ORDINANCE NOW PROTECTS THE VULNERABLE FROM PASSING CARS, PROJECTILES 
Yesterday, city council approved an ordinance requiring Houston drivers to play nicer with others. That means: No throwing things at them anymore, and no passing “vulnerable road users” without maintaining at least 3 ft. of space (or 6 ft., if you’re driving a commercial truck). And how are you supposed to know which road user is vulnerable? Maybe you can print out and keep in your car this list — not organized, presumably, by order of importance —Â from the city press release: “walkers or runners; the physically disabled, such as someone in a wheelchair; a stranded motorist or passengers; highway construction, utility or maintenance workers; tow truck operators; cyclists; moped, motor-driven cycle and scooter drivers; or horseback riders.” [City of Houston] Photo of cyclists on Fry Rd.: Flickr user josephkynguyen
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All that hard work installing new wind turbines and solar panels and employee vegetable gardens at the Houston Permitting Center — or even the talk about building a hot dog stand inside — hasn’t seem to have affected its historic status, since the former Butler Brothers Building on Washington Ave in the Old Sixth Ward was given a protected landmark designation yesterday. And what does the newly historic and well-preserved Permitting Center plan to do with this street cred? Why, host historic preservation fairs, of course!
A new version of the D&T Drive Inn opened up late last week, Eater Houston reports. Tucked away in Brooke Smith between bungalows brandishing Houston Texans paraphernalia at 1307 Enid St. just south of W. Cavalcade, the long-time ice house was spruced up and expanded by Down House owner Chris Cusack. Though this photo makes parking appear — well, tight, even if that Dumpster’s eventually moved, a map on D&T’s website shows that there will be a lot available along W. Cavalcade between Enid and Cordell.
- Beer Wine & Set-Ups [D&T Drive Inn]
- A Look Inside D&T Drive Inn, A Modern Ice House [Eater Houston]
Photo: Allyn West
This photo, courtesy of a reader, shows what will eventually hold up the new pedestrian bridge spanning Buffalo Bayou. This view looks south across the muddy water from the Sandy Reed Memorial Trail near Jackson Hill St. and Memorial Dr. toward the Royalton condo tower on Allen Pkwy. Crews have also begun clearing away more trees and brush between this spot and the Adath Yeshurun Cemetery, where the bayou’s master plan shows the Lost Lake will be.
NEW PLANNED PARENTHOOD INCITES PROTESTS IN SPRING 
This 7th Houston-area Planned Parenthood, which signed a 5-year lease and opened last week here at 4747 Louetta Rd. in a Spring shopping center shared by a Chase branch, party supply store, and daycare, doesn’t seem to have received the warmest welcome: Cool Kat Party Supply owner Glenn Mehterian says he moved his main entrance around the corner: “We’ll have more comfort entering our store from the Kroger side,” he tells abc13. And others have been moved to protest the clinic in their own way: Conroe man and Right to Life volunteer Joe Wiegan has come here to pray: “It was a lonesome feeling,” he tells the Montgomery County Courier’s Kimberly Sutton, “but after about half an hour, a man and his young son walked out of the Chase Bank next door and asked if they could join me . . . . He led a beautiful prayer for the unborn and they left with tears in their eyes. . . . .” Then Wiegan was joined by another: “He said he passed by earlier and asked God to please keep me here until he got back by so he could stop and pray with me . . . He was an awesome bear of a man, with a spirit as gentle as a lamb’s.” [abc13; Montgomery County Courier; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Montgomery County Courier
That there’s some pretty bad Feng Shui going down in this commercial for Honda, which was filmed in Vancouver and shown on teevee and the web beginning last October. The man behind the wheel of the CR-V sure is driving some bad chi into the gullet of the far-from-the-prairie home at the end of the T-intersection, to the encouraging narration of Garrison Keillor. But isn’t the house kinda asking for it anyway, what with all that glimmering vortex-popping and all?
And gee, doesn’t the hole stabbing through the house look a heck of a lot like . . . that temporary sculpture that stood on Montrose Blvd. in Houston a few years back? Portal to another dimension? Naah — from here it looks more like a shortcut to Grant St.
