03/13/18 12:00pm

The teeth, eyes, and . . . uh, overall shape of the new shopping center Braun Enterprises is planning for N. Shepherd and 24th St. can be considered taken care of, now that Lovett Dental, Eyes on the Heights Optometry, and Club Pilates have each signed leases for space in the development. That leaves 11,555 sq. ft. still available in 3 separate end-cap spots for any nail salon, podiatrist, or dermatology clinic that wants to fill out the theming for the complex, which would go on the block catty-corner to the H-E-B Heights Market currently under construction.

This would fit in with N. Shepherd’s ongoing transformation: Braun plans to demolish the Miller’s Auto Body Repair Experts facility (as of now still open for business) as well a building formerly occupied by Auto Electric Service on the site in order to construct the 24,000-sq.-ft. shopping center, which includes structured parking as well as a parking lot on the roof of one of the 2 buildings.

A full human-body-part-focused buildout for this planned complex at 2401 N. Shepherd Dr. isn’t so far-fetched: the latest renderings released for the development include generic signage for both a nail salon and a fitness club:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Body Shop to Body Shopping
10/30/17 3:30pm

A 2-page letter posted to the front door of the Fadi’s Mediterranean Grill in the Westside Plaza shopping center at 8383 Westheimer on Friday explains that the landlord has terminated the lease on the property and is demanding the tenant pay close to $71,000 in back rent. Fadi Dimassi opened the first Fadi’s at this location in 1996; with this closing Fadi’s is now down to 8 locations, including 3 franchised spots in Dallas.

According to the letter, the lease term officially expired at the end of January. Since that time, Texadelphia has moved into the spot next door, replacing the Potbelly Sandwich shop shown in the photo above.

A Swamplot tipster notes the restaurant was open for business on Saturday but locked out on Sunday, with all tables, chairs, and restaurant property still inside. In an interview with the Houston Press in 2015, Dimassi noted that the $18,000-a-month rent his company was paying for the Dunvale location had spurred his interest in purchasing real estate for subsequent locations.

Photo: Miguel Paez

Done with Dunvale
10/20/17 4:45pm

Without providing too much detail on the scope of the accompanying construction (“a remodel the owner wants to do”), KHOU’s Marcelino Benito yesterday interviewed one of the proprietors of Oak Forest coffee house and occasional goat-yoga venue Slowpokes, who along with several customers and neighbors has been protesting landlord Naushad Momin’s apparent plans to chop down 2 large oak trees on site — to add more paving and parking spaces.

The oak trees sit at the southern end of the strip center at 1203 W. 34th St., which faces Alba St., and shade a lawn (pictured at top) adjacent to the Slowpokes patio deck. Chopping down trees to add more parking might appear to be a landlord’s prerogative, despite tenant opposition. Except possibly not in this case:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Oak Deforesting
09/19/17 4:45pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: DISASTER EVICTION DISASTERS “This just brings into focus how landlord tenant law is totally inefficient when it comes to natural disasters. When a landlord cannot repair the leasehold in a timely manner, they have no choice but to terminate the leases. While it certainly makes sense that you would want to free people from having to pay rent on a residence that was not habitable, the unintended consequence is that people are uprooted from their community and scattered about the city with little chance of returning to their homes. Likewise, landlords are forced to empty out their premises and pray that they will be able to fill up their building once renovations are completed. Why not give the landlord the option to obtain temporary housing for tenants and keep the lease in place. When repairs are complete, the tenants can move back in without worrying about breaking a lease and do not have to compete with other tenants for space. Tenants could keep their address, which is very helpful for getting credit.” [Old School, commenting on Residents of 2100 Memorial Senior Highrise Now Have 5 Days To Move Out of Their ‘Uninhabitable’ Apartments] Photo of fire-safety warning sticker at 2100 Memorial: Swamplot inbox

08/16/17 4:00pm

Maybe that for-lease sign up in the window at Tila’s Restaurante and Bar on the Shepherd Curve for the last few months worked: The restaurant closed for business on Sunday — after 20 years at the same location. Owner Tila Hidalgo reports on the restaurant’s Facebook page that her business was given 25 days notice to vacate the property at 1111 S. Shepherd Dr. — it will be out of the space entirely by the end of the month.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Now on Wheels
07/27/17 2:30pm

Here’s a glance at how the now-redone North Shepherd strip center that used to house the Texas Cafeteria is looking this week, about a month before the second-ever location of sandwich joint Krisp Chicken & Batter opens up on the building’s south end. A raised bit of concrete slab seen on the near side of the building in the photo above will form the foundation of a planned dining patio. According to the building’s leasing flyer, a 1,825-sq.-ft. space in the building is still available for lease adjacent to Krisp; the rest of the building will become a Verizon store.

The center at 2400 N. Shepherd Dr. is immediately north of the former Fiesta lot where H-E-B plans to start construction on a new Heights market late this summer.

According to Culturemap’s Eric Sandler, the owners of Krisp are already planning to open additional locations in Memorial, Bellaire, and Downtown in the next few years — and possibly Pearland and Cinco Ranch after that.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Next Month
07/27/17 10:30am

EMPTY ‘END HUNGER’ WAREHOUSE BY I-45 NORTH TO BE FILLED WITH WORKERS MAKING SOUTH AFRICAN FOOD AND SEASONINGS The former Mary Barden Keegan building at 2445 North Fwy. a couple of exits north of Downtown that for more than 10 years was home to the Houston Food Bank will soon make some adjustments to its culinary mission. The Peli Peli restaurant group has announced that the 15,000-sq.-ft. building — which includes a 9,362-sq.-ft. commercial kitchen as well as office and warehouse space — will henceforth become the food-preparation hub of the growing 5-restaurant chain’s Houston operations. The kitchen that once provided space for the creation of 5,000 meals a day for needy individuals will soon house Peli Peli’s catering operation and provide space for the production of Peli Peli–brand bottled sauces and spices. (“That includes piri piri pepper, also known as bird’s-eye chili, which is used to flavor chicken and seafood and to rim martini glasses,” notes the Chronicle‘s Katherine Feser.) Peli Peli partner Thomas Nguyen tells Feser the company plans to keep the building’s signature END HUNGER graphic embedded into the building’s tilt-up-concrete panels on its freeway side, which were originally painted red when the building was constructed in 2006 but are now rendered in green. “We’re not messing with it,” he tells her. “If anything, we would like to enhance it later on.” The Houston Food Bank sold the building to Virgata Property Company last year, leasing it back until it could complete construction of an even larger kitchen operation in the much larger facility it constructed out of  the former Sysco warehouse at 535 Portwall St. near I-10 and the West Loop. [Houston Chronicle; PR Newswire; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Virgata Property

05/16/17 9:30am

SAN JACINTO MALL ANCHORS CAUSING REDO PLANS TO DRAG “It’s been slow and tedious — We didn’t count on the myriad problems all the traditional mall department stores are having,” Alan Hassenflu of Fidelis Realty Partners tells Katherine Blunt this week in the Chronicle, while discussing the company’s stagnating attempt to redo Baytown’s San Jacinto Mall. The company’s plans to knock down and rebuild the mall after buying it last summer are running up against drawn-out negotiations with tenants who signed restrictive covenants back in the early 80’s — agreements which can mean developers have to get those tenants to okay changes to the mall, and which can last for decades longer than original operating agreements. “In the case of San Jacinto,” writes Blunt, “the 3 remaining department stores have occupied their buildings for far longer than required under the operating agreements. But the restrictive covenants remain in place, giving them the some control over the mall’s future.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Ray D.

04/11/17 1:15pm

Planned Retail Strip at 403 W. Gray St., Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

Ship & Shield at 403 W. Gray St., Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019The yet-unbuilt retail strip planned for the empty land next to Ship & Shield (the Viking-themed restaurant and bar that replaced Byzantio’s last fall) is now fully leased out, Katherine Feser notes. The planned 4,316 sq. ft. are set to be occupied by a second location of Houston restaurant Viet’s Express and a second location of Hawaiian animal hospital Feather and Fur. The project is another show of new construction from serial adaptive reuser Braun Enterprises, which bought both the restaurant space and the adjacent lots from Byzantio’s previous owners over the summer.

If the retail strip turns out to look much like those leasing fliers that’ve been floating around this spring, the layout will be mostly business in the front, parking in the back — plus a strip or 2 of pervious paving off to the sides:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

2 Tenants for North Montrose
03/22/17 4:30pm

Crane at under-construction Capitol Tower, Capitol St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

Another shot of that crane that took to the air this weekend by the economy-stalled stub of Skanska’s Capitol Tower comes from a reader peering over the site’s parking structure from Rusk St. yesterday. (That’s the neighboring Chase Tower looming over the scene in the background.) Bank of America was outed as being in talks with Skanska about leasing space in the tower (which might add the bank’s current home in Bank of America Center to the list of recent abandonments of Downtown office towers by their namesake tenants). The other sign of life on the site this year was the addition of a street-level mural to the parking garage’s corner, which was dry in time for the Super Bowl last month:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Sprouting Downtown
03/21/17 12:30pm

Dolce Living Midtown construction, 180 W. Gray St., Midtown/Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019Dolce Living Midtown rendering, 180 W. Gray St., Midtown/Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

Leasing signage was tacked up not too long ago at the Dolce Midtown apartment development straddling Bailey St. along the north side of W. Gray, notes a reader relaying years of curiosity about the project’s slow-but-maybe-not-always-so-steady progress. The development’s website doesn’t offer any clues as to when move-in might be possible, but the company has opened a leasing office down the street (in one of the not-getting-knocked-down-any-time-soon segments of the River Oaks Shopping Center).

