WHERE WILL THE RAMEN BE? 
You can order ramen at dozens of places in Houston, but The Modular food truck’s Joshua Martinez’s Goro & Gun, declares Houston Press‘s Katharine Shilcutt, is going to be the first dedicated to the squiggly noodle: Doubling as a bar, Goro & Gun is set to open in about a month somewhere Downtown; CultureMap’s Tyler Rudick hazards a guess that 306 Main St. will be the new spot, but Martinez calls that story’s reporting “very inaccurate.” So where, then? Martinez and his fellow gaijin Brad Moore and Ryan Rouse aren’t ready to say, but Shilcutt does slip in a few clues: “The downtown restaurant which will house Goro & Gun hasn’t been home to anything successful in years. Its last resident was a sandwich shop, which closed almost as quickly as it opened.” And it’ll be in a “shotgun-style space.” [CultureMap; Eating Our Words] Photo: First We Feast
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Renovations
Austin-style eco-landscaping finishes out the front of this renovated 1940 Oak Forest home new listing, which comes with an initial asking price of $319,000. The property’s far greener outback includes a fenced-off veggie-herb-fruit garden. Next to it, an air-conditioned treehouse stands guard; a balcony allows visitors to the raised clubhouse to keep a watchful eye on errant vegetation. Inside the main house, meanwhile, a super-sized master suite occupies a goodly portion of the total living space.
LBJ wuz here: Built in 1904, this 3,161-sq.-ft. home on the corner of Hawthorne and Garrott in the Westmoreland Historic District gave the future president a place to crash in 1931 when he was teaching public speaking and coaching the debate team at Sam Houston High School.
In March 2011, the house was put on the market for the first time in 90 years; the price climbed to almost $619,000 that June. It sat for a year, going for just under $285,000. Renovations began that summer. And the house returned 9 days ago with a new MLS number, new photos, and a new historically low — for this place, anyway — price: $569,900.
All winter this Hermann Park high point has been fenced off while crews have worked on Miller Outdoor Theatre’s heavily used seating (and rolling-down) area to update drainage and irrigation systems, among other hill-improvement-type activities. The project, funded by the city, has a budget of almost $261,000. This photo shows a little patch of progress; though performances start back up in April, the theater warns you not to get your hopes up: the hill could remain closed through May.
- Improvements at Miller [Miller Outdoor Theatre]
Photo: Miller Outdoor Theatre
One-stop shopping: you can see the signage and new (and presumably sterile) cabinetry through the second-floor windows of The Centre at River Oaks (in Upper Kirby, in fact), where a 25,000-sq.-ft. branch of Texas Children’s Hospital and Pediatric Associates is expected to open in March; the makeover of the shopping center at West Alabama and Kirby began last summer; Ainbinder announced that Ulta Beauty would be operating out of the first floor of the bankrupt Borders; Texas Children’s will sit atop both Ulta Beauty and Brio Tuscan Grille.
- Previously on Swamplot: Doctors Without Borders: Kelsey Seybold Clinic Taking Over Pole Position at Meyerland Plaza, Borders Activity Report
Photo: Swamplot inbox
The headquarters of Houston natives and siblings Scott and Nicole Vogel’s Houstonia magazine will be here, the new monthly glossy tweets, at this repainted Victorian at 477 Heights Blvd. The 4,200-sq.-ft. house was purchased in October, city records show. Unveiled earlier this week, Houstonia is expected to debut this March; the masthead will include writers like Robb Walsh and inveterate streetwalker John Nova Lomax, formerly of the Houston Press.
- Houstonia Magazine launches for Houston [mikemcguff.com]
- A prelaunch oops? New Houston city magazine changes its name after a major hotel complains [CultureMap]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Meanest Strip Mall in Houston
Photo: Houstonia
Shadow-hued through and through, an updated Garden Oaks home has a floor plan that’s a bit like a slice of Neapolitan ice cream. Room functions — sleeping quarters, living areas, and food-related spaces — stripe the home in thirds. Compact but fully loaded, the property listed earlier this week at an even $249,000. It last sold in 2009, for $198,500.
COUNTING DOWN TO 11:11 
Chef Kevin Bryant is renovating the former Bibas Diner at 607 West Gray for a new “casual fine dining restaurant” called 11:11 that’s expected to open in March; Greg Morago reports that the building (shown at left) is being updated to include a 100-seat patio and an 80-90 seat private dining section upstairs with a private terrace. The former Capitol at St. Germain and L’Olivier chef, reports Morago, is devising a menu “he describes as ‘Southern coastal.’ There will be an oyster bar, a raw bar program (sourcing East Coast bivalves), sashimi, lobsters, and a ceviche of the day. The restaurant will use Gulf seafood where appropriate, but source from all over.” [29-95] Photo: Allyn West
A City of Houston rep tells Swamplot that 3 of the 10 Freedman’s Town shotgun houses on Victor St. between Gillette and Bailey will be relocated in the Fourth Ward. (The photo shows a shingle-stripped one up on a trailer and ready to go.) A permit to demolish them was granted in 2011, but the city rep says that the owners have since agreed to donate some of the houses to the Fourth Ward Redevelopment Authority, which says it has plans to move them to a lot they own at 1414 Robin and rehab them into low-income housing. Swamplot reported this morning that the West Gray lot where the rowhouses are now located has been pegged for a 5-story mixed-use midrise called Dolce Living.
- Previously on Swamplot: Apartments Moving In on Freedman’s Town Rowhouse Lot, Daily Demolition Report: The Spoils of Victor
Photo:Â Chris C
It was supposed to be a teardown, this almost-defiant home in Ayrshire. That’s what had happened to the original homes on either side of this still-single-story one, located on a cul-de-sac one house away from the railroad and utility easement that separates the neighborhood from Bellaire. Demolition is what a view-screening label dictated on just about every interior photo in the before-the-redo listing. The buyer and design team had other ideas, though, and renovated the 1957 ranch-style house into something more 2013-ish, outside and in.
Dating to 1913, this very white Colonial has been given extensive renovations both inside and out that have lent the place a certain glow. Listed earlier this week at $1.95 million, the 5,700-sq.-ft. home stands in Montrose at the corner of Sul Ross and Brandt, providing highwayside views of U.S. 59.
Squatters and street artists might have to find another bygone building to pick on — but that’s only assuming there’s something really behind the renderings of renovations to Midtown’s Central Square Plaza that Claremont Property has been floating around. Could that demure stone mosaic on the wall facing Webster finally get its comeuppance after years of playing hard to get?
A second-story job might be screened by strategically-unfurling treetops, but it’s still hard to miss the stacked silhouette on a Meyerland-area street of single-story homes in Marilyn Estates, south of Brays Bayou near Chimney Rock.
Note: Story updated below.
This mud pit on Rustic St. is not long for the world; eventually there will be a 3-level parking garage here at very congested HCC Southeast. The East End campus is pressed up against the back of a strip center that faces the I-45 feeder road between Woodridge and Wayside. To make room for the garage, appearing to allow students and faculty to enter from both Rustic and Garland, the 100-seat Carlos Garcia Theater and some inadequate surface parking had to go. This is an otherwise expanding campus: last summer saw the opening of a brand-new Workforce Building (shown here), a 3-story, 60,000-sq.-ft. Brave Praxis Brave Architecture job where many of the campus’s vocational programs — including HVAC, cosmetology, massage therapy, and accounting — are now based.
- President’s Mission [Houston Community College]
- Project Update: HCC Southeast College Workforce Building [Brave Praxis]
Photos: Brave Praxis (academic building);Â Allyn West (site)
A NEW MOON TOWER PHASE 
It just takes awhile to remake a potty-mouthed wild-game hot-dog shack, but East Downtown’s Moon Tower Inn has finally reopened after 15 months — with some historical upgrades to the decor at 3004 Canal: “The new tap wall, kitchen and brewhouse are made from shipping containers and reclaimed building materials. For example, [Co-owner Brandon] Young says that the metal siding used to be a barn on the Stephen F Austin University campus, and there are wooden planks from a Louisiana slaves’ quarters.” [Eater Houston] Photo: Marty E.
