Tag: Proposed Developments

Buying and Selling
12/07/10 2:25pm

Riverside Terrace Assisted Living: Whatever It Is, You Should Be Against It

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Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Riverside Terrace
12 Comments

Passed on to Swamplot: an “anonymous call-to-arms of sorts” distributed to the front doors of a few residents on the Hwy. 288 edge of Riverside Terrace. A reader who received the crooked yellow flyer complaining about the encroachment of businesses into the area tells Swamplot “I would find it hilarious if it didn’t make me so angry.” Our tipster notes in the author of the double-sided note an apparent “disjunction between the things that irritate them (‘Speed Racers’ and ‘sexual deviants’) and the alleged causes (businesses, like Denny’s).”:

I don’t even know how to respond – I thought about creating another flyer, actually using my name, and systematically debunking each of their complaints, but that would probably just get my house egged.

At issue: a future “assisted living facility” apparently being planned for 2323 Prospect St. The author of the flyer doesn’t exactly know what’s going in there, but writes adamantly that it can’t be good:

What kind of services are being provided and to whom these services are being provided is unknown at this time. Will this pending facility provide services for the released mentally fragile, released prisoners, sexual deviants, homeless or for drug rehab? Whatever! This business is not safe for you, your family, our block, our neighborhood and our community.

The complete flyer:

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Art
12/07/10 11:54am

Houston Building Permits Will Turn This House into Art — Tonight

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Fifth Ward, Parks, Proposed Developments, Public Art
2 Comments

Note: Nope, not tonight. See update below.

Sometime after 9 pm tonight — if rain doesn’t postpone its scheduled journey from 3012 Erastus St. in Houston’s Fifth Ward to a new home on Lyons Ave. — this abandoned house will become art. That’s not just the contention of Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, the two demolition artists responsible for the move; it’s actually detailed in the city permits they obtained for “Fifth Ward Jam,” a temporary public-art project they’re creating with funding from the Houston Arts Alliance. After Wooten House Movers set up the structure in its new location, Havel and Ruck will start tearing it up and reconstructing it. But the move is what will make it art — because the city says so. “The permit office had a hard time categorizing just exactly what to call our project,” Havel tells Swamplot:

Is it a house, is it a sculpture? Is it both? The black and white rules of permitting needed to be utilized. The best way to do that is to first call the house a structure in order to obtain the permits to move it. However, once the house is placed on the property, it ceases to be an inhabitable structure and will be transformed into a sculptural environment. So, somewhere along the moving route, whether it is half way between two sites or when it physically enters the new site, it will be officially categorized as a sculpture.

So when we reconstruct the house into a sculpture, we do not need a building permit because it is now a sculpture. Pretty funny logic, if you ask me, but it makes sense. The permit guys were certainly scratching their heads, but we got our permits.

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Attractions
12/02/10 5:00pm

Will They Ever Get to Play the Houston Flood?

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Critters, Fort Bend County, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Sugar Land
10 Comments

WILL THEY EVER GET TO PLAY THE HOUSTON FLOOD? In a rare and surprising victory for regional realism, prospective fans have chosen to name Sugar Land’s new minor-league baseball team the Skeeters, the Atlantic League team’s management announced yesterday. Defeated at the baseball ballot box: also-rans the King Canes and Lizard Kings. Fans should be able to watch the Skeeters and swat mosquitoes from $8 seats in Sugar Land’s new strip-mall-inspired open-air stadium on the banks of Oyster Creek by the 2012 season. While one rendition of the new team’s logo pictures a mosquito piercing a baseball with its proboscis, an animated version (featured at the top left of every page on the team’s new website) depicts it angrily and repeatedly stabbing into Fort Bend County on a map of Texas. (See also less-charitable responses to the name from Around the Loop and Deadspin.) [Skeeters News; previously on Swamplot]

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Bellaire
12/02/10 11:50am

Setting Up a New Public Park Thing at the Former Teas Nursery

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Buying and Selling, Parks, Proposed Developments, Quicklink
4 Comments

SETTING UP A NEW PUBLIC PARK THING AT THE FORMER TEAS NURSERY Bellaire’s city council approved an agreement earlier this week that makes the future of the 5-acre property that used to be Teas Nursery a little more clear: It’ll be some sort of public space, but the exact details will be worked out by a new conservancy, with input from the public. A foundation controlled by two Bellaire brothers bought the property at 4400 Bellaire Blvd. late last year — after the nursery’s owners announced plans to sell it off piece by piece to homebuilders. The Jerry and Maury Rubenstein Foundation now plans to deed the land to the city. Under the agreement, half of the conservancy’s members will be appointed by the city, and half by the foundation. [Previously on Swamplot]

