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Shady Acres Information & Developments


shady 75

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I am new to the board and had some questions. I am purchasing a home in the area and was wondering about future development going on. How do other members on the board think the area will do over the next 5 years. My wife and I are thinking this area might be a good investment as this seems to take the overflow of people priced out of the Heights. The Heights doesn't seem to have many alternatives other than Timbergrove and Shady Acres. Since Timbergrove is deed restricted we decided to go with a townhome in Shady Acres. Anyway I think we will eventually move when we start having kids due to schools...( around 5 years ) so do you think there will be a good amount of development between now and then? Will the schools in the area effect the resale value? Does anyone here now of stores that will be moving into some of those large vacant spots of retail space near Ella and TC Jester? All in all just trying to see if anyone here has a pulse of the development that should be going on here.

Thanks

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  • 5 months later...
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You likely typed your post right at the onset of the Shady Acres boom. My realtor uncle who is very familiar with the Heights told me that the Heights is a hot market right now, but Shady Acres still hasn't been discovered yet. About two weeks later we were driving through Shady Acres and talking about how much construction was going on everywhere. I would definitely stay in Shady Acres, even after having kids. The area should be really nice in a few years, much like West U has always been. I'm guessing that the schools in the area will improve also as the land value picks up. I would have no problem sending my kids to public school in the inner loop. The schools around there had a bad reputation, but really weren't that bad, and certainly will only get better.

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Shady acres is nice, you'll have to decide on the school thing yourself. Many of the people moving in the area are young proffessionals and empty nesters who don't have kids. If you want to stay there, think private schoolds or look into the school and see what's like.

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If I had to guess, I'd say the schools will come up as the area comes up, but that will take a few years. Shady Acres, I believe, will be the new hip part of town commercially, once the business catches up with the residential.

Also, Heights Annex which connects to Old Timbergrove, has plenty of houses that should be torn down asap. Renovation is not even an option. I drove through Heights Annex today around Diane, Beall, Prince streets, and there is still blight everywhere despite some beautiful homes going in.

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  • 4 months later...

A lot of West U and Bellaire is also in a 100yr flood plain. Given that it's Houston, I don't really see that as a knock. Anyone in Houston is at risk for flooding, so if you live in Houston you should have flood insurance regardless of whether you're in the plain or not. I live in the 100yr flood plain in Shady Acres, and my federally-backed insurance is $350 a year. The places that flooded during Alison for the most part had never flooded before, and the county recently announced plans for 3 detention ponds in the area. Also, much of the new construction in Shady Acres is on P&B 3+ feet above grade. That will lower your flood insurance dramatically.

That said, I don't think you can go wrong. You get a lot of bang for the buck in Shady Acres compared to other inner-loop locales. I also contend that crime is lower than other up-and-coming inner-loop areas like Rice Military and 6th Ward. Look at the HPD statistics for the area, it backs up my statement.

If you're looking at new housing, check out the areas west of Durham from 13th to 16th on Nashua Prince and Dian streets. Lots of activity, and there you get the bonus of being in Heights proper whose boundry extends to Dian.

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A lot of West U and Bellaire is also in a 100yr flood plain. Given that it's Houston, I don't really see that as a knock.

Yep. You should just consider Houston to be a big flood plain and get insured. But you should also be aware of a propertie's 100-yr flood plain status before making an offer. If a builder/seller is willing to bargain that is good information to have.

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I have some good friends that live on West 26th. They bought their house 2 years ago (new build) and the street was scary! It's barely recognizable at this point (in a good way) and the houses around them are selling for about 30% more than what they paid. Sound investment, wouldn't you say?

As the area builds up, the schools will improve. If you got pregnant this January, it would still be 6 years before you child was ready for school. At that point, I wouldn't be suprised if they've built a new school up there to match the growth!

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  • 1 month later...

I went to Houston this weekend for a dinner party in Shady Acres. We spent about an hour checking out the old neighborhood from Timbergrove at 11th all the way up to W 28th. And I am puzzled by what is happening there.

First of all, I was struck by the number of newbuilds for sale. In some areas, like the ones at Bevis and E T C Jester, there seemed to be whole blocks of homes completed and for sale.

I also noticed some planned projects either stalled or not begin yet. The project at Prince and 13th had relatively few units erected, and what was there was not particularly appealing. The old trailer park at 15th and Beall was cleared several months ago, and it doesn

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I should have known, but had to look it up. OSB is an acronym for Oriented Strand Board:

Providing improved uniformity, strength and versatility compared to other construction panels, Oriented Strand Board (OSB) evolved from waferboard in the late 1970s. Since its introduction, OSB has been widely accepted and has virtually replaced other building panels in new residential construction in many areas in North America.

(quote from OSB Guide website)

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It's your imagination. If anything, the pace has picked up in the last 6 months, but mostly below 18th Street. Park on Prince has really just started, and I believe they are building sold units only, not the other way around. You may not have noticed because it sat for 4 months after the fill dirt was brought in and the driveways poured. Elsewhere, there is new stuff being sold as soon as it's built. The large tract at 18th and Beall just started land activity with new for-sale signs after sitting for over a year, and about 20 homes have been built and sold on Prince, Dian and Nashua between 13th and 15th since the announcement of Park on Prince.

However, where I do see traction slipping is in the +$300,000 catagory. Too many greedy builders that think the area can support nothing but expensive homes. That's just not the case. Homes less than $250,000 are being sold like M&M's.

