Tag: Theming

Institutional Buildings, Medical Buildings, Midtown, Proposed Developments

Rendering of Proposed Family Health Center, 2615 Fannin St. at McGowen St., Houston

The Christus Foundation for HealthCare appears to be hawking two distinct visions for the family health center it hopes to build at the corner of Fannin and McGowen in Midtown. That’s the same location where the complex that contained the Fu Kim Grand Palace Restaurant was torn down last year. On fundraising materials for the San JosÃ© Clinic — a charity clinic that currently operates across the street from Minute Maid Park Downtown, and which will move into the new center in Midtown when it’s completed in 2010 — there’s a rendering of what looks like a 3-story stucco Alamo-meets-UT mini-resort building set behind a parking lot.

But the Christus Foundation’s website features something entirely different on its Living the Legacy fundraising page:

New Construction: Residential

77002, Downtown, Institutional Buildings, Medical Buildings, Midtown, Proposed Developments, Theming

11/04/08 9:09am

Mobile Home of the $20 Taco

Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Restaurants, Townhomes

New Construction: Residential, Real Estate Marketing, Restaurants, Theming, Townhomes

MOBILE HOME OF THE $20 TACO The upscale taco truck makes a perfect sales vehicle for themed luxury townhouse developments: â€œ‘Most people wonâ€™t even stop at a taco truck,’ [Armandos restaurant co-owner Armando] Palacios said during an event he catered at the Spanish-inspired Caceres development, where townhomes starting at $600,000 were touted to potential buyers, sellers and scenesters. . . . ‘This is a taco truck which weâ€™ve driven to a $5â€‰million home. You arrive, and the truck becomes part of the party.’ Instead of simply bringing chafing dishes filled with taco fixings to a catering gig, Palacios drives his $100,000 truck and cooks food to a clientâ€™s order. . . . But Palaciosâ€™ truck is a more ostentatious version of the typical taco truck. Just like MTV program Pimp My Ride upgrades clunkers, Palacios ‘pimped out’ a taco truck, giving it a custom paint job. He promotes the catering truck with the slogan, ‘We burn rubber and chipotles.’ ‘Itâ€™s like urban chic,’ said Cinda Ward, Armandos co-owner and Palaciosâ€™ wife.” [Houston Chronicle]

Audubon Place

10/13/08 1:12pm

Styling the Bistro Vino Condo Tower: Low Voter Turnout

Condos, Montrose, Neartown, Proposed Developments

9 Comments

Style Possibilities for Proposed InnerLoopCondos.com Condo Development on West Alabama St., Houston

Remember back in July, when the folks from InnerLoopCondos.com sent out a survey about a new development proposed for 819 W. Alabama — the former site of Bistro Vino — and wanted you to help them choose which of six funny costumes the new condo building should wear? The company is now saying it’ll likely build 6 to 8 stories on top of at least 3 parking-garage levels, producing 80 condos priced from $190,000 to $400,000.

Best of all, InnerLoopCondos.com — a subsidiary of Montreal’s Group LSR — plans to break ground . . . in maybe only 18 short months!

What the thing will look like, though . . . is still up to you! â€œWeâ€™re very sensitive to what people are saying on the survey,â€ InnerLoopCondos.com’s Andre Julien tells the Chronicle‘s Betty Martin. So how are the votes tallying?

The company wonâ€™t start planning until the survey had received about 50 responses, the minimum needed to gauge what prospective condo buyers want, Julien said.

What? Fewer than 50 votes!???

Readers, the ballot box is still open. You have six colorful theming choices. Do you need to hear that lecture again about how important your vote is?

Condos to replace Bistro Vino [Houston Chronicle]
Potential Condominium Development In Neartown Houston [InnerLoopCondos.com]
InnerLoopCondos Wants To Know: Would You Prefer Ugly, Pretentious, or Simply Out of Place?
Bistro Vino: The Honeymoon Is Over [Swamplot]

Images: InnerLoopCondos.com

77006, Audubon Place, Condos, Montrose, Neartown, Proposed Developments, Theming

Homebuilders

09/03/08 2:12pm

The Old West Side of Studewood

Houston Heights, Mixed Use, New Construction, Parking, Restaurants, Retail

8 Comments

Drawing of Allegro Builders Building at 1003 Studewood, Houston Heights

This too-cute-for-Disneyland drawing depicts Allegro Builders’ new Wild Wild West-y development at the northwest corner of Studewood and 10th in the Heights. It’s going up just north of Allegro’s headquarters building, which is home also to the Glass Wall restaurant, and is known for its vaguely-historicist facade of valet-parked SUVs.

