COMMENT OF THE DAY: GROWING UP BY THE CANDY TRAIN “It really isn’t that bad. I was born on Winter St., and for many years the trains ran right in front of my house. I remember the house would shake and as a kid I would run outside and the conductor would always throw me peppermint candy. Good memories.” [Johnnie, commenting on A Little Winter St. Front Yard Action]
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First Ward
Note: Photos from the listing have been removed at the request of the seller and the listing agent.
There’s no getting around the power lines, but there’s still a relatively unimpeded look to the south from the viewing deck of this 4-bedroom, 3-story house at 1322 Dart St. in the First Ward. Designer Charles Tibbits — working with architect Robert Hoover — alerts Swamplot to the house a block east of Houston Ave. and two north of Washington, near the Amtrak Station and the old Jefferson Davis Hospital. It’s listed at $1.5 million.
Yesterday’s Daily Demolition Report listed 1706 Alamo St., where Houston’s Theater LaB has operated since 1993. The 65-seat theater sat on 1,600 sq. ft. in the First Ward. Theater LaB sold the property last October. Also in the demo path, a reader reports, was Thespian Park across the street, where among bajillions of native plants the Tunisian-born set designer Rodolphe Zarka installed 18 of these panel murals in 2003. A tipster tells Swamplot that a group of First Warders were told late Monday night that everything — murals and all — was going to be bulldozed the next day.
Hasn’t this city always struggled to set appropriate boundaries? That’s at least what this photo, snapped on Silver St. near Washington by a Swamplot reader, suggests.
Photo: matt Curtis, via Swamplot inbox
- 1804 Hickory St. [HAR]
The folks at the Chick-fil-A rising at the corner of Spring and Sawyer in the First Ward (across from the Sawyer Heights Shopping Center) aren’t quite ready to take your order, but judging from this photo it looks like they might be sometime soon. The fast-food drive-thru is going up on the site of the former Riviana Foods warehouse at 2222 Shearn St., which was demo’ed last fall. Now if they’d just add a second Starbucks somewhere near the giant parking lot, comments Twitter photographer knittykat (there’s one inside the Target already), the area would truly fulfill its destiny as stay-at-home mom mecca of the Heights.
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: Chicken and Rice
Photo: Twitter user knittykat
WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE? 
“For the last couple of months, the gray building on the corner of Houston Ave. and Summer St., on the same block as Dharma Cafe, has been under construction — mainly on the interior. Any word on what this will be?” [Swamplot inbox] Photo: Swamplot inbox
Liquid Gold Hospitality Group partner Stephen Ross tells Swamplot he and his companies have no involvement in Gravitas Restaurant’s lease of the building at 807 Taft St. or with any of the recently closed restaurant’s financing arrangements. “Until recent comments, we were under the impression that we parted on good terms,” Ross says of his relationship with Gravitas owner Scott Tycer. After shutting down Gravitas this past Sunday, Tycer sent a notice to employees and a couple of online publications claiming that the closure had been “driven by the failure of Liquid Gold Hospitality, under the terms of our Operating Agreement with them, to maintain current payments on our bank note.”
Ross’s Coconut Grove was under a management contract with Gravitas that began in May, Ross responds — but the company’s involvement had ended by November: “Liquid Gold Hospitality Group was NEVER involved officially in any of this, however, some principals of Liquid Gold are affiliated with Coconut Grove,” Ross says. “Mr. Tycer has chosen to close the restaurant for his own reasons, none of which involve Coconut Grove, Ltd or Liquid Gold Hospitality Group, LLC.”
- Letter to Gravitas Employees: “Liquid Gold Hospitality Blatantly Violated the Terms of our Agreement” [Eater Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: Lacking Gravitas
Photo: Eater Houston
The restaurant at 807 Taft St. closed Sunday after 6 years in the former Antone’s space — “for deep cleaning,” according to a sign posted on the door — but messages from Scott Tycer’s Kraftsmen Baking make it clear Gravitas’s problems won’t be fixed by a quick bout of scrubbing. According to Eater Houston, the restaurant had been under the management of the Liquid Gold restaurant group since May — while a sale was being negotiated — but the company decided to sell its stake back to Tycer in November. In a statement sent to Culturemap, Kraftsmen blames the closure on “the failure of Liquid Gold Hospitality, under the terms of our Operating Agreement with them, to maintain current payments on our bank note. . . . We have tried to negotiate with the bank, but they are forcing us to close the doors and they are taking our equipment in lieu of payment.”
