Here’s a surprise: a construction permit for a new 23-story Chinatown Asiatown condominium tower was issued yesterday for Park 8 Place. Remember Park8? That’s the freeway feeder megastrip project planned for just across Brays Bayou from Arthur Storey Park, along Beltway 8 south of Bellaire Blvd. The one that called itself “The Land of Oz.”
The entire development was supposed to include three 20-something-story residential towers, a hospital, two 2-story retail-and-office strips, and a couple of parking garages — all in a quaint freeway-and-park-side setting. A foundation was poured for the first condo building last year, but Park 8 CEO David Wu put the project on hold after he was unable to secure financing. So the construction crane came down.
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Read more about Cancellations and Delays, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Highrises, Hospitals, Medical Buildings, Mixed Use, Neighborhoods: Chinatown, Proposed Developments, Retail, Strip Centers
Read more about: 77072, Asiatown, Canceled Projects, Chinatown, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Highrises, Hospitals, Medical Buildings, Mixed Use, Parks, Proposed Developments, Retail, Strip Centers
Following up on Swamplot’s story from yesterday, the Houston Press’s Richard Connelly sizes up the bigger-and-better Kroger that’ll be going into the Merchants Park Shopping Center at the corner of North Shepherd and 11th St. in the Heights.
. . . says Kroger’s Gary Huddleston, the new place will be 96,000 square feet, more than double what the store is now.
That would make it the biggest Kroger in Houston, and almost as big as the 110,000-square-foot monsters the chain has opened in Pearland and Missouri City. . . .
The refurbished store should be finished in a year, he says. The current operation will remain open during the renovation, which will slow things down a bit.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Read more about: 77008, Demolitions, Grocery Stores, Houston Heights, Redevelopment, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
A reader sends in photos from the southwest corner of North Shepherd and 11th St., where the Kroger is getting ready to expand into the site of a few vanquished neighbors:
the gas station that was in front of the kroger was demolished earlier this year and within the past couple weeks part of the strip center next to the kroger has started to be demolished. I called the kroger last week and the lady on the phone informed me that they are expanding and the store is going to be very nice - will have a starbucks, sushi bar, salad bar, etc and a kroger gas station will be built where the gas station was demolished. heights area residents can’t wait!!
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Read more about: 77008, Demolitions, Grocery Stores, Houston Heights, Redevelopment, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
February 17, 2009 – 5:23 pm
Ready to see some fun pix from around town? Here’s the guardhouse for the loading dock at the Igloo plant in Katy, as captured a while back by blogger Donna B.
A few more:
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Read more about: 77006, 77007, 77494, Hazards, Houston Heights, Industrial Pollution, Katy, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Parking-Lots, Restaurants, Strip Centers, Westheimer
December 29, 2008 – 12:02 pm
Here’s something we can all feel tingly and nostalgic about: Developer Bobby Orr’s Heights-ish fantasy — of brand-new old-timey storefronts facing long streetside parking lots off Yale St. and Heights Blvd. just south of I-10 — is dead. The Chronicle’s Nancy Sarnoff drops news of the demise of the Heights Village dream as an aside to her update on the stalled-out High Street development.
The entire 4.9-acre property, across Heights Blvd. from the ArtCar Museum, is back on the market, at $75 a square foot.
Sadly, Cushman & Wakefield’s listing for the property doesn’t include any misty watercolors to memorialize what might have been. But Swamplot remembers! Here’s a brief trip down invented-memory lane . . . in 3 quick images:
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Read more about: 77007, Cancellations and Delays, Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Houston Heights, Mixed Use, Parking, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Washington Corridor
November 24, 2008 – 12:20 pm
Has the nail-salon bubble finally burst? Retail space in so many area strip centers lies vacant: “In the Houston area, much of the problem lies in strip centers built during the recent commercial real estate boom when inexperienced developers were throwing up small centers in areas close to new residential growth. In the third quarter, Houston-area strip centers recorded the lowest occupancy of all retail property types at 80.4 percent, according to the Colliers report. Some of these buildings went up away from highly coveted traffic corners, and before any tenants were signed — a risky proposition should something go wrong.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
November 19, 2008 – 2:54 pm
“Houston’s first Smashburger is going into an unnamed strip center at the intersection of Main Street and Kirby Drive, right beside Reliant Center,” reports Globe St.’s Connie Gore:
[Ryan McMonagle, Smashburger's CFO] tells GlobeSt.com that Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston each will start with two “grade A-plus locations” this year and reach eight to 10 before 2009 ends, putting the new chain on “a clear path to 30 over the next three-year period” in each city.
What’s a Smashburger?
Jason Sheehan of the Houston Press’s sister publication Denver Westword says it’s a burger joint where
the burgers are truly smashed — thrown and mashed onto the flat-top grill with a press that I at first thought was for show, then realized played an important role. When a half-pound of ground, nicely fatty Angus beef is whacked onto the hot steel, it produces a flood of meat juice that caramelizes instantly into a crispy halo of blood and fat around the edge of the burger. It’s like meat candy, the delicacy you lose when a burger is cooked on a slotted grill — the traditional cooking surface for burgers smashed by hand.
Photo of Denver Smashburger interior: Flickr user johnny_nissan [license]
Read more about: 77030, Fast Food, Franchises, Openings and Closings, Reliant Center, Restaurants, Retail, Strip Centers
November 10, 2008 – 1:45 pm
A Heights-area reader alarmed by the “Notice of Public Hearing” sign that appeared in front of the 100-plus-year-old converted home at the northeast northwest corner of Heights Blvd. and 11th St. has done some sleuthing and sends Swamplot a report:
No, the 1903 Victorian at 1101 Heights Blvd. won’t be torn down . . . the owner has received approval from the historic commission to move the building one lot to the north. And then to jack it up a few more feet, so cars can be parked underneath. Why hadn’t the Victorians thought of that?
Why the need for parking? To accommodate the brand-new strip center the developer wants to slide in between the new location for the home and the corner, facing 11th St. On the corner itself: Parking.
One observer who’s seen the plans says the house will end up “awfully close” to the back of the strip center. The developer apparently has promised to “restore” the home, though it may be leased out as office space. The project is scheduled to go before the planning commission a week from this Thursday: November 20th.
More photos from the scene:
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Read more about: 77008, Housemoving, Houston Heights, Parking, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Retail, Strip Centers
October 27, 2008 – 11:15 am
The wise folks behind Greenway Commons — the new shopping center replacing the old HISD headquarters building at the corner of Richmond and Weslayan — have apparently taken some extra-special steps to make sure the new development (which includes a brand-new Costco) is super-friendly to pedestrian visitors!
Making everything welcoming to people arriving on foot makes sense — the project had been criticized for exhibiting suburban-style development patterns in a location that some dreamers had imagined would be a street-fronting mixed-use center. It’s already a busy corner, and Metro’s new University Line will have a stop only a short walk away.
But “easy to access” can also mean “boring.” So it’s comforting to see these pictures of the project’s street edge sent in by a reader, which show a gentle, fun infrastructure-themed obstacle course taking shape along the new Weslayan and Richmond sidewalks in front of Trammell Crow’s grand development:
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Read more about: 77027, Big Box Stores, Commercial Real Estate, Greenway Commons, Greenway Plaza, Mixed Use, New Construction, Retail, Richmond-Avenue, Shopping Centers, Sprawl, Strip Centers
September 18, 2008 – 4:37 pm
Sandwich franchise Pita Pit has a store tucked inside a Greenway Plaza office building. Two more locations debuted recently: one at Highway 6 and Williams Trace in Sugar Land (opened in May) and another in the tunnel beneath McKinney St. Downtown (opened in July). A new store in a strip center at Westheimer and Fountainview is listed as “coming soon” on the company website.
Now a source reports that a total of 10 Pita Pit franchises are planned for the Houston area — including one in the shopping center at 3939 Montrose Blvd., just north of the Hurricane-Ike-swept Diedrich’s Coffee, near Marble Slab.
Photo of Sugar Land Pita Pit: Pita Pit
Read more about: 77002, 77006, 77478, Downtown, Downtown Tunnels, Fast Food, Franchises, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Sugar-Land
August 11, 2008 – 3:04 pm
A reader notes that a sign offering “13,000 sq feet of restaurant/retail for lease” is up at the Alabama Bookstop, and asks if plans for the location have been announced. Bookstop owner Barnes & Noble is building a new store on West Gray, on the former site of the River Oaks Shopping Center’s north curve.
That 13,000 sq. ft. figure makes it clear the sign isn’t referring to a different space in the Alabama Theater Shopping Center. According to leasing info on the Weingarten website, that’s the approximate size of the Bookstop’s space.
Photo of Bookstop at Alabama Theater Shopping Center: Debra Jane Seltzer
Read more about: 77098, Alabama Theater, Commercial Real Estate, Historic Preservation, Leasing, Openings and Closings, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
Bagel addict Charles Kuffner reports that the famed Hot Bagel Shop on Shepherd will be moving across and down the street in the fall, into this expanded strip center now under construction on Shepherd just north of Fairview. The new strip center has already swallowed the Houston Shoe Hospital location next door.
The Hot Bagel Shop’s current building — already bleeding tenants — will be torn down, Kuffner reports.
Photo: Charles Kuffner
Read more about: 77019, Demolitions, Openings and Closings, Retail, River Oaks, Strip Centers
Lou Minatti notes that the construction crane parked on the site of the Park 8 condo tower project on the west side of Beltway 8 between Bellaire and Beechnut has at long last been dismantled and removed. Is it time to say goodbye to the Land of Oz?
More bad news for fans of the 3-tower (plus hospital and strip center) project: The video originally embedded in our story about the project from last year is down too. But don’t worry . . . YouTube has a copy! See it again — and relive some of that Oz highrise magic — after the jump.
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Read more about: 77072, Canceled Projects, Chinatown, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Highrises, Hospitals, Medical Buildings, Mixed Use, Parks, Proposed Developments, Retail, Strip Centers
Mattress Firm celebrates the opening of its 500th store. You keep building those strip centers, they’ll take care of the rest! [Houston Business Journal]
Read more about: Franchises, Furniture, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
A shopping center tucked off Bellaire Blvd. just inside Beltway 8 hosts a particularly intriguing restaurant row:
Within feet of Fu Fu Cafe are something like 7 or 8 eateries offering a bewildering range of options in just a single shopping strip. The gelato shop is right next to a bakery that sells French desserts, Chinese pastries and rice cakes that look like guerilla hand grenades. A restaurant a few doors down serves Braised Lion Head, a Shanghai pork meatball specialty cooked with Napa cabbage I have never come across and have yet to sample (no, it’s not made with real lion meat, I checked). Noodle House 88, which Robb Walsh swears serves some of the best Indonesian food in the country, is in the very same strip. If Indonesian food doesn’t suit you, you can order sushi from the same menu. A new dim sum place opened just days ago and already looks packed.
But some of these food establishments aren’t so accessible for newcomers, warns the author of the Tasty Bits blog:
Tucked in at the end of the strip Paradise Cafe looks almost impenetrable to a non-Chinese American. Other than the name and descriptive signs such as “noodles” and “soups”, the only real clue as to what is inside is a magazine article pasted in the window showing a chef pulling noodles by hand. I got a blank stare when I asked for a to go menu, making me even more curious. For all I know the article could have been about the importance of keeping a tidy kitchen, but the promise of hand made noodles was too much to ignore, so I made it my mission to figure out what was behind the iron curtain.
Keep reading for Tasty Bits’ lowdown on Paradise Cafe noodles!
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Read more about: 77036, Bellaire-Blvd, Chinatown, Restaurants, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
