Tag: Leasing

Leasing
06/02/09 5:08pm

That West Gray Tilt-Up Is Up

by
Montrose, New Construction, Office Buildings
16 Comments

A reader sends in a photo of the Arch-Con tilt-up office building going up at 1335 West Gray just west of Waugh, across from The Tavern on Gray — and asks:

This has got to be the first ever tilt up building inside the loop, right?

The 21,000-sq.-ft. building was planned to house the Houston headquarters for general contractor Arch-Con on the third floor, next to the terrace. Scraped bungalows will make room for an adjacent surface parking lot. The architect’s website notes there will be “additional parking on the first floor.” Stream Realty has two 7,466-sq.-ft. floor plates listed for lease.

Renderings of the finished building, from Ziegler Cooper Architects:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Leasing
06/01/09 8:15am

A Look at the New Midtown Restaurant in the Mix

by
Midtown, Mixed Use, New Construction, Restaurants
13 Comments

At last: That year-old, right-up-to-the-street, parking-garage-behind The Mix @ Midtown building at 3201 Louisiana gets a ground-floor tenant! Going into the buildout in the space at the southeast corner of Elgin, below 24 Hour Fitness: a new Japanese restaurant.

Want a peek inside?

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Buying and Selling
05/20/09 2:23pm

The Lone Star College System of Real Estate Deals: 70 Percent Off Hewlett-Packard Surplus!

by
Commercial Real Estate, Northwest Houston
2 Comments



The Lone Star College System’s $42.2 million purchase price for that chunk of the former Compaq campus it closed on last month turns out to be $100 million less than the amount it had offered to Hewlett-Packard for the property a year earlier, reports Wall Street Journal reporter Maura Webber Sadovi. A few more tidbits from her report on the second-largest office purchase in the U.S. so far this year (The auction of Boston’s 1.8 million-sq.-ft. Hancock Tower for $660 million in March was the biggest):

The $35-a-square-foot price Lone Star paid was below the $57 average paid for the few suburban Houston office properties sold in the first quarter of 2009 and a deep discount to the $145 per-square-foot suburban average in the year-earlier first quarter, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based real-estate-research firm.

Expect to see administrators of the Lone Star College System (known until recently as the North Harris Montgomery Community College System) lounging around in some of the executive furniture HP threw into the deal at the last minute as well. How did they strike this bargain?

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Alief
05/08/09 10:05am

Comics Relief: Hard Times at the West Oaks Mall

by
Attractions, Commercial Real Estate, Economic Conditions, Leasing, Malls, Retail
11 Comments

What’s a struggling mall to do these days? How about turning off the air conditioning . . . and hosting a comic-book convention! Robert W. Boyd reports from the scene:

Despite a great location [on Highway 6 between Westheimer and Richmond] and not bad interior, West Oaks Mall is plagued with vacancies. And unlike malls like Memorial City Mall, West Oaks is not able to hide the gaps. . . .

West Oaks needed to occupy its empty stores (even if temporarily), or at least cover them up. And it needed to get people in the mall who could at least potentially patronize the remaining stores. So that’s where Comicpalooza came in.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Industrial Properties
04/10/09 10:49am

Plenty of Room at the Port

by
Leasing, Port of Houston, Quicklink
No Comments

PLENTY OF ROOM AT THE PORT Lots of space is available in Houston’s industrial soft spot — on the far east side of town: “A lot of developers built huge facilities on spec at the Port of Houston. However, with trade down due to the global slowdown, the Port is starting to feel some pain, too; as is the real estate that sprang up to serve it. Exports are falling off, while imports are going from ship, to intermodal, to the rest of the country rather than remaining in Houston warehouses. Added to the fact was that building was out of control in that area during the mid-2000s. ‘Three or four years ago, everyone wanted to be at the Port, so everyone put their buildings there,’ [Grubb & Ellis Senior Vice President John] Nicholson says. ‘It was crazy.’ The result is a lot of vacant product, especially warehouse space, in the far east submarket. Transwestern’s report puts the East-Southeast Far submarket at 13.5% vacancy, including sublet space. The total inventory in that area is 34 million square feet, with 1.8 million square feet under construction. The Grubb & Ellis numbers for East Southeast Far have 30 million square feet of inventory and a 20% vacancy. And all of Houston is hunkering into recession mode in the area of lease negotiation. Nicholson and [Transwestern managing director Brian K.] Gammill say short-term deals are more common, as are more free-rent concessions.” [Globe St.]

