GALVESTON HISTORICAL FOUNDATION CLOSES ON BISHOP’S PALACE 
With the Moody Foundation’s $1.5 million donation as a nice starter, the Galveston Historical Foundation was able to raise the rest of the $3 million it needed to buy the 1892 Bishop’s Palace from the Catholic archdiocese and keep it open as a museum. Designed by Nicholas Clayton for Col. Walter Gresham, the 17,420-sq.-ft. Victorian mansion at the corner of 14th and Broadway had housed clergy since 1921 before the foundation opened it up for tours. The Houston Chronicle reports that the archdiocese plans to use the windfall to renovate the St. Mary’s Basilica, also in in Galveston, while the foundation “plans to restore the roof, the front of the building and do repainting [and] other general repairs” to the Palace. [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo: Galveston Historical Foundation
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Tag: Buying and Selling
BIDS TO BUY LAW ENFORCEMENT HS PUNISHED FOR NOT FOLLOWING RULES 
HISD gave a unanimous no today to those competing bids from nearby St. Thomas High School and developer AV Dickson Street to buy the High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice in Magnolia Grove. Apparently, the reason the offers for the 11-acre campus at 4701 Dickson St. were rejected had less to do with the numbers than with HISD’s preferred S.O.P.: “[T]he board’s attorney, David Thompson, stated immediately afterward that both bidders had violated the district’s ‘code of silence’ policy, which prohibits communication between trustees and those with pending business before them.” Superintendent Terry Grier tells the Houston Chronicle that the building will be going right back on the market: “Hopefully if we do that, the bidders will take our ethics policy seriously.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HISD
HOW ONE BUYER WOULD USE HISD’S LAW ENFORCEMENT HS PROPERTY If the High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice is sold to St. Thomas High School competitor AV Dickson Street, the investment company has said it plans to link the 11-acre Magnolia Grove property with the adjacent and recently purchased Bayou Park apartments at 4400 Memorial to create a mixed-use district: Alison Malkhassian of AV Dickson Street tells The Leader‘s Charlotte Aguilar that “the long-term goal . . . could be to create a 26-acre mixed-use luxury retail-office-residential development on the combined properties — a process that would take about a decade.” Yesterday, HISD received the 2nd round of bids: St. Thomas is offering $42 million, about $800,000 more than AV Dickson Street — but Aguilar suggests that the sale might come down to rent: St. Thomas said it would charge the school $225,000 a month to lease the space for the next 5 years, compared with $100,000 a month from AV Dickson Street, a difference of $7.5 million over that time. [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HISD
A STANDOFF TO BUY HISD’S LAW ENFORCEMENT HS CAMPUS The 11-acre parcel for sale in Magnolia Grove where the High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice stands has been the object of some poker-faced one-upmanship between two interested contenders: In one corner, you’ve got St. Thomas High School, whose campus is immediately south of here, and in the other you’ve got AV Dickson Street, a recently formed LLC named for the street the HISD magnet school stands on. The first round, reports the Leader’s Charlotte Aguilar, yielded a $40 million offer from little-known AV Dickson, with St. Thomas countering and raising it by $100. The next round will go off early next week. Aguilar adds that whoever buys the campus will be required to lease it back to HISD for the next 5 years, while a new spot is sought: “In keeping with a move by HISD to relocate its specialty high schools close to beneficial community resources –– the DeBakey High School for the Health Professions to the Texas Medical Center, the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts to the Theater District downtown –– a downtown location near police and sheriff’s headquarters and courthouses is being scouted.” [The Leader] Photo: HISD
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY THEY AREN’T BUILDING ON THE VACANT LOTS “Spoonman hit the nail on the head. Speculators jack up the price of open land so far that it pushes developers to buy existing buildings. This is also why you don’t see a rush of new construction immediately adjacent to light rail lines. My advice to the owners who haven’t already sold: do what the speculators do; hold out for more money. If Hines wants your house bad enough, they’ll pay it. I usually don’t advocate for this kind of thing, but if everyone did it, it might help push development back to open land.” [ZAW, commenting on Hines Buying Up Museum District Property To Build Highrise Apartments]
A few sources are telling Swamplot that Hines is planning to build either a 20- or 22-story apartment tower on the entire city block where this house stands in the Museum District. The house is at the corner of Caroline and Southmore, directly across from Yoshio Taniguchi’s Asia Society Texas Center and that recently cleared residential lot immediately behind it. The block is bound by Caroline, Southmore, Oakdale, and the light rail line along San Jacinto. One of the sources says that 3 of the 4 property owners on the block have agreed to sell, and that Hines will be taking those properties over on July 1. Another source speculates that Hines might go ahead and build around the holdout. As of this morning, there’s been no word from Hines — though a rep in an email writes: “No deal has been closed so it is too preliminary to discuss,” which sure makes it sound as though there is an “it.”
- Previously on Swamplot: What’s Next for That Museum District Never-Was?, A Look Around San Felipe at the Randall Davis Condos and Planned Hines Office Building Site, Hines Plans a Shiny New 18-Story Office Building Across San Felipe from River Oaks, Hines Replacing Cafe Adobe With Apartment Building — Just Not This One, Yoshio Taniguchi’s New Asia Society Texas Center: The Full Photo Preview Tour
Photo: Swamplot inbox
It looks like the 10.53 acres behind this sign where the Spring Branch RoomStore stands have been fosoldale, and the buyer has said it plans to build some rental townhomes. Broker David Littwitz says that the RoomStore here at 1009 Brittmoore Rd. facing the Katy Fwy. closed about a year ago, after the Richmond, Virginia, company filed for bankruptcy near the end of 2011. Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that the buyer, a joint venture called Houston Texas Properties, intends to tear down the showroom to develop what they’re dubbing Arabella, desribed by Dixon as a “240-unit, upscale rental townhome community.” And they’re not wasting time: Dixon adds that the RoomStore should be coming down within the next few weeks.
- Energy Corridor Land Sells [Real Estate Bisnow]
Photo: Real Estate Bisnow
SQUATTING AT THE SAVOY 
The news that Downtown’s old Savoy Hotel has been sold and will be converted into a Holiday Inn seems to have inspired some nostalgia in the Houston Chronicle’s Craig Hlavaty. Going back over the hotel’s past as housing for law students and even boarding for Lee Harvey Oswald, in town one day to apply for a job at nearby Conoco, Hlavaty also finds evidence that the supposedly vacant building was anything but: “In 2004, someone named “squatterkid” was posting on a Houston architecture forum about living inside . . . even getting phone calls there from people expecting to make reservations at the long dormant hotel. The number was still listed. At the time, he said that there was still electricity running in the place, too. The squatter, who went by Sean when he spoke with the Houston Press in 2007, said he and some homeless folks made the hotel their home using the leftover furnishings.” You can read more from “squatterkid” here. [Houston Chronicle; HAIF; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
The long-vacant Savoy Hotel at 1616 Main has been sold to a group of investors and will be converted sometime this year into a flagship Holiday Inn, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Erin Mulvaney, adding to Downtown’s stock of both new and renovated hotels. Crews were spotted at the 17-story Savoy last month opening windows and building a wooden chute that was sending dusty innards down into a Dumpster, where the 7-story, pigeon-poop-encrusted original 1906 Savoy Apartments stood until that building was demolished in 2009. Once called the Savoy-Field Hotel, the 1960s-era building stands on the lot bound by Leeland, Main, Travis, and Pease, across from the construction site of the new 24-story SkyHouse apartments.
- Old Savoy Hotel to be Holiday Inn flagship [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Previously on Swamplot: Airing Out, At Least, the Old Savoy Downtown, Downtown SkyHouse Clearing the Ground First, New Convention Center Hotel Seems a Done Deal, Downtown Landmark Lancaster Hotel To Be Upgraded with ‘Prestigious Plumbing Accouterments’, Apartments in Old Humble Oil Building Downtown To Go the Way of Its Hotel Neighbors, Where Downtown’s New Residential Tower Will Go, Guano with the Wind: Demolishing the Savoy Asbestos Possible, Emergency Demo: The Savoy Hotel’s Final Weekend Stay Downtown, Downtown’s Pigeon Poop Powder Keg Will Not Go Boom
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: CHEAPER, CLOSE-IN “I would just add to what Cody said. You can avoid traffic AND get a big house and lawn here in Houston. You just need to set aside your prejudices about certain neighborhoods. We’ve been living in the Brays Oaks area, formerly known as Fondren Southwest, since 2007, and it’s wonderful. Houses prices are on-par with far-flung suburbs like Jersey Village and Spring; far less than Inside the Loop. Barring any major accidents we can get from our house to the Museum District in less than 25 minutes; the Medical Center in under 20. My commute to work only takes me one exit on the Southwest Freeway. I take a certain satisfaction and watching all the people from Sugar Land sit in traffic, knowing that they spent more and got less house than we did. (Crime issues here are overblown, by the way – the result of sensationalized local news reports. The public schools are lousy, but we have some great private schools.)” [ZAW, commenting on Comment of the Day: First We Crowd]
This 1940 bungalow in Magnolia Grove had been all set to be torn down, showing up in the Daily Demolition Report on Wednesday. But the previous owners, who bought the 1,200-sq.-ft. Gibson St. house in 2005 and sold it in 2012, say that it has been “spared.” Here’s their story:
After discovering that we were expecting our second child, we quickly realized that the 2 bed, 1-1/2 bath was not large enough for our growing family. We hoped that perhaps a single person or couple would purchase the property. We were naive, of course, as the only offers received were from builders planning to build the typical 3 story, 4K square foot beast near downtown. After much heartache and a few tears, we accepted an offer from Urban Living and fully expected the home to be demolished.
A HEIGHTS RETAIL RESURRECTION 
The Leader is reporting that the Baptist Temple Church on Rutland and 20th St. in the Heights has sold 2 of its oldest buildings to Braun Enterprises, which says it will tear them down and replace them with less sacred spaces — that is, retail or a restaurant. If the almighty dollar has triumphed, there’s still a silver lining — or so Charlotte Aguilar suggests, reporting that the sale of the buildings — the church’s original sanctuary, built in 1912, and a larger one built in 1940 — will fund a $3 million renovation to its remaining 65,000-sq.-ft. T.C. Jester Building on 20th; a new 300-seat sanctuary will be added and classrooms and offices updated. [The Leader] Photo: Charlotte Aguilar via The Leader
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: Y’ALL COME BY NOW, Y’HEAR? “I am thankful for Ben’s research and for putting me in touch with Robert who had the right buyer for my Dad’s house. I have always loved this house and have great memories here. It’s where I learned to appreciate unique architecture. I now live in NYC. I will have an open house on June 1st 10a to 4p if anyone would like to stop by, say hello — see the ‘before’ and the Texas shaped hot-tub my dad made in the back before it probably goes. If you are allergic to dust, wear a mask. PS — the boat is gone. long story.” [laura kellner, commenting on The Century Built Home in Garden Oaks That Sold in About an Hour]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHO CARES WHAT THE NEIGHBORS THINK? “The fact is that the neighbors are not part of the transaction. The transaction happens between a developer who legally acquired land and new customers who will come from an outside area. Therefore developers do not have to and do not listen to them.” [commonsense, commenting on Comment of the Day: An Atmosphere of Mistrust]
Here’s the third of 4 houses designed by not-so-famous Houston architect Allen R. Williams in the 1940s and fifties, dubbed “Century Built” homes. If the name was intended to indicate how long the concrete-block homes were all supposed to last, the record isn’t so stellar: The one off Campbell Rd. was torn down some time ago. But the others are doing fine: One in Idylwood was snatched up by an architect a few years ago, and another in Country Club Place has served as a showcase for the renovation work of its current owner, architect Ben Koush.
But this unrenovated Century Built home at 851 W. 43rd St., in the middle of Garden Oaks, didn’t last so long, either: Real estate agent Robert Searcy tells Swamplot he had it locked up in a contract very quickly earlier this week, after he made a few phone calls. Not to a builder — the sellers didn’t want the place to be torn down — but reportedly to a serial renovator interested in Midcentury modern design.
