Tag: 77043

Buying and Selling
06/14/13 11:05am

Fo’ Sho: Brittmoore Rd. RoomStore’s Out To Make Room for Townhomes

by
Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Land Development, Land Sales, Proposed Developments, Spring Branch, Townhomes
5 Comments

It looks like the 10.53 acres behind this sign where the Spring Branch RoomStore stands have been fosoldale, and the buyer has said it plans to build some rental townhomes. Broker David Littwitz says that the RoomStore here at 1009 Brittmoore Rd. facing the Katy Fwy. closed about a year ago, after the Richmond, Virginia, company filed for bankruptcy near the end of 2011. Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that the buyer, a joint venture called Houston Texas Properties, intends to tear down the showroom to develop what they’re dubbing Arabella, desribed by Dixon as a “240-unit, upscale rental townhome community.” And they’re not wasting time: Dixon adds that the RoomStore should be coming down within the next few weeks.

Photo: Real Estate Bisnow

, , , , , , ,
Office Buildings
04/12/13 1:00pm

A Look at the New Outdoors Around the Old Great Indoors

by
Office Space, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Spring Branch
1 Comment

This flag-flying 12-story tower planned for the under-development Block 10 West Office Park might end up hiding the renovations underway on the former Great Indoors, which you can see peeking out in the distance in the rendering above. Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that Hicks Ventures is building out the out-of-business big box into a 2-story, 245,000-sq.-ft. spec office building. Plans include the construction of a 5-level parking garage behind the new building and a 6-level garage between it and this proposed I-10-facing tower.

Here’s an aerial view of the park and its neighbors:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

, , , , , , , ,
Comments
02/08/13 12:45pm

Comment of the Day: Recreating Great Moments in Big Box History

by
Quicklink, Renovations, Retail, Spring Branch
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: RECREATING GREAT MOMENTS IN BIG BOX HISTORY “Ironically the glass facade is strikingly similar to a designed, but never built Great Indoors store prototype that was slated to open in 2004. The prototype coincided with the merger of Sears with Kmart when all new concept development (and gross profit) for Sears ceased. Pity.” [Hdtex, commenting on Great New Indoors Replacing The Old Great Indoors]

, , , , , ,
Openings and Closings
03/26/12 10:13am

The End of Houston’s Great Indoors

by
Quicklink, Retail, Spring Branch
16 Comments

THE END OF HOUSTON’S GREAT INDOORS You’d think images of a solid, giant big box store marked “The Great Indoors” set behind an enormous freeway-side parking lot would be fodder for local photographers hoping to capture views of Houston in all its ironic suburban splendor. Alas, no pix of the hulking, 130,000-sq.-ft. home furnishings megastore on the north side of I-10 just inside Beltway 8 appear to be available online. Quick, take a few while you still can! And send them to Swamplot — we need one to go at the top of this story, which it appears will serve as the very first announcement in Houston media that the store will be closing forever. Parent company Sears Holdings dropped the news back in February that all 9 remaining Great Indoors stores would be shut down. But the news, like the store itself, failed to catch much attention around here. A reader alerted Swamplot to the closing just over the last weekend, noting “big sales are just starting.” [Home Textiles Today] Photo: Send one you’ve taken here

, , ,
Quicklink
06/09/11 4:00pm

Death, Abandoned Feeder Road Strip Malls, and Taxes in Sherwood Oaks

by
Sherwood Oaks, Strip Centers, Taxes
9 Comments

DEATH, ABANDONED FEEDER ROAD STRIP MALLS, AND TAXES IN SHERWOOD OAKS Craig Malisow tries to unravel the ownership mystery behind the abandoned strip center that serves as a rather dilapidated Katy Freeway-facing welcome sign for 2010 Swamplot Award runner-up Sherwood Oaks: “The owner listed on the Harris County Appraisal District is J.E. Eisemann III, who died in 1981. Interestingly, he seems to have purchased the property in 1988. Apparently, HCAD inherited this information from the Harris County Tax Assessor’s Office, which never had any problem with a dead owner, because the dude, while dead, was paying his taxes. But in 2010, death caught up with Eisemann, and he missed some payments to a few taxing districts, including Spring Branch ISD. When that district sued, it listed Eisemann’s kin as defendants. . . . The estate promptly paid more than $20,000 in back taxes, and now appears to be current.” [Hair Balls; original MyFox Houston story; previously on Swamplot] Photo: MyFox Houston

