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Concept Neighborhood to Redevelop 201 Roberts Street and Surrounding Areas

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  • The title was changed to Pita Pal Purchased - 3100 Canal
ljchou

ljchou

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The two vacant lots adjacent to Valero at the intersection of Canal and Sampson (3301 Canal and 3402 Canal) are linked to the owner of "Concept Neighborhood, LLC", a business that "clusters and manages mixed-use properties in walkable urban neighborhoods".

ALJ Lindsey is on the WW permits.

 

 

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Montrose1100

Montrose1100

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On 7/3/2021 at 12:56 PM, thedistrict84 said:

The EaDo name creep continues. Ugh. I feel like there should be a PSA directed at all Houstonians on the actual borders of EaDo. This is getting ridiculous. 

Eh, it's close enough to Downtown. People call Greater Eastwood the 2nd ward even though it's south of Harrisburg (originally the 3rd ward). 

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Andrew Ewert

Andrew Ewert

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On 7/3/2021 at 12:56 PM, thedistrict84 said:

The EaDo name creep continues. Ugh. I feel like there should be a PSA directed at all Houstonians on the actual borders of EaDo. This is getting ridiculous. 

Eh, I really don't see the problem tbh. The train tracks as a division between "official" EaDo and "official" East End has always seemed kinda arbitrary to me. East End has history that shouldn't be bulldozed over, but this upper Navigation/Canal area feels much more of a piece with EaDo than, say, anything east of Sampson. The names have exact meanings to the management districts, but I don't see why they need to for cultural purposes

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hindesky

hindesky

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6 hours ago, ljchou said:

What are soil samples used for? Thanks!

Probably foundation and materials testing to check the conditions required to build. Most constructions projects do this to test what it's going to take to build the right foundation required for the build.

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sapo2367

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12 hours ago, hindesky said:

Probably foundation and materials testing to check the conditions required to build. Most constructions projects do this to test what it's going to take to build the right foundation required for the build.

Would they test the soil for any contaminants as well? I'm assuming this was a formerly industrial property given that it is the east end.

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wilcal

wilcal

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23 hours ago, sapo2367 said:

Would they test the soil for any contaminants as well? I'm assuming this was a formerly industrial property given that it is the east end.

Yes. I talked to a friend of a friend that is new to my fantasy football league this year, and he said that the works for a company that does a lot of core sampling (including the East End) and that their clients hire them to do soil contamination checks as well. Sometimes they need clearance for property development loans.

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sapo2367

sapo2367

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25 minutes ago, thedistrict84 said:

There has been an uptick in activity at this site, mostly inside the warehouse. I’ve seen vans and work trucks there on a daily basis. I even spotted a Houston BCycle truck there the other day, which was a bit odd.

67E7EC9E-30A9-4BB8-9CB5-885623E49CA2.jpeg

Looking in HCAD the new ownership seems to be Concept Neighborhood -- the same people who own two other lots down the street

 

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thedistrict84

thedistrict84

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9 hours ago, sapo2367 said:

Looking in HCAD the new ownership seems to be Concept Neighborhood -- the same people who own two other lots down the street

That’s great news. Canal and Commerce have tremendous potential as a pedestrian-friendly, walkable corridor with all of these developments in the works.

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Karin

Karin

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On 1/22/2022 at 12:12 AM, thedistrict84 said:

That’s great news. Canal and Commerce have tremendous potential as a pedestrian-friendly, walkable corridor with all of these developments in the works.

There's some activity on Canal @ N Sampson.

58B5D996-07DA-4D0C-843F-E004B4DC206D_1_105_c.jpeg

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wilcal

wilcal

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21 hours ago, Karin said:

There's some activity on Canal @ N Sampson.

 

Address for this site 3301 Canal St? 

Edit: As pointed out below, the taqueria is likely the former owner of the site.

There was a waste/water application filed last February and the owner/occupant is listed as Taqueria La Paloma. They seem to have some locations in Dallas. I just emailed their contact info and asked if it is them.

