Headlines
12/22/17 8:30am

Inside Bank of America Center’s Makeover; Mattress Firm Cutting Back on Stores; Heights Church-Turned-Theater Hitting the Market

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Photo of Market Square Park: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
Featured Posts
12/21/17 4:45pm

A First Look at the New 2-Story H-E-B Ready To Stake Out the Northwest Corner of Meyerland Plaza

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The first ever H-E-B with a skybridge connection to a neighboring JCPenney is indeed on its way to Meyerland Plaza. The grocery chain’s new 95,000-sq.-ft. building will replace its previous store at South Braeswood and Chimney Rock, which flooded during Harvey. Some of the land that the H-E-B is taking over is occupied now by the BBVA Compass bank branch building at the mall-turned-shopping-center’s northwest corner, although the store will extend back all the way to the existing JCPenney, far southeast of where the bank branch sits now.

The rendering at top shows the grocery store’s second-story entrance; like the new stores under construction in Bellaire and the Heights, this one will sit on top of a parking deck. The second rendering shows the structure fronting a driveway that heads into Meyerland Plaza from Beechnut St. A replacement BBVA Compass branch is planned inside the new complex.

Below, a view of the store’s reinforced northwest corner just across Endicott from an off-camera Chick-fil-A on the right:

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Bright Red Corners
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Downtown
12/21/17 3:15pm

The Clearest Views Yet of Lyric Market’s Plaza-Front Food Hall on Louisiana

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Renderings now up on Lyric Market’s new website reveal more of what’s planned for the parking-garage food hall. The image at top shows David Adickes’s self-playing cello sculpture ascended atop a new pedestal at the corner of Smith and Preston streets. Behind the artwork, outdoor seating and what the website describes as a private terrace back up to the food hall’s main entrance. The new structure, currently under construction, is shown on the left of that rendering — adjacent to the existing Lyric Centre office tower.

Here’s a full view of the completed parking garage from across the intersection of Preston and Louisiana:

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Downtown Food Hall No. 4
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Headlines
12/21/17 8:30am

Brays Bayou Flood Control Gets Go-Ahead; Houston a Top Food City; How the Skyline Changed in 2017

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Photo of South Colleges Servery at Rice University : Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
College Station
12/20/17 4:00pm

Comment of the Day: Let the College Station Land Rush Begin!

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: LET THE COLLEGE STATION LAND RUSH BEGIN! “The station in Roans Prairie is a developer’s dream: high-speed rail, new I-14 interstate, and miles and miles of undeveloped land. The master-planned communities will start popping up in no time. Work in the city (Houston or Dallas) and live out in the country on your acreage homestead. Just wait, the Bryan-College Station-Huntsville MSA will see the fastest population growth in the entire nation for years and years to come.” [Thomas, commenting on Proposed High-Speed Rail Line’s Bryan—College Station Station Would Be 27 Miles East of Texas A&M] Map of proposed Brazos Valley Station: Federal Railroad Administration

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Featured Posts
12/20/17 3:00pm

Say Hello to the Newest Building on Lyons Ave.

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Architect and townhome builder Parra Design Group is showing off its almost-complete new headquarters building at 4619 Lyons Ave. in the Fifth Ward. The 7,815-sq.-ft. office-warehouse complex sits on the corner of Lyons and Schweikhardt St. The firm’s offices are on the 1,500-sq.-ft. second floor. (That’s Camilo Parra doing his scale-figure impression on the balcony in the photo above.)

No other tenants are in the building yet. A statement from the firm, which moved its offices from Rice Military, indicates that the building’s double-height atrium space will be made available to the new building’s neighbors for “meetings and other activities.”

A 2-story brick section fronts Lyons Ave. A view from the Schweikhardt side shows the back portion of the building, a larger single-story warehouse-style space that Parra will use as a work area and to store building materials and supplies:

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Fifth Ward
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Environmental
12/20/17 2:00pm

The Bats of Waugh Dr. Have Moved Deeper into Montrose

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THE BATS OF WAUGH DR. HAVE MOVED DEEPER INTO MONTROSE During Hurricane Harvey, Buffalo Bayou rose above the Waugh Dr. bridge, killing off some of the 300,000 Mexican free-tailed bats that lived there. Others have found new residences: “Some of the surviving bats have relocated to nearby buildings. Just take a sniff in any of the multi-floored parking garages lining the streets around the bayou, and you’ll smell their pungent droppings.” Now, Maggie Gordon writes, “In addition to a swarm of winged mammals flying out from beneath the bridge, smaller populations exit from nearby buildings. They join up with the bats from the bridge during their hunt, then return to their new homes for the night, before repeating the same cycle the next day.” [Houston Chronicle] Video: Ihadatt

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Headlines
12/20/17 8:30am

The Priciest Homes Sold Last Month in Houston; Montrose Management District Chairman To Step Down; Kulture Nears Downtown Debut

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Photo of Buffalo Bayou Park: Dan Singer

Headlines
Featured Posts
12/19/17 2:45pm

Bart Truxillo’s Backyard Townhouse Now For Sale with Its Front Yard Bungalow

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The Hyde Park townhouse at 1942 Indiana St. designed by Bart Truxillo — the architect and Houston preservationist who passed away earlier this year — is listed for sale along with its neighboring bungalow. A Swamplot reader reports that for sale signs first went up outside the 3-story home and the adjacent bungalow on the corner of Indiana and Morse St., pictured on the right, on Friday. Although the 2 buildings have separate listings, the seller hopes to find a buyer who will purchase them both together.

Truxillo built the house in 1970 in what was then the bungalow’s backyard and lived in it for several years before moving to the Heights, where much of his preservation work was focused. The corner-side bungalow faces Morse St., while the townhouse directly behind it fronts Indiana.

The photo at top shows the 2,096-sq.-ft. townhouse’s first-floor interior, with a courtyard visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Behind the stairway, another ground-floor room fronts the outdoor space:

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Double Listings
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