06/25/10 7:07pm

Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:

Not sure the “answers” readers provided for this week’s Street Sleuths feature were satisfying enough to merit a summary post, but it’s nice at least to have another excuse to run Jason Tinder’s dramatic photo showing the end of the Komart Marketplace. Here’s what we, uh, “learned”:

  • Spring Branch: So yes, Tinder now does have some “clues” that might help him figure out what’s going on with the Gessner Place Shopping Center on the west side of Gessner just north of I-10, and the remains of Komart. The property is owned by MetroNational, but any redevelopment schemes the company is hatching from its Death Star overlook remain a mystery. Harmonica adds another tidbit to the Memorial City Mall area rumor mill:

    I also understand that they own the center on the other side of Kingsride from the professional building on the South side of 10 and have not been renewing leases.

    In this photo, the Death Star surveys its vanquished foe:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/24/10 11:48am

Having displayed a remarkable ability to minimize outside participation in the “open call” for Astrodome redevelopment proposals it conducted half a decade ago, the brilliant and methodical minds behind the Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation now appear ready to demonstrate similar mastery of the process of public-opinion polling. The corporation is counting actual votes in the online poll it set up last week, which allows website visitors from any country to choose from one of 2 kitchen-sink redevelopment proposals — or the garbage-disposal option pictured above. With 5,800 “votes” cast, longtime corporation executive director Willie Loston notes that the “save the Dome” options are winning by a landslide. But wait! Maybe they just haven’t been asking the right people?

To solicit more participation, Loston has asked some of Reliant Park’s tenants — the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Houston Texans and the Offshore Technology Conference – to encourage their constituents to take the survey.

Asked if that could be construed as an attempt to manufacture support for a more costly park makeover, Loston said he does not see it as an attempt to shape the survey’s outcome.

Note to contracted visitors: Local Zip Codes begin with “770.”

Drawing of flattened Astrodome: Reliant Park

06/24/10 8:34am

Note: Story updated below.

The owners of the original Carrabba’s Italian Grill on Kirby between West Main and Branard plan to demolish the restaurant, rebuild it, and construct 2 more restaurants on adjacent blocks. First step: building a new 275-car parking garage one block to the north, at the northwest corner of Branard and Argonne. Next, a new and larger Carrabba’s (marked [A] in the site plan above) would go up directly south of the existing building, which would remain open during construction. Once the new digs are complete, they’ll tear down the existing restaurant and put in a parking lot and porte-cochere in its place. Two more restaurants — one possibly named Grace’s, and one with office space upstairs — are planned for blocks north of Branard, one facing Kirby and the other at Argonne.

The Kirby Carrabba’s is one of 2 still owned by the family of co-founder Johnny Carrabba. All other Carrabba’s Italian Grills — more than 200 in 27 states — are owned by OSI Restaurant Partners, the same company that runs Outback Steakhouse and Fleming’s.

The new Kirby restaurant complex may be the first in the city to take advantage of the “transit corridor” incentives passed by city council last year. In return for building a 15-ft.-wide pedestrian area and street-front entrance along Kirby, designers get to push 2 of the buildings close to the street, well into the normal 25-ft. setback. The planning commission approved the site plan earlier this month — along with several related parking variances — even though the transit corridor itself (the University Line on Richmond) hasn’t even started construction yet.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/22/10 12:48pm

Got an answer to any of these reader questions? Or just want to be a sleuth for Swamplot? Here’s your chance! Add your report in a comment, or send a note to our tipline.

  • Midtown: A couple of readers are curious about this new sign, which went up at the end of last week at the long-languishing lot south of West Alabama between Travis and Main, across the street from Julia’s Bistro and the Breakfast Klub. There were plans to build a hospital in this location a few years ago. In the last year it’s become an inexpensive parking lot, notes roving Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia, who’s curious how whatever’s being envisioned for the property might “tie in with the rail, the church (SMBC), and the Men’s Center nearby.”
  • Spring Branch: Reader Jason Tinder snaps the dramatic photo below, showing the final moments of vanquished Korean grocery store Komart, and notes the entire Gessner Place Shopping Center, on the west side of Gessner just north of I-10, is being demolished. It looks to him like something else is going in there . . . can anybody give him some clues?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/17/10 2:14pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WRITE-IN ADDITION TO THE NEW KITCHEN-SINK ASTRODOME REDEVELOPMENT PLAN “How about turning the Astrodome into the Smithsonian Museum of Energy and Power? Just like the National Air & Space Museum, it could collect the actual artifacts of the industry that calls Houston home and that plays such an important part in all of our daily lives. You could put a whole supertanker, a few notorious drilling rigs, some significant parts of an oil refinery, working solar panels and several generations of windmill turbines inside. Divide up the concourse spaces for offices (alternative energy business incubators, etc) Could be really interesting and also an appropriate use for the facility.” [SCL, commenting on Latest Astrodome Redevelopment Proposal Features Large Domed Space for People To Mill About, Wondering What To Do with Astrodome]

06/17/10 8:53am

Austin sushi dude Tyson Cole is planning to name the new restaurant he’s eyeing for the longtime location of Felix Mexican Restaurant at Westheimer and Grant “Uchi” — just like his Austin original. The new owners “do not intend” to tear down the building (if they did, current development regulations might make it difficult to rebuild so close to the street). Cole’s publicist confirms to Swamplot that Austin restaurant designer Michael Hsu “will be involved” in the project, but notes that the sale of the building hasn’t been finalized. The restaurant wouldn’t open until late 2011.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/15/10 6:47pm

Charged with figuring out what to do with the Astrodome, those wacky folks at the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation have at last identified a viable new use for the aging multipurpose venue. Their idea this time: turn it into . . . a multipurpose venue! Using a $50,000 budget granted by county commissioners, consultants hired by the corporation demonstrated the clear advantages of large-scale design by committee. One actual specific recommendation of the consultants’ report, issued yesterday: A feasibility study, which would — among other things — identify an “overall concept” for the project.

