- 230 Blalock Rd. [HAR]
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Neighborhood
RECENTER REBUILDING GETS GOING ON MAIN ST. 
Midtown sobriety nonprofit ReCenter — formerly the Men’s Center — is now getting started building a new building in place of its old campus at 3805 and 3809 Main St. BRAVE Architecture’s design for the new housing, education, and detox facility — shown above fronting the Red Line — hasn’t taken shape yet, but a big hole recently has, according to a passerby, foreshadowing the coming construction. Since demolishing the 2 structures previously on site, the center’s been operating out of the former gas station convenience store just east on the block, at the corner of Fannin and Alabama. (Some additional office space is also tucked inside a converted home at 3816 Fannin.) [Previously on Swamplot] Rendering: BRAVE Architects
Everything is operational now at the Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology‘s hulking white headquarters north of the Menil — which took the place of a house earlier this year. The organization’s mission is to study the role of art in everyday life by supporting “experimental work at the intersection of art and anthropology.” It’s one door down from the intersection of W. Alabama and Yupon St., next to the Neon Gallery bungalow partly visible in the photo above.
Inside, a first floor gallery is divided by a central stairway that climbs up to a roof deck and garden:
Transart Foundation
A CURTAIN CALL FOR THE HIDDEN WESTERN UNION BUILDING BEFORE BANK OF AMERICA CENTER DIGESTS IT? 
With workers now punching holes in the facade where the Bank of America Center wraps the dead Western Union building it swallowed in 1983, city planner David Welch asks the question: “Will we be able to see the hidden building during construction?” It should be hard to miss; according to one Swamplot reader: “It is completely intact, tar and gravel roof included.” Size-wise, it takes up nearly a quarter of the B of A building’s ground floor, its northeast corner wrapped by the skyscraper’s own at Lousiana and Capitol streets — where the new openings are taking shape now. But its emergence may be brief: Once the planned new restaurant and cafe get situated inside it, the structure’s time-capsule mystique will be gone. And after new interior entrances open its innards to the tower’s own central lobby corridor, the telegram building will be completely metabolized. [David Welch; previously on Swamplot] Photo: David Welch
- 12418 Overcup Dr. [HAR]
The biggest eye-level change to the former Social Junkie restaurant building is the one shown over the Acura in the photo at top. And while it’s definitely less of a statement than its predecessor — a nod to the Texas Real Estate & Co. office across the parking lot — what exactly it means is more of a mystery. Renovators are still putting the finishing touches on the structure — blackwashed earlier this year — so the lettering could just be a sign of things to come.
Or maybe it’s there to stay, like the 2 Shell Shack signs and adjacent menu teasers that went up not long ago beneath the butterfly roof:
Art Goes Here
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A HIDDEN MEMORIAL DR. DOG SPOT MEETS ITS END 
“I always liked to go to that site with the dog in the winter; not sure why, but because of the slope, mixed with the cold air, it made me feel that I was not in Houston. It was not a well known location unless you lived in the neighborhood, though I did not. Others also played with their dogs there. Another cool hidden spot bites the dust.” [Montrose Resident, commenting on Alexan Memorial Apartments Are Heading to Rice Military] Illustration: Lulu
No need to knock on your way into 2309 Morse St. — the mer-person standing in the doorway will see you and can even receive envelopes through a crotch-level mail slot. On the other side of the door, the dining room’s decor is less watery, with a peacock perched up on the accent wall shown on the left in the photo above.
Although it’s now under contract, the house is still showing, so here’s a closer look at those wallflowers:
Deep-Sea Listing
ALEXAN MEMORIAL APARTMENTS ARE HEADING TO RICE MILITARY 
A group linked to Dallas developer Trammell Crow recently filed plans with Houston’s planning commission to prep the shaded 2.5-acre parcel shown on the map between Sandman and the dead end of Reinerman St. for new apartments under the Alexan name. The complex would be backed by a ramp that diverges from the north side of Memorial Dr. and neighbored by a 3-story building that forms part of the DePelchin Children’s Center’s main Houston campus. Ordered off the site to make way for the new construction: some parking for the adjacent adoption and foster care center and a vacant, H-shaped office building to the west. Map: Houston Planning Commission
Crews are now coating the garage on the corner of Travis and Rusk with strips of glass curtain wall similar to those seen on its much taller neighbor to the north, the Capitol Tower. While the 35-story office building got its exterior finish soon after topping out in April, the garage — built 2 years earlier — was left naked. It took over from the former Houston Club garage Skanska expanded and then demolished on the block in 2015.
Even after construction wrapped up, the new parking structure viewed below from Milam still looked mostly like this:
First Come Last Serve
- 27 Wilmington Ct. [HAR]
NEARLY 100 MEYERLAND HOUSES WILL SOON BE UP OFF THE GROUND 
Forty homes total have now been elevated in Meyerland and 57 are currently on the way up, reports Nancy Sarnoff. Their boosters are seeking the same degree of flood protection enjoyed by the 29 percent of Meyerland homeowners whose houses have never flooded in the past. A few elevations have been paid for by the City of Houston; others were self-funded. [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo of 4718 N. Braeswood Blvd.: Christine Gerbode
Tucked in between Hwy. 146 and FM 2610 about 20 miles northeast of Cleveland, there’s this little enclave of streets whose names read like a collection of 1950s country catalogues. With the exception of Hillbilly Heaven Rd., all roughly 40 rights of way within the 620-acre subdivision called Wild Country Lake Estates take their names from American country musicians and entertainers like Tex Ritter, Ray Price, and Minnie Pearl.
And they’re nothing new — each street got its name when the subdivision was carved out of the land in the late ’70s. The tax map of its west side shows their official platting in county records:
The Whole Ensemble
A new sketch of the Almeda Rd. building that Art Supply on Main wants to construct and move into shows the borders and outlines of what’s planned for its exterior. Like the current store — soon to make way for the highrise that’s taking over its lot between Drew and Dennis streets — the new one will include studio and living spaces along with retail, all within 2 stories. It’ll sit on a 2-plus acre site — highlighted by the red polygon in the map above (and nuzzled by a pale blue limb of 500-year floodplain) — originally part of Riverside Terrace, now just west of 288 and across from Our Legends Cigar Bar off Oakdale St.
Parking will remain in the back, with entrances off Oakdale and an alley to the south indicated in the site plan below:
Midtown Moveout
MW Cleaners’ bowtie logo is now going out of style on the corner of Shepherd and Colquitt St. as the franchise dresses down all of its 36 black-tie-branded locations in Houston and redecorates them under the Tide detergent logo. At the Montrose shop, the tall sign pictured behind the dumpster in the photo at top looking south is just about all that’s left of the cleaners’ old look.
New lettering and logoing at 3425 Shepherd has already taken the place of the old (pictured above), and under the angled porte-cochère, fresh window decals mark the transformation as well:
Tidal Wave
