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Eastwood
04/12/16 1:00pm

What Was Planned for East End Central, in the Former Macy’s Building Between Austin High and University of Houston

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Former Macy's Outlet Center, 4500 Gulf Fwy., Eastwood, Houston, 77023

Former Macy's Outlet Center, 4500 Gulf Fwy., Eastwood, Houston, 77023A running reader caught sign of the leasing notice currently up at the former Macy’s outlet store just north of I-45 and S. Lockwood Dr. along Munger St. The clearance center operations moved out several years ago to the current location at Highway 6 and Westheimer Rd. (as noted by signage tacked to the S. Lockwood storefront’s doors, still redirecting missed-the-memo potential customers). The company’s distribution warehouse complex next door is still in action (and, per the same set of signage, handling customer pickup).

Lovett Commercial is marketing the space; its own (larger) signage currently refers to the property as East End Central. The flier on the company’s website marketing the property (dated January 2014) shows some proposed pad sites and some potential tenants; the flier also refers to the property only as 4500 Gulf Freeway or as South Lockwood Retail:

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Southern Eastwood
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Featured Posts
04/12/16 11:15am

Waves Now Undulating Above Hot Bagel Shop’s Future Nextdoor Home on S. Shepherd

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River Oaks
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Shepherd Commons, 2015 Shepherd Dr., River Oaks, Houston, 77019

Shepherd Commons, 2015 Shepherd Dr., River Oaks, Houston, 77019The first 2 waves of decorative railing are now stretching north off the edge of the new building at 2015 S. Shepherd Dr., the first half of the Shepherd Commons shopping center planned for the site. Per the renderings released back in 2013 , the 3rd and 4th waves should follow after the Hot Bagel Shop and River Oaks Nails jump ship from the original single-story strip center immediately to the north at 2009 S. Shepherd; after that, the old structure is slated for demolition to make way for part 2 of the new one.

Back in 2014, both businesses had plans to move into the space at 2015 S. Shepherd when it’s ready. (We Buy Gold, which wasn’t going to join in on the trip, has already been replaced in the old center by Cell Phone reStore).  Hot Bagel says it’s still planning to move in next door as soon as it can; a reader also spotted notice of an application submitted late last fall to sell food and drinks, including beer and wine, behind one of the site’s still-tape-dotted windows. The name on that application belongs to a corporate entity sharing an address with Fu Fu Restaurant in Dun Huang Plaza along Bellaire Blvd. at Beltway 8.

Visible in the background just south of the new building is kickboxing studio 9Round, followed by the Chipotle facing the corner of Shepherd with Indiana St. Here’s another look at what the center could look like after round 2 of construction gets knocked out:

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Bagels Rolling South
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Featured Posts
04/11/16 5:00pm

A Raven’s Eye Update on the Scene Around Newly-Sorta-Opened White Oak Music Hall on North Main

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Raven Tower Bar, 301 North St., Northside, Houston, 77009

Raven Tower Bar, 301 North St., Northside, Houston, 77009

The bluest bar-on-a-stick in town gives a 360-degree overview of the area around White Oak Music Hall, which held its first concert Saturday on a temporary stage next to the still-under-construction main building. Renderings released last year for the concert complex, next to the already-in-action Raven Tower at the crossing of I-45 and Little White Oak Bayou (above), showed plans for 2 indoor stages and a 3rd outdoor pavilion, with a 3,000-person events lawn between. Developer Will Garwood told the Houston Chronicle last week that while he would still like to add a permanent stage someday, the temporary stage would be getting reused in the meanwhile — possibly requiring special event permits (like the one issued for Saturday’s concert) multiple times each month.

Here’s what the scene looked like on Wednesday evening, as crews continued working past sundown to get everything in line for the weekend:

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Hatching in Near Northside
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Dearborn Place
04/11/16 1:00pm

What’s Left of the No-Longer-Live Oak in Front of Au Petit Paris on Colquitt St.

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Stump in front of Au Petit Paris, 2048 Colquitt St,, Dearborn Place, Houston, 77098

The last fading rays of setting sun cast a dusty glow over the oak stump in front of 2048 Colquitt St. just east of Shepherd Dr., captured by a reader over the weekend. An employee of Au Petit Paris tells the photographer that the restaurant isn’t behind the removal of the tree, which shaded the French bistro’s front patio; the arboreal departure occurred during the still-ongoing move-in of 2 townhomes across the street at 2051 and 2053 Colquitt (the latter of which is visible above on the left, behind construction fencing). Construction on those structures started last summer after building permits were issued to 2201 Custom Homes in June.

Here’s a close-up of the stump, accompanied by a sprinkling of springtime sprouts:

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Bidding Adieu in Dearborn Place
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Bars and Clubs
04/11/16 10:45am

A Stroll Through the Underground Beer Garden and Regular Garden Now Below Prairie St. Downtown

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Downtown, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail
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Conservatory Underground Beer Garden & Food Fall, 1010 Prairie, Downtown, Houston, 77002

This latest report over the wireless from Swamplot’s regular tunnel correspondent comes from a brief venture into nearby subterranean territory this weekend to scope out Conservatory Underground Beer Garden & Food Hall. The basement bar and restaurant collection sits in the former Isis Theater building on Prairie  St., just east of sister-facility Prohibition and Main St.-facing Moonshiner’s Southern Table + Bar. Several of the Conservatory’s restaurant tenants spent last week quietly testing out their setups on diners during limited hours; the shots and commentary below come from a Saturday morning jaunt through the venue:

The entrance is just east of Prohibition, under an awning sporting the marquee “Conservatory/Underground Beer Garden and Food Hall”. The lobby level has a stairwell leading to the main basement area:

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In the Conservatory With The Knife
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Featured Posts
04/08/16 3:15pm

This Morning’s LyondellBasell Refinery Fire Put Out 19 Hours after Yesterday’s ExxonMobil Refinery Fire

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Houston Ship Channel
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Fire at LyondellBassell Refinery, 12000 Lawndale St., Houston, 77017

News choppers milling around the LyondellBasell refinery at 12000 Lawndale St. this morning, just west of the 610 bridge over the Ship Channel, caught some shots of billowing black smoke and flames at the facility, which have since been put out. The company reports that heavy fuel oil and cleaning fluids burned after a Coker unit caught fire around 10AM for reasons yet unknown.  The Houston fire department suggested until about 11:15 that folks please stay indoors and try not to let in any fumes in nextdoor Manchester, as well as south and west as far as Park Place Blvd. and Broadway St.; students at nearby Chavez High, Deady Middle School, and Rucker Elementary were also included in the shelter-in-place fun.

After burning for about 2 hours, the fire was put out just before noon — not nearly as speedily as yesterday’s fire at the ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown, which started around 4:40PM and was out by just after 5. That fire’s cause is also unknown; no injuries were reported in either incident.

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Booming on the Ship Channel
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Featured Posts
04/08/16 12:30pm

New Potato Taking Root at Taco Loco’s Old Spot near the KBR Site

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Fifth Ward, Restaurants, Retail
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Shopping Center planned at 3519 Clinton Dr., Fifth Ward, Houston, 77020

Shopping Center planned at 3519 Clinton Dr., Fifth Ward, Houston, 77020

A reader notes a notice on the formerly-barred now-boarded front window of the building at the corner of Bringhurst St. and Clinton Dr. The sign tells tale of an application to the TABC to sell mixed drinks at the spot, late at night, under the name of The New Potato. The restaurant space, formerly Taco Loco prior a late-2000’s stint as Nina’s Cafe, sits a block east of the Harris Machine Tools facility, a block south of a field of townhomes, and a block north of the 136-acre former KBR site, tagged a few years back for use as a helicopter landing spot.

The bar-to-be’s current grey-and-white color scheme came about back in 2013. Here’s a peek back in time at the the bright orange Taco Loco days, followed by the turn-of-the-decade Nina’s yellowing:

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Clinton at Bringhurst
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Featured Posts
04/07/16 3:15pm

Don’t Look Now, But the Galleria Is About to Sprout a New Residential Highrise

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Galleria, Highrises, Proposed Developments
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Proposed 30-story tower on former Macy's site, Galleria, Houston, 77056

This morning Simon Property Group released renderings of a planned residential highrise in the Galleria, shown here at the corner of W. Alabama St. and Sage Rd. in what’s left over of the land previously occupied by the mall’s second Macy’s. The tower is slated for the same spot previously colored purple for “future retail/office residences” on one of the developer’s Galleria redo maps back in 2014. (That map didn’t mention a highrise specifically, but previous info on the redevelopment plans floated the idea.) Simon says it plans to break ground on the tower by the end of 2017, with a 2019 or 2020 opening in mind.

The rendered view above looks northeast over the Berachah Church across W. Alabama at the glassy highrise, which may hold somewhere between 75 and 100 residential units atop 220 hotel rooms (with separate amenities areas for permanent and temporary residents). The design shows 2 pool decks; the nearby Westin Galleria’s existing pool can be spotted on the right, past an existing parking garage.

Here’s the view from the other side, looking south down Sage across Westheimer Rd. over the new Saks Fifth Avenue building (set to open at the end of the month):

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One Tower to Live Above the Mall
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Featured Posts
04/07/16 12:45pm

Cullen’s 700-Diner Building To Take Up Medicine, Citing Owners’ Quality of Life Concerns

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Cullen's, 11500 Space Center Blvd, Houston, 77059

The couple behind Cullen’s Upscale American Grille and Whisk(e)y Bar announced yesterday that the Vegas-style restaurant near Ellington Field had shut down, following some hard reflection on the “brevity and uncertainty of life” after the unexpected death of GM Ryan Roberts last August. Sandra and Kevin Munz released a statement on the restaurant’s webpage indicating that the 37,000-sq.-ft. space would be converted into a healthcare facility, starting immediately; the couple says they plan to focus their attention on the business ventures which will “most dramatically enhance the quality of [their] lives,” and to spend more time with their kids.

The choose-your-own-china-pattern restaurant opened in 2008 as a green-certified, 700-seat anchor for Kevin Munz’s Clearpoint Crossing development, which includes retail strips next to residential complex just north on Space Center Blvd. south of Genoa Red Bluff Rd. Much of the rest of the retail center has already gotten on board with the medical theme: the development currently houses the UT Physicians Bayshore Family Practice facilities, Bailey Orthodontics, and Clearpoint Dentistry.

Photo of Cullen’s at 11500 Space Center Blvd.: Jason L. 

Changing Direction at Ellington
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Downtown
04/07/16 10:45am

Former Houston Chronicle Headquarters Starts Getting Dressed Up To Go Away Downtown

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Former Houston Chronicle Building, 801 Texas Ave., Downtown, Houston, 77002

A line of orange plastic barricades is now artfully wrapped around the base of the former Houston Chronicle headquarters at 801 Texas Ave., as is some construction fencing. Hines purchased the property last fall and is preparing to demolish the structure, which is actually an amalgamation of several slightly misaligned buildings wrapped up behind a single 1960s-or-so facade. The shot above looks down Texas Ave. from the corner with Travis St., with Calpine Center looming in the background between Milam and Louisiana.

Hines hasn’t said what it plans to do with the land in the long run, yet, and the company has other projects in progress at the moment — a block away on Main St., Hines’s 48-story 609 Main office tower is still under construction.

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Making Newspaper Building History
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Featured Posts
04/06/16 3:45pm

Where Houston’s Trump and Sanders Supporters Are Clustered, and Other Election Data Mapping Fun

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Maps
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Go ahead and play around with the map above (created by activist Kris Banks), showing the precinct-by-precinct outcome across Harris County for last month’s Republican presidential primaries. Shades of red show the spots won by Cruz (most of them, though a lighter shade indicates less solid support). Precincts won by Rubio show up in shades of blue (mostly clustered on the west side of the Inner Loop), while Trump support is marked in gold (mostly northeast and south of Downtown, as well as strung out along the Westpark Tollway); a few Carson precincts show up in green.

January Advisors’s Jeff Reichmann recently took a look at Banks’s election maps, which include results from both parties’s primaries and a starkly geographically-split down-ballot race for the Democratic district attorney nomination. You can click on each precinct to get its number and a breakdown of the results. Here’s how things looked for the Democrats, with the Sanders precincts in green spangling a field of Clinton blue:

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Drawing It Out
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Featured Posts
04/06/16 12:15pm

Blossom Hotel To Sprout Up Next to TMC’s Proposed Double Helix Site and That One Last Corner Townhome

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Texas Medical Center
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Proposed Blossom Hotel on Lehall St. at Bertner Ave., Cecil Street Courts, Houston, 77030

Here’s a preview of the 9-story hotel planned for the stretch of now-mostly-cleared land along Lehall St. at Bertner Ave. south of the Texas Medical Center. The land slated to hold the Blossom Hotel Houston is right across Bertner from where the TMC wants to build a double helix park and collaborative campus; Zhejiang Blossom Tourism Group has been buying up lots on the east and northeast of the block, which have held a mixture of homes, a commercial building, and nothing over the last few decades.

Not shown in the rendering:  the lone house still standing right on at the corner of Lehall St. and Bertner Ave.:

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Last One Standing
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Featured Posts
04/06/16 10:45am

Yale St. Crossing of White Oak Bayou To Cut Out in 2 Weeks, Reopen in 2018

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Historic Preservation, Houston Heights
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Yale St. Bridge over White Oak Bayou, Houston Heights, Houston, 77007

Yale St. Bridge over White Oak Bayou, Houston Heights, Houston, 77007 An orange and black construction marquee is now advertising the upcoming closure of the Yale St. bridge over White Oak Bayou just south of I-10, starting the Monday after next and running until the New Year’s Eve after next. The 1931 bridge, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is slated for replacement after years of asking crossers to please watch their weight (with 10,000 pounds per axle being the most recent upper limit). The per-axle limit was at 8,000 pounds prior to a 2012 drop to 3,000 (which disqualified some SUVs and minivans). The addition of carbon strips to the structure caused TxDOT’s weight limit to yo-yo back up to 10,000.

The plans for the new bridge floated by TxDOT in 2014 included wider outside vehicle lanes and slightly narrower sidewalks (down to 5 feet from 6). But summary and followup notes from the public meeting held at the end of July 2014 say the design has been updated to include 8-foot-wide shared bike and pedestrian pathways on either side of the bridge, in response to the public comments on the project.

The TxDOT meeting summary notes also documents the agency’s attempt to sell the bridge in the Houston Chronicle:

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Coming Back a New Bridge
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Featured Posts
04/05/16 4:15pm

An Up and Down Look at the Down and Up House, Now on Sale for $2.5 Million on Banks St.

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, Ranch Estates
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The house at 1514 Banks St., which Karen Lantz designed for herself and her husband a few years back, just hit the market this weekend for a cool $2.5 million. After deconstructing the previous house on the Ranch Estates lot piece-by-piece for reuse, Lantz made a point of sourcing as much of the new building’s materials as possible from American manufacturers — and got most of the way there. The 3-or-4-bedroom home, nicknamed the Down and Up House by Lantz (and the (Almost) All-American Home by Mimi Swartz), contains both an extensive basement level and an upstairs patio terrace; its energy-conscious design (including solar paneling and solar water heating) bagged it a LEED Platinum certification.

Above, you can listen to architectural historian Stephen Fox narrate a walkthrough video of the house and its design process; below, you can look through the house at your own pace, starting with the spiky xeriscaping and poolside edible gardens:

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High and Low in Ranch Estates
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Featured Posts
04/05/16 11:30am

Abbreviated Signage Now Up for MD Anderson’s Longest-Monikered Tower

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UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Building for Personalized Cancer Care, Morsund St. at M.D. Anderson Blvd., Texas Medical Center, Houston, 77030

Here’s a glance down MacGregor Dr. across Cambridge St. toward the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Building for Personalized Cancer Care — now labeled the “Sheikh Zayed Building” for short, a reader notes. The 4-tower structure, now standing where Moursund Dr. meets MD Anderson Blvd., is one of the projects funded by the $150 million grant given to MD Anderson in 2011 by the building’s namesake’s son, current UAE president Khalifa bin Zayed al Nayhan. HDR designed the building, which went up on the space formerly occupied by UT’s Mental Science Institute (shipped off to the nearby UT Research Park back in 2010).

Here’s a glitzier shot of the building, looking east across MD Anderson Blvd. with The Spires condominium tower rising on the left in the background:

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Med Center Labels
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