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Apartments
04/07/09 4:30pm

Comment of the Day: Dallas Discount

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Comments, Downtown, Highrises, Leasing, Quicklink
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: DALLAS DISCOUNT “Nice property, but those prices per sq. ft. are RIDICULOUS. Even in comparison to other Texas cities, like Dallas and Austin. Best of luck leasing at that price point. Most NEW residential lease towers in Dallas have slashed rates. A friend of mine renewed his lease at the Cirque in Victory Park, which is much more fabulous than One Park Place, and his rate was reduced by $250 per month! Additionally, most properties now offer specials, like one-two months free.” [Ted, commenting on One Park Place or Another]

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Apartments
04/06/09 4:40pm

One Park Place or Another

by
Downtown, Highrises, Leasing
3 Comments

The River Oaks Examiner‘s Cynthia Lescalleet tours the brand-new 340-unit One Park Place, across from Discovery Green Downtown:

Units are bright and spacious, with several oversized features, such as 10-foot ceilings that, unlike loft properties, are finished, meaning no dust or gloomy black paint. Each unit has a balcony. Views vary. Overall, the apartments toured felt solid and private and very much like city living in other major cities, which was the point. In One Park Place, Finger Companies wanted to build a landmark residence reminiscent of the historic parkside properties in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Meanwhile, the project’s rose-colored masonry with stone accents connotes other noted Houston architecture. . . .

Okay, how much?

. . . the property’s floorplans have verdant names like Cedar and Azalea. The smallest units have about 800 square feet and lease for $1,800-$2,550 if located on the lower floors of the tower. The six penthouses lease for $6,400 to $11,880 for units of 2,000 to 3,500 square feet.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Leasing
04/01/09 2:43pm

Comment of the Day: Weingarten’s Black Eye

by
Quicklink, Redevelopment, River Oaks, Shopping Centers
14 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WEINGARTEN’S BLACK EYE “Maybe Mr. Alexander could solicit such basic needs tenants for the River Oaks Shopping Center; perhaps a local bakery and a quick-serve restaurant like the Black-Eyed Pea, for example? [Hellsing, commenting on And What About the River Oaks Shopping Center?]

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Economic Conditions
04/01/09 12:37pm

And What About the River Oaks Shopping Center?

by
Leasing, Quicklink, Retail, River Oaks
15 Comments

AND WHAT ABOUT THE RIVER OAKS SHOPPING CENTER? His company’s stock down more than 70 percent since last year and the 2009 calendar wiped clean of all new development projects, Weingarten Realty president and CEO Drew Alexander tells analysts and investors the REIT is gonna survive. “The key to the survival? An increase in cash on the balance sheet and a continued ‘focus on tenants that sell basic goods and services,’ Alexander commented. Those tenants include grocery stores, dry cleaners, quick-serve restaurants and value chains such as Ross, Marshall’s and TJ Maxx.” [Globe St.]

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Comments
03/27/09 4:12pm

Comment of the Day: Deposit No Return

by
Hazards, Leasing, Quicklink
2 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: DEPOSIT NO RETURN “Security deposits are dangerous things in Texas and they should only be provided along with the first month’s rent when you pick up the keys. Otherwise you may be spending a long time in our court system and even then may not get it back. Of course in this case you would have to sue to get the rent and the deposit back and even then you might not. It would depend on whether the landlord’s attorney convinced the court that you and the ‘other tenants’ had agreed to live in a commune. If you thnk that is impossible you obviously have not ‘enjoyed the pleasure’ of our court system in Texas. He who has the most convincing attorney wins. And the sleaziest landlords usually have the sleaziest attorneys who are in the courtrooms every day and so they have some ‘standing’ that you don’t. Not to mention that they, or their law firm PAC, have usually written a nice check or two to the judge’s campaign fund. Texas has always been a ‘buyer beware’ state. As well as a ‘renter beware’ state.” [Matt, commenting on Serial Renter Meets His Match]

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Comments
03/26/09 5:10pm

Comment of the Day: The Landlord Racket

by
Crime, Fraud, Leasing, Quicklink
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE LANDLORD RACKET “I commented to my wife the other day that, in light of foreclosures on rentals, if we decide to rent a house instead of an apartment we will have to demand the right to a credit report on the landlord. I guess we’ll want a criminal background check also :)” [MikeRG, commenting on Serial Renter Meets His Match]

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Crime
03/26/09 11:16am

Serial Renter Meets His Match

by
Fraud, Leasing, Quicklink, Stone Gate
5 Comments

SERIAL RENTER MEETS HIS MATCH There was something fishy about that home on Shady Canyon, Amber Rogers found out. She gave a $2500 deposit to Jonathan Soto, but it turns out he was renting out the same property to other people too. Cut to dual-renter ambush in Stone Gate subdivision: “Rogers says she hid in the garage and called 911. She came out right when Soto was giving his sales pitch. ‘When he turned around and saw me, I could have sworn he thought he saw a ghost. It almost knocked him off his feet. It was hilarious,’ Rogers said. Rogers says he tried to escape through a window. ‘I was the closest one to him. I grabbed him and I threw him into the wall,’ Rogers said. . . . Rogers says it was a good thing the police arrived when they did. Soto was carrying a gun, and according to her, he appeared to be reaching for it.” [11 News]

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Commercial Real Estate
03/19/09 4:07pm

Taking a Bite out of Whole Foods

by
Galleria, Leasing, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Retail
8 Comments

TAKING A BITE OUT OF WHOLE FOODS That new Whole Foods Market coming to Post Oak Blvd. in the Galleria may not end up being quite the giant originally envisioned, says Nancy Sarnoff: “Developer Ed Wulfe, who’s building the BLVD Place mixed-use project where the Whole Foods will go, recently said the parties are working on amending the lease to reduce the size of the store, originally planned for 80,000 square feet. Put in context, the Kirby Whole Foods is about 40,000 square feet and Central Market is about 75,000 square feet. An 80,000-square-foot store would have been on par with the company’s flagship market in Austin, where customers can eat at mini-restaurants, chose from hundreds of varieties of beer, cheeses and a seafood counter that smokes, slices and fries to order. In a related move, Whole Foods recently announced that it was keeping its store on Woodway and Voss open. The plan was to close it when the Post Oak store opened. [Houston Chronicle; previously in Swamplot]

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Commercial Real Estate
03/06/09 10:17am

Where the Freeway Met the Bayou: The Last Days of Las Alamedas

by
Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
16 Comments

Over at Eating Our Words, Katharine Shilcutt has posted photos of the now-vacant longtime home of Las Alamedas Restaurant. As noted in this featured comment from a Swamplot reader, the restaurant packed up and rolled away late last month, after long-extended lease negotiations failed. Restaurant owner Jorge Sneider told the Houston Business Journal the building’s new landlords were demanding a significant rent increase.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Comments
02/24/09 4:11pm

Comments of the Day: Las Alamedas Packs Up

by
Commercial Real Estate, Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Restaurants
No Comments

COMMENTS OF THE DAY: LAS ALAMEDAS PACKS UP “I drove by yesterday and there were two large U-Haul trucks backed up to the back door. I think Las Alamedas is toast. What a shame; I’ve had many good times there.” And later: “Well, I drove by a couple of hours ago and the sign out front says something like ‘Thank you for 28 great years. We will relocate.’” [Clive, commenting on Las Alamedas: Landlord Wants More]

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