Looped In

Latest Episodes:

Ep69: Documenting racial tensions in Riverside Feb 14, 2018

Show notes

Houston native and L.A.-based filmmaker Jon Schwartz talks about his 1987 documentary This is our home, it is not for sale. The film explores integration, real estate blockbusting and white flight in Riverside, a historic Houston neighborhood along Brays Bayou.

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Ep68: The silver lining to Amazon’s snub Feb 06, 2018

Show notes

In its failed bid for Amazon’s second headquarters, Houston offered up three urban sites with tremendous potential: a vacant downtown skyscraper, a sprawling property along Buffalo Bayou and an aging department store in the center of urban life. Nancy and Allyn talk with Chronicle reporter Katherine Blunt about her recent story on the snub, the sites and the silver lining.

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Ep67: Buying and selling flooded homes Jan 29, 2018

Show notes

Nancy gets a look behind the curtain on an industry that’s playing a key role in Houston’s post-Hurricane Harvey real estate market: investing in flooded homes. She and her Chronicle colleague David Hunn talk to Brian Spitz, a local investor who’s bought hundreds of inundated properties, about the local investment ecosystem and how it influences the market.

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Ep66: The Loopies: Our inaugural awards for Houston real estate and things Jan 04, 2018

Show notes

For the first episode of 2018, Nancy and Allyn asked their social media followers to cast their votes for some of 2017's most outstanding real estate deals and developments in the inaugural Loopie Awards. They, along with the help of some of their Chronicle colleagues who have been covering many of the projects, discuss the winners of "the Loopies."

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Ep65: H-E-B bets on Meyerland (w/Scott McClelland) Dec 22, 2017

Show notes

Scott McClelland, the newly minted president of H-E-B, will open nine stores in and around Houston in 2018 and will begin building what could be H-E-B’s most anticipated store yet: Meyerland. McClelland joins Nancy to talk Meyerland, kosher tortillas and how H-E-B competes in such a crowded grocery market.

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Ep64: Building the perfect prefab Dec 14, 2017

Show notes

Houston architect Brett Zamore earned high praise more than a decade ago for his modern reinvention of the shotgun house. His next move was designing and building kit houses in the urban core. Zamore joins Nancy and Allyn to discuss his latest design: the “zFab,” a tiny pre-fabricated dwelling he sees as a counterpoint to the city’s hulking townhomes and out-of-scale McMansions.

Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast

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Ep63: What NOAA knows now about Texas storms Nov 29, 2017

Show notes

New storm data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, or NOAA, could lead to sweeping changes in the way real estate is developed in the Houston area.

The research shows the amount of rain typical of a 100-year storm has risen by as much as 5 inches. That means the Houstonians could expect up to 18 inches of rain in a single day compared with the previous estimate of 12 to 14 inches.

Harris County government reporter Mihir Zaveri joins Nancy Sarnoff to explain how developers, home owners and businesses could be affected by the new data, which is used to determine floodplain regulations, map flood zones and design food control projects.

The data, which is preliminary and subject to change, is expected to be finalized and published in May. It will be the first statewide update to NOAA's rainfall estimates in 50 years.

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Ep62: Future proofing Nov 22, 2017

Show notes

A world where a self-driving car is a common mode of transportation is not that far away. Such a scenario has implications for real estate development. Take office buildings, which in Houston are required to have 2 1/2 parking spaces for every 1,000 square feet of space. Will today's newest buildings be obsolete by 2040 when fewer people drive to work – or at least park there? Hal Sharp, a principal with the Houston office of Gensler, joins Nancy and Allyn to talk about how buildings can be developed to accommodate cars today and people in those spaces a couple decades from now.

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Ep61: What downtown could look like in 20 years (w/ Bob Eury) Nov 15, 2017

Show notes

Two decades from now, downtown Houston could be a be a thriving neighborhood where the streets teem with life seven days a week. In this future world, start-ups in modern offices would create the latest technological advances in the fields of energy and health care. Streets would be filled with driverless cars and a 5-mile pedestrian and bike loop would connect downtown with surrounding neighborhoods. Central Houston’s Bob Eury recently presented this ambitious proposal to a group of downtown stakeholders. He joins Nancy and Allyn to talk in more detail about the plan and why it could work.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ep60: Living large in a micro condo Nov 07, 2017

Show notes

A pair of developers from Montreal join Nancy and Allyn to talk urban housing trends from around the world and their newest Houston project: an upscale development in Midtown with 14 pint-sized condominiums.

Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast

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