February 26, 2013 – 9:30 am
A source close to Blanco’s ownership tells Swamplot that by November the West Alabama bar and grill will close. Meanwhile, Blanco’s will be scouting for a new location, the source says, “somewhere in the area.” Swamplot reported in January that St. John’s School was buying 13 acres of property in River Oaks that include 3406 West Alabama St., where the incongruous honky-tonk and its dusty parking lot — owned for decades by Barry E. DeBakey, the heart surgeon’s son who died in 2007 of liver failure — have been for 30 years.
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Read more about: 77027, Bars, Land Sales, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, River Oaks
February 25, 2013 – 2:30 pm
Most of this East Downtown property, according to city records, was purchased in November 2012 by CitySide Homes; signs recently posted here suggest that the contemporary townhome’s eastward expansion will continue to continue — this site is just 5 blocks from where Urban Living says it’s building around that leaning Leeland St. live oak — on these 2 purchased parcels between Polk, Clay, Nagle, and Delano that add up to a little more than an acre.
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Read more about: 77003, East Downtown, Land Development, Land Sales, New Construction: Residential, Signage, Townhomes
January 23, 2013 – 1:00 pm
The general landscaping public hasn’t been able to shop at San Jacinto Stone since January 19, when the 68-year-old Heights rockyard began the process of closing for good. (Contractors, at least, have until the end of February.) Back in August, San Jacinto Stone agreed to sell its 8 acres on Yale to a retail developer; yesterday, the deal was closed by Ponderosa Land Development, who says it has plans to build a shopping center on the property just south of I-10 and just north of the Washington Heights Walmart.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Read more about: 77007, Commercial Real Estate, Houston Heights, Land Sales, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers
January 10, 2013 – 10:08 am
Doug Britton thought he had the deal of a lifetime: a contract to buy 101 acres of land (in red on the map) just south of the spot in Spring where — it was rumored at the time — ExxonMobil planned to develop a new corporate campus. And it was available for cheap: just $5 million. Britton contacted two brokers at Bandier Partners to help him move on it.
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Read more about: 77388, ExxonMobil, Fraud, Land Development, Land Sales, Real Estate Agents
January 8, 2013 – 3:11 pm
St. John’s School has purchased 13 acres of land, expanding its 29-acre campus in River Oaks. Headmaster Mark Desjardins tells the Houston Chronicle that the school on Westheimer won’t be developing the new acreage right away and hasn’t decided what will become of the businesses already there at the intersection of W. Alabama and Buffalo Speedway. Those include a fortune teller, the River Oaks Plant House, known for its oversized topiary-like Chia pets (dancing at left), and Blanco’s Bar & Grill, sitting there in a dusty parking lot as though it’s on a far-flung farm road and not right across the street from the 23-story Lamar Tower. (It’s hiding behind the Blanco’s sign in the photo above.)
Read more about: 77027, 77098, Bars, Buying and Selling, Land Sales, River Oaks, Schools
December 14, 2012 – 9:47 am
Longtime speculation that the entire vacant 104-acre site formerly occupied by the AstroWorld amusement park might someday be turned into some sort of singular mixed-use development took a hit yesterday as the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo announced it is buying the entire western half of the property, which sits across the 610 Loop from Reliant Park. The charitable organization hopes to close on the 48-acre tract by the end of the year. The purchase price is listed on its website as approximately $42.8 million, or $20.50 per sq. ft., “after charitable considerations by the seller.” That’s a Dallas investment firm known as the Mallick Group, which has owned the vacant property since 2010.
What will it rodeo do on all that land?
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Read more about: 77054, AstroWorld, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Land Sales, Parking-Lots, Reliant Park, Rodeo
November 28, 2012 – 5:34 pm
Missing from today’s announcement by KBR that the company has completed the sale of its Ship-Channel-front 136-acre former headquarters campus at 4100 Clinton Dr. in the Fifth Ward: any mention of the buyer — or the sales price. Both details were available earlier in the week on a different sale the engineering, construction, and military contracting company was involved in — of the 40-story Downtown office tower that KBR leases and partially owned. (The tower at 601 Jefferson went to an affiliate of New York’s W.P. Carey, for $174.6 million.) [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Image: HFF
Read more about: 77020, Buying and Selling, Fifth Ward, Houston Ship Channel, Land Sales
August 21, 2012 – 3:01 pm
Weingarten Realty has at last sold the 2.08-acre parcel under the Fiesta Mart on Studewood at 14th St. — to a Houston developer of assisted-living and independent-living complexes. Bridgewood Properties, the company behind the Village of Meyerland complex under construction at 4141 N. Braeswood Blvd. near Stella Link on the site of the former Rutlege Apartments and the Village at the Woodlands Waterway, plans to build a 4-story, 80-unit building in place of the grocery store — with independent-living apartments on the top floor, a bottom floor for “memory care” patients, and 2 floors of assisted-living units sandwiched in between. Fiesta’s lease expires in January; Bridgewood plans to begin building a “Craftsman style” structure in its place shortly thereafter, which should take 16 to 18 months to finish.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Read more about: 77008, Buying and Selling, Grocery Stores, Houston Heights, Land Sales, Proposed Developments, Senior Living, Weingarten Realty
After more than 3 years of negotiations and court battles, the fenced-off 4.85-acre property covered with overgrown and vandalized buildings once known as the Park Memorial condos has at last been sold. Owners of the 108 properties at 5292 Memorial Dr. who were able to hold onto their units after the city declared them unsafe and barred anyone from living there in 2008 (or who snatched them up for low, low prices later) should be receiving their checks soon. The buyer is JLB Properties from Dallas, developers of the Ava apartments on Highmeadow near Hillcroft. The company is reportedly planning a new apartment complex on the Park Memorial site, which sits north of Buffalo Bayou at the corner of Memorial Dr. and Detering.
