Tag: West End

Landscape
06/06/11 10:18pm

The Campaign for Houston’s Vacant Real Estate: Who Will Win the Empty Lot Primary?

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Signs
4 Comments

Ever wonder what’s behind all the political endorsements made by so many vacant lots in Houston? Why is it that the weedy site shown above at the corner of Heights Blvd. and Center St., near the future West End Walmart, for example, appears to be supporting Jenifer Rene Pool in her bid for an at-large city council seat? Among the empty lots of Washington Ave, there seems to be a lot of support for another candidate for the same position, Eric Dick. What’s up with that? Political consultant Greg Wythe, who’s long studied the demographics and political opinions of Harris County’s human population, has begun a new website devoted to exploring the campaign preferences of Houston’s vacant properties — as expressed by the various signs and banners they’re regularly festooned with.

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Art
01/18/11 12:12pm

Here’s Your Next Big Freeway Sign, Houston

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Public Art, Signs, West End
78 Comments

Sculptor David Adickes is almost ready to plant this giant concrete-on-steel sign on property he owns along Chester St. on the south side of I-10, just east of Patterson. You’ll be able to get your best view of it when traffic comes to a standstill on your way downtown. Just needs a few more finishing touches, like a figurine or 2 or 8 to accompany that little guitar player hanging out between the O and the U. And hey, you’re right! If the Hollywood sign were 15 feet shorter, came down from the hillside, grew an ego, and stood by the freeway, it would kinda look like this.

Photo: Imelda Bettinger [license]

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Development Strategies
10/08/10 12:37pm

Unbagged Cats and Other Secrets of the West End Walmart Emails

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Proposed Developments, West End
57 Comments

Among the revelations in the packet of emails reporter Miya Shay recently received in response to a 3-month-old public-records request: City officials learned from Ainbinder Company as early as June 11th that the big-box store indicated on plans for the company’s Washington Heights shopping center in the West End would be a Walmart. Swamplot readers first heard reports of the company’s plans on July 1st. But as late as July 13th, the city development director’s deputy apparently felt it necessary to ward his boss off plans to keep the details or intentions behind the city’s infrastructure-improvement agreement with Ainbinder a secret: Tim Douglass writes development director Andy Icken, “Frankly, it’s a little too late to try and ‘sneak’ this through council. The cat is out of the bag.”

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Development Strategies
09/22/10 10:54am

West End Walmart Development 380 Agreement Gets City Council OK

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink, West End
60 Comments

WEST END WALMART DEVELOPMENT 380 AGREEMENT GETS CITY COUNCIL OK As expected, city council this morning approved a program of reimbursements to Ainbinder Company for improvements to public areas related to its Washington Heights Walmart-plus-strip-centers development in the West End. The vote, 11-4, came after amendments were approved limiting taxpayer costs to $6,050,000. The improvements will include wider sidewalks and bigger trees along Yale and Heights than required minimums, drainage and reconstruction of several nearby streets, and a jogging path along the Heights Blvd. esplanade south of I-10. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]

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Nightlife
09/13/10 1:41pm

With Fox Hollow, the Washington Corridor Gastro Zone Moves North

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Washington Corridor, West End
5 Comments

This 1960-vintage warehouse on the corner of Nett and Parker, a couple blocks north of Washington Ave, is the latest project of Augustine Bui and Jornell Aveledo, 2 of the original creators and operators of Midtown’s Bond Lounge. Still under construction, it’s scheduled to open October 6th as Fox Hollow, a gastro lounge featuring cocktails in vintage stemware, “locally-sourced, organic dishes” on antique plates, second-hand outfits for the waitstaff and bartenders, plus a buildout that makes use of sheet metal and other materials the owners found in the space during construction. What second-hand goods they couldn’t find on-site they imported: door frames from Paris, stained-glass windows. That “used” theme sounds appropriate for a place directly across the street from Nox Bar.

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Proposed Developments
09/03/10 11:32am

West End Walmart Development Gets Its Koehler St. Jog

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Quicklink, Streets, Traffic, West End
6 Comments

WEST END WALMART DEVELOPMENT GETS ITS KOEHLER ST. JOG Despite the protests of a number of speakers — including council member Ed Gonzalez — who wanted some study of neighborhood traffic to be conducted first, the planning commission yesterday approved a minor variance connected with the West End Walmart yesterday, after 2 earlier postponements. The variance allows Koehler St. to be extended from Yale St. to Heights Blvd., even though the resulting street alignment doesn’t meet city development standards. [HTV; previously on Swamplot]

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Comments
09/02/10 1:53pm

Comment of the Day: We’re All Intruders Here

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Development Strategies, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Redevelopment, Retail, Townhomes, West End
3 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WE’RE ALL INTRUDERS HERE “Now, if I lived next to it . . . I would be vocally opposing it based on its proximity to me, but I have to say, those of you living near its proposed location were on the WalMart end not too long ago, changing the quality of life for many of your neighbors with your big stucco three and four story homes going in next to small bungalows. So, while you are throwing stones, you might want to consider that in the not so distant past those stones were being thrown at you.” [EMME, commenting on Y’All Can Discuss the West End Walmart on Your Own]

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Buying and Selling
09/02/10 1:08pm

Available Soon: More Front Row Seats for the West End Walmart

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Proposed Developments, Townhomes, West End
25 Comments

Liking the views you’ve seen of the new Walmart coming to the former Trinity Industries steel fabrication property at Yale and Koehler in the West End? Well, one of them could be yours! A few more of those front-row townhouses lining the property’s southern edge will soon be available, reports 11 News reporter Shern-Min Chow.

“Sitting on the couch to the fence line is roughly 55 feet,” brags Anne Marie Leahey, who says she’ll be selling her 1,167-sq.-ft. townhome on Center Plaza Dr. soon. Chow sounds impressed:

Her home is beautiful. The inside is stunning. As she pulled the bay window curtains back, it was clear the view outside would also be eye-catching. Her home looks out directly onto the site of the new Walmart.

Leahey, a Bonner Street Homeowners Association board member, was already thinking about moving before she heard of the new development, but has since decided to relinquish her home now instead of waiting. That’ll give some more dedicated Walmart fan a chance to enjoy the complete construction process from close range. She tells Chow she regularly gets calls from neighbors asking her if they should move, too.

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Neighborhood Disputes
09/01/10 1:54pm

Y’All Can Discuss the West End Walmart on Your Own

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Retail, West End
36 Comments

Y’ALL CAN DISCUSS THE WEST END WALMART ON YOUR OWN Missed all the fun at last week’s big celebration of Walmart’s impending arrival in the Inner Loop? Two ways you can still get in on the action: Mayor Parker’s office has posted videos of the presentations given by the mayor and chief development officer Andy Icken at the gathering. And a second public meeting is scheduled for tonight, at a venue guaranteed to keep things orderly — The High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. But the folks from Ainbinder and Walmart won’t be around this time, according to the mayor, who’s announced the meeting “will focus solely on areas of the development that are under the city’s control.” [CitizensNet via Off the Kuff; previously on Swamplot]

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Commercial Real Estate
08/26/10 3:52pm

The New Strip Centers Coming to Heights Blvd. and Other Details of the Washington Heights District West End Walmart Plan

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Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Retail, West End
83 Comments

At last night’s meeting, representatives of the Ainbinder Company revealed the suburban-style site plan for the development centered around Yale and Koehler streets in the West End they’re calling the Washington Heights District. Among the plan’s notable features: 2 bank- or chain-restaurant-style pad sites planted on the west side of Yale St. just south of Koehler, and a couple new strip centers along Heights Blvd., each featuring a double row of parking spaces in front. A rendering of the southmost strip (above) shows it changing facade costume every few bays, following the template of a sort of mini-Wild, Wild West version of Uptown Park. These new buildings would become only the 5th and 6th strip centers on the almost-3-mile length of Heights Blvd., joining such exclusive company as the Heights Food Mart north of Center St., the cell-phone-friendly Heights Retail Center at I-10, the Pink’s Pizza and Sunny’s Food Store combo at 14th St., and that just-in-from-Austin building at 6th St. that used to house McCain’s Market — in easy-auto-access splendor.

One change from the version of the site plan leaked last month: 2 other strip centers in the project — both on Yale St. south of the main Walmart driveway — have been moved up to the street and their parking placed in back. Well, maybe the back: It isn’t clear from the renderings, but it’s likely the store entrances will move to the Walmart side as well, turning away from Yale. The development’s 5th strip center offers parking-lot views to all 3 streets it faces: Heights, Koehler, and Yale.

But the Washington Heights District promises to be so much more than just a symphony of Inner Loop strip centers. There’s also . . . the Walmart!

