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Tag: The Woodlands
The Woodlands Convention and Visitors Bureau has launched a new website that features 28 unique 360-degree virtual tours of various locations throughout the future township, produced by a local company. Showing up most often: The Woodlands Mall, with 5 separate panorama views, followed by the Waterway Marriott with 4 panoramas and Waterway Square and the Avia Hotel on Market Street with 3 each. Organization president Nick Wolba tells the Chronicle, “So many people in the Houston market think of The Woodlands as a place to live. We want them to know this is a great place to visit . . . It’s a very special place as a destination.”
- The Woodlands Interactive Tour [The Woodlands Convention and Visitors Bureau]
- Virtual tour highlights Woodlands features [Ultimate Woodlands]
Panorama: Epic Software
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVIDE “So what’s the deal with the ‘Conroe’ vs. ‘The Woodlands’ location name ambiguity? Seems to me that a lot of people living up that way have a Conroe mailing address but claim the name “The Woodlands†when saying where they live. The address of this listing is 0 Darby Loop Conroe, TX 77385, and in the first sentence of the listing description, the realtor claims it is ‘…in The Woodlands!’ (emphasis unaltered). Recently I tried to mail something to my uncle who lives in the ‘The Woodlands,’ but I had his mailing address listed as ‘Conroe.’ So I called him to verify, and he gave me a really long explanation that explained nothing and only confused me more. In the end, he instructed me to write ‘The Woodlands’ on the envelope, even though he mentioned that the name ‘Conroe’ is actually on the sign at his local Post Office.” [Superdave, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: House Chopper]
Prancing onto the market just yesterday: This 10,672-sq.-ft. gated bouquet in that cute little already gated neighborhood in The Woodlands, not far from the smaller mansion Chamillionaire generously handed over to the bank last year. Features 6 bedrooms, 6 full baths, 6 balconies, a 5-car garage, all guarded by a small army of spotlit corbels. There’s a putting and pitching green in the yard of the acre-plus lot; you can warm up there before braving the winding, mile-long trek to the Carlton Woods golf course.
A New York land development firm called Coventry Development has just announced grand plans to establish a giant eco-friendly, mixed-use development modeled heavily on the ecological principles first demonstrated decades ago by The Woodlands — on an 1,800-acre site just south of that community. It’s now a pine forest near the intersections of I-45 North, the Hardy Toll Road, and the projected path of the Grand Parkway, about 30 miles north of Downtown Houston. Some portions of that forest will remain: Plans call for a 150-acre nature preserve along one section of the community’s northern reaches, which stretch to Spring Creek. South of that, and along the northern border of the Grand Parkway, the developers are planning a town center with the hallmarks of major mixed-use employment centers: office space and retail, a medical district, townhouses and apartments, and single-family homes. But they’ve gone ahead and given the place a formula-tested suburban-housing name: Springwoods Village.
Springwoods Realty Company has owned most of this land since the 1960s. Why develop it now? Because it’s now pretty clear that the Grand Parkway will actually be built right at the property’s southern border, the developers say. Plus, there’s development on all sides now.
What’s hiding behind the gates at this brand new listing in The Woodlands? Oh, can’t it just be a surprise? What you’re working with: 6-7 bedrooms (one of those in a separate apartment), 6 1/2 baths, and a 4-car attached garage. An unmentionable amount of square footage on a 35,588-sq.-ft. lot. And a private dock at the stub end of one of Lake Woodlands’ many splayed fingers. All dating from 1990.
Don’t you want a peek?
In a streaming-video event broadcast last night, hip-hop star Chamillionaire tried to explain the circumstances surrounding the foreclosure of his Woodlands mansion. He claims his decision to give the 7,583-sq.-ft. property in Carlton Woods back to the bank was part of an attempt to lower out-of-control expenses in light of 2 recent life-changing events: the birth of his son and learning from his mother that she has cancer:
She’s doing fine . . . and I was like . . . whatever you need, I want you to ask me. And my mom won’t ask me because she sees me with all these expenses, and . . . she doesn’t want to say anything. She wants me to live my life and have fun and buy all these cars and all this stuff and doesn’t want to burden me . . . I wasn’t cool with that. . . .
I know I spend all this money a month. You don’t know what the feeling is, spending $300 thousand . . . quick, just seeing it come out of your account. I don’t care how much money you got — you gonna be like, dang, that’s $300 thousand!
Yes: Dang!
I’m paying all kinds of stuff: multiple businesses, stuff for other people, etc. etc. So I told her, you know what, don’t worry about it. Whatever bills may come, you let me know. I’m gonna keep my bills the same. I’m just gonna cut some slack.
Next: It’s budget-cutting time in Carlton Woods!
COMMENT OF THE DAY: KEEPIN’ IT REAL IN CARLTON WOODS “few know who’s at home – Audis and Benzes inside fences – in The Woodlands. Pro ballers, TV talkers, all that Laying low Playing holes Paying assessment in The Woodlands. In the cages on off days The party cue, kids with a tutor, in The Woodlands.†[movocelot, commenting on A Look Inside The Woodlands Mansion Chamillionaire Gave Back to the Bank]
Here’s what you wanted to see: nice fuzzy photos of the 7,583-sq.-ft. mansion in a gated neighborhood in The Woodlands recently repossessed from rap star Chamillionaire. Talking to TMZ reporter and comedian Adam Glyn yesterday in front of the W Hotel near New York’s Times Square, the Houston native says he gave the house in Carlton Woods back to the bank because he “just didn’t feel like it was a good business investment to keep paying that much mortgage for a house that I’m never at.”
