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The U.S. Postal Service plans to end all retail operations at its flagship Downtown Houston post office next Friday, May 15th. And that’ll be it for the Barbara Jordan Post Office in the 5-story 1962 building with concrete fins at 401 Franklin St. All P.O. box and caller services at that location have already ended; they stopped on May 1st. And the post office boxes themselves have been gently extricated as well, leaving this scene inside:
Get Your Stamps There While You Still Can
The colorful team behind the beer-and-hot-dog hangout Moon Tower Inn has plans to open a much larger and meatier restaurant a couple blocks northeast of its spot on Canal St. in the East End. A new “Proper Texas BBQ and Watering Hole” will go into a warehouse-turned-auto-repair-shop at 3125 Navigation Blvd., a few blocks down the street from Ninfa’s and El Tiempo, sometime in 2016, according to a post on the Moon Tower Inn’s Facebook page. Its name: B.R. Young’s Lost Indian.
Here’s a view of it:
B.R. Young’s Lost Indian
HOUSTON METHODIST’S NEW SUBURBAN-STYLE TMC HELIPAD 
From reader Stephen J Alexander comes this pic of the new helistop that’s landed at the corner of Bertner Ave. and S. Braeswood, just over the southern (Brays Bayou) border from the Texas Medical Campus, as viewed during construction last month. It’s directly across the street from M.D. Anderson’s 25-story Mid Campus Building 1, but the helicopter landing pad is a project of Houston Methodist Hospital, according to permit info posted onsite; it sits on a portion of Methodist’s West Pavilion remote lot. Photo: Stephen J Alexander
EXPLORING TEXAS’S INTRASTATE ART HIGHWAY SYSTEM 
“In recent months, I’ve watched work from artists in just about every region of Texas make its way to other regions in Texas. It happens constantly. Celia Eberle (Ennis) to Beaumont; Camp Bosworth (Marfa) to Albany; Margarita Cabrera (El Paso) to Dallas; Ludwig Schwarz (Dallas) to Houston; Gregory Ruppe (Dallas) to San Antonio; Hills Snyder (San Antonio) to Lubbock, Danielle Georgiou (Dallas) to Marfa, Rick Lowe (Houston) to Dallas. You get the picture. The state, despite its size, enjoys a remarkably active farm-to-market road system for current working artists. This is unique in the U.S. In Texas, a town needs only one of the following to make art pop up there: 1) a university, 2) a few sharp galleries, 3) an accredited museum, 4) an artist residency, 5) a rich, well-traveled, collecting family who start a non-profit or private exhibition space. Texas is bent on importing art from outside of the state, yes, but that intractable ‘Texan’ identity (whatever it means to each region) also drives ongoing interest in homegrown talent. And given the state’s 27 million people, there’s some talent to swish around.” — Christina Rees, after shouting “Jesus Christ! Texas is so freaking big!†on a road trip to Marfa. [Glasstire] Photo: Christina Rees
King Dollar, Pizza Hut, Sherwin-Williams, Sun Loan, Mini’s Cleaners, Ruchi’s Taqueria, Schlotzky’s, Tiendo Rio Lempa, Denny’s, Hairtex & Nails, Nancy’s Cake Designs, Nationwide Insurance, Edible Arrangements, Todo Jewelry, Video Square, V Star (pictured here), and all of the businesses in the Woodridge Plaza shopping center at 6969 Gulf Fwy. — they’re all going away. The Houston Community College System wants to expand its Southeast College East Side Campus onto the 5.7-acre property to its south, on the north side of I-45 near Gulfgate. A reader who isn’t involved in the legal tussle, but who’s looked through the records on the county clerk’s website, describes the back-and-forth as laid out in the documents: “It looks like the special commissioners valued the shopping center at $12,500,000. Both the landowner, Compass Investors Group LLC, and HCCS objected and are seeking a trial for a higher, and a lower valuation, respectively. Texas Capital Bank is owed about $3.5 million on a mortgage on the property and also intervened. The landowner lawsuit is in Cause number 1043516 in County Court 4. HCCS also filed condemnation actions against all the tenants (cause 1057330 in County Court 4).”
Images: Moseley Commercial
The Taking of Woodridge Plaza
HOW YOU CAN HELP HOUSTON’S FIRST FULL-TIME HUMAN TRAFFICKING COFFEE SHOP COME TO LIFE 
Been looking for a good coffee shop somewhere around the Heights where folks can get together and discuss Houston’s role as a major hub for human trafficking? Where caffeine-hunters can experience moments of genuine outrage — then find themselves drawn toward information sessions, group discussions, planning meetings, and double espressos — knowing that all profits from their chatting and coffee-drinking habits will go toward charitable stuff like providing classes and counseling for survivors of human trafficking? If so, then you’ll be happy to learn about A 2nd Cup, which opened as a part-time “incubator” project a couple of years ago. Now the nonprofit, led by former junior-high science teacher Erica Raggett, has begun work on a buildout for a permanent, full-time home — in the Vineyard Church of Houston’s Storehouse storefront at 1111 E. 11th St., just east of Studewood St. (pictured above, right next door to longtime late-night cop favorite Andy’s Café). A 2nd Cup’s backers are trying to raise an additional $100,000 toward the effort on Indiegogo now. [Indiegogo] Photo mockup: A 2nd Cup
The sixth and last of the replacement street trees was planted in the public right-of-way surrounding the Wendy’s drive-thru at 5003 Kirby Dr. over the weekend. “It is a big specimen tree, taller than what was removed,” writes the reader who sent in these photos of the installation paid for by a special city fund for Houston parks — so we can all see for ourselves. The previous weekend, 5 replacement oaks were put in along the side street, North Blvd. Crews hired by the franchise owner, Mohammed Ali Dhanani of Haza Foods, had chopped down 6 trees on adjacent city property last October. You can compare the current scene in these photos and in our story last week with how it all looked before the chainsaws were fired up.
Regrowth
If you thought it was kinda adorable how those 2 same-owner mattress stores are snuggling up right next to each other at the corner of Westheimer and Montrose Blvd. in Montrose, you’re sure to be enthralled by the suburban version of the same like-kind pair-up down about Sienna Plantation, what with their separate, straight-laced façades and separate showrooms. Mattress Firm has been open for a couple years already at 8741 Hwy. 6 South in Missouri City; the same company’s slightly larger Mattress Pro just opened up next door at 8735 last month. Better yet, the buildings are for sale, together!
Bedroom Community
Other apartment developers have been rushing to complete their latest construction projects. But not Camden Property Trust. Not only has the company put 2 Downtown projects on hold, CEO Ric Campo tells the Houston Business Journal‘s Paul Takahashi, it’s also dawdling as best it can on its planned 8-story, 315-unit apartment complex on the Midtown Superblock.
Writes Takahashi: “Camden has deliberately slowed work on Camden McGowen Station in hopes that construction costs will come down, Campo said. Camden plans to begin vertical construction on the apartment this fall, he said. ‘We’re going really slow on our buyout on the job,’ Campo said. ‘Hopefully we’ll be in a favorable pricing later this fall.’”
- Amid low oil prices, Camden puts brakes on Houston’s multifamily market [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Can’t Get Enough Midtown Superblock? New Video Captures Every Puddle, Blade of Grass, Mud Patch
Photo of Midtown Superblock, between Main and Travis, south of McGowen: Adam Brackman
Camden McGowen Station
Steps stick out like a tongue from the pop-eyed façade of a recently renovated 1969 Woodstone home. But is it saying “ah” or “nyah-nyah?” The elevated entry sits between matching front-loader garages supporting twin window bays. Fully paved, the front “yard” meets the street’s cul-de-sac in the Memorial-area neighborhood, which is located west of Gessner Rd. and north of Briar Forest Dr. Listed a week ago, the property is asking $1.149 million. Following a splitsville floor plan, the home’s living and sleeping areas form parallel universes on both levels.
Divided Light
If you were dazzled by the wide swaths of concrete laneage and complicated color-coded spaghetti interchange entanglements in the TxDOT renderings released last week — but had trouble comprehending the massive scale of the proposed reroute of I-45 around Downtown — you’ll want to try this second go at it. The state transportation agency has now produced a video version of its freeway-rewrapping proposal, complete with tiny little animated cars and trucks moving along 3-D representations of those new wide surfaces. It’s so mesmerizing, many viewers may not even notice what happened to the Pierce Elevated.
- Previously on Swamplot: The 5 Wackiest Images from TxDOT’s Plans To Reroute I-45 and Abandon the Pierce Elevated
Video: TxDOT, via Houston Chronicle
North Freeway Downtown Rewrap
Runaway Shepherd St. jeweler Fly High Little Bunny has marked up the former Occasions Fine Gifts shop at the corner of Rutland and 19th St. in the Heights as its future home. A separate note posted to the store’s Facebook page late last week indicated that the new location at 301 W. 19th St. wouldn’t be open “for a month or so.”
- Previously on Swamplot: The Last Words of Fly High Little Bunny; The Last Hours of That Shopping Center at S. Shepherd and W. Alabama, Where The New CVS Is Going In
Photos: Swamplot inbox
19th St. Retail
A row of 5 already-growed-up oak trees took up their new home along the North Blvd. flank of the Wendy’s drive-thru at 5003 Kirby Dr. last weekend, to replace the same number along the public right-of-way that went missing after dark last Halloween on account of they were chopped into pieces by order of the franchise owner. “The new trees at Wendy’s are so big they had to close the road to install them,” writes the reader who sent in these photos. “. . . almost as big as the ones cut down.”
One more tree is still to come — for this spot on Kirby Dr., right in front:
Fast Landscaping
Crews working on the site of the former Village Mobil on the inbound I-10 feeder road at 8819 Katy Fwy. have now covered up part of the former gas station sign with a new hood announcing the Starbucks drive-thru now under construction in its place. But only the top part of the sign. “Will the Hedwig Village Starbucks stick with the ‘by the gallon’ pricing strategy of its predecessor?” asks reader (and Metro board member) Christof Spieler, who snapped this photo.
- Previously on Swamplot: Hedwig Village’s New Freeway-Side Starbucks Drive-Thru Is Coming To Save Your Missed Exit
Photo: Christof Spieler
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