11/21/16 10:30am

Burned Fuzzy's Tacos, 138 W. Gray St., Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

That warm glow early Sunday morning on the edge of Fourth Ward turned out to be a major fire at the eastern W. Gray outpost of Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. The blaze is now under investigation, with an eye for possible arson — a manager at across-the-street Oporto Fooding House and Wine told KHOU that security cameras caught sight of a car parked outside the closed shop just before the start of the fire, somewhere around 5 AM. The upstate taco chain opened the freshly roasted branch in January in the 1940’s house formerly housing bar and barbecue joint Hefley’s (a little less than 2 miles down the street from the Fuzzy’s now lurking in the back of the River Oaks Shopping Center).

Standing around in the background of the west-facing shot above: the Dolce Living apartment complex under construction on the north side of W. Gray on either side of Bailey St. A few other angles captured yesterday by a reader on the scene show the newly reconfigured profile of the taco shop’s roof:

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Soft Tacos Overdone
11/14/16 10:45am

Winburn Mess Hall, 3701 Travis St., Midtown, Houston, 77002

The brick building at Travis and Winbern streets, wedged between the Breakfast Klub to the south and Continental Club to the east, is occupied these days by Winbern Mess Hall — a joint truck-to-brick-and-mortar project involving both Korean-Mexican fusion truck Oh My Gogi! and Asian-fusion hotdog truck Happy Endings. The fused fusion truckers quietly opened shop in October, with plans for a grander opening tentatively planned for mid-December. A rep tells Swamplot that items from both trucks are on the menu, and a bar is also in the works.

Winbern has moved into the spot in the wake of the sudden May flight of Sparrow Bar + Cookshop, another animal-mascotted endeavor of Beaver’s chef Monica Pope. The red banner by the tucked-away front door on Travis (above) has been updated to reflect the switchover, though the new occupants say they haven’t changed too much inside the place. Here’s a shot of the spot (from back when it still played host to the avian theme):

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Winbern Fusion Fusion Joint
11/02/16 1:30pm

Bagby at Drew streets, Midtown, Houston, 77003

The recently yellow-tagged building that once housed Aloha Modeling Studio has picked up a new companion of late, a reader notes: the trailer above, which was spotted last week settled in behind the storeNplay.com children’s playhouse that hangs around at the corner of Bagby and Drew streets (sometimes with friends). Most of the lot has been kept cleared down to the dirt for the past few years, though the fence appears to be a new addition. That’s the parking garage of the second CityPlace Midtown apartment building on the left; below is a shot of the playhouse on the eastern side of the lot, with the glowing tip of 1600 Smith St. (née Continental Center I) peeking over its right shoulder:

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Set Up on Bagby
10/31/16 2:15pm

Former City of Houston Code Enforcement Building, 3300 Main St., Midtown, Houston, 77002

The dust-up above on the northeast corner of 3300 Main St., where the former city code enforcement building has been getting disassembled to make way for that retail-footed residential highrise, was part of the on-site scene this past Thursday, a reader notes. Crews started in on the late-60’s building after those August demolition permits were issued (following a round of asbestos extraction). The shot catches both the MATCH theater building on the left and the tiny red canopy of Thien Thao Chinese Herbs, on Travis and Francis streets behind the post-wok-fire redo of Mai’s.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Shorter, Then Taller
10/24/16 11:15am

3100 Smith St., Midtown, Houston, 77006

The former Social Security Administration office at 3100 Smith St. and its gorilla-hawking mural wall are no more, following some weekend excavator grazing. Demo permits were issued last week for structure, which sat north of Elgin on part of the planned site of developer Morgan’s next Pearl-branded apartment development (the one with the built-in ground floor Whole Foods).

City permission for the planned mixed-use building to cozy up to the street were approved in February; the project will also straddle that now-closed segment of Rosalie St. between Smith and Brazos onto a section of the previously cleared block to the north.  Here’s what the layout might look like from above, per the plans included with the variance request:

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Rosalie Redecoration
10/04/16 11:30am

Demo of Former City of Houston Code Enforcement Building, 3300 Main St., Midtown, Houston, 77002

A gang of smaller machinery is seen spreading out across the roof of 3300 Main St. in the shot above (capturing a reader’s view of the scene from the HCC midrise next door), as a larger excavator works over some of the rubble piling up at the site lately. Also visible behind the former city code enforcement building, to the south: the now-in-full-swing MATCH theater building, and the rising facades of some of the apartment midrises going up on the Mid Main block.

