capnmcbarnacle

I'm not a fan, but I've definitely seen worse...at least they saved a couple of the live oaks growing on the property. The scale is a little overwhelming when you drive by, for sure

In other news, they're building these about a block away: link

From Martha's Vineyard to Miami in only a block? Throw in Takara-So (which will still probably be there in 30 years) and you've got quite a hodgepodge

Those Miami ones are a riot. "Minutes from West U.!!!"

I've been by a numer of times in the past few weeks and while there is not any activiy on the site proper, the building at 1203 Dunlavy, where the construction/hiring office will be, has been full of activity. It appears to me that they are doing major work inside that building and they have also dug up the parking lot and set rebar for new concrete. Whatever is going on in there, it looks like they are settling in for the long haul.

As the resident Masshole on this board, I'd have to give this project an F.

These homes clearly represent Nantucket rather than Martha's Vineyard.

Is there a Widow's Walk on the top of the house? You know, so the lonely Upper Kirby/Southampton wife can watch for her husband's whaling ship to come in from the gulf?

Interesting location description there..."between Upper Kirby and Southampton." I live a couple of blocks from there and had no idea it was such a classy area - had figured it to just be Montrose. From those great decks they will be able to enjoy views of downtown, the medical center, the galleria, and...the top of the Takara-So apartments next door

Everything that is wrong with architecture and development in Houston is embodied in that picture. Everything.

Anyone know the latest news on this project? I'm assuming its been put on hold due to the current economic climate. I was walking around looking at this building the other day and was thinking if I had fantasy money it would be a great place to buy and remodel and build some sort of wedding chapel and reception hall with a large ballroom and suites etc. You could turn the top floors into apartments. Just some lunchtime day dreaming...

My understanding was that this was funded as part of the bond issue for the new courthouse so I don't know what the delay is. I walk by often and haven't seen activity in a long time -- well over a year.

This block can only be used as a courthouse. The Allen brothers granted it to the city for use of a courthouse and if the city tries to do otherwise, they will lose the property. Judge Eckels attempted to get the Harris County administrative offices moved there but was denied because, despite being Harris County Judge, it wouldn't satisfy the Allen brothers grant. The city decided the best way to use the building was to move the courts of appeals there, thereby keeping the land for the city.

Aren't palm trees native to the Gulf coast? If so, how does that make them California wannabe trees? Are the palms in Orlando or Tel Aviv or other cities with tropical climates California wannabes as well?

I don't think sticking with just oak trees is particularly authentic. I do like the live oaks when they are old and gnarly though. Palms are nice too, but I agree that they don't provide a lot of shade unless you have a whole grove of them.

Palms aren't native to Southern California. LA was simply trying to give their city a tropical feel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/us/26palm.html

Another update from the chron, and it's not good news for Sonoma:

link

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.

3. Chuy's, including its parking lot is a drop in the bucket in size compared to West Ave. in its entirety. Building III by itself is a hair bigger than that etire plot of land. If West Ave. acquires it, what would they use it for? Only thing I can think of is additional parking? Could it really be used for another, slightly smaller building, or perhaps if they took over the shopping center where Buffalo Hardware is for a larger building? Ideas?

Finally, I phrase this as more of a question than a statement... but there is plenty of space on the backside of West Ave. to do something with, west of the parking garage (the spot that used to be all the tennis courts). So far all I see are trailers and construction equipment. What is this abundant space going to be used for after Phase I is completed?

FWIW, the rumblings I heard regarding Chuy's involved the Buffalo Hardware center as well as the center to the west with Rickshaw. Those parcels together are a sizable, if oddly shaped, chunk.

I don't know the plan for the old tennis court section but I thought there was an earlier rendering with stuff on that. That whole area is changing so rapidly it is amazing. I think the building housing Avalon Diner and Westheimer Plumbing is toast too. Exciting to see if you ask me, though it is sad to see some stalwart businesses fall by the wayside.

sounds like it goes to buffalo bayou park, not to allen parkway.

It does. An earlier poster spoke of one going over the bayou itself too, which I think would be great. If you get all the way downtown and cross the bayou, on the way back toward Shepherd the only shortcut back across is by walking the 18" sidewalk on Memorial which is a little frightening. So I guess this means we need about 3 new bridges.

I think the spot in great need of a pedestrian bridge is...Dunlavy crossing over Allen Parkway. I always see people crossing from the Royalton, etc., in the middle of the island waiting to get splatted. The narrow sidewalks along the Waugh and Montrose bridges blow. A pedestrian bridge giving easy access from Regent Square, Royalton, etc. to the Bayou and the park would be great. As it is, the only decent way across is to walk to Waugh which, while not the end of the world, sucks. There is a bridge across Allen Pkwy at the old Allen Parkway Village -- I think one further up where lots of people now live would be great.

