HOLOGRAM OF ROY ORBISON AT SMART FINANCIAL CENTER: ONE NIGHT ONLY
Tickets go on sale this Friday for the digital likeness of Roy Orbison that’s making a tour stop at the Smart Financial Center in Sugar Land on October 26, reports the Chronicle‘s Joey Guerra. It’s part of a 28-concert run the hologram will be performing throughout the US, to be followed by a 2019 tour in Australia. Houston’s own BASE Hologram — headquartered at 3009 Post Oak across from the waterwall — developed the laser technology that imitates Orbison. Aside from him, the rest of the band is real (it’s London’s Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra in the video above from a UK performance in April) and they’ve even got a rapport going with the ghost singer. “Between songs,” reads the tour website, “you will clap your hands numb as he interacts with the other musicians and reacts to you in the audience.” [Houston Chronicle; more info] Video: Jai Freeman
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Neighborhood
- 5111 Avenue P ½ [HAR]
The Tudor-revival mansion that sits along the bend in I-45 at 2000 Smith St. has been sold to the owner of several car dealerships, including Central Houston Nissan on the S. Loop off the S. Main/Buffalo Spdwy. exit and Central Houston Cadillac off McGowen St. between Travis and Main. Prior to the closing earlier this month, Preservation Houston reported that the buyer didn’t plan to keep the house standing.
Nine blocks away from it, the new owner Ricardo Weitz also has all 3 of the parking lots that surround his Cadillac dealership to the north, east, and west. He purchased the mansion through an entity he owns called Central Houston Auto Properties II.
- Previously on Swamplot: What Chance Would the Kirby Mansion Stand To Stay Standing Under New Ownership?
Photo: Preservation Houston/The Heritage Society
The House off I-45
A Swamplot reader noticed that demolition crews are now trashing the conference center at the abandoned ExxonMobil Chemical Company headquarters next to Terry Hershey Park, leaving a grizzly roadside scene along Memorial Dr. “More concerning,” writes the reader, “is that they drained the ponds and did not relocate the waterfowl.”
At least it’s still theirs to call their own — until PM Realty finds new tenants to replace the Exxon employees that left the property starting in 2014. Without anyone around to disturb the wildlife for now, “They are swimming in the tiny little bit of water left and otherwise just hanging out,” like so:
Exxon Exodus
The title of artist Joan Dodd’s new composition 88 Keys undersells it — it’s actually 275 keys, more than 3 times the amount found on a piano. Installation artists laid them down along the rounded east west side of Jones Hall over the weekend. Constructed from 900 pounds worth of temporary marking tape — the kind commonly used on highways — they now span the entire block of Louisiana between Texas Ave. and Capitol St.
That material choice means they can really take a pounding from anyone who feels like stomping out a silent melody with their feet while heading south to check out the Bank of America Center’s ongoing renovations. Or those lured in by the glow of the Lyric Center parking garage’s new lighting, pictured off in the distance below:
Sidewalk Chromaticism
Vanished from the Midtown benches along Main St. are the potted plants that recently sat on them. The 3 sets of 3 plants each — at Holman St. and on both sides of Main at Winbern — appear to have all been yanked off by force.
Their adhesive residue shows just how attached they were in the first place, with 4 points of contact leaving their marks in place of each pot.
Weeded Out
- 534 Fox Briar Ln. [HAR]
Don’t be fooled by the old marquee fronting the OST Plaza strip near Scott St. — the property is turning the page with a new front facade and a new forward-thinking tenant to go inside it. No Regrets Tattoo Removal parlor is the first business to arrive following renovations to the building, completed August 1. Didjah Tax Insurance, Motherland African Hair Braiding, and the On The Rocks bar all held out during the work. But everyone else took a hike before it got started, including Guarantee Loans. (Despite the honorable mention, it dropped the “s” and opened a new location at 4310 OST a few years ago.)
New wood paneling now tops the storefronts where the awning went away as part of the redo. And in place of all that yellow, stone walls fill in around the doors and windows:
Clean Slate
Pictured above is the first action this shuttered Macaroni Grill by the Galleria has seen since changing hands last October: the erection of new green fencing around its empty stone and stucco building. Its new-ish owner is Hillstone Hospitality, the group behind the Houston’s restaurant chain as well as several other single-location eateries across the country.
Hillstone has been in the neighborhood even before getting its hands on the empty restaurant, however; the nearest Houston’s is just west on the corner of Fountain View Dr.:
New Westheimer Barricades
MONTROSE SHAKE SHACK CONSTRUCTION IS ABOUT TO BEGIN 
A building permit filed yesterday for the corner where Burger King’s been lying in pieces on Westheimer near Montrose Blvd. reveals construction is imminent on the Shack Shake set to replace it. Upon completion, it’ll be Houston’s fourth Shake Shack location, after the one in Rice Village, at the Galleria, and in section 157 at Minute Maid Park. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplox inbox
- 546 Brandon Rd. [HAR]
Orange fencing is condoning off the corner of the Westchase Shopping Center where a new Regions Bank is planned in place of the El Palenque that shuttered there in May. A demolition permit issued for the restaurant building exactly a week ago means its days are numbered. But for now it’s still standing, fronted by landscaping and the new Port-o-Potty pair visible in the photo at top from Walnut Bend Ln., just shy of Westheimer.
Also on its last legs: the bank’s nearest existing branch on S. Kirkwood near the Westheimer H-E-B. A company spokesperson told the HBJ‘s Olivia Pulsinelli in June that the planned new branch will take over business in the area.
Photos: Jose Galvan (fencing); Troy M. (El Palenque)
Branching Out
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BRIARMEADOW’S DOGGY DAYCARE DOGPILE 
“Anyone else notice this area of town is getting rather saturated in doggy day cares? There’s one at Richmond on the other side of Fountainview, one on the north side of 59 just before Fountainview, one on Westheimer just west of Briarhurst . . . and those are just the ones that come immediately to mind.” [cricketty, commenting on Former Richmond Ave Furniture Royalty Will Now Provide Lodging for Animals] Map showing existing dog daycares in red, proposed in blue: Swamplox inbox
A Swamplot reader sends a few drive-by snapshots of construction on the Goddard School’s campus expansion, now going up along both sides of W. 23rd St west of Durham. The photo at top shows the 2-story steel framing now rising on the north side of the street, while the one above shows the portion of the preschool that’s going up opposite it, just east of Wright-Bembry Park.
Blue fencing now separates the green space from the south construction site:
Steel Preschool Skeletons
A vast pet boarding facility is now taking over the Winport Furniture building at 6393 Richmond — which stretches back south nearly the entire block along Unity Dr., pictured above. After sitting on the place for 6 months, the pet resort operator that bought it filed a building permit yesterday indicating it’s about to rejigger the former 19,497-sq.-ft. showroom with the help of Slattery Tackett Architects.
Before shifting its focus to office furniture in 2016, the building dealt in home items and called itself The Chair King:
Gone to the Dogs