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Midtown Falling Flat, Rising High
09/26/16 2:15pm

2709 Bagby St., Midtown, Houston, 77003

A reader wonders why the house above at 2709 Bagby St. is just now getting a yellow note from city inspectors, who doled out an orange one right across the street last year. The new tag is stuck to the gate of the property formerly listed as the address of probably-not-just-a-modeling-studio Aloha Modeling Studio, which appears to have removed its signage in the few years following the city’s late 2000s push to enforce that then-decade-old sexually-oriented business ordinance. Per the new tagging (closeup below), the current beef with the city appears to be over some smaller issues — namely, some debris scattered around the lawn, and that loose board on the second story:

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Hanging Questions in Midtown
09/21/16 11:30am

1810 Gray St., Midtown, Houston, 77003

Some execution-ready excavator glamour shots next to 1810 Gray St. come from Fred Ghabriel, who snapped them yesterday evening in preparation for this morning’s underway demo of the space. The freestanding 1960s not-quite-under-the-freeway retail spot southwest of the junction of 59 and 45  is survived by some of its blockmates: the Citgo facing the Hamilton side of the block, and the Webster-and-Chenevert-facing double-decker strip center at 2117 Chenevert (home of Abacus Bail Bonds, Chase Shoe Shine Parlor, Heights Cleaners & Alterations, and nightclub Indigo at Midtown). The retail strip also contains an office of Bejjani & Associates, which owns the Gray-facing building currently under deconstruction (and with which Ghabriel is associated).

The structure at 1810 is getting cleared out for more parking for the center; the freed-up spots might get a touch of seasonal afternoon shade from the 3-sided billboard planted next to them, as seen in the now-moot leasing flier for the space:

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The Teardown Blues
09/01/16 1:30pm

CROSSWALKS GIVE RED LIGHT WALKERS THE FINGER IN MIDTOWN, EASTWOOD Holman at San Jacinto streets, Midtown, Houston, 77004The DON’T WALK hand at the corner of Holman and San Jacinto streets has been straightened out after a post-paint spree of flipping the bird to pedestrians, Steve Romo reports this week. The offending intersection is home to a number of HCC buildings and the parking lot behind recently departed Adkins Architectural Antiques, as well as a retail strip;  Romo notes that his news team tracked down at least one other similarly altered sign over at the intersection of S. Lockwood Dr. and Leland St., near the Learn & Grow Academy daycare and Houston Fire Station 18.  The city tells Romo it’s not the first time this kind of paint job has shown up around town (nor is it a uniquely Houston occurrence), and that the graffiti is a quick fix but diverts city resources, adding that folks should let 311 know if any more intersection signals are rude to them. [ABC13] Photo of signal at Holman and San Jacinto streets: Kate Erin C.

08/23/16 5:45pm

1403 McGowen St., Midtown, Houston, 77004
Variance request at 1403 McGowen St.

Signage up on McGowen between La Branch and Austin streets heralds the property owner’s recent request for a few variances approvals from the city, include reduced building line setbacks on the site. Plans submitted with the request show cross sections of an 8-story midrise (arranged as 3 levels of parking topped by condo units above), which the application says was planned back when the owners were under the impression that the lot already had reduced building setbacks following city approvals of a previous owner’s project on the land that fell through.

As was discovered during the city’s permitting review, the previous variance approval was only applicable to the scrapped project, though the application claims that caveat wasn’t noted with mentions of the variance attached to the property’s plat records. City planners purportedly told the developers (which appear to include Knudson and Allied Orion Group) that they could get the same reduced setback lines approved again if they turn the first floor of the condo project into residences or retail.

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Midtown Condo Limbo
08/16/16 12:15pm

Work at at 1916 Baldwin St., Midtown, Houston, 77002

Here’s the latest from the house-turned-law-office-space at 1916 Baldwin St., now getting worked over behind its previously-noticed TABC application notice. A few more details on what’s planned for the spot have since surfaced, as Phaedra Cook and Craig Masilow noted earlier this summer while writing about the ongoing legal whosamawhatsit of the newly-rotated nightclub formerly known as Gaslamp (about 2 minutes to the south by car). Cook and Masilow point out that the owner of the Baldwin space appears to be Gaslamp owner Ayman Jarrah’s brother, and that Jarrah himself is listed as the manager of the business moving in at the Baldwin address (referred to as Oakmont) in a TABC-nodding newspaper notice published in May.

A reader on the scene, meanwhile, notes the construction going on in and around the structure (above), including a 2-story something going up out back:

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Going by Oakmont
08/04/16 4:30pm

THE ODDS ON A PIERCE ELEVATED COMEDOWN Map of Proposed I-45 Rerouting, Downtown HoustonWriting in the latest issue of Texas Architect magazine — which is now debuting a redone website with a new web address and a new all-articles-are-now free policy — Ben Koush surveys the prospects for the raised section of I-45 now dividing Midtown from Downtown: “While there have been some plans floated around to convert the decommissioned section of the Pierce Elevated into Houston’s version of the Highline, most people I spoke with didn’t think that was going to happen, simply because TxDOT needs the money it could get from selling that right of way to private developers. Some still hold out hope that at least some of the land or maybe even a small section of the elevated roadway could be made into a public green space.” [Texas Architect; previously on Swamplot] Plan of “currently approved scheme” for I-45 rerouting around downtown, showing possible green space: SWA Group

07/27/16 12:45pm

Adkins Architectural Antiques, 3515 Fannin St., Midtown, 77004

Closing Sale Sign at Adkins Architectural Antiques, 3515 Fannin St., Midtown, 77004 A reader noted these notes near the door of the former home of Adkins Architectural Antiques, which had been operating out of the 100-ish-year-old house at 3515 Fannin (at the corner with Berry St.). The shop is rebranding as Adkins Antique Hardware Co. and retreating from the realm of physical architecture to a fully digital storefront. The company’s inventory also looks to be shifting away from bigger items like salvaged doors and windows to focus in on the little things — like knobs, pulls, and hinges, both old and old-looking. Per the new website, you might still be able to get an in-person appointment as the closing sale wraps up.

The property itself was listed for lease on LoopNetabout 2 weeks ago, under its HCAD alter ego of 1103 Berry. The house and its early-1990s warehouse are the only structures on the block, which otherwise serves as parking lot. CBRE’s leasing flier aerial (below) shows the space bathed in green highlighting, in place between the Ensemble Theater, several Houston Community College buildings, that Holman-St.-facing strip center, and the Downtown Pregnancy Help Center (thought the fact that it doesn’t show much progress on the recently-wrapped MATCH building dates the shot):

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Out with the Old in Midtown
07/12/16 1:30pm

Former City of Houston Code Enforcement Building, 3300 Main St., Midtown, Houston, 77002

The 1967 occupant of 3300 Main St., which previously housed the city code enforcement office, is currently getting its asbestos removed in anticipation of its impending demolition, according to a reader involved in the work. The structure and its parking lot grounds were bought from the city in 2011 by the Midtown Redevelopment Authority, who started trying to sell it in 2014; PM Realty (the developers of the glass-petticoated apartment tower at 2929 Weslayan, who are also currently working on the less-is-more-branded Ivy Lofts tiny condo complex in East Downtown) put the property under contract that year.

What’s going to take the code building’s place, between the new MATCH box theater collection and the Houston Community College buildings to the north on Main St.? The involved reader confirms that the rendering below shows the current design in place along the light rail line; materials from AECOM (a partner in the project) say the highrise should hold 336 apartments and 14,390 sq.ft. of retail space:

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Trading Up in Midtown
06/16/16 11:30am

HOUSTON’S ELECTRIFYING INSULT ART HAS ITS CRITICS graffiti at 1601 Alabama St.,  Midtown, Houston, 77004A roving Houston graffiti connoisseur issued a short but scathing review this week of the latest addition to the utility box at the corner of Alabama St. and Almeda Rd. via the automatic city complaint-filing app SeeClickFix. The user calls the scrawled proclamation ‘bad art’; the Midtown Management District says it’s on the case. The display, directly across Almeda from hammock-rich beer garden Axelrad, does not appear to be one of the coming-up-on-100 mini murals being placed on electrical utility boxes around the city by Up Art Studios. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of electrical utility box at 1601 Alabama St.: SeeClickFix