TOPAZ VILLAS PLANS GET POLISHED BACK UP AS OTHER MONTROSE CONDO PROJECTS FOLD 
Ron Lozoff is preparing to break ground next month on his Topaz Villas luxury condo project, reports Paul Takahashi this morning. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Lozoff said the same thing in June of 2014; the project was put on hold shortly thereafter as oil prices plummeted. The 15-unit midrise is once again planned for 4520 Yoakum Blvd., overlooking a scenic stretch of US 59 to south; the site sits about a 2 minute drive from Riverway’s recently cancelled 34-unit 3516 Montrose site (itself only 5 minutes away from Butler Brothers’ cancelled 14-unit Flats on Fairview site). Takahashi writes that Lozoff will begin marketing more seriously once construction begins next month, and that the developer believes “the condo market is strong[er] than it’s ever been in the last 15 years.“ [Houston Business Journal] Rendering of proposed 6-story condo midrise: Topaz Villas
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University of St. Thomas
Here’s a peek from Colquitt St. at the early stages of the new science and healthcare center shooting up where the University of St. Thomas’s athletics fields used to be. Construction kicked off back in November, and at least part of the complex is expected to be ready for action some time in 2017. First off the line in Phase I should be the nursing school, along with the biology and chemistry departments.
No signs yet on the site of the winding astronomy tower that appears to be floating up through a hole in the trellis canopy enclosing the complex’s central courtyard, in the renderings from EYP. The planned tower would send students spiraling up above the center’s roof to an astronomy observation deck. The glassy base of the structure is shown hovering above a water feature:
To Astronomical Heights
BIENVENIDOS, BRICK AND SPOON 
Eater Houston’s Darla Guillen reports that brunch and bloody mary purveyor Brick & Spoon is almost ready to open in Montrose after renovating the spot to which Bocados said adiós at 1312 W. Alabama, just across the street from the University of St. Thomas. Owners of the Louisiana chain Bryan Jewell and Ryan Trahan tell Guillen that they will be ready to go November 11. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Bocados: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
Here’s a view of the 4-story, 93,760-sq.-ft. performing arts center the University of St. Thomas plans to build on the northwest corner of its Montrose campus, on the full city block bounded by West Alabama, Yupon, Sul Ross, and Graustark. A feature article on the project in the university’s magazine describes the site provocatively as being “adjacent to the Menil Collection,” but it’s really catty-corner to the Menil block that contains the Rothko Chapel, a long block east of the Menil’s famed shielded-by-bungalows main building. In the drawing above you’re looking at the new UST center from high above the Rothko Chapel’s east lawn, toward the corner of Sul Ross and Yupon.
A Swamplot correspondent, concerned that readers of this site
so often have “before” and “after” photos, but rarely a “during”
sends in these action shots from this morning, showing the demolition-in-progress of the University of St. Thomas’s Augustine Living-Learning Community at 4119 Graustark.
UST’s news department reports that the building’s destruction will at last allow the liberation of the programs formerly sequestered within:
. . . the heart of the Living-Learning Community, an intensive experience in the integration of faith, academics and life, will continue to beat in a program bearing a new name – Augustine-Without-Walls.
“The name signifies more than the removal of the residence’s brick exterior: the program will now be open to all UST students who want to share in Augustine events, which focus on integrating academic learning with faith convictions and real everyday life,†said Sister Paula Jean Miller, FSE, Augustine-Without-Walls Program director.
