02/14/08 2:19pm

Rendering of The Fairmont on San Felipe, Houston

It looks like our earlier report about the Fairmont at San Felipe — the strip-center-apartment combo planned for the southeast corner of San Felipe and Winrock — was wrong. Judging from this new rendering of the complex, it sure looks like those apartments will actually be stacked directly on top of the retail spaces, forming a lovely parking-lot-courtyard tableau!

Permits for construction of the apartments were just approved by the city. After the jump: closeups, plus the plan that led us astray.

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12/13/07 3:01pm

Heights Village Parking Lot on Yale St., Houston Heights

Looks like a lot of pedestrian action going on in these marketing drawings for Orr Commercial’s new Heights Village, a five-acre restaurant, retail, office, and “upscale housing” development slated for the current site of the Sons of Hermann hall just south of I-10, between Heights Blvd. and Yale St. and an adjacent parcel abutting railroad tracks to the south.

Why, with all those people in the drawings walking to and fro, it looks like this development will have all the charm of a small old-town Main Street . . . or at the very least all the charm of an old small town that decided to build a multi-level parking garage, but still turned its Main Street into a parking lot anyway, just to hedge its bets.

After the jump: more parking-lot pedestrians!

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12/05/07 12:23pm

Site Plan of The Fairmont on San Felipe, Houston

Sure, there’s Post Properties, the Sonoma in the Rice Village and all those tired old buildings downtown, but most Houston developers won’t put apartments on top of retail unless they’re dragged kicking and screaming. And really, the idea of living next to a strip center evokes a much warmer, more folksy feeling. Isn’t that what Houston is all about?

The latest: The Fairmont on San Felipe, on the southeast corner of San Felipe and Winrock. A couple of apartment courtyards, connected by a central garage, behind two strips ready for 41,500 square feet of retail. It’s now under construction, on the site of the old Regency Arms apartments, which burned last year after it had already been vacated for demolition.

Update, 2/14/08: Looks like they have been dragged!

11/15/07 11:36am

New Shopping Center at the Northeast Corner of I-45 South and Wayside, Houston

The Lenny’s Sub Shops continue their Houston conquest. The franchise is now up to seventeen stores, with eleven opening soon, including one in this new shopping center about to begin construction on the Gulf Freeway feeder just north of Wayside. That’s almost a third of the way to the company’s goal!

The I-45 (northbound) and Wayside property developer is Bobby Orr, who complained to the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff about the glut of suburban strip centers back in June: “We’re going urban,” he said. And really, the Orr Commercial properties are all over the map. But don’t be fooled by the side-of-the-freeway location and strip-center layout on this one: Luring hungry drivers out of inner-loop freeway traffic jams is an important part of Houston’s urban spirit.

11/09/07 11:33am

Super Happy Fun Land on Ashland St. in the Heights

Houstonist reports that performance, concert, art, party, and . . . uh, barbecue venue Super Happy Fun Land is being kicked out of its brightly painted Heights bungalow:

Their current building (2610 Ashland St.) has been sold in order to make room for more condominiums, which some apparently delusional real estate-type creature has decided our fair city is lacking.

The last concert in that location will be at the end of January. Sure, it’s the end of an era, but it’s not as though the place is shutting down. Surely the club’s owners will be able to find a nice spot in a new strip center somewhere nearby.

Photo: Flickr user Shitface1000

10/30/07 2:51pm

CEO David Wu told the Houston Business Journal last year, “It’s the sort of thing you’d see in Taiwan or Hong Kong, but we’re putting it here in the U.S.”

That’s a good description of Park 8: The Land of Oz. Here’s another one, from the project website:

The Park8 is carefully designed over and over again, improving to its perfect design today. More important, it nicely put urban life and nature together with equal force. With it’s high quality exterior finish, and it’s splendidly designed floor plans, the Land of Oz emphasis on unrestrained openness and convenience. Every penny is well worth for its consideration on security and safety issues, recreational areas, leisure activity clubhouses and beautiful landscaping design.

Wow.

How about a third try: three 26-story condo towers and a couple of parking garages on 17 acres next to Beltway 8, south of Bellaire Blvd., bounded by Arthur Storey Park on one side and parking lots for two two-story retail strips on the other. Also part of the project, but not shown on the plans: a new Chinatown General Hospital.

The first phase is under construction. And condos are for sale! All come with good Feng Shui and karaoke, courtesy of the 3CmyBox included in every unit. If you like the project video above, you’re going to love the development’s website, which includes a “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” soundtrack and prominently features six videos for the feature-packed 3CmyBox in the Photo Gallery section.

The project’s tagline:

A union of Western an Chinese Culture. A combination of fantasy and reality.

After the jump, off to see the Wizard!

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10/29/07 10:02am

Tuscan Villaggio Shopping Center in Tuscan Lakes

There’s so much of that Tuscan charm in Houston, sometimes it’s hard to keep the new developments straight. Maybe this will help:

Villagio, you’ll remember, is the “boutique life-style center” opening in Cinco Ranch, but also planned for the Woodlands and north Austin, and later . . . Round Rock, San Marcos, New Braunfels, and Dallas. Tuscan Villaggio, on the other hand, is the 30,000-square-foot Tuscan strip planned for the corner of League City Parkway and Tuscan Lakes Boulevard. It’s pictured above, and planned for only 15 tenants. The first phase will open next year adjacent to Tuscan Lakes, the 840-acre uh, Tuscan development in League City also developed by Johnson Development Corp.

Villagio in Cinco Ranch has Bookworm and Network Funding Mortgage. But you’ll be able to identify Tuscan Villaggio because a new 31,310-square-foot Tuscan-themed Kiddie Academy will be nearby.

Got it? Which one more convincingly conveys that authentic feeling of historic Italian drive-up retail?

Drawing of Tuscan Villaggio: Slattery Tackett Architects

10/25/07 8:00am

Kirby Old Spanish Trail Apartments

Isn’t mixed use great? On Old Spanish Trail at Kirby, where Target and Garden Ridge used to be, Simmons Vedder is ready to go with this exciting version of a retail-and-residences mix. They company is leasing the land back from the Texas General Land Office.

Yes, that’s three stories of apartments above a brand new strip center facing O.S.T. No need for fake towers at the corners on this one!

Residents won’t have far to travel for shopping: just walk to your car in the seven-level garage, then pull out and park in front!

Not pictured: the drug store with drive-thru next door. See the full site plan after the jump.

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10/22/07 8:02am

Firewheel Village Shopping Center, Garland, Texas

Worried that all those big-money real-estate investors have turned the Texas landscape into an unending sprawl of soulless shopping centers populated by the same boring chain stores?

Well, worry no longer! That’s right: Now even small investors can get in on the act!

As of this month, a new company called Nexregen will let even grumpy, middle-income sprawl curmudgeons put their money where their mouth is—by investing in shopping centers, strip malls, and other commercial real estate with as little as $2500.

For now, the options are limited: Nexregen is for Texas investors only, and there’s only one property available so far: the 14.5-acre, 148,870-square-foot Firewheel Village Shopping Center in the sprawling Dallas satellite of Garland, Texas, pictured above.

Yes, it’s a REIT, but you’re investing in a single property at a time. And that’s a pretty small minimum investment. If you think Houstonians aren’t proud enough of their commercial strips—or that there aren’t enough of them—just wait until Nexregen sells property here!

05/07/07 9:42am

Lenny’s Sub ShopNever heard of Lenny’s Sub Shops? That may soon change. The company is leasing space for six new stores:

Doesn’t sound like enough? There are more on the horizon. The company is planning to open 90 new shops in Houston strip centers. You can see how quickly a Philadelphia-style sub shop from Tennessee, founded by a former Chick-Fil-A and Olive Garden executive from New Jersey can become a Houston strip-center mainstay.

After the jump, behind-the-scenes photos of distinctive Lenny’s interiors!

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