03/25/13 3:09pm

A no-fuss shed dormer and its smaller companion perched on the back roof help make this updated home one of the largest on its block in Hilltop Acres. That’s the name given to a hill-free neighborhood west of the West Belt just south of  W. Little York; though the listing for the home names it Silver Meadows. Available since Friday, the home has an initial asking price of $119,900; its listing cites all sorts of updates, from paint and floors to kitchen fittings — and a little landscaping streetside. Perhaps of equal interest, however, are the not-updated features touted: EZ access to the tollway and an absence of deed restrictions.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

02/16/12 10:18am

Is all that living space on the second floor of this metal warehouse building right off the Tomball Pkwy. frontage road near the end of Jones Rd.  really window-free? Built a decade ago, the 5,062-sq.ft. structure is an unrestricted property suitable for mixed use — and that includes homesteading.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

02/07/12 6:18pm

COMBINED ITALIAN WINERY AND PIPING PRODUCTS PLANT OPENING IN WESTLAND BUSINESS PARK What could better symbolize this city’s international sophistication and industriousness than the construction of an Italian winery in a Houston business park off West Rd. and Eldridge? Easy: Putting the winery inside a 60,000 sq.-ft. pipe-machining plant in said business park. Stefano Farina brand Chianti, Barolo, barbaresco, and prosecco will be fermented and bottled in a 5,000-sq.-ft. winery with its own separate cooling and ventilation systems after the dual facilities open, likely in March. Grape juice will be shipped there from the Farina Group’s wineries in Tuscany and Piedmont. Meanwhile, next door, the same company’s ITEX Piping Products plant will produce stainless steel flanges, stud bolts, nipples, swages and various piping products for Houston-area oil and gas businesses — from steel forged in the company’s Western European plants. [Houston Business Journal] Photo: Stefano Farina

09/19/11 11:16pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HAD BEEN SAVING THEM FOR SOMETHING “These are the first two buildings that IAN+A designed for Compaq way back when – and my first two high-rise buildings. Sad to see them go. I guess this means I can get rid of the drawings now.” [Tbarrow, commenting on HP Go Boom: Watch These Former Compaq Buildings Disappear in a Cloud of Dust]

09/19/11 11:13am

If 2 office buildings go down in a cloud of dust in what looks like a forest, will anybody see it? In Houston, certainly — and so many onlookers have been kind enough to upload their own demolition videos, too. So here you go: vids of this weekend’s Controlled Demolition implosion of 2 unloved former Hewlett Packard office buildings at the future Lone Star College University Park campus near Hwy. 249 and Louetta. A much longer video from Hewlett Packard here features details and interviews.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

08/30/11 10:07am

THE COMING LOCAL HP IMPLOSION Two former Hewlett-Packard office buildings from the original Compaq World Headquarters campus at the corner of Hwy. 249 and Louetta will be demolished in a “controlled demolition” on September 18th. The 2 buildings, a 1,200-car parking garage, and a central chiller plant were purchased for $12.6 million by the Lone Star College System last year, as an extension to the 8 buildings the former North Harris Montgomery Community College System bought a year earlier to create its new University Park campus. But it’s clear the college was mostly interested in the parking spaces that came with the latest purchase. According to the terms of the sale, HP itself will manage the implosion of the 2 buildings, before turning over the resulting “usable green space” to the school. LSCS facilities guy Jimmy Martin explains the reasoning: “The cost to properly maintain the buildings in a ‘mothball’ state until they might have been needed in the future is $1.25 million annually. It was more cost-effective to have the contractor tear the buildings down as part of the purchase agreement.” [Champions Sun; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Geoff Sloan [license]

07/20/11 5:20pm

Looking for a safe place to keep its voting machines after the previous storehouse on Canino Rd. was destroyed in a mysterious fire last year, county officials have at last found the perfect uh, match: a 1980-vintage tilt-wall car-storage facility owned by the estate of a billionaire plaintiff’s attorney who died in a car crash. No harm came to the $250 million worth of cars John M. O’Quinn kept in this warehouse at 11525 Todd Rd. after he was killed in an accident on Allen Parkway 2 years ago, but the building was available. One of 3 suites in the 123,930-sq.-ft. structure near the Hempstead Highway and 34th St. currently serves as the black-box home of the Houston Academy of Dramatic Arts. The county is paying O’Quinn’s estate $4.35 million for the facility, with some of that money coming from the fire-insurance claim. Also moving into the building, after a $2 million renovation: county tax assessor-collector Don Summers and his collection of old license plates and tax records.

Photo: LoopNet

12/14/10 3:34pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: ANOTHER WESTWOOD GARDENS WELCOME “Sylvia, welcome to the WG Homes community. I am very sorry to hear about your cats. Yes, there are stray dogs outside our community (the first trailer home on Gessner). It is very sad indeed. Yes, it does feel a lot like a community, and it is going to go uphill from now on. No looking back. Hope you enjoy your stay.” [Westwood G Resident, commenting on Westwood Gardens Still Life: A Photo Tour of Half-Built Houston Homes; previously]

04/21/10 6:14pm

H-E-B is testing a new no-frills warehouse-style grocery concept with a new store set to open early next month at 12035 Antoine, about a mile and a half north of the Beltway at the corner of Veterans Memorial. The prototype Joe V’s Smart Shop will be nearly twice the size of the typical H-E-B Pantry, reports the Chronicle‘s David Kaplan:

Smaller than a full-size H-E-B, Joe V’s will carry about 9,000 items, compared with a traditional supermarket, which has about 37,000.

