Tag: Apartments

Apartments
05/19/10 12:53pm

Fraud Arrests for Sham Condo Sales at the Kirby Lofts

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Buying and Selling, Condos, Crime, Downtown, Fraud, Lofts
5 Comments

Converted from an office building to apartments in 2004 by NBC Holdings’ Tracy Suttles and The Randall Davis Company, the Kirby Lofts at 917 Main Downtown went condo a little later. How did that ball get rolling? The federal government’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force suggests one answer: a few “sham sales” from January to October 2006. Indictments charging Veronica Frazier, Robert Veazie, and Felton Greer with several counts of conspiracy and wire fraud were unsealed Friday.

Frazier, 42, of Pearland, allegedly recruited buyers with good credit in 2006 to act as straw borrowers and use false information to apply for home loans, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. She and other unnamed co-conspirators then allegedly used the loan proceeds for themselves and to pay kickbacks to the fake borrowers.

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Apartments
05/12/10 4:04pm

Small, Cool Apartment Contest Winner Explains How It All Began

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Home Decor, Houston History, Interiors, Montrose, Westmoreland
4 Comments

Well, whaddya know? Graphic designer Chris Nguyen’s tiny Marshall St. apartment (featured on Swamplot just last week) ended up as the grand U.S. prize winner in Apartment Therapy’s Small, Cool 2010 design contest. No fluke: Nguyen was, uh . . . thinking small from the get-go. Intrigued by the design website’s annual competition and the idea of living in a tiny space, Nguyen began his search for an apartment in Houston last July:

I really wanted this to be about a different way of living and not about compromises, so it was important that all my furniture remained real-sized. I carefully selected what I thought I needed and put away in storage extraneous collections and junk that we all end up hoarding over the years. . . .

I think the bedroom in the house I was living in last was the same size as this entire studio. It was a big room in a big house that was filled with an incredibly increasing amount of big things. That’s how we do it in Texas, right? All the while, I always held an admiration for smartly designed small spaces more commonly found in highly urban dense metropolises or cool under appreciated neighborhoods. Houston is not the first of those things, so I looked for something purposefully small in the latter.

And he found . . . ?

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Apartments
05/07/10 11:52pm

Now on the Small Screen: A Tiny Westmoreland Place

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Home Decor, Interiors, Westmoreland Historic District
14 Comments

Unfazed by Swamplot’s now 0-and-2 record in promoting local Apartment Therapy design contest submissions (no, that Venue Museum District apartment we showed last week didn’t get too far either), reader Chris Nguyen writes in to ask for votes in the finals of that website’s Small, Cool 2010 design contest. That’s right — entries in 4 divisions have been whittled down to Nguyen’s 450-sq.-ft. Westmoreland district apartment shown here (originally entered in the “Tiny” division) and some other dude’s Brooklyn flat from the “Little” division that’s more than a third larger. The final voting takes place this weekend. Can this tiny Houston pad win it all?

Win or lose, we hope to reveal a bit more about Nguyen’s certifiably small living space later. For now, though, have a look at these pics and the floor plan:

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Adaptive Reuse
04/29/10 2:55pm

Comment of the Day: You See a Worn-Out Fourplex, I See a West Gray Bar Waiting To Happen

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Apartments, Comments, Montrose, Nightlife, North Montrose, Quicklink
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOU SEE A WORN-OUT FOURPLEX, I SEE A WEST GRAY BAR WAITING TO HAPPEN “Looks like a great place to relocate the long dead but sorely missed Aquarium [Lounge]. Connect two. Demolish two for for parking. Win. Take a look behind the front room addition at Kenneally’s and you’ll find a building nearly identical to these: obsolete for housing, but many other uses.” [Bernard, commenting on Lovebird Hideaways: 3 Out of 4 Fourplexes on West Gray]

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Critters
04/29/10 12:02pm

Killing a League City Apartment Intruder: Not a Good Idea To Smile So Wide in Front of the Leasing Office

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League City
5 Comments

Just how tough and efficient is the security at the Signature Point Apartments off Marina Bay Dr. in League City? Last week a visitor that showed up in front of the leasing office was detained for several hours by authorities and then put to death. The visitor had been found earlier in the month in a complex parking lot fronting a canal connected to Clear Lake.

That time, game wardens trapped and released the 7-foot-long alligator into the canal it had crawled from. But they began to suspect apartment residents were feeding the animal, and tried a different strategy on the next encounter:

[Apartment manager Susan] Cogbill said game wardens took the animal to a secluded area of the complex and shot it. Tanuz declined to comment how the animal was killed.

Game wardens did not move the alligator or release it into the water behind Signature Point because it was too comfortable around humans, [Galveston County game warden supervisor Capt. Edward] Tanuz said. Bayous across Galveston County are natural habitats for alligators, but they typically avoid humans, Tanuz said.

