Angostura

Demo permits for the block bounded by Austin, Leeland, LaBranch and Bell issued today.

Noticed that. Good. Not clear what the rectangular hole in the middle of the slab is for.

Kraftsmen also has a wholesale baking business, though I'm not sure that occupies the entirety of the rest of the building.

Fingers crossed. The flyer on Braun's website is unchanged.

If there were, the Kroger on 20th would be a private club.

The private club exemption only applies to sales of alcohol for consumption on-premise, and the club must also serve food to qualify. There are a number of other hoops to be jumped through (see here), like how the membership records must be maintained, and how alcoholic beverages are purchased and accounted for, which is why a lot of places opt to remain BYOB.

I saw the concrete on a quick drive-by over the weekend. It wasn't immediately clear whether it was parking lot or slab for the structure. If the latter, it would seem like they've gone back to having the building front (at least part of) the sidewalk, instead of doing parking along the 20th St frontage.

It looks like the lot across from Cal-Tex on the west side of Yale between 4th and 5th is being cleared. Appraisal on this property tripled this year, and I'm guessing it's being sold for development. Could mean mutli-family all the way from 7th to 4th.

I would expect most buyers don't see Yale as an attractive place for street-facing single-family residential. Higher density is perfectly appropriate on a major thoroughfare, and on a street as busy as Yale, these central-driveway townhouse clusters seem as good a solution as any. The alternative is probably multi-family. As land values in the Heights increase, the default development model is slowly shifting from 2-story single-family to 3 to 3.5 story townhouses. It started with the narrowing of lot sizes down to 25-ft frontage as standard. Some of the newer single-family houses are being designed as 2.5 stories. There are only so many buyers at the $700k+ price point that new 2-story houses are selling for in the Heights. By building townhouses, developers can offer at a price point (just) south of half-a-million (for which the typical buyer doesn't need a jumbo loan). If you live on a residential block outside an HD with, say, two lot-value properties side-by-side, and don't want a dozen townhouses as a neighbor, I'd recommend looking into minimum lot size protection for your block.

Apparently it's been in the works for a while. Here's a story from three years ago about the imminent expansion into Houston as the first franchisee-owned store. Apparently they plan to get into overnight gelato delivery.

I've always assumed the tracts were related since they shut down and cleared out around the same time, but looking at the HCAD records, they ARE separately owned. It looks like it'll cover from the house on the corner of Nicholson and 26th (which faces Nicholson) to just past Ashland on the south side of 26th. That's probably 25-30 houses, assuming they keep the frontage at about 25-ft, about one quarter of that double block. The remainder of that double block, and the single block south of 25th is potentially a further 100 houses. I don't think these ever went on MLS, but this new-build a few blocks away is virtually identical in size and lot size. It sat on the market for six months last year at $569k, then relisted last month and sold for $100k more.

Snapped this pic yesterday afternoon. Looks like all be the last few houses between 26th and 27th are sold. Presumably the second phase is the south face of 26th. It also looks like the price point is going up from the high $500's to the (presumably) low $700's. No details on the site or on HAR yet.

Also, the Shepherd/Durham corridor is dry from 16th to 26th, so I'm guessing this will be another private club license.

Surprisingly large amount of parking. Shepherd will gradually transition from being lined with parking lots full of used cars to being lined with parking lots intermittently full of used cars.

It's 1200 s.f., and currently has 13 parking spaces, so they already meet the parking minimums.

Whether or not it's actually an increase in population, it IS an increase in square footage. And there are most definitely people who complain when a 6600 s.f. lot which previously had one 1300 s.f. house is replaced by two 2500 s.f. houses. The point being that if what people really want to prevent is the kind of townhouse-ification that has happened in Montrose and Rice Military, and is happening Shady Acres, or to prevent multi-family construction on largely single-family blocks, there are less intrusive means.

Much (though admittedly not all) of the support for a stronger preservation ordinance was a desire to slow densification and, to a lesser extent, increases in square footage. Inevitably, as land value increases, the economic incentive is to increase the amount of square footage of house per square foot of land, either by subdividing lots, or by replacing 1500 s.f. bungalows with 4000 s.f. houses. Although I tend to support the rights of property owners, I even kind of understand this concern. As more and more densification happens on a given block or neighborhood, the value of the existing structure on the last un-subdivided lot can fall to zero even as the average value of homes increases. In other words, when the market in a given neighborhood is entirely large homes on small lots, the market for the 1500 s.f. bungalow on 6600 s.f. of lot ceases to exist, and the house that WAS worth $400k is now pretty much just worth the $250k for the land that it sits on. Ironically, though , the surest way to make sure the market for smaller bungalows dries up is to make it very risky for people to buy them with the intent of renovating and expanding them.

They don't appear to need it for resident parking.

I'm not convinced the current situation is preferable. The surrounding area is not exactly suffering from a lack of thrift-store options, and that Kroger is in need of some work.

The property in question is across 20th St. from the Kroger, on the SE corner of 20th and Rutland, where a former church annex has already been demo'd. With respect to the area being dry, it IS possible (but kind of a pain) for restaurants to work around this by getting a private club license. Downhouse, Shade, Torchy's and HGS all serve alcohol. There is no such loophole for grocery stores, so the Kroger will remain dry.

Fat Cat is very cleverly partnering with food trucks. Hopefully they'll be able to keep it up once the rest of the tenants in that center open.

Really contradicts the last few paragraphs of this, which specifically said parking would be in the back.

That rendering is incredibly deceptive. Looks like the building is up against the street with space for parallel parking. Instead, it's set back by one row of head-in parking on Rutland and two rows on 20th. City of Houston setback and parking regulations make me want to tear my hair out. This is a walkable district with plenty of street parking. Why 8000 s.f. of retail in this area requires 53 (!) parking spaces is beyond me. Even so, there's no reason why this couldn't be built with 5-ft setbacks and parking in the back to maintain the pedestrian-friendly blockfaces on Rutland and 20th. Very disappointing.

Looking forward to getting some ice cream this weekend. With density and disposable income come restaurants and retail, and a lot of residential units are being added near 19th St. Hopefully over time, we'll see continuous walkable retail from Yale to Durham (Downhouse to Foreign Correspondents). This would require development/redevelopment of the following (for starters): - Sand Dollar at 19th and Yale - Former water storage and pumping station at Nicholson - Chase drive-up bank at Nicholson (this is a staggeringly poor use of valuable land) - Car Wash at Lawrence

New construction, even very large new construction, is having a much easier time getting through the HAHC than additions. With the exception of one developer who got push-back on eave height last month, virtually every new construction application has received a CoA, even projects close to 4000 s.f. The incentive, therefore, is for people who have $800k to spend on a house to spend it on a new-build rather than on adding on to an existing house. (Now that the eave height survey is complete, there may be more trouble getting CoA's for pier-and-beam houses with ceiling heights typical for new-builds.)