Montrose Collective: Office Building With Retail At 888 Westheimer Rd.

[Triton]

1 hour ago, H-Town Man said:

 

I made a post, then decided it didn't strike the right note so I removed it.

 

Oh ok, just seemed to be a common occurrence among your posts so I wasn't sure if you were just doing it for notifications.

[H-Town Man]

48 minutes ago, Triton said:

Oh ok, just seemed to be a common occurrence among your posts so I wasn't sure if you were just doing it for notifications.

 

I think I've done this like twice in the past year or so?

 

[Luminare]

1 hour ago, Triton said:

Oh ok, just seemed to be a common occurrence among your posts so I wasn't sure if you were just doing it for notifications.

 

You might be refering to Timoric who sometimes posts when he is...well...under the influence (apparently) haha.

[Triton]

3 hours ago, Luminare said:

 

You might be refering to Timoric who sometimes posts when he is...well...under the influence (apparently) haha.

Yea, I reached out to H-Town Man privately. Think I was confusing him with someone else.

[nyc_tex]

That's very disappointing. That's by and far my favorite Houston Public Library location to work and it's in a great location. Damn. Houston strikes again. 

[danielsonr]

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Developer-books-library-for-lower-Westheimer-14490487.php

 

The developer of Heights Mercantile is bringing its penchant for walkability, leafy landscaping and urban design to lower Westheimer, where it’s planning a multi-building complex with a mix of high-end shops, restaurants and office space.

The proposed project, called Montrose Collective, will have a unique twist. Developer Radom Capital has been working with the city to relocate the Montrose branch of the Houston Public Library to the development. An agreement with the city is still pending and would need to be approved by Houston City Council, but it would entail the Freed-Montrose Library relocating from its longtime home at 4100 Montrose Blvd.

As part of the move, the city would take an ownership stake in the new library space and would swap a small parcel it owns on Westheimer that would become part of the development site. That parcel, at 802 Westheimer, is now a Houston Police Department storefront, which would close.

Montrose Collective is planned as a 150,000-square-foot project of three buildings of three to six stories along the north side of Westheimer on either side of Grant Street.

Steve Radom, the development firm’s managing principal, said the design team thought careful about the placement of the buildings and their scale in relation to the neighborhood.

“We were like, how do we make it to where off the street we’re not overpowering, but we’re fitting into the community?” he said.

Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, which designed Heights Mercantile — a collection of restored and new buildings along Heights Boulevard and a hike and bike trail — designed Montrose Collective. OJB Landscape Architecture is also involved in the design.

The project would be built around seven live oak trees that will be preserved on the site. The space between the buildings would include greenspace, combined with pavers, colorful tiles and acidized concrete. There will be a courtyard with a half-acre of public space.

Radom Capital assembled multiple parcels to form the 1.8-acre site east of Grant, along with another parcel of about 30,000 square feet in the block just to the west. The acquisition included the Uchi building, which will remain intact, and the property next door, which houses Rosemont Social and Hue Salon, each of which will stay in the project. Theo’s Restaurant on the block east of Grant would close when construction begins, Radom said.

The library would occupy 12,000 square feet on the second and third floors of a three-story building behind Uchi. The city would be responsible for the interior build-out and would have a so-called condominium interest in the building.

Parking will be in a garage at the back of the property. Though garages are not the favored way of parking among Houston shoppers, the building will be customer-friendly, Radom said, with 12-foot ceilings, an electronic system showing available spaces and colorful graphics marking the stairs and elevators.

“People don’t like parking in garages ever in Houston,” he said. “But as areas densify, that’s no longer a choice.”

Despite its abundance of space for cars, “we want this to be destination everyone walks to,” Radom said, adding that there will be ample bicycle parking as well.

The project will include 110,000 square feet of office space in two of the buildings’ upper floors. Retail space will cover 40,000 square feet.

Construction could start early next year on the new project, which is expected to take about 30 months to complete.

The city hosted a public meeting last week at the library, which is in need of repair, to discuss the possible relocation.

The public response was positive, said James Koski, Mayor Sylvester Turner’s deputy chief of staff, who attended the meeting. There were, however, questions about what closing the HPD storefront would mean for policing the area and how parking at the new building would be handled.

If the library relocates, its building would be sold. The University of St. Thomas, which is based in the neighborhood and owns the property that houses the Black Laborador restaurant adjacent to the library building, has approached the city about buying the property, Koski said, but there is no deal currently.

Koski said the parties involved expect to have a final agreement to bring to City Council by the end of the year.

 

[wilcal]

On 10/1/2019 at 5:02 AM, CrockpotandGravel said:

A 600+ space below-and-above ground parking garage is planned to serve the Montrose Collective, with 25 spaces reserved exclusively for library patrons. The Montrose TIRZ is in discussions with Radom Capital LLC for a development deal that will allow for an additional 100 spaces within the garage to be open to the public as well as streetscape improvements. Additional public meetings are planned to discuss this opportunity to fill Montrose’s long-known dearth of public parking.
 

 

Wait, 600 parking spaces?!?!?

 

That seems crazy excessive. 

 

Evidently 2 floors underground and 5 floors above. 

[iah77]

4 minutes ago, Toopicky said:

 

The sad part is that of those 600 parking spaces, ONLY 25 are reserved for the library.

Reserved just means dedicated, there are still 575 other spots lol. The garage probably won't even be that busy during the hours the library is open anyways

 

Plus isn't the whole point to encourage walkabilty anyways?

[X.R.]

Yeah, I don't see them ever getting that full unless some major stuff moves in afterwards on westheimer. Maybe a good comparison is that Shake Shake. It has a large lot for its size (it seems) especially when compared to the lot shared by blacksmith and hay merchant. The Shack's lot is like half full at most on busy days. Went last night at 7 and it was a quarter full but a ton of people eating, so obviously they all did not get there by car. 

 

Its actually pretty forward thinking, because now they have all this parking just in case the area explodes in terms of development (it already is, but just more) instead of having a bunch of surface lots. 

 

16 hours ago, danielsonr said:

“People don’t like parking in garages ever in Houston,” he said. “But as areas densify, that’s no longer a choice.”

 

Lol that is a ridiculous statement. "people care about the housing of the concrete they park on" 

[wilcal]

2 hours ago, Toopicky said:

 

The sad part is that of those 600 parking spaces, ONLY 25 are reserved for the library.

 

It talks about how the TIRZ may fund part of the garage to have 100 spaces open to the public. 

 

I honestly wish that they would just charge for parking for all of it. Maybe exempt the 25 library parking spots. 

[phillip_white]

11 minutes ago, wilcal said:

I honestly wish that they would just charge for parking for all of it. Maybe exempt the 25 library parking spots. 

 

Maybe they could take a cue from the Midtown parking garage and charge "event pricing" for Astros games.

[trymahjong]

Noticed the Variance sign and got an email about it.

 

Seems they want to reduce the building set back from 5 feet along California and Grant street and by pass the requirement of a visability triangle at the intersection.

googled it just to be sure but it means the triangular area adjacent to the intersection of any public street or public alley within which no obstruction may be placed which would block the sight lines for vehicular traffic. The triangle is established by measuring a distance of 45 feet from the intersection of the extended curb or edge of the pavement of a major thoroughfares, and 25 feet from the extended edge of the curb or pavement of local streets. A straight line connecting the ends of each measured distance which forms the hypotenuse shall establish the visibility triangle. The visibility triangle should not contain any visual or physical impediments or obstructions to the vertical view between 30 inches and seven feet in height.

 

Messing around with the "visibility triangle" sort of sets off a few warning bells to me. A few Civic Clubs wrote  wrote a letters of Objection when Shaws jewelry wanted to do that at Gray and MOntrose-- of course the traffic through Grant and California is minimal but still.........

 

BTW........I never heard the number 600 used by the developer at Cohens Town Hall thingy when talking about number of parking spaces.....I wonder why?

[phillip_white]

10 hours ago, trymahjong said:

Noticed the Variance sign and got an email about it.

 

Seems they want to reduce the building set back from 5 feet along California and Grant street and by pass the requirement of a visability triangle at the intersection.

googled it just to be sure but it means the triangular area adjacent to the intersection of any public street or public alley within which no obstruction may be placed which would block the sight lines for vehicular traffic. The triangle is established by measuring a distance of 45 feet from the intersection of the extended curb or edge of the pavement of a major thoroughfares, and 25 feet from the extended edge of the curb or pavement of local streets. A straight line connecting the ends of each measured distance which forms the hypotenuse shall establish the visibility triangle. The visibility triangle should not contain any visual or physical impediments or obstructions to the vertical view between 30 inches and seven feet in height.

 

Messing around with the "visibility triangle" sort of sets off a few warning bells to me. A few Civic Clubs wrote  wrote a letters of Objection when Shaws jewelry wanted to do that at Gray and MOntrose-- of course the traffic through Grant and California is minimal but still.........

 

BTW........I never heard the number 600 used by the developer at Cohens Town Hall thingy when talking about number of parking spaces.....I wonder why?

 

With Grant traffic not stopping at the intersection with California, I see it very unlikely that this would be approved. If they add a stop sign in both directions on Grant it might get approved. Typically I've only seen the visibility triangles removed where one way streets intersect since there's no need for visibility in the downstream direction.

