WILSHIRE VILLAGE OWNERS SAY NEVERMIND ABOUT THAT LAWSUIT Those plot twists just keep twisting! The owners of the former Wilshire Village Apartments at the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy have dropped the lawsuit they filed at the beginning of this month — the one that claimed their about-to-foreclose lender, Wedge Real Estate Finance, interfered with the owners’ attempts to sell the now-vacant 7.68-acre property. Why? Explains a source: “Whether that is because the claim became moot, or was settled, is unknown.” Of course, they can always refile later! [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot]
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Tag: Land for Sale
City officials are discussing a possible sale of the former basketball stadium now occupied by the nation’s largest megachurch, reports the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff. When Lakewood Church took over the Compaq Center (formerly the Houston Summit) from the city in 2001, the institution prepayed the entire $12 million rent amount of the 30-year lease, and spent considerably more than that on renovations. The city won’t see any more income from the property for 22 years. According to the agreement, Lakewood has the option of extending its lease for a second 30-year period, for $22.6 million.
How much could the city get for the little church by the Southwest Freeway?
Just what was going on at this property just a quarter-mile south of the South Main Super Target over the holiday weekend? A bit of land clearing, reports a reader, who says the machines are gone now — but so are a fair number of trees: There’s now a pile of logs at the back of the lot.
Its the Northernmost never-developed lot on South Main . . . For-Sale signs have been up forever, so its interesting to see bulldozers hard at work. . . . This combined with the demolition of the Speedway Inn at 10000 South Main is starting a trend for new development.
The L-shaped, 3.36-acre lot wraps behind the car wash to the north. Across the street is the westernmost Reliant Park parking lot. Here’s an aerial view from the listing:
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A couple of months ago, a TABC application appeared outside the Indian Summer Lodge, Jeff Law’s quirky and colorful Quonset-Hut-turned-event-compound adjacent to the new Hike-and-Bike Trail off lower Columbia St. in the Heights. And so the rumor began that midtown’s Tacos-A-Go-Go might be moving or expanding there.
Now, however, the Indian Summer Lodge is for sale. A new listing was posted over the weekend on the MLS. The 16,170-sq.-ft. property features three buildings — the lodge, the “loft” (the Quonset hut), and a treehouse with skyline balcony.
Here’s what $775,000 gets you:
Lauren Meyers, archivist of would-be Houston, digs up an earlier plan for a building at 4500 Bissonnet, on the corner of Mulberry St. in Bellaire. That’s the vacant property long in the possession of legendarily delinquent Wilshire Village landlord Jay H. Cohen, where Matt Dilick, the man who now apparently controls it, is planning to build a 2ish-story stucco mild-West meets retail-Tuscan strip center and sell off the rest of the land.
Back in 1946, Cohen’s father, who had developed the Wilshire Village Apartments on West Alabama and Dunlavy 6 years earlier, planned a 122-home subdivision on the 30-acre strip between Avenue A (now Newcastle St.) and Mulberry St. with a partner. And at the southern end of the property, facing Richmond Rd. (now Bissonnet St.), a sweeping, low-slung modern structure spanning Howard St.: the Mulberry Manor Community Center, designed by Houston architects Lloyd & Morgan.
Meyers quotes a Houston Chronicle report from September 1, 1946:
DILICK: PAY NO ATTENTION TO CHAPTER 11 A well-timed bankruptcy filing earlier this week by the entity that owns Wilshire Village did in fact prevent the almost-8-acre vacated property at West Alabama and Dunlavy from foreclosure: “Matt Dilick, whose name is listed on the Secretary of State’s web site under registered agent for Alabama & Dunlavy Ltd., said his role is that of development manager. His company, Commerce Equities, ‘is proceeding with its development plans on the property and continues to market the property,’ Dilick said. He recently told me that the property was being offered for sale, but there was a chance he’d still build something on the land.” [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
Let’s see . . . there was today’s planned foreclosure auction for Wilshire Village. What else does Matt Dilick of Commerce Equities have going on?
Swamplot’s neighborhood correspondent for Bellaire reports on Commerce Equities’ proposed development on one portion of a couple of long-vacant tracts at the northeast corner of Bissonnet and Newcastle:
The plots of land at 4400 and 4500 Bissonnet, between Newcastle and the Centerpoint service center, are being cut up and sold. . . .
Evidence of surveying and subdivision in recent weeks has recently given way to signboards indicating that the north third of the open land at 4500 Bissonnet will be cut up into six residential lots while the two-thirds fronting Bissonnet is reserved for commercial. The next block over, across Howard Street, commercial space is being developed to open before April of 2010. According to flyers on broker David Nettles’s website, approximately 62% of the 20,000-some-odd square feet of office space is still available.
But the two parcels — totaling almost 4 acres — have more of a connection to Wilshire Village than just the involvement of Dilick.
By popular demand — and in hopes that even more exciting or sordid detail might be gleaned from the legalese therein — we’re making available the trustee’s sale notices for Wilshire Village that were sent to Swamplot yesterday. The notices describe the foreclosure peril faced by Alabama & Dunlavy Ltd., the limited partnership apparently controlled by Matthew Dilick of Commerce Equities. That partnership owns the 7.68-acre now-vacant property at the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy.
Here they are:
- Notice of Substitute Trustee’s Sale (Amegy Loan)
- Notice of Substitute Trustee’s Sale (Mezzanine Loan)
Think there’s more — or less — to these documents than meets the eye? Find any clues, factoids, or muck hidden between the lines? Think any of it helps explain the bizarre sequence of events that’s taken place at Wilshire Village over the last few years? Let us know!
- Surprise! Wilshire Village Facing Foreclosure [Swamplot]
- Wilshire Village coverage [Swamplot]
Photo of Sign at Wilshire Village, 1701 West Alabama St.: Swamplot inbox
East End blogger Dana Jennings was eager to see what the owners of what was once the Avalon Theater at the corner of Lawndale and 75th St. — just east of the Forest Park Cemetery — had in mind for the property. From last month:
It’s most recent use was as a church. Usually alot of traffic, both foot and vehicular, was seen on Sundays. They’ve moved to a more hopeful location about 2 years ago.
I always thought this would be remodeled into apartment homes. It’s right across the street from La Michocana Meat Market and Grocery, the 99 Cent store, CVS pharmacy, fast food and the Washateria. The bus line runs along Lawndale. It’s a lively corner, active, but again, and I know I’m repeating myself, it’s not threatening. In other obvious words, it would make a great place for new apartments.
The building, still labeled “Living Hope Church,” was demolished September 4th. So what’s the latest on the property?
The Wilshire Village soap opera continues: A source sends Swamplot two trustee’s sale notices for the now-demolished 7.68-acre apartment complex at the corner of W. Alabama and Dunlavy.
How deep into it is the owner? There’s a first lien of $10,742,000 to Amegy Bank, now “wholly due and payable”! That lien dates from January 31, 2006 — the same date, according to HCAD, that the owner, a limited partnership named Alabama & Dunlavy Ltd., took over the property.
The second notice documents problems with Alabama & Dunlavy Ltd.’s separate mezzanine financing with Wedge Real Estate, in the amount of $3 million. That separate promissory note appears to date from May 30th of 2008. Both trustee’s sale notices are dated earlier this month.
Our source comments:
It is rather interesting that Wedge Holdings is the mezz lender, with Wedge being Mayor Bill White’s former company. I feel certain that Matt [Dilick] will avert foreclosure by filing bankruptcy, if he has not already done so.
Oh but if if if foreclosure somehow isn’t averted, where and when might eager Swamplotters be able to snap up this fine scraped property?
The Swamplot Price Adjuster needs your nominations! Found a property you think is poorly priced? Send an email to Swamplot, and be sure to include a link to the listing or photos. Tell us about the property, and explain why you think it deserves a price adjustment. Then tell us what you think a better price would be. Unless requested otherwise, all submissions to the Swamplot Price Adjuster will be kept anonymous.
Location: 2506 West Main St.
Details: 2-3 bedrooms, 2 baths; 1,779 sq. ft. on a 9,473-sq.-ft. lot
Price: $950,000
History: On the market since the beginning of September.
Just a couple blocks south of the intersection of Kirby and West Alabama is this behind-the-Carrabba’s-parking-lot home, apparently being marketed for lot value. The reader who’s nominating this property calls it:
Cute little house, but almost a million for it. Represented by Carraba Property. Next to restaurant of the same name. For that price, a lifetime supply of free Italian meals should come with purchase.
Okay, what about without the meals? What should it cost then?
Here’s a view of the new sign up at the now-scrubbed site of the former Wilshire Village Apartments at the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy. It’s . . . for sale! Apparently, all that demolition work was just for staging.
Can we get a closeup on that sign?
Did we really need that extra day to come up with a winner? Well, not exactly. Your extra-day guesses for this week’s game weren’t much closer. But let’s work with what we’ve got!
First, here’s where you thought this week’s mystery homestead might have been: Champion Forest, the Northgate Country Club area, Old Town Humble, Minnetex, Jersey Village (2 guesses), “off south Gessner near Bellaire,” “on the east side of town south of Highway 90 just outside the Beltway,” “a barely incorporated area of Humble,” the FM 1960 corridor, Stafford, Zip Code 77024, Atlanta, Kingwood, Spring Branch (2), Spring Shadows, Eastwood, “east of Downtown,” Midtown, South Houston, near Fuqua, “between 290 and 45, 610 and Little York,” Friendswood (2), Mission Bend, Timbergrove Manor, “the Heights/near North Side around Airline,” Heritage Park in League City, Pearland, Southwyck in Pearland, Ponderosa Forest, Olde Oaks, Memorial Northwest, Dickinson, League City, Santa Fe, “off Stella Link,” “the swath between 45 North and 59 North, within train horn distance of the Hardy Toll Rd.,” Aldine Bender, Aldine Mail Rd., “off Post Oak South, east of the Meyerland area and south of 610,” “all of the areas not chosen between Katy, Highway 90, Ft. Bend Tollway/Beltway 8, and I-10,” “the Crosby/Highlands area,” the Energy Corridor, Thornwood, LaPorte, Seabrook, “from 225 to the Kemah bridge on the bay side of 146,” Shoreacres near the Houston Yacht club, “an unincorporated semi-rural subdivision in the wild woods of Metro Conroe,” Atascocita, Brazosport, Fondren Southwest, “Lakewood/Grant and Jones/Eldridge area,” Santa Fe, the Bear Creek area, Baytown, Bellaire, West Columbia, Spring, Tomball, Magnolia, Galveston, Cypresswood, Enchanted Oaks, outside Alvin, Tiki Island, San Leon, Lake Jackson, the Houston Ship Channel, “off 59 near Lake Houston,” and Sugar Land.
That’s a lot of running around town!
The winner of this week’s (and, in fact, last week’s) prize — the new HIWI: Ike book, the original HIWI book, and that “Hunkered Down” stencil kit from Houston. It’s Worth It. — is marmer, for this:
What a strange place! I agree it looks like a manufactured home, but it’s just too big and there are too many details in the bedrooms to really convince me. I agree it’s quasi-industrial, too. Has anyone guessed the sketchier part of the Heights/near North Side? Kind of around Airline?
Not exactly a correct guess. But can we focus in on just those last two words — and ignore the rest . . . ?
Congratulations, marmer!
Our two runners-up are Jessica1 — who wisely chose to stretch an earlier guess north of Little York, but veered too far west to Jersey Village — and Harold Mandell, who set up camp on the wrong side of I-45.
Let’s take a look at this place, shall we?
The old Bruce Elementary School on Bringhurst St. in the Fifth Ward — featured on Swamplot just last week and apparently just about ready to go up for sale — went up in flames last Friday night, reports our neighborhood correspondent. A story featured on Abc13 news says the building did suffer major damage from the flames, and makes it sound as if arson is suspected. Did any of the asbestos do its job?
- Vacant elementary school catches fire [Abc13]
- The Fifth Ward’s Old Bruce Elementary School: Lead Scraped and Ready! [Swamplot]
Photo of former Bruce Elementary School, 713 Bringhurst St.: Vaughn Mueller
Self-taught Houston designer, cabinet-maker, boat-builder, and entrepreneur Robert Cohen passed away last weekend at the age of 91, a couple of months after the death of his wife, Jean, and a little less than 2 years after his singular creation, Meyerland’s ultra-fab Carousel House, was demolished.
