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Angostura

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Everything posted by Angostura

  1. Angostura
    Setbacks alone aren't as big a problem as setbacks PLUS parking minimums, but they're still a problem. Think of a walkable area in this city or any other that has 25 feet of space between the sidewalks and the buildings. There aren't many. There are some areas where the zoning code lets the builder trade setbacks for height, but even then, the podium tends to come right up to the building line. If you have minimum setbacks, AND don't allow parking in them, then you've effectively reduced the value of the land (since a good portion of it can't be built on). Reduced land value leads to reduced density, which means less walkability.
  2. Angostura
    Most likely outcome is a few-hundred units of MF residential, but maybe we'll get some retail, too.
  3. Angostura
    There's also a strong bias in favor of doing nothing, especially in the case of family-owned properties. As long as the status quo is financially tenable, there's a fair amount of emotional inertia to overcome before these properties move.
  4. Angostura
    At least someone at CoH now realizes that setbacks and parking minimums have ruined the streetscape of the city. Let's hope they do something about it.
  5. Angostura
    Carrying costs are one part of the equation; opportunity cost is the other. It's not inconceivable that they could sell a location on 19th and buy 3 others in less expensive parts of the city. However, in close proximity to these two, there's a relatively new Goodwill on 20th, the Value Village on 23rd, and any number of "antique" shops that aren't too far removed from the same business model. I suspect there's value to both customer and proprietor in this kind of clustering, and wouldn't expect these stores to go away anytime soon.
  6. Angostura
    So... There are for sale signs up for the areas currently occupied by the Chase drive-thru and associated 2-story building (essentially the entire block bounded by 19th, Lawrence, 20th and Nicholson, except for the two properties at 527 and 527 w 19th) as well as the Chase parking lot on the south side of 19th. There is also a for-sale sign up for the former Water Works tract, though NOT for the empty tract at the NW corner of Nicholson and 20th. My guess is that, rather than develop the two catty-corner sites they acquired at auction from CoH, Alliance will develop JUST the empty site, and try to sell the site with the water works buildings to be co-developed with the Chase site.
  7. Angostura
    They basically want to be the Shake Shack of chicken sandwiches. Very ambitious, and I wish them good luck.
  8. Angostura
    Same owners as the dentist's office/retail center on the other half of the block.
  9. Angostura
    Fourth Ward? The 4th used to span the west half of what we now call Downtown and Midtown (Main was the boundary), and all of what we now call Montrose. But I think that part of the city that's south of Buffalo Bayou, outside the Pierce elevated, too far north to really be called midtown, and too far east to really be called Montrose, can accurately be called the Fourth Ward. Just like the Sixth Ward covered all the way out to Camp Logan and Cottage Grove, we now generally understand the OSW to mean that area along Washington between the bayou and the rail line, from downtown to, say, Studemont.
  10. Angostura
    Didn't get close enough to GRB to say, but Bayou and Bottle (in the Four Seasons) was doing very brisk business (at $8 for draft beer and $16 for cocktails). Reservations at Brasserie du Parc could be had pretty easily. It was almost-but-not-completely full on Saturday night, but since it's around the back of OPP, and you couldn't get there without going past security, I don't think they got many walk-ins. Restaurants and bars along Main St were doing good business in the early evening, and probably picked up as the night wore on. We snagged the last two seats at Tongue-Cut Sparrow around 5:30, and they had a wait list from then on (which is not bad for a bar with no signage that had been open less than a week).
  11. Angostura
    Construction underway.
  12. Angostura
    I'd read that, but I'd guess that Canard was probably at least breaking even on its own, considering it only really occupied ~1500-1800 s.f. of the space. Add in another $8-10k per month in lease cost for the FC part of the space, plus the fact that the parent company has zero cash reserves, and there's no way Canard could stay open. That said, given how co-mingled the two spaces and operations were (they shared the same walk-in and prep area as well as bathrooms), it's not clear how well the parent company knew the true profitability of each concept. Additionally, it seemed like a lot of the customers in Canard were either coming from or heading to FC (or maybe a lot of the customers in FC were either coming from or heading to Canard). Ultimately I think a concept like Canard could be successful on its own, but we may never get a chance to find out.
  13. Angostura
    Not surprising. If they could carry the lease for the whole space, Canard would (probably) still be open pending a new concept for the FC side of the space.
  14. Angostura
    Yes, opening that many concepts in a year is a strain on resources, especially since, given how long it takes to get a restaurant permitted, there is a lot of cash drain before you see your first dollar in revenue. But putting your nanny and a bunch of family members on corp payroll, especially when the company is almost certainly cash flow negative, is super shady. Sounds like they had a lot of OPM (other people's money), but not quite enough. Based on their typical reservation availability, Bernadine's is almost certainly making money, and Hunky Dory is probably at least breaking even. Canard seemed to be doing pretty brisk business on the times I had been there, but probably not enough to cover the cost of the entire leased space (operationally, Canard/FC was basically a single space). I'm not a frequent enough visitor to JGB to judge.
  15. Angostura
    Building line variance is on today's planning commission agenda. No additional or revised info in the variance request.
  16. Angostura
    So I guess that's where Seaside Poke is going. Smoosh does ice cream & cookie sandwiches. Currently a truck that can often be found in Rice Village; this would be their first brick & mortar.
  17. Angostura
    Places like this face a challenge, since certain cuisines get associated with a much lower price point. People don't balk at paying $30 for an entree at a French or Italian restaurant, or a "farm-to-table" restaurant (whatever that means), but a fine-dining thai, chinese or mexican place gets compared to much more modest restaurants with similarly named menu items. FWIW, last time we went there (about a month ago) four of us paid about $120 +tip, which I felt was very reasonable.
  18. Angostura
    Counting the square footage occupied by buildings they can't knock down, that's over $90/s.f., which is... high. Even so, given the size of the project, I'd guess the dirt is only about 1/4 of the total cost. Chase should approach whoever submitted the 2nd highest bid, and sell them the land their drive-through is on.
  19. Angostura
    I think 19 if you count MKT/Phoenician (in the same building as Brasserie du Parc). At some point, a high enough concentration of restaurants becomes an attraction in itself. Remember also that the Astros (2 blocks away) and Rockets (1 block away) draw a combined 3M people every year. In terms of drawing people into the area, that's roughly the equivalent of ~5000 residential units.
  20. Angostura
    The spiced frozen sidecar at Canard/FC was maybe the best cocktail I had all year.
  21. Angostura
    The new strip center @ Durham would be a possibility, but not if they plan to open anytime in the first half of 2017.
  22. Angostura
    That's too bad. Had a really good meal there last month. But yeah, it was maybe 2/3 full on Saturday night, which is not a good sign.
  23. Angostura
    When buildings in Houston look less pedestrian-friendly than we'd like them to, there are usually two reasons: setbacks and parking minimums. The building looks to be pretty close to the required 25-ft setbacks on Washington and Heights. Though if they really wanted a setback variance, I suspect they could get one. I think parking is a bigger deal here. Since retail parking minimums are based on square footage, for every square foot of surface parking you replace with retail footprint, you have to add 2-3 square feet of additional parking space. It looks like the surface parking is about 20k s.f., which means they'd need to replace those 100 or so spots, plus add another 100 spots for the extra square footage. This probably means at least one if not two extra floors on the parking garage. The store entrance is situated on the West face of the building (along Heights) while the parking garage (floors 3 and up) are on the East face, making the additional parking spaces pretty far from the store entrance. There are already HEB spaces on the 3rd floor of the garage, from which it appears customers will have to go down one floor, walk across the entire 2nd floor of the garage, to the 2nd floor escalator lobby, then down into the store. On the way out, those customers will have to do the same thing, just with a shopping cart full of groceries. I suspect HEB wanted to limit the percentage of their customers for which this would be necessary. Unless it's a rainy day, I would expect those surface spaces will be the first ones filled.
  24. Angostura
    Not their largest, but pretty big. Bunker Hill is 127k. San Felipe & Fountainview is 99k. Montrose is around 80k, Heights will be around 87k. That said, about 6k of the square footage (on the 2nd floor) appears to be just escalator/elevator space, so functionally the 91k s.f. on the ground floor is a more accurate representation of the size of the store.
  25. Angostura
    Build-out of Bernie's appears to have started. At least they've put plywood over the window openings.
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