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Demolitions
03/15/17 11:15am

Mashing, Smashing Begin in Earnest at Buffalo Spdwy. Ex-Exxon Campus

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Upper Kirby
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Former Exxon Upstream Facility, 3102-3120 Buffalo Spdwy., Greenway/Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

Former Exxon Upstream Facility, 3102-3120 Buffalo Spdwy., Greenway/Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098Permissions started to trickle in earlier this month for the  knockout of various buildings on the newly former Exxon Upstream research facility at the corner of Buffalo Spdwy. and W. Alabama St. California-based Spear Street Capital and Transwestern admitted to buying the property last week but stayed mum on plans for the site. A reader took a wandering tour around the edge of the 1950s lab complex yesterday afternoon, noting the parking garage teardown shown above, and the various signs of deliberately accelerated wear-and-tear around the rest of the structures:

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Upstream Going Down
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Apartments
03/14/17 5:15pm

Midrise Apartments Set To Sprout from the Rubble at W. Gray and Taft

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New Construction, North Montrose
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construction at 299 W. Gray St., North Montrose, Houston, 77019

That empty lot at the southeast corner of Taft and W. Gray streets has been getting its concrete skin broken up and cleared out lately, a number of readers note, as early work for the Alta at West Gray apartment midrise and its basement parking gets going. (The particularly dramatic shot above of the Downtown skyline peering over the wreckage was captured during the Friday morning mist by reader MontroseResident, though a few other cameras were on the scene before and after.) Until 2009 the site housed the Good Neighbor Healthcare Clinic (a conversion of another ex-Weingarten’s grocery, according to the business); Good Neighbor had plans to build a midrise healthcare and community center on the site, but ended up selling the land to serial Alta developers Wood Partners early last year. The new plan for the site may look something like this:

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Alta Altitude
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Featured Posts
03/14/17 11:30am

Edge Realty Now Seeking To Fill Bright Orange Box with Neighbors for a Montrose Velvet Taco

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Montrose, Restaurants
8 Comments

Shopping Center at Westheimer Rd. at Montrose Blvd., Montrose, Houston, 77006Shopping Center at Westheimer Rd. at Montrose Blvd., Montrose, Houston, 77006

Swamplot’s elevated tipster with an eye on the Westheimer Rd. scene — just east of the Montrose Blvd. Smoothie King — sends some update shots this morning of the ongoing construction of a planned Ruggles-replacing restaurant-retail combo, half of which looks slated for fill-in by a Velvet Taco branch. The Dallas chain will take over a 1-and-a-half story piece of the center, next to the areas highlighted in orange above; Edge Realty is currently leasing the rest of the space in the center, which will attempt to hide some of its parking from prying sidewalk eyes:

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Grill Gone Gray
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Featured Posts
03/13/17 5:15pm

Torchy’s Raises Taco Banner Over Empty Husk of Westchase Mall Black-Eyed Pea

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Westchase
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Torchy's Tacos sign installation at 10953 Westheimer Rd., Westchase, Houston, 77042

Reader and aerial logo photographer Henry Phillips sends these recent shots of work crews playing pin-the-signage-on-the-restaurant at the next local locale of Austin import Torchy’s Tacos (which will bring the Houston-area count up to 8, out of the chain’s 11 planned plantings so far). The latest tacover is happening in the Westchase Mall corner slot at the southeast corner of Westheimer Rd. and Wilcrest Dr. most recently occupied by another defunct branch of Black-Eyed Pea; the developing restaurant shares a strip center sidewalk with the Whole Foods that was transplanted across Wilcrest into the dead former Randalls last year.

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High on West Westheimer
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Featured Posts
03/13/17 11:30am

Wabash Feed Store Back Up for Sale Again After All

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Washington Ave, Washington Corridor
5 Comments

Wabash Feed and Garden Store, 5701 Washington Ave., Houston, 77007

The greying former site of the Wabash Feed & Garden Store is fully back on the market again, after high hopes for a new Creek Group restaurant on the site slowly faded into lengthy delays and an eventual leasing sign out front last year. Nancy Sarnoff notes in the Chronicle that the property went back up for sale last month, looking somewhat more worn down than the first time. A glance at CBRE’s marketing materials for the site shows many of the recent newcomers to the garden store’s stretch of Washington Ave., including the new storage midrise across the street, and the Pearl and Elan apartment complexes each about 2 blocks away in opposite directions from the just-over-half-an-acre property:

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Washed Out on Wash Ave
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Featured Posts
03/13/17 10:45am

The Denton Suburban Roadways Quietly Impersonating West Houston’s Iconic Streets

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Streets, Streetscapes
13 Comments

