The rather restrained and carefully appointed front lawn of this 1980 brick-box home makes the barely tamed nature center installed on its back lot an unexpected twist. A series of wooden decks, patios, terraces, garden follies, and walkways meander through the half-acre ravine property like a theme park’s winding queue, peppered with distracting greenery. The outdoor ensemble overlooks Spring Branch Creek, beyond which a detention pond and the Katy Freeway feeder road lie:
This flag-flying 12-story tower planned for the under-development Block 10 West Office Park might end up hiding the renovations underway on the former Great Indoors, which you can see peeking out in the distance in the rendering above. Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that Hicks Ventures is building out the out-of-business big box into a 2-story, 245,000-sq.-ft. spec office building. Plans include the construction of a 5-level parking garage behind the new building and a 6-level garage between it and this proposed I-10-facing tower.
Here’s an aerial view of the park and its neighbors:
Will the recent purchase, a reader wants to know, of a 105,000-sq.-ft. building out near Spring Branch by Admiral Linen & Uniform Services mean anything for the company’s much-smaller headquarters at 2030 Kipling St.? Well, Admiral Linen isn’t available for comment.
The company closed just after Christmas on the building at 8020 Blankenship Dr., near Hempstead and Bingle. Since 1998, according to city records, it’s owned the three-building, 24,000-sq.-ft. headquarters a block west east of South Shepherd and directly behind the Randalls on Westheimer.
“Ironically the glass facade is strikingly similar to a designed, but never built Great Indoors store prototype that was slated to open in 2004. The prototype coincided with the merger of Sears with Kmart when all new concept development (and gross profit) for Sears ceased. Pity.” [Hdtex, commenting on Great New Indoors Replacing The Old Great Indoors]
As multiple personalities go, this spread in Spring Branch exhibits 3 faces of eaves. The modified ranch-style home’s straight-laced street facade (top) with porte-cochère and circular driveway gives way to a playful resort-like setting (above), with rocky waterfall, tiki hut, pool, and palm trees — as well as quarters way, way out back on the acre-and-a-half corner lot. A 1985 remodeling raised the roof of the 1962 main home and added a super-sized, Hill-Country-inspired, somewhat-sunken den (above right) with an across-the-back wall of full-height windows facing the well-shaded, placid-meets-partytime yard.
Construction of the complex’s overall expansion isn’t quite finished yet, but a new section of the resale shop at the Memorial Assistance Ministries in Spring Branch will open officially for the first time this weekend anyway. And oh, by the way, says the group’s marketing manager, in advance of that the shop at 1625 Blalock Rd. north of Long Point is actually open already. The new section adds 4,000 sq. ft. of retail space to showcase more of the used clothing and household stuff people keep donating. Another 4,200 sq. ft. was also added to the warehouse area to sort through it all. New totals: 14,000 sq. ft. for the store, plus 8,400 sq. ft. in the warehouse. The program’s executive director says the store typically generates enough income to fund MAM adult education programs and other assistance for more than 800 families.
The new store space, designed by Kirksey, is at the northern end of the complex’s original building (in the front at right in this new photo):
You’d think images of a solid, giant big box store marked “The Great Indoors” set behind an enormous freeway-side parking lot would be fodder for local photographers hoping to capture views of Houston in all its ironic suburban splendor. Alas, no pix of the hulking, 130,000-sq.-ft. home furnishings megastore on the north side of I-10 just inside Beltway 8 appear to be available online. Quick, take a few while you still can! And send them to Swamplot — we need one to go at the top of this story, which it appears will serve as the very first announcement in Houston media that the store will be closing forever. Parent company Sears Holdings dropped the news back in February that all 9 remaining Great Indoors stores would be shut down. But the news, like the store itself, failed to catch much attention around here. A reader alerted Swamplot to the closing just over the last weekend, noting “big sales are just starting.” [Home Textiles Today] Photo: Send one you’ve taken here
Comment of the Day: Here Come the GOOF-y Townhouses
“The revisions to Chapter 42 mean that the fringes of Oak Forest, Garden Oaks and Spring Branch can be built up with lots of townhomes and other inner loop-esque density. Given that you now have to shell out $500-$800k to live in OF, GO or many parts of Spring Branch, I would bet that, all things constant, this listing would be seen as a steal in five to ten years . . .” [Old School, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Number 1, Fan]