02/28/11 2:38pm

When last we visited the lonely blue-glass office building next to the former site of the River Oaks Hospital, just west of Greenway Plaza, the brand-new structure had only a single tenant — a doctor. That was more than 2 and a half years ago. But Cushman & Wakefield’s latest flyer for River Oaks Plaza at 4140 Southwest Fwy. (it’s been on the market ever since) lists the 5-story, 105,000-sq.-ft. building as “fully leased.” Was there a huge influx of tenants in the meantime? Not exactly, though a second doctor’s office did move into the building a bit later. In fact, both offices are leaving the building. That’s so the Art Institute of Houston can move in, beginning in July. The institute and its 2,300 students will relocate from this somewhat less see-through 6-story building at 1900 Yorktown, in the Galleria area:

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02/08/11 10:47am

Kroger has bought 8.5 acres of former industrial land on Studemont, just south of I-10, the Chronicle‘s Purva Patel reports. The land, which was once part of Houston’s Sixth Ward, sits just north of Arne’s Warehouse and Party Store and across the street from Grocers Supply. Kroger closed on the larger portion — a 7.2-acre cleared parcel at 1400 Studewood, listed for sale at $15.7 million — just last week. A spokesperson for the grocery chain wasn’t ready to announce a new store on the site, but did say the company had already taken possession of 1.3 acres just to the south, at 1200 Givens St. If Kroger does build a new supermarket there, the parking lot would have 450 ft. of frontage on Studemont; other industrial properties, many of them accessed from Summer St., would still be sandwiched between it and the Sawyer Heights Target.

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01/31/11 8:09am

The first-ever inside-The-Loop Walmart SuperCenter will be built near the corner of South Wayside Dr. and the Gulf Freeway, a source tells Swamplot. The 28-acre site sits between Idylwood and I-45; according to a preliminary site plan currently making the rounds in that neighborhood, the store’s main entrance will be from Wayside, which also serves as the freeway entrance to a few other eastside neighborhoods, including Country Club Place and Forest Park.

According to Swamplot’s source, a real-estate entity connected to Walmart has an 8-month option to buy the property, home to 6 vacant warehouse buildings that once served as a distribution center for Oshman’s — as well as the former corporate offices of the defunct sporting goods company. Walmart has been completing its analysis of the property and is less than 30 days away from completing the land purchase, for a price of $35 a sq. ft., the source says.

Isn’t Walmart already planning its first Inner-Loop store on the other side of Downtown — just south of the Heights? Yes, but that store won’t be a SuperCenter. The Idylwood store is expected to measure approximately 210,000 sq. ft. — almost 60,000 sq. ft. larger than the planned Washington Heights District location. The site plan of the Idylwood store, which is not final (and which we’ve rotated to fit below), shows an asphalt parking lot with 722 spaces, plus a garden center on the store’s south side:

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01/21/11 3:11pm

DOWN IN THE DYNAMO DISTRICT, FEELING THE LAND RUSH What’s happening to land values around the East Downtown site of Dynamo Stadium at Texas and Dowling? “Dave Cook with Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc. said he has six properties listed for sale in the area with an asking price of $50 per square foot, or nearly $2.2 million per acre. ‘That’s what the value will be when the soccer stadium is an actual reality,’ he said. Cook said property sold for $30 to $35 per square foot before the stadium site was acquired. An investor signed a contract last week, Cook added, to buy an 11,000-square-foot building on a one-acre tract at 2020 McKinney that’s leased to the City of Houston for parking administrative offices. The asking price was $2.2 million. ‘We got very close to that,’ said Cook, who would not reveal the actual sales price.” [Houston Business Journal]

01/12/11 2:05pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE WAY IT WORKS IN HIGHLAND VILLAGE “. . . Not that it matters, but everyone in this story probably has a lot of money (or is about to go bust – you never know).” [andso, commenting on Tootsies Beats Back the Landlord: The Sale Must Go On!]

12/07/10 5:43pm

From the window of his office behind the Galleria, Swamplot reader Warren Pattison snaps this view showing a crane installing a large sign on the site of a new office tower scheduled to go up at 3009 Post Oak Blvd. That’s the former site of Tony’s Ballroom, wedged between the Water Wall and the West Loop. An executive with the U.S. unit of Swedish project development and construction company Skanska announced back in January that the project should begin construction by the end of this year, but the company didn’t close on the deal to buy the land — from a subsidiary of Hines — until September. The company will be financing the building by itself. A fanciful view of the design for the now-19-story tower, by local architecture firm Kirksey, as it might appear if no buildings or billboards were nearby, and everybody abandoned the West Loop:

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09/23/10 1:02pm

Brookfield Office Properties announced giddily yesterday that the real-estate company has bought the 28-story long-vacant former Sheraton-Lincoln Hotel at 711 Polk St. Downtown — just so it can tear the property down. The once-swank hotel achieved a small measure of fame as the Beatles’ Houston crashpad . . . and was also apparently graced with an overnight stay by Kennedy avenger Jack Ruby. But the building has sat vacant for the last 24 years. Brookfield owns the 35-story office building directly to the northeast (at 1201 Louisiana), which has long offered tenants closeup views of the decaying structure. But it looks like only the building’s underground features will remain:

“Our tenants in Total Plaza will experience views of downtown that they never had before,” announced Brookfield’s Paul Layne, “and access to three levels of below-grade parking.” The company says it has no particular plans for further development of the site once the building is demolished.

In 2007, Omni Hotels and an Atlanta company called Songy Partners announced plans to create an all-suites hotel in the structure, which had been cleared of asbestos in the late nineties. The development was meant to include meeting space, restaurants, and a wellness and fitness center. But the project stalled. More recently, the property was put on the market for more than $8 million.

A few scenes from the hotel’s earlier days:

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09/15/10 4:55pm

The launching pad for I-45’s Mount Rush Hour, that presidential muck circle in Pearland, and more outsize sculpture projects has a buyer. David Adickes — creator of the giant Sam Houston of Huntsville and the disembodied cellist in front of the Lyric Center Downtown, and yes, the original owner and projectionist for sixties psychedelic Commerce St. hangout Love Street Light Circus — is selling his SculpturWorx compound off Sawyer St. to Phil Arnett and L.E. “Chap” Chapman. Arnett and Chapman are best known for turning an old staple manufacturing building down the street from the original Goode Co. Bar-B-Q on Kirby into the Bartlett Lofts. Their plan for Adickes’s 78,175 sq. ft. of warehouse space at 2500 Summer St.: keeping the “artist flavor” (and most of the tenants) of the old buildings, while renovating the property and using up to 22,000 sq. ft. of it (Adickes’s first-floor studio, for example) as commercial space — maybe including a restaurant or two.

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09/07/10 7:40pm

Got an answer to this reader question? Or just want to be a sleuth for Swamplot? Here’s your chance! Add your report in a comment, or send a note to our tipline.

  • Upper Kirby: “Someone is conducting a traffic study along the Southwest Freeway at Greenbriar,” a reader reports. “Is that someone finally going to build on the vacant block between 59 and Lexington?” Someone? Anyone?

Photo: Swamplot inbox

08/31/10 11:54am

The high-stakes leasing drama that culminated in Sunday’s sudden early-morning shuttering of the Angelika Film Center at Bayou Place Downtown included some familiar plot elements: the wandering eye, the unwillingness to commit, the threats of retaliation, the uh . . . 30-day notice to terminate. Andrew Dansby and Nancy Sarnoff track the courtroom scenes:

Angelika’s landlord, Bayou Place Limited Partnership, filed suit more than a week ago claiming the cinema was threatening to remove equipment from the theater if it did not receive a new lease.

The landlord’s petition outlines a situation dating to 2007, when the theater’s first 10-year lease expired. It did not exercise an option to renew for another 10 years.

The Angelika – also called Bayou Cinemas in the petition – continued as a month-to-month tenant at reduce rent, according to the petition.

Bayou Place and the Angelika continued discussions on a new lease, even as the landlord, an affiliate of the Cordish Co., sought a tenant that would enter into a long-term lease for a cinema.

But during a meeting, according to the petition, a principal of Bayou Cinemas threatened to remove equipment if the parties couldn’t reach a deal. Based on the initial lease agreement, the property belongs to the landlord, the petition claims.

The theater’s lawyer has filed a general denial of the allegations in the suit.

And oh, the broken promises: Angelika says the company had received official notice ending its month-to-month tenancy as of September 18th; Bayou Place’s general manager says Angelika changed its mind about committing to something longer term. How will it all end?

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08/26/10 3:52pm

At last night’s meeting, representatives of the Ainbinder Company revealed the suburban-style site plan for the development centered around Yale and Koehler streets in the West End they’re calling the Washington Heights District. Among the plan’s notable features: 2 bank- or chain-restaurant-style pad sites planted on the west side of Yale St. just south of Koehler, and a couple new strip centers along Heights Blvd., each featuring a double row of parking spaces in front. A rendering of the southmost strip (above) shows it changing facade costume every few bays, following the template of a sort of mini-Wild, Wild West version of Uptown Park. These new buildings would become only the 5th and 6th strip centers on the almost-3-mile length of Heights Blvd., joining such exclusive company as the Heights Food Mart north of Center St., the cell-phone-friendly Heights Retail Center at I-10, the Pink’s Pizza and Sunny’s Food Store combo at 14th St., and that just-in-from-Austin building at 6th St. that used to house McCain’s Market — in easy-auto-access splendor.

One change from the version of the site plan leaked last month: 2 other strip centers in the project — both on Yale St. south of the main Walmart driveway — have been moved up to the street and their parking placed in back. Well, maybe the back: It isn’t clear from the renderings, but it’s likely the store entrances will move to the Walmart side as well, turning away from Yale. The development’s 5th strip center offers parking-lot views to all 3 streets it faces: Heights, Koehler, and Yale.

But the Washington Heights District promises to be so much more than just a symphony of Inner Loop strip centers. There’s also . . . the Walmart!

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08/03/10 3:43pm

Bringing you the happening sounds of the vacant former Morse Wholesale Paper Co. on the east side — live, via YouTube!

Can’t get enough of this sort of thing? More Industrial:

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08/02/10 7:24pm

Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:

Scuttlebutt on that decrepit parking lot on Richmond, plus what’s ready to pop up on the site of the Hooters on Gessner:

  • Upper Kirby: “How many professionals in kenneth cole loafers or nine west heels want to navigate lake Ponchartrain just to get to our restaurant for a meal?” asks a commenter from Yelapa Playa Mexicana, one of three restaurants sharing the potholed (and occasionally flooded) parking lot between Richmond and Portsmouth west of Greenbriar. But . . . nothing’s doing:

    We would love to force our landlord to get this mess fixed as soon as possible…any advice from anyone? We’ve been on him for the last 10 months or more (since we took the space in mid-September 09).

    Commenter marmer notes a repair job may involve significant drainage work. “Simply patching the holes won’t last long enough to be worth the trouble.” Plus, where are Yelapa, Blue Fish House, and Hobbit Café customers gonna park while the work gets done? Also left unanswered: Is the existing parking lot required to meet any drivability standards?

Next: What comes after Hooters?

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07/27/10 5:22pm

Got an answer to any of these reader questions? Or just want to be a sleuth for Swamplot? Here’s your chance! Add your report in a comment, or send a note to our tipline.

  • Upper Kirby: “I can assure you that there are some bone crunching potholes underneath the lovely puddles,” writes the reader who sent in these rain-drenched photos of the ancient, multi-layered, and pockmarked parking lot shared by 3 restaurants at 2241 Richmond, just west of Greenbriar. When it rains, the lot gets even worse, claims the reader, who wants to know why it’s so “pitiful”:

    While I can kind of understand Blue Fish and Hobbit [Café] not wanting to spend too much money on improving the parking lot since they are not high dollar places, Yelapa [Playa Mexicana] is trying to position itself as this new chic Mexican/Seafood eatery and thus I would have thought they’d care more about a customer’s initial impression.

    A related question from the same reader: “Are there any City ordinances that require a parking lot used by the public to have a certain amount of drivability?”

Next: What about the Hooters?

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07/19/10 1:33pm

Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:

Some odds and ends to tie up from last week:

  • Montrose: “Let’s just say business has not been getting stronger,” Chances Bar co-owner Anne Vastakis tells Houston Press reporter Richard Connelly, who followed up on Swamplot’s hot tip from last week. Vastakis continues:

    With the economy the way it is — these mega-lesbian bars — there are four bars there, and in the `90s they were thriving. Now, I don’t know, maybe there’s too much competition.

    So yes, the bar and the entire block it’s on are for sale, though the owners hope to sell the 27,341-sq.-ft. property at 1100 Westheimer at Waughcrest to “someone who won’t change things too much.” The owners plan to keep the place open in the meantime.

  • Washington Corridor: That warehouse at 1120 Knox St., across the street from Benjy’s on Washington, will become Washington Wine Storage, according to a state license uncovered by commenter Guy Incognito. The building’s owner is the Urban Meridian Group. Expected opening date: around the end of August.

We’ll post more reader questions tomorrow. Send us what you’ve got before then!

Photo: Commercial Gateway