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Read more about: 77007, Apartments, Buying and Selling, Condos, Land Sales, Lawsuits, Park Memorial Condominiums, Rice Military
Long before he sold the land where the brand-new BBVA Compass Stadium for the Houston Dynamo soccer team now sits to the city, former council member and longtime land speculator Louis Macey had a deal ready to go that would have turned the vacant land into some sort of close-to-Downtown entertainment venue, Catie Dixon reports: “He ended up with six blocks around Bastrop and Texas, which attracted the attention of Katy Mills and Enron. They agreed to buy the site if he could get 12 blocks and an exit ramp off the highway. (He convinced TxDOT to put in the Polk Street exit.) The deal fell through at the last minute . . .” Macey began buying up the properties in 1997. [Real Estate Bisnow; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Real Estate Bisnow
Read more about: 77003, Buying and Selling, Dynamo Stadium, East Downtown, Houston History, Land Sales
January 3, 2012 – 11:55 pm
“$20 a square foot? I’ll take a couple of feet. Can I pick which ones?” [big cat, commenting on Not Even Trying]
Read more about: Buying and Selling, Comments, Land Sales, Real Estate Marketing
November 22, 2011 – 11:41 am
Survey stakes have gone up around the Montrose Fiesta Market on the southeast corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama, directly across the street from the brand-new H-E-B Montrose Market.
What could that mean? A source who is not a party to the transaction claims that the survey is connected to a sale of the property, which is already under contract for “‘crazy money’ — something on the scale of $85-$90 SF”:
The reputed use will be for a 6 to 7 story multi-use development — something on the order of West Ave or the Read-King chimera promised for the SWC of Alabama and Shepherd. . . . Personally, I find the land purchase price to be pretty hard to believe . . . because market value of land in that area is $40 – $50 max or maybe $60 at a stretch. Fiesta’s lease expires in 2014 with no renewal and either they or the owner has an early out option. The other tenants in the center all have short lease terms with no renewal.
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Read more about: 77098, Apartments, Buying and Selling, Grocery Stores, Lancaster Place, Land Sales, Montrose, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Retail, Wilshire Village
November 3, 2011 – 5:00 pm
Yesterday was moving day for 2 unusual Downtown buildings: The 1905 Cohn and 1904 Foley (above) houses cattycorner from the George R. Brown Convention Center. Leftover single-family homes from an area once known as Quality Hill and now strangers in the land of skyscrapers and stadiums, they’d be notable Downtown residents even if they weren’t designated historic structures. The city is moving them across the street and a block closer to Minute Maid Park, where they’re intended to become add-ons to a mysterious Regional Tourism Center proposed for the 600 block of Avenida de las Americas. According to plans flashed at the last public meeting for the Downtown/EaDo Livable Centers Study, this new building dedicated to Upper Texas Gulf Coast vacationers would face the westbound light-rail line along Capitol St. and sit at the bottom of an unidentified residential tower:
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Read more about: 77010, Discovery Green, Downtown, Historic Preservation, Housemoving, Land Sales, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Tourism
October 3, 2011 – 9:03 am
New owners of a 50,000-sq.-ft. site at the southwest corner of Richmond and Mandell in Montrose, which includes Lucky Burger, The Harp Irish Pub, Maria Selma’s Mexican Restaurant, and Orange Bar: a partnership controlled by Braun Enterprises — the same group that bought the former Harold’s in the Heights clothing store last month. Space in the retail buildings totals more than 11,000 sq. ft. Braun tells reporter Katherine Feser his group plans to hold onto the property for now but imagines some new retail development could take place next. Leases for all 4 properties expire in 2014. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Braun Enterprises
Read more about: 77006, Buying and Selling, Castle Court, Land Sales, Montrose, Retail
September 29, 2011 – 1:06 pm
Here’s a shot of the now-vacant corner of Weslayan and West Alabama, where PM Realty Group has announced it’ll be constructing a 35-story apartment building and parking garage — with a restaurant and “service retail” — beginning next year. The 2.6-acre site is the former location of the Confederate House at 2925 Weslayan, later known as the State Grille, which was torn down in 2008. PM Realty bought the site from Giorgio Borlenghi’s Interfin Cos. last month. No renderings from PM Realty’s architects, RTKL, have been passed around yet.
Photo: Candace Garcia
Read more about: 77027, Apartments, Buying and Selling, Highland Village, Highrises, Land Sales, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments
Comment of the Day: Sorry, Bulk Sales Only
“$20 a square foot? I’ll take a couple of feet. Can I pick which ones?” [big cat, commenting on Not Even Trying]