MORE SHOPPING CENTERS LIE IN WAIT FOR THE GRAND PARKWAY Under previous owners it was going to go residential, but now all the site at the southeast corner of Kuykendahl and Spring Stuebner in Spring needs is an offramp: “Steve Gregory, president of Hopkins Commercial, said the site is a long-term investment for a retail center that will be built, possibly in one to three years. The site is attractive to the company because a leg of the Grand Parkway that will start construction in late 2010 will go by the 56 acres. The site is just north of a big collection of retailers at FM 2920 and Kuykendahl, including Wal-Mart SuperCenter, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Kroger, Palais Royal and 24 Hour Fitness.” [Houston Business Journal]
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Tag: Shopping Centers
The wise folks behind Greenway Commons — the new shopping center replacing the old HISD headquarters building at the corner of Richmond and Weslayan — have apparently taken some extra-special steps to make sure the new development (which includes a brand-new Costco) is super-friendly to pedestrian visitors!
Making everything welcoming to people arriving on foot makes sense — the project had been criticized for exhibiting suburban-style development patterns in a location that some dreamers had imagined would be a street-fronting mixed-use center. It’s already a busy corner, and Metro’s new University Line will have a stop only a short walk away.
But “easy to access” can also mean “boring.” So it’s comforting to see these pictures of the project’s street edge sent in by a reader, which show a gentle, fun infrastructure-themed obstacle course taking shape along the new Weslayan and Richmond sidewalks in front of Trammell Crow’s grand development:
At the new House of Blues last night: Jay-Z. And three blocks away, Books-A-Million and a roman-numeral flagship version of Forever 21 are now open! But between them in Downtown’s brand-new mixed-use street-hovering mall? Not much going on . . . yet:
The developers of the three block long Houston Pavilions said the pavilions will be the place to go, but for now it’s mainly a lot of space.
“It’s different because you don’t have a lot of nightlife down here. But with the restaurant, the Foundations Room, and the music hall at the House of Blues, we are going to bring people to the Pavilions,” [said] Deb Eybers, President of the House of Blues.
They won’t just bring people. Tenants will also be coming to the area. But for now there are just a handful of businesses.
More are slated to come on line in December and even more in the spring. Then the complex will be at 60 percent capacity.
The complex extends from Main St. to Caroline between Dallas and Polk — only a few surface-parking-lot blocks from the Toyota Center and Discovery Green.
In the rendering above, it’s labeled Adagio Vino. In the marketing package for the River Oaks Shopping Center’s barely curving northwest replacement building, it’s called Il Tavolo. But the Houston Business Journal says that Tony and Jeff Vallone’s new Italian restaurant and wine bar going into that space in fall 2009 is not yet named.
The new restaurant, which will seat up to 150 people, will feature a first-floor dining room and outdoor dining area and a second-level wine bar with its own patio extending onto a balcony overlooking Shepherd Drive.
- New bistro planned for River Oaks Shopping Center [Houston Business Journal]
- River Oaks Shopping Center [Weingarten Realty]
- River Oaks Shopping Center Redo: Not Much of a Curve, but a Decent Wedge [Swamplot]
Rendering of River Oaks Shopping Center on Shepherd Dr. at W. Gray: Weingarten Realty
With the City of Houston code enforcement and permit offices out of commission until Monday — that’s the reason there haven’t been any Daily Demolition Reports here lately — it’s heartening to see that Hurricane Ike hasn’t shut down demolition activity citywide. A camera-phone-wielding bicyclist sends us these photos of continuing non-hurricane destruction from earlier this week at the Highland Village Shopping Center — catty-corner to Cole-Haan, across the street from Crate & Barrel:
Sandwich franchise Pita Pit has a store tucked inside a Greenway Plaza office building. Two more locations debuted recently: one at Highway 6 and Williams Trace in Sugar Land (opened in May) and another in the tunnel beneath McKinney St. Downtown (opened in July). A new store in a strip center at Westheimer and Fountainview is listed as “coming soon” on the company website.
Now a source reports that a total of 10 Pita Pit franchises are planned for the Houston area — including one in the shopping center at 3939 Montrose Blvd., just north of the Hurricane-Ike-swept Diedrich’s Coffee, near Marble Slab.
- Pita Pit [via Swamplot Inbox]
Photo of Sugar Land Pita Pit: Pita Pit
Walking from their car to the front door of the Circuit City on San Felipe, Bunny Bungalow resident Annie Sitton and her husband notice a crack in the stucco covering a pilaster at the front of the building. Looking closer, they notice that . . .
A reader notes that a sign offering “13,000 sq feet of restaurant/retail for lease” is up at the Alabama Bookstop, and asks if plans for the location have been announced. Bookstop owner Barnes & Noble is building a new store on West Gray, on the former site of the River Oaks Shopping Center’s north curve.
That 13,000 sq. ft. figure makes it clear the sign isn’t referring to a different space in the Alabama Theater Shopping Center. According to leasing info on the Weingarten website, that’s the approximate size of the Bookstop’s space.
