Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Precipitate as weather, buildings appeared from somewhere, then evaporated, leaving only memory.
Sign up for the Newsletter
The lights are off and the gas station signs have come down from the 4,400-sq.-ft. building formerly home to Doc’s Motorworks Bar & Grill on the corner of Westheimer and Graustark St. The nighttime photo above shows the auto-themed Montrose restaurant before it closed down at the end of last year.
Underneath the restaurant’s sign on Westheimer, the rusted flatbed truck has also hit the road from its long-term parking spot:
A Montrose Goodbye
DRINKING WINE AT LUNCH IS NOT A CRIME, pleads signage outside of Postino, a chain of 7 restaurants in Arizona — and one in Colorado — now on its way to the west side of the Heights Mercantile development on W. 7th St. The photo at top shows construction underway on Postino’s patio, which will sit outside the restaurant on the corner of Yale and 7th St.
Clothing stores Rye 51 and The Gypsy Wagon opened adjacent to Postino’s planed spot last year inside the structure labeled “Bldg. 1” in the Heights Mercantile site plan below:
7th at Yale
Swamplot’s Sponsor of the Day is Houston’s own Central Bank today — thanks! We sure appreciate the continuing support.
Central Bank has 4 (central) Houston branches available to meet your business or personal needs: in Midtown, the Heights, West Houston, and Post Oak Place.
Central Bank believes that change is essential to its success; the company actively pursues the latest in service, technology, and products. Central Bank aims to know its customers personally and to be their primary business and personal financial resource. The bank’s staff values relationships and strives to be available when you need them.
To learn more about how Central Bank can meet your banking needs, please call any of the following Senior Vice Presidents: Kenny Beard, at 832.485.2376; Bonnie Purvis, at 832.485.2354; Carlos Alvarez, at 832.485.2372; or Ryan Tillman, at 832.485.2307. You can also find out more on the bank’s website.
What can you tell us about your business? Become a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day and say it loud.
Sponsor of the Day
- Tilman Fertitta’s The Post Oak Lands New PR Office Tenant [HBJ ($)]
- 5 Houston Neighborhoods That Could See Double-Digit Home Price Increases This Year [HBJ ($)]
- Slideshow: The 10 Most Expensive Homes Sold in Houston in Last Month [HBJ]
- HomesUSA.com: Texas Coming Off One of Its Best Years in Recent Home Construction History [Realty News Report]
- Cafe Common Bond Expanding to Heights Waterworks Development [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Construction Underway on Texas Rail Yard That Could Ease Rail Congestion in Houston [Houston Chronicle]
- Where the Worst Bottlenecks Shape Up for Truck Drivers in Houston [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston-Galveston Area Council Exploring New High-Capacity Transit Options To Connect Region [Houston Public Media]
- National Hurricane Center Report: Harvey Flooding Was Greater Than a Once-in-1,000-Year Event [Houston Public Media]
- Former Presidents’ One America Appeal Campaign Ends with $41.3M Raised for Hurricane Relief [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston-Area Homeless Count Finds Some Displaced by Harvey [Houston Chronicle]
- Library Exhibitions Celebrate Life and Work of Houston Architect John S. Chase [Houston Chronicle]
Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
It is more fitting for a man to laugh at demolition than to lament over it.
- 10011 Orangevale Dr. [HAR]
Pictured above during its final stand on Slowpokes cafe’s patio last Saturday as workers took it down limb by limb: one of a pair of oak trees the landlord had long threatened to remove. The 2 trees — now fully chopped — stood on a lawn where Slowpokes patrons hung out between the strip mall that houses the cafe and Gardendale Dr., which runs to its south. The leafier photo shows the same tree alive in the coffee shop’s backyard last year.
A view from the corner of Alba St. and Gardendale looks west to show that tree about to be chopped and the other one already stumped:
Shade Away
A Swamplot reader sends photos of the now see-through drive-thru signage on the north side of Burger King’s former building at 1002 Westheimer, across the street from the Westmont Shopping Center home to Spec’s, Half Price Books, and a Mattress Firm. The restaurant abdicated earlier this week. Yesterday morning, surveyors showed up to look around the property, leaving behind the wooden marker shown at the bottom of the image at top.
