Some more news from my neighborhood.
A Houston developer plans to replace a shuttered U.S. Postal Service building in the Heights with a two-story mixed-use development with space for offices, shops and restaurants.
MFT Interests last month scooped up the full-acre property, and the development company is in the planning stages of bringing a low-rise project dubbed Heights Central Station to the corner of Yale and 11th, said Glenn Clements, the development group’s chief financial officer.
The existing 1970s-era structure will be demolished. The project will include a pair of two-story buildings with office space on the upper floors and retail on the ground. The developers hope to attract professionals and fitness studios in the office space and perhaps two restaurants and up to eight shops at ground level.
The building is not historically significant. But because the site is partially in a historic district, the development may need approval from the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission. Clements said MFT wants the project to have a “retro feeling” to it. The neighborhood was developed roughly between 1900 and 1920, and Clements said MFT hopes the new building would blend in with the older architecture.
“We’re building it in 2016, but it will look like 1916,” he said.
See here for the background. Swamplot reported this a few days earlier, and there’s a lively discussion in the comments about what the parking situation will be like, which ought to be interesting given that both the new Eight Row Flint across the street on Yale and Lola’s on the opposite side of 11th have used the old post office lot as overflow. There’s no street parking on 11th or Yale, and there’s usually not much available on Heights Blvd. Folks who wind up parking offsite are going to need to walk a few blocks, which means that the nearby homeowners are likely going to start complaining. CM Cohen may need to designate a staff member to handle the complaints. Anyway, I look forward to seeing who moves in.
Believe it or not, street parking is legal on Yale (at least sourh of 11th, not sure to the north).
Whether this is s good idea us left as an exercise to the reader.