Neighborhood

Featured Posts
06/27/18 9:30am

Where a New Timbergrove Neighborhood Is Now Springing Up, Across 610 from the Northwest Mall

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New Construction, Timbergrove
19 Comments

A Swamplot reader reports that construction vehicles have started pushing dirt around on the east side of 610, opposite the Northwest Mall. That marks some down-to-earth progress on developer David Weekley Homes’ plans to turn the 5.4-acre northeast corner (indicated at top) into something homelier than what its encompassing 33.6-acre tract (indicated above) is now: vacant.

Weekley filed plans last month to create a new subdivision dubbed Heights at Minimax that’s entered where Salford Dr. now terminates in a roundabout. Those whereabouts set the neighborhood back some from the West Loop, beyond an undeveloped buffer zone.

You can see where the west end of that zone butts up against the highway behind the Miller Lite billboard in the photo below, taken back before construction wrapped up on 610’s elevated northbound feeder lanes above Hempstead Dr. last March:

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Heights at Minimax
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Homes for Sale
06/26/18 9:45am

Westbury Mod Sellers Drop Price, Video of Space Age 3-Bedroom off W. Bellfort

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Modern Design, Quicklink, Westbury
12 Comments

WESTBURY MOD SELLERS DROP PRICE, VIDEO OF SPACE AGE 3-BEDROOM OFF W. BELLFORT Brubeck plays in the background as this new clip from the sellers of 5702 Warm Springs Rd. pans around the 1959 single-story just off W. Bellfort, showing off some of its era-appropriate renovations like laminate kitchen countertops, cork floors, a mosaic-patterned wall by the entrance, and Formica surfaces throughout. $10k fell off the asking price yesterday, bringing the house [a previous Swamplot sponsor] down to $379,000. [Oscar Fine Properties; listing] Video: Oscar Fine Properties

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Bars and Clubs
06/25/18 3:45pm

Etro Lounge Has One Month Left in Montrose Before Shutting Down, Packing Up for Main St.

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Cherryhurst, Montrose, Openings and Closings
4 Comments

Get ready to bid goodbye to Etro Lounge’s current location on Windsor St., where it splits a building with Anvil. Tucked back from Westheimer behind the wider front face of its bar neighbor, the ’80s-themed club has been around for over a decade. Its plan now — after a last dance on July 28 — is to relocate to a twice-as-large downtown space on the 100 block of Main St.

That’s where developer Dan Zimmerman of NewForm Real Estate recently finished up renovations on the Raphael, Dorrance, and Brewster buildings — at 114, 110, and 108 Main, respectively — which he’s folded into a mixed-use complex dubbed Main & Co, pictured below:

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Anvil’s Other Half
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Downtown
06/25/18 11:30am

Le Meridien Hotel’s Next-Door Garage Neighbor Now Nearly Moved-In Along Walker St.

by
New Construction, Parking
2 Comments

Construction is almost a wrap on the 13-story parking garage bounded by Fannin, Rusk, and Walker streets — and neighbored by the Le Meridien hotel shown above to the east. Looking from the southwest, you can see the 2 structures shouldering up close to each other. But aside from their proximity on the block, there’s not much else they have in common: The garage serves the Jones on Main complex, a WeWork-inclusive renovation of the Gulf Building and adjacent Great Jones building, both 2 blocks away.

Another shot taken from 1001 McKinney’s 12-story garage — catty corner to the new structure — looks north up Fannin to show more of the concrete exterior:

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Surface Lot, All Grown Up
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Featured Posts
06/25/18 9:30am

New Retro Shipping Container Planted on Grassy Middle Ground Between Nourish + Kalos, Wendy’s off I-10

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Houston Heights, New Construction
3 Comments

A Swamplot reader stopping by Nourish + Kalos’s coffee and juice venue this weekend sends a photo of a new shipping container that’s now filling in the food gap between the beverage spot and Wendy’s’s drive-thru, visible on the south side of Cornish St. above. The box landed recently in the western end zone of a third-acre field off Durham — adjacent to GH Leather’s tan warehouse — that’s been starved for attention, save for that of the occasional food truck. Another less recent and less visible development for the container-containing parcel: an electrical permit filed on it in late April.

While the property housing the container — as well as a 5,000-sq.-ft. vacant lot abutting it — have been owned by the same entity since 2012, the grass-less corner lot shown beyond newly-installed black fencing in the photo above is in the hands of a different party. Nothing’s been built on any of the flatlands in over a decade, even as the neighboring strip building home to Gumbo Jeaux’s, Vape HQ, and Nourish + Kalos went up to the north in 2014.

Photos: Jason Cockerell

Need a Box for That?
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Apartments
06/22/18 5:00pm

Construction Crews Now Craning Above Broadstone Studemont Apartments Site off Elongated Summer St. Segment

by
Houston Heights, New Construction
10 Comments

About 2-and-a-half floors of the soon-to-be-5-story Broadstone Studemont apartment building are now standing on a 4-acre parcel between Hicks and Summer streets. The shot above takes a look at the complex from an extension of Summer St. laid down west of Studemont — and Kroger — prior to the apartments’ groundbreaking in February.

The road segment cuts between the north side of the apartments and the planned Studemont Junction retail center opposite them, highlighted in the site plan below:

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Graveside Mid-Rise
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Featured Posts
06/22/18 12:30pm

Where Sugar Land Land Still Hasn’t Been Developed

by
Maps, Sugar Land
No Comments

Here’s a nugget from the latest draft of Sugar Land’s 2018 land use plan: the map above, showing the 7% of acreage that still hasn’t been developed within the 32.2-sq.-mi. town and its roughly 20 sq.-mi. of extraterritorial jurisdiction. The thickest road running diagonally through the gray matter is the Southwest Fwy.; it’s intersected and then paralleled by Hwy. 90 to the north. Conspicuously blackened: the area on the top left edge indicating a tract west of Sugar Land Regional Airport and adjacent to the Chelsea Harbour subdivision off 90. There’s another vacancy along the Brazos River, way far south near FM 2759. And a few gaps show up between the hodgepodge of industrial buildings in the northeast corner of town.

A more detailed map below color codes what all that land — built and unbuilt — was used for as of 2016:

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Black Holes
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Featured Posts
06/21/18 4:15pm

A Pre-Game Look at the Fertitta Center’s Progress and Where Its New Seating Sections Will Post Up Inside

by
Renovations, Stadiums, Third Ward
10 Comments

The plaza outside UH’s basketball arena — soon-to-feature a statue of the building’s former namesake Roy Hofheinz — is currently a mess of dirt and constructions vehicles working to make the place look like the rendering above. The big red Fertitta Center sign isn’t up yet; it’s set to rise over the glassier new entrance fronting Cullen Blvd.

On the inside, a new scoreboard, new AV equipment, bigger bathrooms and new food and retail are being added. The ceiling is going up 30 ft. above a brand-new court and some lower seating sections, creating a crater-like hole in the roof that — viewed from nosebleed land — will look something like this:

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Hofheinz No More
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Featured Posts
06/21/18 1:00pm

Nail-Tique Flameout Leaves Salon, Steinway Piano Gallery Shuttered Next to River Oaks Theatre Building

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Fires, Montrose, North Montrose, Openings and Closings, Retail
No Comments

The east side of the building that fronts McDuffie St. — next door to the River Oaks Theatre — has been quiet since an early Monday morning blaze torched Nail-Tique salon, doing some damage to the Steinway Piano Gallery in the process. It all started when an air conditioner on the roof overheated and caught fire, shorting the connection to an electrical box on the building that then ignited as well, reports the Chronicle.

No pianos caught fire — according to an employee at Epicure Cafe around the corner on W. Gray — but there was smoke damage in the music store, and firefighters busted out some of its windows to access the flaming salon next door. Nail-Tique is now closed indefinitely, while the adjacent piano store plans to reopen next month, as decreed by the sign now posted in its window. Unharmed by the blaze: the building’s movie theater anchor, reports one of its employees.

Photos: Swamplox inbox

McDuffie St.
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Castle Court
06/21/18 10:30am

Arrival of The Pet Barber Will Make 1415 Richmond Strip an Interspecies Hair Care Hot Spot

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Renovations, Retail, Strip Centers
No Comments

The shaggy customer base seeking a trim at the 1415 Richmond strip between Mandell and Yupon should see some increased biodiversity once The Pet Barber moves in 2-doors down from Henry’s Barber Shop. At nearly double the size of the neighboring human hair care facility, it’s ready to start transforming the space that once housed D&S Washateria (pictured at top) into a Castle Court companion to its existing Spring Branch grooming location.

The laundromat left sometime after Pepino’s gave way to Ms. Saigon Cafe and Michael’s Outpost on the west side of the building. Since then, The C Store also took off; its still-vacant Suite A — shown below in blue at the strip’s east end — is now the only hole left in the building:

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Well-Groomed
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Featured Posts
06/20/18 3:30pm

Shuttered LaDet Motel Now Going Red in the Face on Riverside Dr.

by
Hotels, Renovations, Riverside Terrace
7 Comments

Photos from the middle of Riverside Dr. between 288 and N. MacGregor Wy. show the new paint job underway on the building once home to the shuttered LaDet Motel. The central 88-year-old Riverside Terrace mansion now receiving a fresh coat is about 50-years older than the ring of 2-story lodging buildings that wrap it as well as its surrounding parking lot on 3 sides — closing off the inner court from all angles, except through the gate at the front of the 2612 Riverside complex.

Now up on that fence, these brighter-hued red tags from the city’s code enforcers:

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Ruddy Complexion
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