A few vans may front the new building at 1001 and 1003 Studewood, but it’ll only be in 2 spots of handicapped parking: The main lot is in back. That’ll likely be a relief for local filmmakers, who are no doubt eager to film Universal Studios-authentic spaghetti-western-style gunfights off those front balconies.

All of which makes this new retail-with-office-above confection an ideal location for Robert Gadsby’s new restaurant, Bedford, named after the chef’s birthplace in . . . uh, England.

After the jump: The interior is gonna be . . . modern!

77008, Homebuilders, Houston Heights, Mixed Use, New Construction, Office Space, Parking, Restaurants, Retail, Theming

Audubon Place

08/05/08 12:39pm

Piazza Townhomes: Fountain Below

Home Design, Homebuilders, Homes for Sale, Montrose, New Construction: Residential, Townhomes

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Piazza Townhomes, 620-640 Harold St., Audubon Place, Houston

The planter cutouts next to the garage doors . . . the single-sided, shingled pediments . . . the cast-in-foam detailing . . . the security fence. Yes, it could only be another themed stucco townhouse compound in Montrose!

But the Piazza Townhomes, now under construction by Savannah Home Builders on Harold St. near Stanford in Audubon Place, will surely be unique! Consider: 4 stories. A garage-level wedding-cake-style central fountain, topped with . . . something that looks like a naked cherub. Above, an elevated second-floor courtyard, wrapped with wrought-iron-look railings and greened with potted topiary.

In the video below, it all blends together seamlessly, thanks to a languid easy-listening soundtrack. The project’s website puts it best: the Piazza Townhomes truly is “Architecture Imitating Art.”

77006, Audubon Place, Home Design, Homebuilders, Homes for Sale, Montrose, New Construction: Residential, Theming, Townhomes

Audubon Place

07/22/08 2:50pm

InnerLoopCondos Wants To Know: Would You Prefer Ugly, Pretentious, or Simply Out of Place?

Condos, Montrose, Neartown, Proposed Developments

8 Comments

Style Possibilities for Proposed InnerLoopCondos.com Condo Development on West Alabama St., Houston

Group LSR, aka InnerLoopCondos.com, wants to build a new condo building in Montrose — and you get to play the stylist! What should the new development look like? Entry-arches-gone-crazy Apartment Romanesque? Inigo Jones’s Last Stand at the Alamo? Shangri-La Festival Palace Moderne? Mountainside Office Park Tinted-Glass Tech? Or something a little more home-ly, like that building with the curvy hairdos they’ve done a couple of versions of already?

Yeah, it’s kinda hard to choose, but don’t sweat it — you can vote for as many of the six choices (shown above) as you want! They’re all pictured (and yes, they’re the only options) in an online questionnaire sent out by the company earlier this month, apparently meant to gauge consumer interest in a development the company is planning on the 800 block of West Alabama, near Audubon Place. Yes, that includes the site of the recently shuttered Bistro Vino. As a commenter to our earlier story deduced, Group LSR is the mysterious “unnamed residential developer.”

The survey sez:

Our decision to develop this project will greatly depend upon the feedback we receive from Houston condominium buyers regarding the location. . . .

If you were in the market to purchase, please indicate what type of architecture would you prefer in your next condominium home?

Your theme choices matter!

Potential Condominium Development In Neartown Houston [InnerLoopCondos.com]
Our Communities [InnerLoopCondos.com]
Buyer revealed [Houston Chronicle]
Bistro Vino: The Honeymoon Is Over [Swamplot]

Images: InnerLoopCondos.com

77006, Audubon Place, Condos, Montrose, Neartown, Proposed Developments, Theming

Home Design

06/13/08 11:17am

Touring the West University French Quarter

West University

2 Comments

Home in West University, Texas

Houston design blogger (and Swamplot Neighborhood Guessing Game veteran) Joni Webb takes her readers on a tour of the many recent hÃ´tels particuliers that line her daily cafÃ© run. She explains West U’s new pseudo-Euro look:

When the rebuilding started, most people opted for red brick Georgian styled, two storied homes. Now, the trend is to build with stucco instead of red brick and French instead of Georgian.

Today, while driving to Starbucks and snapping photos of my favorite homes along my route, I noticed that I am very partial to the new, trendy kind of home: stucco, French inspired, with a straight facade.

After the jump: more wisteria and arched French doors, from Joni Webb’s West U Starbucks galerie!