, , , , ,
Homes for Sale
08/22/08 7:51pm

Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: Out of the Shadows

by
Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game, Spring Shadows
3 Comments

Neighborhood Guessing Game 21: Porch

This week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game sent readers guessing all over town! In our first round we had 3 votes for Clear Lake and 2 for Galveston, plus guesses of Hudson on Memorial, “behind Second Baptist Church,” Bering or Potomac between Woodway and Westheimer, Montrose, just west of Kirby and south of 59, Friendswood, a suburb “out 59,” Newcastle or Bissonnet in West U, Southampton, Brook Forest, El Lago, Pasadena, the Galleria, Lake Conroe, Clear Lake Shores, Rice Military, Cypress Creek near Kuykendahl, The Woodlands, and Seabrook.

After a hint and an extension, we had more guesses: Copperfield, Fondren Southwest, Bear Creek, “around Lawndale and Wayside,” Port Arthur, “off 290 and Mangum/40th,” off 290 just outside the Loop, Tomball, Kingwood, Lakeside Forest, Walnut Bend, Briarcroft, Baytown, Spring Branch near Memorial and Dairy Ashford, the Medical Center, Spring Branch near I-10 and Gessner, Deer Park, and off Memorial near the Buffalo Bayou.

And we have a winner! Well, close enough. It’s Lyn, who waited to see Jessica‘s reasonable-sounding guess, then refined it and pounced:

“perhaps it’s one of the 60s/70s era neighborhoods in Spring Branch, say, near Memorial/Dairy Ashford?”

This.

Spring Branch but I’m guessing near I-10/Gessner.

Something like . . . Spring Shadows?

An honorable mention goes to karen, who walked us through decades of real-estate logic:

Low ceilings = either revolutionary war era or after 1945.

No moldings = 60’s thru 80’s

Paneling, fake marble countertops, wrought iron = focusing like a laser on the 70’s, man!

Kitchen, fireplace surround = renovations done about 10 years ago

new master bathroom cabinets, real granite countertop = renovations finished this year to prep this baby for sale

fish bathroom = clearly a redo circa ‘00 – love that sink – but why? why? why?

House plants, clutter, more clutter = older homeowners who remember the 70’s really, really well

The big seventies reveal — after the jump!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

, , ,
Long Point
01/31/08 5:38pm

Long Point, Long Walk, Long Story

by
Spring Branch, Streets
No Comments

Hillendahl Cemetery, Long Point, Spring Branch, Houston

There’s just too much to take in from the latest rambling, illustrated walking tour by David Beebe and John Nova Lomax, narrated in harmony from their two separate corners of the Texan blogosphere. The pair’s latest venture — appropriately enough — runs along Long Point, through the heart of Spring Branch:

. . . primarily Long Point is a binary street combining Mexico and Korea. In contrast to the multi-ethnic riot that is Bissonnet, or the Pan-Asian explosion that is Bellaire, Long Point is binary. Some businesses fuse into MexiKorea. The Koryo Bakery, right next door to the only Korean bookstore in Houston, touts its pan dulce y pastels, for example, and it seems that many of the Korean-owned businesses aim at Spanish-speakers more than Anglos. (Someone should open a restaurant out here called Jose Cho’s TaKorea.)

The camera-and-tequila-toting duo guide us through a shady thrift-store nirvana they declare to be drab but safe, pointing out salient features along the way: cans of silkworm pupae in a former Kroger turned Korean supermarket, and the historic Hillendahl Cemetery (pictured above) carved out of one corner of a Bridgestone tire barn parking lot.

After the jump, more Spring Branch walking-tour highlights!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

, , , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page Next Page »