Tag: Proposed Developments

Featured Posts
06/10/16 4:00pm

Where Loews Might Plant Its Uptown Hotel on Post Oak Blvd.

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Highrises, Proposed Developments, Uptown
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ZC Renderings of 2120 Post Oak Blvd.

Following this week’s report from the HBJ that the Loews hotel chain is currently considering an Uptown locale, a sharp-eyed reader points to a lot previously marked for 2 more towers to keep the BBVA Compass building company, just north of 2200 Post Oak Blvd. The land has been owned by Loews since 2014 (or by someone using the address of the company’s NYC headquarters); a tipster separately tells Swamplot that the company has been pricing out construction work on that particular spot, though nothing was official as of mid-May.

Architecture firm Ziegler Cooper has posted some renderings (including the one above) of a mixed use project apparently designed for the same BBVA-adjacent land (though labeled only as Confidential Hotel & Mixed Used Development). TRC Capital (formerly The Redstone Company) currently has some very similar renderings more prominently displayed on its website, once again labeling the residential piece of the project as the Perennial Hotel and Apartments, along with another office tower marked as 2100 Post Oak:

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Newly Perennial
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Featured Posts
06/08/16 11:30am

Signs of the Glass House Montrose Condo Midrise Fading Away

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First Montrose Commons
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3516 Montrose Blvd., First Montrose Commons, Houston, 77006 3516 Montrose Blvd., First Montrose Commons, Houston, 77006The west wall has been breached at 3615 Montrose Blvd., where Riverway had previously planned to break ground on a Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Glass House-themed condo midrise this spring. The 130-ft. sign (per a city inspector’s disapproving measurement) advertising the most recent condominium project planned for the corner at Marshall St. has been blacked out for about a month, according to a reader surveying the empty corner lot from above.

The comparatively tiny sales center sign is missing altogether; the same round of March inspection ticketing asked for it to be removed from the property. Also gone: HAR’s sales listings for the building’s individual units, which the site indicates were also removed around the end of April and the beginning of May.

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Montrose at Marshall
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Downtown
06/07/16 2:45pm

Former Chronicle Building Tunnel Back Open During Demo Limbo

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Proposed Prairie Tunnel Map, per Theater Square lawsuit filings

The management at 717 Louisiana St. has sent out word to tenants that the tunnel segment beneath the vacated downtown Houston Chronicle building is now open again, even though the newspaper’s former headquarters at 801 Texas Ave. are still standing on top of it. Documents filed with the Harris County district clerk’s office show that Hines agreed to hold off on the demo for a while, after Linbeck’s Theater Square group filed a lawsuit to stop them.

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Downtown Downtime
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Modern Design
06/02/16 4:30pm

Rice University’s U-Turn Away from a Modernist Opera House

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Quicklink, Rice University
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RICE UNIVERSITY’S U-TURN AWAY FROM A MODERNIST OPERA HOUSE rice-opera-proposedA recent Facebook post by architect Allan Greenberg appears to confirm his firm’s involvement with the Rice University opera house project, of which possible renderings and a model recently surfaced in another building on campus. The choice of Greenberg, a self-described classical architect who designed the university’s Humanities Building, represents a major reversal of ideology from the previously announced selection of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (designers of part of New York’s High Line, who once created a building shrouded perpetually in fog). The selection of DS+R was announced in March of 2014; Greenberg had begun to publicly mention involvement with the project by this past December. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of Rice University opera house design model: Swamplot inbox

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Lower Westheimer
06/02/16 1:00pm

Your Chance To Talk About Lower Westheimer Before The Redo Plans Get Drawn Up

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Quicklink
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YOUR CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT LOWER WESTHEIMER BEFORE THE REDO PLANS GET DRAWN UP Map of Lower Westheimer Study AreaA meeting is set for 6pm Monday for anyone with opinions about what the Montrose section of Westheimer Rd. should or shouldn’t look like, as the ReBuild Houston folks turns an eye toward the corridor. Traffic consultant Geoff Carleton tells Dug Begley that bike infrastructure is low on the project wishlist, as bike lanes are already planned for W. Alabama. Carleton says that widening the road, which Metro’s larger buses can’t currently fit down, will be a hard enough sell already, adding that current priorities are for Westheimer to be both “walkable and transit-friendly.” A list of links to previous studies of the area’s transit situation is included on the city’s meeting info page. [Houston Chronicle] Image of Lower Westheimer study area: City of Houston

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Featured Posts
06/01/16 4:45pm

Is This What That Rice Opera House That Diller Scofidio + Renfro Was Going To Design Will Look Like?