[Urbannizer]

On 7/16/2019 at 3:06 PM, Urbannizer said:

 

I'm betting Michael Hsu is the architect, them and Radom Capital have paired together in the past.

 

https://hsuoffice.com/

 

https://hsuoffice.com/project/montrose-collective/

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bobruss]

He is the architect.

[phillip_white]

YIMBY, please!

[Avossos]

I'm a little overwhelmed... a lot going on...

[j_cuevas713]

We need about 100 more of these throughout the city please lol

[Luminare]

This was posted on the Oct. 17th Planning Agenda.

 

 

 

 

[gene]

wait is Building B the Burger Joint/parking lot or am i reading that wrong?!

I love The Burger Joint! 

[Luminare]

6 minutes ago, gene said:

wait is Building B the Burger Joint/parking lot or am i reading that wrong?!

I love The Burger Joint! 

 

Its the parking lot next to Burger Joint. Not sure if they also use it for their business or not.

[H-Town Man]

On ‎9‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 2:35 PM, danielsonr said:

I believe Steve Radom said about 2 1/2 years.  They are still negotiating the lease terms with COH for the library space and the parking agreement with Montrose TIRZ.

 

I had thought that this was the view looking north from Westheimer but I see now it is the view looking east from Grant Street. I'm a little concerned we haven't seen a rendering from Westheimer, unless I missed it. I'd rather see them enhance Westheimer than Grant.

 

[j_cuevas713]

23 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

 

I had thought that this was the view looking north from Westheimer but I see now it is the view looking east from Grant Street. I'm a little concerned we haven't seen a rendering from Westheimer, unless I missed it. I'd rather see them enhance Westheimer than Grant.

 

Wow so 2.5 years for all the buildings? That's impressive. I'm going to assume since this was on the COH agenda, that this will start relatively soon. 

[X.R.]

2 hours ago, Luminare said:

 

Its the parking lot next to Burger Joint. Not sure if they also use it for their business or not.

 

That is one of the worst parking lots in the city, hands down. The amount of near accidents, actual accidents, wrong way entrances, people waiting 5 mins + for someone to pull out of a spot, etc is pretty astonishing. Its so bad that I leave my car at home when I g...oh was that their plan all along?!?

 

But yes to a a garage that forces people to park further away and walk to the place. More foot traffic in that area to me is a massive W to fight the 40+ mph crowd trying to book it down westheimer. 

[Luminare]

4 minutes ago, X.R. said:

 

That is one of the worst parking lots in the city, hands down. The amount of near accidents, actual accidents, wrong way entrances, people waiting 5 mins + for someone to pull out of a spot, etc is pretty astonishing. Its so bad that I leave my car at home when I g...oh was that their plan all along?!?

 

But yes to a a garage that forces people to park further away and walk to the place. More foot traffic in that area to me is a massive W to fight the 40+ mph crowd trying to book it down westheimer. 

 

A huge win for possible development in the future. I hope that they will let future new businesses lease parking spots or when in planning stages can throw there parking requirements to something like this garage.

[danielsonr]

 

4 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

I had thought that this was the view looking north from Westheimer but I see now it is the view looking east from Grant Street. I'm a little concerned we haven't seen a rendering from Westheimer, unless I missed it. I'd rather see them enhance Westheimer than Grant.

 

It may be the view looking west from Crockett, but it’s hard to tell. The fourth rendering in Urbannizer’s October 22 post is the Westheimer frontage. You can see Uchi across Grant from the building.

[bobruss]

I find it rather telling that in none of these renderings, do they show a 7 story parking garage looming over the development or surrounding neighborhood.

However they do show it on the first drawing of the floor plan that Luminaire just posted, and I guess a camouflaged grey glance at it in the very last drawing. It doesn't really give you a view of the whole project with the garage.

[Luminare]

11 minutes ago, bobruss said:

I find it rather telling that in none of these renderings, do they show a 7 story parking garage looming over the development or surrounding neighborhood.

However they do show it on the first drawing of the floor plan that Luminaire just posted, and I guess a camouflaged grey glance at it in the very last drawing. It doesn't really give you a view of the whole project with the garage.

 

To tell you the truth, if I was setting up shots for renders, I wouldn't included it either. I think this building is already going to be 4-5 stories, so the garage isn't going to be that much taller. From the look of the other renders where you do catch the garage it looks like they will blend it in with the building. The back side of the garage will be pretty big though in contrast to whats next to it.

[H-Town Man]

6 hours ago, danielsonr said:

 

It may be the view looking west from Crockett, but it’s hard to tell. The fourth rendering in Urbannizer’s October 22 post is the Westheimer frontage. You can see Uchi across Grant from the building.

 

Looks good.

 

[bobruss]

From the renders you provided the building shows three floors. Not 4 or 5. So going from 3 to seven is a pretty good leap.