What a waste, huh? Oh, no:

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Apartments
04/28/10 11:28am

The Art of a Small Apartment in a New Venue, Just a Hop Down Fannin

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Art, Home Decor, Interiors, Museum District
6 Comments



When last we heard from Vernon Caldera, the proprietor of the Keep Houston Rich video website was promoting a little 710-sq.-ft. apartment in Isabella Court for a design award from Apartment Therapy. This year, he’s on to bigger things — well, 53 sq. ft. bigger at least. It’s his and Adam Gibson’s new place a ways down Fannin St. at the Venue Museum District, and it’s up again for an award in the “little” category of the website’s Small Cool Places contest.

It’s all done with mirrors, Caldera explains to design voters:

Our favorite element is the beautiful view of Downtown Houston visible from the living and bed rooms. We placed a large mirror over the sofa in the living room to carry the view and light into the entrance. By adding a mirrored wardrobe in the bedroom we get much-needed storage and floor-to-ceiling views.

Oh, and there’s some art to look at here, too:

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Apartments
04/27/10 12:47pm

Lovebird Hideaways: 3 Out of 4 Fourplexes on West Gray

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Buildings for Sale, Land for Sale, North Montrose, West Gray Terrace
17 Comments

Three fourplexes in a row, plus a vacant lot that used to hold one, are for sale on West Gray between Stanford and Taft, across the street from Barnaby’s and next to the West Gray Café. And Swamplot brings you this exclusive color commentary from a former tenant:

. . . they’re roach motels inside. Plus, the back parking has potholes deep enough for cars to get stuck in. The maintenance was horrible while I lived there, and then they jacked up the rent. But, for the price, the apartments were quite large with central AC. Just had to ignore the mice, roaches, ants and leaks.

No idea why, but there have been instances of lovebirds using the back parking lot to get some privacy in the past. Guess they drank too much at Cecil’s.

Why is the listing agent insisting all 4 properties “must be sold together”?

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Apartments
04/12/10 3:35pm

Ashby Highrise Developers Drop Names, Move To District Court

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Boulevard Oaks, Condos, Development Regulations, Development Strategies, Highrises, Lawsuits, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Southampton
61 Comments

ASHBY HIGHRISE DEVELOPERS DROP NAMES, MOVE TO DISTRICT COURT What do the Fairmont Museum District, La Maison on Revere, Millennium Greenway, and 2121 Mid Lane apartments, the Medical Clinic of Houston, and the trigger-happy Sonoma development in the Rice Village have in common? They all make cameo appearances in the latest version of Buckhead Investment Partners’ lawsuit against the city of Houston. The claim: that none of those projects were subjected to the same traffic restrictions as Buckhead’s proposed 23-story tower on the corner of Bissonnet and Ashby, next to Southampton: “The Ashby high-rise developers re-filed their lawsuit April 7 in state district court, where it will focus more heavily on claims the project was denied permits for its original design because it was subjected to ‘capricious and unreasonable’ standards. Court documents submitted by attorneys for the Buckhead Development Partners, show the suit against Houston continues to center on the city’s application of the driveway ordinance as a basis to refuse a final building permit. The city has said it is correct in its application of the ordinance and the inclusion of ‘trip-count’ standards to guarantee safety and ensure streets in the neighborhood remain passable.” [River Oaks Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Buckhead Investment Partners

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Apartments
03/25/10 2:15pm

Live! Nude! Somewhere on the Roof!

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Attractions, Leasing, Real Estate Marketing, Upper Kirby
10 Comments

Is it sweeps week already? Or did the La Maison at River Oaks just step up its marketing game? 11 News reporter Courtney Zubowski corrals the KHOU newschopper to provide some “over the top” coverage of that clothing-optional sundeck on the roof of the French Quarter-themed apartment complex at 2727 Revere St., south of Westheimer. Alas, no one is taking advantage of the facility when she shows up, and judging from the aerial shots used in the report, neither camera operator nor editor seem to know exactly where the thing is.

A Swamplot reader throws out some more theories:

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Apartments
03/08/10 12:27pm

Luxury Apartment Openings

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Highrises, Quicklink
No Comments

LUXURY APARTMENT OPENINGS Eight years into it, Leon Hale still isn’t entirely accustomed to his fancy just-inside-the-West Loop highrise apartment: “I mean in all the other places I’ve lived I washed the windows myself, if they ever got washed. And I admit I’ve never gotten used to having doors opened for me. I’ve always been pretty well able to open doors for myself. But door-opening is the custom here, and who knows? Someday I might get so feeble I’ll need such help. That’s not one of my goals, though. In other ways life here is a lot the same as in several apartments I’ve lived in. Little things happen that usually don’t happen in free-standing homes. For instance, the apartment just below us is being renovated, and the other day somebody was drilling a hole in the ceiling down there. He drilled too far and punched a hole in our kitchen floor, right up through the tile, in front of the dishwasher.” [Houston Chronicle]

