Tag: Uptown

Galleria, Highrises, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment

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Hanover Company 37-Story Apartment Tower at BLVD Place, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz Today’s Chronicle has details on that apartment tower the Hanover Company has been planning for Boulevard Place, Ed Wulfe’s Post Oak redevelopment just north of the Galleria. Doing the math, your average 1,650-sq.-ft. apartment in the glass tower will rent for more than $4,000 a month.

That’s before it goes condo, of course.

At 37 stories, the 236-unit Hanover tower may end up even taller than the slender Ritz-Carlton planned directly to the south.

More info from Nancy Sarnoff:

Solomon Cordwell Buenz of Chicago is designing the building, which will have “boutique hotel style” amenities, including a concierge and bellman, as well as a lounge and catering kitchen.

A 19,000-square-foot rooftop pool terrace will be atop an attached parking garage.

The units will be similar to those in 7 Riverway, another Hanover project in the area. They will include stainless steel appliances, granite slab countertops, crown molding, hardwood floors and travertine tile, but will be larger and have additional features and amenities.

Hanover chose to design the building with larger units because it said there was considerable demand at 7 Riverway for oversized kitchens and living spaces.

After the jump: Where it’s going to land!

77056, BLVD Place, Condos, Development Strategy, Galleria, Highrises, Parks, Proposed Developments, Uptown

05/01/08 10:56am

That Nineties Retro Tower Coming to the West Loop

Development Strategy, Galleria, Green Design and Development, Highrises, Houston Architects, New Construction, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

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Proposed Office Tower at 1600 West Loop South, Uptown, Houston

From Ziegler Cooper Architects’ website: Renderings of a 20-story office tower the firm designed back in the early 1990s.

As we reported in February, the Novati Group plans to build the 500,000-square-foot spec tower, along with an 8-level parking garage, at 1600 West Loop South — next to Post Oak Motor Cars, on land purchased from Landry’s. The only changes from the original design will be adjustments so the building can qualify for LEED Silver certification.

So what if the design is old? Worrying that your brand new building already looks dated is so . . . last decade!

After the jump: the marble in the lobby will be old, too!

77027, Development Strategy, Galleria, Green Design, Highrises, Houston Architects, New Construction, Office Buildings, Office Space, Proposed Developments, Uptown

Galleria

04/02/08 8:17am

Rove Through Houston, Appreciating Europe

Hotels, Restaurants

Karl Rove(?) in the Lobby of the Hotel Granduca, Houston

So a lot of Houstonians don’t really get the Hotel Granduca. Who does? During a recent visit, the proprietor of Houston restaurant blog Tasty Bits came up with one answer:

I was always curious about the people who pay $1,300 a night for a hotel suite in Houston. Who are they? What do they eat? I got my answer as soon as I arrived and saw Karl Rove waiting to get picked up in the lobby (sulfur, smoke, instant drop in temperature, and all). For a split second I thought about inviting him to join us for lunch. Itâ€™s not often you are in the presence of one of the more diabolical political minds of our generation.

Tasty Bits has more juicy commentary on the hotel:

Entering Hotel Granduca is a little like following the rabbit hole – just beyond the iron gates and right past the horse mounted statue of Adalberto Malatesta Granduca of Monfallito (?) is a different world than one might find in otherwise sensible Houston.

After the jump: What’s down that rabbit hole! Plus: tasteful commentary on lunch at the hotel’s Ristorante Cavour.

77056, Galleria, Hotels, Restaurants, Theming, Uptown, Uptown Park

Apartments

03/28/08 11:34am

Borlenghi: Houstonians Unclear on the European Concept

Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Galleria, Hotels, Mixed Use, Parking, Real Estate Marketing, Retail, Shopping Centers

Arturoâ€™s Uptown Italiano Restaurant in Uptown Park, Houston

Interfin Companies president Giorgio Borlenghi, who developed Uptown Park and the Hotel Granduca, explains how it’s done:

. . . developers must not forget the principles we Houstonians like so much such as ease of access to the various components of the building and plentiful and readily available parking. As an example, when we planned Uptown Park, we decided to keep it exclusively retail to allow our patrons to park directly in front of the shops and restaurants without having to deal with multistory parking structures.

Keeping Uptown Park “exclusively retail,” of course, meant that his luxury hotel had to go across the street:

I created Hotel Granduca as a unique, elegant and extremely exclusive boutique hotel for the Uptown/Galleria area. I wanted it to be very different from all the other hotels: It had to feel very Italian, of course, and to have a true residential setting, so that it could be someone’s home away from home. What surprises me is that a number of people in Houston are still not understanding this very European concept and somehow think that Granduca is not a regular hotel, but some type of apartment building.