The address on the app is a civil engineering firm here in Houston. They did the 6 story mixed use at Studewood/11th  and the Lovett multi-building complex at Washington/Center/Silver. 

htgPuuK.png

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ljchou

ljchou

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6 hours ago, wilcal said:

Address for this site 3301 Canal St? 

There was a waste/water application filed last February and the owner/occupant is listed as Taqueria La Paloma. They seem to have some locations in Dallas. I just emailed their contact info and asked if it is them.

The address on the app is a civil engineering firm here in Houston. They did the 6 story mixed use at Studewood/11th  and the Lovett multi-building complex at Washington/Center/Silver. 

htgPuuK.png

The taqueria was the previous owner. Often on WW permits you'll notice the occupant is listed as the former owner while the buyer (or buyer's rep) is listed under "buyer".

 

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  • The title was changed to Two Lots At Canal And Sampson Linked To Concept Neighborhood
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ljchou

ljchou

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Starting a new topic for this:

Concept neighborhood purchased the former WKM buildings surrounding 201 Roberts Street.

See article below:

Quote

An ambitious group of entrepreneurs aims to transform a four-acre warehouse complex in Houston’s East End into a walkable, mixed-use district that could become an example of socially conscious real estate development in one of the most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods in Texas.

Houston real estate firm Concept Neighborhood plans to convert more than four blocks of mostly historic properties into a destination filled with hyperlocal businesses, boutique retail, restaurants and small office spaces. Construction is set to begin in late 2022 on the redevelopment of the roughly 80-year-old buildings that once housed the oil and gas equipment manufacturer W-K-M.

The proposed redevelopment, which encompasses nearly 145,000 square feet spread across several sites around 201 Roberts Street, is a few blocks away from another Concept Neighborhood project, The Plant, a 20,000 square-foot mixed-use development on Harrisburg Boulevard, about 1.5 miles east of downtown. Together the projects could bring more change to the 16-square mile East End district, where urban professionals are flocking, property values are rising, and new cafes, condos and storefronts are popping up in the once predominantly industrial area.

Concept Neighborhood’s goal is to create a collection of small businesses reminiscent of the pedestrian-friendly Midtown Houston or the Bishop Arts District in Dallas. The properties are a few blocks from MetroRail’s Green Line, unlocking the potential for a walkable district that urban planners typically only dream of in Houston.

“It will be like Brooklyn in the South,” said Jeff Kaplan, 43, a principal of Concept Neighborhood, who previously helped to develop the popular Midtown beer garden Axelrad with a handful of others.

Kaplan, who lives in the East End, has long had a passion for the concept that residents should be able to access most daily needs within walking or rail-transit distance. His co-principals in Concept Neighborhood - Dave Seeberger, a former private equity professional, David Kelley, a co-housing developer and founder of a community bank, and commercial real estate attorney Jeremy Roberts and former real estate broker Zachary Samet — share his vision. Urban designer and another Axelrad co-founder Monte Large and broker Andrea Daniel are also involved.

To get a sense of what Concept Neighborhood wants to create in the East End, take a look at The Plant, the adaptive reuse project that opened in 2020. Colorful murals advertise businesses inside, where splashes of pastel paint and hanging orb lanterns light up the hallways between boutiques and small offices.

In the mornings hip hop music emanates from the HAM Barber Studio as a barber cleans his tools for the day. Bicycle-riding baristas arrive at Café Louie, where they’ll craft oat-milk lattes alongside bakers painting pastries with melted butter. Next door at a bodega-style grocery shop, called Little Red Box Grocery, hipsters peruse locally-sourced tortilla chips alongside residents of a nearby affordable housing complex shopping with food stamps.

In 2016, when Kaplan first hatched the idea for The Plant, he said in an interview that his goal was to create a project that wasn’t “just for the yuppies moving into the neighborhood.” So far it seems that dream is coming to fruition. Overall 83 percent of the businesses in The Plant are owned by women, minorities or people who live in the neighborhood.

“What we have here is a really sustainable example of community wealth,” Kaplan said. “When a merchant is an entrepreneur tied to community, odds of success go up. It’s not just about the money, our neighbors are meaningfully invested in these businesses.”

Concept Neighborhood isn’t just leasing spaces, it’s aiming to help small businesses who might not otherwise have the resources to set up a storefront in a standard retail development. For example, in The Plant, Concept Neighborhood paid for a kitchen for one of its tenants, the frozen treat shop Popston opening soon, and is paying for a soon-to-be-built patio outside. Working with the investment firm Next Seed, Kaplan also assisted Cafe Louie’s owners in raising capital for their new restaurant in The Plant. For some tenants, Concept Neighborhood struck sliding-scale leasing agreements with rents rising as businesses prospered. The developer also provided pre-permitted, move-in ready spaces for tenants such as vintage store The Second Shop to minimize tenants’ set-up expenses and timeline.

The goal is to amplify that approach at the W-K-M redevelopment. The property’s historic designation will allow developers to tap into potentially $8 million worth in tax credits over several years, according to Concept Neighborhood. The location within an Opportunity Zone will also allow the developer to defer taxes on capital gains tied to their investment.

Concept Neighborhood purchased 16 buildings in the former W-K-M campus in December from the Grenader family, known for helping to convert a former textile mill into a mixed-use project, The Heights Clock Tower, among other projects in the Houston area.

The W-K-M properties have been in the family for more than 45 years, said Jonathan Grenader, 71. A few years ago he and his wife, Nonya, a retired architecture professor from Rice University, got the properties listed on the National Register of Historic places, enabling them to access tax credits to restore parts of the buildings into office and retail suites. But as they transitioned to semi-retirement, the two did not have the time or resources to redevelop the entire campus, they said. Instead, they sought to sell to a like-minded developers.

“We really admired (Concept Neighborhood’s) energy and their commitment to continue a certain legacy of the neighborhood, infusing new things and existing things together,” said Nonya Grenader, 68.

Concept Neighborhood plans to redevelop the W-K-M campus over the next four years. The handful of manufacturing tenants in the site will eventually exit the project as it transitions from heavy industrial uses, Kaplan said.

Construction is expected to begin in the fourth quarter on the first phase, which includes 50,000 square feet of retail and 23,000 square feet of office space, according to the developer. The redevelopment is expected to wrap up in 2026.

Like the rest of the East End, the neighborhood around the W-K-M campus is a mismatch of modernity and industrial relics of a bygone era when the district mostly served as manufacturing and shipping hub near the Houston Ship Channel. Less than a mile from the W-K-M site, the former Maxwell House coffee roasting plant looms over mid-rise warehouses, derelict properties with overgrown grass, chipped paint and semi-rusted structures.

In between, restored craftsman-style bungalows, art studios, trendy cafes and modern townhomes are signs of change in a neighborhood where the median household income has more than doubled in the past decade, according to Census data for the 77003 zip code.

The East End and adjacent East Downtown neighborhoods are peppered with projects converting, industrial sites into residential lofts, retail shops, cafes, restaurants, small offices and coworking spaces. North of the bayou, Midway’s 150-acre mixed-use development, East River, will dramatically reshape the northside of the East End while the nonprofit Buffalo Bayou Partnership has launched a 20-year, $200 million master plan to reimagine of the eastern side of the bayou

Many of these changes build off the expansion of light rail to the East End. Between 2017 and 2019, property values jumped 30 percent on land adjacent to the light rail line along Harrisburg Boulevard, said Veronica Chapa Gorczynski, president of the East End District, the economic development group.

What’s different about Concept Neighborhood’s approach is its efforts to create a transit-oriented neighborhood of hyperlocal businesses “where everyone's from the community and they can get around without being car dependent.”

“And,” she added, “that's the part where they really are breaking new ground and not just for the neighborhood, but I think they're breaking new ground for Houston.”

The vision of the future "Model T" building (I believe this is directly across from New Hope Housing):

image.png.554798641410e5cd6004756458a8b9e7.png

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thedistrict84

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It’s hard to emphasize exactly how big a deal this is. The blocks covered by this project are right in the middle of several important corridors (Green Line mentioned in article, future Commerce bike corridor connecting downtown and the Harrisburg Rail Trail, York/Sampson Metro route) and work to connect some of the dead space in between existing projects and those currently underway.

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ljchou

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On 7/8/2022 at 9:30 AM, sapo2367 said:

Love love love this! Are these the same folks who bought the pita pal plant and the properties along canal?

Not the same people as pita pal. That is the same group that owns headquarters.

 

concept neighborhood is linked to two lots near Sampson/canal 

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DotCom

DotCom

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Biz Journal Article from Yesterday:

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2022/07/13/concept-neighborhood-wkm-redevelopment-east-end.html

Developers of 4-acre mixed-use district in Houston’s East End aim to be resource for the community

Jul 13, 2022, 5:25pm CDT

A Houston East End development partnership aims to make the area more accessible and walkable while providing opportunities for hyperlocal businesses, workers and entrepreneurs.

Concept Neighborhood, founded in early 2020 by managing principals Dave Seeburger, David Kelley, Jeff Kaplan, Jeremy Roberts and Zach Samet, has started the design phase of the redevelopment of a 13-building campus that used to be the headquarters of oil field equipment manufacturer W-K-M.

The team purchased the 4-acre property along Roberts Street north of Harrisburg Boulevard earlier this year in an off-market transaction from the longtime owner, the Grenader family, with plans to build on the group's existing redevelopment, The Plant, a block away.

“They were very careful how of they disposed and how they sold these buildings,” Kaplan said. “They really interviewed us and a few others.”

Similarly to The Plant, a former Imperial Linen Services plant at 3401 Harrisburg Blvd., the W-K-M development will have a mix of small businesses, including retail and creative offices, but on a much larger footprint — 145,000 square feet, compared to 20,000 square feet at The Plant.

The previous owners had already redeveloped some buildings, which now house creative studio space Starseed Hostel and the Houston Climate Justice Museum, both at 3308 Garrow St., as well as Houston Center Real Estate at 205 Roberts St.

Since purchasing the property, Concept Neighborhood has added additional tenants, including hair product store Earth’s Nectar, where customers will also be able to get a haircut and buy vintage records, and the vintage clothing store partnership Evergirl Vintage and Too Suit Yourself.

“It's that authentic, experience-based retail that we think there's a hunger for,” Kaplan said.

The campus will be able to accommodate between 20 and 50 retail tenants, depending on the size of the space they’ll need. Two large buildings with mezzanine spaces on the sides make up the majority of the project’s total square-footage, David Kelley said.

“We're envisioning potentially the first floor being more as the ‘anti-mall’ — smaller, very hyperlocal retail businesses where you can give them white box and smaller spaces, so it's much more affordable for them to come in,” he said. “And then we can use the mezzanine spaces as creative office spaces.”

Overall, 50,000 square feet is allocated for retail and 20,000 square feet for creative office space. The developers are still exploring options for the remaining 75,000 square feet.

Phase 1 of the redevelopment, slated to be completed early next year, includes two buildings. One is a long, narrow building with adjacent green space at 3217 Sherman St., and the other is a large building that takes up half a block just across the street.

Concept Neighborhood did not disclose the general contractor or architects for the project but said the design is mostly done in-house.

The redevelopment plan calls for leaving the buildings intact and keeping the basic outside design. All but one of the W-K-M buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places and eligible for up to $8 million in state and federal tax credits, Concept Neighborhood said. That also means there are limitations to changing the design.

“Anything new that we do or anything else that happens is really based on the authenticity of these historic buildings and merchandising them in an appropriate way,” Kaplan said.

The project is another piece contributing to the transformation of the area that encompasses East Downtown, the East End District and the Second Ward, much of which had long been marked by industrial real estate.

In recent years, townhome, multifamily and retail development has started to replace many of the old warehouses typical for the area.