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Apartments
02/25/10 11:09am

The Metropole Dance: Foreclosing and Flipping Greenway Plaza Apartments

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Buying and Selling, Foreclosures, Greenway Plaza
11 Comments

Two months ago, a group out of San Antonio bought up the $32 million and somewhat-tattered note owed by the owners of the Metropole Apartments at 3616 Richmond (between Edloe and Buffalo Speedway). But Lynd Residential Properties and McCombs Enterprises weren’t interested in collecting payments — they foreclosed on the property right away. And now they’re hoping to sell the 289-unit property — for more than $40 million. Globe St.‘s Amy Wolff Sorter explains politely how it came to this:

Metropole’s story begins in 2005, when Cambridge Development acquired a vacant office building with plans to convert it into living space. Cambridge Development finished its work in 2007, creating a luxury high-rise multifamily complex right around the time fundamentals began to weaken. Cambridge Development brought the asset to market in late winter 2008. Metropole was under contract several times but never made it out of escrow.

. . . and the new owners swooped in at the end of last year. They tell Sorter they’ve already brought the occupancy rate up from 75 percent to “the low 80s,” with rental rates of approximately $1.50 per sq. ft.

Photo: Metropole

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Apartments
02/22/10 4:49pm

Matthew Dilick: Wilshire Village Residents Were Just “Squatters”

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Foreclosures, Lancaster Place, Leasing, Neighborhood Disputes
15 Comments

Did Matthew Dilick, managing partner of the partnership that owns the 7.68-acre site of the former Wilshire Village Apartments, really refer to the long-term tenants of the long-neglected property at the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy — many of whom had lived in their apartments and paid rent for decades before they were evicted last year — as “squatters”?

In a February 1st affidavit he provided to the 133rd District Court in hopes it might help forestall Wedge Real Estate Finance from foreclosing on the property, Dilick states that “the Plaintiff [Alabama & Dunlavy Ltd., of which Dilick is the general partner] expended considerable time and expense in evicting squatters on the Property.” This just a page or so after declaring his qualifications: “The Plaintiff and/or limited partners of the Plaintiff have owned this Property for over 50 years.”

Gosh, maybe there’s a bit of confusion here? Maybe the “squatters” Dilick is referring to weren’t the actual long-term rent-paying Wilshire Village residents, but some other people he found hiding out in the complex who didn’t have authorization to be there from “the Plaintiff and/or limited partners of the Plaintiff”?

Uh . . . no. By “squatters,” Dilick clearly means Wilshire Village’s long-term residents. The ones he sent eviction notices to; the ones he addressed as “reported occupants” in the release forms he asked them to sign. Otherwise, why should it have taken “considerable time and expense” for Dilick to evict them? How about just . . . “shoo!”?

Neatly left out of the affidavit: The apparent ongoing conflicts Dilick had with Jay Cohen, the sole owner of the property for the bulk of those 50 years. Until they were evicted, the tenants paid their rent to him every month. What’s Cohen’s role?

A person familiar with the situation writes in:

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Apartments
02/18/10 12:45pm

Comment of the Day: The Ghost of Wilshire Village

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Comments, Lancaster Place, Neighborhood Disputes, Quicklink
11 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GHOST OF WILSHIRE VILLAGE “Where is Jay Cohen in all of this? Supposedly he sold the property and yet continued to collect rent from the ‘squatters’ as they are referred to by Dilick. Did he, does he, still own an interest in the property?” [Matt Mystery, commenting on Wilshire Village Owners Try To Hold Off the Bank]

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Apartments
02/18/10 12:16pm

The Numbers on Commerce Towers

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Condos, Condos for Sale, Downtown, Highrises, Lofts
7 Comments

How has that condo conversion of the former Commerce Building at the corner of Main St. and Walker Downtown been working out?

The building has 122 finished units and a two-story-tall penthouse that has not been built out yet.

A total of 69 units have been sold, and another 25 have been leased. [Commerce Towers sales and leasing agent Susan] Speck said some of the renters are interested in buying.

Prominent Houstonian Jesse Jones built the first part of the structure in 1928, and added onto it in the 1930s, Speck said.

An entity named Premier Towers bought the building in 1999. It was redeveloped by New York-based Whitney Jordan Group with Tarantino Properties Inc. of Houston.

The first condo units were finished and people starting moving in during 2002.

Photo of Commerce Towers, 914 Main St.: Sandra Gunn Properties

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Apartments
02/17/10 2:43pm

Comment of the Day: Look Out for Those Tweaked Townhomes!

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Comments, Home Design, Quicklink, Townhomes, Washington Corridor
4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOOK OUT FOR THOSE TWEAKED TOWNHOMES! “. . . My reason for staying away from those townhomes…Any one of those townhomes could be easily tweaked in the future to be 2 apartments. Pair that with the common driveways and you could easily have alot of people sharing a pretty small area.” [justguessin, commenting on Comment of the Day: Here Come the Almeda Promoters]

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