BOBCAT TEDDY MAY BE HEADED TO JIMMY’S ICE HOUSE 
A new business name has just been registered  for the White Oak Dr. address of Jimmie’s Place, which claims to have held the spot for some 75 years (though under the variant Jimmy’s for at least part of that). The actually-used-to-sell-ice ice house was sold early this year to serial redeveloper Braun Enterprises, with some sideline speculation that an up-to-code remodel of the 1940s space might prove prohibitively expensive. But city records show an electrical plan review process kicked off in March; the name Bobcat Teddy’s Ice House was registered for the spot early last week.  [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of Jimmy’s at 2803 White Oak Dr.: David Richmond/Houston Ice House
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Today’s Swamplot sponsor is ASCOT — also known as the Alcohol Servers Counsel of Texas. Thanks for supporting this site!
If you work in a restaurant, or in any kind of food-service or food-prep operation, you’re probably already familiar with state requirements for training in food-handling safety. And if you work in a bar or for an alcohol distributor, you probably already know why it’s so important that everyone who has anything to do with selling, dispensing, or delivering any kind of alcoholic beverage complete state-certified training in alcohol safety.
Since 1988, ASCOT has been licensed by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission to provide TABC-certified alcohol-server training programs. That makes ASCOT one of the oldest and most established food and beverage certification programs in the country — as well as Texas’s longest-running provider of training in this important field. And ASCOT has been a preferred source for training in food handling in Houston since 2004.
If you’re responsible for making sure new employees are trained promptly and well in these particular areas, you can be sure they’re getting the exact program they need — in the most helpful format possible — by sending them to ASCOT. ASCOT offers its training courses both in a classroom setting and online, in both English and Spanish.
Use the discount code ASCOT on the alcoholservers.com website and the online alcohol-server training course works out to just $9.89 per class. The food-handling class costs just $7.00 — no discount code is needed.
ASCOT’s server-training program is certified by the TABC, and its food-handler program is ANSI Accredited as meeting the ASTM E2659-09 standard. For more details, or to sign up, head over to the ASCOT website — alcoholservers.com — or call 713.922.1223.
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Among a few Fifth Ward buildings abutting a new railroad underpass scheduled to be installed near the intersection of Lyons Ave. and West St.: The warehouse pictured above at 2305 Lyons Ave., graced by a Wiley Robertson mural. The Gulf Coast Rail District plans to eliminate the at-grade railroad crossing west of I-69 and directly to the east of that corner by routing Lyons Ave. under the tracks. According to the district, 30 trains a day currently cross Lyons Ave. — on 3 separate sets of tracks. North of Lyons, 3 additional at-grade crossings will be eliminated by closing down West St. entirely from a little south of Lyons to a little south of Brooks St.
The earliest possible start date for the project, which would cost an estimated $28.5 million and take approximately 2 years to complete, is listed as the fall of 2020. At a meeting last night at the Saint Arnold Brewery, which is just west of the West St. intersection, the district and TXDOT showed these images of a widened Lyons Ave. with dual 12-ft.-wide car lanes as well as bike lanes and sidewalks passing under the HB&T rail line:
Underpasses and Overpasses
- Downtown’s Historic Esperson Office Complex Hits the Market [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Harris County Commissioners Court Votes To Seek ‘Construction Manager at Risk’ for Proposed Astrodome Renovation [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Home Inventory Up 9% So Far This Year, Finds Zillow [Culturemap]
- Who To Listen To in Contradictory Houston Housing Price Reports [Houston Public Media]
- Blood Bros. BBQ To Open Brick-and-Mortar Barbecue Joint in Bellaire Triangle Shopping Center [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Poised for Record Year of Truck Collisions with Bridges as Local Economy Picks Up [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot]
- How African Americans Lost Land in the South Due to an Obscure Legal Loophole [The Nation]
- City Looking for Artists to Paint More Mini Murals on Traffic Control Signal Boxes [FOX 26 Houston;Â previously on Swamplot]
Photo of Row on 25th: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
To demolish is as human as to breathe.
- 9 West Ln. [HAR]
Courtesy of a smartphone-bearing reader, here’s the scene from this morning on the often-quiet Montrose corner of Harold and Mulberry, directly across the street from the Bering Memorial United Methodist Church. The single-story brick bungalow dating from 1938 at 1502 Harold St. is a goner. Croix Homes has a permit to build a new house on the site.
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Daily Demolition Report: Lowly Revered
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Crushed in Montrose
The startup 3-barrel “nano-brewery” carving its ferment-and-serve spaces out of the former Bissonnet Auto Service Center garage on Bissonnet St. between Kirby and Greenbriar is scheduled for a Labor Day Weekend opening, according to a recent report in the Chronicle. New glazed overhead doors have been installed in the 2 garage bays, but according to this photo of the spot from earlier today, there’s still a bit of work going on inside.
