From his perch high in the (formerly AIG) America Tower on Allen Parkway, Swamplot reader Stephen Cullar-Ledford forwards this latest dramatic scene, which aches for suitably metaphorical captioning.
A few months ago it was fog, this afternoon it’s a rainbow over downtown . . .
Photo: Stephen Cullar-Ledford
Reporting on the growth and development of Houston for a continuing NPR series on how cities grow and change, national Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep hopes to get some tips from Swamplot readers: “I’d like to identify a few middle-income Houston-area neighborhoods that are still growing, in spite of the national housing trouble. I’m also looking for especially interesting people who have moved to the area in the past few years. Any thoughts come to mind?” Suggestions for contacts can go to Inskeep directly. But y’all can squabble about the neighborhoods right here in the comments, no? [Steve Inskeep; email]
A reader fills us in on the toll the nationwide downturn has taken over the last year on EDI Architecture, once one of the largest architecture firms in Houston. EDI, which specialized in multifamily projects, had more than 120 people on its highrise team not too long ago — plus an additional 80 employees in New York, California, and Angola offices.
As of June, the reader reports, the firm was down to fewer than 30 employees, total.
Who says the architecture business in Houston is slow?
What’s a struggling mall to do these days? How about turning off the air conditioning . . . and hosting a comic-book convention! Robert W. Boyd reports from the scene:
Despite a great location [on Highway 6 between Westheimer and Richmond] and not bad interior, West Oaks Mall is plagued with vacancies. And unlike malls like Memorial City Mall, West Oaks is not able to hide the gaps. . . .
West Oaks needed to occupy its empty stores (even if temporarily), or at least cover them up. And it needed to get people in the mall who could at least potentially patronize the remaining stores. So that’s where Comicpalooza came in.
Enjoy your spring, everyone! Armed with a few pointed charts fueled by the latest data from HAR, Swamplot’s spreadsheet-wielding correspondent writes in again, this time with comments on March’s residential real-estate market report:
The Realtors always speak breathlessly of the “Spring Selling Season” with an almost religious reverence. Well it shows in the data. Home sales are 60-100% higher in the warm weather months. Prices are 10-20% higher, too. . . .
His company’s stock down more than 70 percent since last year and the 2009 calendar wiped clean of all new development projects, Weingarten Realty president and CEO Drew Alexander tells analysts and investors the REIT is gonna survive. “The key to the survival? An increase in cash on the balance sheet and a continued ‘focus on tenants that sell basic goods and services,’ Alexander commented. Those tenants include grocery stores, dry cleaners, quick-serve restaurants and value chains such as Ross, Marshall’s and TJ Maxx.” [Globe St.]
Allegro Builders president and CEO Lambert Arceneaux has no more employees to let go from his company, and has had problems paying his subcontractors, a source tells Swamplot. Starting way back in the olden days of a dozen years ago, Arceneaux pioneered the concept of tearing down tired old Sears catalog homes and single-bathroom working-class bungalows in the Heights and replacing them with high-dollar luxury homes in Victorian dressing. After proving to other builders that land banking and upscaling the Heights could be a lucrative business, Allegro eventually stretched its repertoire to million-dollar-plus whirlpool- and wine-cellar-enshrined fantasies that mimicked a variety of regional historical styles.
Our source says Allegro’s project manager was let go a couple of weeks ago — and that “there’s no money coming in.”
Allegro also developed two small but high-profile mixed-use buildings on Studewood. One is now known as the home of Bedford Restaurant. An earlier effort across 10th St., which houses Lance Fegen’s Glass Wall restaurant and Allegro Builders’ offices upstairs, is shown here in a rare early photo — minus its usual tight single-wythe street wall of valet-parked SUVs:
The fog cuts both ways: Reader Stephen Cullar-Ledford sends in this view looking back at Downtown, taken from the AIG American General building on Allen Parkway yesterday morning.
. . . Along with yet another economy/fog/building metaphor, ripe for the captioning:
Reader Mary Ellen Arbuckle sends in a few shots of the beleagured AIG American General building on Allen Parkway, which she snapped earlier this morning from a perch on the 36th floor of the KBR Building Downtown. “Could this be forefogging?” she asks.
It might be a bit tough for anyone see a way through this mess. Do things look any better if you take the long view?
