Tag: Houston Architects

Commercial Real Estate
04/07/10 9:53am

Staples to Weingarten Realty: Don’t Gut the Alabama Theater for Us, Thanks

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Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Leasing, Renovations, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
11 Comments

In a letter published in today’s Chronicle, the PR director for Staples goes beyond her previous “we do not have a lease” statement and says the national office-supply chain is done with the idea of putting one of its stores in the vacant former Alabama Theater on South Shepherd at West Alabama — for now, at least:

. . . we are not currently considering a store at this site. We typically don’t comment about sites unless and until leases are signed, but we understand that this property represents a unique situation of local concern.

So what prompted theater owner Weingarten Realty to have a local architecture firm draw up plans for a complete interior scraping of the 1939 Art Deco theater — and arrange for at least one local construction firm solicit demolition bids based on it?

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Commercial Real Estate
03/31/10 4:19pm

Alamo Drafthouse to Weingarten: Why Gut the Alabama Theater When We Can Just Chop It in Half?

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Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Leasing, Renovations, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
16 Comments

The new owners of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema franchises in Katy and at the West Oaks Mall tell the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff they’ve begun new talks with Weingarten Realty about turning the former Alabama Theater into the first Inside-the-Loop location for the dinner-drinks-and-movie chain.

Triple Tap Ventures partner Neil Michaelsen tells Sarnoff his group had held discussions with Weingarten about the former Alabama Bookstop location at 2922 South Shepherd more than 6 months ago — but “couldn’t come to an agreement” about leasing the space. Triple Tap announced its purchase of the two Houston Alamo Drafthouse locations — and plans to construct new cinema locations in Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, the Midland-Odessa area, San Marcos, and Houston — just last October.

Sarnoff explains that the Alabama Theater building isn’t exactly Triple Tap’s ideal location:

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Home Design
03/30/10 12:37pm

Hometta’s Virtual H-Town, Where All the Houses Are Small and Modern

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Houston Architects, Online Resources
9 Comments

From online small-house-plan hawkers Hometta comes this video preview of H-Town, a virtual neighborhood where versions of the company’s modern home designs (several of which are from Houston architects) will always be open for visitors. If the preview bears more than a passing resemblance to Second Life, that’s because it uses OpenSimulator — an open-source Second Life-like 3D environment simulator.

H-Town isn’t modeled on Houston, explains Hometta’s Ann Chou — the H stands for Hometta. The small island features sidewalks, roads, a plaza, a gallery, and a market for Hometta’s small line of “Etc.” products the company also sells plans for, such as Collaborative DesignWorks’ 3×3 storage system:

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Adaptive Reuse
03/26/10 2:03pm

Comment of the Day: What Makes the Alabama Theater So Easy To Lease

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Comments, Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Leasing, Quicklink, Renovations, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
8 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT MAKES THE ALABAMA THEATER SO EASY TO LEASE “Sigh. I’ve been told in the past that Weingarten would like to have a restaurant in this location, but with a rent that is probably in the low-mid 30’s/sf, that puts the monthly rent at around $35,000 a month, which is out of the price range of many retailers and restaurateurs. Also, 14,000 sf would be a huge restaurant. One of the other little discussed obstacles in this building is the balcony, and the low headroom that it provides at the lobby entrance. Most of the building is concrete but I’ve been told that the balcony is in fact a steel structure. I would not be surprised if the balcony does not survive. Regarding the sloped floor, it is extremely difficult to rent sloping space like that in the age of ADA. Bookstop was constructed prior (1984) to the implementation of ADA. . . .” [mt, commenting on Weingarten Realty: We Won’t Demolish the Interior of the Alabama Theater Until a Lease Is Signed]

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Commercial Real Estate
03/25/10 4:34pm

Weingarten Realty: We Won’t Demolish the Interior of the Alabama Theater Until a Lease Is Signed

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Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Leasing, Renovations, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
10 Comments

What’s the latest on those plans to demolish the interior of the Alabama Theater at West Alabama and Shepherd — you know, the plans already put out to bid to subcontractors but that owner Weingarten Realty can’t quite seem to verify are its own?

A spokesperson under contract to Weingarten tells Swamplot that the company won’t act on them before a lease agreement with a new tenant is signed:

I now have the okay to post based on your last blog entry to reassure your readers that WRI has no intention undertaking any pre-buildout of the interior prior to any lease agreement. And, there is no agreement currently and no buildout plan.

“Buildout,” of course, is the correct term for the interior demolition here. Because the demolition plans out to bid show that Weingarten intends to permanently encase the theater’s extensive sloped floor in concrete, like this:

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Commercial Real Estate
03/24/10 3:56pm

Chasing Down Weingarten’s Mysterious “Alternatives” to Demolishing the Alabama Theater

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Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Leasing, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
13 Comments

Last night, a spokesperson under contract to Weingarten Realty writing on behalf of the company reported to Swamplot and its readers that the shopping-center owner “can’t verify the authenticity of the drawings” we reported on yesterday.

The drawings referred to are bid documents that Heights Venture Architects prepared for Weingarten detailing an extensive interior demolition of the 70-year-old Art Deco Alabama Theater at South Shepherd and West Alabama — more commonly known until its closing last September as the Alabama Bookstop bookstore.

Well, gee. Today, “an official” of Weingarten’s architecture firm isn’t having such a hard time with the verification process:

An official at Heights Venture Architects told CultureMap this morning that the company did submit plans detailing a near total interior demolition of the Alabama at the specific request of Weingarten (the company that owns the vacant building).

The official at Heights asked not to be named and said he had no speaking authority, but confirmed that the company had been asked to submit the plans, which Swamplot first published.

What a fun game! Now that this round is over, let’s jump to the next one: Okay, so maybe Weingarten did ask its architects to prepare demolition drawings. Maybe Weingarten is exploring all its options! Just pricing a complete demo for . . . say, comparison.

Here’s the same Weingarten spokesperson feeding this ruse:

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Commercial Real Estate
03/23/10 3:16pm

Weingarten’s Alabama Theater Plan: Speculative Demolition for Fun and Profit

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Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Leasing, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
18 Comments

Weingarten Realty’s director of investor relations Kristin Gandy tells the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff that the owners of the vacant Alabama Theater building in the Alabama Shepherd Shopping Center at the corner of South Shepherd and West Alabama do not have a deal for the space with any new tenant, including Staples. Swamplot reported earlier this morning that a local construction firm is soliciting bids from subcontractors for an extensive interior demolition of the 1939 Art Deco theater, which from the early eighties until late last year was the home of the Alabama Bookstop bookstore. Drawings detailing the demolition were prepared for Weingarten by Heights Venture Architects, and the bid documents included floor plans for a prototype Staples office-supply store.

Gandy tells Sarnoff

Weingarten has not signed a lease nor has any lease under (letter of intent) with any particular tenant at this time. We have several tenants that are reviewing, but we don’t have a definitive agreement in place.

Weingarten may not have an agreement in place, but the publicly traded company certainly has demolition plans in place, already labeled as issued for permitting. Which means either

  • Weingarten is conducting extensive pricing research for a number of options for the space in a rather peculiar manner (the ready-for-permit bid documents do not ask bidders to price any alternative to demolition); or
  • (far more likely) Weingarten is gambling that demolishing the interior of Alabama Theater will help it to attract a very particular type of tenant to the unique Inner Loop property.

How much does Weingarten want to demo?

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Home Design
03/19/10 12:24pm

Weekend Preview: A View from South to North in Southgate

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Houston Architects, Interiors, Southgate
17 Comments

Yes, there’s a straight shot from that outdoor fireplace in the back of this house all the way to a walled-off courtyard in the front. And it’s all lined up for you from the back patio: Kitchen, Dining Area, Living Room, and front yard beyond. If you took down that front wall you’d have a better view — past a row of oaks and some bushes — of the Rice Stadium parking lot across the street. The address is 2239 University Blvd. in Southgate.

The home was designed by Strasser Ragni Architecture’s Erick Ragni and his wife, Emily Sing. It’s theirs.

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Demolitions
03/10/10 8:52am

Down and Out in River Oaks

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Home Design, Houston Architects, Interiors, River Oaks
28 Comments

We just know you’ll be wanting to get in one last snoop-through of that 5,701-sq.-ft. 1928 mansion on Chevy Chase that received its demolition permit yesterday. And who is Swamplot to deny you?

Who’da thunk that — try as he might, River Oaks society architect Charles Oliver still couldn’t design something as attractive as the four-fifths-of-an-acre lot he placed it on?

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Gardening
03/01/10 3:07pm

Show Us Your Living Rooms! (Or Gardens. Or Bathrooms. Or Whatever.)

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Houston Architects, Interiors, Notices
2 Comments

A couple readers recently suggested we host a “Swamplot Posters’ Living Room Views” feature, “so that names can be connected to spaces…” Even though something like that might be fun, most of our readers are likely not especially interested in outing the dowdy, dusty, or ultra-mod couches of commenters’ own homes.

But it may be worthwhile to repeat what longtime Swamplot readers likely already know: We’re more than happy to publish photos of our readers’ design creations (anonymously or not, as you wish). If you’ve got a breakfast room or a tiny apartment or a garden or a bedroom you put together that you’d like to share with more people than you could otherwise fit into the space, send us some pix and a brief description of what you think is notable about it.

And if you know someone with more than the usual something goin’ on in the furniture or home decor department, why not give that person a little push? Have your talented friend drop us a line. If you’ve got something interesting to show, hordes of curious Swamplot readers are gonna be eager to take a peek!

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Houston Architects
02/17/10 3:53pm

Midtown Restaurant Reopens After Fire

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Midtown, Openings and Closings
3 Comments

Wasn’t it just Monday that Mai’s Restaurant on Milam St. in Midtown burned to a soggy crisp? And the owners said they’d rebuild . . . somewhere.

What timing: The very next day, the other fire-singed Midtown restaurant reopened for the business. Brennan’s of Houston had its battle with flames almost a year and a half ago, right in the middle of Hurricane Ike.

The brick Brennan’s building at the corner of Smith St. and Stuart — as reconfigured by Studio Red Architects — now features a slightly smaller courtyard (and a new but smaller tree to replace the vintage 1970 oak the fire killed), but restores a few original elements — including several large arched windows — from architect John Staub’s original design. There’s a new “courtyard bar,” too. The 1930 building originally housed Houston’s Junior League.

Photo of Brennan’s of Houston Restaurant, 3300 Smith St.: Jay Lee

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Brookesmith
02/16/10 4:16pm

Houston’s Unhappy Hipsters

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Home Design, Houston Architects, MacGregor Terrace
13 Comments

Sure, it’s a big break when local architects and designers get their work published in Dwell, but who knew that an appearance in the modern design magazine might ultimately be seen as just a stepping stone on the path to even greater fame? That’s right: With the recent appearance of the Unhappy Hipsters blog, Dwell‘s design stars will at last be able to reach a much wider circle.

Most photos on Unhappy Hipsters are taken from the magazine. But yes, the captions are changed — just a little bit — so that the work shown can reach a larger and perhaps more appreciative audience.

Already, two teams of Houston designers have been featured on the blog. A reader writes in to report that the photo above, showing the owners of Numen Development’s shipping-container house on Cordell St. in Brookesmith, was featured in a recent Unhappy Hipsters post. Except instead of the original caption from Dwell, which described the front porch, the species of grass on the lawn, and the bent-steel shade above, we have this:

Not on the grass, Sweetie. Never. On. The. Grass. See how much fun Daddy is having?

Who else is appearing on Unhappy Hipsters?

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Home Decor
02/10/10 3:49pm

Kay O’Toole’s House in Back

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Houston Architects, Interiors, New Construction: Residential, Retail, Winlow Place
5 Comments

Ubiquitous design blogger Joni Webb hyperventilates over the March issue of Veranda magazine, which features actual interior pics of the house Kay O’Toole had built behind her Kay O’Toole Antiques & Eccentricities shop. The shop is in the building with the rounded corners next to the Firkin & Phoenix Pub parking lot at 1921 Westheimer:

I had heard the blogosphere mumbling about this Veranda showing Kay O’Toole’s new house and that was what had my mouth watering like Edward’s whenever Bella is around. Honestly, I’ve been waiting over two years for this issue!

O’Toole owns a French antique shop housed in a 1920s brick building that was once home to several different businesses. Through the years, she eventually acquired the entire building and tore down the dividing walls – creating a long and narrow haven for the best of what France, and now Belgium, Sweden, and Italy have to offer.

O’Toole’s single-story, one-bedroom stucco home — designed by Murphy Mears Architects — is another long and narrow haven, modeled after something O’Toole saw in New Orleans’s French Quarter: It’s one room deep, and backs up to the property’s back fence.

Couldn’t Webb have just charmed her way inside, camera in hand? Oh, she’d tried that:

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Attractions
01/27/10 3:28pm

Drive-By: The Cop Copter Inside Headquarters

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Downtown, Houston Architects, Museums
10 Comments

Now hanging above the ground floor of the Houston Police Dept. headquarters building at 1200 Travis St. Downtown, just outside the police chief’s media briefing room: a retired police helicopter. It’s part of Brave/Architecture’s design for the HPD Museum, which is being relocated from the Houston Police Academy building near IAH.

Renderings and a construction photo of the new 3,050-sq.-ft. museum space, copter and all:

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