08/13/13 3:30pm

Here’s a pair of renderings of 4 new townhomes about to be built in the Fourth Ward. The site is 2 blocks south of W. Gray, near those side-by-side lots where that 5-story apartment complex Dolce Living has been proposed to go in beside a row of vacant shotgun houses.

If you look closely at these renderings, you can see at least one more remnant of the past: The remains of the brick storefront of a dry cleaner’s that opened here on the corner of Genesee and W. Webster in the 1930s; it appears that what was the store’s main entrance has been incorporated into the design and widened into a 1-car garage. Says Tim Cisneros, whose firm worked on the townhomes: “[The storefront is] being left as a part of the neighborhood ‘commercial archeology.’”

Renderings: Cisneros Design Studio

08/12/13 1:05pm

In the earlier waves of West U’s great residential reboot, before the 21st Century stucco surge, ruddy brick finished out a fair amount of the city’s new housing. The townhomes of Rutgers Place, for example, worked bricks, bricks, and more bricks into the development’s exteriors, fencing, and patios. An oft-updated corner unit in that street-straddling enclave, which dates from 1981, popped up on the market last week. Asking price: $484,500 — plus a $120 monthly maintenance fee.

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08/06/13 2:00pm

With the nearby bridges over the Southwest Fwy. slated for re-lighting, a softly glowing 2008 Vassar Court townhome could be facing some illuminary competition down the line. The front-loading property rises 3 stories along a block of older properties, adjacent to a crook in the one-way street, which travels west and ends at Hazard St., by the bridge. The residence may be 5 years old, but apparently it’s only been gently occupied: The 4-day-old listing describes it as a rarely-used second home for its art-collector owners. Price tag: $849,000.

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07/26/13 10:00am

Yeah, this old one is a goner: A rep from the city says that a variance application to reduce the building setback has been approved for this corner in Museum Park, making just enough room on the 8,100-sq.-ft. lot at Jackson and Blodgett so 4 townhomes can squeeze on in. The peach-trimmed, converted-into-apartments building at 1702 Blodgett St., catty-corner from the art gallery that opened in the strip center, was in the Daily Demolition Report this morning. County records show that the doomed 4,220-sq.-ft. building dates to 1935.

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07/16/13 4:00pm

Among the townhome clusters built off Newcastle back in the eighties is this full-of-shutters one with front-loading driveway on one of the development’s interior, double-ended cul-de-sacs. Zoned to Bellaire schools, the 1981 property popped up on the market last week with a list price of $325,000.

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07/11/13 4:45pm

It looks like these 4-story townhouses are filling out a bit here on the corner of E. 2nd and Heights Blvd., where in late April their stick-frame precursors fell over in a wind-aided collapse. Fortunately, no one was hurt, though the garage doors of several finished and already occupied neighboring units were damaged. Keystone Classic Homes is the builder of this 8-pack located just south of White Oak Bayou.

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06/27/13 3:45pm

A tilted 2-story skylight provides a star-command view within a 1970 townhome just behind West Ave. The area was dubbed the Upper Kirby District decades after this home and 4 related properties appeared on their stretch of block north of W. Alabama in the antique-shop-and-eatery hinterlands east of Lamar High School. The group of townhomes have varying facades of stucco, glass brick, timber and awnings, each over a 2-car garage. This home, slightly taller than its brethren, counters its contemporary origins with Old World-y flourishes. It was listed the first week of June, for $469,000.

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