Here’s the brick-and-splitface-block strip center that the owner of the building housing the Barnaby’s Café on West Gray at the eastern edge of North Montrose plans to construct in the next 6 months. It’ll be right next door to the Barnaby’s parking lot between Stanford and Taft, on a 15,000-sq.-ft. piece of land that long ago held 3 houses. The West Gray Plaza at 504 W. Gray St. would have 6,000 sq. ft. of retail or office space on the ground floor, plus a 1,600-sq.-ft. half story with a deck above.
The site plan shows a row of head-in parking in front of the building, which would be set to the back of the site:
 Wild, Foraging Lower Westheimer... "Pin It")
“. . . That is, and always has been, Houston. That unruly sprawl, those cookie-cutter suburbs, generic strip malls, traffic congestion, that all existed long before the Beltway was built. I grew up here, in a cookie-cutter suburb called ‘Sagemont’ located next to a 2 lane stretch of blacktop named ‘South Belt.’ My dad grew up in a cookie-cutter suburb 10 miles closer in, filled with generic strip malls, just outside what would become the 610 Loop. Today I live in another cookie-cutter suburb farther west, about half way between 610 and the Beltway. Still lots of congestion, sprawl, strip centers, etc. This is Houston, baby.
And just about everything in Houston exists because some powerful person (not necessarily a politician) owned tracts of land. All of those hip dense neighborhoods? They were empty fields that some speculator bought for next to nothing, then bribed . . . er, influenced someone in government to build something, often with tax dollars. That’s how things get done.” [
“Here’s how you get to this point.
(i) Neighborhood gets built with gravel streets, ditch drainage.
(ii) City goes in and widens most of the streets in the neighborhood in the 1960s. 40′ asphalt, curb and gutter. Baron St. misses out on the neighborhood-wide repave because it has a railroad track in the middle.
(iii) Railroad track gets abandoned, trackbed gets paved over, no one ever improves Baron.
(iv) Townhome developer comes in and wants to put in a driveway. Houston Infrastructure Design Manual says any culvert in City right-of-way has to be 24″ minimum. Developer’s engineer knows if he touches that old 60s curb inlet he’ll have to replace it to current spec, better to match the flowline and save eight or ten large. Culverts go in and look huge because 24″ on top of the existing flowline is above the crown of the road.
(v) Swamplot readers are confused because the 60s-era curb and gutter doesn’t match the existing right-of-way.” [
“I wonder if Mattress Firm/Pro geographically correlate with CVS/Walgreens stores, i.e. the drug sellers who provide customers with the means (Ambien, Lunesta) to enjoy a full and long-lasting experience on their newly purchased mattresses.” [
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