Houston Heights

Featured Posts
04/30/18 1:30pm

Here’s How Heights Mercantile Plans To Work Its Way to the Other Side of Yale St.

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Houston Heights, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Retail
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Update, May 1: At the request of the copyright holder, images of the proposed development have been removed.

Michael Hsu designed a new 2-story structure (depicted in a rendering posted on HAIF) for a spot directly across Yale from the existing retail building (above) he created as part of the Heights Mercantile complex near 7th St. Like its neighbor — which went up not long ago in place of a Pappas Restaurants warehouse — the new building will replace a metal-sided structure, this one currently occupied by Urban Jungle Self Defense:

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Westward Expansion
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Featured Posts
04/17/18 12:30pm

A New Heights Park for the Shuttered Bus Stop on N. Main?

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Houston Heights, Parks, Quicklink
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A NEW HEIGHTS PARK FOR THE SHUTTERED BUS STOP ON N. MAIN? METRO rendered the Heights Transit Center just north of Cavalcade obsolete when its new bus routes went into service in 2015. Although 3 routes still converge below the southern tip of the 0.88-acre, triangular property where Studewood dies into N. Main, not all of them let on at that location and none of them arrive at the covered waiting area riders once used for boarding. Now, reports the Chronicle’s Mike Morris, the City plans to buy the unused lot. The price: $1,425,000, to be funded by fees imposed on developers who didn’t include green space in their projects as specified in a 2007 ordinance. The fees, writes Morris, “must be spent there within three years and can be used only for park improvements.” The city council will vote on the land purchase today. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Save the Heights Transit Center

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Featured Posts
04/09/18 4:30pm

2-Story Heights Warehouse House on 15th St. Is More Than Just Fun and Games

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Homes for Sale, Houston Heights
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The view inside the eastern portion of the 4,400-sq.-ft. warehouse on the corner of 15th and Lawrence streets — now up for sale — shows it split between its mezzanine arcade and the more grounded live and work areas that make up its first floor. Aside from the bench underneath the staircase, this side of the building is pretty much standing room only; the sellers used it as a photography studio.

An upper-level bridge separates it from the from the rest of the first floor, where the kitchen and dining room offer more seating:

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Galvalume Skin
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Adaptive Reuse
03/21/18 12:00pm

Smoosh, Teapresso Setting Up Next to Snooze in Lowell Street Market off Shepherd

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Houston Heights, Mixed Use, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants
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In the wake of Snooze, 2 more businesses with names suggesting AM activities are on their way to the new Lowell Street Market on 18th St. between Shepherd and Durham. Radom Capital began transforming the 3-building former warehouse complex in something retail- and restaurant-ready back in 2016. Since then, Snooze  has been the only restaurant to open in the development.

Building permits filed for the empty spots neighboring Snooze and Smoosh now show reveal the name of a third eatery that could be on its way to 718 W. 18th St.: Teapresso Bar. The Hawaiian tea shop chain has most of its current locations on Oahu, with a few on Maui as well. Lowell Street Market would be its first step onto the mainland.

The site plan below indicates all 3 buildings in the complex:

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The Early Risers
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Churches
03/20/18 12:30pm

Churchyard Excavator Now Breaking Down Walls Between Sojourn Heights’ Current Home on Aurora and Its Soon-To-Be Sanctuary

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Demolitions, Houston Heights, Renovations, Sunset Heights
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Crews are now digging a hole through the middle of the Sojourn Heights church campus off Gostick St., south of Aurora in Sunset Heights. The rendering above looks west across Gostick to show the fenced-off lawn that will eventually grow in place of the demolished building. The new green space is bookended by renovated street-fronting structures and backed by a smaller addition that’s planned on the far west side of the just-over-an-acre church property.

Before the takedown got started yesterday, the complex consisted of 3 buildings that lined Gostick:

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Prayer Semi-Circle
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Buying and Selling
03/13/18 3:30pm

There’s Now a Gap on 19th St. in the Heights Where That Open-Air Non-Building Once Stood

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Demolitions, Houston Heights, Retail
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The sheet metal façade backed by an assortment of shipping-container parts is now gone, and mountains of stuff have been removed from the longtime junk emporium at 317 W. 19th St. in the Heights, perhaps better known as the open-air building with a front but no roof that lent the shopping district its perhaps now diminished air of funk. The photo at top, sent Swamplot’s way by a flabbergasted reader, shows the now-vacant lot with everything removed. Below it, a rare aerial view from a few years ago reveals secret stashes maintained behind the lot’s corrugated streetfront.

But perhaps what you remember of this lot is different: a mysterious supply house behind whose shiny gate backdrops for hundreds of street scenes emerged over the years? Or a backdrop for fashion shoots?

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Junked
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Featured Posts
03/13/18 12:00pm

All the Body Parts Now Signed Up for Braun’s New Center at Shepherd and W. 24th

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Houston Heights, Leasing, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers
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The teeth, eyes, and . . . uh, overall shape of the new shopping center Braun Enterprises is planning for N. Shepherd and 24th St. can be considered taken care of, now that Lovett Dental, Eyes on the Heights Optometry, and Club Pilates have each signed leases for space in the development. That leaves 11,555 sq. ft. still available in 3 separate end-cap spots for any nail salon, podiatrist, or dermatology clinic that wants to fill out the theming for the complex, which would go on the block catty-corner to the H-E-B Heights Market currently under construction.

This would fit in with N. Shepherd’s ongoing transformation: Braun plans to demolish the Miller’s Auto Body Repair Experts facility (as of now still open for business) as well a building formerly occupied by Auto Electric Service on the site in order to construct the 24,000-sq.-ft. shopping center, which includes structured parking as well as a parking lot on the roof of one of the 2 buildings.

A full human-body-part-focused buildout for this planned complex at 2401 N. Shepherd Dr. isn’t so far-fetched: the latest renderings released for the development include generic signage for both a nail salon and a fitness club:

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Body Shop to Body Shopping
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Featured Posts
03/02/18 12:30pm

Here’s How HPD’s Detective on the Case Figured a Heights Apartment Opponent Ended Up Dead Inside the Wall of Her Allston St. Bungalow

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Houston Heights
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Newly-released case files from the Houston Police Department include a investigator’s official best guess at how Mary Cerruti’s skeleton ended up in a 5 ft.-9 in. by 1 ft.-7 in. space between the walls of her bungalow: a plank in the attic collapsed, writes detective T. Fay, sending Cerruti down into the 8-and-a-half-foot tall opening where she became trapped and died. The photo above — one of 235 police took at the scene — shows the hole in the floorboards where her remains were found to the right of the attic door.

Cerruti, the former homeowner, was an opponent of the Yale at 6th apartments that eventually encircled her bungalow at 610 Allston St. On an afternoon last March — reports the Chronicle’s Emily Foxhall, who’s been all over the story as it’s developed — firefighters responding to a 911 call from the new renter who’d discovered the remains arrived at the address and busted open the wall from the house’s first floor. Fay, the detective, speculated that the spot in the wall housing the bones might once have been a linen closet, sealed off by renovations.

A missing person’s report filed 2 years earlier in 2015 — after Cerruti first disappeared — suggested that the remains were likely hers. But with the bones and a few other items as the only evidence police could recover from the scene, there wasn’t much for them to investigate. There were no signs of foul play at the bungalow, and no reason to believe someone was out to harm Cerruti. The only thing police had left to do was wait for forensic identification — which the medical examiner announced last month.

Photo: Houston Police Department via Emily Foxhall

A Hole in the Attic
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Featured Posts
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
02/27/18 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
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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
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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 11:45am

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

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Houston Heights, Renovations, Restaurants
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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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