HIGHLAND VILLAGE LOCKOUT DRAMA: STEP AWAY FROM THE TOOTSIES! What tenant lockout techniques at the Highland Village Shopping Center lack in effectiveness, they make up in chutzpah: Employees and shoppers arriving for the second day of the big sale at Tootsies this morning found the stores’ windows blacked out, the sign blocked, and the concrete path to the front entrance jackhammered and blocked off with cones and temporary fencing. But that’s no obstacle at all for the sale-obsessed: Black-booted employees of the upscale women’s boutique simply ushered shoppers in through a side entrance for deals on dresses, handbags and shoes! Shopping center CEO Haidar Barbouti announced plans last year to demolish the Tootsies building and replace it with 100,000 square feet of multi-level retail space and an underground parking garage. Tootsies’ long-term lease expired on December 31, but the company’s new store at West Ave hasn’t opened yet. Can’t they work something out? A Highland Village spokesperson tells Culturemap that landlord and tenant have not met “in several years.” Bring on the lawyers! [Culturemap]
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Tag: Retail
That’s a mighty oh . . . Austinish-looking shell of a Whole Foods Market sprouting at the northeast corner of Waugh and West Dallas. The building — last pegged at 48,000 40,450 sq. ft. — faces north, to a big parking lot and AIG’s American General Center on Allen Parkway beyond. The design comes from the same architecture firm responsible for the flagship Whole Foods in downtown Austin, now named Stone Soup 6 Architecture. They’re from Austin too! The corners of the building are already stoned. And it looks like even more rocks from the Hill Country are headed for that little Hoo-Ray Tower entrance at the center:
To the reader who wrote in to Swamplot noting that Japanese restaurant Oishii at 3764 Richmond near Greenway Plaza was closed and that a large For Lease sign had been posted in front: Do not worry. Your sushi happy hour is safe. The restaurant is resting temporarily so building surgeons can give a portion of the lowslung structure at the corner of Timmons that raised eyebrow look that’s been all the strip-mall rage since about 1992. The restaurant closed down December 19th, and is scheduled to reopen January 10th.
A source tells Swamplot that “an even sweeter deal” has just been struck between Books-A-Million and the management of Houston Pavilions, and that the bookstore chain has decided that its Downtown Houston store will remain open. “It seems the story has forced the company’s hand,” says the source. Swamplot reported yesterday that Books-A-Million had decided to close its store in the mall at 1201 Main St., even though the company was paying only $3,000 a month for the 2-story, approximately 23,000-sq.-ft. space.
- Previously on Swamplot: Books-A-Million Bailing out of Houston Pavilions
Photo: Flickr user Holcombe of Hidalgo
A reader tells Swamplot a sticker on the front door of the 10-story mixed-use building at 3400 Montrose notes the building is unsafe and does not have a working fire-alarm system:
They have gated off the garage and also all the first level tenants have now moved out. Any word on what is going on? Is the building being closed up? Torn down?
Renovated?
The building’s highest-profile (and -altitude) tenant, Scott Gertner’s Skybar, moved out over the summer, after complaining that the building’s new owner, a company out of Waco called FH Properties, wasn’t responding to maintenance concerns.
Update, 1/4: Reverse! Books-A-Million is gonna stay put.
Southeastern U.S. chain Books-A-Million has decided to close its Downtown Houston store on January 15th. The decision has left management of Houston Pavilions feeling rather put-out: Managers at the downtown mall reportedly had lowered the bookstore’s rent on the 2-story, approximately 23,000-sq.-ft. space facing the light rail line at 1201 Main St. to just $3,000 a month — in hopes the concession would prevent it from shutting down. A source insists the store “wasn’t a huge flop,” but says that the Katy Mills Mall Books-A-Million typically brought in more than 5 times the sales of the Downtown store — even though the 2 locations are about the same size.
Another factor that may have played a role in Books-A-Million’s decision to close: A pending lawsuit filed against the company after the location’s former manager reportedly kicked a man and his wheelchair-riding, apparently mentally disabled son out of the store. “At some point [the son] soiled himself and the [manager] took this as a vagrance and kicked them out. Needless to say the boy’s family were outraged,” a source tells Swamplot. The manager is no longer with the company, though reportedly for “unrelated” reasons.
The Village News is reporting that the Hanover Company has purchased the 4.5-acre site in the Rice Village once slated for Randall Davis’s Sonoma development, and is ready with plans to build a large — though far less grandiose — retail-and-apartment project on the site. Davis and partner Lamesa Properties made a mess of the site 2 years ago, purchasing a stretch of Bolsover St. from the city and demolishing several buildings’ worth of retail and office space before facing the credit markets and figuring out they wouldn’t be able to get financing for the project.
