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Heights Mercantile At 714 Yale St.


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Realized the other day that I cannot remember the last time I saw a truck going or coming from the Pappas warehouse on Yale St.  It looks like they may have closed it.  I thought I saw a demo permit a while back for the office space they have just south of the warehouse on the SE corner of Yale and 7th.  This is/was a terrible location for a warehouse with lots of semi deliveries.  Even without all the traffic on Yale St., it always took semi drivers multiple tries to get lined up with the loading dock.  Hopefully, they finally gave up and have moved to another location. 

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About a year ago Pappas bought the old Glazier warehouse at 2727 Summer behind the Kay Roger....to go along with the entire 20-block parcel they own on the south side of 2400 Summer.  I believe the City is to punch Summer St through to Oliver as part of the Kroger deal and turn Summer/Stude into a major intersection for E/W traffic to Houstron Ave.  2727 looks big enough for Pappas and already was used for restaraunt supply.

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The lady who lives next door to the warehouse on Yale was told that the developer that built those 3&4 story townhomes on the same block also bought all that land from Pappas and has plans to build more vertical eyesores with no yards.  It's unfortunate that this is going on in the Heights.

 

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Corbella Builders is trying to build a 4-story townhome at the corner of Yale and 17th and started the project without ANY permits.  (Why do people do that??)

 

Interesting note:  this small lot is that it is in the Historic District.  Dont see a COA for anything that tall in the neighborhood.

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Corbella Builders is trying to build a 4-story townhome at the corner of Yale and 17th and started the project without ANY permits.  (Why do people do that??)

 

Interesting note:  this small lot is that it is in the Historic District.  Dont see a COA for anything that tall in the neighborhood.

 

Neighbors spotted this and have contacted the City.  It looks like construction has been shut down.  Barely two blocks of Yale St. are inside historic districts.  The rest of Yale St. is not.  Town home clusters are sprouting up all over Yale St.  At least four or five are on their way.  The City is happy to grant variances from the 25' set back for these town home clusters.  Yale St. is definitely going to be the runt of the Heights if it fills in like a vertical version of Cottage Grove. 

 

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I was amazed at the townhome complex being built at Harvard and 25th.  Dont understand how the infrastructure is going to handle all of this buidling...... 

 

Corbella got pinged for the dirt work without a permint and then still went ahead on installling a t-pole for electric.  Saw the electric company doing the dirt work and installing the conduit - felt like asking if they had a permit but I just contacted the permit department.

 

 

Glad I live on Heights Boulevard towards 19th street and can feel a little insulated from it all - Barely.

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Neighbors spotted this and have contacted the City.  It looks like construction has been shut down.  Barely two blocks of Yale St. are inside historic districts.  The rest of Yale St. is not.  Town home clusters are sprouting up all over Yale St.  At least four or five are on their way.  The City is happy to grant variances from the 25' set back for these town home clusters.  Yale St. is definitely going to be the runt of the Heights if it fills in like a vertical version of Cottage Grove. 

 

I'll take a vertical version of anything over a horizontal version of dilapidation.

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Neighbors spotted this and have contacted the City.  It looks like construction has been shut down.  Barely two blocks of Yale St. are inside historic districts.  The rest of Yale St. is not.  Town home clusters are sprouting up all over Yale St.  At least four or five are on their way.  The City is happy to grant variances from the 25' set back for these town home clusters.  Yale St. is definitely going to be the runt of the Heights if it fills in like a vertical version of Cottage Grove. 

 

 

 

I would expect most buyers don't see Yale as an attractive place for street-facing single-family residential. Higher density is perfectly appropriate on a major thoroughfare, and on a street as busy as Yale, these central-driveway townhouse clusters seem as good a solution as any. The alternative is probably multi-family.

 

As land values in the Heights increase, the default development model is slowly shifting from 2-story single-family to 3 to 3.5 story townhouses.  It started with the narrowing of lot sizes down to 25-ft frontage as standard. Some of the newer single-family houses are being designed as 2.5 stories.

 

There are only so many buyers at the $700k+ price point that new 2-story houses are selling for in the Heights. By building townhouses, developers can offer at a price point (just) south of half-a-million (for which the typical buyer doesn't need a jumbo loan).

 

If you live on a residential block outside an HD with, say, two lot-value properties side-by-side, and don't want a dozen townhouses as a neighbor, I'd recommend looking into minimum lot size protection for your block.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

There has been activity on and off and on and off on that property and the lot just south at the NW corner of Yale and I-10.  I saw an environmental company working there a few months back.  There have been survey flags up and down a couple of times.  Moody Rambin had a "conceptual" design for the property that was a strip mall a while back, but they claimed that it was not going to happen.  This did not include the Cal-Tex parking lot to the north.  If the entire Cal-Tex property and the property at the NW corner of Yale and I-10 gets redeveloped at the same time, anything is possible.  But I would think that given the way developers work in Houston that the NW corner of Yale and I-10 would end up as retail if it was developed on its own.  But something is certainly going to happen soon.

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RE construction at corner of 17th and Yale. I take it this is the SE corner, 128 W 17th.

 

The lot at one time had two two-story houses on it, built in the 80s, with hardboard siding. Apparently they had multiple mortgage liens on them, part of the whole Couch Mortgage fiasco. Dean Couch was convicted of fraud in 1992 and committed suicide in the Harris Co jail using one of those electric coffee cup heaters. Anyway the places stood empty for years, and it was a real study in how hardboard siding can and will deteriorate over time if not kept sealed and painted. It hung from studs like seaweed at low tide. None of the lienholders would compromise, and at some point the buildings were torn down and the lot was used as a garden for many years. Looks like it became valuable enough to satisfy all the interested parties and improvements can again be added. 

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  • 2 months later...

The owner of property across the street is posting on nextdoor that a developer has been making offers to buyout neighboring properties.  Vague details about plans to start building soon and doing two restaurants on the property.  Very fuzzy on details. 

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The owner of property across the street is posting on nextdoor that a developer has been making offers to buyout neighboring properties.  Vague details about plans to start building soon and doing two restaurants on the property.  Very fuzzy on details. 

For parking right?

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The owner of property across the street is posting on nextdoor that a developer has been making offers to buyout neighboring properties.  Vague details about plans to start building soon and doing two restaurants on the property.  Very fuzzy on details. 

 

A Pappas restaurant?  Probably too small for one of their's, but my wife and I were just saying on Saturday night that we were surprised there wasn't at least one of their's in the neighborhood (the Bar-B-Q places are the closest, but don't qualify for a date night).  So we have this gift card from last Christamas that is still unused.

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For parking right?

 

 

What else?

 

The site on the NE corner of 7th and Yale is about 40,000 s.f. Pappas also owns (owned?) the building on the SE corner, between 7th and the electrical substation, which sits on about 13,000 s.f. By way of comparison, Berryhill on 11th is a 4300 s.f. restaurant on 12,500 s.f. of land.

 

Despite being on the bike trail and catty-corner from 350 apartments, two 6000 s.f. restaurants will require 120 parking spaces in order to get permitted. That's almost certainly more than they can fit on site, and neither of the two parcels are really big enough for a multi-story parking structure.

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@Angostura re minimum lot size restrictions: Sunset Heights is odd in that each address usually consists of 2, 3k sq ft lots. Any workaround to get the City to see each address as the total 6k sq ft parcel rather than the 2 separate lots (aside from a replat), or no? Neighbors on our block are hoping to limit the number of shotgun style townhomes.

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@Angostura re minimum lot size restrictions: Sunset Heights is odd in that each address usually consists of 2, 3k sq ft lots. Any workaround to get the City to see each address as the total 6k sq ft parcel rather than the 2 separate lots (aside from a replat), or no? Neighbors on our block are hoping to limit the number of shotgun style townhomes.

 

 

From what I can tell, MLS restrictions in Sunset Heights tend to be 3000 s.f., even though most houses sit on double lots. This prevents Shady Acres-style townhouse developments (6 townhouses with a central driveway), but doesn't prevent replacing one house on 50-ft frontage with two on 25-ft frontage.

 

Additional details here, including an Excel file of approved and pending applications, and a phone number for CoH to ask further questions.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

Very cool concept going on here including restaurants, retail and small office all being designed by a well known austin designer. I believe it entails 3 of the four corners on Yale and 7th.

 

 

Interesting.

 

I presume one of the three corners will be given over to parking, or will they go vertical?

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  • 1 month later...

They made a presentation to the Heights Association.  It is going to be a restaurant/retail development.  The warehouse is going to get demoed in a few months.  The Finial Group is marketing the property and looks to be taking a roll in redeveloping.

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They made a presentation to the Heights Association. It is going to be a restaurant/retail development. The warehouse is going to get demoed in a few months. The Finial Group is marketing the property and looks to be taking a roll in redeveloping.

Street-facing, or strip center?

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Street-facing, or strip center?

 

Don't know.  I wasn't there.   I just heard about it second hand.  It did not sound like there was a lot of detail on the design.  It is a funny shaped property that does not really lend itself well to much of anything.  It will take some creativity to maximize the space.

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