- 3418 High Pine Ct. [HAR]
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Neighborhood
The rendering at top from Texas real estate firm Hunington shows off what Rex Supply’s double-block complex along the Green Line would look like redone with a shop-lined pedestrian zone dubbed Rex Alley at its heart, where Everton St. is now. The full setting is called Milby Junction and would be carved from the array of industrial buildings that sit on either side of the north-south road between Harrisburg Blvd. and Preston St. right now. The 2 biggest are shown preserved in the map above, along with a house to the northwest that appears to play no part in Hunington’s plans.
An L-shaped building adjacent to the house is the one goner. It’s visible just north of the structure labeled REX SUPPLY in the view below from the corner of Harrisburg and Milby:
Milby Junction
In the span of just 3 days, the Heights Jack in the Box has closed down and abandoned both its sky- and street-level boxes. The photo above shows the empty store and its parking lot off Shepherd, where a green cherry-picker‘s now the only vehicle present.
The property’s longtime owner — a national real estate firm that owns the land beneath lots of fast food joints — sold it in 2016, which was a transformational year for the rest of the intersection as well. A few months later, Abel Motors left its spot across Shepherd, making way for the Burger Joint that’s now moving in. And on the south side of 20th St., pizza joint Mellow Mushroom and adjacent desert shop Moody Ice opened up — in what used to be Dealer Sales‘ garage and office building.
The Leftovers
- 15336 Cardinal Trl. [HAR]
The chain’s new 3004 Yale St. location opens next Friday, September 28 in the strip behind the 4-week-old grocery store and its parking lot off 610. Just off-camera to the left of the gym’s spot is the Verizon store that’s already doing business in the retail building.
It’s holding down the fort all by itself right now, but once Orangetheory moves in next door a bunch more tenants are expected to follow:
Independence Heights
A Swamplot reader sends this photo of an excavator limbering up before the main event at 1638 Bonnie Brae St. Sandcastle Homes bought the nearly 90-year-old building in July and filed plans to build a new house on the property last month. It’s nestled within the Montrose sub-neighborhood known as Castle Court, a few doors down from Dunlavy St.
Photo: Swamplox inbox
Castle Court Crackup
- 8006 Beaufort Dr. [HAR]
As heralded by strange sensations earlier this month, crews have begun transforming the former Montrose Mining Company into Houston’s second Postino Wine Bar by stripping the covered patio shown above from the building’s east side. So far, the rest of its gray brick exterior remains unchanged, except a portion of the facade on Grant St. that’s recently gone yellow as part of the redo:
805 Pacific St.
EMPTY LEELAND ST. FURNITURE WORKSHOP NOW HAS A WINE SIGN ON IT 
A reader tells Swamplot one of those TABC posters is up on the building at 3107 Leeland St., and the applicant it names: The Wine House, LLC. The last tenant Metamorphose Studios did double-duty in the 2,800-sq.-ft. space: dealing furniture and also guiding visitors in the art of refurbishing items themselves (“I recommend the chairapy class,” wrote the venue’s sole Yelp reviewer in 2016, adding that of the items for sale: “The hand painted and embellished cattle skulls are to die for!“) Despite its departure from Houston, the workshop lives on as part of an antique store up in Navasota. Photo: Metamorphose Studios
Signage is down and a closure notice is up on Blast Fitness’s now-former 3936 N. Shepherd storefront, which lies within the northern portion of the strip that Aldi plans to take over. Pictured above is that portion — just south of Garden Oaks Blvd. — where Yoga Collective and a next-door vacuum shop took off previously to make room for the grocer. Blast’s turf was on the south side of theirs, near where retail signs and parking activity pick back up on the right in the image.
For those in need of a new gym, not to worry: Blast is letting customers transfer their memberships to any location run by its affiliate brand Fitness Connection. The nearest of that chain’s 14 Houston fitness centers? Eight miles away in Greenspoint Mall.
- Previously on Swamplot: Aldi Is Making Its Move into the Garden Oaks Shopping Center; ALDI Taking the Yoga Collective’s Spot in Garden Oaks; Other New Tenants in the Works; What’s Going Into the Garden Oaks Box the Yoga Collective Is Being Kicked Out Of?
Photos: Dan Bradley
Clearing the Way
- 302 Shadywood Rd. [HAR]
Most of the corrugated metal buildings that occupied the inner sanctum at 620 W. 9th St. are down now, but the hidden Heights compound’s still got its edge. “There are strange things poking up from the fence,” the same ones that have been there for over a decade — reports a reader — sticking up, “like heads on spikes.â€
Actually, not all the props on W. 9th St. east of Waverly are heads; torsos, full bodies, and skeletal figures appear as well, along with some more abstract metalwork:
Neighborhood Fixtures
Red hyphenated signage hasn’t yet put a name to the building, but you can see all the other makings of H-E-B’s second second-story Houston grocery store from above in the video at top. The footage starts off over N. Shepherd, then pans around the corner of 23rd St., offering a view of the former Fiesta site from the south.
Back in March a spokesperson for the grocer told The Leader’s Landan Kuhlmann to expect a “late fall opening,” meaning the store’s debut could coincide roughly with the 2 year anniversary of the dry zone modification its management pushed for prior to construction.
- Previously on Swamplot: The New Second-Story Heights H-E-B on N. Shepherd Is About To Begin Construction; H-E-B’s Plan and Backup Plan for the Double Decker Heights Dry Zone Store; H-E-B Will Double Down on a Heights Dry Zone Store or Not Build At All; Yes, The Heights Dry Zone Petitioners Really Did Collect Enough Signatures For a Vote; Heights Dry Zone Signature Gatherers Return from the Hunt Victorious; Former Fiesta Site Preps for Teardown as Heights Dry Zone Petitioners Circle; H-E-B Would Like To Plant a Store in a Wetter Heights Dry Zone; Somebody’s Trying to Legalize Beer and Wine Sales in the Heights Dry Zone
Video: Brandon DuBois
Doubly Decked Out
- 1612 Sage St. [HAR]
SPENGA’S UPPER-DECK GYM WILL JUT OUT REAL CLOSE TO ITS NEIGHBOR 
Just 8 in. will separate the cantilevered fitness studio’s eastern, over-the-edge portion from the eaves of the 1915 home adjacent to it — reports abc13’s Christine Dobbyn — which will soon house Arden’s Picture Framing and Gallery. The 15,700-sq.-ft. lot where the new retail building’s planned at 307 Westheimer is currently going up; Italian restaurant Michelangelo’s went to pieces on its west side last December (the east was all parking). [abc13; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of 307 Westheimer Rd.: Spenga