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Development Restrictions
12/01/10 10:25am

Duck Duck Goose: Heights Law Office in Disguise

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Houston Heights, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments
9 Comments

Turkestanian-rug dealer Geoffrey Vaughan was the mastermind behind that strange sign posted a couple of years ago threatening a 10-to-14-story mixed-use building on the corner of White Oak and Oxford — right next door to the Onion Creek Coffee House. His latest project is a bit more modest: Getting a variance approved by the city tomorrow that will allow him to build a 2-story law office building a few blocks to the southeast at 409 Cortlandt, just north of 4th St. There’s another commercial building a block to the south, along the I-10 feeder, but there are homes directly around Vaughan’s site, which isn’t platted for a commercial building. To build one there he’ll need the approval of the planning commission.

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Attractions
11/22/10 7:52pm

Comment of the Day: Sugar Land Shopping Outings, Between Innings

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Comments, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Shopping, Strip Centers, Sugar Land
4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SUGAR LAND SHOPPING OUTINGS, BETWEEN INNINGS “Maybe this is a new suburban form of mixed use development. Who says you can’t pick up your prescriptions, grab a venti latte and watch a ball game all at the same place?” [Matt, commenting on New Sugar Land Minor League Stadium Easily Assembled from Standardized Suburban Parts]

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Attractions
11/22/10 12:58pm

New Sugar Land Minor League Stadium Easily Assembled from Standardized Suburban Parts

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Houston Architects, Proposed Developments, Strip Centers, Sugar Land
21 Comments

Building a baseball stadium can be a complicated job. But the latest drawings released by PGAL, the architecture firm that’s been doing design work for Sugar Land’s new minor league ballpark, make it look like the project’s designers are doing their best to break down the process into some easily understood components, which should make the task simpler to comprehend for whichever design-build contractor is selected. Can you build some bleachers? Great! How about a brickface strip center, or maybe one of those drive-up apartment complexes? Knew you could! Now just wrap it around the outside from 1st to 3rd base, and you’ve pretty much got it.

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Neighborhood Disputes
11/16/10 11:40am

Open and Shut: The Montrose H-E-B’s Pedestrian Gates

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Proposed Developments, Retail, Streets
32 Comments

H-E-B agreed several months ago to wall off the ends of Sul Ross and Branard streets, which dead-end into the site of its future Montrose market at West Alabama and Dunlavy, and which served as entrances for the Wilshire Village Apartments that were torn down there last year. But what about devotees of that obscure local Montrose pastime known as walking to the supermarket? If they’re coming from the neighborhoods to the west, should they be able to get through that way?

Over the weekend, the Lancaster Place Civic Association worked out a “compromise” between homeowners on the dead-end portions of Sul Ross and Branard — mostly opposed to having pedestrian gates at the ends of their streets — and homeowners and renters in that neighborhood to the south and southwest of the site, most of whom wanted them included. H-E-B Houston prez Scott McClelland says he’ll have H-E-B’s in-house architects design what the association came up with: A pedestrian gate on Branard, with a timer that will lock it after dark. Sul Ross, which is closer to the store entrance, won’t have a gate, but will have a panel in the wall that would make it easier to put one in later.

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Neighborhood Disputes
11/12/10 2:23pm

The Next Neighbor in Line for 2520 Robinhood Won’t Mind Getting Wet

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Nightlife, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Rice Village
7 Comments

THE NEXT NEIGHBOR IN LINE FOR 2520 ROBINHOOD WON’T MIND GETTING WET Hudson Lounge owner Adam Kleibert is hoping his new bar directly to the east of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condo tower will get better treatment from his neighbors than the drenching and projectile greetings Hans’ Bier Haus directly to the west received last year. And he tells the HBJ‘s Allison Wollam that he and his brothers have some plans for the rest of the property they own directly adjacent to the tower. Once the lending market turns around, he says, they’d like to build a 33-room boutique hotel with a rooftop pool on the site. Kleibert says the Hudson Lounge is already planning a reception expressly for condo residents. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia

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Lancaster Place
11/09/10 3:03pm

What the New Montrose H-E-B Is Gonna Look Like

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Montrose, Proposed Developments, Retail
48 Comments

Ignore the alternating reds, greens, and yellows on the renderings: store regional president Scott McClelland says the new H-E-B coming to the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy will have “natural materials” on the exterior — though he says he doesn’t know yet what those materials will be. Getting rid of the colors is just one of the changes requested by attendees of the recent neighborhood meeting. H-E-B announced last week that those same neighbors had selected the “Pavilion” roof design — already the most Menil-like of the 3 decorate-the-box options prepared by San Antonio architects Lake Flato. The vote totals, tallied by Neartown Association president David Robinson: 88 for the Pavilion, 75 for the Sawtooth, and 43 for the Wave. (See all three designs here.)

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Apartments
11/05/10 12:14pm

Walmart Coming — Everybody Out!

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Demolitions, Houston Heights, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Retail, Strip Centers
28 Comments

WALMART COMING — EVERYBODY OUT! What residents of the Heights Plaza Apartments at 205 Heights Blvd. found on their doors Wednesday: Letters explaining that the Ainbinder Company has bought the entire complex and that no tenants’ leases will be renewed. For residents whose leases are up in December, that’s 30 days’ notice. Ainbinder will be extending Koehler St. through the property and building 2 strip centers on the remaining portions — as part of the Washington Heights District development that will include a new Walmart. “Although the sale of the complex to the Walmart developer wasn’t a surprise,” explains reporter Miya Shay, “the pace of the move out did catch some residents off guard. Developer Michael Ainbinder says he’s willing to work with residents who can’t find a place before their lease expires. . . . The last lease runs out at the end of April, and the developer says as soon as that happens, they will begin demolishing the property.” [abc13; previously on Swamplot]

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Lancaster Place
11/04/10 10:23am

And the Winner of the Montrose H-E-B Roof-Design-by-Vote Is . . .

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Montrose, Proposed Developments, Retail
19 Comments

H-E-B has announced the “winner” of the dress-up design contest for its new supermarket on the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy — the site of the former Wilshire Village apartments. The top vote-getting entry, named “The Pavilion,” is easily distinguished from the other 2 proposals from San Antonio architects Lake Flato: It’s the one where the roof isn’t jaggedy and isn’t curvy. We’ll have more details shortly.

View of Pavilion design from Dunlavy driveway: Lake Flato

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Neighborhood Disputes
11/03/10 1:06pm

Reader Report from Last Weekend’s West End Walmart Car Rally

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Proposed Developments, Retail, Traffic, West End
29 Comments

How many cars showed up? “If Steven Colbert can get away with 6 Billion on The Mall, we can call this 22,000…what’s in a number?” asks a reader who says there were actually probably 70 to 100 cars lined up at about 10:15 at last Saturday’s traffic-themed protest of the planned West End Walmart. Comments sent to Swamplot yesterday:

We made the scene at 18th & Rutland during preparation for what one organizer described as a “Flash Mob sort of thing”. . . . The mood was fairly lighthearted; it was a beautiful morning after all. Plan was to drive down and around the Koehler Street site and make general mischief, I guess. Saw one TV station camera crew, but did not see anything in print over the next couple of days. Admittedly, I didn’t look real hard.

While I don’t agree with these folks . . . I have to admit, I honor their activism.

“What we need is sustained outrage”, indeed!

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Lancaster Place
10/29/10 1:55pm

Voting This Weekend on 3 Lake Flato Roof Designs for the New Montrose H-E-B Market

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Montrose, Parks, Proposed Developments, Retail, Trees
41 Comments

All 3 designs by San Antonio architects Lake Flato for the new H-E-B Market on the former site of the Wilshire Village Apartments — released by the grocery company in advance of a Neartown Association meeting this weekend — appear to share the same footprint and site plan. H-E-B Houston region president Scott McClelland had promised neighborhood residents would have an opportunity to vote for one of the 3 designs, but the options appear to be limited to the building’s roof shape and exterior detailing. All 3 designs feature a single-story structure that backs up to West Alabama, with the main entrance facing a parking lot on the southern portion of the site. But McClelland tells the Chronicle‘s Mike Morris that the company will be asking for input on other design issues at the meeting, including pedestrian access. Current plans call for a new center lane on Dunlavy, and new sidewalks and bike racks for the store.

McClelland says that drawings for a 2-story store — with parking underneath, allowing for a smaller footprint and a 2-acre park on the site — will be discussed and presented at the meeting. However, attendees won’t get to vote for it. “Until I know we can build it, it isn’t a viable option,” he tells Swamplot. He says the company is still short $800K of the additional $2 million a 2-story store would cost. “I’ve made numerous calls to others in an attempt to find addt’l funds….so far without success. Similarly, the [Montrose Land Development Coalition] hasn’t had success either.” Putting a park on the site is not a high priority for the city parks department because there are other parks nearby, McClelland says. If the money can be found within 45 days, he tells Swamplot, a 2-story option would be “considered.”

What do the 3 single-story Lake Flato designs look like? A set of renderings labeled “The Sawtooth” shows a store similar to the firm’s recent design for the H-E-B at Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet, but adds an additional jag to the roof overhang on the south-facing entrance — and several north-facing clerestory windows:

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