05/11/16 5:15pm



Glen Park resident and
periodic White Oak Music Hall critic Beth Lousteau sends along this Tuesday retelling of a Mother’s Day encounter with a work crew apparently having a go at some vegetation along Little White Oak Bayou near 210 Glen Park St. The property, including the warehouse across an unpaved road, was bought last spring by White Oak W2 Investments, an entity controlled by the White Oak Music Hall developers. Lousteau says that workers on the site told her they’d been tasked with clearing a nicer view to the water, but that the boundary between the purchased property and the county-owned floodway land wasn’t marked.

Here’s a brief glimpse of the scene reportedly taken that Sunday, when Lousteau encountered the work crew mid-whir:

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Glen Park
05/11/16 3:30pm

TABC regional headquarters in Heights Medical Tower, 427 West 20th Street, Suite 600 Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

A group called the Houston Heights Beverage Coalition PAC is hoping to bring about a vote on allowing beer and wine sales in the technically dry section of the Houston Heights. The group published a notice on May 5th announcing an application to the city to start collecting the petition signatures required to get the measure on a local option ballot.

Here’s the text of the required public notice:

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Watering Down the Dry Laws
05/11/16 11:00am

The Cistern, Buffalo Bayou Park near Sabine St. at Memorial Dr., Houston, 77007

Friday’s tours of the 1920s underground water reservoir buried along Buffalo Bayou are already booked up, but the space will be open to the public Thursdays through Sundays from here on out. A 30-minute tour of the Cistern is $2 (except on Thursdays, when access is free), but reservations are required either way.

Can’t wait for the next open timeslots to scope out the space? Artist Donald Lipski’s Down Periscope is already up and running on the lawn above the reservoir, allowing digital spelunkers access to a light, a camera, and a microphone permanently installed in the space below. Off-site viewers can also queue up on the contraption’s website to take remote control of the installation for 5-minute intervals and swivel around in the underground chamber at will:

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What’s Down Below
05/10/16 5:15pm

Biohazard signs in Spring Branch at Westview and Moritz drives

Biohazard signs in Spring Branch at Westview and Moritz drives

The latest addition to the growing collection of signage at the Westview Dr. crossing of Spring Branch: a shiny new stick-in-your-yard-style biohazard warning sign, one of a number that popped up over the weekend along stretches of the creek that got the full vermillion treatment after last week’s chemical-fueled warehouse fire about a mile upstream. The newcomer joins the inveterate kiddo-crossing and school-zone signs tipping off drivers to the proximity of both Moritz Pech Family Park and Valley Oaks Elementary School, along with a Keep Spring Branch Clean & Green! anti-litter placard and a vintage No Dumping $200 Fine.

Other indicators of last week’s spill include the multi-colored booms still strung across the waterway (shown here looking south):

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Trickling Through the Memorial Villages
05/10/16 2:30pm

Amanda Parer's Intrude installation, 1600 Smith St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

Joining the lunchtime crowd in front of the 1600 Smith St. tower today: the towering inflatable rabbits of Australian artist Amanda Parer. Brookfield Properties, which owns the downtown office tower complex where the rabbits are loitering, is sponsoring the leporine art installation’s 4-stop North American tour of other Brookfield commercial properties. The bunnies spent some time in New York City before getting transplanted downtown for a week; they’ll be hopping off to LA and then Denver after the tour’s Houston leg wraps up this Saturday the 14th.

The installation is called Intrude, an allusion to the rabbit’s time-honored place in modern Australian lore as an ecological disaster. Here are a few more daytime angles on the critters, which are also getting lit during their nights downtown:

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Downtown From Down Under
05/10/16 1:00pm

3501 W. Alabama, Greenway,

The walls came down last week at the southwest corner of Edloe and W. Alabama streets, in the wake of a demo permit issued the week before. A few readers had eyes and lenses on the spot, which is currently listed for lease on LoopNet as 3000 Alabama Ct. but goes by 3501 W. Alabama in other county records. The walled complex (shown mid-teardown at the start of last week) was sold to St. Luke’s in 2009 by Metsun Senior Living, though it’s rumored to have been a former residence of deceased Greenway Plaza mastermind Kenneth Schnitzer.

