Tag: Condos

Condos
04/16/14 11:00am

Developer Says Proposed Garage Wall Streetfront for 3615 Montrose Condo Tower Will Be Green or Arty, Not Blank

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Development Regulations, Montrose, Proposed Developments, Streetscapes
24 Comments

Rendering of Proposed 3615 Montrose Condo Tower with Green Garage Wall

A representative of Riverway Properties, the developer proposing a 7-story condo tower on the vacant former site of the River Cafe in Montrose, says a rendering submitted as part of an application for a variance from the city isn’t an entirely accurate representation of the garage wall the company wants to build in front of the sidewalks on Montrose Blvd. and Marshall St. The rendering of the 3615 Montrose building featured on Swamplot earlier this week showed a blank wall at the base surrounding a single-level parking garage on the ground floor, punctured only by a driveway entrance with an overhead door along Montrose. But Riverway Properties partner Michael Carroll says his company is planning either a “green wall system” or an installation by an artist for the wall.

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Montrose Street Life
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Condos
04/14/14 12:15pm

Latest Condo Building Planned for Former River Cafe Spot Offers Montrose Blvd. a Garage Wall Streetfront

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Montrose, Proposed Developments
32 Comments

Proposed Condo Tower at 3615 Montrose Blvd., Montrose, Houston

The developers hoping to build this 12-unit condo building on the former site of the River Cafe at the corner of Montrose Blvd. and Marshall St. are requesting a variance from the city so they can scooch the project’s blank-wall parking-area front 15 ft. closer to Montrose Blvd. than city rules ordinarily allow. And if they don’t get their way, they’ll make the 7-story structure even bigger, the variance application threatens. That would mean fencing off the building’s front; putting the parking garage on 2 floors instead of one, and adding “additional living floors . . . making the building much taller than others adjacent.”

A submitted site plan prepared by Element Architects shows the existing right-of-way reduced by 5 ft. along Montrose Blvd. in addition to the setback requirement, to allow for future widening:

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At Variance
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Condos
04/09/14 11:00am

This Randall Davis Condo Tower Going Up on Post Oak Could Mark Your Path to Citizenship or to a Quarter Pounder with Cheese

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Galleria, Highrises, New Construction: Residential, Real Estate Investing
9 Comments

Aerial View of Galleria McDonald's and Astoria Condo Tower Under Construction, San Felipe St. at Garretson, Uptown, Houston

Rendering of Astoria Condo Tower, Post Oak Blvd. at Garretson, Uptown, HoustonThe photo above — sent to Swamplot by a HAIF user who goes by the handle SkylineView — is our best view yet of the project themed-condo developer Randall Davis has been working on for more than 5 years: convincing the Galleria McDonald’s to scooch over just a smidge and sell him part of the fast-food restaurant’s parking lot so he could build a 30-story highrise on it with all the benefits and cachet of drive-thru adjacency. Davis’s $70 million Astoria (portrayed in more glamorous circumstances at left) is being funded in part by the immigration dreams of 29 well-to-do foreigners, who have ponied up $1 million a piece to gain themselves status as U.S. residents, a path to citizenship, and a piece of whatever action the investment brings.

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Between Whole Foods and Fast Food
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Featured Posts
04/03/14 4:15pm

Impressions of a Renoir Condo Rental

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Home Decor, Home Design, Homes for Lease, Interiors, Lofts
21 Comments

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There’s a balcony off the dining-room prow in the corner penthouse for lease in the midrise Renoir building north of River Oaks Shopping Center. Up on the 8th floor of the Randall Davis project, the 2-story condo unit has views on 3 sides, sweeping from the Galleria area to downtown. The $7,500 per month rate appears to include the furnishings — but don’t assume pets are OK, the listing says.

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Sky Season
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Featured Posts
03/20/14 4:45pm

Don’t Even Think of Buying This Condo, Unless You’re Termite-Poop Crazy

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Hazards, Homes for Sale, Memorial, Real Estate Marketing
18 Comments

12748 Huntingwick Dr., HoustonYou may have seen some harrowing home listings in your day, but for sheer, ballsy “abandon hope, all ye who enter here” bravado, it would be hard to imagine outdoing the agent’s MLS presentation of the single-bedroom condo at 12748 Huntingwick Dr.

How fearsome is this place? Well, let’s just say the featured photo in the listing is the down-the-hole toilet-bowl shot shown at right. Yes, if while trawling through listings, you are attracted by a full-on view of dank toilet water, surrounded on the floor and porcelain by brown bits that bear more than a passing resemblance to dead cockroaches, this might be the place for you. If, that is, the agent’s sage discouragement, dispensed in contract-friendly all-caps, doesn’t drive you away:

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Fair Warning
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Apartments
03/17/14 10:30am

Studemont Condo Building Wants To Squeeze in Just North of Washington Ave

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Condos, Memorial Heights, Proposed Developments
33 Comments

Proposed Studemont Midrise, 1011 Studemont St., Memorial Heights, Houston

Morrison Heights Midrise, 2802 Morrison St., Woodland Heights, HoustonThe developer behind the Morrison Heights midrise building (pictured at left) now under construction in the southeast corner of Woodland Heights has plans to build a similar “apartment and condo” complex at the southwest corner of Studemont and Center St., just north of Washington Ave. Like its neighbor to the northeast, the Studemont Mid-Rise would be a 4-story structure of 36 units mounted over an open parking area underneath. To fit the proposed building on the lot at 1011 Studemont St., however, Fisher Homes needs a variance from the city that would allow a reduced setback on either Studemont or Court St. Its application was deferred at a meeting earlier this month, and is up for consideration by the planning commission this Thursday.

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All the Single Bedrooms
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Condos
02/20/14 4:00pm

Roosting in a $484K Downtown Loft with a Byrds Eye View

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Downtown, Home Design, Homes for Sale, Houston Architects, Interiors, Mixed Use
2 Comments

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919 Prairie St., Downtown HoustonLimestone-paneled Byrd’s Department Store, designed by architect Joseph Finger in an early modern style back in 1934, was turned into an awning-skirted mixed-use structure in 2005. The conversion was planned by Ray + Hollington for builder Robert Fretz, grandson of the original builder, and left the upper portions of the building rebranded as Byrds (no apostrophe) Lofts. In the retail space downstairs is Georgia’s Market. Upstairs, one of the second-story condos was put up for sale last week, with an asking price of $484,000. But the listing’s interior peeks still leave some rooms up to the online condo-shopper’s imagination.

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Cornering the Market
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Condos
02/10/14 3:45pm

Herbert Wells’s River Oaks Design Office and Other Small Units Still Available in Inwood Manor

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Home Decor, Home Design, Homes for Lease, Homes for Sale, Interiors, River Oaks
6 Comments

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It only took 3 days for a 13th floor condo unit with 2 slate terraces in Inwood Manor to go under contract — after being listed last week with a $995,000 asking price. Those who missed out have a few smaller options to consider elsewhere in the 16-floor beehive building of 110 units (top). A cast concrete tower designed by architect Harwood Taylor, the property has loomed over River Oaks and its hinterlands since 1962. A neighboring 13th floor 1-bedroom unit, furnished, is up for grabs as a lease starting April 1. And a couple smaller units on lower floors are still lingering, including one fitted as an office (above) by Houston interior design legend Herbert Wells, who died in 2010.

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Unit Pricing
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Buying and Selling
02/07/14 1:30pm

How the Ken Lay Condo Sale Worked Out

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Condos, Interiors, Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
10 Comments

Interior, 2121 Kirby Dr. Unit 33, Upper Kirby, Houston

The Huntingdon, 2121 Kirby Dr., Upper Kirby, HoustonA slideshow featured on the website of the Houston Business Journal (and noted in our Headlines post this morning) features the 7 most expensive homes sold in Houston last year. Coming in at No. 3 is the full-floor Huntingdon condo unit where former Enron CEO Ken Lay used to live. 2121 Kirby Dr. Unit 33 and its mopey-castle-in-the-sky interior (shown below after the furniture was removed) was listed for sale by his widow, Linda Lay, back in 2010 and featured on Swamplot occasionally over the following years as it hopped on and off the market a few times and descended in fits and starts from an initial (off-market) asking price of $12.8 million to the mid-single-digit millions. MLS and county tax records show the 9-bathroom, 6-elevator, 12,827-sq.-ft. pièd-a-terre with the $10K+ monthly maintenance fee finally sold last February to an entity controlled by another local CEO, for a (still-record-making, but more than half-off) $5.5 million, though the list price had by that time fallen $100K lower.

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Much Lower, but Still Sky High
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Condos
01/10/14 4:30pm

The Private Views of and from an Open Museum District Terrace

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, Museum District
5 Comments

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There’s a jumbo terrace outside the second-story corner condo unit in this here Il Palazzo building that listed earlier this week. It brings an extensive, open air view of the surrounding Museum District, from the corner of Austin and Calumet. But the main portions of the terrace aren’t exactly the most private part of the property:

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Il Palazzo Plaza
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Condos
01/10/14 11:15am

Checking in on Chateau Ten’s Welch St. Neighbor, After the Collapse and the Holidays

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Construction Problems, Vermont Commons
2 Comments

Apartments, 2233 Welch St., Vermont Commons, Montrose, Houston

A passer-by sends this photo showing the scene this morning at the site of the Chateau Ten scaffolding accident that took place a few days before Christmas. The plank-covered Mercedes is gone, but the neighboring apartment building at 2233 Welch St., still wearing its recent quoined stuccover, doesn’t look much worse for the dust-up — does it?

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Flashing News Update
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Condos
01/02/14 3:45pm

Highlights from the Gaggle of $45K, $68K, and $73K Condos Up for Sale in Maplewood Square

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, Maplewood
4 Comments

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A condo collection in Maplewood Square hit the market in mid-December as a series of listings by the same owner. Units are available individually or as part of a “mixed package of occupied, income producing condos.” Similar (but not-identical), the updated units occupy portions of 2 buildings within the 1974 development, which is across from commercial properties near Hillcroft and 2 blocks south of South Braeswood.

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A Condo PlentiPak
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