A BUNCH OF NORTHWEST MALL’S TENANTS MAY SHUT DOWN THIS MONTH 
Swamplot hasn’t heard back from the management office of borderline zombie shopping center Northwest Mall yet to confirm plans for the structure — but some of the mall’s tenants have been advertising their own impending closure, including alcoholic cake shop Bundt Cake-a-holic (which is currently trying to crowdfund its own relocation). Rumors on Reddit and The Leader suggest that a few shops like Thompson’s Antique Center of Texas and the in-mall College of Healthcare Professions will stay open, but that most of the tenants are getting booted for remodeling by March 31st.  [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of Northwest Mall: Moni
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Spring Branch
AN EERIE SURVEY OF NORTHWEST MALL’S APACHES, ALCOHOLICS, AND CHRISTMAS CAST A spiritual throwback to John Nova Lomax’s semi-regular walkumentaries of various Houston neighborhoods is part of January’s edition of Texas Monthly: an account of his recent trek through sorta-back-from-the-dead shopping center Northwest Mall. Lomax ponders the center’s past, present, and future while interviewing the locals (like the photo-ready Santa and elf team) and collecting dramatic snippets of eavesdropped conversation outside the mall’s Alcoholics Anonymous meeting facility (located not too far from the alcoholic bundt cake shop). Lomax writes that he sees the decidedly not-as-decrepit-as-it-used-to-be complex, complete with mysteriously closed Southern Apache Museum and $2 hurricane simulation tube, as a “window into modern, cosmopolitan Houston,” noting that “today’s Northwest Mall is more identifiably Bayou City than it was in the boom times. Where it was once just another outpost of corporate American capitalism, it is now as diverse as the city around it. . . . What you will find among these [one-off shops] you will find nowhere else, and the scenes you will take in are often exotic, quirky, or somewhat spooky — and occasionally some combination of all of the above.” [Texas Monthly; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Northwest Mall Entrance C: Moni
The new lessees of 7710 Long Point Rd. — formerly home to all-Mex-no-Tex Otilia’s Mexican Restaurant — announced last week that they’ll be filling the spot with a craft beer bar and restaurant called The Branch. The folks in charge appear to be former Hay Merchant-slash-Underbelly catering head Madeline Cabezut, current Hay Merchant bar manager Kyle Pierson (though Hay Merchant itself is not involved in the project), and former Miller/Coors spokesmodel Amanda Mixon. An entity linked to serial redeveloper Braun Enterprises bought the place last year, after Otilia’s 2014 for-real-this-time shutdown. The trio formally leased the space around the end of September, and plan to have the place open early next year.
Branching Out to Long Point Rd.
KARBACH SALE: SPRING BRANCH INDUSTRIAL STREET NAME TO BECOME ANHEUSER BUSCH BRAND 
Word comes from both parties this morning that local craft beer staple Karbach Brewing Co.will be bought by global beer conglomerate Anheuser Busch-InBev (also currently in the process of buying parts of fellow megabrewer SABMiller’s holdings). The 5-year-old microbrewery, which rapidly outgrew its original warehouse setup on Karbach St. in the industrial sliver between 290 and Hempstead Rd. just outside the Loop, added a new restaurant and more brewing equipment (with room for further future increases) as part of a 2014 overhaul of the property. The brewers told Chris Crowell in April that the annual output had reached around 55,000 barrels by the end of last year; based on their estimated expansion capacity, it doesn’t look like AB-Inbev’s plan to bump up production to 150,000 barrels per year by 2019 would require any major property changes or a move — just some retrofitting. [Anheuser Busch; Previously on Swamplot] Image of new brewery building at 2032 Karbach St.: Andrew M.
- 1705 Huge Oaks St. [HAR]
Comically large ceiling fixture purveyor Big Ass Solutions (the Kentucky-rooted parent company of exactly-what-they-sound-like Big Ass Fans and Big Ass Lights) will be opening its first not-on-the-internet retail space in the West Loop II office-warehouse strip at 1224 N. Post Oak Rd., Mike D. Smith reports. A statue of the company’s donkey mascot will mark the company’s territory in Suite 120, between Yellow Rose Distilling’s whisky operations at the west end of the building and Appliance Parts Depot to the far east. The 1980s office park (pictured above in listing photo form) is nestled in among the cluster of business spaces and warehouses to the northwest of the West-Loop-I-10 junction, across N. Post Oak to the northeast of the all-in-a-row Edwards Marq*E complex, Awty International School, and Beth Yeshurun cemetery.
Here’s a quick peek from last week at work going on inside of the showroom-to-be, currently getting prettied up for the public:
Cooling It on N. Post Oak
Following a few months of permit angst and the placement of a red pig in the parking lot, the N. Shepherd location of Dallas-import pizza join Cane Rosso says it will open this evening at 5pm. Cane Rosso’s other planned Houston spot is still getting worked over on Yoakum St. at Richmond Ave.
