Neighborhood

Featured Posts
03/13/17 11:30am

Wabash Feed Store Back Up for Sale Again After All

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Washington Ave, Washington Corridor
5 Comments

Wabash Feed and Garden Store, 5701 Washington Ave., Houston, 77007

The greying former site of the Wabash Feed & Garden Store is fully back on the market again, after high hopes for a new Creek Group restaurant on the site slowly faded into lengthy delays and an eventual leasing sign out front last year. Nancy Sarnoff notes in the Chronicle that the property went back up for sale last month, looking somewhat more worn down than the first time. A glance at CBRE’s marketing materials for the site shows many of the recent newcomers to the garden store’s stretch of Washington Ave., including the new storage midrise across the street, and the Pearl and Elan apartment complexes each about 2 blocks away in opposite directions from the just-over-half-an-acre property:

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Washed Out on Wash Ave
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Comments
03/10/17 5:30pm

Comment of the Day: Your Weekend Heights-Creep Forecast

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Houston Heights, Quicklink
5 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOUR WEEKEND HEIGHTS-CREEP FORECAST Future Yale Marketplace site at Yale St. and 610 Loop, Garden Oaks/Independence Heights, Houston, 77018“Garden Oaks and Oak Forest are [already] part of The Heights (the same way they are calling Spring Branch ‘Memorial’, and a lot of long time residents were angry that new residents called Northside Village ‘Tampico Heights’). I have bad news for the purists out there: if you live in Cottage Grove, Independence Heights, Shady Acres, Brooke Smith, Timbergrove/Lazybrook, those areas are now part of The Heights [as well].  . . . These hoods that have the 365 stores are gonna get more pricey and popular, since they are close to Downtown.” [Dj, commenting on Whole Foods’s 365 Garden Oaks Spot Now Emptied of Neff Rental Rentals] Rendering of 365 Garden Oaks: Boucher Design Group

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Featured Posts
03/10/17 2:00pm

Komatsu Now Taking Swings on Sam Houston MSTC’s Baseball Field, Where the New School Will Go

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Northline
1 Comment

9400 Irvington Blvd., Northline, Houston, 77076

The clearout of Sam Houston Math Science and Technology Center’s sports fields has begun, a reader notes this week. The school’s campus is squeezed in between the angled track of the Hardy Toll Rd. and north-south-running Irvington Blvd., just north of Tidwell Rd.; the existing 1950’s school building at the south end (which HISD says is the lost heir to one of the relocated and renamed Houston Academy schools founded downtown in the 1800s) will be knocked down to make room for new athletic fields, once the new building is up. The district says the first phase of the campus fliparound should be ready in time for the 2019-2020 school year; plans and renderings for the completed project show dedicated facilities for performing arts, autoshop, cosmetology, and more:  CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Northline Realignment
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Featured Posts
03/10/17 11:15am

Steel Recreation Steps In for Ejected Sixties Mod Basketball Court in Meadowcreek Village Park

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Meadowcreek
4 Comments

Meadowcreek Park Basketball Pavilion, 5333 Berry Creek Dr., Meadowcreek Village, Houston, 77017

Demolition of Meadowcreek Park Basketball Pavilion, 5333 Berry Creek Dr., Meadowcreek Village, HoustonThe arched pavilion in Meadowcreek Park that was knocked down in 2015 has officially been replaced, after a few years of neighborhood-city back-and-forth to push for the new structure’s design to look a lot more like the old one. The court, pictured up top complete except for the addition of the hoops and backboards to the posts at the opposing ends, got a ceremonial fabric snipping yesterday evening, Lauren Meyers tells Swamplot. This version of the structure appears to lack the thin vertical bars that closed off one side of the original, as visible both in the mid-act demolition portrait above and in this shot from the 1970s: 

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What’s Old is New Again
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Featured Posts
03/09/17 5:30pm

Alexan Heights Holdout House Where the Skeleton Was Found Last Weekend Now Up for Sale

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Homes for Sale, Houston Heights
8 Comments

610 Allston St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77007

The 2-bedroom home snuggled into the western side of the Alexan Heights apartment complex has hit the market this week, lagging a few days behind this weekend’s discovery of an unidentified skeleton in a wall cavity accessible from the attic. The holdout house was foreclosed on in early 2015 after then-owner Mary Cerruti stopped making mortgage payments; it’s not clear exactly when she went missing, but she reportedly sent someone a Valentine, the Chronicle‘s Emily Foxhall reported earlier this week.  Foxhall noted that while the bones were uncovered along with a pair of cheap red glasses like the ones Cerruti was known to wear, the skeleton had not yet been officially identified (nor had foul play been ruled either in or out).

The recently remodeled house is currently on the market for $439,900; the 1,161-sq.-ft. building sits on a 6,600-sq.-ft. lot, spooned on 3 sides by the Alexan:

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Selling the Scene
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Featured Posts
03/09/17 1:15pm

A $2 Million Mod in Piney Point and Its Multiple Peoplequariums

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, Piney Point Village
15 Comments

327-tynebridge-ln-013

327 Tynebridge Ln., Piney Point, TX 77024

From the street, the bits of the facade of this 1970 home in Piney Point visible through the swath of greenery are mostly covered over in stone — but the sides and remainder of the house features numerous floor-to-ceiling windows and glass walls (not only separating the mirrored bath chamber above from the master suite, but separating a fully indoor pool from the dining room and living room areas). The 3-bedroom home went on the market originally for around $2.4 million, but the asking price dropped to $1,995,000 late last fall. Other conspicuous features include what the home’s listing describes as 20-pound sheets of copper wallpaper employed in the master bedroom, extensive mirroring around the house, and the dense swirl of fantastical beasts wallpapered onto the kitchen ceiling:

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Low Profile off Tynewood
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Featured Posts
03/09/17 10:45am

Original 59 Diner Spot Stripped Back Down After Latest Costume Quick-Change, Back Up for Lease

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Shepherd Plaza
3 Comments

3801 Farnham St., Shepherd Triangle, Houston, 77098

3801 Farnham St., Shepherd Triangle, Houston, 77098As a couple of commenters pieced together recently, the original 59 Diner spot at the curvy intersection of Farnham St. and Shepherd Dr. is back up for lease again, after a number of name- and face-changes in quick succession. After a 2-month interlude as El Beso Cantina, new signage and menus were deployed to rebrand the spot as Another Broken Yolk Cafe — which advertised itself online as a non-24-hour spot, though still bearing the tiny 24-Hrs Breakfast dot above the main entrance.

Almost immediately after that, the spot shut down again — another reader grabbed these photos of the building yesterday, noting that the only remaining signage on the site is the dot above the main entrance and the Closed For Remodeling note on the door. The property appears to have gone back on the market for lease around the last week of February, shortly before or after that new signage (shown below, but since removed) was being installed along Shepherd:

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Sticking Around on Shepherd
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Featured Posts
03/08/17 4:30pm

Whole Foods’s 365 Garden Oaks Spot Now Emptied of Neff Rental Rentals

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Garden Oaks, Independence Heights
11 Comments

Future Yale Marketplace site at Yale St. and 610 Loop, Garden Oaks/Independence Heights, Houston, 77018
Neff Rental at Yale St. and 610, Garden Oaks/ Independence Heights, Houston, 77018Several readers reported this morning that the Garden Oaks-Independence Heights border location of construction equipment rental shop Neff Rental, on the northeast corner of Yale St. and the North Loop, has been clearing out this week. That’s a prerequisite step before any new construction equipment can be moved back onto the site, to start work on the 365 Garden Oaks store Whole Foods has planned for the property (as rendered above).

Plans for the corner depict the mini-store accompanied by both attached and freestanding retail spots, 3 of which have pending leases with a dentist, a cellphone company, and a medical business respectively, according to the marketing materials trying to hawk the remaining space (highlighted in yellow):

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Yale Marketplace Marketing
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Comments
03/08/17 3:45pm

Comment of the Day: Bootstrapping Innovation While Giving UT the Boot

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Quicklink, South Main
4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: BOOTSTRAPPING INNOVATION WHILE GIVING UT THE BOOT UT Houston Campus Site, Buffalo Lakes, Houston“It’s absolutely surreal to see these extraordinarily non-innovative approaches to becoming an innovation hub. Does anyone really think ‘being innovative’ is a status that one can inherit, or subcontract out, or buy like a product? . . . Also, I can’t help but wonder how much of this push for innovation was based on an expectation of that UT grad-student center being built. It would seem Houston’s last chance to be an actual center for innovation walked out the door along with that project.” [justaswell, commenting on Houston’s Innovation Problem; Sneak Peek at The Carter Penthouses] Conceptual rendering of cancelled UT Houston campus: UT System

