Tag: Proposed Developments

Downtown
01/11/16 10:45am

La Calle Prepares to Bring the Taco Cause Next Door to That Evicted Brewery Incubator’s Former Downtown Command Post

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Restaurants
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La Calle Tacos y Tortas, 909 Franklin St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

La Calle Tacos y Tortas, 909 Franklin St., Downtown, Houston, 77002Some blue fists are clenched on the ground floor of the Bayou Lofts building, at the northeast corner of Travis and Franklin — La Calle Tacos y Tortas purports to be bringing Mexico City-style street fare to the space at 909 Franklin St. Owner Ramon Soriano Tomka anticipates a February opening, and is currently plugging the chance to win free tacos for a year via various social media platforms.

The storefront is the former home of dim sum spot Hong Kong Diner, and sits between the former homes of Franklin Street Coffee and Brewery Incubator, the kitchen-kickstarter-turned-brewery-fermenter that was evicted in 2014 following complaints about a late-night game of naked Twister.

A rendering posted to La Calle’s facebook page shows what the spot could look like after buildout is complete:

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Taco Solidarity on Franklin St.
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East Downtown
01/08/16 11:00am

Houston’s Own ‘East Village’ Planned Next to 8th Wonder Brewery in East Downtown

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Proposed East Village Development, Polk and Lamar at St. Emmanuel and Hutchins Sts., East Downtown, Houston, 77002

From the folks currently in the process of bringing you Heights Mercantile: plans for East Village, a 2-block mixed-use complex planned along St. Emanuel and Hutchins Sts. between Polk and Lamar in East Downtown — a few blocks south of the Dynamo’s BBVA Compass Stadium, and across 59 from the George R. Brown Convention Center and Discovery Green. New real estate investment and development firm Ancorian (founded by Finial co-founders Neil Martin and Michael Sperandio with Matthew Donowho) is behind the development; as of two months ago, land for the project (across the street from the Yen Huong Bakery and the now-closed Kim Hung Supermarket) was still being acquired.

A few renderings are up on the Ancorian website — the view above is of a Lamar-facing courtyard and a renovated version of the warehouse currently housing Kitchen Depot. But a presentation dated late November shows many additional angles, siteplans, and renderings of the planned development, one block of which is credited to the design firm of Austin-based Michael Hsu, and the other to Māk Studio Architecture:

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Beer Before Liquor on Hutchins
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Featured Posts
01/07/16 4:15pm

Embassy Suites To Send Envoy to Baylor’s Old Dryden Haunt in the Medical Center

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Proposed Developments, Texas Medical Center
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Rendering of Medical Center Crossing, 1709 Dryden Rd., TMC, 77030

Just north of the hypodermic peaks of the St. Luke’s Medical Tower on Main St., the tower at 1709 Dryden Rd. is slated for redevelopment as the Medical Center Crossing complex — the office space, leased by Baylor as recently as 2013, will be converted into an Embassy Suites hotel (shown from the northeast corner in the rendering above). The tower was sold at the end of 2014 to an entity connected to Pritesh Patel — the Fort Worth developer who previously purchased the Samuel F. Carter building at 806 Main St. and turned it into a JW Marriott after peeling off the building’s extra glass-and-marble skin.

Ground-level retail will remain and expand — a siteplan released by Transwestern shows most of the building’s remaining restaurant tenants still in place, with an existing parking garage ramp exiting onto Fannin seemingly replaced by a 1,670-sq.-ft. storefront spot (Retail E in the plan below):

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Crossing the Med Center
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Featured Posts
12/29/15 10:15am

Citywide Wave of Taco Colonization Will Continue with Occupation of Former Drake Nightclub in Sawyer Heights

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Restaurants, Sawyer Heights
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Rendering of Tacodeli, 1902 Washington Avenue, Sawyer Heights,

Yet another fast-casual semi-gourmet upstate taco chain appears to be spreading saucy tendrils into the 610 Loop — Austin-based Tacodeli, which announced intent to expand to Houston and Dallas last year, is now appearing in renderings and marketing plans of Lovett Commercial’s site at 1902 Washington Ave, across the street from upscale cocktail bar Julep and just west of cow-to-table butcher shop and steakhouse B&B Butchers. Tacodeli will be jostling against other taco invaders such as Torchy’s Tacos (also an Austin export), Fuzzy’s Taco’s (a Dallas chain currently working its way down through the north Houston ‘burbs to West Gray and Post Oak), and Velvet Taco (another Dallas chain) in the rush to claim territory in the local tacoscape, already thick with native Hous-Tex-Mex options.

