A roving reader-photographer sends in pix of the action on the corner of Waugh and West Dallas, planned site of the new Tony Mandola’s Gulf Coast Kitchen. Mandola told CultureMap last year his new restaurant will be larger than its current space in the River Oaks Shopping Center on West Gray and will be “very French Quarter, with lots of brick, wrought iron, and courtyards.” His GC for the project is a noted builder of fast-food restaurants. Whatever the building ends up looking like will likely mix up this little stretch of Waugh, which includes a brick CVS and Pei Wei in a strip center across the street, the modern Houston Area Women’s Center building directly to the north, and — across West Dallas, the eternal faceoff between Jack-in-the-Box and the brand new Whole Foods Market. The earth-shaking — or . . . well, at least earth-moving — news from the scene: “Ground is being re-graded slightly, sticks with colored ribbons have been planted and there’s quite a bit of construction equipment on the lot.”
AEG president Tim Leiweke says the design for the new Dynamo Stadium just east of Downtown is “100 percent complete,” and that at least 2 local companies have expressed interest in naming rights, which he’s eager to sell. “We are pricing the construction out now. We have a pretty good handle on the budget. The project will probably come in including the land at $110 million and the fact that we are sitting here talking about a ground-breaking by the end of the year and playing soccer and football for TSU by June of 2012 is amazing. 
The head of the giant monkey wrench is still under construction Downtown, but already Hines has lowered rents and begun looking for smaller-scale tenants at MainPlace, Nancy Sarnoff reports. And now . . . they’re staging it!
“Hines has built out mock offices on three floors so prospective tenants can get a better idea of what their offices may look like.
Depending on the audience, the models can make an impression.
‘If you bring over a CEO, it registers with them a little more,’ said Chrissy Wilson, vice president of leasing for Hines.” [Houston Chronicle; 
