CLOSEST HOTEL TO EXXONMOBIL, FROM SCRATCH 
Has it been your lifelong dream to develop a quaint little hotel in the town center of a brand-new 1,800-acre “eco-themed” community in the shadows of the formerly woodsy new suburban-style corporate campus of the world’s largest oil company world’s largest publicly traded oil company? All righty, then: Now’s your chance! CDC Houston announced today that it’s looking for proposals from would-be developers of the very first hotel in Springwoods Village, on a site “in walking or shuttle distance” of ExxonMobil’s humongous new office hub, currently under construction just west of where I-45 spits out the Hardy Toll Rd. The Houston subsidiary of New York real estate firm Coventry Development Corp. plans to reach a total of 1,400 hotel rooms in Springwoods Village eventually. [Previously on Swamplot] Map: Springwoods Village
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Tag: Proposed Developments
It turns out the construction work Swamplot readers noted last week on the vacant lot at 1401 Binz St., catty-corner from the Children’s Museum, is for a 4-story structure combining ground-floor shops, 2 floors of medical office space, and a top-floor residence — all in less than 30,000 sq. ft. A small courtyard will separate the building from a linked multilevel 160-car parking garage. Half the office space, reports the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff, will be taken up by medical clinics operated by UT dermatologist Stephen Tyring; he also owns the property and is an owner of the development firm, Dermedica Property Group. Bailey Architects notes on its website that the building “will reflect the architectural fabric of Houston’s premier museum district buildings.” Sarnoff’s translation: It’ll look Modern. Contractor Arch-Con expects construction to be complete early next year.
- Sarnoff: Ministry makes Midtown move [Houston Chronicle]
- Museum Point Medical Office Building [Bailey Architects]
- Previously on Swamplot: Clearing an Empty Lot in the Museum District
Rendering: Bailey Architects
A bit more detail on those new Downtown apartments developer Marvy Finger wants to build on the site of the Ben Milam Hotel designed in 1929 by architect Joseph Finger, a block beyond the leftfield fence of Minute Maid Park. The long-vacant hotel, which sits past the foul line at the corner of Texas and Crawford, is toast, Finger tells the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff. But the demo site will make up only a portion of the property.
It isn’t calling itself a bar, but the website for a new craft-beer retail outlet planned for the former site of Kaboom Books next to the Antidote coffee shop on Studewood says it’ll offer “fresh pours” of draft beer and “growlers to go.” The Twitter account for Premium Draught at 733 Studewood announced yesterday that its construction permit has already been approved.
Meanwhile, the owners of Liberty Station on Washington Ave plan to open the craft-beer-focused Cottonwood Bar in the building shown above on Shepherd at 34th St., just north of Pink’s Pizza, according to the brand-new establishment’s Twitter feed — “adding everything we wanted to do at Liberty Station but didn’t have room . . . kitchen, more taps.”
- Coming Soon [Premium Draught]
- Cottonwood Bar [Twitter]
Photo: Cottonwood Bar
UT’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center plans to build this 8-ish story pavilion, called The Pavilion, in front of the Alkek hospital at the corner of Bertner and Bates streets in the Med Center — replacing the pavilion-like rotunda that stands there now. The new building will house the center’s interventional radiology department (on its third floor) as well as 11 new operating rooms. The 185,000-sq.-ft. structure, designed by Dallas’s HKS, includes 2 partial-height floors for maintenance above the operating rooms plus a mechanical floor at the top. Construction is expected to cost $102 million, and be complete by the end of 2015. An accompanying $96 million renovation of the adjacent Alkek hospital will extend into 2019.
- M.D. Anderson embarks on $198M construction project in Texas Medical Center [Houston Business Journal]
Rendering: HKS, via M.D. Anderson
Plans for the 5- and 6-story complex Wallace Garcia Wilson Architects has designed for the new owners of Park Memorial at 5292 Memorial Dr. show that the former grounds of the park-like 108-unit Rice Military condo complex (pictured in better days above) will soon be home to 372 new apartment units. The new project by JLB Partners, currently out to bid, will fit buildings surrounding 2 courtyards, a narrow 7-level garage, and a detention pond onto the 4.85-acre site at the corner of Memorial Dr. and Detering. That’s the plan at the top. And below are a couple of elevations, in different scales, of the west and east sides:
A reader passes onto Swamplot an unconfirmed report that a groundbreaking ceremony for the Sovereign, the 21-story apartment tower from the developers trying to kickstart Regent Square that Swamplot reported on back in April, is scheduled for July 11th. That date’s not too far off from the June window predicted in a Houston Business Journal story earlier this month. The site is a cleared lot on West Dallas St. between Rosine and Rochow, where a surviving portion of the Allen House Apartments was recently demolished.
Is the Sovereign the first piece of GID Development’s long-stalled Regent Square development? It fits within the massive North Montrose mixed-use project’s eastern boundary, but the 4-year-old drawings for Regent Square show only low-rise apartments on that spot. On the other hand, the 2 projects are listed separately on the Boston company’s website. And the proposed 290-unit highrise appears to sport more modern look in its renderings than the images of brick-caked structures still floating around in old Regent Square drawings.
Here’s a view of the site from the 1000 block of Rochow, looking toward West Dallas:
Fiesta Mart announced today that it will shut down its store at the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama — across the street from the newly built modern H-E-B Montrose Market — on July 15th. Developer Marvy Finger plans to build a 6-to-8-story “Mediterranean-style” apartment complex on the 3.68-acre site, which he bought last fall. Fiesta has operated the former Weingarten grocery store on the site since 1994.
