Well, that was quick: This bygone apartment complex from the 1950s at 4118 Center St. — which you might recognize from this morning’s Daily Demolition Report — has come down. What was the rush? To make way for Allen Trace, apparently: Last Thursday, the city planning commission approved an application to divide the not-quite-half-an-acre West End property into 10 parcels for single-family townhomes.
A reader sends more photos of the cleansing of the palate:
First things first: A sign off Hwy. 6 welcoming you to Imperial Sugar Land is so far the only part of the 716-acre master-planned community that’s under construction, touts a press release from the end of March. Up next? Starting this summer, adds the press release, something like the spout-centered roundabout shown here and a 254-unit apartment complex will begin going up around the minor-league Skeeters’ Constellation Field in the so-called Ball Park District. Plans show that that district will be flanked by a mix of uses:
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: WHAT’S COMING TO EAST DOWNTOWN “It’s been a pretty slow three years for east downtown townhome development, but it looks like things are coming back to life. While townhomes are about the least interest type of residential development I can think of, modest numbers of buyers willing to spend 250-350k is nothing to sneeze at, and it’s what retailers need to kick east downtown into the next phase.” [JD, commenting on Signs of Townhomes Coming to Polk St. in East Downtown]
Most of this East Downtown property, according to city records, was purchased in November 2012 by CitySide Homes; signs recently posted here suggest that the contemporary townhome’s eastward expansion will continue to continue — this site is just 5 blocks from where Urban Living says it’s building around that leaning Leeland St. live oak — on these 2 purchased parcels between Polk, Clay, Nagle, and Delano that add up to a little more than an acre.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HIDING OUT ON THE TOP FLOOR OF A 4-STORY TOWNHOUSE “I’d hate to be the parents of the kid in bedroom #3, having to run up stairs to check on him. Do you have any idea how much mischief a teenager in a place like that could get in? I once had a bedroom like that as a kid, and it was awesome.” [Roy, commenting on Some Happy Guerilla Architectural Disagreement in Montrose, Ya’ll]
Quite a few of you have sent in similar photos of this befaced sign at Hyde Park and Waugh for Urban Living’s proposed Hyde Park Maison — that’s French for a 4-story, 3-bedroom townhouse. According to the development company’s website there will be five such maisons, ranging from $589,000 to $689,000, squeezed onto the corner lot bound by Waugh, Hyde Park, Fairview, and Upas, just north of Westheimer. Want to see them without the commentary?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER “I know it is not at all related to the willowick project above, but I’ve got a ‘good’ story about this type townhome. A friend of mine’s folks own one out in the Kirkwood and I-10 area. They are ex-pats and live outside the US 10+ mo a year, so it stays empty or is used by family in town. So cousins show up to use it for a few days and find all the kitchen cabinets all open, the doors won’t close, and cracks in all the walls. The old lady two doors down decided to have her foundation done. The problem is she shares that foundation with a few homes. She didn’t mention it to anyone and well, the rest is history. Still waiting to see how they clean that one up. Also surprised that a foundation company would do the work in the first place.” [MH005, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Bus Stop Stop]
Arquitectonica’s row of contemporary townhomes has punched up a mixed-residential block in the Museum District since 1986. Remodeled in 2004, this tower-tipped end unit’s natural lighting gets a boost from a tented skylight in the roofline ridge (at right), framed-in-color glass brick accents, and expanded east-facing windows on two levels.
The property popped onto the market Tuesday, priced at $446,000. It’s been for sale before, with no luck — most recently a little more than a year ago. Back in February 2010, under a different broker from the same agency, it sported an asking price of $650,000; several reductions and 18 months later, the listing expired last September at $495,000.
KNOCKING THE TREES AROUND PEGGY SHIFFICK PARK 
The duplex at 720 Bomar St. adjacent to East Montrose’s tiny Peggy Shiffick Park is back on the market, a week and a half after its prospective purchaser, developer Vinod Ramani of Urban Living, scaled back his plans to build 3 townhomes on the site (pictured at left) to just 2, and just a few days after backing out of the deal altogether. Some neighbors concerned the planned 3-1/2-story townhomes would clip a large portion of the branches and roots of the park’s signature oak tree had opposed 2 variance requests Ramani had submitted for the project. In the meantime, both Urban Living and neighborhood groups were alarmed to discover that city-contracted workers had severed the main roots of large trees on the property at the corner of Bomar and Crocker earlier this month while installing sewer-line connections. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Image: Urban Living
The 8-plex at 4725 Oakshire went down in a cloud of dust last week. “Bummer,” writes Jared Meadors, the landlord next door who bought and renovated the largely identical building at 4719 Oakshire 10 years ago. And who claims he “would have totally paid more than lot value for these and restored them as I did the units at 4719” if he’d had the chance. Meadors’s pinkish brick building to the west of the cleared lot is visible at the left of this photo:
What’s going to replace the Willowick Court Townhomes (at right) at the corner of West Alabama and Las Palmas, west of Weslayan? Newer townhomes — at least for the strip along the west side of Las Palmas, on the western edge of the property. It’ll be covered with 38 3-story townhomes, about a dozen of them with rooftop patios. For the larger portion of the 11-acre site, Martin Fein Interests is planning 2 big blocks of apartments. The block pictured above from West Alabama will have 325 units in 6 stories on top of a 2-level parking garage, with a garden and pool in the courtyard and towers at the corners. Another 188-unit block lining West Main will have 7 stories on top of a single-level garage and feature an 8th-floor wine bar on the southeast corner (at left in the above image), a source tells Swamplot. The view below shows that building’s southeast corner, with the larger structure visible beyond it:
