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Featured Posts
01/15/16 1:30pm

Walmart To Dispose of Its Willowbrook Mall Supercenter in 2 Weeks

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Openings and Closings, Retail, Willowbrook
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Walmart Supercenter, 7075 FM 1960 W, Willowbrook Mall, Houston, 77069

The king of big-box retail announced plans this morning to close the Walmart Supercenter at 7075 FM 1960 West, behind Willowbrook Mall at the intersection with Cutten Rd. The Supercenter will close on January 28th after more than 2 decades of operation; a Walmart Neighborhood Market at 2740 Gessner Rd. (south of Kempwood Dr.) will also close on the same day.

The Supercenter (not to be confused with the one 4 miles up FM 1960 at the corner with T.C. Jester) is one of 154 US stores that will close, as the chain works to assure that its “assets [are] aligned with strategy”. Currently, there are 17 Walmart stores on or inside Beltway 8, and 4 Walmart Supercenters along FM 1960 between 249 and Atascocita.

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Boxing Up on FM 1960
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Featured Posts
01/15/16 10:15am

Your 1 Route to Enter or Exit the Montrose Area During the Houston Marathon This Weekend

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Freeways and Toll Roads, Traffic
12 Comments

2016 Houston Marathon Closures

For a few early hours this Sunday, the Southwest Freeway will be the only conduit into or out of the box of land framed by Kirby Dr., Montrose Blvd., Bissonnet St. and W. Gray St. (give or take a traffic peninsula leading up to Allen Pkwy., which will also be closed for much of the morning).

The Houston Marathon will launch from 4 corrals leading to Congress Ave. at San Jacinto St., and loop through the city along the route outlined in black above. The Half Marathon route (outlined in yellow) will pant alongside until just before mile 8, when it will skive off north back toward the shared finish line at Discovery Green.

A larger version of the map is show in 2 parts below, complete with start and end times (in red and green respectively) of each mile marker’s street closure:

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The Runaround
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East Downtown
01/14/16 5:00pm

Start and Stop on Schlumberger’s Art Deco Former Headquarters in East Downtown

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2 Comments

Former Schlumberger Building, 2720 Leeland st., East Downtown, Houston, 77002

2720-leeland-st-3

Take a gander at the 0ld Schlumberger building at the corner of Leeland St. and Delano. New photos of the 25,000-sq.-ft. building show a structure now slightly less windowless than back in 2013, when mobile app developer ChaiOne announced an intended Spring 2014 move to the top floor.  A reader in the area reports that work such as drywall and A/C installation appeared to be happening this past summer, but seemingly stopped again in July, with little activity visible on the property since.

Plans for ChaiOne’s renovation, designed by Austin firm Bercy Chen Studio, incorporated ground-floor retail beneath 2 floors of offices:

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Will They, Won’t They?
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Avondale
01/14/16 12:45pm

Eye Massages and Champagne Now on Offer with Your Vision Test in an Avondale Strip Center

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Openings and Closings, Strip Centers
3 Comments

Focus Refined Eye Care, 515 Westheimer Rd., Avondale, Houston, 77006

Focus Refined Eye Care announced this week that the doors are open at 515 Westheimer Rd., at the far eastern end of the strip center also containing Osaka Japanese, BB’s Donuts, Nu Cuts Hair Salon, and e-cigarette shops The Vapor Lair. The storefront, next to the former home of lapsed-vegan Mexican restaurant Radical Eats, previously housed a Chartway Federal Credit Union branch.

A press release says the new shop will “eliminate the sterility of typical doctor’s visits”— the self-described ‘optometry spa’ will offer patrons alcohol in cocktail form as well as of the lens-cleaning variety, and eye-rubs will be thrown in for good measure at the start of each appointment. The spot will offer high-end tailored glasses (the combined product of new German diagnostic equipment and a fashion consultant).

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Wide Open on Westheimer
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Bars and Clubs
01/14/16 10:15am

Not-on-Kirby Kirby Ice House Gets the Blues between Richmond Ave and W. Alabama

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Homeowners' Associations, New Construction, Upper Kirby
10 Comments

Construction of Kirby Ice House at 3333 Eastside St., Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

Down the street from Lamar High School, the would-have-been-Little-Woodrow’s now going instead by Kirby Ice House (“A Neighborhood Pearl”) is setting up shop at 3333 Eastside St., between the parking lot used for the weekly Urban Harvest Farmer’s Market and the Bammel Park townhomes. A post to the establishment’s Facebook page earlier this week shows that the under-construction building has just finished turning an icy blue, and the accompanying caption says that work is moving into “the detail phase”.

The bar’s across-the-street neighbors include nonprofit women’s career services center Dress for Success and the main building of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston — both groups expressed concern about the bar’s location in 2014 after the president of the Bammel Park Homeowner’s Association sounded a neighborhood-wide email alarm. Dress for Success filed a protest of the ice house’s TABC license that July; the license was issued in December of that same year.

