Featured Posts

Churches, Midtown, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Signage

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Spotted on the Instagram story for a not-yet-open venue calling itself The Gypsy Poet: TABC signage going up where it plans to move into Core Church Midtown‘s former home at 2404 Austin St. It’s the fifth liquor-purveying establishment planned for the block — bounded by McIlhenny, Austin, McGowen, and Caroline streets — in the past year-and-a-half, none of which are open yet. But which together have now succeeded in reserving almost all of the space there for themselves.

According to its pastor Jim Stern, Core Church had been negotiating to move into a smaller spot at the back 2404 when the landlord tabled that option and switched its current lease over to a month-to-month agreement. Shortly after, in mid-February, the church was given 60 days to hit the road. It left in mid-March. “I am wondering if we were ‘pushed’ out because of the bars,” Stern tells Swamplot.

See You Soon [The Gypsy Poet via HAIF]
Previously on Swamplot: America Gardens Declares Victory Following 2-Month Crowdfunding Campaign; Core Church Midtown Flees Its Austin St. Strip Center in Advance of Syn Hospitality’s Bar Quartet; America Gardens, Small Bouquet of Other Upstate Restaurants To Be Planted in Midtown

Photos: The Gypsy Poet (sign); Core ChurchÂ (Jim S.)

Change Comes Knocking

77004, Churches, Midtown, Proposed Development, Redevelopment, Renovations, Signage

Buying and Selling

10/12/18 10:00am

Hines Picking Up Less Than an Acre Across from Montrose Whole Foods Parking Lot

Montrose, North Montrose, Quicklink

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HINES PICKING UP LESS THAN AN ACRE ACROSS FROM MONTROSE WHOLE FOODS PARKING LOT The developer entered into an agreement earlier this year to buy the property at the corner of Waugh Dr. and Dâ€™Amico St., reports the HBJâ€™s Olivia Pulsinelli in her round-up ofÂ recent North Montrose land sales. On-site that nearly three-quarter acre parcel right now: a parking lot, driveways, and 2-story dingbat office building that backs up to the adjacent strip housing Pimlico Irish Pub and others. To the east, BMW-focused auto shop Bavarian Machine Specialties buffers the tract from whatâ€™ll soon be Stages Repertory Theatreâ€™s new theater and green space on Rosine St. [HBJ] Photo: LoopNet

77019, Buying and Selling, Montrose, North Montrose, Office Buildings, Quicklink

10/11/18 1:45pm

What’s New and What’s Not About a Hilshire Village Mod with a Studio Out Back

Hilshire Village, Home for Sale

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Between 1111 Guinea Dr.’sÂ 1966 appearance in Better Homes & Gardens and the date it listed last Tuesday, there’s been time to mix things up in both the kitchen and the rest of the house. Not that everything’s different inside, though — those racket-like chairs, while not the originals, definitely take a page out of the magazine.

The house, a couple blocks west of Wirt Rd., is under contract now; it’s asking price: $890,000. Stepping on through the double doors pictured at top puts you right around the corner from the living area shown below:

1111 Guinea Dr.

77055, Hilshire-Village, Homes for Sale

10/11/18 11:30am

New Holes Have Opened Up the Center of the Westheimer Center

Hyde Park, Montrose, Renovations, Retail, Strip Centers

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A Swamplot reader reports that renovations to the shopping center on Westheimer across from Light Bulbs Unlimited “suddenly stopped about a month ago,” leaving a few gaping holes open in the face of the strip. Pictured at top is the space where Radio Shack once stuck out a few ft. from the rest of the building before it shut down along with the rest of the chain and sat vacant prior to the remodeling that began earlier this year.

Despite their presence on the marquee shown above, a number of the other tenants recently hit the road from the center as well: Tanacious Tanning, which occupied the spot (also wide open) just west of Radio Shack; Stars Cleaners, located off Commonwealth St. to the far west; and Consign It!, which punctuated the building’s eastern end. Their spaces are all up for lease right now, according to a LoopNet listing posted back in June. Nidda Thai Cuisine and its next-door neighbor Erotic Cabaret on the other hand appear to be sticking around.

An Inside Look

77006, Hyde Park, Montrose, Renovations, Retail, Strip Center

10/11/18 10:15am

Commissioners Court: No Robo-Brothels in Unincorporated Areas Either, Please

County Commissioners, Quicklink

Quicklink

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COMMISSIONERS COURT: NO ROBO-BROTHELS IN UNINCORPORATED AREAS EITHER, PLEASE Now that the city’s banned sex doll businesses that let customers get it on with the merchandise right there in the store, what about the rest of the county? “That activity is already not allowed,â€ Judge Ed Emmett says at the Commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday. County attorney Vince Ryan added that there are currently laws on the books that “would prohibit those kinds of acts.” But as to what the laws are: Emmett says Ryan “will seek clarification before the next Commissioners meeting on Oct. 23,” reports Community Impact‘s Vanessa Holt. In both the city and the county, there’s nothing illegal about selling human-like sex devices for take-home use, officials tell Holt. [Community Impact; previously on Swamplot] Photo of 5615 Richmond, planned location of thwarted sex doll brothel: LoopNet