- The end is near for Montrose Fiesta [Prime Property]
- Previously on Swamplot: Montrose Fiesta Building Owners: That Variance Is for Future Generations, The Montrose Fiesta Is Over: Here Comes Lancaster Square, West Ave-Style Apartments and Retail Planned for Dunlavy Fiesta Site?
Photo: Candace Garcia
WHERE THE ALDIS ARE GOING, SO FAR 
Only about a month after announcing plans to pepper the Houston market with 30 Aldi discount supermarkets over the next 3 years — with a third of them up and running by next spring, the Trader Joe’s cousin has already bought 2 properties to go with the already announced location just outside Oak Park Trails in Katy: 2.8 acres at Fairmont Parkway and Watters Road in Pasadena, and 2.5 acres at Hwy. 6 and West Bellfort in Sugar Land. [Real Estate Bisnow; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Aldi in Ohio: Deerfield Construction
EAST END ALCOHOL REPORT A reader from the Country Club Place-Idylwood area checks in with rumors, some news, and questions: “A neighbor who does not do computers had a co-worker tell him that there is to be a ‘Latino topless bar’ open soon near Idylwood. For the life of me, I cannot see where he’s talking about. Of course, the definition of ‘near Idylwood’ is the variable. How can I find out where it will be and if this is true? Are alcohol permits available online? The old Helena Motel property on Wayside at 45 is being developed slowly and right now, a Chick fil A is being built next to the relatively new Taco Cabana. I can’t really see an adult entertainment place going in near that location although that block with the corner is prime for a strip shopping center. Demolition of the old Oshman’s property for Walmart is progressing quickly. Last I heard there was still some question as to whether or not this Walmart would sell beer & wine. The back side of the property is too close to the AAMA School on Maxwell. I imagine a lot of people will be unhappy if they can’t do one stop shopping there. Can you offer some suggestions as to where to begin my sleuthing on the topless bar?” [Swamplot inbox]
L.A. architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee will be the designers of the Menil Collection’s new Drawing Institute building, the organization’s board announced late yesterday. Their firm, Johnston Marklee, beat out Tatiana Bilbao, SANAA, and David Chipperfield Architects for the commission. The exact location for the building hasn’t been decided yet, though a Menil spokesperson previously told Swamplot the southern portion of the campus (depicted above in a Johnston Marklee graphic) was likely, and the Menil’s description of the LA firm’s design proposal makes it clear it’ll be long and thin: “a single-story, metal-roofed structure . . . built around a trio of courtyards.”
A public meeting at the Together We Stand Christian Church tonight is the third of 4 Metro has scheduled to discuss the possible route of a new 9-mile light-rail leg connecting Missouri City to the southernmost stop on the existing light-rail line, roughly paralleling US Route 90A. Metro isn’t anticipating construction of the extension before 2017, but there are a couple of kinks to consider: The main difference between the 2 route alternatives being considered is the northeast end of the journey. The first alternative (above) jogs off 90A to follow Bellfort into the existing Fannin South rail station, while the second (below) takes the Holmes Rd. route in:
The long-delayed piece-by-piece redevelopment of the 28-acre Archstone Memorial Heights compound at the corner of Studemont and Washington Ave. into a denser style of apartment complex appears to be back on track. Residents of the 3 existing 3-story “garden-style” buildings in the southwest corner facing Heights Blvd. have received notice that they will need to vacate their apartments by August 1st. (“I was trying to figure out why rent prices went up $300 in 5 months,” a resident quips to Swamplot: “Now I know why.”) Did those letters from management sound familiar? Residents of the same buildings were cleared out in March 2008 in anticipation of a similar redevelopment. A letter sent to Memorial Heights tenants refers only to a new 4-story apartment building planned for the site of those structures: Buildings 7, 8, and 9.
Triple Tap Ventures officially announced 2 new Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas locations yesterday: One in the fake-Venetian Vintage Park Shopping Village off Tomball Parkway and Louetta (reported back in April), and another in Midtown. The company didn’t provide extensive detail about the planned Midtown location, though: It’ll be part of a new mixed-use development by Crosspoint Properties at 2901 Louisiana St. And it’ll sit on top of a 3-level parking garage. A lobby bar will be visible from Milam St. and feature views of Downtown; there’ll also be a ground-floor lobby entrance.
But a variance request submitted earlier this year for Crosspoint’s development adds to the picture. It included the “conceptual” rendering above — for the new parking structure facing Milam St., one block north of Van Loc Restaurant. A movie theater would sit on the top floor of the parking garage, the variance explained. The parking would serve the theater as well as new retail spaces (on the first floor) and offices (on the second floor) inserted into the 1957 building on the west half of the same block, which faces Louisiana St.:
NOTICING THE ASTRODOME-ARENA BAIT-AND-SWITCH 
A major focus of the report on the future of the Astrodome endorsed this week by the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. was a proposal to spend an additional $385 million to replace the neighboring 1974-vintage Reliant Arena. (That’s almost $115 million more than the estimated $270.3 million the team of consultants estimated it would take to raise the floor of the Astrodome and turn it into a smaller “multi-purpose” facility.) And of course, county budget officials are quick to shoot down the resulting proposed $523 million tax-supported bond issue for a new county building, even if the name “Astrodome” is attached to it. But a comment from Ed Emmett quoted in today’s Chronicle makes it appear the county judge wants to call the bluff: “‘The way it was trotted out, we’re going to re-purpose the Dome and we’re going to replace the arena with a new building,’ Emmett said. ‘If we’re doing that, why don’t we use the Dome for the purposes the arena was being used for? Because that would obviously cost less.'” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons [license]