This house actually was my most expensive mortgage. And I decided to let that house go because the house ended up being worth nothing. When the market went down, the house went down too and it was just worth nothing. . . . I paid close to 2 million dollars for the house and I decided to just let it go, give it back to the bank. It wasn’t a situation where they came and took it from me. I felt like I didn’t want to pay that much money a month for a house that I’m never at. I was never at the house, I was always on the road touring . . .
The rap star, who bought the home under the name Hakeem Seriki Millionaire Mindframe Trust (Hakeem Seriki is his real name), actually paid $2.125 million for the property in 2006. TMZ reports the home was foreclosed on after the owner failed to make several payments. The 5-bedroom, 5 1/2-bath house on an acre-plus corner lot may have been “worth nothing” to him, but the bank will likely be able to squeeze a fair bit of money out of it:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT LIES BENEATH “. . . roads go over top of petroleum pipelines all the time with an agreement & bond to protect them. Citie$, countie$ and large entitie$ do it all the time. The whole of the Woodlands Town Center, including the regional mall there, is built atop a pipeline, which runs alongside the foundation of the Anadarko Tower. Even Lake Robbins, though it’s not at all deep, is on top!” [movocelot, commenting on Comment of the Day: Where the Townhomes Ain’t]
What’s new to eat?
- Opening Soon: Lola, a diner-ish spot serving “American comfort foods” — in the restored and refashioned former Eckerd Drug across from the Heights Post Office on Yale and 11th. This’ll be the third Heights restaurant venture from Ken Bridge, who also runs Dragon Bowl and Pink’s Pizza.
- Opened This Week: From famed New York, Las Vegas, and Dallas chef John Tesar, Tesar’s Modern Steak and Seafood, directly across from the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands. You’ll certainly want to eat everything on your plate when you visit: “Tesar’s entire menu will be one hundred percent sustainable created with a zero-waste food ethics in mind,” declares the restaurant website. Whole fish will be a specialty. Outside: a burger bar.
- Closed: The Texadelphia in the fast-food-friendly strip center on Memorial Dr. and Asbury, across from Otto’s — reportedly on account of the parking lot being too darn clogged. No worries: You can still get your cheesesteak fix at 3 other Houston locations, and it’s now a bit easier to find a spot in front of the Kolache Factory.
More food fun:
The Swamplot Price Adjuster needs your nominations! Found a property you think is poorly priced? Send an email to Swamplot, and be sure to include a link to the listing or photos. Tell us about the property, and explain why you think it deserves a price adjustment. Then tell us what you think a better price would be. Unless requested otherwise, all submissions to the Swamplot Price Adjuster will be kept anonymous.
Location: 1 Waterway Ct., Unit 4-E, The Woodlands Town Center
Details: 3 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths; 4,314 sq. ft. in One Waterway Lofts
Price: $1,990,000
History: Just listed over the weekend.
The nominator of this property writes:
Who says the real-estate bubble is long gone? Right on the Woodlands Waterway, here’s a faux Venetian condo in the Waterway Lofts. Can’t you just feel the theme-home synergy? Anyway, it looks like there are some great views of a lot of new office buildings from the windows, and if you look down you can see the Waterway and pool.
Is all that wine included? That might help explain the price tag. That and the fact that the county tax assessment for the loft just about doubled between 2007 and 2008. Montgomery CAD has it at about $1.56 million, which still seems too high.
To be fair though, there are several other overpriced lofts currently for sale in the same building.
In a just world, this condo would rent for maybe just twice its $2,062 monthly maintenance fee, all those Disneytalian finishes would peel off, and you could return all the fixtures to Expo for a refund.
So . . . what would be a better price?
Opening October 3rd in Sugar Land: A branch of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, smack dab in the center of the former prison farm now known as Telfair. The museum is a rehab of the old Central State Farm Prison building, but it has a better-sounding new address: 13019 University Blvd., at the corner of New Territory Blvd.
Meanwhile, far to the north, HMNS’s Woodlands Xploration Station in the Woodlands Mall is shutting down on September 7th. The Woodlands Children’s Museum next door to it will close a little less than a month later. Going into those vacated spaces: Forever 21.
- HMNS at Sugar Land
- Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land to open Oct. 3 [Houston Business Journal]
- Houston Museum of Natural Science to open Sugar Land satellite Oct. 3 [Houston Chronicle]
- Two museums in Woodlands mall set to close [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of new Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land: HMNS
COMMENT OF THE DAY: NEW URBANIST FLIGHT “Several posters are spot-on about walkable neighborhoods commanding a premium over traditional suburbs, if all else is equal. Unfortunately you can’t have it all in Houston – neighborhood charm, architecturally interesting houses, walkability, safety, good public schooling, AND affordability. Our growing family is being “forced†out of the Heights for several of the above reasons. If a New Urbanist development existed in the Houston area that was priced similarly to the traditional lollipop surburb, we would go there in an instant. Instead, we’re moving to what we see as the best suburban compromise – the Woodlands. Outside observers will no doubt think we are going to the suburbs because of the cul-de-sacs, but the truth is, we are going despite them.” [CV, commenting on Cul de Sac City: Houston’s Ban on New Street Grids]