Downtown

10/10/18 4:00pm

Downtown’s Upcoming Rental Park Should Be Around as Long as the Auto Shop Building It’s Replacing, But No Guarantees

Parks, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment

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Nancy Sarnoff has a few more details today on what the Downtown Redevelopment Authority will be paying the private owner of the area shown shaded at top — which wouldn’t give up its one-acre parcel there for a new park but will grant the Authority a 30-year lease for: “$355,992 in annual rent,” during the first 5 years, a spokeswoman says, with a 10 percent hike every 5 years thereafter. With that agreement in place — and the Goodyear Auto Service Center that currently occupies the block’s Fannin-St.-side slated for demo next April — the Authority is now seeking plans from landscape architects that’d be responsible for designing the space, though it notes that whatever the chosen firm comes up with “will have a potentially short life, between 30 and 50 years, per the lease agreement currently in place and options to extend.” (The parking lot shown without shading belongs to the South Texas College of Law and is there to stay.)

But that hasn’t stopped those involved from dreaming big while they can. A conceptual map of the park drawn up Project for Public Spaces — a New York planning firm hired to brainstormed some preliminary ideas for the Authority — shows it divvied up among a pair of buildings and a variety of different green spaces including a dog park:

Block 333

77002, Downtown, Parks, Proposed Development, Public Spaces, Redevelopment

10/10/18 9:45am

Sneaking a Peek at the Big Walls, Big Gates Army Corps Could Propose for the Coast Later This Month

Flooding, Quicklink

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SNEAKING A PEEK AT THE BIG WALLS, BIG GATES ARMY CORPS COULD PROPOSE FOR THE COAST LATER THIS MONTH On October 26, the agency will single out one of the 4 big proposals it’s been pondering for the Texas coast as the chosen one, reports the Texas Tribuneâ€™s Kiah Collier. One of them “calls for the construction of a 17-foot-high levee along the entirety of Galveston Island,” as well as Bolivar Peninsula. Ring any bells? It’s the so-called Ike Dike (also known as the “coastal spine”) that A&M scientists dreamed up about a decade ago in response to the disaster and hypothetically-even-worse disaster that could’ve occurred if Ike had struck 30 miles further west. Another defense against that doomsday scenario that could make it into the proposal: a giant gate structure adapted from Rice’s Jim Blackburn and Philip Bedient’s 2011 idea for a mechanism that’d close before storms to block surge. (They wanted to put it just upstream from the Fred Hartman Bridge; the Corps has number of different spots in mind.)Â All the plans in the running include a so-called ring levee around Galveston’s bay side to protect it from reverse storm surge, a helping of smaller levees and gates, upgrades to existing flood control structures, and ecosystem restoration projects geared toward creating natural floodwater-fighting barriers. [Texas Tribune; previously on Swamplot] Map indicating proposed Alternative A plan: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Army Corps of Engineers, Bolivar Peninsula, Coastal Spine, Flood Control, Flooding, Galveston, Galveston Bay, Hurricane Ike, Ike Dike, Quicklink

10/09/18 2:00pm

The New Downtown Carousel That Won’t Be Arriving in Friendswood

Friendswood, Parks, Proposed Developments

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The Friends of Downtown Friendswood withdrew its plan last week to install a new wooden carousel inÂ Stevenson Park next-door to City Hall. Since last November, the site’s been home to a concrete pad left behind when the 42-year-old Fire Station #1 pictured above was demolished and its staff relocated to a new facility at 1610 Whitaker Dr., built with funds from a 2013 bond referendum. By the time of the teardown, the carousel idea (code-named “Project C”) was already on the table, and some residents accused city council of being a little too demolition-happy, owing to their friendliness with the civic organization that proposed it, reported the Chronicle‘s Jeremy Gingrich.

Instead of getting rid of the building, some argued, why not turn its 9,000 sq.-ft. into a community center to double down on the space offered by the city’s existing 9,500-sq.-ft. Friendswood Activity Building shown below at 416 Morningside St.?

Stevenson Park

77546, Demolitions, Friendswood, Parks, Proposed Development, Recreation

10/08/18 4:00pm

Latest Pioneers of Sharpstown’s Beltway 8 Outskirts: Gun Range, Dialysis Center, Texas Star Bingo Hall

Sharpstown

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The developers behind the Plaza 88 retail center on Beltway 8 south of Bellaire Blvd. are now marketing the 2 existing buildings in their planned 5-building complex to those looking to get in on them. And already, an eclectic group has leapt at the opportunity. Texas Star Bingo Hall is the latest to sign up for space; it filed a building permit last week to take over most of the second story in the double-decker strip shown above. Below it, DSI Chinatown Hemodialysis Center and a separate but equal-in-size senior center will split the ground floor — and potentially provide a good portion of the customers base for what’s upstairs.

South of the strip, an additional one-story retail building sits perpendicular to it. That’s where a venue dubbed the High End Bellaire Gun Range will go ballistic next to a not-yet-leased space set to buffer it from a restaurant at the other end of the building, as shown in the site plan below:

Getting in Edgewise

77036, Buildings for Lease, Proposed Development, Retail, Sharpstown

10/08/18 10:15am

One of the 2 Side-by-Side Mattress Firms at Westheimer and Montrose Is a Goner

Montrose, Openings and Closings, Retail

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Soon it appears thereâ€™ll be only one Mattress Firm again in the Westmont Shopping Center at Montrose Blvd. and Westheimer: The one on the right at 1005 Westheimer is set to close while the one on the left at 1003 Westheimer is sticking around â€” for now, at least; more closures are on the way according to the plan Mattress Firm announced in its bankruptcy filing last week to, among other things, thin out areas it thinks are too crowded with its own stores by closing 700 of them after an initial group of more than 200 get axed â€œwithin the next few days.â€

In a court filing, the chain said no liquidation sales are planned at any of its ill-fated stores. But signage outside the former Mattress-Pro–turned-Mattress-Firm Final Markdown this morning indicates otherwise:

Final Days of a Final Markdown

77006, Bankruptcies, Mattress Stores, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Retail, WAMM

Apartments

10/05/18 5:15pm

What’s Staying Put in a Westmoreland House of 7 Units After It Finds a New Owner

Avondale, Buying and Selling, Montrose

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A few of the tenants inside this 7-unit, now-up-for-sale apartment building on Hawthorne St., 2 blocks from Spur 527 appear to be on the same page design-wise. The photo above shows the living room inside one of the building’s 6 one-bedroom apartments done up with a Persian rug, atop which sits a glass tabletop covered in curios surrounding a floral centerpiece.

Now, compare that to that to the living room the building’s sole 2-bedroom unit, shown below:

429 Hawthorne

77006, Apartments, Buying and Selling, Montrose, Westmoreland

East Downtown

10/05/18 2:00pm

Why All the Food Trucks Vanished from East Downtown’s Truck Yard

Quicklink, Restaurants

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WHY ALL THE FOOD TRUCKS VANISHED FROM EAST DOWNTOWN’S TRUCK YARD Health department officials ousted all food trucks from the open-air structure pictured adjacent to outdoor seating in August — reports Samantha Morris over at Houston Food Finder — nearly 4 months after the Lamar St. bar opened. Their justification: City code bans food trucks from parking within 100 ft. of dining areas and from parking underneath â€œany canopy, awning or other covering,â€ that isnâ€™t attached to the truck itself. (If the coveringâ€™s already there for another purpose, and the truck just happens to park under it, the city lets it slide.) As a partial fix, â€œWeâ€™re going to take the roof off,â€ Truck Yardâ€™s general manager tells Morris. Until the city okays plans for that change, cheesesteaks from the barâ€™s in-house kitchen will be the only food source available. [Houston Food Finder; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Truck Yard Houston

77003, Bars and Restaurants, East Downtown, Food Trucks, Parking, Public Health, Quicklink

Bankruptcies

10/05/18 12:30pm

Mattress Firm Has Filed for Bankruptcy

Quicklink, Retail

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MATTRESS FIRM HAS FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY The nationwide chain filed for Chapter 11 this morning in order to deal with its debt — $3.2 billion by Paul Takahashi’s accounting — as well as what the company calls “certain economically inefficient store locations.” 700 stores nationwide are goners, 200 of which will be closing “in the next few days,” according to the company. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of shuttered Mattress Firm at 208 Westheimer Rd.: Swamplox inbox

Bankruptcies, Mattress Stores, Quicklink, Retail

10/05/18 10:30am

A Happy Ending for Houston’s Robo-Brothel Resistance, for the Most Part

Proposed Developments, Retail, Uptown

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All that foreplay over the sex doll brothel planned inside the 2 story building pictured above on Richmond Ave just east of Chimney Rock ended up going nowhere Wednesday when city council blocked its opening by amending an ordinance that regulates adult businesses within city limits. Following the council’s unanimous vote, having sex with what the amendment calls “anthropomorphic devices” inside stores that offer them is now illegal in Houston. However, selling the dolls for take-home use remains no problem — provided that the retailer is more than 1,500 ft. from all nearby schools, churches, daycare centers, areas with 75% residential density, and public parks

City-owned Anderson Park is just about catty-corner to the brothel’s planned location at 5615 Richmond — meaning the property is now off-limits to any kind of R-rated establishment. (Existing PG tenants include Kaan Cafe, Omni Salsa Dance Studio, and a handful of clothing shops.)