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77098, Proposed Developments, Upper Kirby

Upper Kirby Swap

01/28/19 11:00am

What’s Next for the Empty LULAC Clubhouse Marooned on a Bagby St. Traffic Island?

Midtown

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Last week, new chain link fencing cropped up around the former League of United Latin American Citizens Council 60 Clubhouse building at 3004 Bagby St., according to a Swamplot tipster, who sends these photos showing what the 2-story stucco structure looks like ringed by the new barriers. The building made news at the beginning of last year when the nonprofit working to preserve it received a $140,000 grant from American Express for planned restoration work, as well as a “National Treasure” designation from the D.C.-based National Trust for Historic Preservation. Since then, however, the fencing has been the only major sign of change at the triangular property, which housed LULAC’s de facto national headquarters for decades after the Latino civil rights group purchased and moved into it in 1955.

LULAC Clubhouse [National Trust for Historic Preservation]

Photos: Swamplot inbox

Midtown Mainstays

77006, Historic Preservation, Midtown

Demolitions

01/25/19 4:30pm

Obliteration of Corazon Clears the Way for 3 New Hyde Park Townhomes To Rise in Its Place

Hyde Park, Montrose

This pair of drive-by shots shows what remained on Tuesday of the Hyde Park building that until recently housed South and Central American craft store Corazon. After receiving a series of short-term lease extensions, the store’s owner Chris Murphy told Swamplot last October that he only had a month left in the space at 2318 Waugh Dr., which had housed the store since 1998 and served as a canvas for Houston’s fifth red dot on its Fairview-St. side. (It opened a year earlier on Montrose Blvd. a few blocks south of 59 in a spot within the former Gramercy Apartments that’s now occupied by the Museum Tower.)

Murphy began renting the blue and gray building that’s now collapsing for $650 a month over the discouragements of his friends, reported the Chronicle’s Ileana Najarro, who warned him of its location in “the middle of nowhere” and of the visibly lopsided posture it’d assumed over its 100-year lifespan. (Joke’s on them: the building, wrote Najarro, went on to survive 8 car crashes during the time Corazon was inside.) Harris County’s appraisal district dates its construction to around 1880. Since then, it’s done stints as a smithy, glass-blowing studio, antique store, general store, and furniture refinishing shop.

Once the dust has settled from the demolition, a set of 3 townhomes are set to rise in its place. Murphy plans to continue dealing products from South and Central American artists online.

Previously on Swamplot: Corazon Is Leaving the Corner of Waugh and Fairview for Real This Time; Corazon Will Hang Around Montrose for a Few Months More Before Its Building Gets Smashed Up;Â Corazon Now Being Removed from Its Big Red Dot Spot at Waugh and Fairview

Photos: Grey Stephens

Fairview Farewell

77006, Demolitions, Hyde Park, Montrose, Public Art, Redevelopment, Retail

01/25/19 3:15pm

Tallying Up New Houston Home Construction in 2018

New Construction, Quicklink

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TALLYING UP NEW HOUSTON HOME CONSTRUCTION IN 2018 The year-end numbers from Houston’s planning department are in: 5,483 new single-family home building permits were issued in 2018. At least 615 of them were issued for properties within the 100-year floodplain, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis published by Matt Dempsey and Mike Morris back in October, a month after the city’s new rules for development in floodplains took effect. And at least 600 were issued for homes in the 500-year floodplain. Since September, new homes in both of the 100- and 500-year zones have been required to go up at least 2 ft. above the 500-year floodplain elevation. [Houston Planning Department] Photo of 1505 and 1503 Everett St.: HAR

New Construction, Quicklink

01/25/19 12:30pm

Astrodome Renovation Budget Isn’t Enough for Air Conditioning, Says County Judge Lina Hidalgo

Quicklink

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ASTRODOME RENOVATION BUDGET ISN’T ENOUGH FOR AIR CONDITIONING, SAYS COUNTY JUDGE LINA HIDALGO While looking into those Astrodome renovation plans to raise the floor and slip 2 levels of parking underneath it that the previous commissioners court set aside money for last April, new Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo appears to have had a revelation: “What I’m discovering,” she tells Houston Matters’s Craig Cohen on air yesterday, “is that the 105 [million dollars] that was allocated is not enough to air condition the building.” And so she asks: “Is the current design enough for folks to actually want to rent it out? I don’t want this to be a white elephant,” she says. “So that’s what I’m trying to figure out.” [Houston Public Media] Photo of Astrodome: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

77054, Astrodome, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Renovations

01/25/19 10:30am

Here’s What the Southwest Portion of Hermann Park Could Look Like and Where You Can Go To Give Your Two Cents About It

Hermann Park, Landscape, Parks, Proposed Developments

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Narrowing in on the corner of Fannin St. and Cambridge St.Â which will soon go by the nameÂ The Commons at Hermann Park, landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh and his associates have sketched out a few potentially transformative ideas for the area, such as the rocket-ship-shaped children’s play structure depicted at top with a mock jetway linking it to the hill on the right. And above, a handful of other new outdoor features that seem to be a hit with the faceless crowd of park-goers shown engaging with them in various forms of recreation.

To find out what real people think about the proposals, part of the 20-year Hermann Park master plan, the Hermann Park Conservancy is asking folks to weigh in on them during a public meeting to be held in theÂ Cherie Flores Garden Pavilion at McGovern Centennial Gardens off Hermann Dr. on Thursday, February 7 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Speaking of pavilions, there’s one included in Van Valkenburgh’s plan, too, as a complement to the existing one off Fannin St.

Fannin at Cambridge St.

77030, Hermann Park, Landscape, Parks, Proposed Developments

Briarmeadow

01/24/19 3:00pm

Taco Cabana Trashes Pollo Tropical’s Palm-Tree-Themed Outdoor DÃ©cor But Hangs onto the Real Things For Now

Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants

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A Swamplot reader who for the past few days has been monitoring changes at the intersection of Westheimer and Voss roads sends the photo at top showing a new Taco Cabana banner strung up on the roadside fast food pad that Pollo Tropical left in 2017. Although the new restaurant’s flavor profile won’t be much different from that of its predecessor, the look of the place appears to be changing quite a bit. So far, the white pergola fronted by Pollo Tropical’s signage on the east side of the structure has been removed and a fresh coat of gray paint has been applied to all sides of building, including the one home to that blue tagline and accompanying palm tree illustration shown opposite the sedan in the photo above.

Also gone: the 4 painted palm-tree window awnings along the south and east sides of the building, each of which fronted its very own live palm tree as shown in the photo. The trees themselves don’t appear to have been disturbed since Pollo Tropical left:

Staying South of the Border

77057, Fast Food, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants

01/24/19 12:30pm

Newly-Proposed Statewide Flooding Fund Would Be Sprinkled with $1.2B from Texas’s Rainy Day Reserves

Flooding, Quicklink

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NEWLY-PROPOSED STATEWIDE FLOODING FUND WOULD BE SPRINKLED WITH $1.2B FROM TEXAS’S RAINY DAY RESERVES State Senator Charles Perry filed a trio of bills on Tuesday that aim to create a state-level plan for flood mitigation, to be funded by $1.2 billion drawn from Texas’s $11 billion rainy day fund, reports theÂ Texas Tribune’sÂ Carlos Anchondo. If the House and Senate agree to tap the state’s nest egg by a two-thirds vote — a level of consensus that’s proven difficult to reach in the past, notes Anchondo — the legislation would then divide Texas into regional flood planning groups that trace the outlines not of municipalities, but rather of the state’s watersheds in order to “ensure one community’s plans do not inadvertently negatively impact a neighboring community,” says Perry. (The Texas Water Development Board would oversee the mapping and could choose to deviate from watershed boundaries in exceptional cases.) Within every watershed group, a representative from each county would receive a single vote, which they’d use to hash out a regional flood plan including both physical projects (such as reservoir improvements) and strategies (such as strengthening building codes). Taking a look at each region’s plan, the state would then compile a ranked list of flood mitigation approaches across Texas and kick in portions of the $1.2 billion for them accordingly starting sometime in 2024 . . . at the earliest. [Texas Tribune; press release] Photo of the Texas Senate chamber: Arthur LeBon [license]

Flood Control, Quicklink, State Laws

01/24/19 10:15am

Taste Bar + Kitchen Signs Up for the House Sterling House Left Behind

Midtown, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

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A new restaurant calling itself Taste Bar + Kitchen now has dibs on the very old, 2-story house on Bagby St. a block north of Elgin that’s been dark (but glowing in its listing photo) since Sterling House closed in it last month. The venture is backed by local chef Don Bowie who’s currently in charge of the kitchen at Flower Child, the good-for-you restaurant that took over BB1 Classic’s spot in Uptown Park last year. (It’s now got another location in the works up in The Woodlands.) On the less healthy side of things, Bowie also had a hand in bringing reality TV star and former Ikette Robbie Montgomery’s St. Louis soul food spot Sweetie Pies to Houston in 2017.

Specific menu items for the new spot at 3015 Bagby haven’t yet been revealed, but on his LinkedIn page Bowie boils it down to “Crafted Cocktails and Food.â€

Previously on Swamplot:Â Sterling House No Longer Stirring in Its 100-Year-Old Midtown Digs; Century-Old Sterling House To Open As Sterling House After All; A Substandard Structure To Become Sterling House Bar in Midtown

Photos: LoopNet (aerial);Â Swamplot inbox (close-up)

Coming Midtown Attractions

77006, Midtown, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

01/23/19 5:00pm

Sears Appliance & Hardware Stores Are About To Go Extinct in Houston

Katy, Openings and Closings, Retail

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The last remaining Sears Appliance & Hardware store in the vicinity of Houston — and one of the last dozen or so left in the country — sits in the Mason Center at the corner of S. Mason Rd. and Kingsland Blvd. out in Katy. And it’s a goner. Management began liquidating everything inside last Thursday and has been advertising discounts on its Facebook page in the days since.