A Lovett site plan for the property also shows a few other developments nestling in around Tacodeli, including a ramen shop, a brewpub, and a high-end barber:

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Washington Ave Taco Strategery
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Avondale
12/24/15 10:00am

Gazing Into the Future at the Former Psychic Locale Between Indika and the Cat Doctor on Westheimer

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Montrose
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Work at 528 Westheimer, Montrose, Houston, 77006

An excavator and friends were spotted on Westheimer this week having a go at the long-empty lot directly next to upscale Indian-fusion spot Indika.  Also on the agenda were the freshly-empty and moderate-length-of-empty lots next door — all three spaces (520, 524, and 528 Westheimer) are currently held by Rok Bros Holdings.

The central lot, at 524 Westheimer, was demolished shortly after mid-2011; the more recently demolished house on the westernmost lot (528 Westheimer) held LV Massage and a psychic, after the 524 house crossed over into the great beyond.  A request to merge the 3 lots was approved at a Houston Planning Commission meeting on July 10, 2014; the request refers to the space as Rok Bros Westheimer Plaza, and was filed in conjunction with Houston-based Momentum Engineering.

Swamplot reader sfalumberjack sends the twilight snapshot above, along with a few others of equipment on the site (bounded on the other side by The Cat Doctor):

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Plaza Predictions for Avondale
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Downtown
12/22/15 11:30am

Descend Into the New Tunnel Concourse Coming to the Former ExxonMobil Tower Downtown

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Office Buildings, Office Space, Proposed Developments, Uncategorized
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Proposed Modifications to 800 Bell St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

Permits were issued yesterday for construction of a new tunnel concourse below 800 Bell St. —  the Louisiana tunnel will be tied into the new digs planned beneath the former ExxonMobil building, at the corner of Bell and Milam downtown.

Following Exxon’s gradual withdrawal north to its new Woodlands campus, the Bell St. building is being completely redone — beneath a fancy new hat, the structure’s exterior fins will be engulfed in a new glass skin to add 100,000 sq.ft. of floorspace to the building. Eric Anderson told the HBJ last year that the only part of the building that wouldn’t be replaced is the concrete.

Renderings and site plans from architects Ziegler Cooper now provide a glimpse into plans for the basement and coming tunnel connections as well:

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800 Bell St.
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Featured Posts
12/22/15 9:45am

Next Segments of Grand Parkway Will Receive a Diplomatic Welcome from a Smoothie King in Spring Town Center

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Proposed Developments, Retail, Spring
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Spring Town Center, Kuykendahl Rd, Spring, TX 77389

38 miles of Grand Parkway are expected to open early next year — NewQuest Properties is prepping Spring Town Center for the anticipated additional traffic by adding five new pad sites to the retail complex, located off of Kuykendahl Rd. south of FM 2920. Grand Parkway Segments F-1, F-2, and G — running between US 290 and the Eastex Freeway — are kind-of-sort-of nearing completion following a flood-heavy 2015, and are expected open in the first quarter of 2016.

The new additions to the shopping center are highlighted in yellow in the map above, and the zoomed-in section below along Kuykendahl:

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Coming This Fall to Spring
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Featured Posts
12/21/15 10:00am

Injecting 420 More Beds into Baylor’s Once-Catatonic McNair Campus South of the TMC

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Proposed Developments, Texas Medical Center
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Proposed Baylor McNair Campus, 7200 Cambridge Dr., Texas Medical Center, Houston, 77030

After a 4-year coma and slow recovery, the Baylor College of Medicine’s McNair Campus at the corner of Cambridge St. and Old Spanish Tr. may be back on track to eventually lead a normal life — new renderings released late last week to Joe Martin of the HBJ show the next phase of construction for what is now being called the Baylor College of Medicine Medical Center facility. Following a bleed-out of construction financing and subsequent failed merger negotiations between Baylor and Rice University, the building’s shell was completed in early 2010 and sat empty until a partial buildout gave the structure new life in late 2013.

