Behold Friday’s sodden wreckage of the northernmost 33 percent of the Richmont Square apartment complex at 1400 Richmond, which is currently being erased to make way for the Menil’s upcoming drawing institute.
Menil On The Move
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Montrose
As of December 10 heavy equipment was already on site at the southwest corner of W. Alabama St. and S. Shepherd Dr., where a bevy of venerable-by-Houston-standards small businesses — including quirky jewelers Fly High Little Bunny, laid-back Roeder’s Pub, a cat clinic and stray adoption center, and late-night hang Ruchi’s Taqueria — are eating it to make way for a CVS and a roughly 24,000 sq.-ft. pad site.
Back when news of the development broke, some Swamplot commenters criticized it, site-plan unseen, as overly suburban-looking for its location, just across W. Alabama from the old theater and adjoining strip mall that now houses Trader Joe’s.
And now developers Read-King have released the site plans:
Shepherding In A Katyville Corner
A Montrose hang for lovers of live punk, metal and experimental sounds, Mango’s nightclub has sprouted a “for lease” sign.
The building at 403 Westheimer Rd. next door to Avant Garden has a history as colorful as its newly-painted exterior walls and patio:
The Ever-Changing Face Of Montrose
Is there more change coming to lower Richmond?
The former Shell station and grocery at 1810 Richmond Ave known until recently (formally) known as Richwood Market and (informally) as “Freaky Foods” is boarded up and graffiti-tagged:
Death Knell For The Shell?
HAS THE INNER LOOP BEEN RUINED BY OLIGARCHS? 
“A brutal strain of neoliberalism” and Houston’s disdain for its own history taken to “gothic extremes” have allowed developers to transform Inner Loop Houston from a “bastion for the creative class” to an “exclusive playland for the rich” in a few short years, writes Anis Shivani of Alternet. (The essay was later rebroadcast from the bully-er pulpit of Salon.com.) The nexus of Shivani’s lament is Steel St., the oak-lined Upper Kirby avenue that was once home to the Kirby Court Apartments and is now the site of an upcoming Hanover Company apartment building. Shivani, a poet, critic and fiction writer, sees the transformation of Steel St. (where he lives in a townhouse an apartment) as a microcosm for the changes going on across the Inner Loop, where “unoccupied zombie high-rises which are pure investment vehicles for global investors” are displacing the “artists, writers and eccentrics from around the country [who] descended in droves in the 2000s to take advantage of Houston’s livability.” Today’s Houston is “as unaffordable as Los Angeles or New York,” Shivani says. Among the more prominent events in this transmogrification: Last year’s demise of lively public-private space” Taco Milagro, where the “food was very healthy and people from all over the city danced the night away and congregated on the large patio.” Also, changes to the scenery of Memorial Park, where the “drought had supposedly killed” “oaks that were planted in the 1920s by the city fathers.” Shivani writes: “[In] the blink of an eye, without public discussion, the trees were demolished.” [Alternet; Salon; previously on Swamplot.] Photo: Jessie Wilson
Update: 3:45 p.m. Eater Houston reports that the name of the sushi bar will be Akamaru.
According to the permit in the window at 315 Fairview, the next occupant of the mixed-use building’s downstairs will be a restaurant named Sushi Bar.Â
Most recently that area had been home to a lounge called The Fairview.
Prior to its incarnation as the Fairview, the building had housed the short-lived Montrose outpost of downtown institution Dean’s Credit Clothing.
Sushi Bar will be situated about halfway between Uchi and the Bluefish.
Montrose Eats
Minus the crew of bearded lookalikes with whom he toured the Galleria earlier this year, Houston Rockets guard James Harden shows off a pizzeria-ized Siphon Coffee in this just-released ad spot for Foot Locker. The coffee shop at 701 W. Alabama St., which normally features no boxed items on its menu, was transformed into a pizza spot for a day-long shoot on November 9th.
Rocket Redo
Wendell Price has been a Food Network star and a partner with Olympic legend Carl Lewis at Houston’s Cafe Noir. He has catered Hollywood sets, cooked for the likes of Larry Flynt and O.J. Simpson, and served as executive chef in a restaurant co-owned by Denzel Washington. More recently, after his 2012 conviction on tax-related crimes, Price was an inmate in a Memphis jail. And now Price is back in his hometown, trying to get his career back on track via Rustic Oak, a restaurant slated to open at 511 Richmond Ave in January. Rustic Oak is taking root in a restored Montrose home near Spur 527; Price tells Culturemap’s Eric Sandler he “prayed for a unique spot instead of a strip center,” — and lo, there appeared this bungalow, right next door to the Brooklyn Athletic Club and directly across Richmond Ave. from the Post 510 apartments.
Comebacks
Hollywood Vietnamese and Chinese Cuisine will close down by the end of the month. Back in August plans came to light of a coming Farb Montrose full-block apartment complex at 2409 Montrose Blvd., a one-acre site once home to Cafe Noche but occupied since 2007 by Hollywood. A sign posted on the door last week informs the public of Hollywood’s demise by the end of the month; several staff members told Eater Houston’s Jakeisha Wilmore that Thanksgiving Eve will be its final day of service. How will Montrose late-night diners be able to cope without this vital pipeline to much-needed Lotus Delights, tofu spring rolls, and steaming bowls of ginger-laced Mama’s Hangover Chicken Soup? Turns out they won’t have to, at least not for long:
Phogeddabouddit
ONE MAN’S THRIVING GAYBORHOOD IS ANOTHER’S MONTROSE VALUE-ADD PORTFOLIO 
What is the Montrose Value-Add Portfolio? “48 apartment-units, 13 townhomes, 1 quadraplex and 5 rental homes with 8-units that include 2 garage apartments; for a total of 73 units, 67,960 rentable square feet, with a land tract of 2.09 acres.” Writes a reader who came across the listing: “This is where I live. I love the phrase ‘The Montrose Value Add Portfolio,’ it practically screams ‘knock it down!’ So much for my old gayborhood!” The properties are all within walking distance of the MVAP’s listed address: 409 Stratford St., a stone’s throw from the always-hopping cluster of bars and clubs on Pacific St. to the north and but a little farther from Numbers and Indika to the south. No asking price is indicated in the marketing materials. [Loopnet; brochure (PDF)] Photo: Transwestern.
The hexagonal clock mounted above the front door of the former Cra-Bell Vacuum and Appliance Co. building at 216 Westheimer Rd. was stolen over the weekend. Derek Brotherton of Scott-Day Paint & Supply, the company that’s inhabited the building since 1963, tells Swamplot that he and coworkers noticed the disappearance this morning, and that they are “deeply upset over losing part of the character of the store.” Photos above show the clock in place (above, in an older image) and gone missing (at top, taken this morning). Brotherton says he believes the clock had been in its current position since the building was constructed in 1935Â — or shortly thereafter. Back then, the street was named Hathaway; it now sits on the north side of Westheimer between Helena and Mason.
Did You See Time Fly?
With a fresh $500,000 donation landing in its coffers late this summer and some city approvals in hand, the University of St. Thomas’s  long-planned Center for Science and Health Professions quadrangle could break ground next year. The school says it now has about half of the project’s $47 million budget and hopes on raising the rest by June of next year. UST has stated that it would then break ground in short order with an eye toward opening up some of the complex by 2017.
Bye-Bye Soccer Fields, Hello Chemistry Labs
THE BACK AND FORTH ON DUNLAVY ST. 
Back in May some Montrose urbanists rejoiced at a report that city traffic planners were hoping to constrict Dunlavy St. from 4 lanes to 2. However, as part of this year’s annual Major Thoroughfare and Freeway Plan, the city’s planning commission advised widening the Dunlavy corridor’s right-of-way 10 feet in certain areas. In an e-blast to her constituents, city council’s Ellen Cohen cited a lack of public input on the widening proposal and its potential negative impact on homeowners as key factors in shaping her “grave concerns” over the prospect of a fattened corridor, so that proposal has been tabled until next year’s review. [Houston Chronicle; Ellen Cohen] Photo: Raj Mankad /OffCite
Finding a seat in the latest round of musical chairs among Houston’s theater crowd is the Classical Theatre Company, which recently announced it is moving operations into the 175-seat Chelsea Market venue vacated by Main Street Theater earlier this year. For the previously nomadic CTC, the space means a more permanent home for its artists and audiences — as well as a single spot for its offices, storage, rehearsals, and performances.
Main Street Theater, which has a Rice Village venue on Times Blvd. readying for a long-awaited renovation, had rented the Chelsea Market space for its Theater for Youth and educational programming since 1996. Youth activities shifted recently to the Talento Bilingue de Houston center at 333 S. Jensen Dr. That move had been prompted by the kickoff of work on the recently re-christened 20-story apartment project fronting Chelsea Blvd. (The Carter, formerly known as Chelsea Montrose), which took a big bite out of a once-extensive parking area.
Stage Shuffle
- 2018 Branard St. [HAR]
