Swamplot Archives by Tag: 77056

Monday, March 1, 2010

Post Oak Strip Centers Versus the Uptown Light Rail Plan: The Gathering Storm

At a meeting last week at Kenny & Ziggy’s Deli organized by Jim “Mattress Mack” MacIngvale, owners of businesses located along Post Oak Blvd.’s vast double phalanx of front-loading strip centers — and representatives of a few of their landlords — groused about Metro’s design for the new Uptown Line and prepared for possible battle. The Examiner Newspapers’ Michael Reed first brought attention to a few quirks of the latest design for the Post Oak stretch of the light-rail line late last year: It features 7 stations, 5 gated crossings, and in all close to 2 dozen traffic signals along the 1.7-mile path from Richmond Ave. to the 610 West Loop. It also blocks all instances of that staple of sprawl-style shopping-center development: the non-intersection left turn.

Had Metro been communicating its plans to the property owners? Had the property owners been relaying any information they received from the transit agency to their tenants?

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

How To Get More Houston Neighborhoods To Support the Downtown Dynamo Stadium Deal

   

It’s easy! Just start talking about an alternative plan for a stadium in some other area of the city. Neighborhood groups will be very supportive. Hey, it worked for Bellaire! “The [Bellaire City] Council voted 6-0 in favor of a resolution calling on the three parties to close a deal on a stadium just east of U.S. 59 near the East End. It also asked the dealmakers not to support a recently emerged proposal to build the stadium along Bellaire’s northern border.” [Houston Politics]

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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Boxing Out Dynamo Stadium

Will the Houston Dynamo get to build their stadium in East Downtown — or off Westpark, near the Galleria? So far, the odds are . . . neither. The final go-ahead for building a soccer stadium on the EaDo site will require county commissioners to formally join the new East Downtown TIRZ (boundaries shown outlined above). But they can’t vote on that proposal until commissioner El Franco Lee puts that decision on the agenda. So far he hasn’t done that — and he apparently won’t talk to the press or constituents about his intentions.

Meanwhile, over in Bellaire, city officials are rushing to put in some “stop-gap” zoning changes to the Research and Development District at the northern edge of the city. Most of the site of Midway Companies’ proposed Dynamo Stadium development there lies within Houston city limits, but a small portion on the east side is apparently in Bellaire’s RDD.

What sort of zoning changes are being discussed? Instant News Bellaire’s Angela Grant explains:

The new Comprehensive Plan envisions the RDD as a mixed-used urban area that includes residential, retail and offices, along with METRO’s future light-rail station. But as the zoning codes are currently written, developers could construct car lots, warehouses or other things that conflict with the “urban village” idea. . . .

The main change would be that developers wishing to construct residential, commercial or mixed-use buildings would need to go before the city in a planned development process to have their ideas approved before moving forward. The city would get a chance to review the plans, consider whether they conformed with the Comprehensive Plan, and reject any developments that did not.

Map showing outline of TIRZ 15: Gensler (PDF)

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Friday, February 5, 2010

Dynamo Stadium: What Difference Does the Location Make?

   

“Talk to Houston Dynamo CEO Oliver Luck, and you get a much different view of the depth of Bellaire-area stadium proposal by the Midway Companies that’s taken on a life of its own in the past week, largely due to the buzz phrase, ‘privately funded.’ ‘We have not been presented a plan by the Midway Companies,’ Luck said. ‘I can’t say whether there’s “no public money” involved. ‘We (the Dynamo) won’t talk to the city or county about this deal — we have pushed that responsibility to Midway. We know what our conditions are, and basically, it’s replicating the financial structure of the downtown deal. That’s sort of a threshhold question. If they can do that, we’ll go ahead. If they can’t, it won’t happen.’ Under the East Downtown (a district now known as EaDo) deal, the Dynamo would pay about $60 million with the city of Houston and Harris County each guaranteeing about $10 million through a special tax reinvestment district.” [West University Examiner; previously on Swamplot]

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Monday, February 1, 2010

Comment of the Day: Inside the Stanford Financial Group Offices at 5050 Westheimer

   

