Neighborhood Community

This entry was posted on 8/8/2006 4:35 PM and is filed under Neighborhood Community.

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• 8/9/2006 8:07 AM M. Needham wrote:
  Seomthing I am enjoying very much is an effort on the part of Mandell place to get together periodically at someone's home for potluck supper / conversation; we have wonderfully interesting people in this neighborhood and it has been just plain fun to get to know some of them better.
  I'm ready to start planning a pot luck at my house. (Mainly female to dat, but hey, we might change eventually!)
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• 9/5/2006 6:18 AM Randy Mitchmore wrote:
  I would like to invite all of my Winlow Place neighbors to an open house party. The purpose is to meet Ellen Cohen. She is running for our state representative, District 134.
  So that you can cast an intelligent vote and not rely on just the media, come and meet Ellen in person.
  
  She will be at my home/office 1722 W Alabma on Tues Sept 21 from 6-8 PM.
  
  Please come and socialize with our neighbors and get informed!
  Randy Mitchmore, DDS
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• 10/13/2006 5:37 AM JEFF GRANT wrote:
  Can Diedrich's Coffee Shop Be Saved.
  Their last day will be 11/05/06.
  The reason is Brian & Rachel Gower the owners of the, The Upper Hand Salon, wants to expand & push Diedrich's Out.
  They are telling their employees that Diedrich's decided not to sign their lease. This is a Lie. Diedrich's wants to sign a new lease and would do anything to have that opportunity.
  The salon, may have a parking problem, that could be resolved if they wanted to work with Diedrich's.
  Dirk the president of Diedrich's was in the process of signing a new lease a month age, and Brian the owner of the Upper Hand Salon, next door, nixed the deal. They know the property manager, and plan on taking over the their space.
  Diedrich's has been their for 10 years,if yours still reading this you know Diedrich's provides a lot to this community. They are being pushed out. There is also some issue where the The Upper Hand Salon, was fined a year ago or so for selling fake designer items.-
  Contact. e-mail concerns, for best results include, name, address,Phone No. letters@houstonpress.com
  howard.decker@chron.com, assignments@khou.com , frank.miller@chron.com
  
  I know I feel safer, having people sitting out on that corner, watching, and enjoying themselves.
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• 12/2/2006 11:13 AM JEFF GRANT wrote:
  Business
  
  Jennifer Gonzalez-Reinhart, left, and Anastasia Pappas curl up with coffee and their work at Diedrich Coffee on Westheimer before the hangout closed last week. The details of what led to the lease not being renewed are not clear.
  Carlos Antonio Rios: Chronicle
  PLAY | BACK | NEXT
  
  
  Nov. 12, 2006, 2:03AM
  Community hangout
  Coffeehouse's 10-year run in same spot is over; tenant wanted to stay, but landlord has final say
  Popular or not, the lease is up
  
  
  By DAVID KAPLAN
  Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
  
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  Resources For the past 10 years, Diedrich Coffee on Westheimer has had a huge following. Many of its regulars considered it the most beautiful and pleasing coffeehouse in Houston. The thriving business doubled as an unofficial neighborhood community center.
  
  Last Sunday, it shut down.
  
  Its lease was not renewed, and Diedrich owner Dirk Smith said he doesn't know why.
  
  Smith said he was about to sign a new lease until landlord Bradford Schmalfuss, vice president of T-Con Properties, suddenly changed his mind with no explanation. Smith said he is perplexed because Schmalfuss once told him that Diedrich was the center's best tenant, although Schmalfuss denies ever saying that.
  
  "It's our decision who our tenants are" and "what the community feels is irrelevant," Schmalfuss said.
  
  
  A decade of popularity
  Diedrich Coffee, located in the Winlow Westheimer District, has been a popular hangout for 10 years.
  
  It served as an informal study hall for neighboring Lanier Middle School students and teachers, as well as undergraduate, medical and law school students from across the city.
  
  Sometimes, however, the community's and the landlord's wishes are different.
  
  The Upper Hand, a salon and spa next door, will expand into the soon-to-be-vacated Diedrich space.
  
  A flier distributed by a Diedrich customer implied that the landlord and Upper Hand jointly forced out the coffeehouse, but the Upper Hand's owner said it isn't true.
  
  "It makes us look like corporate moguls pushing Diedrich out," owner Rachel Gower said, but in fact, she and her husband, Brian Williard, learned that the space was becoming vacant after Schmalfuss decided not to renew Smith's lease, and only then did they get the idea to expand, she said.
  
  T-Con's attorney, Alex Cosculluela, offered three reasons Diedrich's lease isn't being renewed:
  
  •Getting rid of one tenant and having an existing tenant expand cuts a landlord's administrative costs. The fewer tenants a landlord has, the more efficient a center is to operate, he said.
  •When Diedrich's corporate office announced in May that it didn't want to renew its lease, leaving franchise owner Smith responsible, it raised concerns, he said.
  •During lease negotiations, Smith failed to provide the financial records Schmalfuss had been asking about for
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• 6/2/2008 7:56 AM Anonymous wrote:
  I think it's funny when I read our newsletter and how the new house on Kipling was being praised and praised. It does not fit into our neighborhood at all but since the owner is in the "click" it gets praise. I like the other new homes a lot more. I hope the exterior pepto bismol color is changed before the entire house is painted.
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