Annie Sitton documents Ligne Roset’s surprise weekend move from that fancy strip mall on Kirby to . . . the River Oaks Shopping Center? Uh . . . wasn’t the mod French furniture store supposed to be moving this April . . . to West Ave?
And what does this move mean for Design Source, West Ave’s prize showroom of showrooms, that Ligne Roset was supposed to headline?
Last week the Houston Business Journal reported that the owner of Las Alamedas had reached agreement on a new lease with its landlord and would reopen on February 6th. But the upscale Mexican restaurant on the Katy Freeway at Voss is still closed.
What happened to that agreement?
“The landlord came back and wanted at least 50 percent more rent and other things that we didn’t originally agree on,†says [restaurant owner Jorge] Sneider.
Sneider had previously told reporter Allison Wollam that the original landlord died in a plane crash, and various surviving family members had been fighting over ownership of the property for the last year and a half. “He now hopes he can work out another lease in a couple of weeks,” Wollam reports today.
Photo: Rachel Dvoretzky
Note: Updated below.
Las Alamedas Restaurant — the hacienda on the Katy Freeway — is on hiatus pending renegotiation of its 28-year-old lease.
According to a message on the restaurant’s voice mail, the storied location of countless wedding, birthday and anniversary fiestas is “temporarily closed” while negotiations continue.
When Las Alamedas opened in 1980 it was the first grand, high-end Mexican restaurant in town. The Memorial location — 8615 Katy Freeway at Voss — attracted diners who sought genuine Mexican cuisine in a large elegant setting. Colonial-style architecture, bayou views, banquet facilities and highly professional service pleased customers for whom Ninfa’s on Navigation was terra incognita.
IS THAT THREE BROTHERS BAKERY ON THE LINE? A spokesperson for Weingarten Realty reports the company has “a number of good prospects” to lease the second-story space in the semi-curved replacement building that caused all that fuss over at the River Oaks Shopping Center. Earlier this week, Tony Vallone announced he’s backing out of plans to open a new Italian restaurant in the space: “. . . the recent flak between neighbors and developer Weingarten Realty on such points as the building’s setbacks and the use of the patio were not factors in pulling the plug, he said, adding the discourse was full of misinformation. Vallone said, for example, rumors were circulated that the patio would have been used, at times, as a band venue, which would not have been the case. ‘I would never do anything to jeopardize the relationship with the neighborhood,’ Vallone said.” [River Oaks Examiner; previously]
Bruce Wolfe, who owns Houston’s Ligne Roset furniture showroom — and is about to open one in Austin — tells Houston Business Journal reporter Allison Wollam that business at the sleek and modern 3,500-sq.-ft. store in the strip center just north of the Rice Village at 5600 Kirby Dr. was better this holiday season than last, despite problems in the economy that have hurt other home-furnishings retailers:
“It’s not unusual for one of our clients to come in and show us their floor plan and hand us a $40,000 check to furnish their entire home,†he says. “When it comes to furniture, if you pay with peanuts, you’re going to get a monkey. And you can’t pay for a Pontiac and expect to drive away with a Mercedes.â€
The Houston Ligne Roset store was one of the few in the chain to carry the entire catalog in Spanish, which Wolfe says that also helped attract new clients.
Wollam goes on to report that Ligne Roset will be expanding and moving up Kirby in April, to the new West Ave development — where the store will be 1 of 5 showrooms Wolfe will operate under the name Design Source:
Hot off the Swamplot tipline: Discovery Tower, going up across McKinney St. from Discovery Green Downtown, has its first tenant — and it’ll be taking the whole building.
Beginning in late 2011 — about the time Hess’s current lease at One Allen Center expires — the 30-story tower with the wind turbines on top will be renamed Hess Tower.
After the jump, details from an email announcing the move — sent out to Hess Corporation employees late this morning:
Weingarten’s Planning Commission victory earlier this month doesn’t resolve everything for the westernmost of two replacement retail buildings now under construction at the River Oaks Shopping Center. First, reports Mary Ann Acevedo in the Houston Business Journal, that last-minute compromise left a few neighbors grumbling:
. . . some of the neighbors are not pleased that they didn’t have an opportunity to review the final agreement after Weingarten’s most recent changes prior to the Jan. 8 hearing with the Planning Commission.
According to [neighbor Janet] Moore, Weingarten had told the group it would deliver an advance copy for their review.
“They presented us a signed, unmarked copy at the hearing and had no one available authorized to negotiate changes to the agreement,†Moore says. “Some of the neighbors are disappointed with a few of the changes in the agreement.â€
On, Jan. 13, Weingarten presented the neighbors with a revised agreement that Moore says does address some of those concerns, although the parties continue to work out the details.
Next, that Vallone restaurant planned for the building’s second floor and balcony — which at one point was referred to in Weingarten’s marketing materials as Il Tavolo (and is labeled Adagio Vino in the renderings) — may not be a done deal yet:
That see-through office tower above the new Houston Pavilions development Downtown won’t be empty much longer. Globe St.‘s Amy Wolff Sorter reports that law firm Sheehy, Serpe & Ware has leased the top floor and a half.
Only 7 1/2 floors left!
Photo of Pavilions Tower: Houston Pavilions
Need a place to crash somewhere in Houston for a short visit — say, a week — but don’t want to stay in a hotel?
Phillips Development & Realty, developers of the Mosaic and freshly rebranded Montage towers across Almeda from Hermann Park, is handling rentals of Mosaic condos owned by investors — as well as rentals of the many units the developer has been unable to unload. Now a source passes on a new rumor to Swamplot: Some of those available rentals may be extremely short-term.
Not a bad idea for a property that’s close to the Med Center! With that rumor, though, come a couple more:
Phillips’s Corporate Leasing Director will be taking over management of the Mosaic’s homeowners association from the company that had been running it since the building opened last year. But Phillips’s new tenure at the HOA may be a short-term one too. Why?
Because Florida Capital Real Estate Partners, the Mosaic’s lender, might just be foreclosing on Phillips’s property soon — both the Mosaic and an apartment complex in Tampa called the Casa Bella. Swamplot’s source also suggests that Camelot Realty Group — the company that’s clearly been very busy handling the Mosaic’s many condo sales — may already have had discussions with Florida Capital about taking over onsite rental duties from Phillips once the foreclosure takes place.
Photo of Mosaic and Montage: Swamplot inbox
A reader wants to know about the 4-story office building Stream Realty is claiming it can fit on a couple of recently demo’ed lots on W. Gray near Waugh:
Hadn’t driven by this part of town in a while. Is this the sort of thing that went out the window when all the credit froze up, or did this sign just go up?
A listing on the Stream Realty website indicates that 1335 West Gray is supposed to contain 22,392 sq. ft. of space, with a third of it (on the top floor) apparently already spoken for. The first floor looks open for parking.
CIRCUIT CITY THREATENS TO PULL THE PLUG “One out-of-court solution the company is studying would likely lead to the closing of at least 150 stores and the elimination of thousands of jobs, said people familiar with the company’s plans. This would let the retailer liquidate about $350 million in inventory, which it could use to pay off certain real-estate costs, such as leases on abandoned sites. It would then hope to press existing landlords to renegotiate leases, many of which Circuit City regards as overpriced. Circuit City’s investors have homed in on those leases as a threat to the company’s health. Many were negotiated when real-estate prices were booming earlier this decade. Roughly 90% of the leases don’t expire until 2014 or later, and about 80 are for vacant locations.” There are 714 Circuit City stores in the U.S., 15 of them in Houston. [Wall St. Journal]
In the rendering above, it’s labeled Adagio Vino. In the marketing package for the River Oaks Shopping Center’s barely curving northwest replacement building, it’s called Il Tavolo. But the Houston Business Journal says that Tony and Jeff Vallone’s new Italian restaurant and wine bar going into that space in fall 2009 is not yet named.
The new restaurant, which will seat up to 150 people, will feature a first-floor dining room and outdoor dining area and a second-level wine bar with its own patio extending onto a balcony overlooking Shepherd Drive.
Rendering of River Oaks Shopping Center on Shepherd Dr. at W. Gray: Weingarten Realty
Fiesta Mart closed its I-10 and Blalock location when the Katy Freeway was expanded because too much of its parking got eaten up by the wider freeway. So how is the new 99 Ranch Market going into that space going to deal with the parking problem?
Suzanne Anderson, a regional leasing director with Weingarten, says the parking lot will be restriped to maximize the number of available parking spaces.
“We’re going to have to re-lay out the parking,†she says. “It’s still going to be under what the typical grocery store might have.â€
99 Ranch Market is owned by Tawa Supermarket and is the largest Asian American supermarket chain, with 25 stores in California. The 84,000-sq.-ft. store opening on Blalock next summer will be the company’s first store in Texas.
Photo of former Fiesta Mart at 1005 Blalock: Weingarten Realty
An austere bit of stationery is taped to the door of Bice Ristorante in the Galleria, indicating that mall owner Simon Property Group has changed the locks until Bice comes up with $164,731.37 in rent. The letter is dated from mid-July. And somebody has finally noticed!
“Seriously, how do you fall this far behind on rent?,” asks Tasty Bits author Misha. A few pix below:
A correspondent sends in this bit of over-the-counter intelligence about Midtown geek-gathering favorite Tropioca:
Tropioca on Milam at Drew is in the process of looking for a new home. They are looking around the midtown area but also at a location near U of H at Cullen and Leeland.
I overheard someone behind the counter saying that their rent has gone up almost 80% and not gradually over a few years, but all at once.
I will be sad to see them go if they leave midtown because they make the BEST frozen cappucino coffee drink inside the loop.
Photo: Yelp user Jill N.