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Featured Posts
03/08/17 12:30pm

Aging L-Shaped Office on Yale St. Scraped Away for Shiny New Retail Strip Installation

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Houston Heights, Restaurants
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2723 Yale St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008
2723 Yale St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

As heralded by last Wednesday’s daily demolition report, the low-slung insurance and marketing office building at 2723 Yale St. is now in tatters. The post-smashing shot above was taken in a drive-by by a reader yesterday (who notes this morning that most of the debris has since been hauled off).

Planned for the lot is a new strip center being marketed by East Village developer Ancorian as a retail-office-restaurant mashup, “anchored” by the mini Whole Foods in the works across 610. The property is loosely sandwiched between the combination KFC-Taco Bell to the south and the side-by-side Burger King and new El Rey sitting along the North Loop feeder road (visible to the right).

Renderings of the proposed strip show a mix of brick, wood, metal grating, glass, and patches of other skin materials; a Newquest Properties leasing flier shows the building turning away from Yale St. to face W. 28th St., behind a thick protective later of parking:

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Cleaning Up in the Heights
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Downtown
03/08/17 11:00am

A Pair of Departures from the Former Two Shell Plaza Tunnels

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Retail
3 Comments

Closed restaurants in 811 Louisiana tunnels, 811 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

Closed restaurants in 811 Louisiana tunnels, 811 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, 77002The latest report from Swamplot’s anonymous tunnel correspondent indicates that neighboring Asian fast casual and counter spots Thai Spice and Sidewalk Cafe appear to have both closed in the tunnel beneath 811 Louisiana (also previously and variously known as Two Shell Plaza or 777 Walker. Signage from the building’s management folks went up by the end of February, and the Thai Spice branch’s phone number is now out of service as well. An outdated leasing flier still up on the 811 Louisiana LoopNet page shows the layout of the spaces amid the rest of the tunnel stretch, between the Esperson building and the tower at 611 Walker:

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Out and About Downtown
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Lawsuits
03/07/17 4:30pm

Harris County Getting In on the Pasadena Refinery Air Pollution Lawsuit Action

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Pasadena, Pollution, Quicklink
No Comments

HARRIS COUNTY GETTING IN ON THE PASADENA REFINERY AIR POLLUTION LAWSUIT ACTION Pasadena Refinery System plant at 111 Red Bluff Rd., Pasadena, TX 77506In the wake of the lawsuit the Sierra Club and Environment Texas filed last week alleging that the century-old Pasadena Refining System plant has violated the federal Clean Air Act some thousands of times, Harris County attorney Vince Ryan has filed another suit against the plant.  This one’s to do with the facility allegedly breaking state level environmental laws, Diana Wray writes in this week’s Houston Press; incidents of particular note include last summer’s major sulfur dioxide leak, which briefly shut down both the nearby Washburn Tunnel and the rest of the Ship Channel (while sending Galena Park into duck-and-cover mode). Wray writes that both lawsuits seem mostly geared toward getting the plant to clean up its act; each suit also has the potential to require that some kind of compliance watchdog or overseer be assigned to plant to ensure that it’s doing so. [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Pasadena Refinery Systems, Inc. plant at 111 Red Bluff Rd.: Center for Land Use Interpretation (license)

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Featured Posts
03/07/17 1:15pm

Nett St. Bungalow Bar-To-Be Drops Athletic Club Claims

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Washingto Corridor, West End
1 Comment

4504 Nett St., Washington Corridor, Houston, 77007

4504 Nett St., Washington Corridor, Houston, 77007The little house on the angular 10,000-sq.-ft. lot along Patterson St. (wedged between Nett St. and the railroad tracks that run along scattered segments of Allen St.) is looking more like a bar these days, now that a tentacled tree logo has been applied to the side of the building. That logo doesn’t match the name originally picked for the spot on its TABC application — Mission Athletic Club and Drinkery — but a few other aspects of the plan have likely changed since 2015 as well, given the handful of revisions to the house-to-bar conversion plans on file with the city (the most recent of which dates to January).

Some digging around has been going on in the property’s yard of late:

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Digging In off Washington Ave.
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