Hanover’s project, called Plaza View Hanover at Rice Village, is scheduled to include 385 “high-end” apartments, 14,000 sq. ft. of retail or restaurant space, and a multi-level parking garage, all in what its designers label a pedestrian-friendly design. What’s that plaza we’ll be viewing? An almost-17,000-sq.-ft. public space along Morningside, with a “water feature, grass lawn, large trees, and restaurant dining spaces.” According to Hanover executive veep John Garibaldi, 55,000 sq. ft. of retail space, 34,000 sq. ft. of office space, and an 8,000-sq.-ft. grocery store were cut from the earlier Sonoma plans. Much of the towering nouveau pomposity of the Sonoma design has been cut too. Along Kelvin St., Hanover’s buildings will reach 6 stories tall; 5 stories along Morningside and Dunstan.
Here’s a first look at the not-so-distant future of Lower Westheimer, just a block east of Montrose, where sushi chef Tyson Cole and the owners of Austin’s Uchi and Uchiko restaurants plan to open a first Houston venture. The new Houston Uchi won’t be taking over the whole corner. The neighboring spaces will instead be available à la carte: The new owners are picturing as many as 3 separate businesses (one with a second floor and rooftop deck) leasing the 4,700-sq.-ft. building that used to house Caffe Den and Privé at 908 Westheimer. Also available, around the corner on Grant St.: a little 714-sq.-ft. structure with the address of 904B Westheimer. It’ll share restrooms with Uchi, which will be taking over the former Felix Mexican Restaurant space on the corner, at 904A. The left side of the Grant St. rendering above is the only view we’ve seen so far that shows any part of Uchi itself, but it contains a few clues about how Austin architect Michael Hsu (creator of the original Uchi on South Lamar as well as Houston’s Sushi Raku in Midtown) plans to transform a vintage Tex-Mex classic into something sushi-worthy. It looks like at least a few of those arched windows will stay:
Checking in from a window seat at the Luby’s on South Post Oak, Swamplot correspondent Aaron Carpenter keeps close to the slasher action now playing on all 16 demolished screens of the AMC Meyer Park Theater. As Swamplot noted last week, a new Kohl’s will be built at the shopping center after the theater drops its final curtain. Also coming to the Meyer Park center, according to reports from the scene: a brand new standalone Luby’s. The one that’s there now will be torn down.
A reader who says he’s been to many Walmarts tells Swamplot he was “stunned” to find this ice-cream counter and juice bar in the newly opened store at Northline Commons off I-45 near Crosstimbers — “serving horchata no less.” The new section is near the produce and bakery. Stunned? Really?
It makes so much sense for walmart to do this when you consider the number of kids who tag along with their parents. I also [saw] lots of kids and adults eating ice-cream in store while shopping. And at $1 they will be eating coldstone’s lunch pretty soon. . . . the only other store i can think of that has ice cream counters in store is costco. So the all around awesomeness of it was what stunned me i guess.
- Previously on Swamplot: New Walmart Opens Near the Heights
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Yeah, that does kinda look like a phoenix on the side of the Agora Cafe at 1712 Westheimer, near Dunlavy. A reader tells Swamplot a painter had scaffolding set up on the side of the building yesterday. Next door is the site where Antique Warehaus once stood; the sign on the fence says that store is “still open online.” Both properties were damaged by a Halloween fire. Closeups of the bird, captured by Swamplot nature photographer Candace Garcia, after the jump:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DONUT RUSH HOUR IN OAK FOREST 
“That Shipley’s must draw folks from miles around. Theres almost always a long line of cars, often extending out onto Ella. I am always amazed too at the long lines late at night…who eats donuts at 11pm? I guess they’re night shift workers.
Yep, they need to re-do that whole shopping plaza and center it around that Shipleys, providing tons of drive-thru space :)” [JRo, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: The Ella Square Deal] Photo of Shipley’s Donuts, 3410 Ella Blvd.: Chad & Susan Harris
A spokesperson tells Swamplot the map above gives a “pretty good” indication of where you’ll soon be able to find electric-vehicle charging stations in the new eVgo network announced today by NRG Energy. NRG says it will put “convenience” stations in parking lots in front of Best Buy, Spec’s, H-E-B, and 18 Walgreens stores, as well as faster-charging “freedom” stations in various locations along freeways, in shopping and business districts, and in other parking lots around Harris County. The company expects to have 50 Houston stations in place by the middle of next year — 150 by the time the network is complete — but no specific locations have been announced yet. NRG, which owns Reliant Energy, is calling Houston’s eVgo “the nation’s first privately funded, comprehensive electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem” but the second and third ecosystems shouldn’t be too far behind: The company plans to begin the rollout of similar setups “across Texas” next year. The first Houston stations should be ready to spout electrons in February.
Chargers will come in two flavors:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE THE MONEY IS ON KIRBY “Yes, it was getting tedious having to drive 75 more feet to find a bank.” [SH snooty, commenting on Children’s Kirby Assessment: Bike Barn Site Bank and Drive-Thru]
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.