Just beating it to the punch this afternoon is the even-longer-delayed 4th location of  Niko Niko’s Greek & American Bakery & Cafe, opening at 3pm in the former Chili’s building across the parking lot from Houston Community College’s Spring Branch campus:
Ovens Finally at the Ready
The ditches ran red in the Spring Branch area yesterday as the billowing 4-alarm fire near Laverne St. at Spring Branch Dr. triggered evacuations and shelter-in-place orders across the surrounding areas. The blaze reportedly started in a home-slash-auto-shop on Laverne and spread next door to the A-1 Custom Packaging warehouse (which transfers large quantities of various industrial liquids into smaller bottles for distribution). Some of those stored chemicals (including the bright red petroleum additive visible in the shot above) made their way into drainage ditches and culverts flowing into Spring Branch itself.
The red additive is non-water-soluble and has been getting pushed around by contract clean-up crews downstream to stop the spread. But contractors cannot, the city says, catch the pesticide that also made its way into the same drainage channels, as it dissolves in water. It’s still unclear how much of the 500 gallons or so thought to have been stored at the site made it all the way into Spring Branch (which flows into Buffalo Bayou south of I-10), but some water quality test results are due back later today.
River Running Red
Update, 12:30 pm: Firefighters are reportedly being warned to watch out for live ammo; also, here’s some video of one of this morning’s explosions.
Update, May 6: The chemicals released by yesterday’s fire turned Spring Branch Creek blood red — photo and more info here.
The fire department posted a long-distance shot this morning of the A1 Custom Packaging warehouse, currently on fire near the intersection of Laverne St. and Spring Branch Dr. north of Longpoint Dr. The 4-alarm blaze (shown above from nearly 9 miles away looking out over 59 across Upper Kirby) is about a quarter mile from Spring Branch Elementary School, which KPRC reports is being evacuated. Roughly 500 students and teachers are being bussed to the Coleman Community Coliseum about 5 miles west-by-southwest, at 1050 Dairy Ashford Rd.
Noting the release of hazardous chemicals, the city’s emergency notification system recommends that anyone not evacuating the square formed by Blalock Rd., Bingle Rd., Westview Dr., and Hammerly Blvd. (shaded in red on the map above) should close their windows, turn off the AC and ventilation systems, and maybe have a go at sealing up cracks with duct tape and plastic sheeting.
Smoke Signals from Laverne St.
Developer MetroNational is calling the 6-story Energy Corridor District office building and parking garage it officially announced today “the first step in expanding Memorial City north of I-10.” The 240,000-sq.-ft. structure planned for 10100 Katy Fwy. will house 15,000 sq. ft. of retail space on its ground floor — but the rendering of the building designed by Powers Brown Architecture sent out by the company does make the development look like an outpost in an even more suburban office park. As Swamplot reported last week, Mexican building-materials company Cemex will be leasing 80,000 sq. ft. in the complex for its U.S. headquarters.
New Cemex HQ
Not a whole lot has been going on at the former Chili’s at 1040 West Sam Houston Tollway next to the HCC Spring Branch campus, a reader notes. Last September, Montrose-born Greek restaurant Niko Niko’s announced it would be opening its fourth Houston-area location there, near the overpasses connecting I-10 to Beltway 8.
Not There Yet
MetroNational appears to have concrete plans for the new development it’s putting together for the 24-acre corner of Gessner Rd. and the Katy Fwy. feeder directly across I-10 from the company’s distinctive headquarters: It’s already signed up building materials company Cemex USA to become the lead tenant in a new office building intended for a portion of the site, a source tells Swamplot. The company will be leasing around 80,000 sq. ft. of space in the Energy Gateway District.
What looks to be the last structure standing in the way of MetroNational’s hush-hush Energy Gateway District project across I-10 from its headquarters is now ready for its exit. The 32-year-old PoMo style strip center at 1055 Gessner Rd., which formerly housed an HPD substation, Terrace Limousine, and the Asiana Garden restaurant, appears fenced off and ready for demolition in this photo sent to Swamplot by a reader. The center stands at the far northern end of the 24-acre property, which — following the city’s approval of a variance request last month — will be bisected by the extension of Mathewson Ln. to Gessner Rd. from Conrad Sauer Rd.
- Previously on Swamplot: Hints of MetroNational’s Energy Gateway District in Conrad Sauer Detention Basin Redo Plans
Photo: Bayan Raji
Going Soon
Here’s a purty watercolor-filtered drawing that shows how a portion of the concrete-lined Conrad Sauer Detention Basin extending north from the I-10 feeder road between Gessner and Conrad Sauer Dr. is supposed to look after MetroNational and TIRZ 17 upgrade it into a grassy, bike-lane-crossed area with park space that improves on its current ditch functions. It sits directly across the little ol’ Katy Fwy. from MetroNational’s ‘Death Star‘ HQ; the normally secretive company reveals a tiny bit about its plans for the area around the detention basin, lining the northwest corner of Gessner and the outbound I-10 feeder, in a variance application that’s scheduled to be discussed and possibly voted on in a planning commission meeting this Thursday.
MetroNational is calling the cleared 24-acre site (shown below) the Energy Gateway District.
From the Death Star to You
