Tag: Condos

Apartments
06/04/08 3:08pm

The Sleek Strip, the Ritz Tower, and the Path to Whole Foods: A Closer Look at Boulevard Place

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Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Galleria, Hotels, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
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Post Oak Blvd. Parking, Blvd Place, Uptown, Houston

Sure, the super-Mod architecture, elevated sidewalks, artistically moistened streets, and glistening rotunda in the new Boulevard Place renderings make the place look pretty swank, but what’s with the token strip of parking spots out front? Is this gonna be pay-to-display valet? Some kind of shopping-center twist on a velvet rope line? Or just a stab at maintaining Houston street cred: Sure, Post Oak Blvd. might be going urban upscale, but this is one development that won’t be forgetting its strip-center roots!

Updated views of Blvd Place, including the new Ritz-Carlton and Hanover towers — plus a site plan and a Whole Foods puzzle! It’s all below:

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Condos
06/03/08 9:58am

The Turnberry: More Wiping, in More Places, than at Any Other Condo Tower

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Galleria, Highrises, Home Design, Proposed Developments
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Plaza Level Pools, Turnberry Tower Residences at the Galleria, Houston

There will be a grand total of 652-and-a-half private bathrooms in Houston’s Turnberry Tower. Apparently this is the kind of attention to detail that’s needed to attract buyers who are flush with assets:

When meeting with buyers, Turnberry’s sales staff emphasizes the high life they’ll enjoy, said [Turnberry Ltd. vice president Jim] Cohen, with the 40-year-old condo tower developer.

They’re told, for example, that when they hang out by the pool, a Turnberry staffer will offer a cool towel for their neck and wipe sunscreen from their sunglasses.

Image of Turnberry Tower plaza-level pools: Turnberry Ltd.

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Apartments
06/02/08 10:40am

Open Houses in Candlewood Glen

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Candlewood Glen, Condos, Crime, Foreclosures, Hazards, Inwood Forest
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Open House at Candlewood Glen Apartments, Houston

Chronicle reporter Matt Stiles continues his tour of substandard Houston apartments, stopping this week for a visit at the 172-unit Candlewood Glen Apartments, near the 5400 block of DeSoto:

Now, only about 12 units remain legally occupied, and the management office is shuttered. Rotting trash sits in piles. Copper pipes and air conditioners’ coils have been ripped on a mass scale from burglarized units. The swimming pool is filled with water the color of crude oil.

“It’s just a horrible place,” said Roy Millmore, executive director of the Near Northwest Management District, an organization that focuses on reducing crime in the area.

The poor conditions inside the complex have persisted for months, in part because many of the property’s 43 fourplexes are owned by out-of-state investors, rather than a single owner. That makes applying pressure to improve conditions more complicated for city inspectors.

Still, code inspectors had not visited the property in a decade until the Houston Chronicle documented its conditions. City officials say they had not received complaints from people living there and that they are trying to enforce codes more aggressively than in years past.

After the jump: Stiles’s Candlewood Glen Apartments photo tour. Plus: Available now!

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Condos
05/29/08 10:03am

Tremont Tower: How Bad Could It Be, Really?

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Foreclosures, Highrises, Homes for Lease, Leasing, Mold, Montrose
42 Comments

Tremont Tower, Montrose, Houston

We get mail . . . from a reader who’s considering renting one of the many available condos in Montrose’s famed Tremont Tower:

I am moving to Houston in June and when I was looking around for housing I found an ad for a rental at Tremont Towers. I went to look at the place and liked it but something seemed odd to me. If this place is as nice as it looks, it is in Montrose (apparently a desirable area to live) why is is so silent and why does one man own at least 5 separate units and even more odd, why are they so cheap when last year they were valued at >300K (odd even in this real estate market). So, I plugged them into Google and started following a trail. I read about Jordan Fogle and Heather Mickelson.

I talked to my possible future landlord and he told me a story that Jordan Fogle confused the builder of Tremont with the ones who built her home. In addition he offered a story that the Heather Mickelson had purchased the property and then not long after moving in decided to move out with her boyfriend. Since they would not purchase the property back from her she sabotaged the apartment by opening her windows through all weather which then lead to some horrible development of mold.

My issue is that since the coverage in 2005-2006 I haven’t been able to find much information and I cannot verify either side of this tale. I was wondering if any readers had passed on more information about the Towers or if anything had been done in this building that had nearly 100% foreclosure. I am concerned because I would prefer to avoid paying nearly a thousand a month just so I can get sick and not be able to work.

A little more below, plus: your chance to help!

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Apartments
05/16/08 10:03am

Hanover Apartment Tower at Boulevard Place: 37 Stories

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Galleria, Highrises, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment
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Hanover Company 37-Story Apartment Tower at BLVD Place, designed by Solomon Cordwell BuenzToday’s Chronicle has details on that apartment tower the Hanover Company has been planning for Boulevard Place, Ed Wulfe’s Post Oak redevelopment just north of the Galleria. Doing the math, your average 1,650-sq.-ft. apartment in the glass tower will rent for more than $4,000 a month.

That’s before it goes condo, of course.

At 37 stories, the 236-unit Hanover tower may end up even taller than the slender Ritz-Carlton planned directly to the south.

More info from Nancy Sarnoff:

Solomon Cordwell Buenz of Chicago is designing the building, which will have “boutique hotel style” amenities, including a concierge and bellman, as well as a lounge and catering kitchen.

A 19,000-square-foot rooftop pool terrace will be atop an attached parking garage.

The units will be similar to those in 7 Riverway, another Hanover project in the area. They will include stainless steel appliances, granite slab countertops, crown molding, hardwood floors and travertine tile, but will be larger and have additional features and amenities.

Hanover chose to design the building with larger units because it said there was considerable demand at 7 Riverway for oversized kitchens and living spaces.

After the jump: Where it’s going to land!

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Condos
04/21/08 8:22pm

Mosaic: More Condos Available!

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Hermann Park, Highrises, Real Estate Marketing
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Ad for Mosaic Houston

Expect to see a lot more, uh . . . interesting advertising for the Mosaic towers on Almeda. Nancy Sarnoff reported in the Chronicle this past weekend that “about 65 units have closed” out of a total 790 in the two towers. The second glass tower is currently under construction at the eastern edge of Hermann Park.

That’s a long way to go, but the path sounds a whole lot steeper when you compare Sarnoff’s report to what Jennifer Dawson reported in the Houston Business Journal last August:

As of last week, 218 condos had sold in the first tower. Units in the second phase won’t go on sale until early next year. Ken Manfredi of Miami-based Developer Sales Group is handling Mosaic’s condo sales.

After the jump: More evocative ad imagery! Plus: the view from above.

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Apartments
03/31/08 11:52am

North Montrose and Memorial Heights: Look at Us Now

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Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Development Strategy, Memorial Heights, Montrose, New Construction: Residential, Redevelopment
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Alley Behind Townhomes Between Clay and W. Dallas, Houston

If you’re curious what the upper reaches of Montrose Blvd. look like from the viewpoint of an actual pedestrian, you’ll want to see blogger Charles Kuffner’s recent annotated photo walking tour of the area. Kuffner, who lived on Van Buren St. in the nineties, describes more recent developments on and around Montrose and Studemont — from West Gray north to Washington:

I did this partly to document what it looks like now – if you used to live there but haven’t seen it in awhile, you’ll be amazed – and partly to point out what I think can be done to make the eventual finished product better. . . .

My thesis is simple. This is already an incredibly densely developed corridor, and it’s going to get more so as the new high rise is built [see Swamplot’s story here] and several parcels of now-empty land get sold and turned into something else. It’s already fairly pedestrian-friendly, but that needs to be improved. And for all the housing in that mile-long stretch of road, there’s not enough to do.

Kuffner’s guide is a Flickr photo set. You’ll get the most out of it if you view it as a slideshow with the captions turned on (on the link, click on Options in the lower right corner, then make sure Always Show Title and Description is checked).

After the jump: A few more photos from Kuffner’s tour, plus an ID on those new condos behind Pronto!

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Condos
03/21/08 9:11am

San Felipe Condominiums: Two New Towers in Memorial

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Construction Materials, Demolitions, Green Design and Development, Highrises, Houston Architects, Landscape, Memorial, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Shopping Centers
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Landscape Plan, San Felipe Condominiums Towers, Houston

This landscape plan from the Boymelgreen website is our first glimpse of the two condo towers the company is planning for 5.5 acres on the southwest corner of the intersection of San Felipe and a short segment of Woodway — just west of Voss, on the Right Bank of Buffalo Bayou. And this morning the Houston Business Journal has more to report:

New York City-based Boymelgreen Developers is developing the project for landowner Azorim, a publicly traded company in Israel of which Boymelgreen owns 64 percent. . . . The unnamed project will consist of two buildings with 28 residential floors each and an 18,000-square-foot fitness center and spa. The project will have a total of 237 condos starting at $1 million each. Units will be an average size of 2,500 square feet.

The architect is Ziegler Cooper. Boymelgreen’s website refers to the project as the San Felipe Condominiums. (And it reports a building that’s 14 condos smaller.)

Jennifer Dawson’s report in the HBJ says that sales won’t start until the fall, after a sales center — which will later “be converted into a spa, restaurant or office building” — is built on the site of the former Dolce & Freddo next door.

Below the fold: That 1960s office-and-shopping center on the site won’t go quietly!

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Apartments
03/18/08 9:11am

Ashby Highrise Developers: Moving Ahead

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Boulevard Oaks, Condos, Highrises, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Retail, Southampton, Townhomes
5 Comments

Bissonnet St. Elevation of Proposed Ashby Highrise, 1717 Bissonnet, Southampton, Houston

Today comes news that the developers of the Ashby Highrise won’t wait any longer to strike a deal with the city — and are proceeding with permit applications for their original 23-story apartment and condo tower next to Southampton. Writing in the Chronicle, Mike Snyder reports that Buckhead Investment Partners had submitted a proposal for a slightly smaller tower to the city three weeks ago but had received no response.

The proposed smaller 22-story tower, which didn’t get much support from neighborhood groups, would have featured a narrower tower with 130 condo units and four detached townhouses along Ashby, two floors of underground parking and two more above grade, plus a small park on one corner. Buckhead principals Matthew Morgan and Kevin Kirton told Snyder the reduced number of units would “eliminate any possibility the project would cause unacceptable traffic congestion.”

A document outlining the proposal, however, shows the offer is contingent on significant financial concessions by the city: An immediate refund of about $500,000 for new sewer lines the developers installed to serve the project, along with a payment to the developers of up to $2.15 million, over as long as 10 years, from revenue generated by increased tax values on the site.

Meanwhile, Buckhead’s fancy new website now features a far more complete collection of presentation drawings of what appears to be the original 23-story tower. There doesn’t seem to be any mention on the site of the 22-story all-condo tower proposal.

After the jump, lots of tower drawings from the new website — including . . . kids hugging puppies!

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Commercial Real Estate
03/13/08 10:23am

Houstonian Texas Medical Center: Slow Multimedia Reveal

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Condos, Highrises, Hotels, Neighborhood Associations, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southgate, Texas Medical Center
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View from Main St. of New Houstonian Hotel and Condominiums, Texas Medical Center, Houston

From fuzzy video stills to washed-out photocopies: In the agenda handout for today’s Planning Commission hearing are hazy images that provide even more details about the new 40-story hotel and condo tower Medistar wants to build on Main St. in the Medical Center, at the eastern boundary of Southgate.

The drawing labels identify the hotel as the Houstonian Texas Medical Center, or Houstonian TMC for short. The architect is the Hill Glazier Studio of HKS, out of California. And a section drawing gives an actual height for the tower.

After the jump: It’s very tall!

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Condos
02/29/08 3:30pm

Live on TV: New Med Center Hotel-Condo Tower

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Highrises, Hotels, Neighborhood Associations, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southgate, Texas Medical Center
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Screen Capture of Planning Commission Discussion of New Medistar 40-Story Condo and Hotel Tower at Dryden and Main St., near Southgate, Texas Medical Center, Houston

Thanks to some intrepid reporting lazy online-video scanning over here at Swamplot, we now have more information about Medistar’s 40-story hotel and condominium tower planned for the corner of Dryden and Main St. in the Medical Center.

Yesterday, the Planning Commission voted to defer any consideration of Medistar’s request for a lot-line variance along Main St. But the president of the Southgate Civic Club voiced his objections to the variance — and other aspects of the project — anyway.

After the jump, more stills from the civic-club president’s presentation to the Planning Commission, plus a few bits of armchair analysis from our crack crew of expert TV watchers.

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Commercial Real Estate
02/28/08 10:26am

Newest and Tallest: The Texas Medical Center Goes Condo

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Condos, Highrises, Hotels, Malls, Medical Buildings, Proposed Developments, Southgate, Texas Medical Center
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Here’s what we know so far about the new 40-story hotel-and-condo tower Medistar Corporation is planning for the corner of Main St. and Dryden, between Rice’s new Collaborative Research Center and the Baylor Clinic on the west side of Main: not a whole lot.

But at 40 stories, the new building would likely be the tallest tower in the Texas Medical Center. (The new Memorial Hermann Medical Plaza is only 31.) That’s taller than those twin hypodermics, too.

A lot-line variance for the project is item number 111 before the Planning Commission this afternoon. And the request provides a few clues. Medistar wants the same 10-foot setback along Main St. that the Baylor Clinic has, so the new building can have a similar passenger dropoff and a “pedestrian friendly” entry on that side. The building’s longer axis will be perpendicular to Main. The arguments imply Medistar intends to have “ornamental decorations and balconies” on the Main St. side, and that the tower will be linked by skybridge to the Medical Center main campus across the street.

According to the Southgate Neighborhood Newsletter, the tower will include a 1200-car parking facility.

This isn’t the only new building type Medistar is planning to stir into the Medical Center mix. A block down the street, just south of the company’s Best Western Hotel at 6700 Main St., Medistar is planning a 600,000-sq.-ft. medical mall. The Houston Business Journal reported on that project late last month:

The high-rise would house offices and showrooms for companies that sell equipment, supplies and pharmaceuticals to Texas Medical Center institutions. Tenants could also include organizations working to develop new medical technologies and treatments.

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Apartments
02/26/08 11:49am

Woodway Glen Fourplex Condos: Converted, but Still Not Sold on the Idea

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Briargrove, Buying and Selling, Condos, Real Estate Marketing, Woodway Glen
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6323 Deerwood Rd., Woodway Glen, Houston

Here’s the plan: Buy a fourplex on a cul-de-sac near the intersection of Woodway and Voss. Do some painting, replace the roof and repair the exterior, put in granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances in one of the units and new appliances and carpet in the rest. Then . . . convert the place to condos, and flip them one at a time!

Except . . . there are a heck of a lot of condos out there in the $150K-$230K range, and selling is tough.

Bummer. But there’s still a moneymaking way out: If you can’t make the condo flip yourself, that doesn’t mean you can’t sell someone else on the idea of doing it. And you’ve already done the conversion work!

Just listed on MLS: 6323 Deerwood. Four units built in 1975, totaling 7,564 square feet, on a 10,171-sq.-ft. lot. Apartments lease for $1200 and $1400. Asking $645,000:

Units have already been condo converted! Investor can sell units separately or keep as a fourplex.

Will consider seller financing!

After the jump: the renovated innards.

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Commercial Real Estate
02/26/08 8:36am

Whole Foods, Fast Foods, and the Titan

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Condos, Development Strategy, Galleria, Highrises, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Restaurants, Retail
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Still from Video of The Titan, Randall Davis’s Proposed Condo Tower on Post Oak Blvd., Uptown, Houston

If you’re looking for clues to help you figure out what the McDonald’s on Post Oak is gonna look like when it gets rebuilt, the flashy new website for the Titan doesn’t help much. There’s a video that shows Randall Davis’s latest theme-heavy condo tower from all sorts of dramatic angles, but it never answers the question most of us have been asking since the project was announced last fall: How, exactly, is the drive-thru gonna fit next door?

Davis told the Houston Business Journal last September that the new McDonald’s would be a “long, skinny building” facing Post Oak, between the Titan and the new Alexan Post Oak apartments directly to the north. In the new video, though, there are no Golden Arches, and camera angles artfully block the most direct views of that portion of the building site.

There’s no mention of the McDonald’s on the Titan website. There is, however, a welcome second confirmation that another fine food establishment will be built down the street at Boulevard Place:

A newly planned Whole Foods Market, only half a block away, places hard to find gourmet items at your fingertips.

Okay, so it’s just advertising copy. But it’s recent!

After the jump, more views of the Titan — none of which show where the real Big Macs are gonna live.

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Condos
02/21/08 4:48pm

The Titan: Uptown Theme Blender

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Galleria, Highrises, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing
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Penthouse View, Randall Davis’s Proposed Titan Condo Highrise, Post Oak Blvd., Uptown Houston

All the condos in Randall Davis’s new Titan condo tower on Post Oak will be named after . . . industry titans! Get it? On the 18th floor, for example, you’ll have units named after J. Paul Getty, Coco Chanel, Pablo Picasso, and . . . Bill Gates! Now that’s a party. Floor 14? More people of brilliance, though a few of them might not actually get along so well with each other: Frank Sinatra, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Rudolph Valentino, Steven Spielberg. Isn’t that clever?

It gets better: The Brin/Page is . . . a two-bedroom! Strangely, the Buffet has a Kitchen and Dining Room that are separated from the rest of the unit’s living space. And the three-bedroom penthouse named after Mies van der Rohe — whose neighbors are of course Rupert Murdoch and Neil Armstrong — has a Great Room with a curved wall in it, and is connected to the Entry Foyer by a long hallway.

One unit on floors 23 and 24 is simply named The Titan. But there’s no reason for Randall Davis to be so bashful — he really ought to go ahead and name it after himself. Is there anyone else in Houston who even comes close to his stature in the themed-condo market?

The Titan is a break from Davis’s earlier projects, though — because it seems to have so many different themes! Put all those architects, movie stars, musicians, Silicon Valley insiders, oilmen, and suicidal novelists together in a tower styled vaguely like a comic-book rocketship, add in Michelangelo’s sculpture of David as the naked brochure-and-website coverboy, and you’ve got the Titan’s winning marketing formula! A bit confused? Sure. But if anyone can mix all this stuff up and make it work, it’s Randall Davis.

After the jump, floorplans that prove what we all know already: Designing a great building is just like planning a great dinner party that includes a few famous dead people!

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