THE TUNNEL BENEATH THE DEAD CHRONICLE BUILDING IS NOW OPEN AGAIN 
Management for 717 Texas (or Calpine Center, if you’re less of a fan of numerically-forward tower vernacular) just sent out word that the tunnel from that building to Chase Tower at 600 Travis St. is now open again. The route takes a turn beneath the pretty-much-done demo of the newly former Houston Chronicle headquarters, evidently still slated by Hines for surface-lotdom for now — plus whatever work the folks next door have planned below ground to tie their own development into the tunnel network. Meanwhile, another block southwest down the same tunnel system (as visible in the 90-degrees-or-so rotated schematic above), Skanska has just signaled the go-ahead on the above-ground section of its Capitol Tower; no word yet on whether that construction will have another round of tunnel closure associated with it. [Previously on Swamplot] Map of Downtown tunnel connections: Skanska
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Roostar Vietnamese Grill is just about done moving into the southern slot of the perpendicular 2-man segment of the Richmond Ave. strip center east of Chimney Rock Rd., a reader notes. The Vietnamese kinda-fusion restaurant’s first location opened in Spring Branch a few years ago as Vietnam Poblano, swapping to the new name and stylized but literal melded bird-star logo not long after. Ronnie Nguyen and Linda Nguyen, the 2-link chain’s forgers, had hoped the new location (in the space formerly occupied by Napoli) would be up and running in time for all that Super Bowl hubbub; looks like the new plan is for an April opening.
Next door to the nearly-hatched restaurant is the former Starbucks spot, which had shut down by the time that shiny new freestanding one opened up on the corner across the street last year:
Retail plans along the stretch of E. 11th St. west of Beverly St. look to be moving in a more concrete direction once again — SRS has started advertising available square footage in a double-decker strip center planned on the eastern half of the block. The design for the site has been totally overhauled since the original ads for a Park Place on 11th development (the weathered signage for which is still hanging around on the property, and has been for the better part of a decade.)
The potential footprint of the retail space spreads all the way from Beverly St. to just east of metals brightener Bright Metals of the Heights.  A leasing siteplan shows the center insulated from the 11th St. traffic by a breathable dual layer of parking spaces — and even a triple layer on the Beverly St. side:
- 3616 Ella Lee Ln. [HAR]
TPWD: CHEF INVOLVED IN RUGGLES ESTABLISHMENTS INVOLVED IN GIANT ILLEGAL FISH NETWORK, TOO 
Following 2 years of investigation — and the discovery of some 1,900 pounds of illegal red snapper on an unlicensed boat near Freeport — the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department alleged today that Bruce Molzan  (long one of the main players in most of the Ruggles [Blank] establishments around town, most recently Ruggles Black) is tangled up with what may be the largest illegal seafood network ever uncovered in Texas. A press release from the department says the aquatic activities in question, which so far have warranted the handout of some 200 misdemeanor citations, have been going on since 2013. The state’s allegations toward Molzan include the purchase of illegally harvested finfish, as well as illegal shrimp purchases from another restaurant, for inclusion on Ruggles Black’s and Ruggles Green’s implicitly health– and sustainability-minded menus. (Molzan separated from Ruggles Green back in October, after its original W. Alabama location scooted over into the new midrise down the block; the new owners of Ruggles Green say that fish acquisitions since Molzan left have all been by the books.) [TPWD; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Ruggles Green on W. Alabama: Swamplot inbox
A bill filed Monday in Austin would mandate that more than half of the folks running each of Houston’s often opaque but increasingly well-heeled tax increment reinvestment zones be elected for 2-year terms by nearby residents of the zones, as opposed to the current system of city council appointments. The bill, proposed by west Houston rep Dwayne Bohac, employs the same handy Houston-targeting filter trick as that other recently filed state bill calling for a vote on what Harris County wants to do to the Astrodome: the bill’s language pinpoints only cities with a population of more than 2 million (of which Texas has exactly 1). If the measure makes it through all the necessary committees and passes, elections for board members would need to be held in 2018.