It's for the best. That spot was way too crowded and minimal parking. They may be the ones more than happy to leave. I bet they have a super loyal clientel that will follow them anywhere in town.

Gottaget recent pics of this area.

I am a loyal Chuy's customer, have eaten there for 15 years, and eat there a couple times a month. I wouldn't follow them further out of the loop than Buffalo Speedway. Weird, huh?

I'm thinking of having dinner at McCormick and Schmicks there Friday or Saturday. Anyone here been there?

I've been to the one in the Galleria. I like it a lot. Think Palm or Morton's but for fish.

I think that if they had used the original plan and made this mixed use with a residential componenet it would feel much better. It was designed to be part of that plan and when it is separated from the rest of the original it just doesn't feel right. If it had been designed as simply a shopping mall from the start, it might have turned out better.

One of the big design flaws I saw is this -- when you walk at ground level from BAM toward HOB and wish to ascend to the second floor to cross over the street, there are only stairs. Why wouldn't they make these escalators?? If you really needed stairs, put them from the 2d to 3d floors. Instead, there were escaltors coming down from the 2d to the ground level in places, and up from 2 to 3 in others. If you don't feel like walking up the stairs, then you need to go down the block to the light, and jog back on the other side to get back in. I know this isn't the end of the world, but from a design standpoint I can't see why they did it this way.

Who is that?

So I stopped by the other day and took a look around. BAM was fine but I couldn't believe how huge the Thomas the Tank Engine section was. Casey Jr. was just lumped into the other train stories section.

Maybe it was because it was empty, but the place reminded me so much of the Marq*e Entertainment Center it scared me. Empty, strangely uninviting, with piped in music. I'm sure it will get better but I can't say was impressed -- and I really wanted to be.

I'm not too far away - a couple of blocks south of Westheimer just off Dunlavy. I'm happy to see any redevelopment in the area of course, and yes it had the potential to be worse. I just wish there were a little more predictability in how new structures relate to each other and the street/sidewalk, that's all.

I'm disappointed. But I'll also say it could be much, much worse. I think they had an interesting dillemma with where to put parking for a small office/commercial building and chose to use a method that you see (and which I've always kind of liked) around here in the 60s of putting the parking below the building on street level. Considering the intersection has the Royal Bakery, another small office building and some apartments on the corner, I think this probably fits in pretty well. If this were on Westheimer or Alabama I'd be considerably more upset, but I never think of Fairview as much of a pedestrian, commercial street. I think my gripe has more to do with the aesthetics. I thought it might look really cool but it just seems blah to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard the site went under archeological study (doesn't mean digging for bones) a while back. Only after the exhausting research and approval from the state could the move forward.

The existing land under the project had various activities happen on it dating back to earliest days of Houston. Allen House was built at a time when this type of study wasn't performed.

This is new to me. I know there were other sites along Allen Parkway and Dallas that had some digs a few years back-- the old elemntary school in Freedman's town and spots near the Allen Parkway Village -- but I've never heard of anything going on at this site. Of some interest though is the fact that the old black cemetary is next door and this area used to be an old black enclave of the city. It was outside of what was considered freedman's town and was more of a pocket that had development build around it. There is an old church and a couple of shotgun shacks left down behind the Gotham and Backstreet Cafe. And for what its' worth the mob in the Camp Logan riot in 1917 turned from Buffalo Dr. (now Allen Parkway) to Dunlavy (then something else) and down a street a block north of Dallas that goes right past Daily Review. But I digress...

^ That would make sense.

There was a lot of activity around the site today. About 15-20 cars parked on the former Allen House lot, and across the street the bulldozers pictured above tore up the entire parking lot for 1203 Dunlavy. There were a lot of workers on site and workers were up on the roof doing some sort of work most of the day. I'm not sure what the roof and parking lot work is for.

No changes noticed on the Allen House lots yet.

The building at 1203 was used as warehouse and storage. Maybe they are doing a few things to make it suitable for use as construction offices for the next few years. And I also saw them dropping off some graders and one of those nubby steamroller things this morning. So either this is a big project to resurface the parking lot of the vacant 1203 Dunlavy building, or they are fixing to get going.

Thanks for sharing the info! Hope he's right.

Keep hope alive.

I drove past this morning and the lot where UHlaw posted the photo above had about a dozen cars and trucks parked in it and there were new signs posted that said it was J.E. Dunn construction parking only. Now, despite seeing the cars and trucks parked there, I saw no people. I did not go by the offices/trailers that had been set up a few blocks away, so maybe they were down there. But I'm going to go out on a limb and venture that there were a number of folks taking a snoop at the property and having a meeting about it today. We've heard November start, so maybe this thing is really going to go. Either that or they were discussing the fact that everyone was fired. Time will tell.

