille, the restaurant at the corner of Weslayan and W. Alabama, will be shutting down a little earlier than expected. Cleverley’s Blog and Jennifer Dawson of the Houston Business Journal report that the restaurant will serve its last meal on May 31st.

Restaurant owners Frankie Mandola and Joe Butera sold the property to Giorgio Borlenghi’s Interfin Cos. in October 2006. The HBJ reported at the time that the restaurant had a lease agreement lasting until the end of 2008. Whatever happened to those last 6 months, Mandola doesn’t sound too happy about it now:

Mandola says he asked “a bunch of times,” but Interfin would not extend the State Grille lease scheduled to expire in July.

Interfin won’t say what the company’s plans for the property are, but . . .

According to Mandola, Interfin plans to tear down the building as soon as the restaurant clears out and construct a 27-story building of an undetermined type.

After the jump: There’s more to the property!

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

High Street: Under Way

Rendering of Building in Trademark Properties’ Proposed High Street Development

The square footages appear to have adjusted a bit since our last report, but Trademark Properties says it has its financing, and that High Street is a go. From a report in Globe St.:

The Fort Worth-based Trademark Property Co. and Coventry [Real Estate Advisors Ltd. of New York City] are redeveloping a seven-acre site of the former Central Ford dealership at 4410 Westheimer Rd. In turn, the JV signed a partnership pact with Indianapolis-based Kosene & Kosene Development Co. for the residential component of High Street. The redevelopment will have 233 apartments atop 100,000 sf of retail and 80,000 sf of office in a separate structure. The foundation’s been poured for the office building, with residential and retail to go vertical in 60 to 90 days.

After the jump, another pretty picture!

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Thursday, March 6, 2008

What the Billboard House Looks Like Without Its Billboard

Site of Former Billboard in Front Yard of House at 4743 Banning, Afton Oaks, Houston

From our email: Photographic confirmation that the 90-ft.-tall billboard in the front yard of the house at 4743 Banning has indeed been removed.

After the jump, the billboard that Afton Oaks ate!

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Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Greenway Commons: Gas Station Too!

Greenway Commons Costco at Richmond and Weslayan, Houston

Didja know that the new Costco going up on the former site of the HISD headquarters building at the corner of Richmond and Weslayan . . . is gonna have its very own gas station right out front?

Costco liked the idea of coming inside the Loop so much . . . it decided to bring all its friends! The city just issued a building permit for the new Costco Fuel station. But that’s just the latest addition to Greenway Commons, which is turning out to be quite a mix: A 45,420-sq.-ft. LA Fitness is going above the Costco, next to a 4-story parking garage which is connected to a 2-story retail strip center. It’ll all be protected from the busy surrounding streets by more than 500 surface parking spaces and 2 corner pad sites slated for “banks.” In back: a 550-unit Morgan Group luxury apartment complex . . . with two more separate garages!

After the jump, more drawings and plans of this surprising development.

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Monday, March 3, 2008

Front-Yard Billboard: Vanished!

No photo this time — just imagine a 90-ft.-tall billboard . . . that isn’t there!

That’s right: The billboard placed in the front yard of the house at 4743 Banning St. near the West Loop has apparently been removed. Says our tipster:

I drove by the Afton Oaks billboard house yesterday and the billboard is now GONE!!! I wonder what happened? Maybe the guy who told me they were making the billboard larger was just pulling my chain?

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