Joe V’s might have five ketchups, while a full-size H-E-B would have 25, [Houston VP Armando] Perez said. The Joe V’s ketchups will include well-known brands and H-E-B private labels.

Joe V’s will have produce and self-serve meat, seafood and bakery departments. The biggest savings will often be in the grocery and general merchandise sections, Perez said.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

05/20/09 2:23pm



The Lone Star
College System’s $42.2 million purchase price for that chunk of the former Compaq campus it closed on last month turns out to be $100 million less than the amount it had offered to Hewlett-Packard for the property a year earlier, reports Wall Street Journal reporter Maura Webber Sadovi. A few more tidbits from her report on the second-largest office purchase in the U.S. so far this year (The auction of Boston’s 1.8 million-sq.-ft. Hancock Tower for $660 million in March was the biggest):

The $35-a-square-foot price Lone Star paid was below the $57 average paid for the few suburban Houston office properties sold in the first quarter of 2009 and a deep discount to the $145 per-square-foot suburban average in the year-earlier first quarter, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based real-estate-research firm.

Expect to see administrators of the Lone Star College System (known until recently as the North Harris Montgomery Community College System) lounging around in some of the executive furniture HP threw into the deal at the last minute as well. How did they strike this bargain?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

05/12/09 9:38am

FLOODING REPORT FROM THE NORTHWEST HOUSTON PRAIRIE BOWL The worst flooding damage from those late April storms centered around a swath of Highway 6 stretching from the Katy Freeway to 290 in northwest Houston. The heaviest rainfall was centered further west, along the planned path of the Grand Parkway Segment E. “[Jennifer] Bayles said her section of Bear Creek Village wasn’t within the 100-year flood plain when she and her husband bought their house 17 years ago. But it was added to the flood plain in new maps developed after Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, and the couple purchased flood insurance despite the steep premiums. ‘We’re well-insured; we’ll be fine,’ she said, but some neighbors don’t have the coverage they need. And their recovery efforts grew more complicated when they learned that if their homes sustained sufficient damage they would have to elevate when they rebuild. In the past few years, Bayles said, her street has flooded regularly during heavy rains, stranding residents in their homes for hours. But the April thunderstorms were the first time she’s had water in her house, she said.” [Houston Chronicle]

05/01/09 11:33am

HEWLETT PACKARD GOES TO SCHOOL The purchase by the Lone Star College System (formerly the North Harris Montgomery Community College System) of the “core” of the former HP, former Compaq Computer campus at 249 and Louetta is now a done deal, chancellor Richard Carpenter reports: “The purchase includes approximately 1.2 million square feet of buildings as well as parking garages and other support infrastructure. This facility will serve multiple purposes for our system as we continue to grow and expand; however the center piece of the campus will be a new University Center to serve north Harris County that is expected to include at least eight university partners. In addition to the University Center, the campus will also house an instructional satellite center, Corporate College conference and training facilities, LSCS office space, as well as room for new program development and expansion.” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot]

04/10/09 2:01pm

COMPAQ TO HP TO COLLEGE The Lone Star College System — formerly known as North Harris Montgomery Community College System — appears to be the mystery buyer for those 8 empty office buildings in the former Hewlett-Packard, former-Compaq campus at 249 and Louetta. Or at least a few of them: “The property would be used for educational purposes, but the size of the acquisition is still being determined, said Steve Lestarjette, associate vice chancellor of public affairs for Lone Star College. HP declined comment Thursday.” [Houston Chronicle]

04/01/09 3:31pm

ANOTHER BUYER FOR HP PARTS Somebody’s interested in those 8 empty office buildings on the former Compaq Computer campus off 249 and Louetta: “A little more than a year after Hewlett-Packard Co. put its 103-acre office campus on the sales block, the computer company is working with a buyer to finalize a sales agreement. Sources involved with the deal tell GlobeSt.com that following months of negotiations, the 2-million-square-foot office campus could be under contract within the next few weeks to a local buyer.” [Globe St.]

03/06/09 3:33pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WELCOME TO WESTWOOD GARDENS “The neighbors are starting to join together to remove the graffiti. Not many kids are on the blocks but they do range in age from babies to happy teens. You can see them outside at times with their parents, riding scooters, riding bikes or just playing around. The neighbors even have indoor small pups, not those that you see on the news that maul on people or those that are seen used to fight. They are small well cared for happy dogs. Never without being on a leash when they are outside. A few neighbors have been seen flying small model airplanes. Everyone is friendly. Try it, if you see any one of the neighbors outside just wave and you will get a smile and a wave back. Hopefully one day we see you, if so Welcome to Westwood Gardens where you are Not just a Neighbor, Your Family!” [We Are Family!, commenting on Westwood Gardens Still Life: A Photo Tour of Half-Built Houston Homes]