My hood is made up of homes about 40-60 years old. We have two pools, one of which is on the opposite side of a busy road (Dairy Ashford) from the neighborhood. When the pool was built, the road was in a different location so now the only way to get to the pool is cross 4 lanes of traffic or use a tunnel, which I am sure was nice back in 1975 but is basically a homeless shelter these days. There is no parking available at the pool. We need to renovate the other pool and some tennis courts and the idea was floated to sell the less used and harder to get to pool to help with the costs. Just wondering if anybody has been a part of a HOA that has sold property before? I'm not on the board and not super passionate about the pool, just keeping my eyes open to make sure this doesn't somehow cost me more money! I am betting they get nowhere near the votes to pull off the sale, turnout for a survey they just put together was around 20% of the neighborhood.

Follow up question: What kind of value do you think the above improvements would possibly be worth? The lot is ~41,000 SF in west Houston, pool is 50 years old and needs some TLC, and no parking on-site. My thought is that its almost surely going to be sold for land value, as I don't see someone buying a standalone pool unless the apartment complex to the north of it were to buy it. The folks on the board think they can get $500,000. HCAD says its worth ~$250,000...

Hard to say without an address, $12/sf doesn't sound unreasonable and might even be low given the location and zoning.

Disregard HCAD value.

It's 1307 S. Dairy Ashford. Looks like a portion of the lot is in Shaded Zone X on the FEMA maps.

Went online to look... that tunnel... I can't even see it and I know there is NO WAY I'd advise anyone to enter it. Looks scary!

Also, not that it is at all relevant to anything, but I went onto Google Earth to look at how that was set up originally... it was never in a good spot for resident access.

Yeah that tunnel is super sketchy. Some of my neighbors were having a party and after a few beers one dared the other to go down about 10PM. He made it to the bottom and there was indeed a very large homeless person calling the place home! I jog past there all the time early in the morning and I am always a tad apprehensive when I am passing the entrance from the blind side. Don't want some hobo jumping up like a trapdoor spider and taking me down to their lair!

Don't think the 41000 sqft is entirely developable. Hefty amount of demo off the bat. If they want to sell it, then list it and see what the market thinks about the property. The market response will determine value. IMO, I think $250k is top price which is $6/SF.

Definitely would be a total waste to do anything with it in the way of repairs and maintenance. That is not wise spending of HOA's owner money and not good stewardship.

There has to have been some epic bumfights over that territory. That is primo bum real estate. That dude hit a lick.

The property is a kind of a funky shape and access has the potential to be weird. Truthfully I don't know if you could even get $250,000. When you think about a site, think about what would someone put there. Maybe fill it in and turn it into a pickle ball court?

That could be a site for a small gas station, MCDs, or other fast food restaurant. It's about an acre.

combat wombat said:

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That could be a site for a small gas station, MCDs, or other fast food restaurant. It's about an acre.

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It's very unlikely that any of those would pick up that site. The retail corridor is to the south at the Briar Forrest intersection. If you can get access off of Dairy Ashford then you might have some chance for something, but even then it still isn't all that likely.

Spending the money to build that tunnel instead of spending it to buy the lot and demo the pool has city bureaucracy interacting with an HOA written all over it.

Ha! And then you notice the bus stop directly on top of the tunnel.

normaleagle05 said:

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Spending the money to build that tunnel instead of spending it to buy the lot and demo the pool has city bureaucracy interacting with an HOA written all over it.

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Yeah my understanding (based on what the old timers in the hood remember) is that the tunnel was built by the city/county as a compromise for cutting off the pool when the road was rerouted. I feel like something like a Dutch brothers or small coffee shop could fit on the lot but they would only have access to dairy ashford from the south bound lanes. That intersection is generally a mess. No arrow, just a solid green light to turn on Dairy ashford so it's just a big game of chicken. The notion of yielding to through traffic on a solid green is just a suggestion to most drivers there.

dc509 said:

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combat wombat said:

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That could be a site for a small gas station, MCDs, or other fast food restaurant. It's about an acre.

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It's very unlikely that any of those would pick up that site. The retail corridor is to the south at the Briar Forrest intersection. If you can get access off of Dairy Ashford then you might have some chance for something, but even then it still isn't all that likely.

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There's a shipleys donuts on the same block and a retail center the block south.

I think it's a good spot and could likely get ingress from Dairy Ashford. IMO $500k is a good deal. I looked on Costar and there's hardly been any land sales or listings in the area unfortunately.

TxAG#2011 said:

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dc509 said:

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combat wombat said:

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That could be a site for a small gas station, MCDs, or other fast food restaurant. It's about an acre.

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It's very unlikely that any of those would pick up that site. The retail corridor is to the south at the Briar Forrest intersection. If you can get access off of Dairy Ashford then you might have some chance for something, but even then it still isn't all that likely.

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There's a shipleys donuts on the same block and a retail center the block south.

I think it's a good spot and could likely get ingress from Dairy Ashford. IMO $500k is a good deal. I looked on Costar and there's hardly been any land sales or listings in the area unfortunately.

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The retail to the south is a signalized intersection with a Kroger. Retail likes that synergy. The Shipley's is a mid block site which isn't most retail guy's favorite but that would give you a story to tell. If you can get access off of Dairy Ashford then you might have a chance. If you can't then you're probably hosed. Assume nothing with a city.

If they want to sell they should definitely go for it. I could certainly be wrong and maybe someone would gobble it up immediately. I'm just pointing out the issues I see.

Get curb cuts first, then sell.

Who wants to open a retail shop of ANY kind next to the hobo-batcave?

How do you get rid of the City owned crazy homeless guy launch silo at your doorstep?

The lot is almost an acre.

Do NOTHING to the lot and sell as is.

If it can be zoned commercial, it will be worth way more than $250,000, even with it's funny shape.

You've got two road frontages which would be highly sought after by commercial developers looking for something on the smaller side.

Thinking.... Starbucks, Dutch Bros, Blackrock etc.

Red Pear Realty said:

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Get curb cuts first, then sell.

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This. If nothing else call the city to see if they are likely to grant them.