The round bit of the Tremont Tower condo complex behind Doc’s was photographed entirely uncovered last week, nearly a year after the last confirmed sighting of the bare turret (and at least 2 years after the obscuring tarp was first installed). The reader who captured the shot (who adds that he “thought they only removed it to signify the election of a new pope”) didn’t catch the denuders in the act, however. The Montrose sighting comes just a day or so after those tornado-warning-laced storms blew through; perhaps incidentally, the tarp’s previous disappearance was also heralded by windy weather.
- Previously on Swamplot: Tremont Tower Tarp Returns After Brief Hiatus; Finding Hidden Value in the Tremont Tower; Tremont Tower: How Bad Could It Be, Really?; New Ways To Explore Houston’s Foreclosure Bubbles; Tremont Tower Video: How Construction Problems Attract Foreclosure Pileups; The Dirty Little Secret Behind the Montrose Foreclosure Hump
Photos: Swamplot inbox (top), Hey Hey Houston (second)
Just how many textures are tucked between the low walls of the facade at 3611 Woodvalley Dr. and the rather taller 610 Loop noise barricade that the property backs up against? The 2,704-sq.-ft. home has been outfitted with a considerable variety and range of visual stimuli in its 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, as well as its open kitchen and living areas — from the mod and minimalist to the more avant garde (that’s the master suite pictured above, as viewed from the open-plan walk-in closet). You can even draw your very own patterns on one of the 1959 home’s more recent chalkboard surfaces:
Ragin’ Cajun, likely Downtown’s most subterranean crawfish vendor, is packing up and crawling out of the tunnels beneath the McKinney Place Garage at 930 Main St., a reader notes this week. (That’ll leave its French-Quarter-evocative retail space open for more underground restaurant turnover; the garage most recently saw the swapout of a Prince’s Hamburgers branch for Time for Thai, amid other nearby culinary tunnel shuffles). The shop’s other locations are still open, per signage left behind at the scene.
- Previously on Swamplot:Â A Pair of Departures from the Former Two Shell Plaza Tunnels;Â The Cheesiest New Addition to the Downtown Tunnel Spread;Â Time for Thai Moving In on Prince’s Tunnel Territory Near Departed High Tower Deli;Â Former Downtown Tunnel ATM Site To Dispense Breakfast Paraphernalia Instead; all tunnel coverage
Photos: Dave
Did everyone get their bets in on what the next use for that half-constructed cult-ready megamansion off County Rd. 59 was gonna be? Well, you’ve had plenty of years, and now time’s up: A group is currently working with the city of Manvel to turn the 30-to-70-bedroom space into a veterans housing facility, with plans to house veterans’ families as well (and to offer services like PTSD treatment, readjustment counseling, art classes, and rides to VA appointments). The place is going by the name The Bailey House, after actor and PTSD-afflicted veteran Jimmy Stewart’s character in It’s a Wonderful  Life. A meeting with the organization is in the works for Saturday morning, if you want more info (or want to help the place get set up and running, financially or otherwise).
Veteran Christa Mode, who’s spearheading the project, told the Chronicle’s Dana Guthrie this week that there won’t be a completion date floated until funding is taken care of. The building has also been roughed up by vandals since it last showed its face on HAR:
Down House Ventures, the legal entity behind Treadsack’s oldest Heights-area technically-a-private-club, has filed for bankruptcy this morning, lagging just a few days behind last week’s Bernadine’s and Hunky Dory filings. The company preemptively included Down House in a Facebooked list of Treadsack restaurants that would stay open for now despite the legal and financial question marks now hanging over the company, given the sudden mid-winter departures of side-by-side restaurant and bar duo Foreign Correspondents and Canard and the details of payroll and tax issues subsequently dredged up; D&T Drive Inn and Johnny’s Gold Brick were placed on the still-truckin’ roster as well. This morning’s filings also look to have included a motion asking for funds to pay current Down House employees, as Craig Malisow reports was granted in the case of last week’s Chapter 11 initiates.
- Previously on Swamplot: Hunky Dory and Bernadine’s Are Not Dead Yet; We’ve Reached Chapter 11 in the Hunky Dory, Bernadine’s Story; Scoping Out 4721 N. Main St. Following Sudden Flight of Foreign Correspondents
Photo: Down House
- 2670 Colosseum Ct. [HAR]
The always-open pink-and-purple site of adult accessories shop Zone d’Erotica, which has long served as a retina-searing guidepost to westward-bound Galleria traffic, is currently listed as for lease on the website of retail real estate brokerage The Retail Connection, a keen-eyed reader noted this morning. The trapezoid-heavy building is tucked on a trapezoidal plot of land between the yellow-bedecked corner Shell station and the austere gray facade of Dillard’s, and served as a Luke’s Hamburgers in a past life before making the Zone transition well over a decade ago (presumably with the aid of Houston’s lack of zoning laws). Just down the road along the Galleria’s Westheimer Rd. edge, a younger, prettier pad site (built recently as part of the Galleria’s ongoing makeover and reconstruction) has now been filled in with the likes of Michelin-starred dim sum joint Yauatcha, which opened last week.
- SWC LOOP 610 & WESTHEIMERÂ [The Retail Connection]
Photo: The Retail Connection
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FOR IF YOU GAZE LONGINGLY AT TRENDY DEVELOPMENT, IT GAZES ALSO BACK AT YOU 
“All you ‘trendy people’ in Spring Branch need to bear in mind that even though your property values have risen dramatically, legacy homeowners don’t just immediately convert or turn over into ‘trendy people.’ That’s a process that takes time — [and] once it happens, you’ll feel nostalgia for the way things were. The newcomers won’t be ‘trendy’ — that term has positive connotations and you’ll reserve it for yourself. You will speak of them in derogatory tones, using words like yuppie and hipster. You’ll complain about how they’ve overrun your neighborhood, creating parking SNAFUs, cyclist-disrespecting traffic, and drunk drivers. You’ll complain about how closely packed the new townhomes are, even though you live in one; and about how loud the bars are, even though you bought a house next to one that had been there for 20 years. You’ll complain about how your property taxes rise 10 percent per year every year, and simultaneously protest new public housing, even though your unrealized capital gains are being subsidized by state statue — and you’ll demand even more subsidy! You might even vote for Dan Patrick. You’ll vote for localized prohibition and think that it’s ‘weird,’ kind of like living in Austin would be, except you don’t live in Austin and aren’t as weird as them — which is a terrible thing because they aren’t very weird either. You will have been co-opted by the powers that be. This is understandable. You were trendy, and will fall in line with somebody, sort of thoughtlessly, and complain relentlessly. That’s what it is to be trendy. It’s what you always wanted.” [TheNiche, commenting on Comment of the Day: Send the Trendies Outside the Loop, Please] Illustration: Lulu
Friday’s knockout of the last walls standing of the Town & Country III office building by CityCentre can now be added to Swamplot’s small but smashing video collection of doomed structures taking a light swing at their demo crew on the way down. To be fair, the semi-controlled collapse of the midrise’s final walls looks to have been much less of a surprise than last fall’s award-winning Corporate Plaza parking garage acceleration incident: while footage of the Town & Country toppling does show the cloud of dust stirred up by the pullover, it captures no contemporaneous cloud of suspense regarding the fate of the operator and nearby construction workers. (The video above also captures commentary from some onlookers in CityCentre Five, who’ll likely have a similarly clear view of the next few teardowns on the docket.)
- Previously on Swamplot: Smashing Views of a Half-Eaten Katy Fwy. Office Building from CityCentre Five;Â Midway Fences In Empty 1970s Office Park Where 3 More CityCentre Towers Might Sprout
Video: Swamplot inbox