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Development Strategies
08/26/10 7:15am

Seeing Red at the West End Walmart Public Meeting

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Neighborhood Disputes, West End
37 Comments

A few highlights from last night’s meet-and-jeer on the third floor of the George R. Brown Convention Center Downtown, where representatives of Walmart, Ainbinder, and the city gave presentations on the Walmart and related retail developments proposed for the area around Yale and Koehler streets in the West End:

  • Mayor Parker announced she had originally hoped to hold the meeting at the United Way building at 50 Waugh St. in Memorial Heights, but the nonprofit turned her down — probably because of concerns it might get “rowdy,” she joked. But the night’s meeting format seemed designed to keep public outbursts to a minimum: After the presentations, attendees were asked to break up into smaller groups and gather around tables in the back to get their questions answered, one by one, from city officials or developer representatives. Before attendees could be dispersed, though, a few people managed to work their way to a microphone and ask questions or make statements in front of the entire room.
  • A significant percentage of the crowd wore “I don’t want that Walmart” red shirts. It wasn’t clear what portion of the less-vibrantly-dressed people there supported the development, but during his presentation Walmart senior VP Jeff McAllister did announce that many of the company’s suppliers were in attendance.

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Neighborhood Disputes
08/25/10 2:56pm

Purty Drawings of the New West End Walmart

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Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Retail, West End
53 Comments

Just ahead of tonight’s meeting, Ainbinder Company has released the requisite mostly-empty-parking-lot and pedestrians-standing-in-a-median renderings of the Walmart the company is hoping to seat off Koehler and Yale in the West End. The renderings come from a 5-page brochure for the company’s Washington Heights development that includes an aerial view and plenty of lovely images documenting the site’s industrial recent past, going so far as to call the former Trinity Industries plant on the site — where beams, columns, and other structures were fabricated from supplied raw materials — a “steel mill.” But no official (or updated) site plans for the current proposal are included.

Here’s a view of how the Walmart might look in the early dawn, as you drive up:

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Development Strategies
08/24/10 6:09pm

More Than a Collection of Red Shirts and Blue Shirts

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Neighborhood Disputes, Quicklink, Retail, West End
61 Comments

MORE THAN A COLLECTION OF RED SHIRTS AND BLUE SHIRTS Hearing the news that Mayor Parker will be hosting a public meeting Wednesday evening at Downtown’s George R. Brown Convention Center to answer questions about Ainbinder’s Walmart & friends development targeted for a 24-acre property near the intersection of Yale and Koehler streets in the West End (just south of the Heights), the folks behind the Stop Heights Walmart website have come up with an interesting plan: Urge opponents of the discount chain’s first foray into Houston’s Inner Loop to attend the meeting wearing red shirts. Notably, that’s the daily uniform of the hundreds of thousands of “team members” who work for discount rival Target. One Walmart opponent noted on the group’s Facebook page that red shirts are available for low prices at Walgreens. “Please don’t buy them at Walmart :) Given, right?” asked another commenter. A few representatives of Ainbinder and Walmart itself will be on hand at the meeting, wearing blue vests and greeting visitors at the door. [Stop Heights Walmart; previously on Swamplot] Photos: Rufus Quail; Alice Wright

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Development Strategies
08/20/10 4:17pm

West End Walmart Developer Promises More Browns and Greens

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Proposed Developments, Restaurants, Retail, West End
22 Comments

Ainbinder Company president Bart Duckworth says he’s hoping to unveil plans to “community leaders” next week for the firm’s 23-acre development at Yale and Koehler in the West End — which the company is calling Washington Heights. But it sounds like they’ll look at least something like what we’ve already seen. Some details: The exterior of the Walmart the company wants to plant on 15 acres of that development will “feature more browns and show an effort to break up the stark ‘big box’ look with architectural detailing,” writes real estate promoter Ralph Bivins, who the company invited to look at the plans. Duckworth tells Bivins the Walmart’s large parking lot and store front will have tree plantings that “exceed the norm.”

The project’s leasing broker tells Bivins he wants “chef-driven restaurants, local boutiques and non-chain outlets” to occupy the new retail spaces on Yale and Heights Blvd., which he views as an extension to recent developments along Washington Ave.

Duckworth also describes portions of the “380” agreement his company has been trying to negotiate with the city:

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Comments
08/19/10 2:57pm

Comment of the Day: West End Walmart in Detention

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Flooding, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Redevelopment, West End
2 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WEST END WALMART IN DETENTION “. . . The only negative to the city to me has to deal with drainage. The developer (under current city policy) can claim the site was previously developed which means no storm water detention needs to be provided for the tract. The mayor and several other local groups believe that all new large scale development should provide detention regardless of the previous conditions of the site. It’s not an easy policy change to implement even in the strictest of regulatory environments.” [kjb434, commenting on In the Mail: Walmart Gets Its Game on for Central Houston]

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