- 6240 Old Castle Wy. [HAR]
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And in even more beer-related news, another local warehouse is now turning to drinks as its primary occupation. This 7,725-sq.-ft. one — pictured above from Bevis St. between W. 16th and 17th — is about to become New Magnolia Brewing. Its name is a cheers to the original Magnolia Brewing Company — formally the Houston Ice and Brewing Company — that did its concocting along Buffalo Bayou at the corner of Franklin and Milam streets until Prohibition forced it to make ice its flagship product. Following its shutdown, the Magnolia Ballroom took the place over roughly 40 years ago.
The New Magnolia’s 43,560-sq.-ft. digs at 1616 Bevis include this front yard, more than twice the size of the building to its north:
The Brew and the Old
Here’s the next target in Houston’s continuing warehouse-to-brewery turnover trend: 1504 Chapman St. A group of local brewers got their hands on the 6,283-sq.-ft. building — pictured above from the south — in April and a budding Facebook page now shows its address as the location of a venue they’re calling Local Group Brewing.
It’s within the same general parish as St. Arnold’s recently-opened beer cathedral and existing brewery. They’re both less than half a mile away on the other side of the former Union Pacific brownfield pictured below, now giving rise to the complex of mixed-use buildings dubbed Hardy Yards:
Aerial Redevelopment Reconaissance
Saturday was teardown day for this Cherryhurst bungalow catty-corner to the Wilson Montessori School where the Indiana St. pavement goes brick for a single block. The 2-man crew pictured above made it about halfway through the job by the afternoon, leaving the yard beyond the fence littered with house parts as they slashed and sprayed.
Once the wreckage is cleared away, some kind of new single-family structure is slated to take over at 1524 Indiana St., according to plans the 5,000-sq.-ft. lot’s new-ish owner filed after buying it in May.
Here’s what the deconstruction looks like from Yupon:
Half Off Everything
Fasten your seat belts — it’s time for a detour down the new ramp TxDOT just opened off I-45 north to 59 north. Included in the footage: new views of the downtown skyline, along with some of an adjacent ramp now under construction between the 2 highways that’ll offer freeway sightseers an even higher vantage point when its open.
You can see it taking shape off to the left in the still photo below:
Dashcam Footage
A new brewery is now in the works for the industrial building that sits across the Downtown 59 on-ramp from the Houston Center for Sobriety. Just like the adjacent drunk tank which opened in 2013, the new business at 100 N. Jackson will be housed in a repurposed warehouse. Its lawn includes several signs pointing drivers to the neighboring sobering center — like the one shown above fronting the exit ramp off the Eastex, on the west side of the soon-to-be beer venue dubbed Industry Brewery. (Also in the frame: signage for the building’s most recent tenant the American Engine & Grinding Company.)
At that corner, a left on Ruiz St. followed by another quick one on Chenevert gets you outside the recovery facility:
Downtown Wet and Dry Spots
- 12103 Briar Forest Dr. [HAR]
Amid all the foliage inside 1118 Horseshoe Dr., the liveliest specimen is this vertical one; it rises from the rocky atrium by the front door all the way up to the skylight above the second-story railing. No word on the tree’s age, but the house went up in 1982 as part of the watery Sugar Lakes subdivision in Sugar Land. It’s now being shopped around at an asking price of $489,000.
An aerial view from up above the canopy shows the rooftop openings that facilitate photosynthesis:
Green Listings
Both Pi Pizza and Star Fish have been locked out of their leases in the Washington Heights shopping center building on Heights Blvd. just south of White Oak Bayou and roughly across the street from the Art Car Museum, leaving the strip absent its 2 endcap tenants. Star Fish picked up where Bradley’s Fine Diner left off in the building’s north side about a year and a half ago, and the pizza parlor took over from Funky Chicken on the south end of things in 2016.
Pictured below is the notice a Swamplot reader found stuck to Pi’s storefront right around lunchtime:
Off the Menu
Magnolia’s Ice Cream & More is now grooming the former Park Place Pharmacy building 2 blocks west of the Gulf Fwy. for what’ll be its second creamery. Although the pharmacy building lost its original signage — pictured above in 2012 — sometime before MMA gym Metro Fight Club took it over a few years ago (to be followed briefly by Friends Lifestyle Lounge), the rest of the exterior has remained more or less frozen in time since its construction in 1950.
Already the corner of the building has earned its stripes (and drive-thru window) as part of its entry into food service. In its final form, the structure will also feature a new ice cream sign in place of the former RX mark:
The Best Medicine
SOUTHWEST KEY SAYS EMANCIPATION DETENTION CENTER NEARLY READY TO WELCOME KIDS, CITY SAYS NOT WITHOUT PROPER PAPERS 
The nonprofit looking to house unaccompanied children who crossed the border illegally in the complex at 419 Emancipation Ave. tells the Chronicle‘s Lomi Kriel and Mike Morris it’s only seeking one more permit — okaying a commercial kitchen — before it plans to open the East Downtown facility. And even if that paperwork doesn’t arrive, company officials say, they could just open up anyway with food procured by some other means. But according to city officials, 2 permits the building received back in June — a certificate of occupancy and safety survey — are void because both came through based on the structure’s designation as a “shelter.” Houston’s fire chief now says the complex is more of a “custodial care facility” — a classification with different requirements for city sign-offs since “the occupants are not going to be free to enter and exit as they wish.” His recommendation: start the application process for those 2 documents over from scratch. [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo: LoopNet
Dump trucks are now filing onto the barricaded block once home to the Houston Chronicle building — and more recently a parking lot — at Texas and Travis to start laying the foundation for Hines’s new 47-floor tower and soon-to-be new global headquarters. The photo above views the traffic from way up on the 31st floor of the site’s catty-corner northeast neighbor Aris Market Square — which the new building will overtop along with pretty much everything else nearby except the Chase Tower directly south of it. Law firm Vinson & Elkins will occupy the building’s top 7 floors.
A series of glassed-in atria shown in the rendering above from architecture firm Pelli Clarke Pelli hang out along the structure’s edge facing Milam St. Viewed from closer up, you can even see some people and trees inside them looking out on what’s below:
Dump Truck Parade
After and before views show off the dramatic change of face that’s transformed 311 Travis St. as part of the prep-work for its new Tiki-themed bar occupant Kanaloa. The monochrome makeover began on the lower façade a few weeks ago before proceeding upstairs where it wrapped up last week. “We want this to be a hidden oasis in downtown,” the venue’s owner told Eater in March, hinting at plans to renovate the 126-year-old Alltmont Building. Its canopies, window arches, and pediment are pretty well-hidden now — though the building does seem to stand out a bit as a whole amid the row of adjacent lighter brick structures fronting Market Square Park.
When Kanaloa opens, it will pick up where Market Square Bar & Grill — pictured below — left off last year:
Tiki Torched
