$4 MILLION BUYS YOU THIS NORTH HOUSTON HOME AND 35 OTHERS KINDA LIKE IT 
This 2005-vintage 1,755-sq.-ft. home at 826 Bandon Ln. in Remington Ranch is just 2.8 percent of the residential wonderfulness you’ll get if you plunk down $4 million for a “package” of 36 homes in North Houston and Spring posted on MLS recently. That averages out to more than $110K each; The seller isn’t identified, but a company called Darland Partners, Ltd. owns a total of 24 properties (including this one) in Harris County; it paid $80,000 for the home pictured above in September of 2012. [HAR]
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Tag: Buying and Selling
More than a month after purchasing the duplex-turned-31-year DIY renovation-and-expansion-project that became the life’s work of its owner, former VA nurse Charles Fondow, buyer Nick Ugarov tells the Chronicle‘s Craig Hlavaty that he’s “still mulling over plans” for the 5-bedroom, 4-and-a-half-bath, 2-turret still-not-quite-finished home at 2309 Wichita St. near Dowling. Ugarov picked up the foreclosed deck-bedecked structure for $251,000, from a bank sale that closed on April 11th, according to MLS records. That’s $101K over the ridiculously low asking price the sales agent had placed on the property, a well-known and much-gawked-at oddity in Riverside Terrace that’s been described as a poor man’s version of the Winchester Mystery House.
Will It Stay or Go Now?
Remediation work is beginning on the 10.52-acre now-cleared lot along Gillette St. between Allen Pkwy. and West Dallas St. The Coastal Water Authority purchased the land, which includes the (now-former) San Felipe Park, from the City of Houston in January. These photos, sent in by reader Jimmy Hollowell, show the view from a balcony at the Ashton at West Dallas apartments, looking east along Hopson St., toward Allen Parkway Village and downtown, from just south of the Federal Reserve Bank. “The green tarping on the fence, dumpsters, and offices is new” as of last week, Hollowell reports.
Between the Fed and APV
HCC IS PLANNING A STUDENT DORM BUILDING TOO, AT ALABAMA AND ALMEDA 
A report from Houston Community College says the commuter school is “in the early stages of planning” its own new dorm complex on the 6 acres of land it bought late last year at the northeast corner of Alabama and Almeda, just southeast of the system’s central campus. The only building currently on the site is the trashed but still brightly painted 107-year-old house at 1625 Alabama St. (pictured at top left) that most recently served as a temporary satellite space for DiverseWorks.
The dorms, which would include first-floor retail space and a parking garage, would be modeled after the Tobin Lofts at Alamo Colleges’ San Antonio College in San Antonio (bottom photo). They’d be built and leased out by a private company “until the business makes a predetermined return on its investment,” according to the report. “After approximately seven years, the complex would be given to HCC to own and manage from then on.” [The Chalkboard] Photos: HCC (top); Tobin Lofts (bottom)
A reader reports seeing some activity on the long-vacant 9.177-acre melting-erlenmeyer-flask-shaped parcel of land at the northeast corner of Hwy. 288 and North MacGregor Way: no construction equipment yet, but crews were picking up trash and cutting grass. The Houston Community College system bought the property last November with plans to build a new medical-focused charter high school on the property.
288 and North MacGregor
MAYBE WE SHOULD ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS 
What’s happened to the bar building by the Cottage Grove railroad tracks at 5519 Allen St. at the corner of T.C. Jester since lesbian bar The Usual shut down there in February? Perhaps a sale of the property and something new going in — but what? “Looks like someone bought the former home of The Usual,” reports a reader who drove by the site Friday and sent in this photo. “For sale sign is gone and there were workers in there today.” [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
The 75-year-old Josephine Apartments just north of Rice University have been sold — to homebuilder Tricon Homes. The distinctive two-tone-brick Art Deco structure was built in 1939 from a design by architect F. Perry Johnston. It sits at the corner of Bolsover and Ashby St., a block north of Rice University, just east of Southampton Place, and 3 blocks south of the site of the planned Ashby Highrise. The U-shaped 2-story building with glass block and steel windows consists of 8 single-bedroom units, some of them with sunrooms.
Good Night, Josephine
ST. PHILIP PRESBYTERIAN IS NOT FOR SALE 
“The enduring themes of conversation here include traffic and real estate,” intoned Pastor John Wurster in his Easter Sunday sermon in front of the blue tiled chancel wall in the sanctuary of the St. Philip Presbyterian Church, which is sited on a prime slice of Uptown land at 4807 San Felipe St. “The real estate conversations seem to happen exclusively with those outside of the church. These are the people who call expressing an interest in buying the church property. I explain that we’re not looking to sell. Of course, you are. Everyone is willing to sell at some point. Just tell us what that point is. No, really, we feel like this is where God has called us. This kind of theological talk tends to bring no response beyond bafflement, as if it’s not possible that one could be in a place and not be willing to leave it if the price were right, as if it’s not possible that decisions and actions might be motivated by something besides money.” Saint Philip’s congregation merged with Central Presbyterian Church a few years ago, shortly before that congregation sold its Richmond Dr. facility to the Morgan Group. Central Presbyterian was torn down for apartments in 2011. [St. Philip Presbyterian; previously on Swamplot] Photo: church member Jeromy Murphy
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SO CONDOS ARE FOREVER? 
“My condo complex sits on about 6 acres of land on the western edge of River Oaks. We’ve been approached a few times by developers, but our bylaws require 100% owner approval to terminate the condo regime. There was a reported offer of $39M, which comes to about $270,800/unit (not accounting for differences in common ownership). That wouldn’t buy squat inside the loop today, so we will probably never get every owner to sell. Fine by me!” [roadchick, commenting on Randall Davis Trying To Buy an Entire Westhaven Estates Townhome Complex, in One Fell Swoop] Illustration: Lulu
Developer Randall Davis has been trying to buy an entire 16-unit townhome complex at the corner of San Felipe Dr. and Nantucket Ln. “They have tried multiple times to purchase,” a source tells Swamplot, noting that the offers have been rejected so far. In September of last year, Davis sent an offer of $400,000 for each unit at 5918 San Felipe St., sweetened with a $50,000 discount off the purchase price of a unit in the condo building Davis intends to build in their place. “They needed a unanimous decision” from all 16 owners, the source notes, “which did not happen.”
The Big Buyout
The owners of the Park Place Baptist Church building and campus just south of the Gulf Fwy. at 4101 Broadway St. have put the 8.694-acre property up for sale, with a list price of $3.9 million. The building, which also serves as a sixties-mod landmark at the freeway exit for mod-home bastion Glenbrook Valley (not to mention Hobby Airport), has been home to the church since the building was completed. But the congregation no longer owns the facility. In 2002, the property was deeded to the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which is based in Dallas. The campus currently serves as the Seminary’s J. Dalton Havard School for Theological Studies.
Park Place Baptist
HAVE HOME PRICES IN LINDALE PARK REALLY JUMPED THAT MUCH, THAT FAST? 
“I’d be curious to know what your more knowledgeable readers think about the rising prices in Lindale Park,” a reader writes. “Just today I saw this listing — for north of $400k! Over the past couple of months there have been a number of homes listed, and quickly pending, for around $300k. Most (all?) of these appear to have been flipped.
I bought my (not updated, in need of work, but a not-bad 3-2) house in Lindale Park for around $150k in 2010. There were a number of factors to picking Lindale Park, but the biggest was that we could get a decent-sized house in a close-in neighborhood that seemed to be on the up-and-up without breaking the bank. (The rail was a big reason too.) But when I saw this home — big and updated but right on 610 — for more than $400k . . . my jaw dropped.” [Swamplot inbox] Photo of 511 Kelley St.: HAR
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE BOOM IN SPRING BRANCH 
“This part of Spring Branch has seen the median listing price go up from ~$150k to ~$250k over the past two years. Listings all over SB get multiple cash offers on the first day; a $400k listing will get bid up well into half-mil territory by week’s end. If this ball keeps rolling, we could start to see the first teardowns north of Long Point before the end of the year. Decision, decisions . . . best to buy now, or sit tight and wait for the pop?” [Rodrigo, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Auto Air] Illustration: Lulu
If you’re as impressed as we are by the free-rotated and seemingly free-spirited snapshots attached to the listing (see actual screenshot of the entire HAR photo gallery, above), you may be interested in the curious for-sale history of the property at 11718 N. Kathy Ave. in Fondren Park — as recorded by the MLS, at least. The 3-bedroom, 2-bath 1967 home is currently marked “pending,” but records show it’s had that same status since April 18th of last year. The current listing appears to date from September 2012, when it went on the market for $70,000. That’s still the current listed asking price. And $70,000 is also the amount the 1,771-sq.-ft. home on a 12,280-sq.-ft. lot sold for in 1999, according to MLS records.
- 11718 N. Kathy Ave. [HAR]
Still Pending
Spotted on a reader’s drive to Champ Burger: the newly vacant almost-an-acre lot at the corner of York and Sherman streets east of East Downtown, where the New Era Nursing and Rehab facility at 3510 Sherman St. was recently demolished. An entity controlled by Lovett Homes developer Frank Liu purchased the property last October.
Lovett Gotta
