Tag: North Montrose

Montrose
10/26/12 8:26pm

Audio Video Plus Will Be Closing Up Shop More Often

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North Montrose, Openings and Closings, Retail
3 Comments

A steady stream of movie-minded customers — many bearing their lengthy wish lists of titles to snag — hit today’s preview of Audio Video Plus’s closeout sale. And learned that storefront operations at the shop at 1225 Waugh will be pretty much ceasing. But not entirely: Sales will continue from the location via the internet and randomly occurring open house days TBD, a store manager declared on Friday. Meanwhile, the rarely full parking lot is getting a bit more of a workout, as are the film collectors racing through the still-stocked aisles and vying for remaining packaged and rental copies of the “Movies and More” touted on a banner above the entry. The preview continues 11 to 7 Saturday.

Photos: CALwords

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Montrose
10/25/12 5:09pm

Audio Video Plus on Waugh is Clearing It Out

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Retail
37 Comments

There’s a new red sign stretched above the fading film posters in the storefront windows of Audio Video Plus at 1225 Waugh. It reads “Closeout Sale.” The Mecca for movie buffs has been closed for the last few days. Today, the heavy shutters securing the store’s entryway were drawn tight and the parking lot was even more empty than it usually is during business hours. The coming event, referred to as a “Customer Preview” sale in a note taped to the storefront, is scheduled for this Friday and Saturday, from 11 to 7. Is this the end of the line for the longtime specialty renter-retailer, or just a little flushing of the VHS archives?

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North Montrose
07/19/12 3:43pm

Hark, a Fence!

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink
30 Comments

HARK, A FENCE! Six years ago the Aga Khan Foundation purchased and demolished the Robinson Warehouse at the corner of Allen Parkway and Montrose Blvd., announcing plans to build a new Ismaili Cultural Center in its place on the often soggy 11-acre site. With the exception of the appearance last year of a construction trailer for the assembly of the Rosemont Bridge over Buffalo Bayou across the street, though, there’d been no action there since. Until this week, that is, as several readers have reported: Fence posts are going up around the lot, from Allen Parkway all the way back to and along West Dallas. “I am wondering if this is actually a sign of construction on the center or if they are just tired of people parking/running dogs on the property,” writes one correspondent. “I will be on the look out for Port-A-Cans.” Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Apartments
06/29/12 2:53pm

The Finger Apartments Behind the Montrose Whole Foods Market

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New Construction, North Montrose
32 Comments

From a perch in the American General Life Building off Allen Parkway, a reader sends this view of the “HUGE property” at 2900 West Dallas, behind the new Whole Foods Market on Waugh. Construction work has been going on for about a month, reports the photographer. Going up: 431 apartment units in a 6-story block from the Finger Companies. Judging from these 2 renderings of the project, the apartments won’t end up looking much like the Whole Foods or the American General office campus directly to the north:

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Apartments
06/28/12 1:05pm

Regent Square-ish Apartment Tower Possibly Breaking Ground in 2 Weeks

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Highrises, North Montrose, Proposed Developments
15 Comments

A reader passes onto Swamplot an unconfirmed report that a groundbreaking ceremony for the Sovereign, the 21-story apartment tower from the developers trying to kickstart Regent Square that Swamplot reported on back in April, is scheduled for July 11th. That date’s not too far off from the June window predicted in a Houston Business Journal story earlier this month. The site is a cleared lot on West Dallas St. between Rosine and Rochow, where a surviving portion of the Allen House Apartments was recently demolished.

Is the Sovereign the first piece of GID Development’s long-stalled Regent Square development? It fits within the massive North Montrose mixed-use project’s eastern boundary, but the 4-year-old drawings for Regent Square show only low-rise apartments on that spot. On the other hand, the 2 projects are listed separately on the Boston company’s website. And the proposed 290-unit highrise appears to sport more modern look in its renderings than the images of brick-caked structures still floating around in old Regent Square drawings.

Here’s a view of the site from the 1000 block of Rochow, looking toward West Dallas:

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Hyde Park
05/07/12 2:05pm

Minding the Gaps in Hyde Park

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North Montrose, Streetscapes
19 Comments

Thanks for your continued concrete vigilance, Swamplot pedestrians. The mysterious unpavednesses documented in this catalog of sidewalk lunch breaks in Hyde Park and North Montrose appear to have raised a couple of (tiny) red flags. On Welch St., at least. In case you’re updating your own dogwalking map, you’ll find these walkway gaps on (clockwise, from top left): Van Buren between Peden and Bomar; Welch between Waugh and Van Buren; West Pierce between Eberhard and Marconi; and Peden between Montrose and Van Buren.

Photos: Hal Werner

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Apartments
04/30/12 11:35am

Highrise Replacing Allen House Remnant? The Latest Rumblings Around Regent Square

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Demolitions, Highrises, North Montrose, Proposed Developments
18 Comments

Here’s a late addition to the demolition of the Allen House Apartments, the first portions of which went down in 2007, in anticipation of the giant Regent Square mixed-use development in North Montrose that never happened — or rather, hasn’t yet. The smashing of one Allen House’s 2 remaining buildings is now taking place across West Dallas from Teala’s Mexican Restaurant, just beyond the back windows of the Piedmont at River Oaks condos on Rosine St. A Swamplot reader sent us the above photo last Friday. Does this mean the long-dormant Regent Square is at long last ready to stir?

The North Montrose Civic Association announced in a recent newsletter that a “big announcement” about Regent Square is due in May: “Rumors are that a high rise residential [tower is] being planned as [the] first building.” Separately, Regent Square developer GID Development has promised additional details in May or June about this 21-story highrise apartment building, called the Sovereign, which happens to feature a large number of dog-friendly amenities, including canine wash/dry facilities, a pet grooming room, and a private doggie park:

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Crime
02/10/12 4:45pm

Suspected Catburglar Arrested In North Montrose Doggie Door Escapade

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North Montrose, Security
5 Comments

The man seen above crawling back onto the back porch of a North Montrose bungalow with a pillowcase full of electronics and jewelry in hand is 29-year-old Steven Groucho Hicks, the Houston Police Dept. now believes. According to a KHOU report, Hicks was arrested yesterday and charged with burglarizing the home by crawling through its doggie door. An extensive gallery of photos documenting the burglary was posted to Flickr last month, retrieved from a surveillance camera the homeowner had installed after learning of similar episodes in the neighborhood.

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Crime
01/27/12 12:17pm

North Montrose Catburglar Goes In and Out Through the Doggie Door

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North Montrose, Security
18 Comments

Note: Two updates below.

A North Montrose family found itself enriched Wednesday by a treasure trove of photos showing the burglar who had been stalking their back porch — and impoverished by the iPad, camera, and jewelry the man nabbed from his home, stuffed into a pillowcase. The surveillance pics gathered from the incident near West Gray and Montrose Blvd. are now on display in this Flickr account. They show remarkably clear images of the neighborhood’s new doggie-door burglar — nicknamed “the Ghost” because no one had caught a glimpse of him during similar incident last week — pacing back and forth in the back yard, talking on a mobile phone to an accomplice who was apparently acting as a lookout. The culprit “spent 10 minutes casing the back yard and 4 minutes inside the house,” the victim tells Swamplot.

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Apartments
11/16/11 12:45pm

Making Quick Art of the Tavern on Gray

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Demolitions, North Montrose, Proposed Developments
5 Comments

What’s that? The metal scrap heap formerly known as the Tavern on Gray (and before that, Blue Agave and several other temporary food-and-drink installations). Coming next to the corner of West Gray and Waugh: this 5-story Hanover West Gray apartment complex. The Tavern on Gray is now the Tavern on Milam, at 3017 Milam in Midtown.

More reader pics of the North Montrose scene the bar left behind, from over the weekend and early this week:

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Apartments
11/02/11 4:00pm

Dramatic Final Moments of the Houston Ballet on West Gray

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Demolitions, North Montrose, Proposed Developments
2 Comments

A popular local dance move, caught on camera. Sent in from a reader who was shopping at the West Gray Kroger over the weekend: what looks like the final curtain call for the former Houston Ballet building a block to the west at 1916 West Gray. The Ballet’s new building opened Downtown earlier this year. Going up in place of its destroyed former home, which was previously a clothing factory: apartments.

Photo: Nate Frizzell

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East Montrose
07/18/11 11:08am

Peden Water Mystery

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North Montrose, Quicklink, Utilities
11 Comments

PEDEN WATER MYSTERY What’s with the water flow on Peden St. just east of Montrose Blvd.? An “avid” Swamplot reader writes: “A cluster of my neighbors . . . have received CoH water bills for the past 4 months that are much higher than average. As you know, the City helpfully advises we ‘check for leaks.’ No leaks. Check. I’ve tested the water meter with controlled withdrawals. The meter itself seems fine. Check. As best as we know from our individual habits, none of us have significantly changed our water use patterns, even in this hot, hot summer. Much of my flora is dead or dying. Check again. Can you or any of your readers suggest any steps we might take to find out what’s going on here, fight the Water Dept and these absurd bills? I thought of hiring a civil engineer, but my Google search didn’t find anyone that seemed to fit the ‘water’ bill. Can you help?” [Swamplot inbox]

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North Montrose
06/30/11 1:16pm

The Back Story on Tony Mandola’s Opening Last Night

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Openings and Closings, Parking, Restaurants, Streetscapes
16 Comments

In the new but apparently burgeoning tradition of Swamplot opening-day (and opening-night) photos of Waugh Dr. parking lots comes this reader photo of the car-filled scene behind the new Tony Mandola’s Gulf Coast Kitchen at 1212 Waugh, taken from Rosine St. last night around 7 pm. Sure, residents of the Piedmont condos along Rosine now can walk to the new Whole Foods Market. But the condos “have no guest parking other than on the street. Now we will have NO guest parking at all,” reports the reader. “People are steamed.” Next on the local agenda: trying to swing permit-only parking signs for Rosine.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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North Montrose
06/27/11 10:45am

American General Clamps Down on Wayward Montrose Whole Foods Parking Lot Action

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Parking, Retail, Streets, Traffic
25 Comments

As of Friday evening, new we’re-gonna-tow-you-if-you-park-here signs have been installed along D’Amico St. just north of the new Waugh Dr. Whole Foods Market, reports the Swamplot correspondent who’s been monitoring the parking situation there — and taking in the scene at the new store: “I think the traffic and mass crowds might be worth it,” was the first conclusion, even before the clampdown. These photos, showing the new signs and an American General security detail along D’Amico just west of the office complex parking garage, were taken on a later visit Saturday morning after a follow-up shopping expedition — where our correspondent happily scored 50 bucks’ worth of soda and candy.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

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North Montrose
06/22/11 7:15pm

Later on Opening Day: Whole Foods Montrose Afternoon Parking Report

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Openings and Closings, Parking, Retail, Streets, Traffic
18 Comments

“I don’t know about the Whole Foods parking lot,” writes a Swamplot reader, “but it’s certainly getting real on D’Amico!” Here’s a photo sent in with that report, taken just past the American General Center garage north of the new store on D’Amico St., shortly after 4 pm. But there was plenty of neighborhood-street spillover earlier, too: “Around lunch time, if there was a curb there was a car . . . on both sides along D’Amico, bumper to bumper from the light to just under the garage.” How long will this sort of thing keep up? Our tipster imagines AIG American General will soon put out no-parking signs “along any parts of the street that is their property, such as along the entrance to a parking lot across from whole foods and by the garage. Other areas on the campus have no parking signs where people tend to stop. I know you can’t park within a certain distance to a stop sign, does the same apply to stop lights? If so, some people risked a ticket just to get some groceries! It would be cheaper to pay for parking in the AIG lot or the garage visitor parking.” And no rush, folks. Those free chicken breast coupons are good until next Tuesday.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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