To help communicate their ideas for the space, both the written and PowerPoint versions of the report include several drawings that show large numbers of possibly confused people wandering about pointlessly in and around a revamped Dome:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/15/10 2:56pm

In other Montrose Tex-Mex news, MyTable reports that the building on the corner of Westheimer and Grant that for 60 years housed Felix Mexican Restaurant is likely toast. Famous white-guy sushi chef Tyson Cole and the owners of his standout Austin restaurant, Uchi, have bought the building and are planning a new restaurant in that location. The structure will “probably be torn down,” MyTable reports. Both Uchi on South Lamar and Cole’s about-to-open restaurant on North Lamar, called Uchiko, were designed by Austin’s Michael Hsu Design Office. Hsu’s best-known work in Houston: Sushi Raku in Midtown.

Late Update: Not so fast with the Felix building obits, please.

Photo: Debra Jane Seltzer

06/14/10 2:38pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOPING THERE’LL STILL BE RIDES AT WHATEVER REPLACES ASTROWORLD They might even put in a sweet gondola system. Or maybe a high-speed, elevated, rail-based shuttle system with small, open-air, 2-to-4 passengers cars to get you from building to building. And maybe they could incorporate some steeply banking curves and a loop or two along the route.” [Benjy Compson, commenting on Green and Wiggly AstroWorld Redevelopment Plan Coulda Been a Contender]

06/14/10 8:26am

The ambitious mixed-use “eco urban” project shown here — intended for the site of the former AstroWorld — was the idea of a south Florida developer who had the property under contract for an extended period of time, a source tells Swamplot. Called Epicentre Houston, Vantage Plus Corp.’s gargantuan development was meant to be a “city within a city” — combining typical mixed-use elements (1.6 million sq. ft. of shops, 5.2 million sq. ft. of offices, 1500 hotel rooms, and 1840 residences) with 1.9 million sq. ft. of medical space, all within walking distance of Reliant Park, the light-rail line, and the South Loop Sam’s Club.

The developer was scheduled to close on the property approximately 5 months ago, but was unable to, says the source. The 104-acre lot just south of the South Loop has since been sold to Fort Worth developer Michael Mallick, who doesn’t appear to be hiding any fancy renderings of transparent banana-shaped multipurpose buildings up his sleeve.

Oh, but what might have been! More zoomy images of the theme-park redo:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/07/10 2:15pm

Everybody out by the end of October, the owners of the Village Plaza Shopping Center have told all remaining tenants. Fuzzy’s Pizza and City Dance Studio, of course, are long gone from the center at 5925 Kirby, a block north of Rice Blvd. The Bike Barn has already picked out more than 10,000 sq. ft. in the former Hollywood Video in Weslayan Plaza, at Bissonnet and Weslayan. Kids Kuts will cut south to Bellaire and Stella Link; the UPS Store is looking at a new place “on Bissonnet.” Ticket Stop and Susan Nail & Facial are hunting for space nearby. Mattress Giant just doesn’t want to talk about it.

The property’s owner is its eastern neighbor, the Children’s Assessment Center. A planned expansion to the John M. O’Quinn campus, which now faces Bolsover, would eat the deeper chunk of the shopping center, leaving 0.8 acres on Kirby for somebody else to develop. Here’s the part that’s toast:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

05/25/10 11:15am

A CONDO OWNERS FAN SITE FOR SHAYA BOYMELGREEN Still waiting for the developer of the twin-tower condo development proposed for San Felipe near the end of Woodway to provide an update on the project? Some New Yorkers would like a word with him too. The residents of the Newswalk Condominium in Brooklyn have created a website called Shame on Shaya, documenting in Russian, Hebrew, and English the “extraordinary number of construction defects” in developer Shaya Boymelgreen’s first high-profile development, constructed in 2002: “The building is now undergoing a two-year, $7 million construction remediation project. Newswalk residents are currently in legal action against Boymelgreen with a suit seeking no less than $10 million in damages.” Spokesman Michael Rogers explains: “Many of us got to know Shaya in the early days of Newswalk, and found him friendly and likeable. He may not fully understand what the residents of Newswalk are suffering, and this campaign is a way to bring him up-to-date.” [Previously on Swamplot]

05/18/10 11:01am

The Triyar Cannon Group has been threatening to give shopworn Greenspoint Mall a $32 million makeover since 2006. Most of what appears to be planned shows up in this knock-’em-down video: a new outdoor plaza at the mall’s east entrance, and a connected 22-story office building off Greenspoint Dr., designed by Ziegler Cooper. Just last week, demolition began on the vacant JCPenney building, site of a proposed Premiere Cinema multiplex that’s supposed to share a new parking garage with the tower. Not in the plans, but already happened anyway: the closing of Sears.

When will the rest of this happen?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

05/07/10 1:21pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: YE OLDE DYNAMO WAREHOUSE SOCCER STADIUM AND EMPORIUM, NIXED “. . . we met with the architects Wednesday before the game. Received assurances that the design will be modern and eye-catching. Someone suggested the possibility of sticking with the red-brick warehouse motif, and that was summarily dismissed. Not gonna happen.” [Nord, commenting on Dynamo Stadium Is Just a Sketch]

05/07/10 1:07pm

Those highfalutin designers and their fancy theoretical jargon. Just skip the conceptual mumbo-jumbo and tell us where we’ll be able to make left turns!

A closer look at a few of those proposals for greenifying the new medians going in on the strip between I-45 and Mills Rd.:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY