Tag: Proposed Developments

Apartments
08/10/12 1:36pm

Knocking Down Houston’s Turnberry Tower Without Even Building It

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Cancellations and Delays, Demolitions, Galleria, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment
8 Comments

No, the Turnberry Tower luxury highrise planned for a prime Galleria spot next to the Water Wall Park never got off the ground, but office workers and shoppers nearby have been able to enjoy a good old-fashioned Houston-style sendoff for the project. The 5-year-old, 12,000-sq.-ft., multimillion-dollar sales center for the toilet-heavy tower at 5048 Hidalgo St. is being demolished. Hines, the new owners of the property, will have no use for the structure in the new 7-story One Waterwall apartment complex it’s building there and expects to complete in 2014:

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Apartments
08/08/12 10:15am

Ashby Highrise To Start Rising on Bissonnet This Year

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Boulevard Oaks, Proposed Developments, Southampton
62 Comments

Buckhead Investment Partners’ Kevin Kirton tells former HBJ staffer Allison Wollam that his company plans to submit the latest version of the now-21-story apartment building known as the Ashby Highrise to the city for its already assured permitting approvals in the “very near future” — in time to begin construction late this year. Building the project, he says, should take 18 to 24 months — about the same amount of time it took the proposed development to obtain its original permit approval — 3 years ago. There’s pricing info in Wollam’s report, too:

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Apartments
08/07/12 11:58am

Replacing Vargo’s Restaurant with Vargo’s Apartments

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Neighborhood Disputes, Piney Point Village, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment
10 Comments

How difficult will it be for developer Sandy Aron to fit the 6- or 7-story apartment complex he’s planning for the lakeside site of the shuttered Vargo’s Restaurant at 2401 Fondren into its peacock-filled Piney Point Village neighborhood? Last month the owner of Hunington Properties was forced to send plans for the complex back to the architects at the Steinberg Design Collaborative so that they could add an emergency vehicle lane inside the property — after residents of the 15-townhome community directly to the east voted to deny driveway access to the proposed development from Woodway. And last night other neighbors gathered in front of teevee cameras to voice general complaints about the plans for Vargo’s on the Lake, which according to abc13’s report has now been cut back to 288 units from 312. Deed restrictions established in the seventies will require the apartments to sit back 50 ft. from the lake on the property. Aron told the Houston Business Journal last month that he expected to close on the land — which he’s buying out of bankruptcy — in late August.

Photo of Vargo’s back yard: Rolando Silva

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Bayous and Waterways
08/06/12 12:39pm

Parks By You’s Feel-Good Campaign To Build More Bayou Parks by You

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Parks, Proposed Developments
26 Comments

Yep, that’s a bike-gear-sporting State Sen. Rodney Ellis, 2 city council members, and both bearded and cleanshaven versions of model Lauren Bush’s brother — Pierce Bush — talking up the idea of building more parks by more Houston bayous in this promotional video for an organization called Parks By You. What are they and their smiling costars so earnestly upbeat about? A $160 million bond initiative on the November ballot that would take a big step toward implementing the Houston Parks Board’s Bayou Greenways Project — a proposal to add green spaces and linear parks with concrete hike-and-bike trails along 100 miles of Houston bayous. The bond issue would help pay for improvements to more than a dozen existing parks and connect trails along 7 bayous in the city.

The overall vision (not all of which, apparently, is included in the bond measure) would transform Houston’s park map from this:

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Apartments
08/02/12 5:31pm

Report: Castle Court Midrise Planned for Andover Richmond Apartments Site

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Castle Court, Demolitions, Montrose, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment
23 Comments

A resident of the Andover Richmond Apartments at the corner of Richmond and Graustark passes on word to Swamplot that a “midrise luxury style residence” is being planned for the 2.9-acre site near Graustark — after the courtyard-style apartments that have stood there for more than 50 years are demolished. Residents with month-to-month leases will be given 35 days’ notice to vacate, the resident reports. Those with time left on their leases will be dealt with individually and possibly given incentives to vacate before the end of next January. Swamplot reported the sale of the complex to an arm of REIT factory Behringer Harvard yesterday. According to the tipster, some residents have already been told that their homes will be torn down, so they can beat the expected “flood” of residents looking for similarly priced apartments in the area.

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Apartments
08/02/12 12:52pm

Dead Body Found on Site of Dead Memorial Dr. Condo Complex

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Demolitions, Redevelopment, Rice Military
15 Comments

If it’s, say, 1980, and you’re trying to get rid of a dead body, burying it at the foundation level of a brand-new condo complex going up over the reported site of an ancient cemetery might sound like a perfect after-offing disposal plan. But in Houston, you never know what’s going to get dug up next. HPD detective Carlos Cardenas tells Chronicle reporter Mike Glenn he doesn’t think the partial skeleton unearthed by construction workers yesterday on the site of the recently demolished Park Memorial Condominiums at 5292 Memorial Dr. (pictured above in a late stage of assisted decomposition) belongs to the native American graveyard reported to have existed there previously.

Forensic testing should give a clearer answer, but the circumstances of the body’s burial appear to tell a story on their own: The human remains were discovered along Chandler St. near Arnold, at the far northeastern corner of the complex, wedged between a retaining wall and a concrete slab that workers were taking out. The body was likely concealed there when the Park Memorial Condos were built, police detectives tell Glenn.

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Galleria
08/01/12 2:06pm

Action on the Galleria Whole Foods Site

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New Construction, Proposed Developments, Retail
8 Comments

From a tall perch nearby, a reader sends Swamplot this shot of the future site of BLVD Place, where — it appears — site work has begun on the land slated to become the second phase of the mixed-use development, including the long-awaited Galleria Whole Foods Market and more than 150,000 sq. ft. of shops. The camera is pointed down San Felipe, looking east toward Post Oak. Here’s another view of the site from the south, from another reader:

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Proposed Developments
07/27/12 2:28pm

The Washington Heights Walmart Retail Buddy List

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Quicklink, Retail, West End
54 Comments

THE WASHINGTON HEIGHTS WALMART RETAIL BUDDY LIST The list of stores is out. Who’ll be moving in to Ainbinder’s Washington Heights shopping strips at Yale and Koehler, across from the new Walmart in Houston’s West End? Yes, they’re all chains. And there’s a bank, a phone store, a Starbucks, and a nail salon in there, for street- er, parking-lot cred. The lineup: JP Morgan Chase, Taco Cabana, Visionworks, Sport Clips, Jersey Mike’s, Nailtime, GNC, GameStop, Corner Bakery (pictured), Starbucks, Verizon, Which Wich, and Chipotle. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: The Ainbinder Company

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Industrial Properties
07/27/12 1:55pm

Where All Those New Chemical Plants Are Going

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink
1 Comment

WHERE ALL THOSE NEW CHEMICAL PLANTS ARE GOING It’s Houston’s plastics boom! “Chemical companies from around the world are flocking to the Houston area,” declares the Houston Business Journal, “to take advantage of vast amounts of cheap natural gas, which is used as a chemical feedstock.” The publication counts 8 new or expanded facilities. This handy map shows where they’re headed: Baytown (a new ethane cracker at Chevron Phillips Chemical and expanded ethylene and polyethylene facilities at the ExxonMobil plant), Old Ocean on Hwy. 25 (2 new polyethylene facilities, also for Chevron Phillips), Freeport off Brazosport Boulevard (an ethylene cracker for Dow Chemical), 8280 Sheldon Rd. in Channelview (an expansion of LyondellBasell’s existing ethane facility), 1515 Miller Cut-Off Rd. in La Porte (expanding LyondellBasell’s ethylene plant there), near Alvin on FM 2004 (more ethylene processing at INEOS’s Chocolate Bayou plant), and Clear Lake (a new methanol production plant at the existing Celanese facility). Welcome! [Houston Business Journal] Map: Houston Business Journal

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Champions
07/26/12 2:07pm

Breakfast Bar of Champions

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Proposed Developments, Retail
5 Comments

Scratch that whole Whole Foods Market reannouncing its BLVD Place plans bit. The new Houston store the grocery company announced yesterday will be a 40,000-sq.-ft. spot in a new strip center planned for the Champions area — on a now-forested plot of land at the southeast corner of Louetta Rd. and Cutten Rd., a few blocks east of the Vintage Park shopping center. And it won’t open until 2014.

Photo: LoopNet

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Montrose
07/23/12 1:19pm

Redo Plans for the Office Building at 3400 Montrose Blvd.

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Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Renovations
30 Comments

Sure — you wanna hear the scoop behind this set of drawings showing the vacant and forlorn 10-story office building at 3400 Montrose Blvd. across Hawthorne St. from the Montrose Kroger transformed into a glassy white figure with real big numbers. Unfortunately, the tipster who sent these pix to Swamplot didn’t include additional info on any possible plans for the structure, which since last September has been the property of real estate firm Global Paragon. The rendering shows a building that’s jettisoned its distinctive limestone panels in favor of a more conventional office-building grid. Progress in that de-facing process began last fall. A watermark in the bottom right corner of the image reads “Lizard House, Inc.”

Images: Swamplot inbox

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North Montrose
07/19/12 3:43pm

Hark, a Fence!

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink
30 Comments

HARK, A FENCE! Six years ago the Aga Khan Foundation purchased and demolished the Robinson Warehouse at the corner of Allen Parkway and Montrose Blvd., announcing plans to build a new Ismaili Cultural Center in its place on the often soggy 11-acre site. With the exception of the appearance last year of a construction trailer for the assembly of the Rosemont Bridge over Buffalo Bayou across the street, though, there’d been no action there since. Until this week, that is, as several readers have reported: Fence posts are going up around the lot, from Allen Parkway all the way back to and along West Dallas. “I am wondering if this is actually a sign of construction on the center or if they are just tired of people parking/running dogs on the property,” writes one correspondent. “I will be on the look out for Port-A-Cans.” Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Mixed Use
07/18/12 1:37pm

The Woodlands Landing Huge New Pedestrian Complex

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink, The Woodlands
5 Comments

THE WOODLANDS LANDING HUGE NEW PEDESTRIAN COMPLEX The Woodlands’ next big mixed-use development will be named after famous aviator, philanthropist, and recluse Howard Hughes. Hughes Landing will sit at the upper east end of Lake Woodlands, west of The Woodlands Mall and north of the East Shore neighborhood. Its 66 acres will eventually be covered with 8 office buildings, a boutique hotel, shops and entertainment venues, and apartments. Plus: a boardwalk and pier jutting into the lake. First to go up in the new development will be another one of those Gensler-designed office buildings, One Hughes Landing, shown above. Construction on it starts this fall; the building is expected to be finished by the end of next year. [Business Wire]

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Comments
07/17/12 11:42pm

Comment of the Day: What Springwoods Village Hotels Will Have Going for Them

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Hotels, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Springwoods Village
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT SPRINGWOODS VILLAGE HOTELS WILL HAVE GOING FOR THEM “these hotels will kill it. even WITHOUT the exxon HQ there, hotels in the Woodlands area are underserved, try finding a room on a weekend night @ the pavilion. it’s about $150 to stay @ marriott/hilton/nothing special spots. and you must stay there, or be that guy with a real job who drives 30 miles drunk from the Jimmy Buffett concert. they will have that rarified air of both business travel monday-friday + just about any weekend packed. it won’t be anything architecturally or intellectually inspired, but it will be a runaway success.” [HTX Rez, commenting on Closest Hotel to ExxonMobil, from Scratch]

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Art
07/17/12 5:03pm

Preserving Houston’s Ben Milam Hotel in 13 Backpacks

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Downtown, Historic Preservation, Houston History
1 Comment

The latest creation of Julia Gabriel, Houston’s favorite doomed-building-backpack artist, focuses on the long-vacant Ben Milam Hotel at the corner of Crawford and Texas downtown, left alone as a long-foul-ball target outside Minute Maid Park since — well, at least since the days of Enron Field. Before then, Gabriel notes, it was Houston’s first-ever fully air-conditioned hotel, the first in the city to have a TeeVee in every room, and the first to feature a rooftop swimming pool.

The artist’s rendition of a now-vanished Westheimer duplex-turned-antique store (featured on Swamplot last month) required just a single bag with straps. But to capture the ghostly spirit of the Ben Milam at 1717 Texas Ave., she needed 13 separate packs, bags, totes, and purses. Pinned to a wall, they follow the contours of a photo Gabriel snapped of the structure’s north face back in March (at top). Attached to the backs of you and your dozen-closest friends, though, who could figure out that secret history? Here’s a video of Gabriel foreshadowing the inevitable demolition of architect Joseph Finger’s 1928 creation, by showing how her own assemblage comes apart, bag by bag:

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