Tag: New Construction

Attractions
10/06/14 1:30pm

This Mystery Steel Structure on I-10 Between Bunker Hill and Blalock Is a UFO

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New Construction, Spring Branch
5 Comments

iFLY Indoor Skydiving Facility Under Construction, 9540 Katy Fwy., Spring Branch, Houston

A mere half-dozen readers have written Swamplot to ask about this strange multi-story steel-framed structure that’s been going up next to the Lowe’s on I-10 between Blalock and Bunker Hill — or its twin on the site of the former Casa Elena restaurant across the freeway from The Woodlands at 26824 Interstate 45 North. And we’re guessing a few more of you are curious as well, but just haven’t had the time to send in your photos and speculation. Capitalizing on the freeway mystery, the company behind the structure has set up a website at GuessWhatThisIs.com. (With indoor-skydiving facilities in 9 other U.S. cities already, iFLY has been through the drill before.)

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Indoor Skydiving
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Dacoma
10/02/14 1:15pm

Why the New Karbach Brewery Building Was Smoking Today

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Fires, Industrial Properties, New Construction
4 Comments

Smoke Over New Karbach Brewery, Dacoma St. at Karbach St., Dacoma, Houston

If you’re wondering, like the person who took this photo earlier today, what the story is behind the smoke seen here coming out of the top of the new Karbach Brewing Co. building under construction at the corner of Karbach St. and Dacoma St., just west of Mangum Rd., there’s no need to worry: A small fire at the the construction site was put out quickly a short while ago with minimal damage, according to a company rep.

Karbach was rated last year as one of the fastest-growing craft breweries in the U.S. The new 2-story, 19,000-sq.-ft. brewery building adjacent to its existing facility was designed by Three Square Design Group, and will include a public tap room and kitchen, along with a special-event space upstairs.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Your Beer Is Safe
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Apartments
09/29/14 11:30am

The Hamilton Apartments Are Going Up on a Freeway-Wrapped Corner in Downtown’s Far Southeast

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Downtown, New Construction
27 Comments

Site of Hamilton Apartments, 1800 St. Joseph Pkwy. at Chenevert, Downtown Houston

With nary an announcement, preliminary sitework appears to have begun for the 148-unit Hamilton Apartments, on a 1.12-acre lot at the southeasternmost corner of downtown (actually, the southern corner if you don’t pretend, as most direction-givers do, that the downtown grid has no tilt to it). The block, hugged gently by a flying overpass at the intersection of I-45 and Hwy. 59, is surrounded by Hamilton, St. Joseph Pkwy., Pierce, and Chenevert streets.

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Overpass Pads
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Apartments
09/12/14 12:45pm

A Few Months After Completing Demolition of 3400 Montrose, Construction Crews Begin Building 3400 Montrose

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Highrises, Montrose, New Construction
19 Comments

3400-montrose-const-fence

3400-montrose-diggingConstruction appears to have begun on the site at 3400 Montrose Blvd., where a 30-story apartment tower by Hanover named 3400 Montrose will replace the 10-story 1953 office building formerly on the site. That building was named 3400 Montrose as well, but was also also referred to as “That building with the Skybar on the top floor,” or (later in its life) “Don’t walk along that sidewalk or you might get hit on the head by a limestone panel.” Demolition was completed this past spring. A reader sends Swamplot these views of the corner of Montrose and Hawthorne, where a wooden construction fence has recently gone up.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

3400 Montrose
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Downtown
08/22/14 4:30pm

1400 Truckloads of Concrete Are Going into This Downtown Hole Over the Weekend

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Highrises, New Construction, Office Buildings
13 Comments

Construction Site at 609 Main St., Downtown Houston

Rendering of Pickard Chilton Design for 609 Main St., Downtown HoustonUpdate, 8/26: The headline has been corrected.

If you’re wondering what the late-night traffic holdup is in and around Main St. and Texas Ave. over the weekend, here’s your explainer: 180 mixing trucks are going to be lining up to pour a continuous stream of concrete onto this site surrounded by Main, Texas, Fannin, and Capitol streets downtown, where D.E. Harvey builders is putting together a little office building — now slated to rise 48 stories — for the Hines CalPERS Green development fund. The action starts at 7 pm on Saturday and should finish up around 3 in the afternoon the next day.

In all, about 14,000 cubic yards of concrete will go into the mat foundation of the 609 Main St. building during those 17 hours. The Texas Tower, formerly known as the Sterling Building, was dismantled on a portion of the site earlier this year.

