Tag: Mixed Use

Featured Posts
03/06/19 2:00pm

East River’s Western North Shore Launch: Multiplex, Waterfront Museum, Plaza, Lots of Ground Floor Retail You Can Drive To

by
Fifth Ward, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments
19 Comments

A leasing brochure just released by Midway reveals a detailed site plan for the first phase of the company’s planned development on a 150-acre former industrial site lining the north bank of Buffalo Bayou — here upgraded to riverine status. East River‘s drive-up urban conquest of the former KBR (previously, Brown & Root) campus begins on the far western edge of the Fifth Ward site, fronting Jensen Dr. and lining Clinton Dr. Portrayed in the plans and renderings: a 9-plus-screen multiplex movie theater, a new waterside home for the Houston Maritime Museum, a central plaza with a coffee pavilion (pictured), and almost 100,000 sq. ft. of retail and restaurant space, spread among the ground floors of 8 separate structures (including one enormous parking garage). Three of the structures are multi-story office buildings.

Here are some overall site plans of the development:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Fifth Ward Incoming
, , ,
Featured Posts
01/08/19 10:15am

United Arab Emirates’ Gift to Houston Will Help Affordable Home Developer Afford This New Home

by
Near Northside, Proposed Developments
4 Comments

Here’s a look at the new HQ that Houston nonprofit Avenue CDC wants to build at 3527 Irvington Blvd. just north of the road’s fork with Fulton St. and east of Moody Park. The rendering emerged yesterday following news that the United Arab Emirates was coughing up $6.5 million of the $10 million it pledged to give Houston after Harvey. After its donation gets disbursed to a handful of local recipients, Avenue CDC will come out with $2.6 million — reports the HBJ’s Olivia Pulsinelli — all of which it plans to put toward the 3-story, 30,500-sq.-ft. building. An additional $8.7 million for the structure will be collected from elsewhere.

According to a press release from the folks set to inhabit the new HQ, their idea is to “conveniently co-locate a variety of vital resources for residents” inside, such as a health clinic, early childhood education center, post-disaster housing counseling offices, and a realty office. The residents they’re talking about include homeowners in the CDC’s nearby Avenue Place development — a  neighborhood of 95 three- and four-bedroom homes — as well as Avenue Terrace, an adjacent 192-unit apartment project. Both communities went up on what used to be FedEx’s 20-acre truck depot off Irvington and Weiss St. over the course of the last few years.

Rendering: Avenue CDC

Near Northside
, , , ,
Featured Posts
12/18/18 10:30am

The Allen’s Latest Mixed-Use Map Nixes the Pedestrian Bridge Across Allen Pkwy.

by
Mixed Use, Montrose, North Montrose, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Redevelopment
3 Comments

THE ALLEN’S LATEST MIXED-USE MAP NIXES THE PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE ACROSS ALLEN PKWY. Remember that pedestrian bridge that previous maps and renderings for The Allen showed crossing Allen Pkwy. in order to link the planned development to Buffalo Bayou Park? Well, it appears to be gone now: New marketing materials put out by Transwestern include no indication of it whatsoever. (Earlier versions of the map above had shown it plugging into the building labeled 1, a lowrise retail structure.) All 6 acres of the site — between Allen Parkway Village and the Federal Reserve building — remain vacant right now, except for a tiny portion near the southwest corner where a newly-poured concrete foundation has given rise to a yet-unidentified wood-framed structure over the past couple of days. [Transwestern (PDF) via HAIF; previously on Swamplot] Map: Transwestern

, , , , , ,
East Downtown
11/05/18 2:30pm

Frankel’s Polk St. Costume Shop and Its Cold-Storage Neighbor Line Up for Mixed-Use Makeovers

by
Mixed Use, Redevelopment
5 Comments

Lovett Commercial’s latest post-industrial venture in East Downtown will take place just 4 blocks down Polk St. from the one it’s already got going at the former Houston Post building. The target this time: 2 blocks between Delano and Ennis streets now home collectively to more than 99,000 sq.-ft. of buildings — including the one where Frankel’s Costume Shop closed early this year. Most of the existing structures will stay standing with new shops, offices, restaurants, and some kind of art exhibition or creation spaces shoved inside them. The aerial at top shows off the whole thing in not-so-fine detail from the corner of Delano and Polk. And the street-level rendering looks in the opposite direction, depicting a patio-ed and pedestrian-ized eastern block with its western counterpart in the background.

A cold-storage box once home to Freedman Meats takes up the whole eastern block right now, shown below from Polk.:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Polk & Ennis
, , , , , ,
Apartments
09/12/18 1:00pm

Affordable Housing HQ Planned Across from Affordable Housing on the Edge of Emancipation Park

by
Mixed Use, Proposed Developments
4 Comments

Although only one includes living space, both structures shown separated by St. Charles St. in the rendering at top are intended to give people spaces to live. The big one — depicted in more detail above — is Kirksey Architecture’s 5-story design for an affordable housing operations center, to be placed directly across the street from 20 units of actual housing. The Midtown Redevelopment Authority bought the vacant land for both sites along Elgin in 2015, back when the renovation of neighboring Emancipation Park was still taking shape.

On the left in the aerial below, you can see the parcel where the HQ is planned across from the park and its on-site Emancipation Community Center:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Third Ward
, , , , , ,
Apartments
09/05/18 10:15am

Eye Doc Grabbing Space Next to Dentist in Mid Main Lofts’ METRO Side

by
Mixed Use, New Construction, Quicklink, Retail
4 Comments

EYE DOC GRABBING SPACE NEXT TO DENTIST IN MID MAIN LOFTS’ METRO SIDE The office of Dr. Benjamin Golik, DDS is getting a new optometrist neighbor along Main St. as heralded by a recently filed building permit for the Mid Main Lofts‘ ground level. The eye doctor’s move-in will leave the apartments’ east side more full than not — though a few of its rail-adjacent retail spaces remain empty according to the map above of the building’s first floor. [Previously on Swamplot] Map: LoopNet

, , , ,
Apartments
08/27/18 2:00pm

Khun Kay Thai Cafe’s Second-Gen Owner Now Tracing Out 20-Story Highrise in Its Place

by
Mixed Use, Montrose, North Montrose, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment
18 Comments

The outline of a 20-story apartment building called Montrose Gardens made its first public appearance late Friday in the city’s planning commission agenda, where its footprint covers over that of the Khun Kay Thai Cafe on the corner of Montrose Blvd. and W. Clay St. Only 9 of those stories will be for living, so what’s going into the rest? According to the building’s engineer: “A variety of retail stores, restaurants, and coffee shops” — all 24,000 sq.-ft. of which would be buffered from the 150-or-so upstairs apartments by 9 stories of resident-only parking. Underground, a separate 2 floor garage will gobble up retail traffic from an opening on W. Clay.

Also present on the 19,900-sq.-ft. site where the apartment’s staking its claim: the restaurant’s 2 parking lots. The northern one ran over the duplex-turned-psychic-shop directly south of it after the structure — memorialized in the aerial below — was demolished in 2016:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Montrose Gardens
, , , , , , , ,
Demolitions
08/20/18 4:30pm

Crews of Excavators, Flocks of Birds Now Have Exxon’s Empty Katy Fwy. Chemical HQ in Their Claws, Talons

by
Energy Corridor, Mixed Use, Office Buildings
11 Comments

A Swamplot reader noticed that demolition crews are now trashing the conference center at the abandoned ExxonMobil Chemical Company headquarters next to Terry Hershey Park, leaving a grizzly roadside scene along Memorial Dr. “More concerning,” writes the reader, “is that they drained the ponds and did not relocate the waterfowl.”

At least it’s still theirs to call their own — until PM Realty finds new tenants to replace the Exxon employees that left the property starting in 2014. Without anyone around to disturb the wildlife for now, “They are swimming in the tiny little bit of water left and otherwise just hanging out,” like so:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Exxon Exodus
, , , , ,
East Downtown
07/20/18 2:00pm

Latest Plans for Former Houston Post Complex: New Entrance Block on St. Charles, Rest of Double Block Mostly for Parking

by
Mixed Use, Redevelopment, Renovations
8 Comments

Lovett Commercial won’t be building that new northwest corner structure on the former Houston Post site previously slated to house a Sprouts Farmers Market at Emancipation and Bell avenues, but it does plan to move ahead with this blocky new entryway housing an elevator and stairway on St. Charles St. — that is, if Houston’s city planning commission gives it the go ahead. The developer fired off an application asking the commission for permission to plant the cube (shown in yellow above) right at the property line, as opposed to 10 ft. from it as would typically be required, but then postponed its consideration for 2 weeks during which it plans to gather more supporting information. The structure would go right outside the existing 3-story building between Emancipation and St. Charles St. that Lovett plans to preserve.

Other portions of that 1944 building already toe the line in similar fashion along St. Charles and Emancipation. They were grandfathered in to the current setback rules, along with the entire north façade of this slightly smaller, abutting structure that lines Polk St.:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

East Downtown
, , , ,
Adaptive Reuse
07/11/18 12:30pm

Your Best Look Yet at East River’s 136-Acre Bayou-Side Complex for the Fifth Ward

by
Fifth Ward, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments
22 Comments

A fresh batch of renderings released by Midway paints the clearest picture yet of what’s planned for the 136-acre former KBR campus that stretches along Buffalo Bayou, between Hirsch Rd. and Jensen Dr. Cobbled together from a mixture of glass and other materials, the tallest structure shown in the image at top spikes up behind a lower-slung retail building that fronts a junction of walking paths intersecting in a central park. You can see a further-away view of the airy column, foregrounded by street-level retailers in the view above.

A confection-colored map put out by the developer last month included a long strip of green along Buffalo Bayou’s north bank reserved for park space.

It’s now reappearing in the view below from up above the waterway:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Great Glass Spike
, , , ,
Featured Posts
03/29/18 4:00pm

Hump-Backed Goodyear Auto Shop a Block Away from Highland Village Has a Mixed-Use Prognosis

by
Highland Village, Medical Buildings, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Retail
2 Comments

Ancorian subsidiary CityLands has plans to plant a medical office building with street-level retail in place of the barrel-vaulted 1970 Goodyear auto shop at 3720 Westheimer. Leasing materials dub the new 40,250-sq.-ft. building the Surgery Center of River Oaks. However, the anchor tenant that CityLands says has leased more than half the structure’s square footage has a different take on its whereabouts — the partnership of doctors calls itself the Upper Kirby Surgical Center.

The rendering above shows a drive-up entrance fronting the planned building — which the developer says will include “integrated parking.” The lot that CityLands bought from the car center’s owner earlier this year backs up about 160-ft. north from Westheimer to abut the cul-de-sac of Locke Ln.

Photo: Arch-ive. Rendering: CityLands

Westheimer Retirement
, , , , ,
Adaptive Reuse
03/21/18 12:00pm

Smoosh, Teapresso Setting Up Next to Snooze in Lowell Street Market off Shepherd

by
Houston Heights, Mixed Use, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants
No Comments

In the wake of Snooze, 2 more businesses with names suggesting AM activities are on their way to the new Lowell Street Market on 18th St. between Shepherd and Durham. Radom Capital began transforming the 3-building former warehouse complex in something retail- and restaurant-ready back in 2016. Since then, Snooze  has been the only restaurant to open in the development.

Building permits filed for the empty spots neighboring Snooze and Smoosh now show reveal the name of a third eatery that could be on its way to 718 W. 18th St.: Teapresso Bar. The Hawaiian tea shop chain has most of its current locations on Oahu, with a few on Maui as well. Lowell Street Market would be its first step onto the mainland.

The site plan below indicates all 3 buildings in the complex:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

The Early Risers
, , , , , ,
Featured Posts
02/22/18 11:30am

The Warehouse and Playhouse Redos Planned for Stages Repertory Theatre’s Current and Future Venues

by
Mixed Use, Montrose, North Montrose, Proposed Developments, Renovations
2 Comments

Radom Capital is entertaining 2 different ideas for the former Stages theater on the block of Rosine across D’Amico St. from its planned new complex: either a hotel or a combination of retail, restaurant, and office tenants. The developer bought Stages’ current spot in the long structure at 3201 Allen Pkwy — built in 1929 to house the Star Engraving Company — as well as the warehouse behind it last year. Renovations are now slated to begin on both the Star building and the warehouse behind it — both indicated in the site plan above — once the theater takes off in 2019.

The rendering of the warehouse at top put out by Radom shows new openings in its exterior, including a boxy balcony on its second floor and an entrance at ground level fronting D’Amico. An outdoor staircase ascends from where the greens-skinned building meets its western neighbor — the parking garage for the Reata at River Oaks condos — and heads up to a second-story entrance. Stages’ new theater sits across D’Amico, opposite a front lawn at the other end of the colorful crosswalk on the left.

Here’s a look at the new playhouse — dubbed The Gordy — sitting in its own renovated warehouse with touch ups by architecture firm Gensler:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

North Montrose Ensemble
, , , ,
Featured Posts
02/21/18 3:30pm

Meet the RO: 3 New Towers, Retail, and Roadway Planned for Exxon’s Former Campus on Buffalo Spdwy.

by
Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Retail, Upper Kirby
7 Comments

Spear Street Capital is teasing a rendering of what it has planned for Exxon Mobil’s former Buffalo Spdwy. research campus, a new complex that takes the initials of River Oaks without daring to speak its name: The RO. The glossy new view above looks west across Buffalo Spdwy. to show 3 new highrises planted on the Upper Kirby site — the stockiest of which rests atop a 3-story windowed pedestal likely to house retail between W. Alabama and a new roadway.

The new street appears in place of the driveway that entered the 16.9-acre complex on Buffalo Spdwy. and ran just north of the 1962 building MacKie and Kamrath Architects designed for the oil giant. The aerial photo above shows what that building looked like from the south before crews began tearing at it last year. South of the new street and directly in place of the MacKie and Kamrath structure, a complex of retail buildings with upper-level patios retreats along a pedestrian corridor that starts at Buffalo Spdwy. and heads toward the 2 other highrises on the west side of the site, near Mercer St. A few outdoor seating areas front Buffalo Spdwy. — one by the footpath, another on the north side of the new street. A larger patio appears on the corner of W. Alabama.

The buildings shown shaded on the left in the rendering likely make up other additions planned for the block. Here it is viewed from its backside looking toward Buffalo Spdwy. last year:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

A Twilit View
, , , ,
Adaptive Reuse
12/12/17 3:30pm

8 Letters and a Big Eye Spell Out the Beginnings of Washington Ave Warehouse’s Transformation

by
1 Comment

Study the photo at top carefully and you’ll see 2 eye-catching features that were installed in November: the gaping, cycloptic sculpture at the entrance to the parking lot outside 7800 Washington, as well as new lettering spelling out THE STUDY on the warehouse’s awning. Developer Levcor bought the 66,000-sq.-ft. brick building — at that time home to Brian Thomas Display & Packaging — last year and filed construction permits in September to begin renovating it into a space for offices, furniture showrooms, and a restaurant.

Before and after views show how the building’s front side on Washington, just northwest of the Katy Fwy., will be transformed:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Cottage Grove
, , , ,
Next Page »