Featured Posts

Adaptive Reuse
06/28/17 3:00pm

Planned Montrose Parking Garage To Be Born Ready for the Day It’s No Longer Needed

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East Montrose, Fairview, Fourth Ward, Montrose, Parking
6 Comments

The latest of Gensler’s renderings of that midrise parking garage planned atop the recently evacuated location of nightclub and drag venue Meteor shows the structure rocking a swath of greenery in place of the decorative bicycles pictured across the facade in earlier drafts. Cara Smith reports in the Houston Business Journal this week that the garage is one of the projects that Gensler is “future proofing” — that is, designing with an eye to an eventual decline in Houston parking garage needs, whether spurred by the rise of self-driving cars or other shifts in transportation patterns. The firm was featured by Web Urbanist last month in an article discussing some of its other current garage projects, some of which are being outfitted with conversion-minded utility hookup spacing, as well as ceiling heights suited to something other than car stacking; modular features like easy-to-tack-on facades and removable ramps are also in the mix.

There appear to be 6 retail spots in the foot of the garage that will be ready for tenants before such time as the rest of the garage might hypothetically be repurposed (along with a slew of other spaces in the development, per Edge Realty’s leasing flier):

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Prepped for Obsolescence in Fourth Ward
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Featured Posts
06/28/17 11:30am

Where Lyons Ave. Will Go Down, West St. Won’t Go North, and Fifth Ward Trains Will Continue Through

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Fifth Ward, Proposed Developments, Streetscapes
4 Comments

Among a few Fifth Ward buildings abutting a new railroad underpass scheduled to be installed near the intersection of Lyons Ave. and West St.: The warehouse pictured above at 2305 Lyons Ave., graced by a Wiley Robertson mural. The Gulf Coast Rail District plans to eliminate the at-grade railroad crossing west of I-69 and directly to the east of that corner by routing Lyons Ave. under the tracks. According to the district, 30 trains a day currently cross Lyons Ave. — on 3 separate sets of tracks. North of Lyons, 3 additional at-grade crossings will be eliminated by closing down West St. entirely from a little south of Lyons to a little south of Brooks St.

The earliest possible start date for the project, which would cost an estimated $28.5 million and take approximately 2 years to complete, is listed as the fall of 2020. At a meeting last night at the Saint Arnold Brewery, which is just west of the West St. intersection, the district and TXDOT showed these images of a widened Lyons Ave. with dual 12-ft.-wide car lanes as well as bike lanes and sidewalks passing under the HB&T rail line:

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Underpasses and Overpasses
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Demolitions
06/27/17 3:30pm

What Went Down This Morning on the Corner of Harold and Mulberry

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Montrose, Redevelopment
9 Comments

Courtesy of a smartphone-bearing reader, here’s the scene from this morning on the often-quiet Montrose corner of Harold and Mulberry, directly across the street from the Bering Memorial United Methodist Church. The single-story brick bungalow dating from 1938 at 1502 Harold St. is a goner. Croix Homes has a permit to build a new house on the site.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Crushed in Montrose
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Featured Posts
06/27/17 2:30pm

Checking in on the Work Underway at Baileson Brewing Company, the Tiniest Car-Repair-Shop-Turned Brewery Ever to Hit Bissonnet

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Proposed Developments, Renovations, Rice Village
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The startup 3-barrel “nano-brewery” carving its ferment-and-serve spaces out of the former Bissonnet Auto Service Center garage on Bissonnet St. between Kirby and Greenbriar is scheduled for a Labor Day Weekend opening, according to a recent report in the Chronicle. New glazed overhead doors have been installed in the 2 garage bays, but according to this photo of the spot from earlier today, there’s still a bit of work going on inside.

If future passers-by do a double-take after seeing drinkers out on the front patio of the single-story structure at 2322 Bissonnet, it might be because the brewery-bar will be next door to the former Kay’s Lounge, also a single-story building serving drinks on a front patio, which was demolished last fall. These homes are scheduled to go up on that site.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Featured Posts
06/27/17 11:00am

If You Like the Idea of Living Upstairs from Kay’s Lounge, Here’s the Next Best Thing

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New Construction, Proposed Developments, Rice Village, Townhomes
6 Comments

Newly posted to MLS: a listing for 1 of the 6 townhomes patio homes from Frasier Homes intended for the site of the former Kay’s Lounge. Garages, spare bedrooms, and side yards only will grace the ground floors of the properties in this shared-driveway 6-pack, however, because Kay’s Lounge itself — an establishment that was founded back in 1939 — was demolished last year. The new residential compound covers both the Kay’s lot, formerly known as 2334 Bissonnet, and the one immediately to the west at 2332 Bissonnet, which formerly housed an adjacent structure as well as longtime bar’s parking lot.

But if it’s the idea of living very close to storied nightlife that attracted you to this property in the first place, don’t be disappointed: Just next door to this property, in the former Bissonnet Auto Service Center at 2322 Bissonnet, a new brewery and lounge called Baileson Brewing Company is about to open. The fourth-floor patios at the top of the homes at 2332 Bissonnet (pictured at top right in the rendering above) will overlook Baileson’s driveway-turned-drinking-patio directly.

