A reader calls attention to the listing for 902 Rhode Place Unit C, heralding a brand-new 4-story multi-pack townhome with a singular location:
UNIQUE 4 STORY ROOF TOP TOWNHOUSE OVER LOOKING DOWNTOWN AND MEMORIAL PARK. 1 BLOCK FROM MEMORIAL PARK‘ALLEN PKWY AND TAFT.
The listing photos include the requisite Downtown skyscraper and Memorial Park jogger views shown above. So . . . what else is within eyeshot?
Okay, whichever of you folks has been doing that weird secret ceremony thing with the chicken and the bone and all down at the cemetery at West Dallas and Gross St.? Well, the gig is up! Swamplot is on to you! Or . . . at least a couple of camera-wielding readers are:
College Park Memorial Cemetery on W. Dallas (where Jack Yates among others is buried) is getting cleaned up and cleaned out, the better to walk the dog through. Interestingly enough, it may be getting used for other purposes as well. We have seen two dead chickens – having never seen any live ones there, and just yesterday, after discovering the second chicken, we also found a tableau of objects at the base of a hollow tree – a large, LARGE bone (about 15 in long), conch and scallop shell, nicely arranged, and a dead bird, stretched out to show his skeleton.
Hmmm . . . could this have anything to do with that 28-story Regent Square condo tower that’s slated to go up next door?
Parade of shocking, non-vegetarian-friendly photographic evidence follows:
Okay, everybody out with your Regent Square renderings! HAIF’s lockmat digs up images of additional structures planned for the 15-acre North Montrose mixed-use complex, including two separate projects from the Venezuelan Miami architect Luis Pons.
What’ve we got here?
Pons’s “Regent Square Launch” looks more like a transit station than a boathouse. But who knows? Buffalo Bayou is just across Allen Parkway!
Many more pics:
Here’s a view of the 28-story condo tower New York’s Handel Architects is designing for Regent Square, the 15-acre mixed-use project GID Urban Development Group is planning for North Montrose. The 450,000-sq.-ft. tower is meant for Regent Square’s westernmost reaches: the corner of West Dallas and Greenwich Place, just east of the College Memorial Park Cemetery.
Each of the 150 condos in the building has a balcony. All the units on the western face, shown above, have indented double-height outdoor spaces. The sleek eastern face, looking toward Downtown, is very different: It has a floor-to-ceiling curtainwall. Handel expects the building to be LEED-certified.
More images:
LETTING THE TIRZS FLOW Work on public improvements connected to the 4-million-sq.-ft. Regent Square project in North Montrose will begin by October, and work on the actual development will begin by a year later, according to an agreement approved by city council yesterday. GID Urban Development Group, the project’s developers, will be reimbursed for $10 million of its work on public streets and sidewalks through the Memorial Heights TIRZ. What’s next? “[Mayor] White said he generally has shied away from such public-private development efforts, but would continue to review opportunities on a case-by-case basis for distressed properties, such as Sharpstown Mall, and for other major projects already in the works that have been delayed or canceled amid the national economic crisis. . . . The mayor made note of a number of properties to which he hopes to attract developers, including in the Leland Woods TIRZ near Homestead Road and East Little York, the Near Northside TIRZ immediately north of downtown Houston, and in the Fifth Ward TIRZ. Other potential incentive packages may not be administered through a TIRZ, he added.” [Houston Chronicle; previously in Swamplot]
What’s inside that special $10 million life-support package for the Regent Square development City Council is considering?
The reimbursements proposed for Regent Square would be administered through the expansion of the Memorial Heights Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. Under a TIRZ, property tax revenues generated within the boundaries are frozen at a specified level. As development occurs and property values rise, tax revenue above that level, known as the increment, is funneled back into the zone to pay for infrastructure and capital improvements to help attract further development.
Under the plan before council today, part of the increment will be given back to the specific developer rather than the redevelopment authority that operates the TIRZ.
The cars, the people: The big city can be an intimidating place. How about these guys take on the Galleria next?
The newly revealed design for that $7 million pedestrian bridge over Buffalo Bayou near Montrose makes a brilliant metaphor for the appeal of this city, no? From a distance, it doesn’t seem like Houston is really . . . “passable,” either! But once you’re looking at it up close . . . sure, it’s all right: You can make it through. An excellent message to send prospective Houston tourists! Plus: Wasn’t that how the Houston Ship Channel got started too?
Official name of this Memorial Heights TIRZ project: The Tolerance Bridge. Perfect!
A reader sends along this photo of the very brightly painted new structure now up at the corner of Montrose and W. Clay, where the much-tamer red-and-yellow Golden Room Thai restaurant used to be.
According to the Golden Room website, when the restaurant reopens it will have the same ownership and food but a new name: Khun Kay Thai-American Café.
Fun pix from around town: Part of a convoy of about 40 tree trucks headed down the Eastex Freeway last weekend, looking for a little bit of work.
More photos:
GRAVE CONCERNS FOR REGENT SQUARE The College Memorial Park Cemetery once stretched across the entire block bounded by Dunlavy, W. Clay, Gross, and W. Dallas. Portions of the Allen House Apartments were built on former cemetery land that was sold in the 1960s. So what will the developers of Regent Square do? “In a statement, the company vice president said his group has created a site excavation action plan which includes continual archeological monitoring. So far, there is no documentation showing that the graves exist, but all parties agree that remains need to be preserved. The biggest goal is to restore the entire cemetery to what it use to be.” [11 News]
Whole Foods Markets’ recently announced plans to scale back some of its planned store openings will not disturb plans for new Houston stores on West Dallas at Waugh and in Boulevard Place — according to a report in the Houston Business Journal:
Scott Simon, executive marketing coordinator for Whole Foods, says this announcement will not impact any of the company’s plans in Houston.
The Austin-based health foods supermarket chain is planning to develop a 78,000-square-foot store at the southwest corner of Post Oak and San Felipe.
“Our Post Oak store would very likely not open until 2010 anyway, so this decision doesn’t affect our Houston plans,†says Simon.
Boulevard Place Whole Foods image: DMJM H&N
This updated rendering of Regent Square’s central square, showing a ghost-like tower looming in the not-so-distant distance, has been posted to CBRE’s leasing page for the project, notes sharp-eyed HAIF user ChannelTwoNews. A reader sent it to us, too.
What is it?
Two condo towers are planned for the first phase of the project. In a rendering leaked to us back in May, the condo towers are are drawn as shadowy boxes. But this new ghost tower isn’t one of them.
After the jump: the ghost of Regent Square’s future!
Thanks to two helpful readers, we have a solid update on Regent Square, now that the GID Urban Development Group has straightened out that kink in its plans. First comes word of updated drawings, panned in dizzying Ken Burns-worthy passes on the development’s website. And then: more of the scoop!
It’s all waiting for you, after the jump: a report on presentations at last week’s meeting of the North Montrose Civic Association, plus stationary images of the new Regent Square, lovingly stitched together for your at-a-glance perusal by another Swamplot correspondent.
Those of you still wondering why Regent Square’s quaint crooked street was axed from the project’s most recent plan — along with a few lush-looking inner courtyards — will be interested to read this explanation unearthed from a variance request submitted to the Planning Commission for today’s hearing:
After careful value engineering, it was determined to eliminate the below grade parking and replace that parking in additional structured garage parking. In addition, the diagonal private street that bi-sected the site has been modified and now runs perpendicular to Dunlavy. This also provided for a more efficient design of the structured parking garages.
After the jump: The new plan. When . . . and what?
