Washington Corridor

Freeways and Toll Roads
04/12/10 9:19am

Setting Sail Again: Studemont Billboard Flagship

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New Construction, Washington Corridor
18 Comments

Checking in from a center lane of I-10 heading east, a longtime Swamplot correspondent has a few questions for informed readers:

This ginormous new billboard structure went up last week at the CBS Outdoor HQ on Studemont at I-10. Is it legal? Was there a similar steel mega-billboard there before the remodeling of I-10, which obliged CBS (then Clear Channel Outdoor) to demolish part of the north end of its building? And what will become of this monstrous two-legged wedge-shaped structure when the feeder road will eventually be extended from Studewood to Taylor — will it be taken down, moved 100 feet and set up again?

Update: As noted in the comments, Off the Kuff has a slightly earlier photo of the naked billboard.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Houston Heights
04/01/10 11:57am

A Hush in Retail Traffic from the Washington Quiet Zone

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Retail, Traffic, Transportation, Washington Corridor
28 Comments

Several retail outlets near the railroad tracks at the base of Heights Blvd. near Center St. are complaining that traffic changes accompanying the new Washington Ave. quiet zone have already hurt their businesses. Department of Public Works spokesperson Alvin Wright tells Channel 39’s Jason Volentine that Federal Railroad Administration requirements mandate that crossovers through the Heights Blvd. median near the tracks be closed off for the quiet zone to be implemented.

Without a quiet zone, train conductors are required to blast their horns at all at-grade crossings. The Washington quiet zone will extend from Sherwin St. north of I-10, to National, about a quarter-mile east of Studewood:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Openings and Closings
03/25/10 11:22am

What’s Been Cooking for So Long at Phil’s Texas Barbecue

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Renovations, Restaurants, Washington Corridor
12 Comments

Yes, that’s the former Southwest Muffler and Brake building at the corner of Heights Blvd. and Washington Ave., under new design management. At last, reports a reader, there’s a sign out front indicating the impending opening of Phil’s Texas Barbecue. And in such a tiny little 7,000-sq.-ft. building!

Our reader comments:

While I welcome the addition to the Washington corridor, this place violates Rule No. 1 of successful eatery: a restaurant that spends too much money on looks spends not enough on food. Consider me a hopeful skeptic.

And you haven’t even seen the landscaping yet! Construction has been ongoing since last September. When will those ribs be ready?

An earlier view of that front patio:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Downtown
03/22/10 5:31pm

The Little Downtown Electric Shuttle Service Earns a Badge

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Midtown, Transportation, Washington Corridor
1 Comment

“So the Eco-Shuttle looks a little funny with the new #Jitney decals,” tweet the folks behind the REV Houston service. Why are those little white electric vehicles that drive passengers around Downtown, parts of Midtown, and the Washington Corridor for tips only now wearing Jitney decals?

Because the REV shuttles, long a favorite citation target of city permitting officials, are now street legal. And here’s the technicolor medallion to prove it:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Comments
03/22/10 2:00pm

Comment of the Day: Lost in the Nozone

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Development Regulations, Midtown, Quicklink, Washington Corridor
3 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOST IN THE NOZONE “It always strikes me as odd that most major developers who operate in Houston also operate in cities with strict zoning, determined planning, and even architectural review boards with much success, but some Houstonians continue to think that they will abandon this city if we enact any of the same. They are clueless. Post Properties wrote Houston off in part because of the lack of stricter planning guidelines – which resulted in their Midtown project becoming an island of urban living surrounded by parking lots and suburban style development. (CVS, are you listening) . . . Midtown has become a mishmash of disjointed development with the opportunity for creating the city’s best urban environment lost for decades. The same debacle is happening right now in the Washington Corridor. Area groups have fought for years to get the city to enact and enforce very basic planning guidelines for Washington Ave like wider walkable sidewalks of 6′-8′ instead of 3′, and guidelines to bring storefronts to the streetfront instead of parking lots. A couple of developers have instituted these features on their own, but most have not, so once again we have an area that looks very disjointed, is confusing to navigate, and very unfriendly to the many people who would like to park once and walk between the many new businesses. . . .” [John, commenting on Extending Metro’s Main St. Rail Line to Fort Bend County]

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Buying and Selling
03/16/10 10:54am

Train Coming in for Those Heights Blvd. Track-Side Townhomes?

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Homes for Sale, Real Estate Marketing, Townhomes, Washington Corridor
9 Comments

A reader writes in to share the exciting news that one of those Northgate Custom Homes townhouses on Heights Blvd. that’s snuggled up next to the train tracks and just behind the recycling center on Center St. is now listed as “option pending” on MLS. Readers chose the complex as the city’s Best Vacancy in the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate just a few months ago. Is someone buying right next to the tracks?

Well, not exactly. 114 Heights Blvd. Unit B, priced at $309,000, is the one that’s now listed as option pending. It’s shielded from those noisy trains by the full 20-or-so-ft. width of the adjacent townhome, Unit A. And here’s the featured view from one of its balconies:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Comments
03/09/10 2:35pm

Comment of the Day: Imagining the H-E-B Heights Revitalization Plan

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Houston Heights, Quicklink, Retail, Washington Corridor
3 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: IMAGINING THE H-E-B HEIGHTS REVITALIZATION PLAN “The Sons of Hermann site would not have to be dry. There used to be a liquor store at the Boulevard and the bayou – Kims #1. Tapping in to all the people who now live within drunks-puking-in-your-driveway distance of Washington makes that site a good choice. Enter from Yale or Heights. Then maybe those condos that are 6 feet from the RR [tracks] would finally sell.” [finness, commenting on H-E-B Plans To Build a Montrose Grocery Store at Wilshire Village]

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Apartments
02/17/10 2:43pm

Comment of the Day: Look Out for Those Tweaked Townhomes!

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Comments, Home Design, Quicklink, Townhomes, Washington Corridor
4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOOK OUT FOR THOSE TWEAKED TOWNHOMES! “. . . My reason for staying away from those townhomes…Any one of those townhomes could be easily tweaked in the future to be 2 apartments. Pair that with the common driveways and you could easily have alot of people sharing a pretty small area.” [justguessin, commenting on Comment of the Day: Here Come the Almeda Promoters]

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Comments
02/15/10 3:45pm

Comment of the Day: Reading the Washington Ave Crystal Ball

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Forecasts, Nightlife, Quicklink, Restaurants, Washington Corridor
14 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: READING THE WASHINGTON AVE CRYSTAL BALL “Eventually people will get sick of having no place to park and the hot spot will move on. Prediction is for Brixx to go out of business within six months, Eight will turn into a restaurant within a year and Taps will probably stay as it is. Not sure about Roosevelt – could become a restaurant as it does have a parking lot of its own.” [MC, commenting on What It’s Like to Live on Center St.]

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Neighborhood Disputes
02/10/10 6:01pm

What It’s Like to Live on Center St.

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Nightlife, Parking, Quicklink, Washington Corridor
56 Comments

WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LIVE ON CENTER ST. From the Houston Press‘s magnum opus on the Washington Avenue scene: “Drunk people walk through the yard, pee on the house, sit on the porch swing and bark at the dogs. They scream and yell and fight until all hours every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, and now during the day on Sunday. The music from District can be clearly heard from the driveway. ‘Right now you could go sit in my bedroom and feel how the house just thuds. The windows rattle,’ [longtime Center St. resident and property owner Helen] Espinoza said. There are constant accidents at the nearby intersection. With police focused on Washington, late-night drag racers take to Center Street. Espinoza says she has a hard time getting cops to come at all. [Neighbor Marie] Martinez, meanwhile, spends much of her time fighting new liquor licenses in court. She can’t hold them off forever, though, and while she’s fighting one bar, others pop up. Five liquor licenses are pending in the area right now. As more nightspots open, more people flood into the neighborhood to park. They block driveways or sometimes just use them, tear up the grass and get stuck in the drainage ditches. Marlene Gafrick, the director of city planning, says her department began working on the parking problems in March and has tried to bring each of the 35 to 40 bars and restaurants up to code. She too must hustle to keep pace with the development. Soon after one bar finally agreed to rent a nearby lot, for instance, the lot went under construction. . . . After a long fight, Espinoza finally won ‘No Parking’ signs on her side of the street. The factory across the way put up its own, with chicken wire, along its long and tall chain-link fence. People just cut them down.” [Houston Press]

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Adaptive Reuse
02/04/10 1:45pm

Houstonians Now Eat Their Vegetables in the Strangest Places

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Houston Heights, Midtown, Old Sixth Ward, Quicklink, Restaurants, Washington Corridor
5 Comments

HOUSTONIANS NOW EAT THEIR VEGETABLES IN THE STRANGEST PLACES Food and travel writer Salma Abdelnour, who grew up here, takes New York Times travel section readers on a tour of 5 Houston restaurants carved out of former something-or-others: the car dealership that became Reef, the ice house that became Beaver’s, the burlap factory that became Textile, the appliance warehouse that became Block 7 Wine Company. Somehow the spaghetti-western-themed strip center that ultimately became Stella Sola gets mixed up in this crowd (Abdelnour calls the building a “town house”). She adds: “In the film ‘Urban Cowboy,’ based in Houston and nearby Pasadena, the mother of the John Travolta character told him, ‘You just can’t get good vegetables in Houston.’ You certainly can now.” [New York Times] Photo of Stella Sola: 2Scale Architects

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Discovery Green
02/03/10 3:43pm

How Does a Nice Meal at Discovery Green Sound?

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Downtown, Restaurants, Washington Corridor
21 Comments

The Wall Street Journal‘s Katy McLaughlin picks on a few loud restaurants:

Many of the most cutting-edge, design conscious restaurants are introducing a new level of noise to today’s already voluble restaurant scene. The new noisemakers: Restaurants housed in cavernous spaces with wood floors, linen-free tables, high ceilings and lots of windows—all of which cause sound to ricochet around what are essentially hard-surfaced echo chambers.

Upscale restaurants have done away with carpeting, heavy curtains, tablecloths, and plush banquettes gradually over the decade, and then at a faster pace during the recession, saying such touches telegraph a fine-dining message out of sync with today’s cost-conscious, informal diner. Those features, though, were also sound absorbing. . . .

Restaurateurs often say the only complaints they get about noise are from older clientele. As people age—and particularly when they are 65 or older—they often lose acuity in hearing high-frequency sounds, making it harder to understand speech, says Mark Ross, a professor emeritus of audiology at the University of Connecticut.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Nightlife
01/22/10 12:27pm

Here Come Bee Love and Special Sauce: The Corkscrew Twists Itself Into Something Hard and Fruity

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Old Sixth Ward, Openings and Closings, Washington Corridor
17 Comments

The Corkscrew wine bar at 1919 Washington Ave. will be closing for good on February 9th. Appearing in its place by March will be a new “organic bar” from the same owners. Bee Love will serve infused cocktails and other drinks with fresh, local, organic ingredients and no syrups or mixes, reports the HBJ‘s Allison Wollam. And the bar will grow its own limes, oranges, and lemons.

[Corkscrew co-owner] Andrew Adams, who also owns The Washington Avenue Drinkery at 4115 Washington Ave., says it may take a little longer to get a drink at Bee Love than at other rowdy bars along the Washington Avenue corridor because the drinks will be made for “experiencing,” not just drinking.

Adams also says that by the end of March he plans to open a new over-30 nightclub right next door to Bee Love. It’ll be called Trixie’s and feature eighties music.

Photo: Heights Blog

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Attractions
11/11/09 6:50pm

Openings and Closings: That Flood of New Establishments

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Baytown, Downtown, East Montrose, Galveston, Houston Heights, Hyde Park, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Spring Branch, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby, Washington Corridor, West End
2 Comments

So much new stuff going on it’s impossible to keep track of it all!

  • Opening Soon? A new “Houston Ave. Bar” at the site of the former Farmers Coffee Shop on the corner of Houston Ave. and White Oak. Here’s the evidence: A permit for a “2 story addition” to the property was approved by the city last month. The corner is already a popular gathering place for floodwaters — several commenters on HAIF have posted photos of the intersection after Hurricane Ike (see above) and Tropical Storm Allison.
  • Moved: The Central City Co-op Wednesday market, from that Ecclesia space next to the Taft St. Coffee House to new digs at the Grace Lutheran Church at 2515 Waugh, just north of Missouri St. Sunday markets are still at Discovery Green. Next up for the co-op crew: Selling enough veggies to pay off those loans used for the church buildout.
  • Opening Softly, Later This Month: A place called Canopy, from the folks who brought you that place called Shade. Claire Smith and Russell Murrell’s new restaurant will go in the spot where Tony Ruppe’s was, in the double-decked strip center at 3939 Montrose, reports Cleverley Stone. Three meals a day, 7 days a week, plus 3 seating areas:

    a bright and refreshing dining room, festive bar and side street patio. We will eventually offer curbside “to go” service.

  • Opening Early Next Month: The brand-new Dessert Shoppe, in the strip center portion of 19th Streete in the Heights. Fred Eats Houston writes that sisters Sara and RaeMarie Villar will be serving up “whole cakes and pies to individual desserts, along with assorted breakfast pastries, cookies, quiches, cupcakes, and some breads.”
  • Reopened, for the First Time Since Ike: The Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Galveston. The combined boards of the International Shriners and Shriners Hospitals for Children had originally decided to close the hospital for good, after 30 inches of water wandered through the building’s first floor during the Hurricane. Shriners voting at this summer’s convention in San Antonio reversed that decision. The new hospital will have a smaller staff and budget. The Chronicle‘s Todd Ackerman reports that the hospital should already be open for reconstructive surgery cases; burn victims will have to wait until December for treatment.

And yet even more new stuff:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Apartments
09/23/09 6:45pm

Comment of the Day: Apartment Model Showings

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Comments, Leasing, Montrose, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Washington Corridor
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: APARTMENT MODEL SHOWINGS “If ‘Nudist sundeck + 1 hired model –> 100% occupancy’ was the case, then the Core (on Washington Ave) and Bel Air (on Allen Parkway) and many others in the similiar ‘scene’ and price range would be at 100% occupancy too. But they are not. BTW, the Bel Air pool is really really nice!” [irfan, commenting on Taking More Than Half Off at Those Apartments with the French Quarter Look]

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