Renovations

02/26/18 11:45am

Midday Drinking Promos Have Vanished from the Postino Patio at Heights Mercantile

Houston Heights, Renovations, Restaurants

Postino hasn’t opened yet, but there’s already been a notable change to the decor at the Arizona-based wine cafe chain’s first Texas location. Gone from the construction fencing outside the restaurant’s patio are the signs pictured at top that read, “DRINKING WINE AT LUNCH IS NOT A CRIME.” In their place, new banners featuring only Postino’s name and social media handle have appeared. The photo above views them from the west side of the Heights Mercantile development at the corner of 7th St. and Yale.

Here’s another look at the current fence abutting Rye 51’s storefront on 7th St.:

Restaurant Rebranding

77007, Bars and Restaurants, Houston Heights, Renovations, Signs

02/22/18 11:30am

The Warehouse and Playhouse Redos Planned for Stages Repertory Theatre’s Current and Future Venues

Mixed Use, Montrose, North Montrose, Proposed Developments, Renovations

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Radom Capital is entertaining 2 different ideas for the former Stages theater on the block of Rosine across D’Amico St. from its planned new complex: either a hotel or a combination of retail, restaurant, and office tenants. The developer bought Stages’ current spot in the long structure at 3201 Allen Pkwy — built in 1929 to house the Star Engraving Company — as well as the warehouse behind it last year. Renovations are now slated to begin on both the Star building and the warehouse behind it — both indicated in the site plan above — once the theater takes off in 2019.

The rendering of the warehouse at top put out by Radom shows new openings in its exterior, including a boxy balcony on its second floor and an entrance at ground level fronting D’Amico. An outdoor staircase ascends from where the greens-skinned building meets its western neighbor — the parking garage for the Reata at River Oaks condos — and heads up to a second-story entrance. Stages’ new theater sits across D’Amico, opposite a front lawn at the other end of the colorful crosswalk on the left.

Here’s a look at the new playhouse — dubbed The Gordy — sitting in its own renovated warehouse with touch ups by architecture firm Gensler:

North Montrose Ensemble

77019, Mixed Use, Montrose, North Montrose, Propose Developments

02/13/18 3:45pm

The Galleria’s New Food Court: Stacked Restaurants in Former Saks Space

Galleria, Renovations, Restaurants

4 new restaurants of 4 different culinary persuasions are planning their migration to the Galleria’s coming chow center — beyond the curved wall that fronted Saks Fifth Avenue before the department store moved to a straighter-edged building just next door along Westheimer.Â Renovations to transform the building’s face into something new tenants could get behind have been in progress for the past few years. The site plan above from Simon Properties shows where Blanco Tacos + Tequila will arrive below Japanese restaurant Nobu, east of the building’s main entrance hall. West of the hall is where Fig & Olive as well as its upstairs Indian neighbor Spice Route will move in. They’ll go behind and in front of the new first- and second-story windows pictured at top — punched in the building’s facade last year.

Heavily blanched renderings put out by Fig & Olive show the patio fronting its 7,000-sq.-ft. interior:

Multicultural Cook Off

77056, Galleria, Renovations, Restaurants

02/06/18 12:00pm

A Sideways Peek at the Fried Chicken Changeover Taking Place in Pandoraâ€™s Old Shed on Washington Ave

Houston Heights, Renovations, Restaurants

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A sideways glance at the renovations underway on 1815 Washington — formerly home to the Pandora Lounge nightclub, and even more formerly to Throne Ultra Lounge — reveals 2 new openings in the building’s east side ahead of its coming grand opening as Houston’s first Gus’s Fried Chicken location. The older listing photo above depicts the full building on the block between Silver and Sabine back when its street frontage was a wall of bricks.Â The white wall and front door shown on the right in the photo at top had replaced the brick face and garage entrance by the time Braun Enterprises bought the place in late 2015.

Renderings of the building released by Braun around the time Gus’s signed up for it in 2016, however, showed plans to rebrick it, as well as add new windows and a patio on its east side:

Tennessee Transplant

77007, Bars and Restaurants, Memorial Heights, Renovations

Bars and Clubs

02/05/18 4:30pm

Office Building to Bar Conversion Now in Its Alphabetical Furniture Store Alcohol License Phase

Downtown, Renovations

TABC signage tacked to the 2-story office structure at 1803 Pease St. notes that AZ Furniture is applying for permission to serve beverages into the late hours on site. Could it be that a boozy cabinetry boutique is in the works, or a couch showroom that fronts a speakeasy? No, according to building permits filed to convert the 5,952-sq.-ft. building into a bar. The name listed on those permits is more suited for a venue located 3 blocks southeast of the Toyota Center — it’s Slam Dunk Bar & Grill.