Photo: Hines. Rendering: Pickard Chilton

609 Main
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Featured Posts
08/19/14 1:15pm

Electrifying Yale St. Expansion Set To Transform Neighborhood Around Alexan Heights Apartments

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Houston Heights, New Construction, Utilities
4 Comments

Substation Expansion, 612 Yale St., Houston Heights

Without making a big alert-the-neighbors fuss about it, CenterPoint Energy appears to have begun expanding the electrical substation across the street from the new Alexan Heights apartment complex going up on Yale St. into an adjacent vacant lot, a reader reports. Crews began breaking up the 6,600-sq.-ft. lot’s concrete surface yesterday. CenterPoint has owned the lot at 612 Yale St. since 2004, according to county tax records, though the neighboring 6th and Yale Collision and Repair shop had often used it as parking space.

The lot appears at the top center of this recent aerial view of apartment construction and the substation:

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Not Shocking
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Featured Posts
08/19/14 12:00pm

Raising Cane’s Is Almost Ready To Grab the Corner of Hazard and Westheimer with Its Chicken Fingers

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Montrose, New Construction, Restaurants
53 Comments

Construction of Raising Cane's, 1902 Westheimer Rd., Montrose, Houston

The signs are now up at the new building under construction at 1902 Westheimer Rd., across the street from the Winlow Westheimer shopping center. And they say: Raising Cane’s. And that means your center-of-Montrose drive-thru chicken finger spot will be opening very soon. Raising Cane’s is no stranger to Westheimer; the new restaurant will mark Raising Cane’s fourth location on the street (it’s got the 12201, 7531, and 5015 spots already). But this’ll be the first one inside the Loop.

More pics of Lower Westheimer’s fast-food future:

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Montrose Drive-Thrus
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Featured Posts
08/15/14 12:00pm

Site Plan Shows New Walmart Supercenter Coming to S. Rice and Westpark, Across from Sam’s Club, New Micro Center Spot

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Galleria, New Construction, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers
67 Comments

Proposed Site Plan for Shoppes at Uptown Crossing Shopping Center, S. Rice Ave. and Westpark, Houston

The site plan for the Shoppes at Uptown Crossing shopping center planned for a 3.5-acre lot at the southeast corner of Westpark and S. Rice Ave across from Sam’s Club has undergone a big change since Swamplot last featured it in April. A giant Walmart Supercenter is now shown in the southeast corner of the L-shaped parcel, facing S. Rice Ave. but shielded from the street by a sprinkling of fast-foody pad sites — including spots earmarked for an El Pollo Loco, a Chick Fil A, a Jack-in-the-Box, and a Starbucks. The requisite huge parking lot stands between the Walmart and its chain-store add-ons.

The new 32,000-sq.-ft. building for the soon-to-be-relocated Micro Center is going north of the Walmart, pushed close to Westpark, taking its entrance from S. Rice Ave. directly across the street from Sam’s Club. Shown tucked just south of Micro Center is a new TownePlace Suites hotel.

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South of the Galleria
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Featured Posts
07/31/14 5:00pm

Storybook Views of Upper Kirby’s Levy Park Redo at Eastside and Richmond

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Mixed Use, New Construction, Parks, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Upper Kirby
11 Comments

Rendering of Levy Park, 3801 Eastside St. at Richmond Ave., Upper Kirby, Houston

The Office of James Burnett has posted more detailed renderings of the newly expanded Levy Park just north of the Southwest Fwy. at Eastside St. as it’s supposed to look when work is complete sometime after next fall. Included in the $10 million plans for the 5.9-acre space are a performance pavilion, 2 big lawns, a dog park, and a food kiosk. A winding “children’s garden” will have tree houses and fountains around the middle-aged live oak trees relocated to the center of the park. There’ll be restrooms and room for farmers’ markets as well.

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Putting the Groove in Kirby Grove
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Featured Posts
07/28/14 12:30pm

Here’s That Downtown View the University of Houston Rotated Its Football Stadium For

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New Construction, Openings and Closings, Stadiums, University of Houston
24 Comments

View of Downtown from TDECU Stadium University of Houston

From the Twitter feed of Brandon Blue comes this across-the-endzone pic of the University of Houston’s newly minted TDECU Stadium, highlighting the view of downtown Houston the structure’s designers felt made it worth twisting the scrapped-and-rebuilt house of Cougar football. Robertson Stadium was aligned in a more even-handed northish-southish direction. TDECU Stadium (officially, ), constructed on the demolished remains of that structure, is rotated to match the eastish-westish orientation of neighboring Scott St. and Cullen Blvd., a decision that a few momentarily blinded quarterbacks or receivers may come to bemoan during afternoon games. But the benefit of those bleacher cutouts separating the upper decks of stadium’s endzones from the bleachers at the sides is clear: A gleaming glimpse of Houston’s homegrown mountain range opens up through the concrete canyon.

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Giving TDECU Credit
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Apartments
07/25/14 10:45am

Claiming Downtown Apartment Construction for the Aggies

by
Downtown, New Construction
13 Comments

Texas A&M Flag Flying on Crane, Skyhouse Houston, Downtown HoustonJust last week Swamplot ran an item about the ironworker who got canned for draping a University of Alabama flag at the Kyle Field construction site in College Station. But after spotting a Texas A&M banner hoisted onto the crane for the SkyHouse Houston apartment tower Alliance Residential’s Block 334 apartment building going up at the corner of Main St. and Leeland yesterday, Twitterer-about-town PoppyPetalled wonders if flying college colors on construction sites has become “a thing.” Here’s a longer view:

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Marooned
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Featured Posts
07/21/14 11:15am

A Second Neighborly Lawsuit Against Hines’s San Felipe Office Tower Demonstrates Effect of Ashby Highrise Ruling

by
Montrose, Neighborhood Disputes, New Construction, Office Buildings, River Oaks
49 Comments

Rendering of 2229 San Felipe TowerA new lawsuit filed last week against the developers of the 2229 San Felipe office tower currently under construction between Shepherd and Kirby is a bit different from the one that a group of neighbors initiated against the same party back in February, a reader notes. The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit are the owners of a River Oaks home directly across the street from the construction site, and they appear to have studied the ruling issued in the Ashby Highrise lawsuit carefully. (Back in May, Judge Randy Wilson ordered the developers of that building to pay neighbors $1.2 million to compensate them for “lost market damages,” but denied their request to halt the building’s construction)

Unlike their neighbors who sued before them, the residents of 2237 Stanmore Dr. are not seeking to prevent or delay the construction of Hines’s neighborhood office tower. Instead, it appears they are only seeking compensation for both public and private “nuisances” created by the 17-story building, including pollution, noise, and ground vibration during its construction and the resulting loss of sunlight and rain on their property. The building’s vaunted peepage opportunities don’t please them either:

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Pay Up
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Featured Posts
07/16/14 12:00pm

Aerial Pix of ExxonMobil’s Massive New North Houston Campus Construction Site, Where Employees Are Already at Work

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Spring, Springwoods Village
26 Comments

Aerial Views of ExxonMobil Campus, Springwoods Village, Houston

From a high-flying source come these fascinating close-up aerial views of the massive ExxonMobil campus just north of the intersection of I-45 and the now-building-to-suit Grand Parkway in the northern reaches of the city of Houston. The campus is still under construction but also partly occupied. The pix were taken late last month; the first of an expected total of 17,000 workers began moving into almost-complete structures back in April.

The photo at top shows the Pickard Chilton-designed “Energy Center” meant to serve as the campus gateway, as well as house a reception area, training and conference facilities, and a restaurant. When construction is complete, the scaffolding will come down and visitors will be able walk underneath the suspended 4-story glass block hovering at center in the photo above.

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The Cubicles Under the Cranes
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Featured Posts
07/03/14 2:00pm

A Bird’s Eye View of the New Whole Foods, Apartments, Restaurants, Hotel, and Office Buildings Going in at Hughes Landing in The Woodlands

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Mixed Use, New Construction, Proposed Developments, The Woodlands, The Woodlands Hughes Landing
14 Comments

Aerial View of Hughes Landing Under Construction, The Woodlands, Texas

Real Estate Bisnow reporter Catie Dixon shows off this helicopter shot taken last week over Hughes Landing, the new mega-development overlooking Lake Woodlands where a whirlwind of construction is taking out a little more of those woods and putting in a whole lot more of those  . . . uh, concretes. And she’s been thoughtful enough to stick some big red numbers on it, so we can make out what’s what and where, and how it’s coming along:

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By the Numbers
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Apartments
06/12/14 11:45am

The Stealth Apartment Building Going Up in Museum Park

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Museum Park, New Construction
6 Comments

Construction of the Hampstead Apartment Building, 1508 Blodgett St., Blodgett Park, Museum Park, Houston

Construction of the Hampstead Apartment Building, 1508 Blodgett St., Blodgett Park, Museum Park, HoustonThere’s a sign up for the bank that financed the project, but that’s about it for a large construction project that just got going in Blodgett Park. Crews are digging on the southeast corner of Blodgett and La Branch streets, south of the 59-288 crotch and one block north of MacGregor Elementary. A few 75-year-old duplexes stood on the site until last month.

And they are digging — about 8 ft. deep so far, says reader Seán Murphy, who passed by the site at 1508 Blodgett St. and sent photos of the scene: “They’ve got piles keeping back a make-shift retaining wall up against the adjacent townhomes” (see photo at left). Going into that spot: a 36-unit apartment structure on top of a podium garage. According to permits approved earlier this month, the project is being called The Hampstead.

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The Hampstead
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