KHOU-TV reporter Dave Fehling is trying to find people who might have interesting perspectives on how foreclosures are affecting various local neighborhoods — for a Channel 11 teevee news story he’s putting together. Can any Swamplot readers bail him out? Or maybe just point him in the right direction? Send Fehling an email (link at the bottom) with your sobering story. But really, if you’ve got something truly juicy to tell, we’ll want to hear about it too! [Swamplot inbox]
“Houston’s economy has diversified since the 80’s, but we’re still largely an oil & gas town. High energy prices ($145/barrel last summer) kept a lot of cash pumping into the Houston economy and cushioned us from much of the RE downturn faced by the rest of the country. At the same time, plant expansions and engineering contracts (refineries, chem plants, etc) were also experiencing record upswings and that boom has dropped significantly over the last 6 mos. The big cushion factors to our local RE market, oil/gas/petrochem have all dwindled down significantly, and that drop has occurred only recently. I seriously doubt the impact of those downturns underpinning our local economy has been priced into the Houston RE market to any significant extent. RE problems will not be limited to subprime loans by any stretch IMO.” [Mook, commenting on Those Wet and Wild Houston Mortgages: 18 Percent Now Underwater, 7 Percent More Still Paddling for Air]
Stunned by a telephone call, a Swamplot correspondent who works for a small Houston architecture firm weighs in on the latest turn in the U.S. construction downturn:
For the last few years, our firm has been hit up pretty regularly by agencies trying to get us to outsource our CAD drawing or 3D rendering work to some low cost labor pool in India, where they can supposedly do everything our employees do for much cheaper. So I was a bit surprised to get a call yesterday from one of these agencies based out of Chicago that went a little different than what I expected.
When I told the caller, who had an Indian accent, that we didn’t have any work to outsource, he said that wasn’t what he was calling about. He said he was working with developers in India as well as Dubai, Bahrain, and a number of other middle eastern countries I had never heard of and wanted to know if my firm wanted to get work from them. Obviously there’s nothing new about working for international clients, but coming from one of these agencies it definitely felt like a moment where flows in the global outsourcing pipeline had suddenly stopped and were now ready to start moving in reverse.
From heightslife (The Heights Life): RT @swamplot: Going Attractions: Hollywood Video Gives Up on the Tower Theatre http://twurl.nl/ly5csn
From GTello (Gus Tello): @Lennar Houston Real Estate Market Doing Much, Much Better Than Last October http://twurl.nl/t6uo7b (RT @HoustonPress @swamplot)
From HoustonPress (Houston Press): RT @swamplot: Houston Real Estate Market Doing Much, Much Better Than Last October http://twurl.nl/t6uo7b
From isthishouston (isthishouston): RT @swamplot: How’s That Corner of Harrisburg and Wayside Looking? http://snipurl.com/tay31From isthishouston (isthishouston): isthishouston Harrisburg & Wayside - http://isthishouston.com/2009/11/19/harrisburg-wayside/ - #houston @swamplot #eastend
From jenxer (Jennifer Mathis): I can hear it now: "Obsess much, Jen?" RT @swamplot: Comment of the Day: Demo Addicts http://twurl.nl/yf4twm
From kniemeier (Karen Niemeier): Attention East Enders! RT @swamplot How’s That Corner of Harrisburg and Wayside Looking? http://snipurl.com/tay31From jenxer (Jennifer Mathis): I need to quit reading @Swamplot's demolition reports. Seriously. This one breaks my heart. http://is.gd/4YfUZ
From TheLoopScoop (TheLoopScoop): Wow! Hope this works out! RT @GunsandTacos: RT: @swamplot: The Block Party’s Over http://twurl.nl/nxk320
From GunsandTacos (Jay): RT: @swamplot: The Block Party’s Over http://twurl.nl/nxk320
Comment of the Day: O Brother, Can You Spare a T-Square?
“. . . The reality is that we’re all trying to endure circumstances that possibly could be described as the Great Depression in architecture. Spoke to a Boston Architect last week who said the unemployment rate there is 50%. That’s not a recession… that’s a depression in our industry. So, we’re all enduring a brutal time. We can all get testy and nasty… which would be human nature. Or, we can work together to endure these hard times. Somebody please pass the soup.” [Darrell, commenting on Leaner and Meaner: The EDI Architecture Story]