Face to Face with… [Houston Business Journal]
Hotel Granduca

Photo of Arturo’s Uptown Italiano restaurant in Uptown Park: Flickr user heyjebbo

77056, Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, Galleria, Hotels, Mixed Use, Parking, Parking-Garages, Real Estate Marketing, Retail, Shopping Centers, Uptown, Uptown Park

02/26/08 4:31pm

New West Loop Tower: Keeping the Uptown Office Market Up to Date

Development Strategy, Galleria, Green Design and Development, Highrises, Houston Architects, New Construction, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

According to a report by Jennifer Dawson in the Houston Business Journal,, the first new spec office building built in the Galleria area in more than 25 years will be . . . a 20-story tower that was designed 15 years ago!

In the early 1990s, [Novati Group CEO Ken] Moczulski ran Transworld Properties, a developer of office, industrial and multifamily properties. Transworld owned the land at 1600 West Loop South at that time, and commissioned Ziegler Cooper Architects to design an office for the site.

“We had planned a building,” recalls Moczulski. “It was all designed.”

The economy turned south, he says, so the facility did not get built. . . .

Last year, Novati co-founders Moczulski and Fernando De LeÃ³n start looking in the Galleria area for an office development site. Moczulski approached Landry’s about buying the West Loop land because, as in the 1990s, he still thinks the location and high visibility make it a good site for an office building.

To top it off, Novati is saving months of development time by dusting off the original plans from Ziegler Cooper. The only design changes needed are those to make the 475,000-square-foot structure eligible for certification as a green building.

Hey, maybe it’s one of those towers that kinda looks like a tall glass cylinder is bulging out from the center? That was a hot nineties look, wasn’t it?

Building fills West Loop bill [Houston Business Journal]
New 20 Story Tower on West Loop [HAIF]

77027, Development Strategy, Galleria, Green Design, Highrises, Houston Architects, New Construction, Office Buildings, Office Space, Proposed Developments, Uptown

02/26/08 8:36am

Whole Foods, Fast Foods, and the Titan

Condos, Development Strategy, Galleria, Highrises, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Restaurants, Retail

Still from Video of The Titan, Randall Davisâ€™s Proposed Condo Tower on Post Oak Blvd., Uptown, Houston

If you’re looking for clues to help you figure out what the McDonald’s on Post Oak is gonna look like when it gets rebuilt, the flashy new website for the Titan doesn’t help much. There’s a video that shows Randall Davis’s latest theme-heavy condo tower from all sorts of dramatic angles, but it never answers the question most of us have been asking since the project was announced last fall: How, exactly, is the drive-thru gonna fit next door?

Davis told the Houston Business Journal last September that the new McDonald’s would be a “long, skinny building” facing Post Oak, between the Titan and the new Alexan Post Oak apartments directly to the north. In the new video, though, there are no Golden Arches, and camera angles artfully block the most direct views of that portion of the building site.

There’s no mention of the McDonald’s on the Titan website. There is, however, a welcome second confirmation that another fine food establishment will be built down the street at Boulevard Place:

A newly planned Whole Foods Market, only half a block away, places hard to find gourmet items at your fingertips.

Okay, so it’s just advertising copy. But it’s recent!

After the jump, more views of the Titan — none of which show where the real Big Macs are gonna live.

77056, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Development Strategy, Fast Food, Galleria, Highrises, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Randall Davis, Restaurants, Retail, Titan, Uptown, Whole Foods

Condos

02/21/08 4:48pm

The Titan: Uptown Theme Blender

Galleria, Highrises, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing

Penthouse View, Randall Davisâ€™s Proposed Titan Condo Highrise, Post Oak Blvd., Uptown Houston

All the condos in Randall Davis’s new Titan condo tower on Post Oak will be named after . . . industry titans! Get it? On the 18th floor, for example, you’ll have units named after J. Paul Getty, Coco Chanel, Pablo Picasso, and . . . Bill Gates! Now that’s a party. Floor 14? More people of brilliance, though a few of them might not actually get along so well with each other: Frank Sinatra, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Rudolph Valentino, Steven Spielberg. Isn’t that clever?

It gets better: The Brin/Page is . . . a two-bedroom! Strangely, the Buffet has a Kitchen and Dining Room that are separated from the rest of the unit’s living space. And the three-bedroom penthouse named after Mies van der Rohe — whose neighbors are of course Rupert Murdoch and Neil Armstrong — has a Great Room with a curved wall in it, and is connected to the Entry Foyer by a long hallway.

One unit on floors 23 and 24 is simply named The Titan. But there’s no reason for Randall Davis to be so bashful — he really ought to go ahead and name it after himself. Is there anyone else in Houston who even comes close to his stature in the themed-condo market?

The Titan is a break from Davis’s earlier projects, though — because it seems to have so many different themes! Put all those architects, movie stars, musicians, Silicon Valley insiders, oilmen, and suicidal novelists together in a tower styled vaguely like a comic-book rocketship, add in Michelangelo’s sculpture of David as the naked brochure-and-website coverboy, and you’ve got the Titan’s winning marketing formula! A bit confused? Sure. But if anyone can mix all this stuff up and make it work, it’s Randall Davis.

After the jump, floorplans that prove what we all know already: Designing a great building is just like planning a great dinner party that includes a few famous dead people!

77056, Condos, Galleria, Highrises, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Randall Davis, Real Estate Marketing, Theming, Titan, Uptown

02/21/08 10:34am

Uptown Whole Foods: Still on Track, Apparently

Galleria, Leasing, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Retail, Shopping Centers

View of Proposed New Galleria Whole Foods at Blvd Place at Former Eatziâ€™s Site

It may not count as confirmation exactly, but we now at least have repetition — from two separate sources — that the new Whole Foods Market our readers have been worrying about will in fact be coming to the Galleria area.

The first source is the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff, who — after interviewing Boulevard Place developer Ed Wulfe — states that a new Whole Foods will be the anchor of Wulfe & Co.’s new mixed-use development on Post Oak Blvd. . . . though it won’t open until 2010.

The second source is . . . a little unusual. We’ll tell you about it in ~~our next~~ an upcoming post.

Update, 2/26/08: That second source.

Get ready for more retail this year [Houston Chronicle]
Is Whole Foods Coming to Boulevard Place . . . or Not? [Swamplot]
Supermod Boulevard Place: Replacements First [Swamplot]

Boulevard Place Whole Foods image: DMJM H&N

77056, Commercial Real Estate, Galleria, Leasing, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Retail, Shopping Centers, Uptown, Whole Foods

02/15/08 8:35am

Uptown Hot Potato: Four Quick Flips in a Few Short Months

Galleria, Highrises, Land Prices, Land Sales

That parking lot at the corner of Richmond and Post Oak, where the Steak & Ale and Mason Jar used to be? Very popular:

In 2007, Houston-based Hines Interests LP sold 9.4 acres to Rich Oak Properties LLC, an affiliate of Boymelgreen Developers LLC of New York. Sources put the purchase price at $86 per square foot, or roughly $33 million . . .

Rich Oak ultimately opted out of building on the site and chose to sell the entire 9.4 acres.

On Dec. 21, 2007, the land was acquired by Lasco/Hicks Ventures Ltd. Sources estimate the purchase price was $140 per square foot, or roughly $57 million.

A $24 million profit? Not bad for a few months’ work. And they said the days of the Houston land flip were over!

On the same day, Lasco/Hicks flipped six acres to Elegant Development Group Inc. The buyer is affiliated with Elegant Development and Investment Inc., a Houston-based construction services company that does commercial and residential work . . .

Less than two weeks later, Elegant Development flipped the six acres to Deyaar Development.

Deyaar Development is based in Dubai, and likes tall towers.

Dubai tower looms on horizon [Houston Business Journal]

77056, Commercial Real Estate, Galleria, Highrises, Land Prices, Land Sales, Uptown

02/13/08 11:27am

Is Whole Foods Coming to Boulevard Place . . . or Not?

Galleria, Leasing, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Retail, Shopping Centers

View of Proposed New Galleria Whole Foods at Blvd Place at Former Eatziâ€™s Site

Uptown residents have had a lot of fun speculating about just how enormous and feature-filled the new Galleria Whole Foods flagship store on Post Oak Blvd. will be. The Whole Foods website lists it at a massive 78,000 sq. ft. — though the page it’s on hasn’t been updated since last October.

But now from our mailbox comes this gushing report:

Rumors have been circulating for the last week that Whole Foods has pulled out of Ed Wulfe’s BLVD Place development on Post Oak Blvd. The owners of a prominent jewelry store across Post Oak Blvd. have been telling people that the deal fell through.

Is this just shopping-center trash talk? Or has something changed? Our informant provides more Boulevard Place and Whole Foods FUD:

77056, Commercial Real Estate, Galleria, Leasing, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Retail, Shopping Centers, Uptown, Whole Foods

Buying and Selling

02/05/08 8:09am

Manhattan Penthouse: Still Falling

Condos, Galleria, Homes for Sale, Lofts

Living Room of Manhattan Lofts Unit 808, Houston

Here’s as dramatic a perch as any from which to enjoy a high-price-condo meltdown: the empty cupola atop the 8th-floor penthouse of the Manhattan Lofts building in Uptown. And hey, it looks like quite a fall to the floor below. Maybe stepping down slowly would make some sense?

Almost exactly a month after our original report on this over-the-top, oversized, and overpriced Manhattan penthouse, the price was cut a sixth time, to $1.65 million. How long before it breaks into six figures?

3030 Post Oak Blvd. #808 [HAR]
Whoâ€™ll Take Manhattan? [Swamplot]

77056, Buying and Selling, Condos, Galleria, Highrises, Homes for Sale, Lofts, Price Reductions, Uptown

Condos

01/23/08 11:52am

Nine and a Half Bathrooms: The Turnberry Tower Penthouse Evacuation Plan

Galleria, Highrises, Home Design, Homes for Sale, Interiors, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments

Plan of Top Floor Gramercy Tower Suite Penthouse of Turnberry Houston Tower Showing 9 and a Half Bathrooms

Do you experience the urge to urinate frequently? Do you suffer from recurring bladder infections? An enlarged prostate? And one more question: Do you have $8.5 million burning a hole in your (probably moist) pocket?

Well then, you’re certainly going to pee in your pants when you see the exciting floor plans for the two “Gramercy Tower Suite” penthouses on the top floors of Houston’s 34-story Turnberry Tower! Yes, this will be the height of luxury: 11,860 sq. ft. of living space on three separate levels of an Uptown highrise; an additional 3,535 sq. ft. of terraces; 4 bedrooms plus a Den, a Guest Suite, and a Staff Room for live-in help; a Media Room, two Lounges, and a 2-story Great Room; a private elevator entry; your own private pool and cabana; and so much more.

But forget all that. What makes this little pied-Ã -terre special is that even if all that space perched high in the sky (and the at-least-jaw-dropping panoramic views) gives you an unmistakable urge to evacuate, you’ll only be a few shuffling paces away from a toilet: Each unit comes with nine-and-a-half bathrooms. And if that’s not enough, there’s plenty of room to add more!

Read on for more of the scoop on where to poop: floor plans for the top two floors, with more porcelain palaces clearly marked. Plus: a closeup of Swamplot’s favorite Turnberry penthouse pit stop!

77056, Bathrooms, Condos, Galleria, Highrises, Home Design, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Luxury Highrises, Proposed Developments, Swimming Pools, Turnberry Tower, Uptown

Condos

01/16/08 9:39am

A First Look at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Tower at Boulevard Place

Galleria, Highrises, Hotels, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments

Rendering of Ritz-Carlton Hotel Tower Proposed for Blvd Place, Uptown, Houston, by SOM A tipster sends Swamplot this sneak peek at the hotel tower planned for Uptown’s Boulevard Place development. That’s somewhere around 180 highrise condo units perched on top of a 225-room hotel, which the Chronicle reported this weekend would likely be a Ritz-Carlton.

A tower that’s tall, thin, sleek, and half-dressed would seem about right for the Galleria, no? We count about 31 stories in the hotel-tower drawings before our eyes get all buggy, but plans might call for a building even taller than that. Our source reports that the hotel tower might end up taller than the 55-story apartment tower the Houston Business Journal reported that the Hanover Company was also planning for the site.

After the jump: The view from above!

77056, Condos, Galleria, Highrises, Hotels, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Uptown

Buying and Selling

12/19/07 1:57pm

Who’ll Take Manhattan?

Condos, Galleria, Highrises, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Lofts

Living Room of Manhattan Lofts Unit 808, Houston

This delightful unit has lingered on the market for a mere 22 months. That’s a long wait for a condo bubble that never happened. And hey, it ‘s a fun ride down the price ladder!

The grossly oversized two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath corner unit on the top floor of the misplaced Manhattan building in the Galleria was originally priced at $2.1 million, back in the swelled-heady days of February 2006. Five methodical price drops later, we’ve reached $1,695,000. That’s a lot of cuts, but we’re still not even down 20 percent: how low will the program-trading-style reductions go?

After the jump, more pics of the . . . uh, eclectic interior.