St. Luke’s, whose main land holding sits catty-corner to the Alabama Ct. property, also owns the office park across Edloe, visible to the east of the freshly-emptied lot in this shot below from later last week:

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Alabama Ct.
05/09/16 4:30pm

Daiso at 2540 Old Denton Rd., Carrollton, TX 75006

Japanese dollar and 100-yen store Daiso has signed a lease for a 10,998-sq.-ft. spot at 501 S. Mason Rd. in the Mason Park shopping center, east of Mason Creek and the Barker reservoir. NewQuest Properties says the retailer was drawn to the location on S. Mason south of I-10 because of its proximity to Asian grocery chain 99 Ranch Market, which is currently getting the former Kroger spot in the center ready for a summertime opening.

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Coming to Katy
05/09/16 10:45am

Lanier Middle School, 2600 Woodhead St., Montrose, Houston, 77098

A list of proposed school name changes was released on Friday as HISD moved forward with plans to to cut ties with the Confederacy. The switchover of Henry W. Grady Middle School to Tanglewood Middle School was already approved by the district board of education back in March — here are the 6 and a half new names proposed for the 7 remaining schools, which could be applied by the start of the 2016-2017 school year:

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School Swapouts
05/06/16 3:30pm

Spring Branch tributary after Laverne St. Fire

The ditches ran red in the Spring Branch area yesterday as the billowing 4-alarm fire near Laverne St. at Spring Branch Dr. triggered evacuations and shelter-in-place orders across the surrounding areas. The blaze reportedly started in a home-slash-auto-shop on Laverne and spread next door to the A-1 Custom Packaging warehouse (which transfers large quantities of various industrial liquids into smaller bottles for distribution). Some of those stored chemicals (including the bright red petroleum additive visible in the shot above) made their way into drainage ditches and culverts flowing into Spring Branch itself.

The red additive is non-water-soluble and has been getting pushed around by contract clean-up crews downstream to stop the spread. But contractors cannot, the city says, catch the pesticide that also made its way into the same drainage channels, as it dissolves in water. It’s still unclear how much of the 500 gallons or so thought to have been stored at the site made it all the way into Spring Branch (which flows into Buffalo Bayou south of I-10), but some water quality test results are due back later today.

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River Running Red
05/06/16 12:30pm

allen-center-remodel-2

One Allen Center, 1200 Smith St., Downtown, Houston, 77002Brookfield released a few renderings this morning of the plans to make over One, Two, and Three Allen Centers at the corner of Smith and Dallas streets downtown. The rendering above depicts the new plan for the greenspace between One and Two: to subtract 1 of the 2 second-story skybridges currently running parallel to Smith and add an events venue. The redo plans also include a major street-level change for One Allen Center, depicted above with a 2-story glass lobby running around corner in place of the current largely-bricked-over podium facade.

That tiny neon sign on the left edge of the turn-of-the-decade photo above once marked the location of Don Patron; the quarter-centenarian Tex-Mex lunch spot started to close in February and finished the job in March. The remodel plans swap it out for a higher-end restaurant, which will get some patio space along Smith St:

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1, 2, 3 Remodel
05/06/16 10:30am

Future site of Gipsy Girls, 726 W. 19th St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

Signs of the impending turnover at 726 W 19th St. west of N. Shepherd Dr.: a banner bearing the curly pink logo of Gipsy Girls teen-and-tween gift shop. The spot formerly hosted Pink Studio cosmetics, which has headed north to a space in the Northwest Gessner Center along the 290 feeder; following the departure of a business geared toward holding on to the things of youth, the W. 19th St. space is being remodeled to host children’s karaoke and birthday celebrations.  

