Second life

Bold new makeover planned for historic downtown Houston building

A long-vacant landmark at Allen's Landing, the storied Sunset Coffee Building is getting a new lease on life.

Built in 1910 along Buffalo Bayou, the warehouse is perhaps most famous for housing the Love Street Light Circus — the groovy '60s-era psychedelic club that played host to legendary regional acts like the 13th Floor Elevators and the Moving Sidewalks (an early ZZ Top project).

The historic building will undergo roughly $8 million in renovation work led by award-winning architecture firms;Lake|Flato and BNIM, along with landscape designers SWA Group.

After years of neglect, officials announced Tuesday that Sunset Coffee will undergo roughly $8 million in renovation work led by award-winning architecture firms Lake|Flato and BNIM along with landscape designers SWA Group.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for April with a completion date set for mid-2014. A bike, kayak and canoe rental facility will be located on the ground floor with offices for the Buffalo Bayou Partnership located above. The top floor and rooftop terrace, with its striking views of the downtown skyline, will be available for private events.

During a press conference next to the aging brick building, Mayor Annise Parker noted the historic importance of Allen's Landing — where the Allen brothers purportedly came ashore to found the City of Houston — as well as the bayou's increasing importance as a meeting place and recreation hub.

"I get asked regularly what my favorite place is in Houston and I always say my own home. But after that, I say the bayou," Parker laughed.

"I get asked regularly what my favorite place is in Houston and I always say my own home," Parker laughed. "But after that, I say the bayou."

"I've been out here in dragon boat races. I've been out here with the trash skimmer. I've been out here in kayaks. I've even watched the Art Guys swim across the bayou and drink out of it a few years ago . . . And they lived."

The Sunset Coffee Building, which is aiming for LEED certification, will be connected to nearby Commerce Street by a bridged walkway that extends out from the vintage warehouse to form a lookout over the bayou. Once fully refurbished, the building also will connect to the Buffalo Bayou Park trail system that runs from downtown Houston to Shepherd Drive.

Mayor Annise Parker

Photo by Adrienne Raquel

Mayor Annise Parker

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rent report

New report reveals how many Texans are paying too much for rent

Photo by Francesca Tosolini on Unsplash

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Millions of Texas renters, both current residents and new arrivals, suffer from wallet whiplash.

A new report from the Texas Affiliation of Affordable Housing Providers shows 45 percent of the state’s renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Renters occupy more than 4.2 million Texas households, representing nearly half of the state’s residents.

Worse yet, 81 percent of extremely low-income households in Texas spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing, the report says. For that income group, Texas has a shortage of 864,000 affordable homes.

Thirty percent is the standard financial benchmark for spending too much income on rent, while 50 percent puts a renter in the “severely cost-burdened” bucket.

“To sustain growth and secure future prosperity, Texas will need more than 320,000 additional affordable homes [rented and owned] to address workforce housing affordability and meet the demands of a growing population,” says the report.

“Today, the state is creating thousands of new jobs,” the report adds, “but housing supply has not kept pace with demand, driving up housing costs and constraining continued economic growth.”

Not surprisingly, people who live in or move to three of Texas’ biggest metro areas get hit with the state’s highest apartment rental rates. Here’s Apartments.com’s list of the 10 most expensive places for renters in Texas, based on apartments whose average size ranges from 713 square feet in Austin to 771 square feet in Plano:

1. Frisco — $1,477 per month
2. Plano — $1,461 per month
3. Austin — $1,417 per month
4. Dallas — $1,413 per month
5. McKinney — $1,363 per month
6. Grand Prairie — $1,327 per month
7. Irving — $1,318 per month
8. Garland — $1,237 per month
9. Fort Worth — $1,217 per month
10. Houston — $1,183 per month

San Antonio boasts some of the lowest average rent among Texas’ 10 most affordable markets: $1,075 per month. Mesquite, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb, also fits into that category, with average monthly rent of $1,052.

Earlier this month, Gov. Greg Abbott announced more than $114 million in grants to help develop or rehabilitate properties, providing more than 4,400 affordable rental units.

“As our state grows, we must ensure that Texans have access to the affordable housing they need to thrive,” Abbott says.

rent prices report apartments