A rendering of the building’s exterior shows the ice house standing next to a townhouse-free field:

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Ice on Upper Kirby
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Downtown
01/13/16 4:58pm

A Quick Houston Ghost Story, Before 509 Louisiana St. Gives Up the Ghost

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No Comments

509 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

517 Louisiana St. is down — the former haunt of the Longhorn Cafe (509 Louisiana, to the right of the hole in the above photo) was still standing as of 2 PM this afternoon, along with the pecan tree in its once-secret  courtyard. Both have permits lined up to follow 517 into the Great Beyond, to make room for surface parking on the block.

The hidden pecan tree is purported to harbor a ghost, rooted deep in some Republic of Texas history:

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Louisiana St. Demolitions
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Bayous and Waterways
01/13/16 4:00pm

The 9 Zoomiest Images in West 8’s Master Plan for the Houston Botanic Garden on Sims Bayou

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Flooding, Gardening, Geology, Glenbrook Valley, Houston Landmarks, Parks, Proposed Developments
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Renderings of Houston Botanic Garden at Glenbrook Park Golf Course, Glenbrook Valley, Houston, 77017

Bright and shiny renderings from the recently-released master plan for the Houston Botanic Garden show that design firm West 8 is aware of the challenges involved in straddling a world-class park across Sims Bayou, on the site of Glenbrook Park Golf Course just across I-45 north of Hobby Airport.  The Dutch firm, known internationally for unusual bridges and unconventional landscape design, has planned for many of the Garden’s displays to flood at will; the shores of Sims Bayou on the Garden’s property will also be resculpted. And to combat Houston’s just-shy-of-year-round heat, shade trees would be preserved or planted throughout the park, including the towering cypresses depicted in the bayou-side wetland gardens shown above (parts of which will be explorable by kayak).

Meanwhile, the more formal garden spaces planned for the park are shown with their own built-in shade (complete with custom ceiling fans): Colonnade structures (like the ones picture below) will ring each of the major collection gardens, which are designed to be “entered, enjoyed, and contemplated from the comfort of the shaded perimeter”:

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Glenbrook Valley Garden
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Featured Posts
01/13/16 12:30pm

Galleria Shake Shack To Be Served with a Side of Leafy Greens

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Galleria, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers
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Rendering of Shake Shack Houston, 5015 Westheimer Rd., Uptown, Houston, 77056

Shake Shack’s planned Galleria location made an appearance at the company’s quarterly investor presentation yesterday — the new rendering scraps the outdoor patio present in the previously released depiction, and an exterior wall appears to be covered in greenery. The Shack currently anticipates a late-2016 opening, depending on progress of the surrounding Galleria redo.

Rendering of Shake Shack planned for 5015 Westheimer: Simon Property Group

 

5015 Westheimer Rd.
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Featured Posts
01/13/16 10:00am

West 8’s Botanical Mile To Fly High Over Sims Bayou, Funnel Visitors into Garden Parking Lots

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Glenbrook Valley, Proposed Developments
15 Comments

Renderings of Houston Botanic Garden at Glenbrook Park Golf Course, Glenbrook Park, Houston, 77017

Now available: Dutch landscaping and design firm West 8’s master plan for the Houston Botanic Garden, complete with preliminary renderings of the future-former Glenbrook Park Golf Course (south of Park Place Blvd between I-45 and Galveston Rd.). The drawings include details of the so-called Botanical Mile walk-and-drive-way (shown above posing in Downward Dog over Sims Bayou): an arboreal bridge along the single-file parade of exotic trees is intended by the designers to serve as a new symbol for the city of Houston, better known currently for its general aversion to being outdoors.

According to the master plan document, the Botanical Mile will stretch along the western side of the garden and serve as the main entrance: visitors will enter the park from Park Place Blvd. and drive the length of the property to the parking lots, in the process crossing onto and back off of the large island created by a meandering limb of Sims Bayou:

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Rooting Over Glenbrook Valley
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Demolitions
01/12/16 3:45pm

Those 2 Century-Old Louisiana St. Buildings Being Demolished Now for Lancaster Hotel Parking

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Downtown, Houston History, Houston Landmarks, Land Development, Parking, Theater District
8 Comments

Demolition of 517 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

Time to bid adieu to 2 more of downtown’s oldest buildings: readers sent both sky-high and excavator-side photos of yesterday’s teardown work at 517 Louisiana St., and 509 is permitted to follow). According to the building’s owners, the next-door Lancaster Hotel’s parking crunch is the reason the 2 1906 Theater District neighbors will meet their flattened fates, along with a long-hidden pecan tree that shades a once-secret courtyard at 509. Taking their place: a surface lot for 50 cars — and, maybe, one day, an expansion to the hotel.

517’s transformation to empty space was complete by the end of the day yesterday:

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Coming Down in Downtown
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Featured Posts
01/12/16 9:30am

Paradise Lost on Hempstead Rd.

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Memorial
6 Comments

Paradise Motel, 8405 Hempstead Rd., Hempstead Industrial District, Houston, 77008

A last fleeting glimpse — a reader snapped this shot of the permanently closed Paradise Motel at 8405 Hempstead Rd., between the junctions with W. 11th St. and Washington Ave and just northeast of Hines’s Somerset Green development. A rent-a-fence is now up around the 6-building complex, which sits next door to Custom Duct and across the railroad tracks from Non-Ferrous Extrusions metal fabrication. The hotel opened in 1963, back in the pre-290 days when the Hempstead Hwy. was the primary route to Austin.

Photo: Gail Garcia via Swamplot inbox

Industrial District Motel
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Barker Cypress
01/11/16 3:30pm

Marks LH7 Ranch Church Finally Making Itself Comfortable at New Home in Iglesia Sobre La Roca’s Back Yard

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3 Comments

Little White Church on property of Iglesia Sobre La Roca, 433 S. Barker Cypress Rd., Kingsland Estates, Houston, 77094

The Little White Church that fled the Marks LH7 Ranch in 2012 when the land was sold to developers appears to be finally settling in at the new digs — a reader sends this photo looking west  from Barker Clodine Rd., on the back side of the property of Iglesia Sobre La Roca where the building scooted to. The Little White Church is now a few shades whiter thanks to a new coat of paint, and appears to have gotten a big brown porch for Christmas. Eastgate Ministries moved out of the building to a country club in Katy in early 2014, after 15 years of using the building.

Meanwhile, back at the Marks LH7 Ranch (just across a long driveway to the south of the Church’s new home, and west along Kingsland Blvd.): the Vue Kingsland Apartments, the Aldeia West Apartments, and the Ryan Homes at Arcadia have all risen on the former state archaeological landmark, where a ranch-themed development was once promised.

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Kingsland Churches
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Downtown
01/11/16 10:45am

La Calle Prepares to Bring the Taco Cause Next Door to That Evicted Brewery Incubator’s Former Downtown Command Post

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Restaurants
2 Comments

La Calle Tacos y Tortas, 909 Franklin St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

La Calle Tacos y Tortas, 909 Franklin St., Downtown, Houston, 77002Some blue fists are clenched on the ground floor of the Bayou Lofts building, at the northeast corner of Travis and Franklin — La Calle Tacos y Tortas purports to be bringing Mexico City-style street fare to the space at 909 Franklin St. Owner Ramon Soriano Tomka anticipates a February opening, and is currently plugging the chance to win free tacos for a year via various social media platforms.

The storefront is the former home of dim sum spot Hong Kong Diner, and sits between the former homes of Franklin Street Coffee and Brewery Incubator, the kitchen-kickstarter-turned-brewery-fermenter that was evicted in 2014 following complaints about a late-night game of naked Twister.

A rendering posted to La Calle’s facebook page shows what the spot could look like after buildout is complete:

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Taco Solidarity on Franklin St.
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Bars and Clubs
01/08/16 3:15pm

Eureka Heights Brewing Will Dive Into the Craft Beer Flood at the Edge of the Heights’ Dry Zone

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Shady Acres
4 Comments

Future Eureka Heights Brewing Company Warehouse at 941 W. 18th St., Shady Acres, Houston, 77008

Eureka Heights Brewing Company employees will get to work on beer as soon as they’re done “powerwashing the hell out of this warehouse” — that 22,000-sq.-ft. one formerly occupied by Jake’s Finer Foods on W. 18th St., half a block west of N. Durham Dr. (and even closer to the border of the Height’s historically (nominally) dry zone.) The brewery’s webpage also proudly touts its proximity to the trace of the Eureka Heights Fault, which crosses White Oak Bayou about where Ella Blvd. does (just a few blocks to the west of the newly leased space).

Other beer endeavors currently fermenting in and around the Greater Heights area include Platypus Brewpub (preparing to slip in behind the Tacodeli and upscale barbershop on their way to Washington Ave), Holler Brewing Company (planned for the Artists Alley section of the Sawyer Yards Development), Allen’s Landing Brewing Company (3540 Oak Forest Dr., a few blocks west of Petrol Station), and the seemingly-yet-unmoored Great Heights Brewing Company, which claims a numberless address on Heights Blvd. on its Facebook page.

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Shady Acres at Fault
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East Downtown
01/08/16 11:00am

Houston’s Own ‘East Village’ Planned Next to 8th Wonder Brewery in East Downtown

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10 Comments

Proposed East Village Development, Polk and Lamar at St. Emmanuel and Hutchins Sts., East Downtown, Houston, 77002

From the folks currently in the process of bringing you Heights Mercantile: plans for East Village, a 2-block mixed-use complex planned along St. Emanuel and Hutchins Sts. between Polk and Lamar in East Downtown — a few blocks south of the Dynamo’s BBVA Compass Stadium, and across 59 from the George R. Brown Convention Center and Discovery Green. New real estate investment and development firm Ancorian (founded by Finial co-founders Neil Martin and Michael Sperandio with Matthew Donowho) is behind the development; as of two months ago, land for the project (across the street from the Yen Huong Bakery and the now-closed Kim Hung Supermarket) was still being acquired.

A few renderings are up on the Ancorian website — the view above is of a Lamar-facing courtyard and a renovated version of the warehouse currently housing Kitchen Depot. But a presentation dated late November shows many additional angles, siteplans, and renderings of the planned development, one block of which is credited to the design firm of Austin-based Michael Hsu, and the other to Māk Studio Architecture:

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Beer Before Liquor on Hutchins
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