It has also increased gentrification, as the look and feel of the majority Latino neighborhood are changing, and rising property values are potentially pushing out longtime East End residents who can no longer afford to live there.

The Concept Neighborhood team is aware of the dilemma any redevelopment in an underserved area brings.

“I think it's important to have a conversation not about how you can stop gentrification but how you can do it in a way better way that creates better equity and reduces the amount of displacement,” said Kaplan, who lives in the East End himself.

Concept Neighborhood’s redevelopments aim to do just that, he said, pointing to The Plant, whose businesses are more than 80% woman- and minority-owned and many of which offer affordable products.

In addition, he said, it gives local employment opportunities to residents, who won’t have to rely on a car to drive far to work.

Veronica Chapa Gorczynski, president of the East End District, which conducts capital improvements on the area’s major transportation corridors, said she is excited about the W-K-M redevelopment.

“This is a great opportunity to bring together both the commitment to adaptive reuse, the history of the neighborhood and the feeling of community,” she said.

Concept Neighborhood expects the entire project to be completed by 2026.

 

Florian Martin

Reporter

Houston Business Journal

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thedistrict84

thedistrict84

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On 7/11/2022 at 8:21 AM, ljchou said:

I think these are two separate developments. I guess we can wait and see!

Agree completely. The lots at Canal and Sampson are several blocks away (and just barely visible at the top of the map) and not contiguous to the W-K-M campus blocks covered by the article here. These definitely should be split back into two separate topics.

It is good that Concept Neighborhoods is committed to the area, and I imagine the development at Canal and Sampson will follow the same general approach and emphasize walkability. Both of these developments are great news for the area.

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hindesky

hindesky

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Concept Neighborhood has acquired the W-K-M Co. campus in East End.

The property, currently industrial warehouses, will be redeveloped into 145K SF of office and retail. Concept Neighborhood purchased the property six months ago, including existing retailers Earth's Nectar, Evergirl Vintage and Too Suit Yourself.

Concept Neighborhood previously built a 200K SF mixed-use project in East End called The Plant.

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JClark54

JClark54

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Update in the Chronicle: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/the-plant-second-ward-east-end-houston-17589799.php

They've acquired more land, which is great. But these two excerpts were the biggest takeaways for me: 

1) "Concept Neighborhood also plans to convert a section of a former Union Pacific railway into a hike-and-bike trail running one-third of a mile through the development from  Commerce Street to Navigation Boulevard." 

This rail line runs perpendicular to most existing trails in the area -- Harrisburg, Buff Bayou -- and will be a strong neighborhood link. 

2) "The Plant/Second Ward path also abuts Navigation Boulevard, just east of the linear park known as Navigation Esplanade, which  is getting extended eastward by 3.5 blocks starting next year, noted Veronica Chapa Gorczynski, president of the East End District."

So the long-planned Navigation Esplanade extension appears to have the green light. A very welcome announcement. 

Edited by JClark54
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wilcal

wilcal

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Wow! Really great update.

Some nice renderings from the article:

QmAlyoe.png

An early conceptual map of The Plant/Second Ward district, showing proposed upgraded greenspaces throughout the area  (including projects proposed by other entities). The buildings in brighter white are properties Concept Neighborhood controls.

xcV0KoW.png

Rendering of Garrow Street between Sampson Street and Roberts Street in "Roberts Row" ("RxR"), a collection of shops within The Plant/Second Ward district, Concept Neighborhood's proposed adaptive reuse mixed-use project comprising historic warehouses, plazas, trails, and greenspaces adjacent to the Coffee Plant/Second Ward METRORail stop in the Second Ward.

68yZ4by.png

Rendering of Roberts St. looking north in “Roberts Row” ("RxR"), a proposed adaptive reuse mixed-use project comprising historic warehouses, plazas, trails, and greenspaces adjacent to the Coffee Plant/Second Ward METRORail stop in the Second Ward.

 

That image above showing the park by the Bayou is what currently exists. This is what the 10 year plan shows: 

R7bYlj5.png

This is pretty massive for the area.

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