Heights 26th: Multifamily With Retail At 724 West 27th St.

[IntheKnowHouston]

On 6/5/2023 at 11:12 AM, Paco Jones said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An application for the abandonment of an alley was submitted to the city's Joint Referral Committee recently. Jay Janacek of Property Commerce is  the listed applicant.

Included in the application for Heights 26th were the conceptual renderings and floor layouts Paco posted above. Also included were photos of the requested alley abandonment. 

This request was rejected June 8th. The committee noted the "abutting owners need to agree to the abandonment." So, I'm assuming the developers are going to seek an agreement with  the owners of Houston Bark Park (710 W 27th St), then submit it to the Joint Referral Committee.


Below is what the developer submitted:
 

• Description and square footage of requested street or alley to be abandoned and sold:
  
  Alley, 38-feet wide by 600-feet long; total 22,800 square feet
  
  
   
• Statement of intended use and details of the requested street or alley to be sold:
  
  The alley will be incorporated in mixed use development for Height Twenty-Sixth development.  Owner is proposing a 10-story mixed-use retail and residential development:
  
   
  • Level 1 - retail leasing, retail parking
  • Level 2 - Target store
  • Level 3 - retail parking
  • Level 4 - residential parking
  • Level 5 - residential parking/units
  • Level 6 - units, pool amenities & courtyard
  • Levels 7 - 10 residential units
    
    
     
• What is the timeline for proposed redevelopment? 
  
  90 days
  
  
   
• What is the timeline to vacate the property if the property is currently occupied? 
  
  A section of the alley, 19-feet wide and 249.81-feet wide; 4,746.39 square feet, is occupied by the dog park.  Code Enforcment has issued citations to remove improvements. We have not received notification of compliance.  
   

https://popms.houstontx.gov/OnlineJRC/Review/Review/2558

[IntheKnowHouston]

Just now, IntheKnowHouston said:

 

An application for the abandonment of an alley was submitted to the city's Joint Referral Committee recently. Jay Janacek of Property Commerce is  the listed applicant.

Included in the application for Heights 26th were the conceptual renderings and floor layouts Paco posted above. Also included were photos of the requested alley abandonment. 

This request was rejected June 8th. The committee noted the "abutting owners need to agree to the abandonment." So, I'm assuming the developers are going to seek an agreement with  the owners of Houston Bark Park (710 W 27th St), then submit it to the Joint Referral Committee.


Below is what the developer submitted:
 

• Description and square footage of requested street or alley to be abandoned and sold:
  
  Alley, 38-feet wide by 600-feet long; total 22,800 square feet
  
  
   
• Statement of intended use and details of the requested street or alley to be sold:
  
  The alley will be incorporated in mixed use development for Height Twenty-Sixth development.  Owner is proposing a 10-story mixed-use retail and residential development:
  
   
  • Level 1 - retail leasing, retail parking
  • Level 2 - Target store
  • Level 3 - retail parking
  • Level 4 - residential parking
  • Level 5 - residential parking/units
  • Level 6 - units, pool amenities & courtyard
  • Levels 7 - 10 residential units
    
    
     
• What is the timeline for proposed redevelopment? 
  
  90 days
  
  
   
• What is the timeline to vacate the property if the property is currently occupied? 
  
  A section of the alley, 19-feet wide and 249.81-feet wide; 4,746.39 square feet, is occupied by the dog park.  Code Enforcment has issued citations to remove improvements. We have not received notification of compliance.  
   

https://popms.houstontx.gov/OnlineJRC/Review/Review/2558

Below are photos of the alley abandonment developers of Heights 26th are requesting. The photos were included in an application for the abandonment of an alley.






W 26th St

[Ross]

I bet the property owners of the dog place say no, since they encroach on the alley.

[RaslDasl]

Two questions on this: 

1. I assume the developer must have approached the owners of the dog park lots. My guess is they are playing the long game and feel the will make more selling a lot next to a Target than selling out to the current developers. Can anyone confirm if they were made an offer?

2. Any confirmation that a CVS is going on one of the adjacent lots? The 24-hour CVS on Yale is so busy at the pharmacy these days that I’d like to have another option. However, give that Target pharmacies are CVS it seems unlikely they would build one next door unless the Target store will be built without a pharmacy. 

[hindesky]

[HNathoo]

7 hours ago, hindesky said:

Are they demolishing this by hand? 

[LBC2HTX]

From what I can tell when I drive by, yes. 

[hindesky]

[TX3G4R]

So what’s going to happen if the dog place doesn’t agree to abandon that section of the alley? 

[hindesky]

On 7/30/2023 at 1:23 PM, TX3G4R said:

So what’s going to happen if the dog place doesn’t agree to abandon that section of the alley? 

Pretty sure it belongs to the city, so they wouldn't have a choice.

 

Metal warehouse is gone, someone is dumping dirt, one more building is gone with two more to go.

[hindesky]

All the buildings on 27th St. are gone except for the Bark Park. Power lines in the alley will have to be rerouted and removed.

[hindesky]

People keep dumping piles of dirt throughout the property. Unless the developer asked for the dirt they need to fence this off or they are going to have to pay to get rid of it.

Noticed the electrical poles on the property, probably to reroute the electrical that is now in the alley.

 

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by hindesky

[TacoDog]

Do you think the dog daycare will survive construction? It seems to be very close to the construction area.

[__nevii]

On 4/28/2023 at 11:41 AM, s3mh said:

It only took a decade or two, but it looks like Houston developers have finally realized that ground floor (and second floor) retail is a good idea.  

It's possible that the developers already knew it's a good idea, but stuff like parking minimums/setbacks/etc held them back.

[Texasota]

Eh, plenty of Houston developers are composed 100% of inertia and do "what's worked before."

But yes, the City's misguided restrictions haven't helped.

[004n063]

21 minutes ago, Texasota said:

Eh, plenty of Houston developers are composed 100% of inertia and do "what's worked before."

But yes, the City's misguided restrictions haven't helped.

I think the combination of bad regulations with no zoning an minimal long-term planning cements that inertia, though. 

[__nevii]

3 hours ago, 004n063 said:

I think the combination of bad regulations with no zoning an minimal long-term planning cements that inertia, though. 

It's just the bad regulations, as "no zoning" in/of itself (no mandated separation of uses) is what would easily allow these "ground-floor retail" walkable holy grails. But any parking minimums, FARs, setbacks, etc requirements can prevent full-blown utilizations of those potentials, and so need to go ASAP.

As of now, Downtown, Eado and Midtown are the only areas exempt from the regulations in their entirety. Other areas like Heights and Montrose are also exempt, but, as of now, only in areas proximate to transit lines (Walkable Places Ordinance)

[004n063]

8 hours ago, __nevii said:

It's just the bad regulations, as "no zoning" in/of itself (no mandated separation of uses) is what would easily allow these "ground-floor retail" walkable holy grails. But any parking minimums, FARs, setbacks, etc requirements can prevent full-blown utilizations of those potentials, and so need to go ASAP.

As of now, Downtown, Eado and Midtown are the only areas exempt from the regulations in their entirety. Other areas like Heights and Montrose are also exempt, but, as of now, only in areas proximate to transit lines (Walkable Places Ordinance)

Don't get me wrong - there's no shortage of bad zoning out there, and organic growth would be the ideal form for any city.

 

But I think in a Houston that's already where it is in terms of car-centric insanity, a purely market-driven approach is very unlikely to undo the damage, at least in any of our lifetimes.

I'm not convinced that public intervention is inherently hopeless. 

[Paco Jones]

PROJECT:

Shepherd Mixed-Use

 

LOCATION:

NW corner of North Shepherd Drive and W. 26th Street

 

DEVELOPER:

Pontikes Development, LLC

 

ARCHITECT:

Powers Brown Architecture

 

GENERAL CONTRACTOR:

Satterfield & Pontikes

 

INFORMATION:

 10-story building with a footprint  area of approximately 126,000 SF.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BigFootsSocks]

Putting the dog park in the center is an interesting idea...would hate to have a unit on the inside.

[__nevii]

20 hours ago, 004n063 said:

But I think in a Houston that's already where it is in terms of car-centric insanity, a purely market-driven approach is very unlikely to undo the damage, at least in any of our lifetimes. 

The townhomes alone over the years contribute to added density. Removal of the remaining aformentioned regulations allows the development to continue in a way that finally makes true walakble form possible (hence, we can really see how much "inertia" is at play, if nothing else). Regardless, the Inner Loop has the most coherent grid, so is most salvagable.

