Neighborhood

01/07/19 4:45pm

Humble Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Call of the Wild

Humble

2 Comments

7603 N. Hollow Cir. [HAR]

77396, Bathrooms, Homes for Sale, Humble

01/07/19 1:15pm

Backdoor Popsicle Shop Planned as Part of Doc’s Sweetgreen Redo

Montrose, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Restaurants

1 Comment

Documents put out by Houston’s planning commission reveal that Sweetgreen isn’t the only tenant signed up to take over Doc’s Motorwork’s empty structure at 1303 Westheimer; there’s also a Steel City Pops on the way to the back of the building. The site plan at top shows it grabbing about 900 sq.-ft along Graustark St., leaving the rest of the 4,400-sq.-ft. building reserved for the plant-based anchor tenant.

This is Sweetgreen’s first step into Texas, according to Eater’s Alaena Hostetter (or second, if you count the other not-yet-open location it has planned for Rice Village) and it wants to make Doc’s building look like this before setting foot in it:

On Deck Along Westheimer

77006, Montrose, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Restaurants

01/07/19 10:15am

Rice Village Pizza L’Vino Is About To Get the Reach Stretch Studios Treatment

Openings and Closings, Renovations, Rice Village

Shuttered Rice Village pizza parlor Pizza L’Vino is set to become the second Reach Stretch Studio in Houston and fifth across the greater Houston area: Katy, Sugar Land, The Woodlands, and Memorial branches of the wellness chain are already up and running. A building permit filed last Friday for the 2,100-sq.-ft. storefront at 2524 Rice Blvd. — across the street from Buffalo Wild Wings — indicates conversion work is about to begin.

Pizza L’Vino’s other location has also closed down in the Waugh Dr. shopping center it once shared with competitive axe-throwing venue The Ratchet Hatchet.

Photo: Pizza L’Vino

2524 Rice Blvd.

77005, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants, Retail, Rice-Village

Friendswood

01/04/19 5:30pm

Friendswood Home Listing Photo of the Day: Bottoms Up

1137 Rymers Switch Ln. [HAR]

77546, Friendswood, Homes for Sale

Adaptive Reuse

01/04/19 1:15pm

The Coolest Part of the Soon-To-Be Redone TI Campus in Stafford Won’t Be That New In-N-Out Burger

Redevelopment, Retail, Stafford

4 Comments

Sure, there’s been a whole lotta talk lately about how In-N-Out Burger is on its way to the redo of Texas Instruments’Â 192-acre Stafford campus that developers have dubbed The Grid. But what about those not-yet-named retailers that renderings put out by Gensler, the architect for the project, show taking over the air conditioning towers that TI left behind at the site? The photo above shows what those decommissioned cooling units looks like right now.

They sit behind the centerpiece of the site, TI’s abandoned office building:

Adaptive A/C Reuse

77477, Adaptive Reuse, Redevelopment, Retail, Stafford

01/04/19 10:00am

Ninth Houston-Area Sprouts Debuts in Sugar Land This Month

Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail, Sugar Land

2 Comments

NINTH HOUSTON-AREA SPROUTS DEBUTS IN SUGAR LAND THIS MONTH Workers are putting the finishing touches on the Sprouts Farmers Market inside Sugar Land’s new University Commons Shopping Center off 59, a 150,000-sq.-ft. complex that includes everything depicted in the rendering above, plus a whole extra crop of retailers and restaurants that are already open on the other side of University Blvd. The grocery store’s opening date: January 16, at which time it’ll become the ninth Sprouts store operating in the Houston area (and the ~~only~~ second one in Fort Bend County). About 150 new hires will be on duty inside following a successful job fair Sprouts hosted on December 6 at the Hilton Garden Inn Houston-Sugar Land just up the street in the University Plaza shopping center. [Houston Chronicle] Site plan of University Commons Shopping Center Phase II: Capital Retail Properties

77479, Grocery Stores, Openings and Closings, Retail, Sugar-Land

01/03/19 5:30pm

Spring Home Listing Photo of the Day: Offsides

Spring

2531 Fern Hill Dr. [HAR]

77373, Front Lawns, Homes for Sale, Lawns, Spring

01/03/19 10:15am

Tongue-Twisting Spicy Chicken Chains Make First Foray South to Sugar Land’s Town Center

Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Sugar Land

This just in from Eater: One of those alliterative spicy chicken spots is now open between Smashburger and Nails By Lily in the standalone retail building across Town Center Blvd. from Sugar Land’s city hall; its name: Porto’s Peri Peri. Note: That’s not to be confused with The Peri Peri Factory — which opened on Westheimer near Hillcroft in April — nor Chick’n Cone, a NYC import that debuted its chicken with peri-peri sauce in the Woodlands in August,” according to Eater’s Alaena Hostetter; nor the Peli Peli Kitchen that opened around the same time inside the new 365 by Whole Foods Market off 610 as spin-off of the more formal Peli Peli sit-down restaurant at The Galleria. (The spelling of their names notwithstanding, both Peli Peli locations still refer to their chicken as peri peri.)

The common ingredient in all authentic peri peri dishes: bird’s eye chili, reports Eater’s Amy McCarthy. According to her, the Portuguese recipe was first brought to the U.S. by Nando’s Peri Peri, a South African chain that started outside Johannesburg in 1987 and now has more than a thousand locations across the globe — but none in Houston. Not to worry though, our local operators plan to continue filling in the gap. Porto’s Peri Peri’s owner told Hostetter in November that he’d follow-up the Sugar Land location with more spots inside and outside the 610 Loop. And Peli Peli’s owner told McCarthy last summer that he planned to start franchising after the new year.

A New Spot for Portuguese Peri Peri Chicken is Open in Sugar Land [Eater Houston]
Spicy, Succulent Portuguese Grilled Chicken Arrives In Houston [Eater Houston]
Waffle Cones Filled With Fried Chicken Arrive in the Woodlands Tomorrow [Eater Houston]
The Minds Behind Peli Peli Kitchen are Building a Fast-Casual Empire [Eater Houston]

Photos: Nisha B. (Porto’s Peri Peri); Nails By Lily (Nails By Lily)

Porto’s Peri Peri

77479, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Sugar Land Town Center, Sugar-Land

01/02/19 5:00pm

Sugar Land Home Listing Photo of the Day: Land Ho!

Sugar Land

1911 Lakebend Dr. [HAR]

77478, Backyards, Homes for Sale, Sugar-Land

Comments

01/02/19 3:45pm

Comment of the Day: The Diagonal Line Between First Ward and Sixth

Quicklink, Sixth Ward

14 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DIAGONAL LINE BETWEEN FIRST WARD AND SIXTH “. . . Congress Street was used as a boundary in the ward system, but that boundary, extended, does not run along Washington Avenue. It instead runs well north of Washington. A look at 1913 and 1920 maps of Houston that designate the wards shows this . . . The upshot: That church is 6th Ward, not 1st.” [Houstonreader, commenting on Vatican’s ‘Supreme Court’ Rules Shuttered First Ward Church Must Reopen, But It Hasn’t Yet] Section of 1920 Houston street map: Houston Past

Comments, First Ward, Sixth Ward

01/02/19 2:00pm

Saint Arnold’s New Bike Lane Is Now Open for Designated Drivers

Fifth Ward, Streets

3 Comments

And people say Houston’s bike lanes don’t get any use! The next time someone gives you that line, there’s no need to bicker. Instead, just invite them out for a beer at Saint Arnold’s new-ish brewing cathedral off I-10. On the way there, you’ll spot the new bike lanesÂ running adjacent to the brewery on both sides of Lyons Ave. And if the conditions in the one on the eastbound side of the street are anything like those shown in the photo above, then congratulations: It should be clear who’s right.

If, however, parked car traffic appears sparse on the day you stop by, there’s only one possible reason why: New signs must have been installed, prohibiting parking in the bike lane. As long as no ordinance exists to ban bike lane parking outright, such signage is the city’s only recourse to outlaw it.

Further east along Lyons, work to add new 6-ft. bike lanes to both sides of the street is underway and — at Jensen Dr. — has already been completed:

Free Parking in the Fifth Ward

77020, Bike Trails, Fifth Ward, Pedestrians, Streets

01/02/19 10:30am

League City’s Longhorn Cattle Museum Reopens

League City, Museums, Openings and Closings, Quicklink

LEAGUE CITY’S LONGHORN CATTLE MUSEUM REOPENS All bovine exhibits at the house-turned-museum-and-events-venue at 1220 Coryell St. are now back on view following months of renovations to address flood damage, reports the Chronicle’s Jennifer Bolton. Opened in 2009, The Butler Longhorn Museum, focuses specifically on the iconic cattle breed and the 19th century efforts of the Butler family, members of which helped save the animals from extinction through work on their land in what’s now League City, Kemah, Friendswood, and a few mainland portions of Galveston County. “While most of the exhibits could be — and were — redone, there were murals painted on the downstairs walls of the museum that had to be torn apart,” reports Bolton. Also out of commission: a separate education building that sits on the same 10 acres as the museum itself. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Butler Longhorn Museum

77573, Flooding, Hurricane Harvey, League City, Museums, Openings and Closings, Quicklink

12/31/18 10:30am

The Double-Branded Hotel Highrise on the Way to the East Side of the West Loop

Galleria, Hotels, Proposed Developments

1 Comment

The rendering at top of a new West-Loop-fronting hotel shows 2 different signs adoring its upper facade: one for Holiday Inn Express, the other for Staybridge Suites. Both brands will be housed under one roof in the planned 14-story building that’s due to crop up between Public Storage and the Stages Stores corporate office building north of Westheimer and east of the West Loop. On the second floor, you can see the pool deck that’s planned. No word yet on how that outdoor area or the building’s 319 rooms will be divvied up between the 2 brands, or if there will be any distinction at all.

InterContinental Hotels Group is the corporate overlord behind both Staybridge and Holiday Inn. Its logo makes a sly appearance on one of the flags in the rendering.