St. Luke’s (owned by Catholic Health Initiatives) teamed up with Baylor shortly thereafter and made plans to move its Texas Medical Center hospital operations to the new facility. The Texas Heart Institute, which operates independently in St. Luke’s existing building,  will also be transplanted into the new facility.

The newly released site plan ties in to the double-helix-reminiscent campus recently proposed by the TMC for the parking lot next door — the campus is shown at the top of the site plan below:

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Recovery on Cambridge St.
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Quicklink
12/18/15 3:45pm

3 Glass and Steel Condo Towers for Cottage Grove

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3 GLASS AND STEEL CONDO TOWERS FOR COTTAGE GROVE Residents Lounge at Proposed Condo Tower, I-10 at Shepherd Dr., Heights, Houston, 77007Backed by unnamed foreign investors and still seeking a few more, pro-cyclist-turned-chiropractor-turned-Realtor Dr. Fabian Trujillo recently told Paul Takahashi of HBJ about his newest project: 3 glass-and-steel condo towers (the tallest at 35 stories) meant for the northeast corner of Shepherd Dr. and I-10, just east of Cottage Grove. Amenities accessible to inhabitants of the as-yet-unnamed trio (designed by “an Italian architect”) would include a pet area, on-site daycare, rooftop pools, a wine storage facility, and — above the 2-story penthouses atop the tallest tower — a helipad. Prices would start at $230,000 for 1,200 sq.-ft. units and rise to $1.2 million for the 3,200-sq.-ft. penthouses, which may or may not include private pools. The drawing above shows a “resident’s lounge”; no site plans, addresses, or exterior renderings have been released, which makes fixing the proposal on a map into a fun Google Earth guessing game — the corner in question currently contains a Shell station, Lonestar Orthopedics, the last surviving HoJo inside Beltway 8, the brand-new Johnstone Supply building, several small crops of townhomes, and a vaguely New York-shaped wooded tract owned mostly by the Harris County Flood Control District. Trujillo plans to open a sales office as soon as late next year, after finding “additional private investors from Central America as well as China”. [Houston Business Journal] Rendering: Fabian Trujillo via HBJ  

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Demolitions
12/16/15 3:45pm

Midtown Addiction Services Nonprofit Enters Transitional Housing Between Demo of Old Space and Construction of New

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Midtown, Proposed Developments
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3809 Main St, Midtown, Houston, 77002
The sobriety services nonprofit formerly known as The Men’s Center is demolishing two buildings this week at 3805 and 3809 Main (pictured above), just south of Alabama St. Construction of the $12-million facility that will replace the 1940s structures is expected to be completed in 2017, on the same site at 3809 Main. In the interim, the organization (now calling itself ReCenter after adapting its programs this past summer to include women) will continue to serve food and offer sobriety meetings out of a nearby former convenience store at W. Alabama and Fannin.

The new building, designed by BRAVE architecture, is planned for the spot at 3809 Main:

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ReCentering on Main St.
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Meanwhile
12/16/15 1:45pm

A&M To Establish Marine Research Institute in Israel After Peace Campus Talks Break Down

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Quicklink
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A&M TO ESTABLISH MARINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN ISRAEL AFTER PEACE CAMPUS TALKS BREAK DOWN Meanwhile, in Haifa: Details regarding a proposed Texas A&M institute in Israel were announced this week, with major edits to location, scale, and scope from earlier plans to place a campus in the country. In late 2013, A&M System Chancellor John Sharp announced a $200 million “peace campus” proposed for the city of Nazareth, intended as a multicultural university in the region’s notoriously tense ethnic landscape. But Sharp told the AP this week that the plans have been rethought due to concerns that local officials would exert control over the direction of the campus — instead, a $6 million marine observatory will open in collaboration with the University of Haifa, 20 miles west of Nazareth on the Mediterranean coast. A&M’s believes its Gulf of Mexico expertise will compliment the research at the new institute, which will also contribute to offshore oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean. [Texas Tribune, AP]

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Meanwhile
12/15/15 3:30pm

Plans to Put a Highrise on a Texas Rangers Stadium Parking Lot Resurface Yet Again

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Quicklink
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PLANS TO PUT A HIGHRISE ON A TEXAS RANGERS STADIUM PARKING LOT RESURFACE YET AGAIN Meanwhile, in Arlington: The Arlington City Council and the Texas Rangers baseball team are discussing plans for a mixed-use highrise development on a parking lot next to Globe Life Park; the issue will be discussed at tonight’s City Council meeting. This is the fourth time plans have begun to move forward on developing the area around the stadium into a new downtown core — the last effort, in the leadup to the 2009 recession, ended in a tangle of reciprocal lawsuits between various developers of the 1.2-million-sq.-ft. “GloryPark” project and then-Rangers-owner Tom Hicks. Current plans under discussion include restaurant, retail, hotel, convention, and entertainment space; past plans have included residential development and a lake for watersports. [Dallas Morning News]

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Meanwhile
12/14/15 4:15pm

Houston Oil Company Wants to Build an Island on the Alaskan Coast

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Quicklink
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HOUSTON OIL COMPANY WANTS TO BUILD AN ISLAND ON THE ALASKAN COAST Meanwhile, in Prudhoe Bay: Houston-based oil company Hilcorp is seeking permission to construct 23-ac. Liberty Island off the north coast of Alaska by trucking 83,000 cu. yd. of gravel (more than 3 times the volume of the Astrodome) across sea ice to a hole, cut 6 miles offshore above only 19 feet of water. The island would serve as a base for several offshore drilling projects, collectively the first in federal waters off the Alaskan coast. A 5.6-mile undersea pipeline is part of the project. Manmade gravel islands have been in use in the region’s oil fields for decades. [Hilcorp, Associated Press]

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Featured Posts
12/14/15 3:15pm

Strategically Placed Fig Leaves Will Shield Bashful Rice U. Parking Garage from Medical Scrutiny

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Proposed Developments, Rice University
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Proposed Office Building and Parking Garage at Rice University, 6100 Main St., Houston, 77005

Don’t stare: next week, Rice University will begin construction of a new 6-story parking garage, which will be hidden from roving eyes in the Med Center across the street by giant plastic scrims covered in images of fig leaves.  The 496-space garage will go up on part of the existing Lovett parking lot (just off Main Street, northwest of the intersection with Cambridge, at campus Entrance 3) and will come with an attached office building tastefully tucked alongside (in pale blue below):

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A Modest Proposal
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Featured Posts
12/14/15 9:30am

Unraveling the Structure of the Double Helix Campus Proposed for the Texas Medical Center

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Hospitals, Proposed Developments, Texas Medical Center
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TMC3 Proposed Campus, Old Spanish Trail, Texas Medical Center, Houston, 77030

Genetics play a major role in Houston’s economic landscape — if the Texas Medical Center has its way, a twist on the structure of DNA will become part of the city’s physical landscape as well. A new research campus proposed by the organization would center around a 250,000-sq.-ft. park reminiscent of a double helix, pictured above. The TMC3 Innovation Campus is designed to take the place of an existing parking lot bisected by William C. Harvin Dr. between S. Braeswood and Old Spanish Trail, just south of Braes Bayou. The 30-acre facility would represent the TMC’s official expansion across the bayou, linking the existing campus to research institutions further south; the once-again-developing Baylor-slash-St.-Luke’s complex on Cambridge would also be right next door (pictured above with some already-in-the-works glassy expansions, and linked to the helix’s surrounding structures by a skybridge over Staffordshire).

Texas A&M, Baylor College of Medicine, M.D.Anderson and the University of Texas would anchor the 1.5-million-sq.-ft. collaborative research facility — if they agree to do so. The institutions have yet to formally sign off on participation (or partial funding) of the project, which is estimated to cost on the order of $1.5 billion; UT is currently pushing plans for its own campus of yet-ambiguous purpose nearby.

Designs for the campus are still largely conceptual. The helix would be open for use as public greenspace:

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Genetic Engineering
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