Summit Oaks neighborhood with Houston street names, Denton, TX, 76210

Summit Oaks neighborhood with Houston street names, Denton, TX, 76210The fastest way to Westheimer Rd., if you happen to be wandering north looking for it in the 76210 ZIP code, is a left off of Heights Blvd. and an immediate right off Gessner Dr. Lauren Meyers captured some scenes this weekend around the Summit Oaks subdivision on the south side of Denton, TX, which has a whole section of streets sharing names with major Houston roadway (with a few bizarro-world tweaks here and there, like Chimney Rock Dr. and an only-1-L Hilcroft Ave.) The imposters range from Briar Forest Dr. to Dunlavy St. to Willowick Cir. and beyond:

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A Road By Any Other Name
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Featured Posts
03/10/17 2:00pm

Komatsu Now Taking Swings on Sam Houston MSTC’s Baseball Field, Where the New School Will Go

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Northline
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9400 Irvington Blvd., Northline, Houston, 77076

The clearout of Sam Houston Math Science and Technology Center’s sports fields has begun, a reader notes this week. The school’s campus is squeezed in between the angled track of the Hardy Toll Rd. and north-south-running Irvington Blvd., just north of Tidwell Rd.; the existing 1950’s school building at the south end (which HISD says is the lost heir to one of the relocated and renamed Houston Academy schools founded downtown in the 1800s) will be knocked down to make room for new athletic fields, once the new building is up. The district says the first phase of the campus fliparound should be ready in time for the 2019-2020 school year; plans and renderings for the completed project show dedicated facilities for performing arts, autoshop, cosmetology, and more:  CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Northline Realignment
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Featured Posts
03/10/17 11:15am

Steel Recreation Steps In for Ejected Sixties Mod Basketball Court in Meadowcreek Village Park

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Meadowcreek
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Meadowcreek Park Basketball Pavilion, 5333 Berry Creek Dr., Meadowcreek Village, Houston, 77017

Demolition of Meadowcreek Park Basketball Pavilion, 5333 Berry Creek Dr., Meadowcreek Village, HoustonThe arched pavilion in Meadowcreek Park that was knocked down in 2015 has officially been replaced, after a few years of neighborhood-city back-and-forth to push for the new structure’s design to look a lot more like the old one. The court, pictured up top complete except for the addition of the hoops and backboards to the posts at the opposing ends, got a ceremonial fabric snipping yesterday evening, Lauren Meyers tells Swamplot. This version of the structure appears to lack the thin vertical bars that closed off one side of the original, as visible both in the mid-act demolition portrait above and in this shot from the 1970s: 

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What’s Old is New Again
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Featured Posts
03/09/17 5:30pm

Alexan Heights Holdout House Where the Skeleton Was Found Last Weekend Now Up for Sale

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Homes for Sale, Houston Heights
8 Comments

610 Allston St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77007

The 2-bedroom home snuggled into the western side of the Alexan Heights apartment complex has hit the market this week, lagging a few days behind this weekend’s discovery of an unidentified skeleton in a wall cavity accessible from the attic. The holdout house was foreclosed on in early 2015 after then-owner Mary Cerruti stopped making mortgage payments; it’s not clear exactly when she went missing, but she reportedly sent someone a Valentine, the Chronicle‘s Emily Foxhall reported earlier this week.  Foxhall noted that while the bones were uncovered along with a pair of cheap red glasses like the ones Cerruti was known to wear, the skeleton had not yet been officially identified (nor had foul play been ruled either in or out).

The recently remodeled house is currently on the market for $439,900; the 1,161-sq.-ft. building sits on a 6,600-sq.-ft. lot, spooned on 3 sides by the Alexan:

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Selling the Scene
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Featured Posts
03/09/17 1:15pm

A $2 Million Mod in Piney Point and Its Multiple Peoplequariums

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, Piney Point Village
15 Comments

327-tynebridge-ln-013

327 Tynebridge Ln., Piney Point, TX 77024

From the street, the bits of the facade of this 1970 home in Piney Point visible through the swath of greenery are mostly covered over in stone — but the sides and remainder of the house features numerous floor-to-ceiling windows and glass walls (not only separating the mirrored bath chamber above from the master suite, but separating a fully indoor pool from the dining room and living room areas). The 3-bedroom home went on the market originally for around $2.4 million, but the asking price dropped to $1,995,000 late last fall. Other conspicuous features include what the home’s listing describes as 20-pound sheets of copper wallpaper employed in the master bedroom, extensive mirroring around the house, and the dense swirl of fantastical beasts wallpapered onto the kitchen ceiling:

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Low Profile off Tynewood
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Featured Posts
03/09/17 10:45am

Original 59 Diner Spot Stripped Back Down After Latest Costume Quick-Change, Back Up for Lease

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Shepherd Plaza
3 Comments

3801 Farnham St., Shepherd Triangle, Houston, 77098

3801 Farnham St., Shepherd Triangle, Houston, 77098As a couple of commenters pieced together recently, the original 59 Diner spot at the curvy intersection of Farnham St. and Shepherd Dr. is back up for lease again, after a number of name- and face-changes in quick succession. After a 2-month interlude as El Beso Cantina, new signage and menus were deployed to rebrand the spot as Another Broken Yolk Cafe — which advertised itself online as a non-24-hour spot, though still bearing the tiny 24-Hrs Breakfast dot above the main entrance.

Almost immediately after that, the spot shut down again — another reader grabbed these photos of the building yesterday, noting that the only remaining signage on the site is the dot above the main entrance and the Closed For Remodeling note on the door. The property appears to have gone back on the market for lease around the last week of February, shortly before or after that new signage (shown below, but since removed) was being installed along Shepherd:

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Sticking Around on Shepherd
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Featured Posts
03/08/17 4:30pm

Whole Foods’s 365 Garden Oaks Spot Now Emptied of Neff Rental Rentals

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Garden Oaks, Independence Heights
11 Comments

Future Yale Marketplace site at Yale St. and 610 Loop, Garden Oaks/Independence Heights, Houston, 77018
Neff Rental at Yale St. and 610, Garden Oaks/ Independence Heights, Houston, 77018Several readers reported this morning that the Garden Oaks-Independence Heights border location of construction equipment rental shop Neff Rental, on the northeast corner of Yale St. and the North Loop, has been clearing out this week. That’s a prerequisite step before any new construction equipment can be moved back onto the site, to start work on the 365 Garden Oaks store Whole Foods has planned for the property (as rendered above).

Plans for the corner depict the mini-store accompanied by both attached and freestanding retail spots, 3 of which have pending leases with a dentist, a cellphone company, and a medical business respectively, according to the marketing materials trying to hawk the remaining space (highlighted in yellow):

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Yale Marketplace Marketing
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Featured Posts
03/08/17 12:30pm

Aging L-Shaped Office on Yale St. Scraped Away for Shiny New Retail Strip Installation

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Houston Heights, Restaurants
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2723 Yale St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008
2723 Yale St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

As heralded by last Wednesday’s daily demolition report, the low-slung insurance and marketing office building at 2723 Yale St. is now in tatters. The post-smashing shot above was taken in a drive-by by a reader yesterday (who notes this morning that most of the debris has since been hauled off).

Planned for the lot is a new strip center being marketed by East Village developer Ancorian as a retail-office-restaurant mashup, “anchored” by the mini Whole Foods in the works across 610. The property is loosely sandwiched between the combination KFC-Taco Bell to the south and the side-by-side Burger King and new El Rey sitting along the North Loop feeder road (visible to the right).

Renderings of the proposed strip show a mix of brick, wood, metal grating, glass, and patches of other skin materials; a Newquest Properties leasing flier shows the building turning away from Yale St. to face W. 28th St., behind a thick protective later of parking:

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Cleaning Up in the Heights
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Downtown
03/08/17 11:00am

A Pair of Departures from the Former Two Shell Plaza Tunnels

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Retail
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Closed restaurants in 811 Louisiana tunnels, 811 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

Closed restaurants in 811 Louisiana tunnels, 811 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, 77002The latest report from Swamplot’s anonymous tunnel correspondent indicates that neighboring Asian fast casual and counter spots Thai Spice and Sidewalk Cafe appear to have both closed in the tunnel beneath 811 Louisiana (also previously and variously known as Two Shell Plaza or 777 Walker. Signage from the building’s management folks went up by the end of February, and the Thai Spice branch’s phone number is now out of service as well. An outdated leasing flier still up on the 811 Louisiana LoopNet page shows the layout of the spaces amid the rest of the tunnel stretch, between the Esperson building and the tower at 611 Walker:

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Out and About Downtown
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Featured Posts
03/07/17 1:15pm

Nett St. Bungalow Bar-To-Be Drops Athletic Club Claims

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Washingto Corridor, West End
1 Comment

4504 Nett St., Washington Corridor, Houston, 77007

4504 Nett St., Washington Corridor, Houston, 77007The little house on the angular 10,000-sq.-ft. lot along Patterson St. (wedged between Nett St. and the railroad tracks that run along scattered segments of Allen St.) is looking more like a bar these days, now that a tentacled tree logo has been applied to the side of the building. That logo doesn’t match the name originally picked for the spot on its TABC application — Mission Athletic Club and Drinkery — but a few other aspects of the plan have likely changed since 2015 as well, given the handful of revisions to the house-to-bar conversion plans on file with the city (the most recent of which dates to January).

Some digging around has been going on in the property’s yard of late:

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Digging In off Washington Ave.
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