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Buffalo Heights District: Mixed-Use Development At 100 Waugh Dr.


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4 hours ago, tormina said:

It is nice but I didn't like the small strip of parking in front of the HEB. If you are trying to make this pedestrian friendly, make the sidewalks as wide as possible and let people enter the store directly from the sidewalk.

I'm a little curious. Considering what we know about the project, Where would you have the patrons park?

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20 hours ago, tormina said:

It is nice but I didn't like the small strip of parking in front of the HEB. If you are trying to make this pedestrian friendly, make the sidewalks as wide as possible and let people enter the store directly from the sidewalk.

 

 

Exactly. I wish we could start building with a more urban setback to encourage more walking. 

 

Even if you wanted to do surface level parking lot, why don't developers put a lot in the back and still have the building up to the street (Like Catalina Coffee). Then you make both pedestrians and drivers happy. But a project like this would have a parking garage anyways so there wouldn't be much of a need for a surface level parking lot.

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20 hours ago, tormina said:

It is nice but I didn't like the small strip of parking in front of the HEB. If you are trying to make this pedestrian friendly, make the sidewalks as wide as possible and let people enter the store directly from the sidewalk.

 

I agree. This will be like the Whole Foods on Post Oak with the parking strip in front. I wish they took the Whole Foods/Apartments in Midtown route. Oh well....

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96,000 SF is huge. Will this be the biggest H-E-B in the chain? Whole Foods in downtown Austin is only 70,000 SF, IIRC.

 

Hope we find out soon when they are breaking ground. With apartment and office markets overbuilt, it could get tricky.

 

NM, I see the article says they're hoping for mid-2017. It's a good sign that the owner is providing all the equity, that just leaves the debt piece. If we can just get some positive economic growth news the next six months...

 

Edited by H-Town Man
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1 minute ago, H-Town Man said:

96,000 SF is huge. Will this be the biggest H-E-B in the chain? Whole Foods in downtown Austin is only 70,000 SF, IIRC.

 

Hope we find out soon when they are breaking ground. With apartment and office markets overbuilt, it could get tricky.

 

This seems to be well supported. Making the 'brand' public is a huge vote of confidence for this project. The office portion is small and should be considered boutique. With the mix of all 4 components and this location, I don't think there is a project more set up for success. I expect to see activity happen in 2017 as they have already stopped renewing leases.

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1 hour ago, H-Town Man said:

96,000 SF is huge. Will this be the biggest H-E-B in the chain? Whole Foods in downtown Austin is only 70,000 SF, IIRC.

 

 

 

Not their largest, but pretty big. Bunker Hill is 127k. San Felipe & Fountainview is 99k. Montrose is around 80k, Heights will be around 87k.

 

That said, about 6k of the square footage (on the 2nd floor) appears to be just escalator/elevator space, so functionally the 91k s.f. on the ground floor is a more accurate representation of the size of the store.

Edited by Angostura
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22 hours ago, tormina said:

It is nice but I didn't like the small strip of parking in front of the HEB. If you are trying to make this pedestrian friendly, make the sidewalks as wide as possible and let people enter the store directly from the sidewalk.

 

When buildings in Houston look less pedestrian-friendly than we'd like them to, there are usually two reasons: setbacks and parking minimums. The building looks to be pretty close to the required 25-ft setbacks on Washington and Heights. Though if they really wanted a setback variance, I suspect they could get one. I think parking is a bigger deal here.

 

Since retail parking minimums are based on square footage, for every square foot of surface parking you replace with retail footprint, you have to add 2-3 square feet of additional parking space. It looks like the surface parking is about 20k s.f., which means they'd need to replace those 100 or so spots, plus add another 100 spots for the extra square footage. This probably means at least one if not two extra floors on the parking garage.

 

The store entrance is situated on the West face of the building (along Heights) while the parking garage (floors 3 and up) are on the East face, making the additional parking spaces pretty far from the store entrance. There are already HEB spaces on the 3rd floor of the garage, from which it appears customers will have to go down one floor, walk across the entire 2nd floor of the garage, to the 2nd floor escalator lobby, then down into the store. On the way out, those customers will have to do the same thing, just with a shopping cart full of groceries. I suspect HEB wanted to limit the percentage of their customers for which this would be necessary.

 

Unless it's a rainy day, I would expect those surface spaces will be the first ones filled.

 

 

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I live down the street from the old Archstone Apartments.  Actually lived in the apartments that are going to be torn down before I moved into my house.  Will be interesting to see effects on real estate prices in the area.  100 Waugh sounded familiar to me.  I vaguely remember a thread on it from 2 years ago and found it below.  Wonder if they are going to also redevelop 100 Waugh to include a hotel similar to the City Centre Westin?

 

 

 

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On 12/23/2016 at 1:27 AM, cdebnil said:

I live down the street from the old Archstone Apartments.  Actually lived in the apartments that are going to be torn down before I moved into my house.  Will be interesting to see effects on real estate prices in the area.  100 Waugh sounded familiar to me.  I vaguely remember a thread on it from 2 years ago and found it below.  Wonder if they are going to also redevelop 100 Waugh to include a hotel similar to the City Centre Westin?

 

 

 

 

 

City Centre Westin?  Where is that?

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  • The title was changed to Archstone Memorial Heights/Buffalo Heights To Be Redeveloped
  • 2 weeks later...

Development @100 Waugh moving forward.

 

http://houston.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/CoverSheet.aspx?ItemID=8648&MeetingID=141

 

Quote

Rock Creek Ranch I, Ltd. and Waugh Real Estate Ventures, Ltd. and Houston Waugh, LP (Gordy Oil Company [Sharin Scott, Treasurer], General Partner), the abutting property owners, requested the abandonment and sale of: 1) platted Eugene Street (commonly known as Dickson Street), located along Lots 7 through 12, in exchange for conveyance to the City of: 1) a 50 foot-wide right-of-way easement for and construction of Leverkuhn Street, from Dickson Street north to Feagan Street; 2) a 5 foot-wide right-of-way easement along the southern portion of Feagan Street, from proposed Leverkuhn Street east to Waugh Drive; and 3) a variable width sanitary sewer easement along the western and southern portions of the applicant’s property, all located within the Mary L. Morse Addition and Joe Smalley Subdivision, Brunner Addition, out of the John Austin Survey, A-1. The applicants plan to incorporate the requested abandonment area into their abutting tracts and construct a commercial, office, and multi-family development.

 


 

Because the utility construction  and the proposed Leverkuhn Street construction requirements associated with this transaction will not be completed until after the City Council passes the abandonment ordinance, Rock Creek Ranch I Ltd. and Waugh Real Estate Ventures, Ltd. and Houston Waugh LP have provided a Letter of Credit (LOC) for $387,000.00, an amount equal to the total estimated construction costs associated with the construction of proposed Leverkuhn Street and the water and sanitary sewer lines.

 

The LOC will be for a specific time period which may be less than but not longer than twelve months from the effective date of the ordinance for this transaction.  The Director of the Department of Public Works and Engineering or his designee may authorize one extension of the LOC which may be less than but not longer than twelve months, if the applicants have received approved permits and commenced construction of the work required within the initial term of the LOC.  Should the conditions of the LOC not be satisfied upon expiration of the LOC, a recommendation will be submitted to the City Council to rescind the ordinance that abandoned the City’s property interest.  All funds paid by the applicants will be forfeited.  Upon the applicants’ satisfactory completion of the construction-related work as evidenced by written inspection clearance/approval by the Office of the City Engineer at the applicants’ request, the City will release the LOC.

 

Rock Creek Ranch I, Ltd. and Waugh Real Estate Ventures, Ltd. and Houston Waugh, L.P. have complied with the transaction requirements or provided a Letter of Credit and have accepted the City's offer.

 

The City will abandon and sell to Rock Creek Ranch I, Ltd. and Waugh Real Estate Ventures, Ltd.

 

 

PDF File: Maps.pdf

 

31286240594_767d6db462_b.jpg

 

32088632296_35985b8f9f_b.jpg

Stretch to be abandoned:

 

 31286240014_f4a95d9a4b_h.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Just a clarification, the "1200 units" will be the total including the existing buildings to the east and southeast (689 units in Bayou Park and 436 in Memorial Heights).  This new building only adds 232 units; the garden apartments that used to be there had 120 units.