Here’s the second view from the listing, showing how the shared-drive fronts of the 3 units on the Baileson side might look if they’re completed before the other 3 are begun (they’d be in the foreground):

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New Neighbors in Rice Village
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Featured Posts
06/26/17 3:30pm

How Amazon and Whole Foods Market Could Create the New Building Blocks of Urban Commerce, and What Some of Them Might Look Like

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Quicklink, Retail
7 Comments

HOW AMAZON AND WHOLE FOODS MARKET COULD CREATE THE NEW BUILDING BLOCKS OF URBAN COMMERCE, AND WHAT SOME OF THEM MIGHT LOOK LIKE Will Amazon transform Whole Foods Market into a grocery services building block for farmers, restaurants, and specialty grocers — on the model of the way Amazon Web Services now serves software developers? Joshua Rothman provides a brief overview of current thinking about Amazon’s possible plans for the grocery chain — and how the result might transform the landscapes of cities: “It’s increasingly easy to imagine,” he writes, “that a few decades from now, we’ll tell our kids about how we used to ‘go to the store’; they’ll look at us and say, ‘What?’ Earlier this month, Amazon filed a patent application describing large, multi-story drone towers in urban centers. Probably, in the future, such buildings will seem unremarkable. The hive-like towers will have loading docks and warehouses on the lower floors and bays for drones higher up; the drones may be repaired and supplied by robots. ‘There is a growing need and desire to locate fulfillment centers within cities, such as in downtown districts,‘ the patent application says.” [The New Yorker] Image from Amazon’s patent application for drone-delivery warehouse tower: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, via SiliconBeat

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Demolitions
06/26/17 3:00pm

How They’re Making More Plaza Next to Greenway Plaza

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Weslayan Plaza
10 Comments

And here we see before, right before, and during photos of today’s demolition of the 2-bedroom home at 4027 Portsmouth St., on the second block north of the Southwest Fwy. and just west of Weslayan St., in the appropriately named subdivision Weslayan Plaza just west of Greenway Plaza. Though the sign posted on the property appears to depict multiple townhouses new construction from Noël Home Luxury Living — better known as a home decor service of the Noel Furniture showroom across I-59 and a mile to the east at 2727 Southwest Fwy. — the buyer’s name on the permit for a new single-family home at this property is CitiView Homes.

Photos: Rex Solomon

Weslayan Plaza Demo
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Event Spaces
06/26/17 1:00pm

Temporary, Huge, and Last Minute: The Club Nomadic Story

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Old Sixth Ward, Quicklink, Sawyer Yards
1 Comment

TEMPORARY, HUGE, AND LAST MINUTE: THE CLUB NOMADIC STORY The team behind Club Nomadic, the 3-story, 64,000-sq.-ft. comes-with-the-Super Bowl traveling behemoth of a temporary nightclub that was open for 3 nights only at 2121 Edwards St. earlier this year, starts planning for its next incarnation “roughly a year” in advance, lead designer Joanna-Maria Helinurm says. Materials travel to the site on 36 trucks, and the building typically takes 60 days to erect. But last-minute jockeying with city permitting officials, in Helinurm’s telling, appears to be standard practice: “All this goes on up until the very last day before the opening until the occupancy permits are granted,” she tells Cynthia Dehlavi. “In Houston, we ended up renting almost two city blocks to be able to control the flow and traffic around the event. Temporary Place of Assembly certificates are a critical component, but we often have to apply for additional special permits, for example like electric-powered signs and the use of pyrotechnics inside the building.” On Super Bowl weekend this year, Club Nomadic got its final okays from Houston officials just 6 hours before doors opened for performances by Sam Hunt and The Chainsmokers on Super Bowl weekend. [OffCite; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Michael Garfield

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Downtown
06/26/17 12:00pm

A Tree Grows on the Derelict Downtown Days Inn

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9 Comments

What wonders wait in the secret rooftop garden that appears to be peeking over the edge of the highrise at 801 Saint Joseph Pkwy.? Reader and city sleuth Rachel Dvoretzky spotted a handful of leafy protrusions from the former hotel, Vedic school, and ambiguous combination thereof, most recently converted to a Days Inn prior to its slide into further dilapidation. The ever-changing graffiti veneer presented to passing Pierce Elevated drivers has seen some changes since April, too:

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Between Heaven and Heaven on Earth
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Bayous and Waterways
06/26/17 10:45am

County’s Latest Sunken Car Fishing Expedition Reels In Jaguar, Mustang, Bronco, Eagle, More from Brays Bayou

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2 Comments

A stolen Dodge Durango was the first car pulled out of Brays Bayou earlier this month as Harris County Flood Control and friends resumed work on removing some of the 100-plus sunken vehicles previously discovered gently rusting below the surface of a few of Houston’s major waterways. (The Nissan Maxima above was next in line.) Last year’s test run of the removal setup snagged a total of 20 cars out of Brays and Sims bayous; the contracts signed earlier this year for a new round of vehicle fishing budget for a catch of around 65 vehicles from the 2 bayous, depending on size and how much of a fight each one puts up. (Texas Equusearch did note back in its 2011 survey that at least one big rig is lurking somewhere in the watery depths, and some of the cars are more filled with mud and debris than others.)

The county says the new car count was up to 13 by the time work crews paused last week to let Cindy pass; a county worker also snapped photos showing off some of the haul, which has so far included a range of more and less easily identifiable makes and models including a Nissan Frontier, a Jaguar, a Ford Mustang, a Ford Bronco, an Eagle Talon, and others:

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2,000-Pounders
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Featured Posts
06/23/17 4:45pm

New Condo Midrise Signs, Terrifying Midrise Art Pop Up in the Wake of the Flatlined Flats on Fairview

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Hyde Park
4 Comments

The folks behind a newly-announced condo project called Mandell Montrose have recently stuck some signage on the lot at 2312 Commonwealth St., a couple of readers tell Swamplot this week. That property isn’t actually adjacent to either Mandell St. or Montrose Blvd., but it is almost directly between the 2; it’s also the site formerly slated for the cancelled Flats on Fairview condo midrise (which Paul Takahashi reports this week were called off due to construction cost issues, despite having met some sales goals). Takahashi says the new project will aim for 7 stories for a total of 24 units. And underscoring the split-the-geographic-difference theme, the Hyde Park project is being developed by Midtown Uptown Development Partners.

No renderings are out yet of the new plans, save for some probably-not-to-scale brick facade showing up on the background of the building’s sales website. (A physical sales center should be opening some time next month, however.) The rendered design of the cancelled Flats midrise, meanwhile, has found new purpose as part of a striking departure from the classic Houston scary midrise artwork vernacular:

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Mandell Monstrose
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Featured Posts
06/23/17 12:15pm

Zooming by the ZaZa Shaping Up by the Katy Fwy.

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Hotels, Memorial City, New Construction
23 Comments

Reader Bayan Raji sends these pics of the new Hotel ZaZa as it nears completion deep in the superblock just east of Bunker Hill Rd. and south of I-10 in Memorial City. The design by Kirksey Architecture is somewhat reminiscent of the shape of the Hotel ZaZa in the Museum District, except instead of looking out onto the grand traffic circle around the Mecom Fountain and Hermann Park beyond, the double wings of this one will look out past a surface parking lot (shown in the foreground above) to the 20-lane-wide (including the feeders) Katy Fwy. To the west and south, the hotel is flanked by shorter parking garages; directly to its east (behind the construction fence pictured here) will be a green space reserved for live music and festivals.

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Rooms in Memorial City
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Featured Posts
06/23/17 10:00am

Southeast and Southwest Houston Sears Stores Going South

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Friendswood, Malls, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail, Westwood
16 Comments

SOUTHEAST AND SOUTHWEST HOUSTON SEARS STORES GOING SOUTH Included in the latest round of Sears store closings: the mall-anchor locations at the Baybrook Mall (off the Gulf Fwy. at Bay Area Blvd.) and the Westwood Mall (off the Southwest Fwy. at Bissonnet). Liquidation sales are scheduled to begin by the end of this month; the stores will shut down completely by the middle of September. This will bring the the number of Sears Holdings stores scheduled to close this year to 265. [USA Today; Business Insider] Aerial view of Sears at the Baybrook Mall: CBRE

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Featured Posts
06/22/17 2:00pm

Starting in July, You’ll Only Need 2 Bus Rides To Get To Galveston

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Galveston, Public Transportation, Quicklink
12 Comments

STARTING IN JULY, YOU’LL ONLY NEED 2 BUS RIDES TO GET TO GALVESTON Since 2013, when the last regular bus service was canceled, taking a trip from Houston to Galveston on public transportation has been a bit of a challenge: It might take you 1 light-rail train ride, 4 buses, a 3-mile walk, and 4 hours. Thanks to a 2-year grant from TXDoT, support from Galveston County and Texas City, and an approval by Houston’s Metro Board today, it’s about to get a whole lot easier. Beginning July 10th, an Island Express route coordinated by the 2 cities’ transportation agencies will allow weekday service between the Downtown Transit Center in Houston and Island Transit’s Downtown Transit Terminal at 25th St. and the Strand in Galveston 3 times a day — with a transfer at the Bay Area Park & Ride — for $9. There’ll be a stop in Texas City, and bikes can ride too. Metro expects about 20 riders a day to use the service. [OffCite; Christof Spieler] Draft schedule for Island Express: Metro

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Featured Posts
06/22/17 11:00am

Midway Now Banking Galleria Refugee Trees in Fifth Ward KBR Site for Nebulous East River Purposes

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Fifth Ward, Trees, Urban Planning
6 Comments

A congregation of relocated trees — many of which have been plucked out of the way of the bus lane work going on along Post Oak Blvd. in Uptown right now — was spotted this week by a Fifth Ward resident checking out the former KBR site along Clinton Dr. CityCentre developer Midway is gearing up the process of rebranding its new old campus along the industrial stretch of Buffalo Bayou as East River; early marketing materials now floating around say they’ve collected some 300 trees from the Uptown work and are saving them for later redeployment in and around the 136-acre development, as part of parks and streetscaping.

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Save the Trees for Later
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