- 11102 Wickwood Dr. [HAR]
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Neighborhood
More details on the planned Yale Marketplace development centered around the 365-branded mini Whole Foods planned for Independence Heights (but picking up the Garden Oaks moniker) come this week from Adolfo Pesquera, who posted the rendering above over at VBX of that companion strip mall planned just to the north of the grocery store. The structure looks to be slated for the narrow parcel of land where the long, low, industrial-slash-office park that until January hosted the Potter’s House Christian Church still stands.
Pesquera also reports that Houston Heights ER has officially signed on as the urgent care clinic that’ll be stuck to the side of the 365 (to the left, in the rendering below):
Independence Heights
A little bit of tune-changing looks to have happened with respect to the University of Texas’s Houston data science campus idea in the month or 2 since UT formally canned the plans to pursue it.  At yesterday’s State of the City luncheon, where Mayor Turner asked a bunch of major regional universities to work together on making a data science research center happen after all, Lindsey Ellis reports that University of Houston board of regents chair and Landry’s CEO Tilman Fertitta also made some comments in support of the project. Fertitta (who back in March immediately issued a victorious press release when UT announced it would sell off the 300 acres of land it’d purchased) told the audience that UH would be “excited to sit down and collaborate” with other Houston and Texas universities on a campus, Lindsey Ellis reports for the Chronicle.Â
The difference now (versus last spring when UH snubbed an invitation to join that task force working up potential uses for the land)? Fertitta says UT wouldn’t be able to single-handedly “come in and dictate” with respect to the final project; he also suggests that perhaps UT might like to donate the purchased property to whatever group of local universities might end up in charge.
UT Houston Rematch
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is now promoting a crowdfunding campaign to host some kind of multi-day art-slash-music-slash-sports festival inside the Astrodome, perhaps as depicted in the trippy rendering above shown on the campaign’s online fundraising page. (The campaign is one of the so-called Cities Project projects being coordinated by the National Trust and beer multinational Heineken; other projects around the country getting similar treatment include fundraising for a documentary about the war memorial-slash-swimming-pool in Waikiki, and fundraising for the restoration of some glass sidewalks in Seattle.)
Materials for the campaign (which also has the backing of the Astrodome Conservancy) say the event would “preview the Astrodome’s future use” (assuming no laws that happen to prevent a certain aging Dome from getting remodeled pass in Austin this summer). Details on what such a festival would actually look like are scarce, though some good examples of what not to aim for have been floated recently.
Prepping for DomeFest
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WILL THE BAYOU CITY PLEASE START ACTING LIKE IT? 
“Is the new business going to incorporate the bayou, or keep its back turned to it? Would be nice to see the trend continue of businesses along the bayous turning around and accepting the existence of a recreational green belt and trail network in its backyard, rather than using that as the side for the dumpsters.” [Superdave, commenting on Sixties Ex-Dry Cleaning Spot To Be Made Over as a Brays-Side Wine Bar] Photo of Brays Bayou at Stella Link Rd.: Frank Karbarz
The ex-service station sitting on the sliver of land edged by N. Durham Dr., W. 16th St., and Nashua St. is being remodeled and repainted, with signage already in place for burger bar Balls Out. The late-sixties space, home to the Guero Deluxe Car Wash before Re:Vive Development snapped up the property in 2015, was occupied by used car dealership Sabinas Cars and Trucks a few years before that.
The former service station’s canopy is still in place; the now-blank sign space on top previously served as a canvas for one of those Wiley LOVE murals:
Heights Drive-By
On Monday a reader noted some changes to the well-spotted storefront formerly occupied by Kate Spade New York, facing Drexel Dr. in the Westheimer-straddling Highland Village shopping center. The store name is now a mere shadow of its former self, and an employee reached at the location’s former phone number this afternoon tells Swamplot that the branch has closed for business. The space’s mirror-backed neon unibrow (the replacement for the one that caught fire back in 2015) looks to still be hanging around for now, but the windows have been papered over (presumably to provide a bit of privacy as the space gets changed.) There’s still a Kate Spade down the road a few blocks — the one that was tapped to trade its old Galleria locale for a place in the new wing.