What your seeing with the houses in the OSB stage is that finishers aren't keeping up with framers. I am particularly impressed at the pace of framers these days. Frames these days are going up in 4-5 days.

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  • 1 month later...

The pace of construction south of 11th is fairly described as torrid in the Heights itself, so I can't imagine that there has been a slowdown in the less expensive areas. Between Heights and Studemont, you can see through one side of a block to the other because so many houses are being torn down. The frames of the new ones quickly follow, so there doesn't seem to be a problem with subcontractors, either.

The only concern that all of the activity raises for me is the new designs. Most of them are at least passable, but I hate when a builder puts the same design within 1-2 blocks of another one of his houses.

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  • 3 months later...
The pace of construction south of 11th is fairly described as torrid in the Heights itself, so I can't imagine that there has been a slowdown in the less expensive areas. Between Heights and Studemont, you can see through one side of a block to the other because so many houses are being torn down. The frames of the new ones quickly follow, so there doesn't seem to be a problem with subcontractors, either.

The only concern that all of the activity raises for me is the new designs. Most of them are at least passable, but I hate when a builder puts the same design within 1-2 blocks of another one of his houses.

Then you probably REALLY hate the intersection of 8th and Columbia. There's 2 new McVictorians for sale, with 3 more under construction 100 feet down the street. Looks to all be the same design/builder.

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  • 3 months later...

I wanted to update this thread now that I have a better grasp of the progress in the area. I'd say that Shady Acres is picking up more speed, but it's not nearly as hot as two other spots at the moment, those being Heights proper south of 11th and east of Heights Blvd and Heights Annex.

I drove through Shady Acres yesterday, and I was surprised to see that many of the run down homes that I knew would eventually get bought out now have "tear down" signs up. I'm guessing the property value is finally worth enough to get some of these people to fork up the property for new development. Also, the income from rent for those who are renting out homes in Shady Acres is no longer sufficient to pay the bills and property taxes, so the only other option is to sell.

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  • 6 months later...
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Below is PART of a post I did over at SSP. I thought you guys might enjoy it too. Here is a link to the original post if you are interested in seeing the whole thing:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread...648#post3004648

For some reason this board is telling me that I have "exceeded the max number of attached images?" Since they are just links to images that are hosted somewhere else that doesn't make sense but whatever, let me know if anyone out there knows how to fix this and I'll add the rest.

----------------------------

Despite saying that we never would, my wife and I recently moved back to Houston. However we knew to make it work we would have to live in the Heights area of the city. We settled on a house in Shady Acres. Shady acres is part of the "Greater Heights" but is its own separate neighborhood from the Heights. However, most people that live here won't correct you if you just say the Heights because no one really knows where Shady Acres is and the Heights is a well-known, nice neighborhood. The main difference in the two is that Shady Acres is still very much in transition so there are a lot of different architectural styles and building uses, but the trade-off is it's cheaper than the Heights proper. The boundaries of the neighborhood are I-610 to the north, 14th St to the south, Shepard to the east, TC Jester to the west. We have lots of new faux Victorian/Cottages, old bungalows (some renovated some dilapidated), shotgun houses, industrial and abandoned retail. Also we are not afraid to use color which is another cool thing about the neighborhood. Enough talk here are some photos.

First, here is a map from Google to help you understand the location of the neighborhood, but the rest of the images are my own.

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Lets get started on my block:

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The neighbors:

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Shady Acres commercial development

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Common new patio home development

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More patio homes, these face a creek, very nice:

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The closest you'll get to row houses in Houston, after this it's town homes:

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It's a good location and no barriers to development and so is booming, but flooding always springs into my mind when I think of Shady Acres. A thoughtful architectural design for that area would be a 2 car garage, laundry and workout room on the ground floor with 2 living area floors above.

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By city building code all new homes either have to be pier and beam or the first level is garage only. You can't have liveable space that is in the base flood elevation. And if you are in the flood way, the city won't even issue you a permit. So far at our location flooding has been no existent. I know when we had that one good rain a month or two ago the upper streets (ie 22nd,23rd) got flooded a little but nothing down on my end. We're only in the 100 yr.

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By city building code all new homes either have to be pier and beam or the first level is garage only. You can't have liveable space that is in the base flood elevation.

That's good news. I assumed that those garages had living areas behind them.

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all those pics and not ONE of the shady tavern?

That's funny you mention it, I was trying to take a pic of shady tavern right as the batteries in my camera died.

I think some of the places with garages have a room behind the garage but it's usually still raised above the garage level. They are framing houses next door and that's how they are doing them. Alternatively, I believe they can raise the ground up and build on a normal slab as well. None of this info would hold up in court of course. :)

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This is exactly what needs to be built in the Near East End specifically along Lawndale Avenue/Wayside areas minus the bars of course.

When can we start?

I don't know what land prices are like over there, but we're "starting" to catch up with the Heights, so it may be pretty soon.

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Thought Perry had plans a couple of years ago to build some townhomes very near Lawndale/Wayside?

I miss having a Shady Tavern in my hood--I love a good, cheap, unpretentious local bar, but have not quite worked up the courage for the Harrisburg Country Club... I guess the inviting exterior just doesn't say to me 'come on in and relax, middle aged white lady!' Sorry for venturing even more off topic, but anybody familiar with the old east-end ice houses?

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