01/07/16 4:15pm

Rendering of Medical Center Crossing, 1709 Dryden Rd., TMC, 77030

Just north of the hypodermic peaks of the St. Luke’s Medical Tower on Main St., the tower at 1709 Dryden Rd. is slated for redevelopment as the Medical Center Crossing complex — the office space, leased by Baylor as recently as 2013, will be converted into an Embassy Suites hotel (shown from the northeast corner in the rendering above). The tower was sold at the end of 2014 to an entity connected to Pritesh Patel — the Fort Worth developer who previously purchased the Samuel F. Carter building at 806 Main St. and turned it into a JW Marriott after peeling off the building’s extra glass-and-marble skin.

Ground-level retail will remain and expand — a siteplan released by Transwestern shows most of the building’s remaining restaurant tenants still in place, with an existing parking garage ramp exiting onto Fannin seemingly replaced by a 1,670-sq.-ft. storefront spot (Retail E in the plan below):

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Crossing the Med Center
01/07/16 1:30pm

Rustika Cafe and Bakery, 801 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, Tx 77002

Stuck downtown jonesing for a turnover, or a maybe a wedding reception? A satellite outpost of Rustika Café and Bakery has crept into the tunnel beneath 801 Louisiana St. in the spot previously occupied by Porch Swing Desserts. The cafe is now open for business with a taco-heavy mini-menu to kick off operations.

A tipster tells Swamplot that sweets fiends will be able both to order and to retrieve custom cakes from the new underground locale, though they will still be constructed at the cafe’s original strip mall location (at 3237 Southwest Freeway between Tokyohana and the Michaelyndon Salon & Day Spa). This first franchise of the Mexican-Jewish mashup will also offer catering.

A few fresh snaps of the newly-stocked pastry counters beneath Louisiana St.:

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Taking the Cake Down Below
01/07/16 10:30am

What better character to hawk a house slathered in animal dung than a leather-jacketed agent from Rockstar Real Estate Group? Rhinestone-loving Paul Gomberg, who operates under the umbrella of Keller Williams Conroe/Lake Conroe, posted a video tour yesterday of a house featured on Swamplot on Monday (which, as commenters noted, included captions such as “Feces galore!”).

Gomberg seems eager to share his delight for the house at 5623 Willow Walk Ln., calling it “one of the best listings he’s had in the last 2 weeks” (even while warning his cameraman to hold his nose against what his HAR listing calls the “foul stench” permeating the interior). Gomberg posted the tour to YouTube last night — despite the fact that the property appears to have been under contract since December 20, after only 1 day on the market.

The house, currently listed at $125,000, originally sold for $280,000 in 2012, when it looked like this:

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Video Shitshow
01/06/16 3:15pm

The Raven hasn’t landed yet — but the metal-fabrication-shop-turned-icehouse’s website and Facebook page are touting a January 19th Grand Opening date, complete with the kickoff to the venue’s live music lineup. On the other side of the complex, associated White Oak Music Hall itself isn’t scheduled to open until May.

The ice house and its sky-high 70s-bachelor-pad lounge are tucked back off of N. Main along North St., separated from I-45 by only the Skylane Apartments. (The iconic den-on-a-stick can be spotted through the trees from I-45 north of Quitman, just before the freeway ducks under the North St. bridge.)

New renderings posted last month by the bar show the details of the rest of the Raven Tower’s indoor and outdoor spaces:

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Winging Over White Oak
01/06/16 11:30am

Invasion Ice House, 823 Dumble St., Eastwood, Houston, 77023

A little green man in a flying saucer heralds the looming takeover of the former Los Amigos space at 823 Dumble St. (at the corner with McKinney, a few blocks west of S. Lockwood Dr.). Los Amigos is prepping to be reborn as Invasion Ice House — a tipster tells Swamplot that the new owner wants to make the space into the “cool neighborhood hangout” that the area “desperately needs”. The 1,300-sq.-ft. building, formerly violet (and even-more-formerly lemon-yellow), has been repainted a dusty blue behind the sci-fi mural now adorning the front.

Invasion manager Monique Ramos applied for a TABC beer and wine license last month; a closer look at the signs posted on the space indicates that the interplanetary colonists will bring along Tex-Mex provender in the form of the Tako Box food truck.

Photo of 823 Dumble St.: Swamplot inbox

 

Cosmic Facelifts
01/06/16 9:45am

B-Cycle Station, Brazos St. at McGowen St., Midtown, Houston, 77006

Cyclists, get clicking: the bike-share nonprofit B-Cycle is looking for input on the locations of nearly 70 new stations via an online mapping tool. B-Cycle will more than triple its number of Houston bike docks over the next few years — growing from 29 last November to a cool 100 — thanks to a $3.5 million grant from the Houston-Galveston Area Council. Director Will Rub refers to the explosive growth as “almost a shotgun approach”.

The station proposal map includes the current stations and some already-proposed locales from the B-Cycle team, but you can add commentary and suggest your own by registering with an email address (mere voyeurs may remain anonymous).

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Bike Boom
01/05/16 12:45pm

Grand Parkway Segments H and I-1

The Army wants you to send the Corps of Engineers your thoughts on Segments H and I-1 of the Grand Parkway — if you can get them in order by February 1st. A public comment period, following some slight route revisions to the 37-miles-plus-a-bit-extra stretch of the in-progress outer-outer loop shown above in red, opened on December 30th. This next addition to Houston’s increasingly elaborate Saturn cosplay will run from 59 between Porter and New Caney through Montgomery, Liberty, and Chambers counties, skirting southeast of Dayton to link up with I-10 near Mont Belvieu.

Want to read up before having your say? The Final Environmental Impact Statement and associated documentation for the two segments, which collectively total 2,829 pages in pdf, have been helpfully split into 2 volumes for your perusing pleasure.

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Eastex Connections
01/05/16 10:00am

Heights Candy Bar, 833 Studewood, Heights, Houston, 77007

Note: This story has been updated.

Take one last lick Heights Candy Bar is closing, as are internally connected gift-clothing-and-knick-knack shops Oolala and Tulips & Tutus. Sweets dealer Tania Gumney announced this morning that the 3 shops at 833 Studewood will melt away shortly; Gumney’s mother-in-law, Judy Pfardresher, runs Oolala, but has decided to retire after 13 years of operation.

Pfardresher has subleased parts of the 833 space to various other businesses throughout her tenancy; Gumney joined the glucose trade and set up shop in 2014.

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Sugar Crash in the Heights
01/04/16 1:45pm

The Eagle, 611 Hyde Park Blvd, Avondale, Houston, 77006

A Saturday-afternoon fire has temporarily flushed Montrose bar The Eagle from its roost at 611 Hyde Park Blvd — day-drinkers at the hotspot’s newish location reported smelling smoke and seeing lights flicker just before a manager ran downstairs to the first-floor bar area in the converted Depression Era-home to hustle patrons and staffers out. Owner Jay Allen told KTRK’s Deborah Wrigley that the permit had been approved for an already-installed sprinkler system in the building, but the City hadn’t hooked up the water yet. (No injuries were reported.)

Despite heavy smoke and fire damage to the second and third floors and water damage to the first, owner Jay Allen vows that the club will swoop back to its Montrose aerie (pictured above during the 2015 Pride season) as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the Eagle is screaming again (albeit only on Sundays) at its old bayouside digs downtown — “the dungeon” in the basement space at 709 Franklin — until repairs on the Hyde Park building are completed.

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Back To the Underground
01/04/16 11:30am

Kroger, 3300 Montrose Blvd, Montrose, Houston, 77006

Where you can: Aldi, Kroger, Spec’s (at least some of them), Brook’s Place (where it gets you a discount), Corkscrew BBQ, El Tiempo, Taste of Texas.

Where you can’t: Costco, Fiesta, HEB, Phonicia, Randall’s, Sprouts, Target, Trader Joe’s, the Galleria, Whataburger, and a slew of restaurants across town that have told Kyle Nielsen and friends that they plan to ban openly carried handguns at their establishments. Nielsen created a publicly accessible Google doc listing the yes, no, and maybe-so responses of various Houston grocery stores and restaurants to the question “Will you post a 30.07 sign banning open carry of handguns in your store, starting January 1?”

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Aiming to Please
01/04/16 10:15am

Glenbrook Golf Course, 8205 N Bayou Dr., Meadowbrook, Houston, 77017

As the clock ticked over into 2016, Houston Botanic Garden and the Houston Golf Association each had something else to celebrate: both groups met end-of-year 5-million-dollar fundraising goals required by agreements with the City to carry forward their respective plans for 2 east Houston golf courses. The golfers raised enough money to move forward with preservation and renovation of Gus Wortham Golf Course, at 7000 Capitol street (south of the Houston Ship Channel Turning Basin, where Wayside meets Polk). Houston Botanic Garden had initially pushed to add some color to the oldest greens in Texas and redevelop the Brays-Bayou-side space as a public garden.

That garden is now planned instead for above-pictured Glenbrook Golf Course, a semi-maintained set of greens-turned-greenspace along Sims Bayou north of 45 from Hobby Airport (just outside the southeast corner of the Loop).

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Teeing Off in East Houston
12/31/15 11:00am

Houston Chronicle Building Remodel, 4747 Southwest Freeway, Pin Oak, Houston, TX 77007

The north wall has been breached — windows have been carved into the facade of the Houston Chronicle’s freeway-front structure at the corner of the West Loop and 59 (where most of the paper’s staff will relocate early next year.) The multi-building campus under renovation at 4747 Southwest Freeway was bought from the Houston Post in 1995 after the competing newspaper folded; the Chronicle’s Texas Ave. space was bought by developer Hines in October.

The main building was powerwashed back to a gleaming beige over the summer — to brighten things up further, sections of the 1960s raw concrete Brutalist facade are currently being whitewashed as well, in line with exterior renderings released earlier this year by Gensler:

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59 @ 610
12/30/15 12:00pm

Brook's Place, 18020 FM 529, Cypress, TX 77433​

Brook's Place Barbecue, 18020 FM 529 Cypress, TX 77433​Nationally ranked Cypress parking-lot barbecue trailer Brooks’ Place will offer a 25 percent discount on New Year’s Day to anyone celebrating Texas’s new open carry law with a properly holstered firearm. Owner and master of smoked beef Trent Brooks will also offer a permanent 10 percent discount those who show up armed after January 1st. (A sign posted on the premises notes that “judicious marksmanship is appreciated” if the need to draw does arise.) Things you shouldn’t show up with, according to other noticed posted to the shed (tucked next to the Ace Hardware in the shopping center at FM 529 at Barker Cypress Rd.): short-shorts and saggy pants.

Photos: Cletus O. (trailer) Angela S. (sign)

 

 

With Open Arms
12/30/15 9:45am

Remodel of Heights Plaza, 420 E. 20th St., Heights, Houston, 77008

A makeover is underway at the Heights Plaza at 420 E. 20th St. between N. Main and Heights Blvd. Swamplot reader JerseyGirl sends photos of the strip center, once home to Sunny’s Washateria and J & R Boudin; the building is keeping some of its 1970s architectural details (such as those embedded cinderblocks) but is also getting some updates, including a total interior redo and a new white and bubblegum color scheme extending to the parking lot.

Workers on the site confirmed that one of the new tenants will be Birds Barbers, an Austin salon known for providing Shiner Bock as part of its customer experience — in addition to using it as a styling product, for “hair that is smooth and full of shine”. Steel City Pops will also move in — the Alabama-based popsicle chain, which the owner modeled off a Mexican paletas store encountered in Nashville, currently lists flavors including buttermilk, wassail, and spruce on the menu of their Dallas location.

Earlier renderings from Schaum & Shieh show the Heights Plaza strip center (to be rechristened The 420) as it may soon appear — give or take a high-gloss sheen, and those pink parking stops and bricks:

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Heights Gets the Birds
12/29/15 3:30pm

Construction at the Children's Assessment Center, 2500 Bolsover St, Rice Village, Houston, TX 77005

The tearing down is done — the old parking garage at the Children’s Assessment Center on Bolsover St. in the Rice Village is gone, following the completion of the facility’s new garage (a sliver of which can be seen peeking into the right of the frame in the shot above from Dustan St. along the northern edge of the property). A furtive glance through the back gate of the construction site reveals that the freshly cleared field between the the new garage and the Center’s original 1998 building (on the left) is already being overgrown by forms and thin PVC pipes, sprouting in advance of the 4-story 89,000-sq.-ft. facility expansion that will rise in the newly-vacated gap over the coming months. The Center, which provides free care and services for sexually abused children and their families, put its new garage’s 420-space foot down on the former Village Plaza Shopping Center, kicking the leftover bit of the block to the Frost Bank now fronting Kirby.

The rendering of the completed project from Gensler has taken on more concrete definition since it initially surfaced several years ago:

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Down and Up on Kirby