Photos: Swamplot inbox (top);Â Amanda W. (bottom)
Westheimer Coverup
The drive-your-drinks-home daquiri shop planned for former MJ Motorcars office island at 8275 Beechnut St. (in the parking lot of stripmall nightclub Club Tequila) isn’t just going to be a drive-thru bar, a media rep for Prime Daquiri tells Swamplot. The rep says it’ll have a full kitchen, too — and that the company will be opting for screwtop bottles for their drinks instead of a Louisiana-style tape-on-the-top arrangement, as far as legal distribution goes. The landscaping and portico in the above rendering of the remodel show options for customers on foot, as well — or perhaps even those who want to dine (or drink) in. The bar is planned near the parking lot’s Watermill Express kiosk, though going the nonalcoholic route will require self-service.
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Former Used Car Dealership To Pass Out Daiquiris to Drivers in Club Tequila Parking Lot
Images: John Mene (rendering);Â Erick Ganzo (photo)
Prime Location
The scenic view from behind the former Pilgrim Cleaners building at 4005 N. Braeswood Blvd. will reportedly belong soon to a second location of West University-adjacent wine lounge Bacco. The 1966 building (northwest of the Stella Link Rd. bridge over Brays Bayou) operated as a dry cleaner prior to its conversion to a clothing donation drop spot for the Shriner’s Hospital for Children.  Ralph Bivins notes this week in Realty News Report that the location may encourage traffic from Bayou Greenway hikers and bikers; a reader’s photos from the scene show that the trail on the north side of the bayou in this section is still sporting the au naturel look, though the trail on the south side is fully paved:
Reborn on the Bayou
- 19 Cape Harbour Pl. [HAR]
ALDI TAKING THE YOGA COLLECTIVE’S SPOT IN GARDEN OAKS; OTHER NEW TENANTS IN THE WORKS 
Betsy Denson confirms this morning that an ALDI will be that “something bigger” taking over the endcap space in the N. Shepherd Dr. shopping center north of 38th St., once the Yoga Collective is booted out. (The German grocery chain will also take over that long-empty vacuum shop space next door). Hartman Management rep Danny Morales also tells Denson that a few more large tenants are likely headed to the strip center, and that just under 5,000 sq. ft. of new freestanding space is currently under construction.  The space marked for ALDI is right across Garden Oaks Blvd. from the Sears complex that Weingarten previously had its eye on. [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Photo of 3839D N. Shepherd Dr.: Yoga Collective
Those rumors Swamplot has been hearing lately about an impending changing of hands of Canino Produce farmers market at 2520 Airline Dr. have finally been clarified a bit by Nancy Sarnoff over at the Chronicle: a sales deal is currently in the hammering-out stage between the Farmers Marketing Association of Houston and MLB Capital Partners (the company that owns the Houston Design Center, as well as some other office-y holdings). A rep for the would-be buyers tells Sarnoff that the plan is to keep the market intact, but make it more tourist-worthy, starting with an upgrade to the parking areas and the bathrooms (and maybe later by adding a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker brewery to the mix).
- Farmers Market in Heights Area Could Be Upgraded [Houston Chronicle]
Photo: Canino Produce Market
Setting Terms near Sunset Heights
- 1419 Kirby Dr. [HAR]
Update, 5/2: Yep, it’s an ALDI. More here.
The end of the 95,000-sq.-ft. N. Shepherd Dr. strip mall just south of Garden Oaks Blvd. is being cleared out shortly, a handful of readers tell Swamplot. Endcap tenant Yoga Collective announced recently that the studio’s lease is being terminated at the end of June, and has been hinting on social media that something bigger is taking over the space (and possibly a few other adjacent spaces in the row). The nearest spot in the strip appears to have been vacant since about 2015, when the domestic-minded shop next door (apparently operating now as A&B Vacuum and Sewing Machines) moved further up N. Shepherd, and out from under the since-removed VACUUM & SEWING CANDLES signage:
N. Shepherd Swapout
A double-decker strip center appears to be planned for 307 Westheimer Rd., which for just shy of 5 decades has been home to Avondale Italian restaurant and house-with-a-tree-in-it Michaelangelo’s. Michaelangelo’s, Inc., sold the property in March to an entity tied to the CEO of Habitat Construction, and a 2,000-sq.-ft. space in the proposed replacement building is currently for lease. Renderings for the strip label the over-the-edge top floor as set aside for a fitness business, and call for a restaurant to take over most of the street level (noting that another tenant has already staked out a small section of the ground floor floorplan):
Rising Above Parking Requirements
