Tag: 77098

Apartments
09/04/12 11:24am

Boulevard Oaks Kicks Out the Apartments on Poe Corner

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Boulevard Oaks, Demolitions, Proposed Developments
42 Comments

Tenants in a bank of courtyard-style apartment complexes across from Poe Elementary School at the northwest corner of North Blvd. and Hazard St. have received notices that their structures have been sold and will be demolished, so that the buyer can build single-family dwellings in their place. “I know one tenant has a lease until May 2013,” a source tells Swamplot, “but they are offering free rent for Sep/Oct if the tenant agrees to vacate by Nov 1.” Another tipster claims the buyer is Lovett Homes, and that the homebuilder plans to build 6 new “very high end” homes on the property.

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Home Design
08/07/12 1:40pm

Compounding a Centennial Cottage in Lancaster Place

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, Lancaster Place, Montrose
5 Comments

Talk about a gated driveway. This Lancaster Place cottage’s half-a-yard carport extends to the front sidewalk, with a double-garage door and entry gate punched into the lot-line iron fence. The combination gives the front yard a shaded pavilion as well as a parking area. It’s also the starting point of a partly-paved, partly-pebbled path to the front porch and an office in the converted, detached garage at the back of the lot. The 1910-built home has been updated several times, including some work in 2004. Since then, there’ve been big changes a couple blocks away at the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama: A new H-E-B Market has replaced some apartments, and some new apartments are about to replace the just-shuttered Fiesta Mart.

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Buying and Selling
07/20/12 11:26pm

Comment of the Day: The Lowdown on the Elevation Burger Lease

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Comments, Leasing, Quicklink, Restaurants, Upper Kirby
1 Comment

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE LOWDOWN ON THE ELEVATION BURGER LEASE “Update on this corner: Elevation Burger is set to open up in the near future. Jonathan Kagan Properties bought the property and did a fairly extensive update to the structure, then turned it over to Elevation Burger for their build out, which is currently well under way. Trust me, Mai Thai’s closing was a good thing. I own the property next door and saw a steady parade of roaches, rats, and various other vermin going in and out of that building over the past few years. Anytime you see a blue tarp on the roof of a building for months and months on end, it’s a pretty sure sign that they are in decline. If you don’t have the funds to fix your leaky roof in Houston, the end can’t be far off.” [Jared M, commenting on Bye Bye, Mai Thai? Feeding Another Kirby High-Rise Rumor]

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Houston Landmarks
07/19/12 1:22pm

Fair Warning: About To Mess with Alabama Theater Marquee

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Quicklink, Renovations, Retail, Shopping Centers, Upper Kirby
11 Comments

FAIR WARNING: ABOUT TO MESS WITH ALABAMA THEATER MARQUEE Publicists for Weingarten Realty want Swamplot readers to know that workers about to poke into the underside of the Alabama Theater marquee aren’t dismantling it. They’ll only be replacing the lights there with new LED fixtures. Doing that will require removing the soffit panels below the Shepherd-facing sign on the soon-to-be first Houston-proper Trader Joe’s. “The marquee will look just as it does today with the only exception being new energy efficient lighting on the underside,” the shopping-center owner tells Swamplot. The work should take about 2 weeks. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Weingarten Realty

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Lancaster Place
07/16/12 3:28pm

Scenes from the Dunlavy Fiesta Farewell Shopping Experience

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Montrose, Openings and Closings, Retail
48 Comments

Last night at the Fiesta on Dunlavy was the last night at the Fiesta on Dunlavy. Photographer-about-town Sarah Lipscomb, who began shopping at the store on the corner of West Alabama back when it was a Safeway, grabbed a few shots of the grocery store’s interior as she strolled the aisles there one last time:

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Galleria
07/09/12 12:16pm

Out with Mama Ninfa’s, in with Maggie Rita’s

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Quicklink, Restaurants, South Houston, Upper Kirby
36 Comments

OUT WITH MAMA NINFA’S, IN WITH MAGGIE RITA’S What’s behind the rebranding of the 3 non-Navigation Ninfa’s Mexican Food restaurants — on Kirby at Richmond, Post Oak north of San Felipe, and the Gulf Fwy. feeder Rd. at Winkler — into Maggie Rita’s Grill & Bar locations, and the attendant replacement of the well-known Houston restaurant’s Tex-Mex classics with . . . tapas? Besides freeing himself and co-owner Carlos Mencia from licensing payments for using the Ninfa’s name, Suave Restaurants’ Santiago Moreno explains, switching to the Maggie Rita’s chain means a lighter menu that customers might be able to eat from as often as 3 times a week. But by his calculation the food switch may not make much of a difference anyway: “We’ve found out consumer decisions are made by women,” Moreno tells Eric Sandler. “When we track what makes a woman decide where to eat Mexican food, it has to do with margaritas. It has nothing to do with food.” The changes won’t effect Ninfa’s on Navigation, which has been owned since 2007 by Legacy Restaurants. [Eater Houston] Photo of Ninfa’s at 1650 Post Oak Blvd.: AmREIT