- Alabama Shepherd Shopping Center [Weingarten]
- B. Dalton Booksellers – Bookstop/Alabama Theatre [Barnes & Noble]
Photo of Bookstop at Alabama Theater Shopping Center: Debra Jane Seltzer
COSTCO $17K LEFT TURN GREEN LIGHT The new Costco on Richmond gets on okay for tree-free left turns: “According to Craig Cheney, spokesman for partner-developer Trammell Crow, nine bald cyprus and three other trees will be removed from the Weslayan median and replanted elsewhere. The developer will ‘buy out’ three live oaks that will be cut down on Richmond to make way for two left-turn lanes for a total of $17,000, a spokesman for the city said. [River Oaks Examiner, previously in Swamplot]
Probably the best introduction to the particular and engaging humor of the Houston Chicks’ relentlessly cheery stuck-in-Houston-for-the-summer tourist travelogues is the soon-to-be-classic entry entitled “Houston: Day Seven” from last month, which begins with this striking line:
Today, we went to Rice Village…We stayed for 10 minutes…and left…
and ends, 10 photographs later, in a Galleria parking lot — after a brief repose with an egg-salad sandwich.
The brilliance of the Chicks’ photo essays is difficult to communicate in an excerpt. If you’re looking for a quick take, try The Houston Chicks Have Won!, which recounts a popular Houston archetype in only two frames.
But there’s so much more:
The drive-thru mall with extras known as Pearland Town Center opens this Wednesday, at the intersection of 288 and FM 518! But it’ll be so much more than just a collection of chain stores arranged neatly in a giant parking lot:
Sixty-two apartments rest on top of retail stores, giving residents a downtown feel without the hassle of daily traffic. Granite countertops complement the kitchen of each unit along with stainless-steel appliances.
The above-retail units will be available for leasing July 30 while another set of 238 freestanding residential units will be accessible in late 2009. One-bedroom apartments will lease for $1,300 per month, and two-bedroom loft apartments will lease for $1,900 per month.
75-percent of the 85-percent-leased mall will be open Wednesday, reports David Kaplan in the Chronicle.
- Pearland Town Center ready for grand opening [Brazosport Facts]
- Macy’s makes its way to Pearland [Houston Chronicle]
- New shopping mecca set to open [abc13]
- Pearland Town Center (with sound)
- Pearland’s New Drive-Thru Mall [Swamplot]
Plan of Pearland Town Center: CBL & Associates
Street trees in medians on Weslayan and Richmond will likely be disappearing soon, reports Sarah Kortemeier in the offline-only Village News. Three left-turn lanes on Weslayan and two on Richmond are planned for the new Greenway Commons Costco-powered Power Center under construction on the northeast corner of that intersection:
Trammell Crow Managing Director of Retail Development Craig Cheney says that the company was required by the City of Houston to put the turning bays in for traffic mitigation purposes, and his company was not made aware of any extra permitting required to remove trees. . . .
The median does not appear to be wide enough to accommodate extra lanes without removing trees. Cheney says that Trammell Crow is “open to any suggestions [the City] might have” about relocating or mitigating the effect on trees, but that the turning bays cannot be constructed without removing or relocating at least some of the trees.
- Costco’s Price May Include Weslayan Trees [Village News]
- Greenway Commons: Gas Station Too! [Swamplot]
- Big, Expensive HISD Box To Be Replaced by Big, Cheap Costco Box [Swamplot]
Photo of Costco construction: Flickr user Graustark
Tasty Bits blogger Misha catches up with Diho Square on Bellaire:
Where else do you find Sichuan duck tongues, sushi, babh mi, bubble tea, vegetarian pork kidneys and French pastries within steps of each other?
On this (extended) visit: Sichuan Cuisine, Shanghai Restaurant, and the Pine Forest Garden Vegetarian Restaurant. But the Jungle Café & Pâtisserie warrants his closest attention:
I must have passed it a dozen times, but never thought to look inside. If I had, I would have found French-style pastries inflected with pokemon graphics, the likes of which I have never seen in Chinatown before or anywhere else in Houston for that matter.
After the jump: a few more photos from the scene.
PUTTING THE BED IN BEDROOM COMMUNITIES Mattress Firm celebrates the opening of its 500th store. You keep building those strip centers, they’ll take care of the rest! [Houston Business Journal]
Those drawings some of you have seen of the new HEB shopping center coming to the corner of Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet? Pay no attention to them, says the West University Examiner:
Rare sightings of renderings depicting the H-E-B grocery store development at Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet Street are not an indication that construction is pending, a company spokeswoman said.
“Nothing is final,†said Cyndy Garza Roberts. “The real estate division is working with architects.†. . .
There is no start date and no project particulars to share, she added. . . . most tenants vacated the property in May.
Buffalo Grille and Buffalo Pharmacy, however, will remain in business at the site during construction.
Hey, if you’ve got a copy of these renderings, why not share them with Swamplot, so we can all ignore them together?
After the jump: An aerial view of the site!