The children’s party venue will move in between Mark’s Hair Studio and adult party venue Painting with a Twist, down the row from Insomnia Video Game Culture and Vinyl Toys, TxDryClean, and Replay Games. Across the street is the mid-Phase-2 Re:Vive development; here’s the rising frame of the apparent Benjamin Moore paint store, which should help strengthen the center’s nascent dessert-and-real-estate theme:

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Pink in, Pink Out
05/05/16 5:00pm

7927-glenview-032

The listing for this 3-bedroom mid-century mod a few blocks south of Sims Bayou says that the home was considered as a filming site for the Astronaut Wives Club teevee series — but didn’t get the part.  The house did, however, get picked to be in several of the Houston Builder Association’s Parade of Homes showcase tours back in the 1950s, according to Glenbrook Valley’s historical district designation report. That document cites a 1954 Houston Chronicle writeup noting the home’s cutting edge electric features, including a precipitron (“a device that removes all odors“). It’s unclear whether the precipitron survived the 2008 remodel (following damage from a 2007 fire), but the listing says the current owners tried to keep era-appropriate stylings in mind during the repair work:

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Space Age Spaces
05/05/16 11:45am

Smoke Plume at 1700 Laverne from Texas Medical Center

Update, 12:30 pm: Firefighters are reportedly being warned to watch out for live ammo; also, here’s some video of one of this morning’s explosions.

Update, May 6: The chemicals released by yesterday’s fire turned Spring Branch Creek blood red — photo and more info here.

Shelter in Place Area, 5/5/2016The fire department posted a long-distance shot this morning of the A1 Custom Packaging warehouse, currently on fire near the intersection of Laverne St. and Spring Branch Dr. north of Longpoint Dr. The 4-alarm blaze (shown above from nearly 9 miles away looking out over 59 across Upper Kirby) is about a quarter mile from Spring Branch Elementary School, which KPRC reports is being evacuated. Roughly 500 students and teachers are being bussed to the Coleman Community Coliseum about 5 miles west-by-southwest, at 1050 Dairy Ashford Rd.

Noting the release of hazardous chemicals, the city’s emergency notification system recommends that anyone not evacuating the square formed by Blalock Rd., Bingle Rd., Westview Dr., and Hammerly Blvd. (shaded in red on the map above) should close their windows, turn off the AC and ventilation systems, and maybe have a go at sealing up cracks with duct tape and plastic sheeting.

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Smoke Signals from Laverne St.
05/04/16 4:00pm

Abel Motors, 2012 N. Shepherd, Houston Heights, 77008

A reader’s drive-by shooting at the corner of N. Shepherd Dr. and W. 20th St. captured a few photos of Abel Motors, whose new signage announces a move to parts even further north. The dealership’s new location at 9102 Airline Dr. will put it just south of Halls Bayou at the intersection of Airline and Gulf Bank Rd. across from the Cathedral of St. Matthew. (and amid a suite of other car sales and auto repair operations up and down the street).

The N. Shepherd spot to be vacated sits catty-corner to the former car dealership property currently being redeveloped as a Mellow Mushroom-containing retail strip, and a block north of the Take 5 Oil Change getting into gear at the corner with 19th St. Here’s another shot of the corner, looking north across 20th toward the ex-Fiesta a few blocks up the road:

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Peeling Out
05/04/16 12:45pm

3319 Virginia St., Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

On the market as of 2 weeks ago: the home-slash-power-plant on the corner of Virginia and Colquitt streets, a block west of the now-rising Kirby Collection.  The listing claims the building is Houston’s first LEED-Platinum certified home (though others have since followed suit), and by Houston standards, Adams Architects took extreme measures to reduce the 1,900-sq.-ft. house’s dependence on city utilities networks.

Rooftop solar panels send excess energy to the power grid during the day, and a back-up battery system is in place in case the grid ever goes down. Tucked out of sight below the 3-bedroom structure are geothermal conduits which circulate water down to hotter strata 300 ft. deep, collecting energy to heat and cool the house. A 7,000-gallon cistern beneath the recycled-plastic deck also collects rainwater for use in the space.

Ready to peek inside?

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Green Machine in Upper Kirby