More imports for West Ave! A tidbit from the Chronicle:
Rome, a resort-style day spa and salon, plans to open at West Ave. in the summer of 2009. Conceived by Las Vegas-based spa operators, Resources & Development, the spa will encompass more than 10,000 square feet in the mixed-use development at Kirby and Westheimer.
West Ave rendering: Urban Partners
Read more about: 77098, New Construction, Retail, River Oaks, Theming, Upper Kirby
Swamplot reader Buildergeek sends pictures from the demolition of the former Martha Turner Properties building at the corner of Westheimer and Hazard.
Whatever’s happening to the site, it sure doesn’t sound like what Nancy Sarnoff reported a year and a half ago in the Chronicle:
The old headquarters of Martha Turner Properties near River Oaks has been sold for the third time in as many years to a florist who plans to gut the property, add a floral showroom and lease out space to other businesses.
The owners of Plants ’n’ Petals, a 25-year-old flower shop located near Highland Village, purchased the former real estate office at 1902 Westheimer for an undisclosed amount. . . .
The renovations will include installing windows on the Westheimer-facing facade, gutting the interior and adding a mezzanine for offices.
The building will have about 12,000 square feet of space when it’s finished by the end of 2008.
After the jump: Clearly, the building was too close to the street!
Read more about: 77098, Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Hazards, Proposed Developments, Streets, Westheimer, Winlow Place
Houston restaurant reporter Cleverley Stone has names and details of four new restaurants and a bar slated to open at West Ave, the multistory mixed-use development now under construction on the corner of Westheimer and Kirby. All are culinary imports from Dallas, San Antonio, or California, though one has already moved nearby:
With the ambience of a European café, indoor and alfresco options will be available with dining areas separated by a wall of French doors. The décor will incorporate custom built wine racks and handpainted fresco wine labels on canvas. The menu will offer a contemporary collection of French-Continental, Asian Fusion and Wine Country
Though a number of the 390 luxury apartments upstairs are scheduled to become available this August, the restaurants and stores below them in West Ave’s first phase won’t open until August 2009.
After the jump, two more newish images of West Ave from the architect’s website.
Read more about: 77098, Apartments, Bars, Mixed Use, New Construction, Restaurants, Retail, River Oaks, Upper Kirby
It’s gonna get kinda lonely soon at the Karpas Properties offices on W. Alabama. Owner Hedley Karpas has sold his company to Martha Turner Properties, leaving a few agents and employees to scramble for new homes.
Karpas told his 60 employees — including more than 40 agents — about the sale Tuesday morning. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Karpas told the Chronicle’s Nancy Sarnoff that he’ll become a broker associate at Martha Turner Properties. But he won’t be bringing many people with him:
Turner said she will be interviewing about a dozen Karpas agents and retain a “select few.”
Ouch. According to Sarnoff, Karpas’s office will close at the end of this month, though agents will continue to work with existing clients.
Photo still from virtual tour of Karpas Properties office: TK Images
Read more about: 77098, Openings and Closings, Real Estate Agents
How poetic is it that the lone holdout in a 2-acre plot on West Alabama that Gables Residential wants to tear down so it can build up to 150 more apartments — and maybe some street-level shops — is called . . . Distinctive Details?
Little Woodrow’s will be shutting down March 2nd, but Distinctive Details, which rents linens and party supplies, wants the Atlanta REIT to triple its $150K lease buyout offer.
Read more about: 77098, Apartments, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Upper Kirby
A short item in the Houston Business Journal is encouraging rumors of a new highrise on Shepherd, one block south of the Alabama Theater Bookstop.
That’s the current location of jewelry store Fly High Little Bunny, along with the Jamail Real Estate office shown in this photo sent in by a Swamplot reader. The property includes two houses in back.
But the new development could stretch all the way to W. Alabama. A poster on HAIF claims the same buyer is also purchasing the shopping center on the north side of the block, which contains Ruchi’s Taqueria and Roeders Pub, and is planning highrise apartments and a parking garage, with retail space on the ground floor.
Read more about: 77098, Alabama Theater, Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Highrises, Proposed Developments, Shopping Centers, Westlawn Terrace
A real estate agent writes in to report that the grand compromise to save all those Live Oaks lining Kirby Dr. between Richmond and Westheimer isn’t going to save anything:
Despite a compromise that reclaimed 7 feet of paved width from a plan to revamp Kirby Drive, it now appears that all of the trees between Richmond Avenue and Westheimer Road will be lost to construction.
Houston foresters told a group of about 30 residents Thursday that after walking the site Dec. 7, it was determined that even with a roadway that is 73 feet across, the majority of trees will be unable to survive.
City Forester Victor Cordova said only eight trees within the area have a “realistic chance” of surviving, and that is because they are relatively small rather than in a viable location. He called moving those trees “a very expensive venture.”
Our agent-informant is aghast, and tells us that either the trees stay or she leaves Houston. That sounds kinda drastic, and doesn’t give much credit to the real improvements to Houston’s quality of life the Kirby Dr. reconstruction will likely achieve:
The City insists that the street be widened not to increase capacity but to increase the lane widths. A Public Works engineer told me recently that drivers of Hummers and some large SUVs find the current Kirby lane width “uncomfortable.”
Read more about: 77098, Streetscapes, Trees, Upper Kirby
First, they came for Maryland Manor. And then: the Greenbriar Chateau apartments? Just what is happening to the great Mansard apartments of Houston? And what will be next on the chopping block: that birthing place of Bushitude, Chateau Dijon?
No 23-story tower has been proposed for the Greenbriar Chateau site—yet. But think of the stylistic possibilities: a Tuscan shopping center . . . or taller, vaguely turn-of-the-century New York-ish apartments. Sure, it’s more than three-and-a-half acres at the northern edge of Boulevard Oaks, but really, it’s those mansards that have to go.
A local investment group has obtained a $10-million loan to buy the 145-unit Greenbriar Chateau in the near southwest submarket. Given the location, it could end up as a conversion into a higher-density project.
Bammelbelt LP bought the complex, built nearly 40 years ago at 4100 Greenbriar St., a prime infill location within minutes of Rice University, Hermann Park and the Texas Medical Center. Sources familiar with the area say rising land costs for infill sites could prompt similar deals by investors buying aging properties as land plays.
Swamplot readers: is this your home? When you get that little slip in your mailbox, let us know.
Read more about: 77098, Apartments, Boulevard-Oaks, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Financing, George W. Bush, Real Estate Investing, Style
The wisdom of King Solomon lives on! The promised grand compromise on the Kirby Dr. street trees has been officially unveiled: Many of the oaks lining the busy street will get to keep most of their roots! The street surface will be expanded
to a standard of 73 feet, widening to 74 feet for left-turn lanes without signals and 77 feet at intersections with stoplights. Kirby is currently 66 feet wide.
That means up to five-and-a-half feet of trimming.
In order to protect trees during construction, a process called “water sawing” will be used to trim roots away from the construction area.
It won’t hurt a bit!
Read more about: 77098, Streetscapes, Trees, Upper Kirby
Worried that there still aren’t going to be enough places to live near the corner of Westheimer and Kirby after all the construction is done? Relax. The Texas division of Orlando, Florida’s ZOM Development just got a slew of construction permits approved yesterday for their next fancy apartment complex just a few blocks to the east of that busy intersection, at the corner of Revere and Cameron, at 2701 Revere St. (Cleverly, the address on the permits is listed as 2727 Revere. Why would they give it that number?)
Going up: Le Maison on Revere, 431 rental units on a just-under-six-acre site, a five-story mix of “flats and high-end loft units.”
But it looks like there’s more to it. Not satisfied with the Beaux-Arts-meets-the-Alamo stylings of the Bel Air Apartments they recently developed and filled up not too far away on Allen Parkway, the sleek modern look of the 2727 Kirby tower now going up across the street from their new development, or the apparent Superman-in-Gotham City theme of West Ave on the other side of Kirby, ZOM has apparently decided that their new complex will, at last, point out the absurdities of the area’s stylistic hodgepodge.
How? By theming the building with a higher, more symbolic purpose in mind.
That’s right: The Le Maison on Revere apartments will be marketed and dressed up to look like “New Orleans garden style apartments,” and thereby perform the public service of reminding residents of the former glory of their neighboring city and the dangers of living at low elevations in a high-water town.
Expect the top floors to fill up first.
Read more about: 77098, Apartments, Development Strategy, Flooding, Hazards, Lofts, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, New-Orleans, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Style, Theming, Upper Kirby
The oaks along Kirby Dr. between Richmond and Westheimer have spoken, and they appear to be against being removed so that traffic lanes can be widened by twenty inches.
Since FEMA is providing funding to install massive 72-inch culverts under Kirby from 59 to San Felipe anyway, folks at the Upper Kirby TIRZ figured, why not go all the way and make the street safer for buses and fat-ass trucks? And while we’re at it, why not pave those intersections with giant stars? Sure, that might mean less space for trees and sidewalks, but we’ll be able to squeeze some new ones in.
None of this is making Trees for Houston, the organization that planted many of those trees umpteen years ago, very happy. But maybe they’re just not being appreciative enough of the new 14-foot-wide median they’ll be able to drop their tiny saplings into. Got it? On Kirby everything gets rebuilt.
Read more about: 77098, Streetscapes, Trees, Upper Kirby
A whole lotta demo going on: A county outpost downtown, more industrial buildings along Studemont, plenty of houses, and more. Our daily list of addresses begins after the jump.
Read more about: 77002, 77004, 77007, 77011, 77018, 77023, 77025, 77026, 77027, 77028, 77056, 77079, 77080, 77098, Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions
A lovely and diverse group of demolitions in today’s edition. See them after the jump.
Read more about: 77004, 77007, 77018, 77019, 77042, 77054, 77055, 77056, 77057, 77072, 77081, 77088, 77091, 77098, Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions
The Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Med Center goes down, Green Hill Dr. gets flattened, and more in today’s demolition report, below.
Read more about: 77004, 77018, 77025, 77030, 77032, 77033, 77098, Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions
Today’s list of Houston demolition permits features six houses ready to bite the dust. Where are they? Keep reading.
Read more about: 77003, 77008, 77028, 77091, 77098, Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions
Coming down soon . . . in a neighborhood near you! It’s our daily report of sold demolition permits. Our list of casualties approved Friday begins after the jump.
Read more about: 77005, 77008, 77019, 77025, 77051, 77098, Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions, Houston Heights, Montrose