- Gravitas Closed After Months of Sale Negotiations [Eater Houston]
- Goodbye Gravitas: Former Scott Tycer hotspot suddenly shutters, restaurant cleared out [Culturemap]
- Previously on Swamplot: Negotiating the First Ward for Lawyers
Photo: XenoHumph
WHAT’S BEHIND THOSE BOARDED-UP WINDOWS? 
Sawbuck Realty doesn’t appear to have a separate “historic home, likely teardown” template for the home-listing videos the company’s website automatically generates. Which might explain some of the strangeness of this curious autoplay “tour” of the property at 1915 Shearn St. in the First Ward. From the script: “. . . with great space and fresh air for your peace of mind. Which make this home an ideal purchase for buyers who value privacy and comfort.” [Sawbuck Realty, via Swamplot inbox] Photo: HAR
Frequent Olivewood Cemetery visitor Roger Barnaby came across a disturbing discovery in the historic African-American cemetery south of White Oak Bayou between Heights Blvd. and Studemont not long before dark on Halloween: Survey markers and what look like new fenceposts, installed only a few inches from some marked graves. Barnaby tells Swamplot he’s not certain of the purpose of the posts, but believes they and the survey flags mark an intended expansion of the cemetery’s longtime neighbor to the south and east, grocery distributor Grocers Supply. “You can even see that they pounded a survey spike into one of the graves,” he notes:
STUDEMONT KROGER 380 AGREEMENT PASSES By a 10-5 vote this morning, city council approved the mayor’s plan for a so-called “380” development agreement between the city and Kroger. Under the agreement, the grocery company would receive up to $2.5 million in sales and property tax reimbursements from the city in return for job-creation guarantees connected to a new store and gas station at 1400 Studemont St., just south of I-10. Also in the deal: a land exchange with the city to allow Summer St. to connect to Studemont through the company’s property. [Previously on Swamplot]
The Heights Life passes on drawings and details of the new Kroger grocery store and gas station planned for the former industrial property between Arne’s Warehouse and Party Store and I-10 at 1400 Studemont St. — from notes taken by a Super Neighborhood 22 representative who met with Kroger reps and council member Ed Gonzalez. Though at a planned 79,087 sq. ft. the store would be about 10,000 sq. ft. smaller than the recently renovated Heights store on 11th St. and Shepherd, it’ll look quite similar. The most interesting part of the site plan is the proposed connection of Hicks St., which turns off of Studemont south of the new store, to Summer St., which dead-ends into a parking lot currently filled with the heads of ex-Presidents, just south of the Sawyer Heights Target:
According to an unattributed report published today on Culturemap, beer-and-movie pioneer Alamo Drafthouse plans to open its second third Houston-area location at 2500 Summer St. off Sawyer in the First Ward, in David Adickes’s former SculpturWorx compound. But a spokesperson for the movie theater’s owners would neither confirm nor deny the plans either to Culturemap or the Chronicle. And Phil Arnett — who with partner L.E. “ Chap” Chapman announced plans last year to buy and redevelop the 3-building, 3-acre compound and convert portions of it into commercial space — tells Swamplot there’s “nothing definitive” about any Alamo Drafthouse plans. Representatives of Triple Tap Ventures, the theater’s parent company, did look at the space, but nothing’s come of it yet, Arnett says.
SHHHH ON THE TRACKS! FIRST WARD WINTER ST. QUIET ZONE ARRIVES IN 2 WEEKS 
Approvals all in, construction and signage complete, a “quiet zone” for the Union Pacific rail line that runs along Winter St. in the First Ward will go into effect on September 27th, after the end of a 21-day waiting period. Several years in the making, the zone will prohibit freight-train engineers from blasting their horns at grade crossings — unless something or someone is on the tracks in front of them. Not included in the loud-horn ban, reports the Washington Quiet Zone team, responsible for getting the quiet zone on Washington between Sherwin and National streets in place last year: the southernmost track running through the First Ward, which carries about 25 percent of area freight traffic. Adding that track to the new Winter St. zone may take several more years. [Washington Quiet Zone; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Sarah Fleming [license]
