COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW CLOSE ARE THOSE NEW APARTMENT COMPLEXES? “I wonder how much the apartment supply in the south areas (below the medical center and rice u) affect the apartment supply along Buffalo Bayou, Midtown, Montrose, and Upper Kirby? From the site development group at my office, they are telling me that the apartment market will heat up if the housing slump holds or gets worse. Right now developers are scouring for new sites for apartment complexes if they haven’t already.” [kjb434, commenting on Comment of the Day: Inner Loop Rents, Hard and High]
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Tag: Apartments
COMMENT OF THE DAY: INNER LOOP RENTS, HARD AND HIGH “I have to disagree with rents being soft in the inner loop. I just relocated here in January and, unless things have changed, I found rents exceedingly high and availability low. Granted, I did not want a cookie cutter apartment, but I was blown away by the prices. I looked at the new Gables property on Kirby and they were $2,500 minimum a month for a two bedroom. The kicker was that they’d only accept a 18 month lease. I thought that was crazy. The Alexean on Westheimer was a little cheaper at $2,000 per month but it didn’t seem well built. I preferred condo’s or houses to apartment complexes and most of them were in the $2,000 plus range. Those under $2,000 that were nice rented almost immediately after coming on the market. I wound up in a two bedroom house in Montrose for $2,600 and everyone I talk to seems to think I got an ok deal. I have to concur that it seems more expensive to rent than buy. I certainly could have bought for less in this market but, being new to town, didn’t want to dive in to home ownership immediately. Anyone that says Houston is cheap hasn’t looked at inner loop real estate.” [Charlie, commenting on Where Rents Have Dropped]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE UPPER LIMITS OF INNER LOOP RENTS “The reason the inner loop is ‘soft’ is simple math. A tiny apartment is now something like $1,200 per month. Meanwhile, my mortgage on my inner-loop house is just over $1,300.” [me, commenting on Where Rents Have Dropped]
Director Josef Helfenstein tells Cite magazine’s Raj Mankad that the new campus plan architect David Chipperfield is developing for the Menil Collection won’t necessarily involve the demolition of the Richmont Square apartment complex at 1400 Richmond.
The blocks along Richmond could become more dense than the other parts of the campus and serve as a buffer. The Dan Flavin installation – it was the last big piece done while Dominique was still here and Flavin’s last commission before he died – could become a gateway to the North. I actually think, if we do things right, Richmond Hall could help us to eventually integrate commercial development that has high standards with the artistic program we have in mind.
- Chipperfield and the Menil Masterplan: An Interview with Josef Helfenstein [OffCite]
- Art Urbanism: Chipperfield and the Menil Master Plan (PDF) [Cite]
- What the New Collection of Menil Collections Might Look Like [Swamplot]
Photo of Richmond Hall and Richmont Square: Raj Mankad
WHERE RENTS HAVE DROPPED The latest stats provided to 11 News by Houston-based Apartment Data Services show that at the newest complexes, rents for all size of apartments are now averaging $1,108. That’s 11 percent cheaper than last year. Rents are about the same for complexes built a decade ago, averaging $739 a month. And rents are actually up slightly at older complexes, where they’re averaging $570 a month. ‘I’d say the inner loop is probably the softest,’ said Bruce McClenny of Apartment Data Services. ‘They’re about 40 percent occupied,’ McClenny said of brand-new complexes that traditionally take a year or two to fill up. . . . We’re told rents are holding steady for many apartments in far west Houston, Katy, The Woodlands, Kingwood, and Sugar Land. Demand remains strong in those places. Why? The energy industry, for one. ‘The energy corridor’s taking off again in west Houston. There’s lot of growth, people relocating day in day out,’ according to Shannon Proteau, another agent with Find It Apartment Locators. But, in a twist, Proteau said it’s also because families forced out of homes by foreclosure are attracted by highly-rated suburban school districts.” [11 News]
NO, THE WILSHIRE VILLAGE APARTMENTS DIDN’T CATCH ON FIRE TODAY But the much smaller West Alabama Place apartments catty-corner to them, at 1648 W. Alabama, did: “Officials said eight upstairs units were damaged either by fire, smoke or water. The fire appeared to be in the attic above the units.” No injuries have been reported. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Vernon Caldera, proprietor of video-a-day website Keep Houston Rich, writes in to show off his friend Adam Gibson’s pad at Isabella Court in Midtown — and to round up votes for it in a “smallest, coolest home” contest hosted by design blog Apartment Therapy.
Gibson’s apartment, pictured above, has already advanced to the second round of competition in the “little” category (at 710 sq. ft., the apartment apparently doesn’t qualify as tiny, teeny-tiny, “international,” or small — each of which has its own separate contest). Today, it’s pitted against a “compact but . . . spacious and cozy” (and slightly smaller) apartment in Brooklyn.
What’s so special about this little home? Gibson tells the judges:
I love [the] wrought-iron window between the bedroom and the living room. I love the original sink in the kitchen from when the building was built in 1929. I love the beautiful non-working fireplace. But I would have to say my favorite element is the beautiful wrought iron staircase in the living room with the butterflies sculpted to match the lines of the stairs.
Caldera writes:
There is a short registration, if you are not already a member, but other than that voting is fairly easy. I believe Adam’s apartment is the only one selected from Houston. . . . The winner after each 24-hour elimination round moves onto the next round with the division elimination on Wednesday. Night-owls like myself start voting as soon as the contest opens at 2AM our time and continue to vote until the last hour.
You can find more pics of Gibson’s definitively little apartment — and vote for the winner in the current round — on the Apartment Therapy website.
- Small Cool 2009: Adam’s Edited Bare Essentials [Apartment Therapy]
- Isabella Court (photo gallery) [Houston Chronicle]
- Keep Houston Rich
- Life at Isabella Court: Point, Counterpoint [Swamplot]
Photos: dabfoto creative/David A. Brown
COMMENT OF THE DAY: APARTMENT MESS SKEPTIC “. . . There should be grime around the light switch – there is not. There should be a big layer of filth on the blinds – there is not. The blind cord would be filthy – it is not. The walls are very very clean & white. They should be smudgy. In another set of these pictures, the kitchen cabinets are completely clean, no grime at the door knobs, no grime at the drawer pulls. Trust me – in this much filth, you would see that grime. ALSO – the big piles of cigarette butts were obviously dumped there. When you put out a cigarette, there is a smashing action. You don’t just throw a still burning cigarette on top of a giant pile of other cigarettes. MAYBE this person worked in a bar & collected a weeks worth of cigarettes & dumped them throughout the house……maybe….. But the whole thing looks staged to me – big time.” [KW, commenting on Inside the Messiest Apartment in Houston. Ever.]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: UPPER MIDTOWN “Talking of rimshotting onto the popularity of neighboring areas did anyone else notice that the Alexan Height[s] apartments became the Midtown Heights after changing hands despite the fact that they are at I-10 and Oxford. Exactly how big is Midtown these days?” [Jimbo, commenting on Watch for Cottage Cheese Dropping from Heights]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WILSHIRE VILLAGE PAYMENT DUE “I forgot to mention that with regard to the loan Dilick took out to pay for taxes on the property four years ago, sources have reported that the bank set a deadline of early April 2009 for him to take steps toward paying back that loan. In demolishing the apartments and selling the land, Dilick would be able to pay back the loan and make a profit as well. . . . As to the comment, ‘This is private property. The owner should be able to do with it as he sees fit,’ the problem is that Jay Cohen, who inherited the property from his parents, still holds 80 percent ownership. Sadly, he was duped or forced by circumstance into signing over managing control to Dilick. . . .” [dredger, commenting on Comment of the Day: Grand Unified Wilshire Village Conspiracy Theory]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: GRAND UNIFIED WILSHIRE VILLAGE CONSPIRACY THEORY An “anonymous news reporter/non-resident” explains all the wacky goings-on at Wilshire Village — complete with a detailed timeline. Here’s an excerpt, but if you love real-estate soap operas, settle in with a snack and read the whole finger-pointing thing: “. . . The original owner, Jay H. Cohen, inherited the apartments and property from his parents, who had the apartments built in 1940. In November 2005, Matthew Dilick partnered with Cohen under a partnership called Alabama & Dunlavy, Ltd., taking out a loan to pay for taxes. Through this partnership, Dilick was able to obtain general partnership status to make management decisions, and his widely published plan all along has been to demolish the buildings and sell the land. Before the apartments could be demolished, they would have to be vacated. But the original owner Jay H. Cohen maintained majority ownership and wished to keep the buildings standing. Toward that goal, Cohen obtained two repair permits in January and February 2009 and set electricians to consistently making electrical repairs over the course of the next couple of months. . . . Questions: If the buildings were demolished and new condos were built, would the City of Houston stand to profit by the increased value of the land and therefore increased taxes? Was the City of Houston working in coordination with Alabama & Dunlavy, Ltd to cause the buildings to be vacated? Why were Cohen’s repair efforts disregarded by Alabama & Dunlavy, Ltd. and the City of Houston? Has everything been legit? . . .” [dredger, commenting on Wilshire Village Is Ready for Its Closeup]
Note: Story updated below.
Over at Wilshire Village, all appears on track for one of those classic salvage-free start-over-the-weekend demos — the kind this town is famous for! A pre-demo sewer-disconnect permit for the apartments was pulled yesterday. And a Swamplot reader has sent in a photo report:
I saw that one of your commenters had noticed the Komatsu in the parking lot of Wilshire Village. It’s from Ambush Demolition, so that’s not a particularly good sign. There are numbers spray-painted on the sides of at least some of the buildings there and orange cable (and gas line?) markings on the sidewalks . . .
Will Wilshire Village’s actual demo permit be purchased sometime today? You’ll get a definitive answer . . . in next Monday’s Daily Demolition Report, right here on Swamplot!
Now, about that closeup:
The nonprofit Historic Houston Salvage Warehouse sure would like some of them nice materials that went into the Wilshire Village Apartments. But no dice:
“All efforts to contact owner have been a dead end,” founder Lynn Edmundson writes:
If anyone knows or can get in contact with the owners…my crew could start immediately!!!
Hey, that would be great — because there’s apparently a Komatsu excavator hanging out in the parking lot on Dunlavy, looking for some action.
More from Edmundson:
The reader who provided this “tip” wouldn’t or couldn’t tell us where the information came from, so there’s no particular reason to take it seriously. But it raises a few interesting questions about the future of the 8-acre property at W. Alabama and Dunlavy that’s apparently soon to be the former site of the Wilshire Village apartments.
. . . So here it is:
The buzz in the air over the demolition of Wilshire Village is Mr. Dilick plans to try to sell the property soon after the demolition, word is he hasn’t the funding to develop this tract.
- Wilshire Village coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
The Wilshire Village Apartments at Alabama and Dunlavy have been surrounded with a chain link fence topped with barbed wire since Friday, reports a Swamplot reader. And over at the Chronicle, Nancy Sarnoff confirms that the now-vacant complex is “set to be demolished.”
Swamplot readers may especially enjoy parsing this passage:
In 2005, the owner announced plans to tear it down and possibly build an upscale tower in its place.
Matt Dilick, a commercial real estate developer who controls the partnership that owns Wilshire Village, said the demolition process will start “relatively soon.â€
“The buildings are unsafe, and for numerous years prior groups have not kept the buildings maintained or the property up to city code,†he said. “The dilapidated buildings are an eyesore to the public and to the numerous homeowners and businesses in the area.â€
Helpful hint: the “owner” who announced plans to tear down the complex way back in 2005 was . . . Matt Dilick.
Extra credit: Unwrap the sequence of events Sarnoff gently suggests in this passage:
