12/30/13 1:45pm

5746 Larkin St., Cottage Grove, Houston

5746 Larkin St., Cottage Grove, HoustonReader Seán Judge notes the recent transformation of a warehouse property on Larkin St. near the corner of Sherwin in Cottage Grove, where something that “LOOKS like a little restaurant” is taking shape from a once-ramshackle property presided over by a metal building: “There’s a bunch of ‘parking lot’ space on one side, and what look like bistro tables sitting outside the building,” he notes. “It is definitely looking at least bar/loungey with a lot of liquor, cushy seats, tables outside. And a sign on the door saying ‘Private Party: Thank you. Management.’ . . . Any idea what may be going in there?”

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Light Metal
12/06/13 2:30pm

FLUSHING AWAY ALLEN STANFORD’S LEGACY AT 5050 WESTHEIMER Former Headquarters of Stanford Financial Group, 5050 Westheimer Rd., HoustonNoting the extensive changes to the office building at 5050 Westheimer across the street from the Galleria that once served as headquarters for the Stanford Financial Group but has since been taken over completely by real estate firm Keller Williams, Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon zeroes in on the big news: “Stanford’s gigantic personal bathroom is gone.” Reuters reporter Chris Baltimore described the rarely seen first-floor spectacle back in 2009, after an exclusive crime-scene tour, as “a chamber of black granite and mahogany, with a gigantic mirror and granite countertop, flanked with shelves of fluffy white towels and toiletries, including a bottle of ‘Brilliant Brunette’ shampoo.” Notable features: the separate black-toilet room, the huge walk-in shower, and the blank door next to it which served as Sir Allen’s private escape route to the parking deck. Stanford’s entire personal magnet-key-access-only first-floor domain has now been replaced by the offices of KW-affiliated lender and title companies; the Gensler redo of the building has kept some of the green marble but added some red walls, replacing stone-carved messages like Stanford’s HARD WORK, CLEAR VISION, VALUE for the CLIENT with “inspirational and wacky sayings like ‘Complaining=garbage magnet.'” [Real Estate Bisnow; Reuters; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Flushed
11/27/13 2:30pm

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10509-willowgrove-01-4

10509-willowgrove-02Pansies in the planter and fresh paint inside and out help perk up a 1955 Willowbend Ranch-with-carport that’s been overhauled since its purchase in June 2013 for $205,000. The refreshed version — with new kitchen, tilework, landscaping, and pigment-coated brick — sprouted on the market earlier this month, asking $379,900. Is the redo worthy of a $174,900 lift?

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Will it Flip?
11/21/13 10:30am

5010 Dincans St., West University, Houston

Sign, 5010 Dincans St., West University, HoustonA city permit was approved last week to convert a portion of the building that once housed the A&M Pet Clinic at 5010 Dincans St. into a wine bar. The 2-story building is across the street from the new apartment block Hanover is completing between Bissonnet and North Blvd. just west of Kirby Dr. The Swamplot reader who visited the closing-after-New-Year’s West U recycling center just to the north of the property finds the posted TABC notice, which identifies the applicant as Catering Plus. Ray Memari, co-owner of the Antica Osteria Italian Restaurant on Bissonnet just west of Greenbriar, purchased the building last year.

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Bottle District?
11/11/13 10:00am

An entry posted over the weekend to the website of Ziegler Cooper Architects indicates that the local firm has won Shorenstein Properties’ invited competition to remake the soon-to-be-former ExxonMobil Building (at right), a prominent, bristly, and standoffish figure on the southern edge of Houston’s Downtown since 1962. The redo, which will be far more extensive than a simple reskinning, removes the most distinctive feature of the building, originally designed by L.A. architects Welton Becket for Humble Oil: the 7-foot-deep shades, cantilevered from marble-clad columns, that help shield sunlight from all but the top of the tower’s 44 stories.

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10/29/13 4:00pm

Restoration has been swift at this concrete-block home in Garden Oaks that sold quickly in June 2013 — for $225,000. When the property reappeared on the market as a new listing late last week, the asking price was up to $475,000. Houston architect Allen R. Williams Jr. designed the solidly built home back in the day, the year of which was either 1950 or 1942, depending on which records apply. This year’s updates, by serial renovator Will Martin, hew close to the home’s mod origins. The original listing didn’t feature many interior photos, but the home’s latest appearance makes up for that:

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10/24/13 12:00pm

A modified 1959 mod home with tinted clerestory in Westbury has changed hands 5 times in 8 years — after decades with the same owner. Last week, the now-even-more-open-plan property appeared on the market once more, this time with a $425,000 asking price. It last sold in March 2013 for $348,000. Back in 2005, before all the flipping and renovations, it sold for $152,367. Other sales scored $129,000, $374,990, and $389,000. Somewhere in that chain of ownership came a big fan of glass-panel doors. They’re installed throughout the home, starting with the living room (above).

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10/16/13 3:45pm

Here’s a rendering of the renovations that JT ARC Studio has drawn up that show a 1938 house and former Methodist Hospital storage space gussied up into an art gallery. Located just south of W. Gray at 1707 Waugh in Hyde Park, the gallery and event space, to be called 1707 Collective, plans to open this spring. And it appears that work on the 1,674-sq.-ft. multipurpose building, which HCAD records show was finished in 1938 and renovated in 1990, is already underway:

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10/16/13 2:20pm

Beneath the Victoriana add-ons (and other embellishments) lies a 1935 Garden Villas home caught here in the throes of lingering renovation by its current owners. The property’s dormer-laden lid and perky gazebo-shaped wings flank a wide front porch with a central entry that’s capped by a cupola. Just a touch of gingerbread trim on the columns and some latticework concealing the pier-and-beam foundation finish off the northwest-facing front elevation. Located on a corner lot 3 blocks south of Sims Bayou, the home has a $199,000 asking price. Some of the finishing touches, though, still need finishing:

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10/08/13 3:15pm

It looks like the former Discount Liquor is getting sobered up and converted into a restaurant. Permit documents hanging on that plywood indicate that the 1965 1,440-sq.-ft. corner store at 4902 Almeda will be transformed into a “take-out restaurant” to be named the Maxwell Street Grill — though it’s near the corner of Almeda and Rosedale.

Photo: Allyn West

10/07/13 3:35pm

The Houston and Southeast Texas chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association will be moving its headquarters from Holcombe Blvd. to Southeast Houston. Gensler redrew the former Plus4 Credit Union on the Loop feeder near Long and Griggs to do away with the 6-teller drive-thru and include instead a garden, cafe, office space, and entrance pavilion on the 2.2-acre property. The 2-story, 16,078-sq.-ft. bank building dates to 1979. Construction is scheduled to begin this Wednesday.

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10/04/13 12:45pm

That huge empty husk of a building at the corner of Leeland and Delano will be renovated into offices for ChaiOne, which designs and develops mobile apps. According to a press release, ChaiOne has bought the presently windowless, 25,245-sq.-ft., 3-story building that, in 1938, served as the first U.S. headquarters of Schlumberger. ChaiOne CEO Gaurav Khandelwal is also one of the owners of the nearby coworking incubator Start. This rendering of the building shows the possibility of ground-floor retail opening up in this mostly residential and industrial part of the East End, with a coffee shop appearing to face Delano St.

Rendering: ChaiOne

10/03/13 10:00am

Not the whole stadium — not yet, anyway — but Mark Miller, the general manager of Reliant Park, says that all the Astrodome’s exterior features will be knocked down as early as next week. And that appears to include everything that leads right up to the Dome’s walls: Not just the ticket booths that appeared Wednesday in the Daily Demolition Report, but also the concrete stairs, ramps, grass berms, substations, and transmission lines that you can see in the photo above.

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10/01/13 11:00am

Maybe this mystery has been solved: That old building at 908 Henderson just a block south of Liberty Station on Washington Ave is being converted into a restaurant called Big Eyed Fish. The owners just started posting some pics of the renovations to a Facebook page, and a new website promises that the place — “think southern upscale cuisine,” the website explains — is opening soon.

Photo: via Facebook

09/24/13 4:35pm

THE COVERED-UP HISTORY IN THE FORT BEND COUNTY COURTHOUSE BASEMENT Renovations to restore as much as possible of the 1908 Fort Bend County courthouse, standing at 500 Jackson St. in Richmond, have revealed a couple of surprises from the building’s past, reports the Sugar Land Sun: “Beneath the building’s carpeting was finely-made Italian Terrazzo flooring, dating back to the courthouse’s original construction. . . . While installing the building’s electrical system and sump pump in its basement, a walled-up room with glazed tile was uncovered. [Director of Facilities Management Don] Brady said the hidden room is likely a segregation-era restroom for African-Americans.” [Sugar Land Sun] Photo: Terry Jeanson