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Apartments
06/26/12 11:18pm

Comment of the Day: Pack Them In

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Comments, Lancaster Place, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail
35 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: PACK THEM IN “Swamplotters crack me up. If this site were home to a bunch of crack houses and Fiesta wanted to tear them down and build this exact strip center (with or without decades of deferred maintenance) with a giant parking lot out front, every one would be up in arms about because it’s not dense enough, or urban enough, mixed use enough or pedestrian friendly enough. I see an eyesore going away, just [like] that dump that used to be across the street. I see $40-50 million of additional tax base that will toss another $1 million each and every year toward HISD and local government. I see room for 500-600 new residents in Houston’s core who will drop countless millions of dollars into bars, restaurants and retail stores and help Houston become an even more dynamic and vibrant city. I see progress. And I like it. Companies are hiring in Houston. People WANT to live in Houston. I say we accommodate them rather than force them to the next mile of empty prairie in the suburbs while letting our own city rot from the inside out.” [Bernard, commenting on Montrose Fiesta on Dunlavy Will Close Forever in Less Than a Month]

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Apartments
06/26/12 1:35pm

Montrose Fiesta on Dunlavy Will Close Forever in Less Than a Month

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Lancaster Place, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Retail
53 Comments

Fiesta Mart announced today that it will shut down its store at the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama — across the street from the newly built modern H-E-B Montrose Market — on July 15th. Developer Marvy Finger plans to build a 6-to-8-story “Mediterranean-style” apartment complex on the 3.68-acre site, which he bought last fall. Fiesta has operated the former Weingarten grocery store on the site since 1994.

Photo: Candace Garcia

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Public Transportation
06/18/12 10:28am

The Sewer and the Rail on Richmond

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Upper Kirby, Utilities
22 Comments

“Does major storm sewer work on Richmond between Kirby & Buffalo Speedway,” reader James Glassman wants to know, “mean Metro’s University Line has thrown up the white flag? Seems like all major work had been deferred until Metro broke ground there. But now this?”

Photo: James Glassman

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Houston Landmarks
06/12/12 11:12am

Alabama Letters Return to South Shepherd

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Retail, Signage, Upper Kirby
6 Comments

The letters on the totem sign for the former Alabama Theater at the corner of S. Shepherd and West Alabama went back up yesterday. The letters were taken down late last month; they’ve since been painted and had the neon lights hiding behind them replaced. The gutted theater will soon be showing a Trader Joe’s, but the sign still spells “Alabama.”

Photos: Amanda Andriola (top), Weingarten Realty (bottom)

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Houston Landmarks
05/25/12 2:04pm

Weingarten: We’re Saving the Alabama Letters

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Quicklink, Renovations, Shopping Centers, Signage, Upper Kirby
8 Comments

WEINGARTEN: WE’RE SAVING THE ALABAMA LETTERS Weingarten Realty is preparing reporters for a photo op in front of the Alabama Theater at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr. now being outfitted for a Trader Joe’s. The letters spelling “Alabama” that the company had removed earlier this week from the original tall totem sign in front of the 1939 Art Deco theater that the company recently gutted and leveled will soon be returned intact and unscrambled, a spokesperson promises. The letters are being painted and the neon lighting hidden inside them is being replaced. Expected homecoming date for the letters: sometime between June 13th and June 16th. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jay Rascoe

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Houston Landmarks
05/22/12 12:44pm

Taking Down the Letters on the Alabama Theater Sign

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Retail, Signage, Upper Kirby
16 Comments

Going on now: “The owner of the company taking down the Alabama theater sign letters says ‘the plan’ is to restore them and put them back,” tweets the Chron‘s Nancy Sarnoff, who was no doubt sent several urgent messages from passers-by wondering what was happening to the totem on Shepherd Dr. just north of West Alabama today. And an email property owner Weingarten Realty sent to Preservation Houston says that’s legit: “We are replacing the neon and painting the Alabama letters. In order to paint the letters we are removing them and will re install them.”

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Proposed Developments
05/14/12 9:59am

7-Story Southwest Freeway Audi Dealership Gets Go Ahead, Will Split Momentum

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Upper Kirby
41 Comments

Expect to see workers moving dirt on the 1.5-acre site at the northeast corner of Greenbriar and 59 within the next few weeks; the city’s planning commission last week voted to approve a variance granting permission for a 7-story auto dealership building at 2120 Southwest Fwy. to poke a few feet further toward Greenbriar (at left in the above rendering) than regulations allow. The result: the country’s largest — and tallest — flagship Audi dealership, featuring a 2-story car display case on the corner of the third and fourth levels that’ll bring the latest models up to eye level for drivers on the raised freeway who aren’t looking where they’re going.

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