Look at the baby! Wednesday night Reginald Adams led a team of volunteers in painting this archetypal smooch in place of the ever-changing mural on the side of the former Democratic campaign headquarters at the corner of West Alabama and Travis in Midtown.
Photo: Candace Garcia
Another unit has waded into what seems to be a recent flurry of turnover in Lovett Square, the 36-stuccoed-condo community occupying a city block at Bagby-Tuam-Brazos-Anita in Midtown. The 1979 project by William T. Cannady Architects was an early stab at high-density redevelopment of an area once considered downtown’s South End, where vacant and aging properties and freeway ramps hung out together. This was before the Midtown moniker and the multifamily multiplier effect grew legs, however.
One of the larger homes in the staggered-like-a-pueblo project listed Friday at $193,000. The gated complex has several courtyards off a central promenade. This unit’s entry, however, is off a shared mezzanine-level terrace (above), reached by this exterior staircase:
A Swamplot reader sends in photos of this Travis St. office building’s — well, stuccover. Gone are the striped awnings and gas light (pictured at the top) likely added during the building’s New Orleans Revival phase. Also gone is a trick-of-the-eye mural continuing those awnings (and window-fronting balcony railings, too) painted on the brick load-bearing wall that faces south toward Francis St. Built in 1959, the 4,741-sq.-ft. Midtown office space was purchased last June.
Want to see more of the stuccover?
Before Daniel Anguilu started redecorating Midtown, he tagged trains — and, apparently, he drives one, too, says a press release Metro released yesterday: The official housepainter of Houston Texans linebacker Connor Barwin works as a light-rail operator. (Interesting, isn’t it, that so many of his murals — including the ones pictured here, on the for-sale former Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority building at 2850 Fannin — can be found within walking distance of the Red Line?) Anguilu’s moonlighting work can be seen — you’ll have to go inside, though — at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art through February 17.
In related news, Metro says all stations will be closed this weekend for rail construction and maintenance.
Photos: Candace Garcia
It could become much trickier for vandals defacing murals of presidents to remain undetected, what with all these windows: Real Estate Bisnow‘s Catie Dixon reports that Alliance Residential has closed a financing deal on Broadstone 3800, a 203-unit apartment building planned for a 1.6-acre lot just across West Alabama from the yellow-brick former campaign headquarters where Reginald James’s mural of President Obama was given a rather sloppy second coat this week. The proposed site, at 3808 Main St. on the southwest side of the intersection, is home now to a surface parking lot; it’s bound by Travis, Truxillo, and West Alabama — where, Dixon reports, $8 million is expected to be spent on street improvements. This rendering shows how light rail might be incorporated into the 6-story project; the nearest Red Line stop along Main St. is Ensemble/HCC, where shops and eateries like Natachee’s and Double Trouble have congregated.
Rendering: EDI Architects
Facing W. Alabama, Reginald Adams’s 2012 mural of President Obama was recently given a few extra splashes of color. Of course, this isn’t the first time the mural on the side of the former campaign headquarters at 3710 Travis has been the subject of political back-and-forth. Candace Garcia’s photos show the changes over the years, starting with a replica of Shepard Fairey’s Hope poster in 2008:
Squatters and street artists might have to find another bygone building to pick on — but that’s only assuming there’s something really behind the renderings of renovations to Midtown’s Central Square Plaza that Claremont Property has been floating around. Could that demure stone mosaic on the wall facing Webster finally get its comeuppance after years of playing hard to get?
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY 
Has Midtown become too hip even for the federal government? The Social Security Administration is leaving, having lost its lease at the low-slung building at 3100 Smith (shown at right), reports CultureMap’s Whitney Radley: “Once a sort of wasteland, the surrounding neighborhood teems now with development, restaurants, bars, mixed-use complexes and multifamily units . . . . speculation that the building might be prime space for a restaurant or even torn down to make room for a mid-rise, is rampant.” [CultureMap] Photo: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
They’re both Pearls. But one of these Morgan Group renderings is destined for a lot in Midtown; the other for Greenway Plaza. Can you tell which is going where?
What’s this? Near the intersection of W. Gray and Milam, a for-sale sign has popped up on the Central Square Plaza buildings on a 1-acre lot in Midtown. We’re hoping to get more details soon. The fate of the 12- and 14-story offices and parking garage at 2100 Travis has been tied up in court for years; Swamplot reported last summer that owner Alfred J. Antonini won a skirmish in a ongoing battle against the city, which had in 2011 ordered him to make “a bunch of repairs” to the buildings, vacant now for a real long time.
Photo: Swamplot inbox (sign); LoopNet
So these apartments might not have the same shimmery glamour as their namesake, Beyoncé Knowles. But the pop star and Houston native, moved by the devastation in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, did chip in with her sister, Solange, and mother, Tina — as well as Destiny’s Child co-star Kelly Rowland, St. John’s United, and Temenos CDC — to help provide housing for Houston’s low-income and homeless populations.
The 43-unit building (shown above) at 1719 Gray went up in 2007. Now, Temenos has laid out on its website plans for a second building — with almost twice as many units as the original — at 2200 Jefferson, less than a mile away on the east side of I-45.
There’s no mention whether Beyoncé is involved in Phase II. But there are renderings:
The conquest of a long strip of land between Travis and Main known as the Midtown Superblock was completed last month, Shaina Zucker reports in today’s Houston Business Journal. The strip center at the corner of Travis and Anita once known as Liberty Square, and more recently for tenants Escobar and the Thien An sandwich shop, was sold to the Midtown Redevelopment Authority in September. Escobar, Thien An, and a second nightclub in the building will have until the end of the year to scram. The TIRZ plans to swap the land under the strip center with Camden Property Trust, in return for a couple of properties at the northern end of the same superblock.
That’ll give the Midtown authority a tiny bit less than 3 acres of land facing McGowen St., leaving Camden with the superblock’s slightly larger southern portion. The organization plans to build a park on its end — but one that includes 8,500 sq. ft. of retail space and 250 underground parking spaces, according to Zucker:
Montrose-area real estate investor (and frequent Swamplot commenter) Cody Lutsch expects to close later this month on 3 apartment buildings on Holman just east of HCC between Crawford and 288 that he calls “the worst of the worst” in Midtown. A web listing for the properties cautions potential buyers: “DO NOT WALK THE PROPERTY AND DISTURB THE TENANTS. (it’s for you own good, i mean it).” Lutsch calls the group of buildings, which date from 1938 and has seen half a dozen owners over the last 10 years, “very very rough . . . Police are always going over there, there is drugs, prostitution . . .”
GRANTS TO SPARK MIDTOWN ARTS CENTER FUNDRAISING 
The consortium of independent arts organizations planning a theater and gallery complex at the corner of Main and Holman just got a step closer to the $25 million it needs to build the project. Two weeks ago, the group received a $750K grant from the Fondren Foundation. Last week it got word of an even bigger haul: a $6 million grant from the Houston Endowment. In August, the group — which includes DiverseWorks, Fotofest, and Main St. Theater — changed its name from the Independent Arts Collaborative to “The MATCH,” short for the Midtown Arts and Theatre Center Houston. The 59,000-sq.-ft. complex at 3400 Main St. is being designed by a match-up of San Antonio’s Lake Flato Architects and Houston’s Studio Red. [Previously on Swamplot] Rendering: The MATCH