77005, Home Design, Theming, Tours, West University

New Construction

05/12/08 9:39am

Via Las Vegas: New West Ave Spa, Italian Style

Retail, River Oaks, Upper Kirby

View of West Ave from Second Story

More imports for West Ave! A tidbit from the Chronicle:

Rome, a resort-style day spa and salon, plans to open at West Ave. in the summer of 2009. Conceived by Las Vegas-based spa operators, Resources & Development, the spa will encompass more than 10,000 square feet in the mixed-use development at Kirby and Westheimer.

Real estate transactions [Houston Chronicle]
West Ave Food and Drink Details: Imported Beers and Restaurants [Swamplot]

West Ave rendering: Urban Partners

77098, New Construction, Retail, River Oaks, Theming, Upper Kirby, West Ave

Galleria

04/02/08 8:17am

Rove Through Houston, Appreciating Europe

Hotels, Restaurants

Karl Rove(?) in the Lobby of the Hotel Granduca, Houston

So a lot of Houstonians don’t really get the Hotel Granduca. Who does? During a recent visit, the proprietor of Houston restaurant blog Tasty Bits came up with one answer:

I was always curious about the people who pay $1,300 a night for a hotel suite in Houston. Who are they? What do they eat? I got my answer as soon as I arrived and saw Karl Rove waiting to get picked up in the lobby (sulfur, smoke, instant drop in temperature, and all). For a split second I thought about inviting him to join us for lunch. Itâ€™s not often you are in the presence of one of the more diabolical political minds of our generation.

Tasty Bits has more juicy commentary on the hotel:

Entering Hotel Granduca is a little like following the rabbit hole – just beyond the iron gates and right past the horse mounted statue of Adalberto Malatesta Granduca of Monfallito (?) is a different world than one might find in otherwise sensible Houston.

After the jump: What’s down that rabbit hole! Plus: tasteful commentary on lunch at the hotel’s Ristorante Cavour.

77056, Galleria, Hotels, Restaurants, Theming, Uptown, Uptown Park

Condos

02/21/08 4:48pm

The Titan: Uptown Theme Blender

Galleria, Highrises, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing

Penthouse View, Randall Davisâ€™s Proposed Titan Condo Highrise, Post Oak Blvd., Uptown Houston

All the condos in Randall Davis’s new Titan condo tower on Post Oak will be named after . . . industry titans! Get it? On the 18th floor, for example, you’ll have units named after J. Paul Getty, Coco Chanel, Pablo Picasso, and . . . Bill Gates! Now that’s a party. Floor 14? More people of brilliance, though a few of them might not actually get along so well with each other: Frank Sinatra, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Rudolph Valentino, Steven Spielberg. Isn’t that clever?

It gets better: The Brin/Page is . . . a two-bedroom! Strangely, the Buffet has a Kitchen and Dining Room that are separated from the rest of the unit’s living space. And the three-bedroom penthouse named after Mies van der Rohe — whose neighbors are of course Rupert Murdoch and Neil Armstrong — has a Great Room with a curved wall in it, and is connected to the Entry Foyer by a long hallway.

One unit on floors 23 and 24 is simply named The Titan. But there’s no reason for Randall Davis to be so bashful — he really ought to go ahead and name it after himself. Is there anyone else in Houston who even comes close to his stature in the themed-condo market?

The Titan is a break from Davis’s earlier projects, though — because it seems to have so many different themes! Put all those architects, movie stars, musicians, Silicon Valley insiders, oilmen, and suicidal novelists together in a tower styled vaguely like a comic-book rocketship, add in Michelangelo’s sculpture of David as the naked brochure-and-website coverboy, and you’ve got the Titan’s winning marketing formula! A bit confused? Sure. But if anyone can mix all this stuff up and make it work, it’s Randall Davis.

After the jump, floorplans that prove what we all know already: Designing a great building is just like planning a great dinner party that includes a few famous dead people!

77056, Condos, Galleria, Highrises, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Randall Davis, Real Estate Marketing, Theming, Titan, Uptown

Avalon Place

02/15/08 7:02pm

River Oaks International: Out with the Old English, In with the Old Swedish

Home Decor, Interiors, Renovations, River Oaks

Avalon Place House, Old English Version, Family Room, River Oaks, Houston

Avalon Place House, Old Swedish Version, Family Room, River Oaks, Houston

Houston interior designer Joni Webb takes time out from her usual focus on French design to tell the story of a home in Avalon Place that was done up first in an English country style (top photo), and then — some years later — completely redone by the same owners to something more . . . 18th century Swedish (second from top).

The English incarnation, which was captured in a Country Living magazine feature in the 1990s, had taken years to perfect, Webb reports:

. . . the finished project was perfect: a cozy English, country-style home, filled with authentic antiques, Italian oil paintings, wall to wall seagrass, faux painted yellow and red walls, toile wallpapers, Bennison fabrics and Kenneth Turner candles. It was an open, fun house – the site of many parties where people gathered around a roaring fire and lounged in the deep George Smith sofa, all the while remarking on how warm and inviting the home was.

So, it was a great surprise to many, including [Houston interior designer Carol] Glasser herself, when the wife declared she had changed. She no longer loved her home’s decor, she wanted a new look – a Swedish look – and not just a Swedish antique here and there, but a total, complete Swedish home. And so, for the second time, everything in the house was either sold or was stored and they started the process of decorating their home, completely from scratch, again.

Who best to complete this European migration? Carol Glasser, the same designer who had created the house’s first look. (This time, she enlisted help from Swedish Style expert Katrin Cargill.) After the jump, more before-and-after photos, plus nitty-gritty details of international style-travel.

77019, Avalon Place, Furniture, Home Decor, Interior-Design, Interiors, Renovations, River Oaks, Theming

Apartments

01/30/08 3:14pm

New Studemont Apartment Tower: Out of Styles

Development Strategy, Highrises, Memorial Heights, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing

Legacy at Memorial 25-Story Apartment Tower in Houston This is the best image we’ve been able to find online of the 25-story apartment tower about to go up at the site of the former Ed Sacks Waste Paper Co. at 440 Studemont, just north of Memorial Dr.

And it makes you wonder: Do these out-of-town developers really know what they’re doing here? First they give the project a name — “Legacy at Memorial” — that makes it sound like a funeral home, in a town where death is already a major industry. Then . . . they think Houston residents will stand for 15 percent of the units in the combination highrise-lowrise development being marketed as “affordable housing.” But weirdest of all . . . it looks like they forgot to give their building a theme!

Memo to Legacy Partners and your California retiree funders: Your tower is going up against some aggressively themed competition. When renters can go next door and feel like they’re in Italy, or go down the street to get a little stucco taste of New Orleans, or cross Allen Parkway for a full-fledged Beaux-Arts Alamo resort revival, just who do you expect is going to want to want to live in an apartment that looks like . . . a building in Houston, Texas?

More on the tower that forgot to put on its clothes and makeup . . . after the jump.

77007, Affordable Housing, Apartments, Development Strategy, Highrises, Memorial Heights, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Style, Theming

Buying and Selling

12/19/07 1:57pm

Who’ll Take Manhattan?

Condos, Galleria, Highrises, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Lofts

Living Room of Manhattan Lofts Unit 808, Houston

This delightful unit has lingered on the market for a mere 22 months. That’s a long wait for a condo bubble that never happened. And hey, it ‘s a fun ride down the price ladder!

The grossly oversized two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath corner unit on the top floor of the misplaced Manhattan building in the Galleria was originally priced at $2.1 million, back in the swelled-heady days of February 2006. Five methodical price drops later, we’ve reached $1,695,000. That’s a lot of cuts, but we’re still not even down 20 percent: how low will the program-trading-style reductions go?

After the jump, more pics of the . . . uh, eclectic interior.

77056, Buying and Selling, Condos, Galleria, Highrises, Homes for Sale, Interior-Design, Interiors, Lofts, Price Reductions, Theming, Uptown

Development Strategy

12/11/07 1:22pm

Not So Gaudi on Antoine: Barcelona Villa Boxes!

Home Design, Homes for Sale, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Real Estate Marketing, Spring Branch, Townhomes

Villas of Antoine Ad

Houston is such an international city! If you’ve been here a while, you’ve probably already found Tuscany in Houston and Hong Kong in Houston, and perhaps also Charlottesville, New Delhi, Versailles, New York, Mexico City, Cairo, Dubai, Atlanta, and maybe even some Lubbock in Houston as well.

Well, here’s a new one: Now you can discover Barcelona in Houston too. And it’s in Spring Branch!

Fortunately, for those of you tired at the thought of all that around-the-world-in-eighty-themed-apartments travel, this little bit of the Spanish Mediterranean comes in the familiar form of a Houston townhome six-pack: two rows of bright yellow tightly fit stucco-coated boxes facing a bare concrete driveway.

So really, it shouldn’t seem so foreign after all.

After the jump, more pics!