COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: HELP ME UNCOVER THE GREAT MATTRESS STORE PROLIFERATION PLOT 
“There has got to be some kind of conspiracy going on. There is never anyone in any of their locations or Mattress Firm at any time of day except the person that works there. There are 2 Mattress 1 One locations right across the street from each other at Richmond and 610. Anywhere there is a Starbucks, there is a mattress store very close by. I have no knowledge of anyone, or anyone that knows anyone that has purchased a mattress from either of these two stores. Someone please explain how and why.” [Eric, commenting on A Mattress Store Has Closed in Montrose; previously on Swamplot] Photo of adjacent Mattress Firms on Westheimer at Montrose: Swamplot inbox
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Retail
An intrepid mattress-store-monitoring reader notes that the Mattress 1 One (yeah, that’s how the company spells it out) in the northernmost spot of the strip center at S. Shepherd and W. Alabama across from CVS has closed down. Desperate mattress seekers need not worry, though: Plenty more outlets are available to pick up the slack. A note taped to the front door of the spot at 3101 S. Shepherd Dr., which despite the prominently placed Kensinger Donnelly FOR LEASE signs on the space insists that the location is only “closed for renovation,” directs would-be customers to the chain’s nearest still-open store: a full 3 blocks north on Shepherd, just south of Westheimer.
If that location doesn’t work for you, the Texas-and-Florida mattress chain lists a total of 16 Mattress 1 One locations within a 5-mile radius — though that includes the still-listed Shepherd-and-Alabama spot. And don’t forget competitor Mattress Firm, which has 18 locations of its own within that same area.
- Previously on Swamplot: Latest Addition Brings Mattress Store Count to 9 within Half a Mile of Rice Village;Â How It Came To Be That 2 Separate Mattress Stores with the Same Name Are Now Open Side by Side on Westheimer;Â Your Map to Houston Mattress Chain Stores;Â How and Where Mattress Firm Is Conquering Houston, One Sleepy Strip Center Storefront at a Time
Photos: Margo
Mattrose
Not too much in the way of timelapse settings, drone footage, pulsating but string-infused soundtracks, supertitles, or accompanying sound effects appears to have been spared in the making of this video ode to the Arch-Con crane assembly now hovering over the southeast corner of Washington Ave and S. Heights Blvd. That’s the location of the planned H-E-B Market with the office space and 5-story apartment building on top of it soon to be known as the first phase of Midway’s Buffalo Heights development, on the northwest corner of the former Memorial Heights apartments.
- Previously on Swamplot: Latest Glamor Shot Renderings of the Washington Ave. H-E-B Show Off Designer Labels, Street-Facing Parking; Midway: H-E-B-Footed Midrise on Washington Ave. Will Be in’Buffalo Heights’; H-E-B’s Leased Washington Ave. Store May Have 6 Stories on Top; Yes, H-E-B Really Is Talking About a New Store at Studemont and Washington Ave; Look Where an H-E-B Sign Is Showing Up, Amid Washington Ave Turnover
Video: Midway Companies
Going Vertical
Halloween is almost upon us, and again the full-store gift wrapping and Christmas trees have gone up at the Highland Village shopping center — as these pics sent in by a reader show.
You now have 9 full shopping weeks before Christmas (and a little less than 5 before Thanksgiving), but if you’re still getting your gifts ready for Halloween next Tuesday, you’d better hurry.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
’Tis the Preseason
Here are a few shots of 195 Yale St. just south of I-10 from yesterday afternoon, showing workers a few letters away from spelling out the long-delayed LA Fitness at the Yale Street Market shopping center. The sign, which faces the freeway, was completed by the end of the day:
Fitn In
A sandwich update is in progress along Dairy Ashford directly opposite Fern Dr., across the street from Stratford High School and the Spring Branch ISD athletics complex. The Subway sandwich shop sandwiched between the shuttered locations of a printing company and a small used-car dealership has now been torn down after a brief Harvey reprieve. A reader sends in the above series of photos panning the combined and now-cleared 1.1-acre site at 851 Dairy Ashford, where a new 4,640–sq.-ft. Panera Bread building is scheduled to rise.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Up from Subway
16 months after the Fiesta Mart on site was torn down and 11 months since Heights-area voters approved a modification to longstanding local dry-zone prohibitions to allow alcohol sales for off-premises consumption, H-E-B at last appears ready to begin construction of its store at 2300 N. Shepherd. This week fencing went up around the site, which stretches between W. 23rd and W. 24th streets — and a couple of trailers have rolled onto it. An official groundbreaking is scheduled for October 24th.
The store will sit on the east side of the site but up one level, on top of a concrete parking deck. Here’s a view looking east along 23rd St. toward that part of the site and Lawrence St. beyond:
COMMENT OF THE DAY SECOND RUNNER-UP: THINGS TO THINK ABOUT BEFORE YOU START PLANNING UNDER-FREEWAY DEVELOPMENTS 
“One conclusion I’ve made about the U.S., compared to European countries, is that we don’t use space efficiently. We’ve got all these open ditches, grass patches . . . along our roadways. So this Tokyo solution appeals to me.
But while I haven’t traveled extensively, I feel that selling/renting under-highway space to retail smacks of third-world. Would Houston ever go for that?
There is so much filth that washes off roadways and would filter into/onto these shops. A friend has his bike storage cage under the apartment driveway. It’s just a drive! yet the bikes always have a greasy blackness on them. Ever park in an airport garage for more than a couple days? Your car is filthy.
Maybe it’s just me, but I wouldn’t/couldn’t eat a taco made under the Pierce Elevated.” [movocelot, commenting on Midtown Sears Closure Nets Rice 9 Acres near the Wheeler Transit Center] Illustration: Lulu
A half-decade after the demolition of its on-site predecessors, the retail building replacing the former Ruggles Grill at 903 Westheimer Rd. just east of Montrose Blvd. is almost complete. Going inside the new 6,536-sq.-ft. structure across from Uchi: a couple of Dallas imports.
On the right, on the side closer to the Smoothie King drive-thru, will go the first out-of-Dallas location of the East Hampton Sandwich Company chain. On the left, next to the side parking lot and the Woman’s Home’s Cottage Shop, will be the second Houston location of Velvet Taco. Sandwiched between them is a 1,120-sq.-ft. space that appears to be still available, according to leasing documents — perhaps for a third wheat-wrapped-lunch spot of north Texas origin.
A 57-spot parking lot wraps around and in back of the building:
Dallas Comes to Montrose
The anticipated departure of Hyde Park gift shop Corazon from its perch at the corner of Fairview and Waugh has been delayed by 3 months at least. Although the property it sits on has been sold to a new owner interested in building a trio of townhouses, demolition of the former smithy, antique store, and glass-blowing studio won’t take place this year: Corazon now has a new short-term lease that runs until December 31st and will convert to a month-to-month status after that.
If the lease does get extended for a few months into 2018, it’ll mark the store’s 20th anniversary at 2318 Waugh Dr. In either case, it’ll probably be an awkward extended goodbye: A clearance sale begun in August on the store’s current inventory of Lucha Libre masks, guyaberas, and other items from South and Central American artisan cooperatives is ongoing, but popular items will probably be restocked for the holiday season. The store’s owner is searching for a new location.
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Corazon Now Being Removed from Its Big Red Dot Spot at Waugh and Fairview
Photo: Corazon
Townhome Fodder
The sleepy 1.33-acre site at the eastern end of the Target parking lot on San Felipe just inside The Loop was rudely awakened from a long slumber last week with the action of some demolition equipment. A couple of structures that formerly housed Dream’s & Bros. Hand Car Wash and Lube, opened by former UTSA basketball player and brother-of-Hakeem Afis Olajuwon in 1998, had sat vacant on the lot at 4303 San Felipe St. since its closing in 2014.
Judging by the name given to the site in a replat document filed with the city in April of this year — “Bank of America River Oaks,” with the address taken down a couple notches to 4301 San Felipe — it’s likely a new bank branch will be going up in its place.
- Previously on Swamplot:Â The Dream’s Is Gone from San Felipe
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Sitewashing
Pet Supermarket in Meyerland Plaza has reopened after taking on water after Hurricane Harvey, but it appears to be an exception among big-box stores lined in a row on the former mall site. Signs in front of Old Navy, OfficeMax, and Dressbarn declare the stores are closed — and direct customers to other locations, according to these photos and a report from a Swamplot reader. Here’s the scene in front of Old Navy, where notes in the window declare the store is closed “until further notice“:
Old Navy Underwater
If you’ve ever wished you could watch a wrecking ball go wild inside a convenience store, here’s your chance. A crowd gathered outside the former 4949 C-store at the corner of Bissonnet and Shepherd over the weekend to watch artist Trey Duvall’s kinetic demolition installation in action. The installation features wrecking balls connected to computer-controlled motors mounted on the ceiling wreaking havoc on what remains of the interior. Or, as Duvall puts it, “Two high-torque mechanized double pendulums . . . impact shelving systems, soda machines, retail racks, drink coolers, and walls to create an evolving and unpredictable landscape of detritus.”
If you can’t stop by for your own personal evening viewing of any portion of the 15-day-long endeavor (it’ll be in action through October 6), there’ll be live-streamed video of the action available online. You can watch nightly from 6 to 9 pm from a link on the project website.
This video by Duvall shows some of the first blows:
Watch the Wrecking Ball
Fans of the mozzarella with balsamic, black beans & agave with lime curd, or mango & dried chilies ice creams, or the cucumber with cherries or watermelon & parsley sorbets dreamed up by pastry chef Chris Leung and offered this summer by Cloud 10 Creamery in the Rice Village will be happy to learn that the adventurous ice cream shop opened its Heights outpost late last week. Cloud 10 fills the former bungalow at 711 Heights Blvd. — now upgraded to an address of 711A in honor of a separate building added behind it — anchoring one end of the boulevard-facing section of the Heights Mercantile development.
Cloud 10 Creamery No. 2
Corazon — your Hyde Park source for guayaberas, Lucha Libre masks, and other assorted crafty and gifty south-of-the-border imports — has lost its lease and will be leaving its longtime spot at the northwest corner of Waugh and Fairview within a month, store owner Chris Murphy reports. The 6,250-sq.-ft. lot it sits on, which includes a recently demolished property at 1410 Fairview, is now under contract after being marketed as a redevelopment site.
Corazon moved into its current home in 1998 — from a location in the former Gramercy Apartments on Montrose Blvd. across from Bell Park (where the Museum Tower now stands). The corner spot at 2318 Waugh Dr. has a craft-y history: Previously a furniture refinishing shop, the building reportedly earlier had gigs as an antique store, a glass-blowing studio, a general store, and a smithy. Murphy says he expects it to be demolished — and replaced with townhomes.
The structure is perhaps best known to passers-by, however, as a frame for the fifth-ever red dot, painted by Red Dot Boys (and former Houstonians) Robert Ramos and Rick Carpenter, as shown here in this undated image from the Red Dot Boys website:
Folk Art History