“I have been through this building and it is decorated entirely in a (expensive) mahogany-green marble color scheme, put in place about 10 years ago. There is a large Palladian skylight with an ornate stair connecting the upper levels. Sir Allen’s office was huge with floor to ceiling wood paneling with some impressive wood coffers on the ceiling. Allen wanted all the offices around the world to look the same, so they all used this exact same color scheme. The furniture was of the not-so-inspiring big heavy mahagony type and the art on the walls were bad Audubon print reproductions. What was so wierd about the office was how empty it was. This was 2002 and there was almost noone in the building, despite the extreme amount of money that he spent renovating it. There were rows and rows of empty offices and the parking garage had the same empty feeling. There was a private dining room and a commercial kitchen in the building also, with a full time chef (food was great!). The whole building seemed as if it was supposed to present an image of old money grace and prestige, but somehow, it just wasn’t quite right.” [mt, commenting on Westheimer Office Building and All: Allen Stanford Says Sell!]

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Your Brief Guide to Allen Stanford’s Houston Landing Pads

Having trouble keeping track of all the homes, condos, and apartments financier, philanthropist, and accused Ponzi schemer Robert Allen Stanford had set up for his relations in Houston? With all the recent news reports, following it all can get confusing.

We hadn’t encountered a comprehensive account from local media coverage. But we hadn’t checked the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, either. It turns out that reporter Patsy R. Brumfield — who is currently in the throes of withdrawal from a 6-year-long Nexium habit — had put together this quick survey of the sites of Stanford’s Houston-area comings and goings for the Tupelo, Mississippi, paper last August:

[Stanford] and his wife, Susan, now estranged, lived in the upscale Tanglewood area at 5476 Holly Springs Drive. The Spanish-style home, with red-tile roof and white stucco exterior, looks comfortable but not particularly impressive among a neighborhood of near-mansions.

His fiancée’, Andrea Stoelker, and Stanford maintained a home in the multi-storied Museum Tower at 4899 Montrose Blvd. Stoelker still lives in No. 1304 while a federal court document says Stanford’s son and daughter, Ross and Allena Stanford, and their mother, Louise Sage, who moved to Houston from Dallas, are living in the same apartment building in No. 1905.

Another reason for Stanford to ride those Museum Tower elevators:

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Friday, January 29, 2010

Westheimer Office Building and All: Allen Stanford Says Sell!

The 3-story, 62,000-sq.-ft. office building across from the Galleria that was once the headquarters for the Stanford Financial Group will at last go up for sale. Accused Ponzi schemer Robert Allen Stanford, awaiting his trial in a Conroe jail cell, had opposed the sale of any real estate owned by the corporations he controlled until 2 weeks ago, but subsequently changed his mind. A court ruling last week makes it official.

The office building at 5050 Westheimer sits on 1.6 acres and includes a 285-space parking garage. Also to be sold by Dallas court-appointed receiver Ralph Janvey in “stalking horse auctions”: Stanford’s Sugar Land airplane hangar, as well as other properties in Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina, Mississippi, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

What about those condos in the Stanford Lofts Downtown?

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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Dynamo Plan B: The Stadium at Bellaire Station

More details on that newly proposed alternate location for Dynamo Stadium that the soccer team is now apparently considering: It’s a 30-acre parcel at the southeast corner of Westpark and S. Rice Blvd., across from the Sam’s Club parking lot and Bubba’s Texas Burger Shack. That’s just southwest of the intersection of 59 and the 610 Loop, and right next to the planned location of the Uptown and University light-rail lines’ Bellaire Station — at Westpark and North 1st St.

Brad Feels, CEO of Midway Companies, tells the Chronicle’s Chris Moran he’s envisioning a mixed-use development there somewhat like Dallas’s Mockingbird Station, which sits just across the Central Expressway from SMU’s Ford Stadium, and which features restaurants and retail, office buildings, apartments, and a movie theater complex. (Midway is the developer of CityCentre, now pretty much complete at the site of the former Town & Country Mall.) Feels first contacted the Dynamo’s Oliver Luck with information about the property in October or November of last year.

What’s happening with plans to build a Dynamo Stadium in East Downtown?

