[Urbannizer]

Developer: Supo Corp.
Architect:
Type: Multifamily (150 units), Retail (24,000 ft)
Location: 1209 Montrose Blvd, Montrose
Construction Timeline: 2019 Start Date - ? Completion

Khun Kay Thai Cafe’s Second-Gen Owner Now Tracing Out 20-Story Highrise in Its Place

THE OUTLINE of a 20-story apartment building called Montrose Gardens made its first public appearance late Friday in the city’s planning commission agenda, where its footprint covers over that of the Khun Kay Thai Cafe on the corner of Montrose Blvd. and W. Clay St. Only 9 of those stories will be for living, so what’s going into the rest? According to the building’s engineer: “A variety of retail stores, restaurants, and coffee shops” — all 24,000 sq.-ft. of which would be buffered from the 150-or-so upstairs apartments by 9 stories of resident-only parking. Underground, a separate 2 floor garage will gobble up retail traffic from an opening on W. Clay.

Also present on the 19,900-sq.-ft. site where the apartment’s staking its claim: the restaurant’s 2 parking lots. The northern one ran over the duplex-turned-psychic-shop directly south of it after the structure — memorialized in the aerial below — was demolished in 2016.

Houston’s planning commission weighs in on the apartment proposal this Thursday. Two variance requests are on the table, asking permission to nudge the building up 5 ft. from the property’s edges along Montrose Blvd. and W. Clay. In return, the developer promises new, bigger sidewalks shaded from the adjacent roads by strips of trees.