An expansive deck with pool for physical therapy (top) links a home and its back-of-lot studio apartment at a Montrose compound, which started October as a $795K listing. Recent updates to the 1922 bungalow (above) included new AC, duct work, and wallboard. The studio space was added in 2012. Located east of Stanford St. near Lovett Blvd., the property is within walking — or rolling — distance of many neighborhood restaurants.
Here are a few views of the 11-story spec office building planned for the north side of the Montrose Blvd. bridge over the Southwest Fwy., across the street from Kam’s Fine Chinese Cuisine. And yes, it appears developers Griffin Partners really do intend to call the inside-the-Loop project Bridgeview Crossing. The design by Kirksey Architecture includes a single 1,500-sq.-ft. retail space facing Montrose, but the rest of the building at 4503 Montrose Blvd. is all business: 5 floors of office space sitting on top of a 6-level parking garage.
The design’s surface treatments, however, play down that simple offices-over-cars division, presenting instead a glassy-and-griddy front to Hwy. 59 on the south:
SNIFFING OUT THE SUBTLE SECRETS OF THE ROTHKO CHAPEL 
Exploring the Menil’s quiet, deep-purple monument, the Chronicle‘s Leah Binkovitz turns up a couple new lines of investigation: “In a turn Rothko, with his proscriptions for proper viewing, could never have anticipated, the chapel has its own Yelp page. ‘Whatever, some people don’t like to think too much about life and what our place is and if you’re one of those people, this isn’t the place for you,’ writes Eric J. in his recent review, ‘You need to head on down to Moody Gardens for “Pirates” or whatever.’ Inside, there’s a collection of Rothko paintings — dark and turbid — that surround the viewer. When the sun sifting through the clerestory shifts, the purple panels shine like scars. People meditate on cushions on the ground or lean against each other on the benches. The occasional crinkle of a plastic bag breaks the silence. There’s a smell, a specific Rothko Chapel smell. That’s the first thing two dashing young men in khaki shorts comment on when they leave the chapel.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Ed Uthman [license; cropped]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WE’RE NOWHERE NEAR PEAK MONTROSE 
“I don’t think we’re anywhere close to the peak of property values in Montrose. You can still get an older 1,500 square foot townhome in the area for under $250,000. The average price for a bigger (~2,500sf) recent construction townhome is probably around $600,000. Those prices would be laughably low in comparable neighborhoods in most cities. Gentrification doesn’t really stop halfway like that barring a major economic downturn — once the ball starts rolling like this it just keeps going until the whole neighborhood is gleaming and wealthy. If you think Montrose has reached that point yet, you’re wrong. A fully gentrified urban neighborhood doesn’t have horrible apartment complexes like Takara So or vacant lots and skeazy strip centers on its main commercial street. Gentrification isn’t going to stop in Montrose until you can’t get a new townhome for less than a million or an apartment for less than $1,400.” [Christian, commenting on Gibbs Boats on West Gray and Montrose Is Selling Everything Now] Illustration: Lulu
Remember the fire back in March at those apartments under construction on West Dallas next to the cemetery that destroyed the whole complex except for the parking garage? No big deal if you don’t, because you’d need to adjust your memory anyway. A reader notes to Swamplot that the surviving parking garage is now being demolished as well, months after the singed stick-frame structures around it at JLB Parters’ would-have-been Axis Apartments were carted away. So now you can remember the fire so bad they had to tear the whole thing down — though it took them a while to give up on the garage.
Sawzall-wielding housecutters Dan Havel and Dean Ruck have been carving up 3 condemned homes (from Midtown, the Museum District, and the Third Ward) to gather the raw materials for their latest exhibition, which opens tomorrow in the Art League of Houston gallery, on the occasion of their being declared the Art League’s “Texas Artists of the Year.” Collected wall parts will be stacked in a “bowl-like structure” in the complex’s main gallery (see photo above).
Construction appears to have begun on the site at 3400 Montrose Blvd., where a 30-story apartment tower by Hanover named 3400 Montrose will replace the 10-story 1953 office building formerly on the site. That building was named 3400 Montrose as well, but was also also referred to as “That building with the Skybar on the top floor,” or (later in its life) “Don’t walk along that sidewalk or you might get hit on the head by a limestone panel.” Demolition was completed this past spring. A reader sends Swamplot these views of the corner of Montrose and Hawthorne, where a wooden construction fence has recently gone up.
Photos:Â Swamplot inbox
A LOOK AT SOME OF THE LIQUID POO FLOWING ONTO COLQUITT ST. IN MONTROSE 
A reader wants to be sure Swamplot readers are alerted — as city inspectors, the HPD’s environmental division, and the property manager have already been, the reader says — to the “recurring” problem of raw sewage flowing out from the Takara-So Apartments at 1919 W. Main St. and into neighboring storm drains. The photo at left, taken on Monday, shows the sewage (“you can smell it”) along Colquitt St., pausing for a bit of sun on its way to lower-lying bayous and waterways. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
CANOPY’S NEW WAY IN 
A drive-in customer may have destroyed Canopy’s front door on Wednesday, but a bit of paint and re-engineering (a chair has been removed from the patio to make more room) now guides visitors to the side entrance. A special short-term exhibition of an improvised piece by artist Amy C. Evans now adorns the replacement plywood covering the spot where the car came in; it notes a few items on the restaurant’s menu and points customers both to the way in (through the patio door) and the neon OPEN sign. Well, used-to-be neon: The letters aren’t lighting up anymore after the accident, so more paint has been pressed into service (and applied directly to the window) to recreate their effect, below the still-lit neon tree. [Previously on Swamplot]Â Photo: Swamplot inbox
About 3 years ago, Canopy added an actual canopy to the south side of its spot at the end of the 3939 Montrose strip center. (It required a variance from the city.) More recently, the restaurant has been busy installing a new coffee bar and bar bar in the space next door, which it’ll be expanding into. (Former neighbor Montrose Dry Cleaners relocated further north in the same center a while back.) But the latest addition proceeded much more suddenly: Yesterday afternoon, around 2:30, a customer saw fit to install a drive-thru directly in front of the restaurant, by stepping on the gas pedal while under the impression that the car was in reverse.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THAT MONTROSE LOOK 
“If you really look at the building, it resembles a typical three story townhome, shrunk and widened to one level. Even the arched facade mimics the townhome in the background. And let’s face, the neighborhood behind it is rapidly becoming a majority townhome area if it isn’t already. So maybe it does resemble the neighborhood after all. . . .
If you seriously look at Montrose, it is just a polyglot of everything. A lot of it is butt ugly but the trees and grown out landscaping obscure it. My neighborhood and its adjacents are filled with homes, apartments, offices, etc. spanning 90 years of different styles and much of it is seemingly incompatible if viewed as a single entity. That is Montrose. It ain’t The Woodlands!” [JT, commenting on Raising Cane’s Is Almost Ready To Grab the Corner of Hazard and Westheimer with Its Chicken Fingers] Illustration: Lulu
The signs are now up at the new building under construction at 1902 Westheimer Rd., across the street from the Winlow Westheimer shopping center. And they say: Raising Cane’s. And that means your center-of-Montrose drive-thru chicken finger spot will be opening very soon. Raising Cane’s is no stranger to Westheimer; the new restaurant will mark Raising Cane’s fourth location on the street (it’s got the 12201, 7531, and 5015 spots already). But this’ll be the first one inside the Loop.
More pics of Lower Westheimer’s fast-food future:
THE EMPTY LOT ON WESTHEIMER WHERE THE EDMONT WILL LAND 
This long-vacant lot at the corner of Westheimer and Kueter, next to the Central Houston Animal Hospital and the recently shuttered EJ’s Bar on Ralph St., has been tagged as the future home of the Edmont, a new restaurant being planned by the people behind Paulie’s and Camerata and a former chef at the Vallone’s steakhouse. Paul Petronella, David Keck, and Grant Gordon have hired Abel Design Group to cook up a new restaurant from scratch at 1634 Westheimer — the same site eyed 6 years ago as a possible spot for a 75-room hotel. The restaurant, scheduled to open sometime near the end of 2015, is being named after a different hotel that never existed, though: a Manhattan spot patronized by Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. [Food Chronicles; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
Riverway Properties’ latest plan for a condo building at the corner of Montrose Blvd. and Marshall St. almost triples the number of units planned for the former site of the River Cafe — from 12 in a proposal aired only a few months ago to 34. But the building’s still set at 7 stories. The embiggening was made possible by expanding the building’s footprint onto a neighboring property (the brick house-turned office to the north) — and switching to an entirely different scheme, from a big-name architecture firm. Philip Johnson, who designed the original campus and many of the buildings for the University of St. Thomas a few blocks away, is not coming back from the dead for this project, but Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects, the New York firm that still bears his name, has replaced Element Architects as the building’s designers.