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Friday, January 22, 2010

Skanska Post Oak Tower: We Don’t Need a Bank To Build This

An executive with Skanska USA tells the Houston Business Journal’s Jennifer Dawson that the American subsidiary of the Swedish project development and construction company will build and finance this new freeway-side Galleria spec office building all by itself. Design work for the 14-story tower and 8-story parking garage, though, was farmed out to Kirksey.

Where will it go? The 2.3-acre former site of Tony’s Ballroom at 3009 Post Oak Blvd., across the street from the Water Wall Park. Metro will likely want a piece of that property too: A thin, mostly triangular sliver along the property’s western edge is needed to accommodate the new Uptown Line set to run down Post Oak.

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Comment of the Day: How Houstonians Can Live Longer, More Satisfying Lives

   

“I’ve managed to avoid the Galleria area for 2-3 years now and quite enjoy it! That area is a constant pain, construction or not. I’m sure I’ve added a few extra years to my life merely by removing Uptown as an option for anything.” [tanith27, commenting on Trimming Uptown Trees and Driveways: Where Metro Is Shopping for Land on Post Oak Blvd.]

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Trimming Uptown Trees and Driveways: Where Metro Is Shopping for Land on Post Oak Blvd.

Metro’s most recent street reclassification plan indicates that the transit authority will need a grand total of about 3.2 acres of land on Post Oak Blvd. to squeeze in its new Uptown rail line, reports the River Oaks Examiner’s Mike Reed.

The most notable target of Metro acquisition efforts will likely be a roughly 14-ft.-wide swath of tree-lined land along the Post Oak edge of the newly minted Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park, pictured above. The Williams Tower immediately to the north is due the same sort of trim, because the Hampton at Post Oak assisted living facility across the street is located much closer to Post Oak.

An even bigger bite would be taken out of the west side of Dillard’s if the current design goes forward: a 29,476-sq.-ft. strip that “would appear to include the ramp leading to the second-story of the garage,” Reed reports. The Galleria itself would lose only 1,019 sq. ft.

There’s a whole lot more in the plan. In all, pieces of 48 separate parcels are on Metro’s Post Oak shopping list so far:

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Galleria Pocket Park Fight Ends with TIRZ Reaching into Pocket

   

Twin septuagenerian veterinarians Jock and James Collins, whose property on the corner of San Felipe and Post Oak Ln. adjacent to BLVD Place was taken by eminent domain 2 years ago, settled their dispute with the city this past August after receiving a $990,000 payment from the Uptown TIRZ, reports Mike Snyder: “The amount of the settlement is less than the $1.4 million Wulfe offered the brothers for the property in 2006, an offer they refused because they wanted a lump sum rather than payments over several years. However, it’s more than twice the $433,800 that the city asserted the land was worth in December 2006, the agreed-upon date for settlement discussions, [the Collins brothers' attorney, J. Cary] Gray said. The brothers contended the land was worth $1,012,000, Gray said. The Collins brothers, along with leaders of some government watchdog groups, contended the park was a pretext for providing a landscaped entrance to [Ed] Wulfe’s [Blvd Place] development at public expense. Documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle last year showed that the condemnation helped Wulfe close a $12.5 million land deal for a planned residential tower within the development, although plans for that project have been delayed because of the recession. [Mayor] White repeatedly denied that political considerations were a factor. The need for land to widen San Felipe wasn’t disputed, and White said it was a better deal for taxpayers for the city to take the entire parcel.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]

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Friday, December 11, 2009

The Lights of Post Oak: Two Dozen Stops Along the Uptown Line

Once the new Metro Uptown light-rail line is built, Post Oak Blvd. could feature more than 23 stoplights along its 1.7-mile stretch between Richmond Ave. and the 610 Loop, reports the River Oaks Examiner’s Mike Reed. A report prepared last October by the group of companies contracted to build the new Uptown Line lists 21 stoplights and 7 stations.

But that information’s got to be out of date, right?

. . . in response to questions, a Metropolitan Transit Authority spokeswoman said Tuesday that since the report was written, the number of potential signals has increased to 23, with an additional traffic light and an additional pedestrian light under consideration.

While the proposals contained in such reports are subject to change, the original document indicates the scope of the project combined with the density and development in the area would make substantial alterations to the plan difficult at best.

Reed also reports a few details on the rebuilding of Post Oak:

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Friday, November 20, 2009

The Surrender of Greenway Plaza: Morgan Stanley’s Great Houston Office Building Investment Flop

What do all these Houston office towers have in common?

That’s right — they’re all part of the vast Crescent Real Estate Equities empire, which at the peak of the market 2 years ago comprised 54 properties in all, stretching from Texas to the California coast. That’s when Morgan Stanley snatched up the whole thing for a mere $6.5 billion, thanks in part to a little $2 billion loan from Barclays Capital.

Today, Morgan Stanley announced it is giving up on the whole thing. Back to the bank all those properties go. All of them. (Okay, minus a few that were jettisoned along the way.)

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Thursday, November 5, 2009

Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: In the Zone

Where was that home that was featured in this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game? And did anyone win that RDA membership?

First, let’s run through the locations you guessed: Braes Heights, Highland Village, on Brogden Rd. in Memorial, Southampton, Rice Village, Midtown (2 guesses), “somewhere off Washington Ave.,” St. George Place, Hyde Park (also 2 guesses), Cottage Grove, “north of Fairview, east of Dunlavy, near Wilson Elementary,” “between Shepherd and Waugh, just south of Washington, maybe around Feagan St.,” Timbergrove Manor (2), Montrose, the Museum District, Camp Logan, the Heights (2), “just east of Memorial Park, south of Washington, north of Memorial, near Westcott,” Rice Military (3), near Memorial Park, in the “River Oaks” area, “in the upper west Washington Ave/Rice Military vicinity,” near Winter and Houston Streets (2), Sunset Heightsish, Upper Kirby, Shady Acres (2), “north Heights,” Sunset Heights, “within a mile of the north Loop,” off Quitman, East Downtown, Fifth Ward, Downtown, the Caceres development, “between Montrose and the Museum District” (2), Jackson Hill, the West End, and near the Menil.

The winner of that one-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance? Longtime NGG player justguessin, who just guessed this guess:

First, I’ll go with somewhere off Washington Ave. Second, St. George’s Place, so many townhomes over there.

One of those new modern townhomes with all of the slate tiles on the exterior.

This house must have been built recently. There are a few too many textures in this place….cement floors, granite and marble counters, and the ubiquitous “tumble stone” backsplashes. Also, the rug in the bedroom seems to keep showing up in the NGG houses. You would also have to sell the dining room table with the house…what else could work there?

Congratulations, justguessin!

This week we also recognize the considerable efforts of reader mojo jojo, who already knew the answer (and wrote in to let us know that), but went ahead and posted this remarkable entry anyway, just to throw the rest of you off track:

Just from my initial peruse through the photos, two things immediately caught my eye; the window placement and the curved walls in the dining room and just past the kitchen. Noticing these items, I am certain that this is a recently constructed contemporary/modern home. On closer inspection, I noticed that through the four windows in the living room, I can see that the property has been landscaped with an abundance of tropical plantings, consisting of large green leafy foliage. From the size of the landscaping, I would estimate that this home was built somewhere around 2005 or 2006. Although I don’t see any, I would bet my first Gin & Tonic of the morning that the property has its fair share of palm trees.

From the photo of the master bedroom, again looking out the windows, this photo also gives two clues to location! Out these windows, you see mature trees both on this property as well as across the street. This indicates that the home is located in an established neighborhood, maybe from the 30’s to the 50’s. The second, and most important clue, is the slope of the street running in front of the home (bottom of the middle window). I can tell that the road slopes down to the left! Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

This home is located in Braes Heights, what should be Section 9. I am sure it is located on one of the streets that run North or Northwest from N Braeswood Blvd, between Stella Link and Buffalo Speedway. My guess would be that the home is within five to 10 lots North of N. Braeswood Blvd. Another clue, which I almost missed, is the framed diplomas located in the open cabinets in the study. These diplomas look just like those that hang behind my Dr’s desk. My theory is that the owner is a Dr who does ER work, thus the close proximity of Braes Heights to the Med Center is perfect.

Did it work?

So where is this place, really?

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