02/28/12 4:30pm

Lines aren’t forming outside Houston’s first non-mall Apple Store, and the glass on the front on back facades are still blacked out and protected — it’ll be a little while before the building at the corner of Westheimer and Drexel in the Highland Village Shopping Center is ready for business. But passersby were treated recently to a few glimpses of the store’s innards. Because it will be Apple’s first glass-roofed store with both front and rear entrances, you can expect the interior to turn out a bit different from other local locations.

Here are a couple of sneak peek views snapped through open doors and leaked to Swamplot:

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02/24/12 9:51pm

The black curtains that shrouded the exterior scaffolding at the Apple Store construction site at the corner of Westheimer and Drexel in the Highland Village Shopping Center came down today, a reader reports. But a full reveal of Apple’s first-ever glass-roofed see-through-and-walk-through store — and (perhaps) whatever secrets lie below or next to it — will have to wait for a further strip-down: of the material still covering the all-glass front and back facades.

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02/23/12 3:49pm

Basements are relatively rare in low-lying Houston. But a Swamplot reader who’s been following the progress of construction at the first not-in-a-mall Apple store ever to be built in this city thinks Apple dug deep into its curtained Highland Village Shopping Center site:

Apple not only tore down the existing building they dug down far more than was necessary. . . . I saw big excavators, much larger than what would be expected and I saw an excavation that was far deeper than needed for a typical strip center foundation. If there was anything below grade that needed removal such tasks would have been done during the previous construction. . . . [The excavators] were at full extension which would suggest a foundation 15’ below grade. Sounds like a basement to me. The old saw about you couldn’t have basements in Houston is certainly not true. Many buildings downtown and in the medical center have multilevel basements.

So . . . what might Apple be hiding underground?

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02/21/12 1:55pm

Turns out this “mysterious construction” going up on the corner of Technology Forest Blvd. and Research Forest Dr. in The Woodlands isn’t meant to house some company’s secret R&D project — instead, it’ll house investigations of a more familiar technology. No name has been announced, but the operator of 2 Sakekawa Japanese Steak House & Sushi Bars (there’s another one Indian Springs Village already) bought the 1.21-acre pad site last year. These photos came from a Swamplot reader who was curious about the unidentified project — but then answered her own question by uncovering the secret sushi plot for us:

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02/10/12 2:11pm

The Asia Society Texas Center has been providing previews of its new headquarters building in a series of private events, but Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi’s new Museum District landmark isn’t scheduled to open to the public until the second half of a 4-day celebration beginning April 12th. By then the $48.4 million modern building will be outfitted with an exhibition of Asian art from the Rockefeller Collection.

In the meantime, the organization has released to Swamplot a more complete set of images than what’s been available so far — documenting photographer Paul Hester‘s take on the ins and outs of the new 38,000-sq.-ft. structure on Southmore Blvd. between Caroline and Austin:

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02/09/12 1:19pm

UNDERBELLY AND THE HAY MERCHANT GOING WHOLE HOG TOGETHER Co-owner Bobby Heugel tells Amber Ambrose the craft beer bar he’s been carving out of the former Chances space at the corner of Westheimer and Waugh and the meat palace built from scratch next door for former Catalan chef Chris Shepherd will be attached but operate separately: “For the sake of efficiency and competitive pricing, the one area shared by both Underbelly and the Hay Merchant is the butchering room, with its massive double doors that can accommodate an entire cow, pig or other large animal. Certain cuts suited more for the restaurant’s menu will go into the kitchen at Underbelly and the remaining trim that make up the creative pub menu of dishes like burgers, sweetbread po’boys and crispy sweet and sour pig’s ears inside The Hay Merchant will go next door, although we suspect there will be plenty of sweetbreads and pig’s ears on Underbelly’s menu at times too. Otherwise, the two businesses are taking great pains to keep their identities separate, even going as far as banning employees of each from stepping foot into the other while they’re on the clock.” [Eater Houston] Photo: Candace Garcia

01/30/12 10:04am

One of several Trader Joe’s stalkers in The Woodlands sends us this pic of the shopping center site at 10868 Kuykendahl Rd. near Woodlands Pkwy., “looking more and more like a store!” The photo was taken Sunday; no opening date is listed on the Trader Joe’s website, but it’s expected to be sometime this spring.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

01/20/12 3:35pm

The folks at the Chick-fil-A rising at the corner of Spring and Sawyer in the First Ward (across from the Sawyer Heights Shopping Center) aren’t quite ready to take your order, but judging from this photo it looks like they might be sometime soon. The fast-food drive-thru is going up on the site of the former Riviana Foods warehouse at 2222 Shearn St., which was demo’ed last fall. Now if they’d just add a second Starbucks somewhere near the giant parking lot, comments Twitter photographer knittykat (there’s one inside the Target already), the area would truly fulfill its destiny as stay-at-home mom mecca of the Heights.

Photo: Twitter user knittykat

01/19/12 5:04pm

It looks like large portions of the 2.8-mile-long Heritage West Bikeway connecting Stude Park to UH-Downtown are close to completion, but the path along portions of the former UP railway won’t open until summer, according to the city. One important still-missing link: a pedestrian bridge over Little White Oak Bayou. Past the University, the 10-ft. wide trail will connect to the Heritage East Bikeway, which continues along White Oak Bayou to Lockwood.

The new western portion will hook up with the MKT hike-and-bike trail both at Stude Park and at Spring St., providing an alternate along-the-bayou path for bicyclists headed downtown from the Heights. One highlight of the journey: a close-up view of the 17.3 acres of swampland Hakeem Olajuwon flipped to Metro back in 2005 for a cool $15 million:

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01/17/12 10:38am

Note: Story updated and corrected below.

Anadarko Petroleum announced to its employees last week that the company is ready to begin constructing a second office tower just west of its existing headquarters building in The Woodlands Town Center, a source tells Swamplot. The new building will fit on the corner of Lake Robbins Dr. and Woodloch Forest Dr., just south of The Woodlands Mall, and like the current tower will be visible from miles south on I-45. At the announced 31 stories, the new structure would be one floor shorter taller.

According to the report, parking will account for the building’s first 10 floors, though the renderings included in the announcement (above) appear to show a garage a bit shorter than that. The remaining floors are planned to accommodate company growth. Construction is expected to be complete by the spring of 2014. Anadarko did not announce the building’s contractor or architect.

Update, 1:25 pm: Groundbreaking is expected in a few weeks, our source adds; workers are beginning to clear the lot this week.

Renderings: Swamplot inbox

01/11/12 12:01pm

The Sicardi Gallery’s impending move to its new Brave Architecture building currently under construction at the corner of West Alabama and Mulberry in Montrose (above) should send a few ripples through the local gallery landscape, art blogger Robert Boyd notes. Headed for the current Sicardi Gallery space at 2246 Richmond (across the street from Blue Fish House and the Hobbit Cafe), according to Boyd’s sources, will be Thom Andriola’s New Gallery:

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01/10/12 3:36pm

Over the weekend, volunteers placed reclaimed clay tiles next to the I-45 overpass at the northern end of Downtown to create raised beds for a new city garden, Houston’s third. The garden is meant for employees of the city’s new permitting center at 1002 Washington — there’ll be one raised bed for each floor.

Photo: Lauren H.

01/05/12 2:58pm

A tipster on the scene reports that the demolition of Sherman Elementary School at 1909 McKee St. in Northside Village is just about complete: “They'[d] been demolishing it piece by piece (windows, interior, bricks, etc) for the last month, but [in late December] started leveling the rest of the gutted structure and the homes around it.” Going up in place of the school, which sat vacant for about a year: A new 86,000-sq.-ft. Sherman Elementary, which when it opens will take students now attending the ready-to-close Crawford Elementary School on Jensen Dr. about a mile southeast.

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01/03/12 1:00pm

HIGHLAND VILLAGE APPLE STORE REBOOT Did you know the shiny new Apple Store with the glass roof and front and back walls in Highland Village was scheduled to open very soon? Well, not any more, says Nancy Sarnoff. A source tells her the opening of the first Houston-area non-mall store has been pushed back until March. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Drawing: Jeffrey Djayasaputra

01/03/12 10:15am

That’s it, right there, next to Petco: Trader Joe’s first Houston-area store, now in fetal form in the shopping center at 10868 Kuykendahl Rd., across the street from the H-E-B at Woodlands Pkwy. New Swamplot reader Michael E. sends these pix showing how far construction has progressed since the dusty days of last November. The steel frame is up! When do the multi-pack avocados come in?

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