Renovations began on the building last year. The photo below views it from its adjacent parking lot on the corner of Pease and Chenevert:

The Hard Court

77003, Bars and Clubs, Downtown, Renovations

02/02/18 5:00pm

How Shake Shack Is Shaping Up on the Village Arcade Corner of Kirby and Amherst

Renovations, Restaurants, Retail

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Construction on Shake Shack’s new burger hub in Rice Village — next door to the coming Rice University clothing boutique on Amherst — looks about medium well now that the brick building has been blackened, stripped of its awnings, and shielded by a metal frame bearing all-caps signage. La Madeleine restaurant left the building last March ahead of renovations planned for the entire Village Arcade structure between Kirby and Kelvin.

A Rice Village property manager announced in 2016 that the born-in-Manhattan chain with current locations as far-flung as Bahrain was on its way to Kirby. Back then, Houston was completely Shack-less, but that changed when a debut location opened in a Galleria parking lot later that year. Since then, one other Shake Shack has cropped up in the city — behind center field in Minute Maid Park.

Faster Food

Renovations, Restaurants, Retail, Rice-Village, Shopping Centers

Eastwood

01/17/18 12:30pm

Alexis and Hunter Pence’s Eastwood Gamer Cafe Looking Ready for Swordplay

Renovations

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Replica weaponry is now up on the white brick building at 1318 Telephone Rd. ahead of coffee shop Coral Sword’s planned opening in the space next month. Backed by former Houston Astro and self-professed video- and board-gamer Hunter Pence along with his wife Alexis, the venue will include communal gaming areas, a private podcast and game session recording booth, and “a membership driven co-gaming space.” Record and book store Wired Up closed down in the building last year, and renovations have been underway on the space since last month. The photo at top shows Coral Sword’s main entrance and storefront window to the right of it.

The cafe will share the building with East End Barber, which takes up the southeast portion of the structure. Below, you can see the barber shop’s sign on the corner of Telephone and Fourcade St.:

Waiting on Deck

77023, Coffee Shops, Eastwood, Openings and Closings, Renovations

01/10/18 11:30am

How Another Deal Warehouse Is Shaping Up in a Former First Ward Halliburton Habitat

First Ward, Renovations, Warehouse Space

Following the trail of industrial buildings transformed in the First Ward, a Swamplot reader in motion this morning sends this photo of workers getting a boost to install new siding along the Spring St. frontage of the former Halliburton manufacturing plant at 1907 Sabine St. A company overseen by developer Jon Deal bought the 1.3-acre complex of industrial buildings between Spring and Shearn streets in 2016. Five years earlier, Deal bought the property across Spring St. from the Halliburton plant and transformed it into Spring Street Studios. He also developed the Silos at Sawyer Yards studio as well as 2 other art spaces nearby it — all 3 blocks south of the former plant.

The complex includes a vacant lot on the corner of Spring and Silver streets:

Oilfield Services Redo

77007, First Ward, Renovations, Warehouse Space

Downtown

01/03/18 2:15pm

The Street, Restaurant, and Cafe Changes Coming to Bank of America Center Once the Secret Building Inside It Is Exhumed

Houston Landmarks, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Renovations

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New renderings released by Sydness ArchitectsÂ show the street-level changes planned for the Bank of America Center, which sits across the street from Jones Plaza on one side and Philip Johnsonâ€™s other notable downtown office tower, Pennzoil Place, on the other. Last fall, building owner M-M Properties announced plans to remove the mummified 2-storyÂ Western Union building that had been encapsulated within the Bank of America Center’s northeast quadrant since 1983 (see photo above).

Windows and doors are shown added to the skyscraper along Capitol and Louisiana streets — in 2 of the walls that once entombed the telegram building. The rendering at top shows the reconfigured view from outside Jones Hall, withÂ new 2-story openings facing Capitol St.

Only one new street-level entrance is clearly shown in that rendering, however: the awninged door to a new restaurant along Louisiana St. That restaurant is planned for a portion of the former Western Union building’s ground floor in the northeast corner of the Bank of America Center:

Philip Johnson’s Ghosts

77002, Downtown, Houston Landmarks, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Renovations

01/02/18 4:30pm

Where Flower Child Restaurant Will Sprout in Uptown Park

Openings and Closings, Renovations, Retail, Strip Centers, Uptown

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Flower Child —Â the health-minded restaurant that announced it was coming to Houston back in October — will take over the space that houses women’s clothing boutique BB1 Classic in the Cafe Express building at Uptown Park.Â Bidding is already underway for construction that will turn the 2-story, corner-side storeÂ into the newÂ restaurant, whose owners already run North Italia and True Food Kitchen, both located in the same shopping center just south of Uptown Park on Post Oak Blvd. at the corner of San Felipe St.

Ads for a moving sale were posted on the high-fashion retailer’s Facebook page last Thursday.Â BB1 Classic’s current location opened in 2003. Before that, the store had spots inÂ Memorial City, south of Uptown Park on Post Oak, in River Oaks, and in the Galleria.

Hippie Healthy Chain Flower Child Is En Route to Houston [Eater Houston]

Photo: BB1 Classic

Dining in Style

77056, Bars and Restaurants, Renovations, Retail, Strip Centers, Uptown Park

Downtown

01/02/18 12:30pm

Cubicles, Mezzanines, Great Glass Elevator To Fill Philip Johnsonâ€™s Grand Downtown Banking Hall Airspace As Part of Renovation

Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Renovations

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Quick, what’s the most vaulted bank in all of Houston? Easy: the lofty Bank of America branch on the ground floor of theÂ Bank of America Center at 700 Louisiana St. Downtown (pictured at top) — so grand, so postmodern, so .Â .Â . unleasable. Philip Johnson designed theÂ 12-story high banking hall to resemble “a sixteenth-century Dutch guild hall, albeit one scaled to be seen from the freeway at sixty miles per hour,” writesÂ Joel Warren Barna in a history of the project included in The See-Through Years. But nowÂ big changes are planned for that empty space:

“We’re just going to kind of slip in these two floor slabs,” Jeff Sydness of Sydness Architects tells theÂ Chronicleâ€™s Katherine Feser. Sydness was hired by M-M Properties to reconfigure the lower levels of the 56-floor tower, which was built in 1983. So: Lower ceilings ahoy! New mezzanines are now being planned to colonize the banking hall’s towering overhead emptiness. The new structures, edged with glass walls, will fill much of that air-conditioned but unused airspace with workstation- and cubicle-ready office platforms:

Loft Office

77002, Downtown, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments

Disaster Aftermath

12/08/17 1:15pm

What It Takes To Jack a House

by Swamplot

Flooding, Quicklink, Renovations

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WHAT IT TAKES TO JACK A HOUSE “Adam Bakir, a Houston builder and remodeler, does one or two home elevations a year. The job is akin to major surgery. Workers tunnel under the house, Bakir said, then raise the whole thing on jacksâ€”the slab and the house that rests on it. Since Harvey, Bakir has received more than 20 inquiries about home elevation. If potential customers ask for a cost estimate, heâ€™ll tell them: between about $75 and $100 per square foot. ‘If you have a 2,500-square-foot house, which is typical,’ he said, ‘the upper end of it would be about $250,000. The lower end, around $180,000.‘” [CityLab] Photo: Arkitektura Development

Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Hurricane Harvey, Renovations

North Montrose

12/07/17 12:00pm

Houston’s Best-Located Axe-Throwing Facility Yet Is Coming to North Montrose

Renovations, Strip Centers

6 Comments

Sure, Houston Axe — just off 59 on Larkwood Dr. — is convenient to Sharpstown and Bellaire, but Houston’s soon-to-come second indoor axe-throwing venueÂ will likely be better located. Ratchet Hatchet plans to take over the former Vue Nightclub space on the second floor of the strip center at the corner of Waugh Dr. and Allen Pkwy., across the street from Whole Foods and the America Tower. But that also puts it very close to the Marshall Back & Body Wellness Center, the Montrose Eye Care clinic, and a branch of Farmers Insurance in the same strip center. Also, both the Hand Care Center and Foot Surgery Specialists of Texas are located only a block south.

Permits filed with the City of Houston show that the facility at 524 Waugh Dr. will be 1,700 sq. ft. That address likely puts it right above Bayou LiquorÂ in this photo:

Ratchet Hatchet

77019, North Montrose, Renovations, Strip Centers

Adaptive Reuse

12/01/17 1:30pm

Alterations Begin on McGowen Cleaners, Soon To Be Vibrant

Hyde Park, Renovations

2 Comments

Work has begun outside the former McGowen Cleaners — closed since 2015 — on the corner of Fairview and Morse streets, the site of the plannedÂ Vibrant restaurant. Last May, Vibrant’s owners bought the 3,909-sq.-ft. brick building, along withÂ 2 adjacent neighbors to the south; they plan to open theirÂ Lake Flato-designed restaurant inside the corner building in March. The above rendering shows a patio that would be cut into its corner — and a garden lining the street, where chunks of chopped-up pavementÂ now lie.

The rendering also shows tall windows being created where clerestory windows currently face Fairview. The clerestories are visible in the center of this photo of the 1931 Fairview St. building from last year, when the property was up for sale: