Unless the owners of the former Tower Theatre on Westheimer just west of Montrose have another feature ready to go, it looks like Houston will soon have a second shuttered and lonely Art Deco theater left to spin its reels. A reader reports:

I went to drop off a video game at Hollywood Video . . . and was told by staff there that they are closing down. I asked the guy there why; he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Bad economy, I guess.” They were clearing the store out and taking down the Hollywood video letters on that Montrose-y iconic sign on the building; I snapped a quick photo while driving away of the letters sitting on the pavement outside the store.

* * *

• Tower Theater [Houston Deco]
• Then & Now #20: Looking at the Tower [Bayou City History]

Photos: Swamplot inbox (top) and Flickr user MJW’s

What do all these Houston office towers have in common?

• The Fulbright Tower,
• 1 Houston Center,
• 2 Houston Center,
• 4 Houston Center,
• Post Oak Central One,
• Post Oak Central Three,
• Post Oak Central Two,
• One Greenway Plaza,
• Two Greenway Plaza
• Three Greenway Plaza,
• Four Greenway Plaza,
• Five Greenway Plaza,
• Eight Greenway Plaza,
• Nine Greenway Plaza,
• Eleven Greenway Plaza, and
• Twelve Greenway Plaza

That’s right — they’re all part of the vast Crescent Real Estate Equities empire, which at the peak of the market 2 years ago comprised 54 properties in all, stretching from Texas to the California coast. That’s when Morgan Stanley snatched up the whole thing for a mere $6.5 billion, thanks in part to a little $2 billion loan from Barclays Capital.

Today, Morgan Stanley announced it is giving up on the whole thing. Back to the bank all those properties go. All of them. (Okay, minus a few that were jettisoned along the way.)

* * *

Morgan’s plans for Crescent ran off the track soon after it bought the portfolio from Richard Rainwater, the renowned Texas investor, and [Crescent cofounder John] Goff.

Morgan originally planned to put the properties in one of the real-estate funds it manages for institutions and wealthy individuals. But fund investors balked at buying the buildings at top-of-the-market prices, forcing Morgan to keep the properties on its own balance sheet.

The Barclays debt originally was due Aug. 3, but the bank agreed to extend it several times.

So who’ll be running the Fulbright Tower, Greenway Plaza, Houston Center, and Post Oak Central complexes now?

Barclays formed a joint venture with Goff Capital Inc. to take over the properties and named John Goff, co-founder of Crescent before it was sold to Morgan, chairman and chief executive of the new joint venture.

• Morgan Stanley Gives Up Crescent Properties to Lender Barclays [WSJ, via Prime Property]
• Morgan Stanley to Take Hit on Crescent [Square Feet]
• Morgan Stanley and Its Waning Crescent [WSJ]
• Portfolio [Crescent]

Photo of Greenway Plaza: Flickr user ShinyCrazyDiamond

Swamplot’s chart-wielding analyst is back with a few comments on the Houston Association of Realtors’ latest report and media push:

Median and average home sales prices fell $7,200 from the prior month. This was including increased activity to get the $8,000 home buyer tax credit in under the wire! Now it is not fair to compare month to month numbers as seasonal factors are working against the housing market this month.

So we get some good spin from the realtors: “Home prices up 5%” “Sales up 13.8%” …this maps directly over to the mainstream press with no research: “Home sales rise for second month,” “Home prices up 5%,” “Sales up 13.8%” Homeowners in this town should be proud that such a hardworking PR machine still gins out great product!

Why would you call those year-over-year increases spin?

The realtors get to make a press release every month and every month something is a “record” and the press is under deadlines and it gets copied in verbatim. This is home prices up 5% and sales up 13.8% from HURRICANE IKE with no caveat in the headline going out to 200,000 print readers and as many web readers!  Not bad for a days work.

Oh, yeah. Forgot about that whole Ike thing. So what’s the market looking like really?

* * *

Beyond the hype and looking at conditions right now, home prices have turned lower for the winter and activity is preparing to slow to a crawl. Listings are falling 7.3 percent as sellers throw in the towel and plan to wait until spring. Foreclosure activity is still elevated but with better comparisons. Foreclosures as a percentage of sales should rise over the next few months (and really hurt price averages) as foreclosures are not seasonal and non-stressed sales are seasonal. We got two more data points on our foreclosure graph and will have a consistent time series by year end.

In Houston we have 2 real estate markets:

• The Low End, with a steady 6 month inventory and prices (up 5 percent, according to HAR).
• The High End, with sagging prices (down 4 percent, according to Greenwood King), 18 month inventories and ongoing seller carnage.

The latest Greenwood King report (PDF) shows some amazingly out of balance months inventory in some high end submarkets:32 months to sell in Memorial! This is a good number off of 10 months of recent sales data!!!

Regarding the Homebuyer tax credit: Cash for Clunkers raised car prices by about $2,000, lining the pockets of car dealers. If the average home price in Houston is $200,000 and the homebuyer credit is “driving sales,” it does not surprise me that $8,000 (4 percent) gets temporarily tacked on to prices.

• MLS Report for October 2009 [HAR]
• Houston Market Report (PDF) [Greenwood King]
• Home sales up for second straight month [Houston Chronicle]

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Residences

• 12440 Pebblebrook Dr. 77024
• 4204 Stassen St. 77051
• 4201 Mallow St. 77051
• 9514 Ashville Dr. 77051 (garage; Carolina Gardens)

We have a winner for this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game! Who won that membership in the Rice Design Alliance?

First, here’s where you guessed this home might be: Southampton (2 guesses), Bellaire (3 of you), Tanglewood, Champions (2), “off Memorial near the Tollway,” Baytown (2), “Gessner and Wilcrest area,” Pearland, Sugar Land, The Woodlands (2), Katy, Southampton, the Heights, Briar Forest, Downtown, Memorial, West University, Deer Park, League City, Clear Lake, Greatwood, Willowbrook, Spring, Champions, Kingwood, Midtown, Montrose, Rice Military, Camp Logan, Garden Oaks, Oak Forest, Timbergrove Manor (2), Upper Kirby, the Galleria, Afton Oaks, Gulfton, Spring Branch, Sharpstown, Alief, Braeburn, Tanglewilde, Westchase, Barker Cypress, Greenspoint, Cinco Ranch, EaDo, River Oaks (2), “Wards 1-6,” Riverside Terrace, Avondale, “just inside the Beltway, just off Memorial Dr.,” West Lane Place, “somewhere south of Richmond and west of Hillcroft,” “the Stoney Brook or Westbriar/Tanglewilde area,” Tealwood, and “the Memorial/Gessner area.”

The winner of a one-year individual membership in the RDA is mojo jojo, for pinpointing the home with this entry:

The decorations in this home point to outside the loop, around the beltway or beyond! The photos give very little indication to era, except for the kitchen. From the knob placement on the cabinets (I betcha that these cabinets original had yellow or green ceramics knobs), to the custom built vent apron over the island, this kitchen screams 70’s!!! . . .

What leads me to the location is the fact that the home has almost no yard, as seen in the many photos which show the ivy covered wall outside of every window. This leads me to the many townhome communities built in the 70’s and 80’s, around the Beltway.

My scientific calculations, lead me to believe that this home is just inside the Beltway, and just off Memorial Dr.

Congratulations, mojo jojo!

We’re also handing out an honorable mention to movocelot, for being kinda close too. Now just where is this place?

* * *

Location: 9065 Briar Forest Dr., Hudson on the Bayou
Details: 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths; 3,237 sq. ft. (HCAD says 3,637 more) on a 4,530-sq.-ft. lot
Price: $565,000
The Scoop: Late seventies 2-story brick corner unit in the Hudson on the Bayou townhouse encampment on the north bank of Buffalo Bayou. Renovated and expanded in 1995: large Game Room upstairs, 3 car garage. Small enclosed patio. $400 monthly maintenance fee. On the market since the end of May. Price chopped $80K in mid-August.

Were you close? Better luck next time!

We’ll be taking a break from the NGG next week for the Thanksgiving holiday. See you back for another round — in 2 weeks!

• This week’s prize sponsor: Rice Design Alliance
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Red Bed Net [Swamplot]

A reader wants to know if this home on a cul-de-sac in Texas City’s Northside neighborhood is too far out to work as a subject of Swamplot’s weekly Neighborhood Guessing Game.

* * *

It’s been on the market since the beginning of September. The freezer and fridge stay. Asking price: $99,500.

• 2505 32nd Ave., Texas City [HAR]

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Residences

• 3508 McIlhenny St. 77004
• 108 N. Lenox St. 77011
• 1208 Wayside Dr. 77011
• 5904 Tidwell Rd. 77016
• 4913 Southwind St. 77033
• 13107 Conifer Rd. 77079

Sprouted in the patio behind the Art League Houston building at 1953 Montrose, home of the Inversion Coffee House: 3 giant mushrooms, built out of rebar, soil, and moss by artists Nicola Parente and Divya Murthy.

And how are they doing? Not so well, reports the Chronicle’s Molly Glentzer:

One is planted with herbs; one is planted with Texas natives; and the third is planted with non-native ornamentals. They’ve pretty much been left to survive or thrive on their own through next year, and the artists are perhaps expecting that only the native-planted mushroom will survive.

Just one catch. When we looked on Saturday, they all needed water.

Nothing lives in a black plastic pot for long without a little help from the gardener. And biodegradable brown pots would’ve been more environmentally friendly — not to mention better-looking.

Inside the Art League building: the second part of the installation, which Parente and Murthy put together from debris they collected from the surrounding eight-block area.

• Artists in the Garden [Arts in Houston]
• n.p. news brief November 2009 [Everyday Has Its Meaning]

Photos: Nicola Parente (top); Aaron Courtland (bottom)