What is this Firkin&Phoenix you speak of?

It's a place that whose pint glasses hold 12 ounces. Need I say more? Well I will. 12 ounce pints. There oughta be a law...

i went to the donut shop in this strip shopping center and the lady said she, so vino and osaka restaurant were leaving? she thought it was because the rent was raised and no one can afford it-- 2 othere business have tried to make it there and failed--

if it goes empty--then what? is it too new to tear down and build apartment building like the ones being finished on LOvett blvd?

Bummer about Osaka. The owner was/is super cool and that place was the best sushi in the city when it first opened. While it has been hit or miss the last several years, the super tuna and agadashi tofu were always killer.

As far as the building goes, doze it. I always hated that they took the vacant lots that used to support the Westheimer festival and filled them in with classic Houston strip malls. Compare Westheimer west of Montrose to the east side. There is no comparison to the difference in foot traffic -- strip malls blow.

I wish they'd fill it up with porn shops, tatoo parlors, and bars.

Disappointed but not surprised. Do you have any word on what kind of tenants are expected?

I heard the hotel was still a go -- was this W or Ritz? I forgot. As for retail, I heard "ultra-ultra high end." So I figure that means the inner loop will be getting a sorely needed Orange Julius.

I knew the owners had procrastinated on getting their financing together and that this project may not go all at once but in phases. I have not heard that they are pushing it back for 2 years. Are you sure about that statement? Not starting any construction until 2010?

That's what I heard and confirmed a couple of times. I heard that the tenants are still a go and that they were very confident this thing would get done, just that it needed to get pushed back. Heard that the size of the project made it hard to get financing through one or two major players and that it was a simple of function of having to go to 8 or 10 people to get financed instead of 1 or 2. The negotiations get slowed way down and closings get put off, etc. Once you are almost there someone who promised $100,000,000 will balk and say they can give you 50, and then you have to start again with a new party to make up the difference. But, on the good side, they were confident that the market here is solid and will continue to be. It's just a liquidity thing. I also heard, for what it's worth, that some retail tenants have put a freeze on new locations until this thing passes. They are planning on filling this place with "ultra-ultra high end" stuff and while these retailers want a Houston presence asap, they want to wait until the big picture settles a little bit before they do anything anywhere. I got the impression that everyone involved kind of agreed to take a deep breath. Like one of those scheduled holds on a Shuttle launch.

He was also excited about the High Street project, even though it wasn't his. He thinks the two together will be incredible.

This thing ought to be great for out of towners. There is no tourist ghetto in Houston. No West End, no Riverwalk -- and while those aren't places locals necessarily go, they are great for out of towners who don't know the city and want to go someplace easy to find and prepackaged and ready to go. Pavillions is not the Riverwalk and is basically just a mall, but it provides something for the out of towner to do to kill a couple of hours while waiting to do whatever it is they came here for.

The proximity of Pavillions to the Hilton, Four Seasons, Club whatever, even Doubletree, is a good thing. It gives the people who came in Friday afternoon for a Saturday wedding an option that doesn't involve a long cab ride somewhere else. It is a good time killer for the business traveller who is trying to get out of his room. It provides a bunch of good dining options for the conventioneer. I think I can say before it is even open that it is better than Bayou Place or the Shops at Houston Center. It may not be perfect and it may not draw tons of people from in town, but this is something downtown sorely needed. It may be a glorified mall filled with chain stores you can get in any other city, but the reality is that most Americans will go to something familiar first and that is why this place will be successful.

Will it draw people from in town? It just might. I live in Montrose and I like McCormick and Schmicks. I'll probably come down here before the Galleria. I know I'll see some shows at HOB. It's hard to imagine going past 12 bookstores to get to Books-a-million, but you never know. Time will tell.

Here is the architects website if it hasn't been posted already: http://www.bokapowell.com/

We already know what hotels are going in there, right?

Thought I'd pass along some info I heard regarding this project. The story is that this project is going to go forward, but it's going to be 2 years down the road. The tenants and others lined up are ok with the delay and there is a basic problem with the financing people being able to come up with the money the had committed to providing. I also heard that BLVD place will not have the hotel or condo tower straight away either. The long term plan is to do it and the construction will allow for them to be added later, but there are some financing issues on that project as well.

Don't shoot the messenger. I think this is a good source for what it's worth.

Remember, this used to be the Academy, until they moved to the new building at 59 and Shepherd. Hmm, now what sort of chain store would work in this location?

They could make the old Academy/99 cent store into a CVS. There aren't any of those around here.