CITY WISHLIST FOR DAIRY ASHFORD: WIDER ROADWAY, HIGHER BAYOU BRIDGE 
On city council’s agenda for tomorrow: a vote of support for widening Dairy Ashford Rd. from 2 to 3 lanes on each side between Westheimer and I-10. As part of the roadwork, the existing bridge across Buffalo Bayou would be rebuilt — potentially above 500-year floodplain level, though the city hasn’t decided yet. New, wider sidewalks are on the table, too. With the council’s blessing, Houston’s public works department would next submit an application for the project to the Houston Galveston Area Council, which could choose to help pay for it with state and federal money. [Houston City Council Agenda] Map: Houston City Council
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Here’s what the restaurant just west of the Meyer Park Shopping Center looks like in its afterlife. Signage came down the same day that the store closed, last Wednesday. It’s now listed for lease by the franchisee that owns the land at 4904 W. Bellfort as well as that beneath about 70 other Taco Bells, KFCs, and Pizza Huts in and around Houston: KorMex Foods.
KorMex grabbed this location along with 15 other existing stores when it went into business in 2000. By then, the building itself had been around for 7 years.
- 4904 W. Bellfort St. [LoopNet]
- About KorMex [KorMex Foods]
Photo: Jason Karwacki
W. Bellfort and S. Post Oak
- Faulty Electrical Outlet Sparks Fire at Presidio on 11th St., Forcing Closure [CultureMap]
- Japanese Cream Puff Chain Beard Papa’s Signs Up for Under-Construction Bellaire Food Street Complex [Eater Houston]
- MFAH Wraps Up Work on Its Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation Center for Conservation, Designed by Lake Flato and Built Atop Fannin St. Parking Garage [HBJ]
- Half of the 12-Acre Lagoon Planned for Private Texas City Community Could Be Kept Open to the Public [HBJ ($); previously on Swamplot]
- Early Eastwood Home at 4620 McKinney St. Hits the Market for $825K [Houston Chronicle]
- Johnson Space Center Hosts Open House Celebrating NASA’s 60th Anniversary [Houston Chronicle]
- Antone’s Famous Po’ Boys Will Overnight Sandwiches to Austin Nightclub from Production Facility Near 610 and I-10 [HBJ]
- Barker Flood Prevention Group Gives Proposed ‘Super Tunnel’ a Hopeful Thumbs-Up [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of container home under construction on McGowen St. between Hutchins and St. Emanuel streets: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
 
Note: This story has been updated to indicate that City Council’s October 23 vote approved funding for previous work that was already completed on the plaza, not for future renovations.
This week Houston City Council voted to cut a check to workers that finished the first round of renovations on the plaza. The results of their work — including new fencing, gates, and a terrace — clear the way for the second chapter of redos to begin. The video at top winds it way through round 2 of changes, showing off the new children’s reading area, stage, and outdoor seating bound for the 0.75-acre space between the Jesse H. Jones Building (AKA Central Library) and the Julia Ideson building directly east of it.
While 25-year naming rights are already locked down on the Phillips 66 Jumbo Video Screen (on the right in the rendering abvoe) and Janice and Robert C. McNair Performance Stage (left), the puppet theater depicted below is still in need of a namesake:
Downtown Redo
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MINCHEN HOUSE LOOKS GOOD UNDER THE HOOD 
“Part of the house is pier and beam and part has a basement — some of the vents visible are actually basement windows. Both the pier and beam and the basement portions of the foundation are totally solid.” [Jim, commenting on An 87-Year-Old North Blvd. House with as Many Awards as Its Owner] Photo of 1753 North Blvd., recently listed for sale: Ed Uthman [license]
MAN-MADE LAGOON EXPERTS’ SECOND HOUSTON SWIMMING HOLE: 12-ACRES BIG, 10-FT. DEEP 
Developer Land Tejas announced it’ll be deploying another artificial lagoon in Houston on top of the 2-acre one it’s already filling up with water near Summerwood. Technology for both of them comes from Dallas-based firm Crystal Lagoons whose patented, beach-fronted swimming holes function “year-round, even in cold climates” —- reports BusinessWire — “in which they can be frozen and used for winter sports such as ice skating and hockey.” Crystal Lagoons’ biggest one so far, a 23.8-acre body of water at the Citystars Sharm El Sheikh resort in Egypt is the current Guinness-World-Record-holder for “largest man-made lagoon.” But not for long: the firm’s got a 90-acre one in the works for Dubai. At Land Tejas’ 4,000-home community in Texas City — dubbed Lago Mar — the planned 12-acre Crystal Lagoon lagoon will be surrounded by a “70-acre resort-style compound,” reports the HBJ’s Fauzeya Rahman, including boardwalks, a hotel, restaurants, and retail. [HBJ] Map showing proposed resort component of Land Tejas’ Lago Mar development: Land Tejas
What better way to make use of all those empty parking spots than with an good old fashioned carnival like this one? It’s been a tradition at Greenspoint Mall going back decades now to plant a few attractions outside the building once the weather cools off enough for visitors to enjoy themselves. And management’s kept doing it — even as Macy’s, Dillards, and Sears all shuttered inside over the past few years and portions of the building and surrounding parking lot have sold to investors with heavy-duty plans for redevelopment. The attractions shown above are all sprawled out on the I-45 side of the building, where they cover up the “For Lease” banner that’s otherwise visible to passing northbound traffic.
There’s even a Ferris wheel:
Roadside Attractions
THE CASE AGAINST THE HOUSTON FORENSIC SCIENCE CENTER’S SHARED OFFICE SETUP 
Last month, leaders of the Center told Houston City Council their 200-plus person staff just isn’t fitting in at HPD’s downtown offices in 1200 Travis, pictured above. For one thing: “Technicians test guns by firing live ammunition on the 24th floor,” which neighbors offices above and below, reports the Chronicle‘s Zach Despart. They also “transport evidence upstairs in public elevators.” Although “shortcomings in the Houston Police Department’s own crime lab” were what prompted the city to found the Center as an independent body in 2014, the agencies’ ongoing closeness tends to raise eyebrows: “You walk into HPD’s headquarters on the way to the laboratory,” says Center president Peter Stout. The good news: their proximity is only temporary. Earlier this month, City Council approved a new 30-year lease for the Center at 500 Jefferson — a privately-owned building 9 blocks away — where it’ll get 83,000 sq.-ft. for “toxicology, DNA testing, fingerprint analysis and narcotics storage,” as well as a 25-ft. firing range in the basement, reports Jasper Scherer. [Houston Chronicle] Photo of 1200 Travis St.: WhisperToMe
- 113 Canal Dr. [HAR]
With the former Shelor Motor Company building at 1621 Milam St. all but doomed to meet the wrecking ball, historian Stephen Fox digs through some old Chronicle clips to remind us that there’s still a few other old car dealerships lurking down south in Midtown. Sure, they may not be as pedigreed as the ill-fated building to the north, but get this: One of them still sells cars! It’s Midtown Cadillac at the corner of Main and McGowen streets, shown at top. Architect Harvin C. Moore — the brains behind more than 84 homes in River Oaks, as well as Rice University’s chapel — designed it for Sam White Oldsmobile (pictured above), which opened inside in the early 1950s, according to Fox. Sam White and its successor Rice-Menger occupied the building until 1985. It’s been a Cadillac dealership since Don Massey took it over in 1999, followed by Stewart and then Central in 2012.
Catty corner to it, Midtown seafood spot REEF was originally a dealership, too. Built in 1952, the building opened as Smith Chevrolet Co.:
Inner-Loop Auto Lore
COMMENT OF THE DAY: PARSLEY STUDIOS’ BIKE LAB REDO COMES FULL CIRCLE 
“Blue Line Bike Lab’s owners are brothers Fred and David Zapalac whose mother Patti Moore Zapalac graduated from Reagan High School in 1966 — actually had senior pictures taken at Parsley Photography!” [Patti Zapalac, commenting on Blue Like Lab Now Has Parsley Studios’ Former Yale St. Building Color-Coded] Photo of former Parsley Studios, soon-to-be Blue Line Bike Lab: Swamplox inbox
In early 2004, a heavy FedEx envelope showed up 1753 North Blvd. for Meyer Minchen, the 81-year-old vet who’d lived there since the house was built. He busted it open. Inside was the Distinguished Flying Cross, along with 2 other medals the Air Force had decided to pin on Minchen 6 decades after the fact. When the Chronicle‘s Thom Marshall came knocking later that year to get the story, Minchen told him he already had 3 air medals in his collection but decided to request a review of his service records because why not. “Equipped with powerful searchlights,” the planes Minchen piloted “flew a mere 500 feet above the water looking for signs of enemy subs,” wrote Marshall.
The house has won some medals, too:
Yours For $2.2M
HAVING SEX WITH ROBOTS INSIDE STORES THAT SELL THEM IS NOW ILLEGAL ACROSS ALL OF HARRIS COUNTY 
Piggybacking on Houston City Council’s own pioneering efforts to outlaw sex doll brothels within city limits, the county has now adopted similar legislation. On Tuesday, the Commissioners Court voted unanimously to “define sex dolls . . . as ‘anthropomorphic devices’ and prohibit companies from renting them out to customers,” reports the Chronicle’s Zach Despart. (Taking the dolls home remains legal.) The new rules take effect on January 1. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of 5615 Richmond, formerly planned to house a sex doll brothel
- 111 Stablewood Ct. [HAR]
A Swamplot reader sends a photo of the crane that’s gone vertical at the corner of Welch and Revere streets just outside River Oaks where Pelican Builders plans to put its 9-story Revere at River Oaks condo midrise. The ’50s-mod condo complex its replacing was torn down last year, leaving an empty patch running lengthwise along Welch St., adjacent to the homes and townhomes that make up the rest of the block. They’re all overlooked by the 34-floor Huntingdon condo tower a few blocks west, shown looming large in the photo at top.
- Previously on Swamplot: Southern Portion of Revere at River Oaks’ 16-Ft. Canopy Now Awaiting Approval To Front Condo’s Entrance on Welch St.; Be-Triangled Fifties Mod Condos on Revere St. Get Bent Into All Kinds of Exciting New Angles By Visiting Excavator; Daily Demolition Report: Lowly Revered;Â Fifties Mod Condos Slated for Midrise Swapout on Revere St.
Photo: Swamplox inbox. Rendering: Kirksey Architecture
Spiking the Lot