This new build on the corner of Navigation Blvd. and Terminal Rd. has aroused the curiosity of a Magnolia Park resident: Though its utilitarian appearance and ballast-sharing trackside location suggest a storage facility — or maybe a roll-by gift shop for forgetful conductors — a neighbor on Terminal Rd. says he heard it’s going to be the new location of Players Ice House.
Looks like there’s a replacement for the former Vida Sexy Tex-Mex: A reader sends in this photo showing the new vinyl sign from Liberty Kitchen & Oysterette at 4224 San Felipe St. That’s the St. Regis Hotel in the background — and a photo taken here a few months from now might also show in the background that 317-unit apartment complex and parking garage that Mill Creek Residential is building nearby on E. Briar Hollow Ln., where another Swamplot reader heard that the restaurant would be located. A Facebook post in late April from Liberty Kitchen says it hopes to open in “early [s]ummer.”
- Liberty Kitchen & Oysterette [Facebook]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Luxury Trackside Apartments Coming to Briar Hollow
Photo: Lisa Garvin via Swamplot inbox
A NEW BUILDER FOR THE ASHBY HIGHRISE 
Though it remains to be decided in a court of law whether the 21-story Ashby Highrise will deprive nearby Boulevard Oaks homes of sunlight and rain, there now seems to be a firm at least agreeing to build it: Prime Property’s Nancy Sarnoff reports that Pepper-Lawson Construction has signed on, replacing Linbeck, which decided to back out of the project earlier this year. The Maryland Manor Apartments, shown here standing in the way at 1717 Bissonnet, started coming down last week. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
What used to be just a corner lot and one of those green tell-tale signs in Midtown is becoming a little more parklike, it seems: Parks department rep Estella Espinosa says that Elizabeth Glover Park at Elgin and Austin will be closed through August while crews upgrade lighting and drainage systems and install new features, including a crushed granite plaza, dog run, and bocce ball court. According to a post yesterday at Midtown Houston Rocks, there are 2 other parks getting a similar treatment: Midtown Park at Gray and Bagby and Baldwin Park between Crawford and Chenevert on Elgin, a few blocks southeast of here.
- Parks in Progress [Houston Midtown Rocks]
Photo: Allyn West
This new build on 27th St. in Sunset Heights comes from the firm of serial mod fixer-upper and recent Astrodome chimer-inner Ben Koush. Completed this year, the 4-bedroom, 3.5-bath house also has a garage apartment in the back. On its own for now, the house has been billed as the 1st of 4 planned in a row here just east of N. Main St.; it’s listed at $499,900.
WESTHEIMER RD. CAFE ADOBE CLOSING ON MOTHER’S DAY 
At the palm-obscured corner of South Shepherd Dr. and Westheimer since 1981, Cafe Adobe announced that it will be closing this Mother’s Day, May 12, reports the Houston Business Journal. The property at 2111 Westheimer Rd. was purchased last year by Hines, which has said it plans to tear down the restaurant to build a 215-unit apartment complex. An up-to-date rendering of the complex-to-be hasn’t been made available. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
A few more views of the renovations from Cisneros Design Studio planned for the office buildings at 3701 and 3801 Kirby Dr., near the Elevation Burger and the closed Maggie Rita’s on Richmond: To be removed from the façade, it appears, is that throwback turquoise-and-red detailing, replaced with what architect Tim Cisneros tells the Houston Chronicle is a kind of stretchy vinyl skin.
Does the green fence mean go? It looks like demolition is just a shot away for this westernmost building of the former Shell Technology Center. Lovett Homes has said it plans to build 39 3-story homes —Â scaling back after some Southside Place residents raised concerns at public hearings its original plan for 45 3.5-story ones —Â on the 3.2 acres here at the corner of Braes and Bellaire Blvd.
Here’s a rendering of the classroom studio (and vegetable garden and recycled shipping container) that’s now under construction at the Monarch School in Spring Branch. North of the Katy Fwy. near Kempwood and Gessner, the school serves students with neurological disorders, and it says that the design elements and architecture of this very green 1,120-sq.-ft. studio from Architend will become part of the curriculum:
