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H-Town Rock
Rock Talk, Vol. IX
More information in the story of Sonoma, the giant mixed-use development being planned for a two-block site in the Rice Village: The Chronicle reports that the city has released the appraisals for the 2400 block of Bolsover Street, and there's a little bit of variation between the two — about a half-million dollars' worth, to be specific.
The appraisals — for $913,171 and $1,460,340 — pertain to Lamesa Properties' plans to buy that stretch of Bolsover to make way for Sonoma, a seven-story, $100 million project that will include 225 condominiums, 100,000 square feet of retail space and an underground parking garage. The development will take up most of the two blocks bounded by Dunstan and Rice Boulevard on the north and south and Morningside and Kelvin on the east and west; Lamesa plans to use the land where Bolsover Street now runs to build a pedestrian plaza. The question now is whether either of the city appraisals is a true reflection of the street's value: The low appraisal was based on a value of $35 per square foot, while the high one was based on $60 per square foot. Those, in turn, are based on recent sales of similar properties, which ranged from $38.50 per square foot (for 1919 Mason in 2004) to $69.79 per square foot (for 4020 Southwest Freeway in 2006) — but those numbers seem to have little to do with the value of land near 2400 Bolsover. According to Houston Association of Realtors data, the median price in nearby neighborhoods ranges from $203.05 to $220.03 per square foot. "I would buy the whole [Rice Village] for that if you could broker the deal. I find it amazing their appraisals are first of all so apples and oranges," Southampton resident Bill Faloon, who opposes the sale, said. "We've got to make sure we get the money the taxpayers deserve."
An interesting thing about the appraisals is that the city tried to keep the numbers a secret, saying it believed the numbers were exempt from public records disclosure because of a clause in the state code that excepts "appraisals or purchase price of real or personal property for a public purpose prior to a formal award of contracts for the property" from release. The matter was sent to state Attorney General Greg Abbott, but the city decided to release the information before Abbott could make a ruling. "The low amounts per square foot answer why the city and Lamesa tried to keep it all out of public view," Southampton resident Robert Williams told the Chronicle. "Even the higher one, of course, is way under the market. ... The significant difference in the appraisal amounts indicates more appraisals need to be done." The city hasn't finalized its asking price for the street, but Lamesa partner Julie Tysor said she hopes things will move along quickly. "From my standpoint, I'm ready to go very soon but I'm not the only person in control here. There is a domino effect in everything we're working on from many different directions so in order to actually start, the dominoes have to be in the right spot."
Once an agreement on the sale price has been reached, the sale must be approved by City Council. Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck has said she'll tag the sale when it's put on the Council agenda so the public will have time to weigh in before the vote — but residents probably shouldn't expect much support from Clutterbuck, who has said that the development would be very different without the green space, that closing Bolsover won't be a problem trafficwise because "traffic is always going to be a problem in the Village," and that letting Lamesa build am enormous, high-density development in the low-rise, charming Village is a good thing because it'll prevent other developers from building similar projects. Clutterbuck has, however, said she'll push for conditions that benefit the neighborhood as part of the sale.
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