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Rice University
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Proposed Opera House, Rice University, Houston, 77005

Proposed Opera House, Rice University, Houston, 77005A set of unattended display posters spotted during Rice University’s graduation weekend appear to show interior and exterior renderings of the campus’s planned opera house. The drawings (which were reportedly laid out somewhere in would-be-next-door Shepherd School of Music’s building) included a campus site plan showing the rendered structure’s footprint in place between the existing music school and the remaining stadium-side parking lots.

Rice announced back in early 2014 that Diller Scofidio + Renfro would be the architect for the project — but this design doesn’t really look like the kinds of projects DS+R is known for. DS+R hasn’t yet responded to Swamplot’s attempts to confirm whether or not the firm is still involved.

Included with the presentation materials was the foamcore model below, which renders the building’s ornate exterior details in full 2D and demonstrates some additional landscaping options:

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Lifting the Curtain
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Bellaire
05/26/16 11:00am

Bellaire Asked To Pick Out Face of Police Building from Full Lineup

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Options for Police and Courts building, Design Options for Bellaire Town Square Renovations, Bellaire, TX 77401

Evidently none of these facades will appear on the Jessamine St. entrance of the new police and municipal court building planned for Bellaire’s Town Square. The latest design, as presented at last week’s town hall meeting, appears to be a blend of several of the choices above. Architect PGAL put together a set of possibilities earlier this spring for both a new police building and a planned city hall redo; a committee spent the last few months choosing the parts they liked.

The approximate sites of the police station and the new city hall appear in gold on the conceptual site plan below, showing the S. Rice Ave. land bounded by Jessamine, 5th St., and the houses south of Linden St.:

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Reshaping Town Square
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Quicklink
05/10/16 9:15am

Utah’s Malawi’s Pizza To Plant Fake Tree Next to Double Mattress Firm in Sienna Plantation

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UTAH’S MALAWI’S PIZZA TO PLANT FAKE TREE NEXT TO DOUBLE MATTRESS FIRM IN SIENNA PLANTATION 8731 Highway 6 Center, Sienna Plantation, Missouri City, 77459Malawi’s Pizza (which currently has 3 locations sprinkled along a stretch of northern Utah between Salt Lake City and Provo) is planning the first of some 20 Houston-area locations, writes Katherine Feser. The fast-casual-with-fine-china chain’s main shtick, other than the life-size acacia tree model in each restaurant? The company says it donates nutritional supplements and allotments of grain to folks in Malawi in proportion to the number of pizzas sold each month. The first Houston spot is planned for 8731 Highway 6 Center (a new retail strip immediately west of the double Mattress Firm on Highway 6) in Missouri City.  Another location may be on the way to Central Square in Midtown; the company says it hopes to open 4 Houston-area locations by the end of 2017, while also expanding to Dallas and Virginia. [Houston Chronicle] Rendering of Highway 6 Center: Hunington Properties

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Featured Posts
05/03/16 1:00pm

Ring Around the Katy Prairie, and Other Orbital Highway Fun

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Katy Prairie
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Proposed Changes to Major Thoroughfare Plan near 290 beyond Grand Pkwy.