If future passers-by do a double-take after seeing drinkers out on the front patio of the single-story structure at 2322 Bissonnet, it might be because the brewery-bar will be next door to the former Kay’s Lounge, also a single-story building serving drinks on a front patio, which was demolished last fall. These homes are scheduled to go up on that site.
- Houston’s Baileson Brewing edges closer to opening later this summer [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot: Baileson Brewery Planned in Former Auto Shop Next to Emptied Kay’s Lounge Spot
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY IS HOUSTON STILL STUCK ON STUCCO? 
“Stucco seems to have more long term durability and maintenance problems than just about anything else, yet it seems to be the exterior of choice in nearly all high-end construction. Why?” [Skeptic, commenting on If You Like the Idea of Living Upstairs from Kay’s Lounge, Here’s the Next Best Thing] Illustration: Lulu
Newly posted to MLS: a listing for 1 of the 6 townhomes patio homes from Frasier Homes intended for the site of the former Kay’s Lounge. Garages, spare bedrooms, and side yards only will grace the ground floors of the properties in this shared-driveway 6-pack, however, because Kay’s Lounge itself — an establishment that was founded back in 1939 — was demolished last year. The new residential compound covers both the Kay’s lot, formerly known as 2334 Bissonnet, and the one immediately to the west at 2332 Bissonnet, which formerly housed an adjacent structure as well as longtime bar’s parking lot.
But if it’s the idea of living very close to storied nightlife that attracted you to this property in the first place, don’t be disappointed: Just next door to this property, in the former Bissonnet Auto Service Center at 2322 Bissonnet, a new brewery and lounge called Baileson Brewing Company is about to open. The fourth-floor patios at the top of the homes at 2332 Bissonnet (pictured at top right in the rendering above) will overlook Baileson’s driveway-turned-drinking-patio directly.
Here’s the second view from the listing, showing how the shared-drive fronts of the 3 units on the Baileson side might look if they’re completed before the other 3 are begun (they’d be in the foreground):
New Neighbors in Rice Village
- Howard Hughes Corp. Planning 2,000-Acre Community The Woodlands Hills [Houston Chronicle]
- GHX Industrial Leases 143,500-SF Warehouse in Generation Park in Northeast Houston [Realty News Report]
- Skanska Hosts ‘Skybreaking’ for Capitol Tower in Virtual Reality Igloo Set Up in Building Next Door [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Midas Hospitality Picks Up Staybridge Suites Near NRG Stadium [HBJ]
- Arizona Residential Brokerage Clayton Nash Real Estate Expands to Houston [HBJ ($)]
- Houston’s Share of Housing Units That Rented for $800 or Less Shrunk 13.1% Between 2005 and 2015, Finds Harvard Report [The Urban Edge]
- Chicago Fitness Studio Spenga To Open First Texas Location in Montrose Project at 307 Westheimer Rd. [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Japanese Steakhouse Roka Akor Now Open at 2929 Weslayan [Eater Houston]
- Luke’s Icehouse on Durham Dr. Sold To Dallas Buyer [HBJ]
- McMansion Hell Blogger Whose Targets Included Houston Homes Receives Cease and Desist Letter from Zillow [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
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.
Stone crumbles, wood rots. Houses, well, they die.
- 94 Wood Manor Pl. [HAR]
HOW AMAZON AND WHOLE FOODS MARKET COULD CREATE THE NEW BUILDING BLOCKS OF URBAN COMMERCE, AND WHAT SOME OF THEM MIGHT LOOK LIKE 
Will Amazon transform Whole Foods Market into a grocery services building block for farmers, restaurants, and specialty grocers — on the model of the way Amazon Web Services now serves software developers? Joshua Rothman provides a brief overview of current thinking about Amazon’s possible plans for the grocery chain — and how the result might transform the landscapes of cities: “It’s increasingly easy to imagine,” he writes, “that a few decades from now, we’ll tell our kids about how we used to ‘go to the store’; they’ll look at us and say, ‘What?’ Earlier this month, Amazon filed a patent application describing large, multi-story drone towers in urban centers. Probably, in the future, such buildings will seem unremarkable. The hive-like towers will have loading docks and warehouses on the lower floors and bays for drones higher up; the drones may be repaired and supplied by robots. ‘There is a growing need and desire to locate fulfillment centers within cities, such as in downtown districts,‘ the patent application says.” [The New Yorker] Image from Amazon’s patent application for drone-delivery warehouse tower: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, via SiliconBeat
And here we see before, right before, and during photos of today’s demolition of the 2-bedroom home at 4027 Portsmouth St., on the second block north of the Southwest Fwy. and just west of Weslayan St., in the appropriately named subdivision Weslayan Plaza just west of Greenway Plaza. Though the sign posted on the property appears to depict multiple townhouses new construction from Noël Home Luxury Living — better known as a home decor service of the Noel Furniture showroom across I-59 and a mile to the east at 2727 Southwest Fwy. — the buyer’s name on the permit for a new single-family home at this property is CitiView Homes.
Photos: Rex Solomon
Weslayan Plaza Demo