Another shot from the fast food lane adjacent to Blacksmith looks toward the restaurant’s parking lot on California St.:
Whopper
- Mayor Turner Proposes Lifting Required Elevation for New Construction [Houston Chronicle]
- Turner To Also Convene a Summit in Response to Amazon HQ2 Snub [KHOU]
- Houston Needs To Add 214,000 Rental Housing Units by 2030 To Meet Demand, Finds National Multifamily Housing Council [Realty News Report]
- Dallas, New York Surpass Houston as Top Spots for Apartment Completions in 2017, Finds RealPage Report [Houston Chronicle]
- Where Houston Home Prices Increased and Decreased the Most in 2017 [HBJ]
- Toys ‘R’ Us Closing About 180 Stores Nationwide, Including One in Village Plaza at Bunker Hill on Katy Fwy. [abc13]
- Sage Plaza on San Felipe in Uptown Adds 2 New Tenants [Realty News Report]
- Steakhouse Cherry Block Craft Butcher and Seasonal Kitchen Planned for Bravery Chef Hall [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Freedman’s Town Brick Reconstruction Delayed by Harvey, Ice Storm [abc13; previously on Swamplot]
- More Than 40% of Texas Now in a Moderate to Severe Drought [The Texas Tribune]
Photo of West Loop at Westheimer: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
It’s time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I’d much rather say hello. Hello to a new house.
- 16643 Bahama Wy. [HAR]
Harris County’s Institute of Forensic Sciences has now officially determined that the bones found in a holdout house on Allston St. now wrapped by an apartment complex whose developer came knocking but was unable to acquire the property belong to the homeowner who protested the development. Mary Cerruti spent time documenting construction on the Alexan Yale St. Yale at 6th apartments (formerly called Alexan Heights) starting in 2013 as they went up behind and around her bungalow at 610 Allston. Squinting behind red drugstore eyeglasses at a planning commission meeting on Valentines Day that year, the 61-year-old testified that “Literally, this project is going to be in my backyard. I’m surrounded.” Two years later, she disappeared.
Cerruti’s former home has been available for sale since March of last year. (“Amazing opportunity in the Houston Heights. New construction all around and the house is surrounded by the new Alexan Heights Luxury Apartments,†reads the listing.) Last November, the asking price for the 2-bedroom, 1-bath property was jacked up to $475,000. The only other property on the block left out of the apartment development is the vacant lot next door.
The county medical examiner’s new findings confirm what investigators had long suspected but had previously been unable to prove. Last June, an autopsy on the skeleton (which had been significantly chewed-up by rodents while it lay undiscovered inside the bungalow) showed that one of its legs was healing from a break — perhaps caused when its owner fell through a hole in the attic floorboards, into the spot high in the bungalow’s walls where her remains were later found.
Crime experts walked back their speculations 2 weeks ago, however, after DNA comparisons between one of the skeleton’s teeth and samples submitted by Cerruti’s relatives showed no exact match. But examiners were able to make their identification after comparing the skull’s jawbones to a photo of Cerruti and the video of her appearance before the planning commission, reports the Chronicle‘s Emily Foxhall.
Trammell Crow started work on the 5-story Alexan complex in 2013 behind and around Cerruti’s then-yellow bungalow:
The Plot Thickens
Today, Swamplot’s sponsor is the 5-bedroom home at 8122 Colgate St. in Glenbrook Valley. Thanks for supporting Swamplot!
At 4,211 sq. ft., this 1956 home on the corner of Colgate and De Leon St. ranks as one of the Glenbrook Valley Historic District’s largest homes — and possibly one of its best-preserved ones too. The 5-bedroom, 3-and-a-half-bath property last went on the market more than 50 years ago, and when you browse through the extensive photo tour in the new listing, you’ll believe it. Inside, it’s not hard to imagine how the home might have appeared back then, because . . . well, just look through the photos!
The entry view at top only hints at the time-capsule-like scenes laid out inside the living room (to the left) with its wall moldings and street-facing picture window and family room (to the right) with its original flagstone flooring, pecky cypress beams, and ash paneling. Similar set pieces are to be found in the main house’s dining room, kitchen, and ground-floor master bedroom. Also found with the home: a distinct private living quarters (also on the ground floor) with its own kitchen and separate entrance. The lot measures 11,700 sq. ft.
Did we mention you can see more photos of the home on the property website? Or arrange for a tour if you’d like to see it in person. This property is offered for sale by Robert Searcy of Robert Searcy Properties.
Unique listings deserve to be noticed! Sign up to become a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day.
Sponsor of the Day