A few of the hawk-eyed cranewatchers over at HAIF claim to have spotted some backward clock-ticks on the work in the form of partial de- and re-construction of the 2 midrises’ upper stories during late 2015, possibly related to all the torrential rain that year on the building’s siding and wooden framing. But the buildings apparently re-reached their full heights not long after; as of last Friday, there’re even some relatively complete-looking facade sections on the eastern midrise (as shown above). The western building of the 2 still looks to have only been issued its Hardi-plank balcony flaps, however:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Ups and Downs in Fourth Ward
03/14/17 11:30am

Shopping Center at Westheimer Rd. at Montrose Blvd., Montrose, Houston, 77006Shopping Center at Westheimer Rd. at Montrose Blvd., Montrose, Houston, 77006

Swamplot’s elevated tipster with an eye on the Westheimer Rd. scene — just east of the Montrose Blvd. Smoothie King — sends some update shots this morning of the ongoing construction of a planned Ruggles-replacing restaurant-retail combo, half of which looks slated for fill-in by a Velvet Taco branch. The Dallas chain will take over a 1-and-a-half story piece of the center, next to the areas highlighted in orange above; Edge Realty is currently leasing the rest of the space in the center, which will attempt to hide some of its parking from prying sidewalk eyes:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Grill Gone Gray
01/23/17 5:00pm

Fairview District Update, January 2017, Fairview at Mason St., East Montrose, Houston, 77006

The renderings in Edge Realty’s marketing material for the mixed-use office and retail redevelopment planned for the area around Fairview and Mason streets now include signage for another outpost each of New York-based Shake Shack and Alabama-based Steel City Pops. The eccentric popsicle shop is shown inhabiting that freestanding dessert island planned in the parking lot east of Max’s Wine Dive; Shack Shack is depicted in a corner unit in the multi-story building planned across Mason St., next to the empty former site of Meteor Lounge (and catty-corner across Fairview from Meteor’s current crumbly resting place). A reader tells Swamplot that Shake Shack was also mentioned as a future Fairview District tenant at last week’s meeting of the East Montrose Civic Association, though possibly placed in a different spot in the development.

Also showing up in the latest images is Houston-based yoga and bike-in-place fitness outlet Revolution Studio; other names dropped on the flier include Austin-based barber shop Finley’s, California-based and -flavored fast-casual restaurant lemonade, haberdashery chain Goorin Bro.’s,  shoe-polish-brand-turned-upscale-watch-retailer Shinola, and — down on the Genesee St. corner — enthusiastic burger joint Eureka!:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Fairview Views
01/06/17 11:30am

Former Earthman Bellaire Funeral Home at 6700 Ferris St., Bellaire, TX 77401
Former Earthman Bellaire Funeral Home at 6700 Ferris St., Bellaire, TX 77401Making way for new happenings in the old chapel and mortuary, Earthman Bellaire Funeral Home has departed from its longtime space at 6700 Ferris St. and moved into the younger, broader building at 4525 Bissonnet St. formerly housing Levy Funeral Directors. (Levy, for its part, has scooted over to nextdoor 4539 Bissonnet, the brick 4-plex just east of Candy’s Nails.) Earthman’s empty space was sold in October to United Equities, and Ralph Bivins reports this week that the slope-roofed mid-1950s building will be put back to use by 2 new tenants: yoga and fitness chain Define Body & Mind and a zip-code-enthused restaurant going by 401. The Define folks have already marked their territory on the Ferris side of the building, atop the ghost of Earthman’s scripty logo:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Bissonnet Funeral Home Shuffle
01/05/17 11:30am

Lowell St. Market renderings, 718 W. 18th St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

The details for Radom Capitol’s Lowell St. Market makeover of the industrial warehouses at the corner of W. 18th St. and N. Shepherd Dr. seem to be getting firmed up, and a slew of new building permits were issued last month for the site. The latest depictions of the space show both a less neon green color-and-finish scheme and more detail as to how the redeveloped and new buildings will be sliced up for tenants. The current leasing plan shows the former Airmakers Cooling & Heating warehouse along N. Shepherd (depicted above on the left wearing what what Steve Radom describes as its Japanese-barn-inspired replacement skin) as the planned site of a single restaurant. The middle building, now shown with a brown forehead, appears to be getting sliced up into 3 shops. And the current leasing materials for the development show all of the dark blue spots below as already leased out:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Lowell St. on W. 18th