If you missed yesterday’s meeting in Hockley, you have until Wednesday to send Harris County your thoughts on the map above, from the official county study of road network expansion proposed between I-10 and 290 west of the Grand Pkwy. The thick red dashes mark a proposed loop road circling around almost the entirety of the Katy Prairie Conservancy‘s land preserve (shown as the darkest green blocks, amid slightly-grayer-green agricultural/undeveloped land and a few kelly-green public parks). Purple dashes show the proposed routes of new or expanded thoroughfares, some of which cut through the preserve and cross through the Cypress Creek floodway (shown as a blue underlay making a rough U through the conservancy’s land).

Further west (marked in blue dashes) is the not-yet-planned-but-still-showing-up-in-planning-maps route of Houston’s proposed outer-outer-outer loop, SH 36A (formerly nicknamed the Prairie Parkway). The map above also includes overlays of Harris County’s future development predictions, with dark taupe showing existing development and slightly lighter taupe showing expected expansion.

For comparison, here’s the Katy Prairie Conservancy’s map of west Houston; currently developed areas are marked in gray, the organization’s protected areas are marked in green, and the dashed green band shows how far the prairie ecosystem used to extend:

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Up the Watershed
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Featured Posts
05/02/16 11:00am

What Those Warehouses at W. 18th and N. Shepherd Could Look Like After a Retail Redo

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Houston Heights, Proposed Developments, Retail
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Lowell St. Market Plans, 718 W. 18th St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

Some renderings and potential site plans for a retail redo of 3 warehouses at the southwest corner of W. 18th St. and N. Shepherd Dr. make an appearance in the current leasing listing for the property. Preliminary plans for the development, to be called Lowell St. Market after a former name of N. Shepherd Dr., show a greened-and-glassed-up version of the Savvi Commercial Furniture warehouse (above on the left), with a matching redo of the Airmakers Cooling & Heating building (visible on the far right).

The flier bears the logo of Radom Capital, which is a partner in the Heights Mercantile development on 7th St. Radom is also behind the pink-and-white redo of the former Heights Plaza shopping center on E. 20th, which Steel City Popsicles told Eater they’d be ready to move into some time this month. Plans for the Lowell center are still a ways off, however; the leasing flier gives summer 2017 as an estimated construction start date, but also mentions that sale or leasing of the whole property as-is isn’t off the table.

The 3 structures currently on the site add up to 20,380 sq.ft. of space; the redevelopment would scoot some of that space around and pare it that down to 10,000 sq.ft., making room for a parking lot in the back. Here’s what the footprint could look like following that trim-down:

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Lowell St. Market
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Demolitions
04/28/16 4:15pm

Digging Into the Downtown Tunnel Tussle That Spurred the Hines-Hearst Lawsuit

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Lawsuits
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Proposed Prairie Tunnel Map, per Theater Square lawsuit filings

What led up to the neighborly lawsuit filed last week over the former Houston Chronicle building’s planned demolition? A pair of letters filed with the county clerk’s office as part of the suit sheds a little light on the back-and-forth between the building’s new owners and their new neighbors. Plaintiff Theater Square, a partnership controlled by construction and development firm Linbeck, is developing the downtown block marked SITE in the map above, immediately across Prairie St. from the former Chronicle property (bought last year by Hines entity Block 58 Investors). Theater Square wants to link its own could-be-a-Class-A-contender block into the Downtown tunnel network (traced above in solid black).

The company sued both Hines and Chronicle owner Hearst News last week to stop the demo, claiming that Hearst gave it property rights to build a new tunnel through the newspaper building’s basement (via the route shown in stripes above along Travis St.) and that the demo (as currently intended) interferes with that plan. Theater Square sent a letter to Hines on April 15th citing news stories about the impending demo and requesting both access to inspect the basement and assurances that the demolition would be carried out in a way that doesn’t harm certain existing structures that the new tunnel’s already-semi-permitted building plans depend on.

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Fight For The Right To Tunnel
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Bars and Clubs
04/27/16 10:30am

Bowling and Dog Park Restaurateurs Look To Serve Drinks in a Downtown Parking Lot

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Downtown
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1836 Polk St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

A sign zip-tied onto the fence around the parking lot at 1836 Polk St. is currently announcing an application by FreeRange Concepts to sell mixed drinks at the spot.  Up in Dallas, the company operates bar-slash-bowling alley Bowl & Barrel, bar-slash-dogpark Mutts Canine Cantina, restaurant-slash-music-venue The Rustic, and slashless restaurant The General Public. Houston locations of Bowl & Barrel and The General Public are currently under construction in CityCentre.

It’s unclear whether FreeRange has cast the Polk location for a sequel to one of its existing brands, or for something new. The TABC notice is posted on the full-block parking lot bounded by Jackson, Hamilton, and Bell streets just east of 59 and just south of the George R. Brown Convention Center. That block has previously appeared in the convention center’s 2025 Master Plan, as a site of possible future expansion:

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Liquoring Up by GRB
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East Montrose
04/13/16 12:30pm

Morgan Group Now Hawking Its Dehospitalized Pearl Spot at Corner of Drew and Helena

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Midtown
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Drew at Helena streets, Midtown, Houston, 77006

Here’s the current scene along the north side of Drew St., where the acre-plus of emptied land previously planned for development as the Pearl on Helena now hosts a Morgan Group for sale sign. The block bounded by Helena, Drew, Albany, and Dennis streets was marked a few years back as another addition to Morgan’s string of Pearl midrises; the Helena site’s application went dark during the variance request process in mid-20014, but the land was cleared of its former hospital and mansion occupants near the end of that year.

Morgan Group currently has a Pearl in Greenway Plaza, with another getting polished up on Washington Ave near T.C. Jester; a planned Pearl on Smith (at the site of the former Social Security office right across Smith St. from the Pearl on Midtown) appeared to have been removed from the company’s immediate focus in 2014, only to resurface in renderings the following year as part of an apartment-midrise-grocery-store complex containing a Whole Foods.

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New Treatment Plan in Midtown
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Featured Posts
04/13/16 10:15am

Goode Company To Send Barbecue and Liquor up I-45

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Restaurants, Retail, Shenandoah
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Rendering of Goode Co. Barbecue Kitchen and Cantina, 8865 Six Pines Dr., Shenandoah, 77380

Following the death of graphic-designer-turned-multi-genre-meat-artist Jim Goode back in February, Goode Co. looks to be moving on and moving north to a fourth barbecue spot at 8865 Six Pines Dr. in Shenandoah. The spot is part of Pinecroft’s Six Pines III development, south of Research Forest Dr. near now-labeled Fielding’s Wood Grill and Baker Hughes’s Grogan’s Mill Rd. campus.

The renderings from Pinecroft include a barbecue nod as well as a kitchen + cantina label. Meanwhile, a reference to the restaurant recently appeared in Goode Company beverage manager Rob Crabtree‘s judge bio for a Sugar Land cocktail context, which refers to the “Good Co. Kitchen Cantina” as an agave-centric bar and restaurant.  Here’s a wider look at the whole storefront:

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Shenandoah
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Eastwood
04/12/16 1:00pm

What Was Planned for East End Central, in the Former Macy’s Building Between Austin High and University of Houston

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Former Macy's Outlet Center, 4500 Gulf Fwy., Eastwood, Houston, 77023

Former Macy's Outlet Center, 4500 Gulf Fwy., Eastwood, Houston, 77023A running reader caught sign of the leasing notice currently up at the former Macy’s outlet store just north of I-45 and S. Lockwood Dr. along Munger St. The clearance center operations moved out several years ago to the current location at Highway 6 and Westheimer Rd. (as noted by signage tacked to the S. Lockwood storefront’s doors, still redirecting missed-the-memo potential customers). The company’s distribution warehouse complex next door is still in action (and, per the same set of signage, handling customer pickup).

Lovett Commercial is marketing the space; its own (larger) signage currently refers to the property as East End Central. The flier on the company’s website marketing the property (dated January 2014) shows some proposed pad sites and some potential tenants; the flier also refers to the property only as 4500 Gulf Freeway or as South Lockwood Retail:

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Southern Eastwood
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