 

So this section of land now sees twice as many housing units, plus a nearly 100,000 square foot H-E-B, plus nearly 40,000 square feet of other commercial space (mostly offices and a bit of retail).  That's a nice improvement in density and should be great for this location!

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6 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I'm not a fan of the front side parking. I with they could have incorporated parking underground and made the HEB fully open to pedestrians much how they're doing the Midtown Whole Foods. 

The design from the corner entrance of the store to the street intersection is nice. Let's not be too greedy with getting rid of the ease of access parking. Businesses have to provide the quick stop easy-in, easy-out parking option to keep shoppers happy. The Whole Foods on Post Oak has parking in front (in addition to structured) and that doesn't seem to diminish the more urban feel of Blvd Place.

 

The parking lot may have to do with required setback as well--if you can't build your building there because of planning standards, you might as well put parking. 

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The parking spaces will give the store a more active vibe I suppose--retail likely performs better when the perception is that people actually shop there. On a side note, 22 Waugh, Gordy and Sons Outfitters, looks done for the most part. I'm pleasantly surprised at this redevelopment. Yay, preservation. That crusty old HCC building is finally being put to good use. All these tracts proposed as Buffalo Heights could really transform the area.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Midway Breaks Ground on Buffalo Heights District

 

The first phase of Buffalo Heights is now under construction, the Houston Business Journal confirmed with a Midway spokesperson. That phase will include the previously announced 96,000-square-foot H-E-B store, 230 upscale multifamily units at a property dubbed the St. Andrie, 2,000 square feet of retail space and three floors of boutique office space in One Buffalo Heights, the mixed-use development's office building.



 

The H-E-B, which should deliver in spring 2019, will include a walk-up coffee and food concept that'll offer to-go and casual dine-in service.

“When we learned of the plans for Buffalo Heights, we knew it was just the type of community more of Houston is going to want," Scott McClelland, Houston president of San Antonio-based H-E-B Grocery Co., said in a statement.

 

The H-E-B will offer multilevel parking, a departure from its traditional single-level, suburban-style stores.

 

Buffalo Heights' multifamily development, the St. Andrie, will include a fitness and yoga studio with views of a resort-style pool, per the spokesperson. An open-air lounge with an outdoor fireplace and large TVs, as well as a game room, private dining room and business lounge, will also be available to residents.

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Hopefully this expands and creates a more integrated feel in the block bounded by heights and yale/Waugh south of Washington. Wouldn't hate to see the old J blacks, chatters, Enterprise etc... re-developed to create a more cohesive area. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
4 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

I wonder if Gordy is working on getting the city to eliminate the cloverleaf interchange at Memorial and Waugh, as envisioned in the Buffalo Bayou master plan. That would really bring a sense of place to the area.

 

 

What would be the replacement?

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21 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

standard entrance and exit ramps, traffic signals, left turns...  I think the idea of removing the cloverleaf interchange has been pretty much abandoned.

I'd say that would be the perfect spot for a SPUI. Only question is if you keep running Waugh over Memorial, or elevate Memorial, keeping Waugh at surface level and facilitating development in the areas freed up by the removal of the outside ramps.

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4 hours ago, pablog said:

This is the first time I've seen that plan, and I love it. I hope the city still follows this plan closely and references back to it. 

 

Buffalo Bayou Partnership is what's driving the plan, although the city may spend money on certain elements. They are getting the low-hanging fruit and kicking the far-fetched stuff down the road. Attention has shifted to the eastern stretch after the big west side makeover that ended last year.

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16 hours ago, ADCS said:

I'd say that would be the perfect spot for a SPUI. Only question is if you keep running Waugh over Memorial, or elevate Memorial, keeping Waugh at surface level and facilitating development in the areas freed up by the removal of the outside ramps.

 

I think the idea was more park land, not room for development.

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  • The title was changed to Buffalo Heights District: Mixed-Use Development At 100 Waugh Dr.

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