Within Beltway 8 is definitely more iffy as there is more super-blocks, cul-de-sacs, and other road/block designs that make it harder to retrofit urbanity (if not outright impossible). On the other hand, the same lot-size reforms that allowed townhomes in Inner Loop were extended to the Beltway in 2013. It's possible that Gulfton, Ghandi District, Chinatown, Uptown, etc are dense enough clusters (development-wise) to work something out. 

Outside the Beltway is a lost cause for sure, though. Sorry Kingwood. Sorry Clear Lake/Space Center. Sorry SW/Funplex.

Edited September 13, 2023 by __nevii

[s3mh]

Appreciate the density and not going to even argue that the Shep/Durham corridor should have architecture that respects the Height's historic styles.  The ship has long sailed on that part of the Heights.  

But wow.  This is what I would call the "We are just not even trying" period of architecture.  My middle school aged kids do more interesting things on Minecraft (and I am not sure whether this design is or is not poached from something a middle school kid did on Minecraft).  

Hopefully, this is just a very early back of the napkin kind of rendering and the actual design will be better.  But so far, what is this style supposed to be?  Neo-soviet?  Post-modern industrial Victorian farmhouse?

Edited September 13, 2023 by s3mh
mistake

[august948]

7 hours ago, __nevii said:

The townhomes alone over the years contribute to added density. Removal of the remaining aformentioned regulations allows the development to continue in a way that finally makes true walakble form possible (hence, we can really see how much "inertia" is at play, if nothing else). Regardless, the Inner Loop has the most coherent grid, so is most salvagable.

Within Beltway 8 is definitely more iffy as there is more super-blocks, cul-de-sacs, and other road/block designs that make it harder to retrofit urbanity (if not outright impossible). On the other hand, the same lot-size reforms that allowed townhomes in Inner Loop were extended to the Beltway in 2013. It's possible that Gulfton, Ghandi District, Chinatown, Uptown, etc are dense enough clusters (development-wise) to work something out. 

Outside the Beltway is a lost cause for sure, though. Sorry Kingwood. Sorry Clear Lake/Space Center. Sorry SW/Funplex.

Considering that the land area inside the Beltway is almost 500 square miles, I think we'll be fine.  How much urbanity do you really need?

 

[TacoDog]

11 hours ago, august948 said:

Considering that the land area inside the Beltway is almost 500 square miles, I think we'll be fine.  How much urbanity do you really need?

 

 

How did you do that?

[august948]

13 minutes ago, TacoDog said:

How did you do that?

Just a rough estimate.  Google maps shows the beltway to be somewhat of a square 22 miles by 22 miles.  That gets us 484 square miles.

[TacoDog]

3 minutes ago, august948 said:

Just a rough estimate.  Google maps shows the beltway to be somewhat of a square 22 miles by 22 miles.  That gets us 484 square miles.

Did you draw it by hand? How did you get the highways to overlay?

[august948]

7 minutes ago, TacoDog said:

Did you draw it by hand? How did you get the highways to overlay?

Google maps has a scale in the lower right corner.  I zoomed in on the beltway until the scale was a half inch (in this case the half inch showed as 2 miles).  Then I measured the north-south and east-west with a ruler on my monitor.  Like I said, it's a rough estimate, but I couldn't find an official measurement anywhere.

[TacoDog]

3 minutes ago, august948 said:

Google maps has a scale in the lower right corner.  I zoomed in on the beltway until the scale was a half inch (in this case the half inch showed as 2 miles).  Then I measured the north-south and east-west with a ruler on my monitor.  Like I said, it's a rough estimate, but I couldn't find an official measurement anywhere.

Sorry, this is what I was referring to.

12 hours ago, august948 said:

 

 

 

[august948]

1 hour ago, TacoDog said:

Sorry, this is what I was referring to.

 

That's just a link from an article complaining about how big the beltway is.

[wilcal]

On 6/18/2023 at 6:55 PM, Ross said:

I bet the property owners of the dog place say no, since they encroach on the alley.

On 7/30/2023 at 1:23 PM, TX3G4R said:

So what’s going to happen if the dog place doesn’t agree to abandon that section of the alley? 

Each side of the abandoned street is entitled to half of the abandonment. Basically, they'll be acquiring half of the alley which I think is the only part that they are actually encroaching on.

I know these comments were from a few months ago. No idea if it is cleaned up now.