longcat

There are like 8-10 people crawling all over the roof of the Houston Club building at this moment. It's too far to tell exactly what they are doing, but hopefully it means that things are moving along

Drove by this morning and there was a new fence around the entire site (including the old walgreens building), some bull dozers and such, and a sign saying Hanover Company construction site. I think this thing is finally getting started.

The Village news Link is reporting a mid July ground breaking and that the project is now called "Ashton Rice Village" with 20k sq ft of retail, and will be built in three phases. They intend to use a brick similar to the ones used at Rice and will have sidewalks 10-20 feet in width to promote pedestrian access.

TMH's Girotto appears to have been as much a part of the Methodist-Baylor split as Traber, so there are probably some seriously bad feelings there.

Now that Girotto is stepping down and Klotman is in at Baylor - any chance of a rapprochement?

Village news is reporting that the site was acquired by Hanover who is proposing a new luxury apartment complex with 14k sq foot of retail and public park space...etc. It'll be nice to see something go up on the site, but the reduction in retail space is pretty considerable.

http://www.village-southwest-news.com/register.aspx?sec=1

Click on "village news" and see page 1

Thanks for the pics. Didn't this building get its lower levels and sidewalk renovated back in the late 90's, too?

I wasn't at El Paso back then, but I thought it was only the sidewalk and redoing the fountain and such. They are also redoing the tunnel space below the building - it's all beign done behind temporary walls though so I don't really have any idea what it will look like down there when done.

Some pics of the building pedestal work going on. They are building a 4 story curved glass wall that will encircle the lower 4 floors of the building. Should give the building a more modern look at the ground level.

It looks like this may stay an empty lot for awhile - the village news has a story about an agreement being reached to turn part of the lot (I assume the already paved portion around the old sales office) into a paid parking lot for the rest of the village and installing pay stations etc. For some reason it's not letting me post the link, but here is the site http://village-southwest-news.com (then choose the 'village news' option)

I can't beleive they got the utilities in under Bolsover. But at least they have 4 years to get a crosswalk done. At this pace that sounds rather ambitious.

Anyone care to revisit my option of turning it into a park in the meantime? If someone cuts a whole in the fencing, I'll walk around the site and sprinkle grass seeds from my pocket!

It's really depressing that it is just going to sit there as an empty lot for so much longer in the future. I really liked Nit Noi and the Cafe Rabelais wine bar that were in the building they tore down too.

I am not absolutely certain, but I doubt if sky lobby windows were blown out. (1) The vast majority of the blown -out windows were on the east side of the building, while the sky lobby windows face south-ish. (2) The vast majority of the blown out windows were below the 45th floor. The sky lobby is at what, 60?

I can see that side of the tower from my office window and the sky lobby windows appear to be undamaged. I have no idea if you can get up there though.

Swamplot post today referencing an examiner story about some conditions to the sale of Bolsover Street that must be completed soon (otherwise it could revert back to the city):

link

Perhaps this will finally spur something to happen to the site...

Skirting my way to downtown through side streets this morning, I noticed that they have the sales office building installed.

They've had a sales trailer up from the start, so I'd guess that is nothing new.

If they couldn't finance this thing before the last few weeks of credit market turmoil, I can't imagine it'll get done anytime soon. The least they could do would be to plant some grass and turn in into a park in the meantime. It's a big piece of land - people could bbq, play soccer, fly kites...etc. I guess I'll stop daydreaming and get back to work.

Update from the chronicle LINK

Apparently they are going to try and get financing to build the second phase 1st. Since phase 2 is located on the Walgreens site and their lease is not up until January, it sounds like construction won't start until early 2009.

I don't think its going to be residential? Is El Paso moving out?

They are just doing a major rehab of the building from what I've heard from my sources. It hasn't been touched since the 60's or 70's, so they are basically gutting it floor by floor and then rebuilding it out. I think they are going to redo the tunnel area as well as renovating the lobby area to make it more modern, which should be visible to the outside the way the building is. I don't think there are any other exterior changes planned, but I could be wrong. Definitely not converting to residential though.

I drove by this morning on the way to work and there is no sign of anything going on (no equipment, no trailers other than the sales one, no workers). It looks exactly the same as it has since January.

I drive by periodically since I live close and there has been no sign of construction starting at all. They put some marketing signs up on the corners of the fences surrounding the lot awhile back, but that's it. I noticed that one of the ad's in the paper for Sonoma now quoted a ground breaking of 'Spring 2008'

Website now says construction starting in 'Summer 2008'. Tick tock tick tock.... At least they are updating the website though.

Found this on Mcgraw Hill's building news for June 2008 (http://texas.construction.com/news/building/default.asp)

Really? That seems a bit quick.

And why another year for the retail after the apartments open for occupancy? That seems like a long time to do the interior buildouts.

I don't get the timing mentioned in yesterday's HBJ article:

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories...19/daily33.html

"Residents will begin moving in later this summer, and the retail shops will open in fall 2009."

If it will be complete enough for residents to move in, why would it take another full year to open the retail shops on the ground floor?

as of the time I drove by (3 hours ago), no. If there was heavy equipment there, it was hidden in the darkness.

I drive by periodically since I live close and there has been no sign of construction starting at all. They put some marketing signs up on the corners of the fences surrounding the lot awhile back, but that's it. I noticed that one of the ad's in the paper for Sonoma now quoted a ground breaking of 'Spring 2008'

I know this will sound a bit mean hearted, but since I don't have a heart, I don't care. This picture makes me happy. That means that a Pharmacist that worked there isn't there anymore....she was SUCH a pain.

From the latest article in the chron, it sounds like that Walgreens is definitely nearing the end of its useful life:

chron article

Hopefully the 36 months figure is for both phases of the development and the first phase will open well before that.

I mentioned this on another thread, but seems relevant here as well. With the increases in jobs/cars/residents likely in this area from the aforementioned development projects, how long can Holcombe between Med Center and Kirby remain something of a wasteland? There are numerous underutilized commercial lots, not to mention the eye sores such as the boarded up IHOP. Much of this isn't walking distance from the Med Center, but it seems to me like it will definitely get an uplift at some point. Too bad I know nothing of commercial real estate or I might try and invest myself.

I was walking around Rice Village recently (pushing a stroller) and noted how poor some of the streets/curbs and infrastructure appeared. There are numerous areas where the curbs have no ramps and you are literally forced to walk in the street or through parking lots. This is really surprising to me given the number of young families with children in the immediate area, and the proximity to the medical center (and thus likely use by people in wheelchairs.) The village is really one of the major 'public faces' of Houston to the outside world, likely to be visited by out of town families of Rice university students, and out of town medical center patients and families (I see the shuttle buses from the medical center hotels dropping them off frequently.) As such, I really can't understand the lack of investment in the roads and curbs in the village area and I'm really surprised someone hasn't brought an ADA lawsuit. Are sidewalks and curbs in commercial areas the responsibility of the city or the property owner to maintain?

Jeez, with all the recent Holcombe demolition, you'd hope they would slap a Starbucks (or anything with an espresso machine) down somewhere around there.

That's a good point. It seems like there is lots of press about the lack of good locations inside the loop for new restaurants and other nice commercial. Holcombe from Kirby to Main would seem to be very well positioned (West U, Med Center, Southgate, Braeswood...etc) but it's something of a retail/restaurant development wasteland currently, other than a new bank building going in on the corner of morningside. Why can't/isn't another "washington ave" phenomenon happening there?