The store, shown above, and its counterparts were spun off from the parent company behind full-sized Sears stores in 2012. (Along with Sears Outlets, Sears Hometown, and Sears Home Appliance Showrooms, the hardware stores are now folded under Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores, Inc., while standard Searses answer to the recently-auctioned-off Sears Holdings Corporation.) At one time, the Appliance and Hardware stores — which carry the full line of Sears hardware and appliances, but in smaller, often less urban locations — blanketed the Houston area, with spots in The Woodlands’ Panther Creek Village Center, in First Colony Marketplace off Hwy. 6 in Sugar Land, in the Northpark Plaza shopping center in Kingwood, in the Corum Station shopping center in Spring, in the Crossroads Centre in Pasadena, in the strip building off Fuqua St. just west of I-45 by Almeda Mall, and where West Rd. meets Hwy. 6 north in northwest Houston.

Statewide, the only other remaining Appliance and Hardware store is in Huntsville, at the south end of the Sears- and Target-anchored shopping center on the southbound side of I-45.

Previously on Swamplot: Sears Probably Won’t Be Completely Liquidated Thanks to the Bankruptcy Bidder Who Just Agreed to Buy It Out

Photo: Sears Appliance and Hardware

Another One Bites the Dust

77450, Katy, Openings and Closings, Retail

Buying and Selling

01/23/19 1:15pm

Mandell Montrose Midrise Developer Officially Calls It Quits, Offering Up Land and Leasing Office for $2.6M

Condos, Hyde Park, Montrose

The development team that had hoped to put a 7-story, 24-unit condo building dubbed Mandell Montrose on the corner of Commonwealth and Fairview streets appears to have given up entirely on that effort now: 3 days ago, the property — which includes the house-turned-leasing-office pictured above — was listed for sale at a price of $2.6 million. It’s the second condo project that failed to get off this particular ground in the past 2 years. The seller Midtown Uptown Development Partners picked up on the site after a different developer’s plans to put an 8-story building called Flats on Fairview there fell through.

The good news is that this porch view from the adjacent house remains totally unobstructed:

Condo, Discontinued

77006, Buying and Selling, Condos, Hyde Park, Montrose

01/23/19 10:47am

New Gen Korean BBQ House Marking Its Midtown Territory on Holley’s Shuttered Seafood Spot

Midtown, Openings and Closings, Signage

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A Swamplot reader sends the photo at top showing new Korean barbecue signage up on the Louisiana and Elgin St. spot that Holley’s Seafood Restaurant & Oyster Bar left in late 2017, following a 4 year run inside. The inbound chain has most of its restaurants in southern California, with additional locations in Hawaii, Nevada, Arizona, and the north Dallas suburb of Carrollton.

Photos: ThaChadwick (sign); Holley’s Seafood Restaurant & Oyster Bar (Holley’s)

3201 Louisiana

77006, Midtown, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Signage

01/22/19 2:30pm

The Next Heights Destination for Dining, Exercise, and Medical Emergencies Will Be on Shepherd off 14th St.

Houston Heights, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers

Renderings that Houston developer Sluco Realty has released of the new double-decker retail building it’s planning on Shepherd show 2 sides to what it hopes will eventually fill the structure: to the north (above) your typical ground-floor restaurant setup, and to the south (top), something a little more potentially lifesaving. For privacy’s sake, the planned urgent care clinic forgoes the windows that open up the rest of building, dubbed Heights Forum. But the all-caps signage perched atop the awning shown at top should make clear what’s going on inside.

Additional therapeutic offerings like a dance studio and martial arts dojo appear to be planned upstairs. To get there, take the highlighter-green staircase at the front of the building or the side stairwell shown below behind the restaurant:

Heights Forum

77008, Houston Heights, Medical Clinics, Proposed Developments, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers

Briarmeadow

01/22/19 11:30am

Barnes & Noble Has Slipped Out of Westheimer Crossing

Openings and Closings, Retail, Shopping Centers

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Those dark green awnings and the sign shown below are now the only exterior traces of Barnes & Noble’s multi-decade presence in the east-facing building in the Westheimer Crossing shopping center just west of Voss Rd. It’s the only business ever to inhabit the 38,700-sq.-ft. standalone structure since it went up along with the rest of the retail complex in the mid-90s.

Unlike the rest of the shopping center — now home to Academy Sports + Outdoors, Michaels, REI, Designer Shoe Warehouse, Petco, Thai Spice and a smattering of roadside fast food and retail buildings — the former bookstore is owned separately by National Retail Properties, a real estate investment trust that puts money into shopping centers across the U.S.

Photos: Rex Solomon

Epilogue

77063, Briarmeadow, Openings and Closings, Retail, Shopping Centers

01/18/19 11:30am

A Look Around the Miabella Apartment Building That Could Be Plopped in the Middle of a N. Nagle St. Neighborhood

Second Ward

This 4-story glass and stucco box dubbed Miabella got pulled from the agenda before Houston’s city planning commission could take a look at it yesterday, but renderings of it are still floating around the interwebs. It’s planned to go up on 3 currently vacant home lots at the corner of Fox St. and N. Nagle St., putting it 3 blocks north of Navigation Blvd. in the Second Ward. The straight-shot rending above shows where its grade-level garage will let out onto N. Nagle.

Its Fox-St.-side will also provide access to parking: