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02/28/18 4:45pm

Where a New Courtyard by Marriott Is Going Up Now in the Heights, 2 Blocks from White Oak Dr.

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Hotels, Houston Heights, New Construction
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Coming soon to the block on the Katy Fwy.’s westbound feeder just east of the Camden Heights Apartments: a new Courtyard by Marriott hotel. Work on the 8-story building began late last year after the hotel chain filed construction permits on the just-over-an-acre parcel at 3220 Katy Fwy. — which sits between Columbia and Oxford streets. The photo at top sent in by a Swamplot reader looks south from E. 4th St. toward I-10 to show a couple of beams now staking out the lot.

The hotel building will front Columbia on the west side of the parcel, where a First National Bank branch and its drive-thru once sat before they were demolished a few years ago. East of the hotel, a parking garage is planned along Oxford, behind the McBillboard shown in the photo above. That structure’s northeast corner will go in place of a single-family house on 4th St. that was town down before the bank disappeared.

Photos: Kepdogg

By the Katy
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Featured Posts
02/28/18 1:30pm

The Heavy Metal Taco Redo Now Taking Shape on N. Main off I-45

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Renovations, Restaurants, Woodland Heights
10 Comments

Facial adjustments to the building at 3701 N. Main have left it rustier than it was when El Taquito Rico shuttered in the same space last May. The former Woodland Heights Mexican restaurant’s yellow sign has been removed, as has the standing seam mansard roof-style awning that wrapped its frontage on N. Main. In their place, a headband of corrugated metal now hugs the top of the structure — which sits on a narrow 8,375-sq.-ft. lot at the end of Pecore St., just west of I-45 (and across the street from the O’Reilly Auto Parts building that Asia Market is moving into).

Floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the restaurant’s entryway have also been truncated:

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Heights Wrap-Up
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Brookesmith
02/28/18 11:45am

The Part of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Building That Asia Market Thai-Lao Food Will Take Over

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Signs
6 Comments

Cricket Wireless shuttered in the northwest corner of the building on N. Main at Pecore St. a few years ago, leaving O’Reilly Auto Parts alone in the structure. Now, signage for Asia Market Thai-Lao Food is up on the carrier’s former location. The aerial photo above views the building at 3600 N. Main adjacent to Whataburger from up over El Taquito Rico’s former spot (also undergoing a turnover) on the narrow corner across the street.

The original Asia Market included a store in addition to the restaurant. Here’s what it looked like in the strip on Cavalcade between Norhill Blvd. and Michaux St. it occupied since 1987:

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Under the Hood
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Featured Posts
02/27/18 4:45pm

14 Pews’ Surprise Non-Ending

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Quicklink, Sunset Heights
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14 PEWS’ SURPRISE NON-ENDING On her way into a new job as executive director of a larger church-turned-arts center in Portland, Cressandra Thibodeaux appears to have had a change of heart. Which means 14 Pews — the microcinema and performing arts venue that picked up where the Aurora Picture Show left off 8 years ago — will not be closing any time soon. The original movie house at 800 Aurora St. took over the building from the Sunset Height Church of Christ in 1997 and hosted screenings, plays, workshops, and art exhibitions there (as well as a few weddings and memorial services) before turning it over to Thibodeaux in 2010. Since then, programming has continued along those same lines — even as audiences anticipated the venue hitting the market in mid-Februrary. With that plan scrapped, Thidobeaux writes: “We are now teaming up with community leaders to curate several film series, as well as talking with other organizations about bringing unique festivals to Houston.” [14 Pews; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Ed Schipul [license; modified from the original]

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Apartments
02/27/18 1:15pm

Crane Now Spiking the Lot Next To Root Square Where a New Camden Tower Will Rise

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Downtown, New Construction
2 Comments

A Swamplot reader holed-up in a hotel room at the Hilton Americas sends photos looking past Root Square and the Toyota Center to show the new tower crane being lifted on the site of the coming Camden Downtown apartment tower last weekend. Camden Property Trust broke ground on the 1.4-acre block adjacent to the Toyota Center’s garage at the end of last year. The finished tower will sit on the north side of the parcel — formerly a parking lot — on Bell St. between Austin and La Branch.

A rendering from architect Ziegler Cooper shows the 21-story building neighboring the parking garage and fronting the park:

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Grandstanding
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Featured Posts
02/27/18 10:30am

New Modern Retail Center To Park Next to Former Jimmy’s Ice House, Dangle Deck Over Ditch on Its Side

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Houston Heights, Proposed Developments, Retail
12 Comments

A new shopping center dubbed South Heights on White Oak has plans to land in the shared parking lot on White Oak Dr. just west of the former Jimmy’s Ice House at Threlkeld St. The rendering at top — taken from a leasing flyer for the development put out by Centric Commercial — views the proposed woodsy building from the north side of White Oak Dr., at the edge of the lot between Christian’s Tailgate and Barnaby’s Cafe. On the east side of the building, a deck fronted by a glass curtain wall cantilevers over a drainage ditch that runs north from White Oak Bayou through the woods between the site and the neighboring ice house.

A view across the parking lot from its southwest corner shows the low-lying area on the right:

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Low-Slung in the Heights
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Featured Posts
02/26/18 4:45pm

Is a High-Tech Taco-Adjacent Parking Garage Coming to White Oak Dr.?

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Houston Heights, Parking, Proposed Developments
5 Comments

Last December a demolition permit was filed on the car hangar parked between Tacos A Go Go and Christian’s Tailgate on the north side of White Oak Dr. Now, a leasing flyer for a neighboring development indicates a new 244-car garage is proposed in place of the existing structure. But that lot measures only 100 by 140 ft. How could 244 parking spaces fit on a lot where fewer than 20 spots exist now?

Well, what if the owner of the property was connected to Easy Park, a developer specializing in automated parking garages? An entity associated with the developer bought the garage at 2912 White Oak in 2016 along with the strip of 3 buildings around it — that includes Tacos A Go Go, Pho Binh Heights, and Lucky Food Mart to the west, and Barnaby’s Cafe and Public House Heights to the east. The Chicago-based company manufactures parts for automated parking developments, finances them, and operates them. It’s been involved in past projects in New York, Philadelphia, Vancouver, Washington D.C., and Mexico City.

Here’s what a robo-valet with parts produced by Easy Park looks like inside The Lift at Juniper St., an 8-story, 228-car garage in Philadelphia:

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Double-Parked
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Featured Posts
02/26/18 1:00pm

KHOU Call Letters Now Gone from Allen Pkwy.

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North Montrose, Renovations
2 Comments

Crews took down the letters on KHOU’s antenna tower one by one last Friday — as shown in the drone footage above — leaving the channel’s signage absent from the vacant studio next to Houston’s main drainage channel, Buffalo Bayou. At the beginning of this month, the station reported that an undisclosed buyer had the 1945 Allen Pkwy. property under contract.

For the past 5 months, the teevee crew has been broadcasting temporarily from Houston Public Media’s office at UH, which it expects to leave for a permanent home at the end of this year. The whereabouts of the new newsroom — which will incorporate the original KHOU signage in its design — haven’t been announced yet. However, plans were revealed last December for a coming satellite studio that’s slated to open opposite Discovery Green in the GRB before the station goes live from a new main headquarters.

Video: Shern-Min Chow

Channel Changes
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Featured Posts
02/26/18 11:45am

Midday Drinking Promos Have Vanished from the Postino Patio at Heights Mercantile

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Houston Heights, Renovations, Restaurants
1 Comment

Postino hasn’t opened yet, but there’s already been a notable change to the decor at the Arizona-based wine cafe chain’s first Texas location. Gone from the construction fencing outside the restaurant’s patio are the signs pictured at top that read, “DRINKING WINE AT LUNCH IS NOT A CRIME.” In their place, new banners featuring only Postino’s name and social media handle have appeared. The photo above views them from the west side of the Heights Mercantile development at the corner of 7th St. and Yale.

Here’s another look at the current fence abutting Rye 51’s storefront on 7th St.:

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Restaurant Rebranding
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Bayous and Waterways
02/23/18 4:30pm

Where the Banks of Buffalo Bayou Are Wearing Thin

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Buffalo Bayou Park, Flooding
11 Comments

There’s more damage to the areas along Buffalo Bayou than just the collapsed segment of trail pictured at top between the Travis and Milam street bridges. The photo above taken east of Travis shows where Spaghetti Warehouse’s former parking lot is eroding as well and transforming into a new set of cliffs on the water.

Heading west down the trail, more obstacles appear near Montrose Blvd. where the northern trail cuts past the closed Johnny Steele Dog Park:

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Rough Around the Edges
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Featured Posts
02/23/18 11:30am

Judge Emmett: Katy Prairie Development Should Stop Once and For All

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Flooding, Katy Prairie, Quicklink
18 Comments

JUDGE EMMETT: KATY PRAIRIE DEVELOPMENT SHOULD STOP ONCE AND FOR ALL Here’s Harris County Judge Ed Emmett’s declaration Wednesday at a Rice University flooding conference: “We need to completely protect the Katy Prairie. Just set it aside and not touch it.” Or . . . what’s left of it. Last October, he called for a third reservoir in west Houston to “be part of a larger project to create a state or national park for the Katy Prairie.” And he wants Gov. Abbott to tap the state’s “rainy day fund” in order to build the prairie pond. (As for where it would go, a 2015 Harris County Flood Control District study proposed several sites, all on not-yet-developed parcels west of the Grand Pkwy. between Hwy. 290 and FM 529.) [Travis Bubenik] Photo of Matt Cook Wildlife Viewing Area on Warren Lake, south of Hockley: Katy Prairie Conservancy

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Featured Posts
02/22/18 5:00pm

New Modern Acupuncture Clinic Now Pinned Between Starbucks and LensCrafters in River Oaks Shopping Center

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Openings and Closings, Retail, River Oaks
2 Comments

Here’s the 1,340 sq.-ft. storefront Modern Acupuncture is now stuck in near the east end of the River Oaks Shopping Center building that hugs Origin Bank on the corner of W. Gray and Shepherd. The clinic took over the vacant spot at 2021 W. Gray earlier this month after women’s wear shop Em & Lee abandoned it several years ago. It’s the chain’s first treatment center in Houston, although 2 others are nearby in Webster and Sugar Land. So far, the company has 23 locations either open or in the works across 10 states — and expansion plans call for 20 more in and around Houston alone.

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You’ve Got a Point There
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Featured Posts
02/22/18 11:30am

The Warehouse and Playhouse Redos Planned for Stages Repertory Theatre’s Current and Future Venues

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Mixed Use, Montrose, North Montrose, Proposed Developments, Renovations
2 Comments

Radom Capital is entertaining 2 different ideas for the former Stages theater on the block of Rosine across D’Amico St. from its planned new complex: either a hotel or a combination of retail, restaurant, and office tenants. The developer bought Stages’ current spot in the long structure at 3201 Allen Pkwy — built in 1929 to house the Star Engraving Company — as well as the warehouse behind it last year. Renovations are now slated to begin on both the Star building and the warehouse behind it — both indicated in the site plan above — once the theater takes off in 2019.

The rendering of the warehouse at top put out by Radom shows new openings in its exterior, including a boxy balcony on its second floor and an entrance at ground level fronting D’Amico. An outdoor staircase ascends from where the greens-skinned building meets its western neighbor — the parking garage for the Reata at River Oaks condos — and heads up to a second-story entrance. Stages’ new theater sits across D’Amico, opposite a front lawn at the other end of the colorful crosswalk on the left.

Here’s a look at the new playhouse — dubbed The Gordy — sitting in its own renovated warehouse with touch ups by architecture firm Gensler:

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North Montrose Ensemble
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Featured Posts
02/21/18 3:30pm

Meet the RO: 3 New Towers, Retail, and Roadway Planned for Exxon’s Former Campus on Buffalo Spdwy.

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Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Retail, Upper Kirby
7 Comments

Spear Street Capital is teasing a rendering of what it has planned for Exxon Mobil’s former Buffalo Spdwy. research campus, a new complex that takes the initials of River Oaks without daring to speak its name: The RO. The glossy new view above looks west across Buffalo Spdwy. to show 3 new highrises planted on the Upper Kirby site — the stockiest of which rests atop a 3-story windowed pedestal likely to house retail between W. Alabama and a new roadway.

The new street appears in place of the driveway that entered the 16.9-acre complex on Buffalo Spdwy. and ran just north of the 1962 building MacKie and Kamrath Architects designed for the oil giant. The aerial photo above shows what that building looked like from the south before crews began tearing at it last year. South of the new street and directly in place of the MacKie and Kamrath structure, a complex of retail buildings with upper-level patios retreats along a pedestrian corridor that starts at Buffalo Spdwy. and heads toward the 2 other highrises on the west side of the site, near Mercer St. A few outdoor seating areas front Buffalo Spdwy. — one by the footpath, another on the north side of the new street. A larger patio appears on the corner of W. Alabama.

The buildings shown shaded on the left in the rendering likely make up other additions planned for the block. Here it is viewed from its backside looking toward Buffalo Spdwy. last year:

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A Twilit View
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Downtown
02/21/18 11:30am

La Calle Taco Shop Downtown Now Opening a Cantina on the Side

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants
4 Comments

La Calle Tacos & Tortas has opened a hole in the wall to allow customers to get to its new space: Cantina La Calle, shown to the right of the original restaurant on Franklin St. in the photo at top. Interior renovations on the new cantina at 911 Franklin began late last year in the spot that PI Lounge once occupied and a planned English-themed bar dubbed The Brit eyed but never landed in. The photo above looks into the taco shop — opened in 2016 — from the new cantina next door to it.

Photos: La Calle Tacos

Bayou Lofts Eats
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