TEMPORARY, HUGE, AND LAST MINUTE: THE CLUB NOMADIC STORY 
The team behind Club Nomadic, the 3-story, 64,000-sq.-ft. comes-with-the-Super Bowl traveling behemoth of a temporary nightclub that was open for 3 nights only at 2121 Edwards St. earlier this year, starts planning for its next incarnation “roughly a year” in advance, lead designer Joanna-Maria Helinurm says. Materials travel to the site on 36 trucks, and the building typically takes 60 days to erect. But last-minute jockeying with city permitting officials, in Helinurm’s telling, appears to be standard practice: “All this goes on up until the very last day before the opening until the occupancy permits are granted,” she tells Cynthia Dehlavi. “In Houston, we ended up renting almost two city blocks to be able to control the flow and traffic around the event. Temporary Place of Assembly certificates are a critical component, but we often have to apply for additional special permits, for example like electric-powered signs and the use of pyrotechnics inside the building.” On Super Bowl weekend this year, Club Nomadic got its final okays from Houston officials just 6 hours before doors opened for performances by Sam Hunt and The Chainsmokers on Super Bowl weekend. [OffCite; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Michael Garfield
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What wonders wait in the secret rooftop garden that appears to be peeking over the edge of the highrise at 801 Saint Joseph Pkwy.? Reader and city sleuth Rachel Dvoretzky spotted a handful of leafy protrusions from the former hotel, Vedic school, and ambiguous combination thereof, most recently converted to a Days Inn prior to its slide into further dilapidation. The ever-changing graffiti veneer presented to passing Pierce Elevated drivers has seen some changes since April, too:
Between Heaven and Heaven on Earth
A stolen Dodge Durango was the first car pulled out of Brays Bayou earlier this month as Harris County Flood Control and friends resumed work on removing some of the 100-plus sunken vehicles previously discovered gently rusting below the surface of a few of Houston’s major waterways. (The Nissan Maxima above was next in line.) Last year’s test run of the removal setup snagged a total of 20 cars out of Brays and Sims bayous; the contracts signed earlier this year for a new round of vehicle fishing budget for a catch of around 65 vehicles from the 2 bayous, depending on size and how much of a fight each one puts up. (Texas Equusearch did note back in its 2011 survey that at least one big rig is lurking somewhere in the watery depths, and some of the cars are more filled with mud and debris than others.)
The county says the new car count was up to 13 by the time work crews paused last week to let Cindy pass; a county worker also snapped photos showing off some of the haul, which has so far included a range of more and less easily identifiable makes and models including a Nissan Frontier, a Jaguar, a Ford Mustang, a Ford Bronco, an Eagle Talon, and others:
2,000-Pounders
- Where Apartment Vacancies Are the Highest and Lowest in Houston [HBJ ($)]
- Former Tootsie’s Owner’s Broadacre Estate Designed by William Ward Watkin on the Market for $4.75M [Houston Chronicle]
- New Business Park Planned in Northeast Houston Near Generation Park [Houston Chronicle]
- Third Ward Barbecue Joint Ray’s Real Pit BBQ Shack to Relocate to Bigger Third Ward Space [Culturemap]
- Asian Population the Fastest-Growing Racial or Ethnic Group in Houston from 2015-16, Finds Census Bureau [The Urban Edge]
- La Marque Officials Concerned Proposed I-45 Expansion May Displace Businesses [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Houston Adds 2 Homes, Former Southwestern Bell Headquarters to Historic Landmarks List [Houston Chronicle]
- Bayou Greenways, Buffalo Bayou Projects Join National Infrastructure-Repurposing Parks Network [The Urban Edge]
- How Driverless Cars Are Changing the Way Houston Architecture Firms Design Garages [HBJ ($)]
- Chamber A in Johnson Space Center’s Bldg. 32 Mimicking Freezing Temperatures of Space [NASA]
Photo of the Cullen Sculpture Garden: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
There is no sweeter sound than the crumbling of one’s fellow house.
- 642Â E. 26th St. [HAR]
The folks behind a newly-announced condo project called Mandell Montrose have recently stuck some signage on the lot at 2312 Commonwealth St., a couple of readers tell Swamplot this week. That property isn’t actually adjacent to either Mandell St. or Montrose Blvd., but it is almost directly between the 2; it’s also the site formerly slated for the cancelled Flats on Fairview condo midrise (which Paul Takahashi reports this week were called off due to construction cost issues, despite having met some sales goals). Takahashi says the new project will aim for 7 stories for a total of 24 units. And underscoring the split-the-geographic-difference theme, the Hyde Park project is being developed by Midtown Uptown Development Partners.
No renderings are out yet of the new plans, save for some probably-not-to-scale brick facade showing up on the background of the building’s sales website. (A physical sales center should be opening some time next month, however.) The rendered design of the cancelled Flats midrise, meanwhile, has found new purpose as part of a striking departure from the classic Houston scary midrise artwork vernacular:
Mandell Monstrose
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WAIT, THERE’S AN OPEN SEARS IN MIDTOWN? 
“No joke, I’ve lived here for 4 years now – always in Midtown – and I had no earthly idea that the Sears at Richmond and Main was actually an open and operating retail location until I read the comments on this post. It looks abandoned from the street! Mind blown.” [RS, commenting on Southeast and Southwest Houston Sears Stores Going South] Photo of Sears at 4201 Main St: Fox E.
Reader Bayan Raji sends these pics of the new Hotel ZaZa as it nears completion deep in the superblock just east of Bunker Hill Rd. and south of I-10 in Memorial City. The design by Kirksey Architecture is somewhat reminiscent of the shape of the Hotel ZaZa in the Museum District, except instead of looking out onto the grand traffic circle around the Mecom Fountain and Hermann Park beyond, the double wings of this one will look out past a surface parking lot (shown in the foreground above) to the 20-lane-wide (including the feeders) Katy Fwy. To the west and south, the hotel is flanked by shorter parking garages; directly to its east (behind the construction fence pictured here) will be a green space reserved for live music and festivals.
Rooms in Memorial City
SOUTHEAST AND SOUTHWEST HOUSTON SEARS STORES GOING SOUTH 
Included in the latest round of Sears store closings: the mall-anchor locations at the Baybrook Mall (off the Gulf Fwy. at Bay Area Blvd.) and the Westwood Mall (off the Southwest Fwy. at Bissonnet). Liquidation sales are scheduled to begin by the end of this month; the stores will shut down completely by the middle of September. This will bring the the number of Sears Holdings stores scheduled to close this year to 265. [USA Today; Business Insider] Aerial view of Sears at the Baybrook Mall: CBRE
- Bank of America Acquires Naming Rights for Skanska Tower Under Construction Downtown [Realty News Report]
- Brazil Petrochem Company Braskem To Build $675M Project in La Porte [HBJ]
- Where Apartment Vacancies Are Highest and Lowest in Houston [HBJ ($)]
- Construction of Villas on the Strand Mixed-Income Housing Development in Galveston Complete [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- How the Texas Medical Center Prepares for Disasters [Houston Public Media]
- New Kuykendahl Bridge Linking Harris and Montgomery Counties To Open Next Week [Houston Public Media]
- Some 60 Storefronts Have To Move Out of the Way of Seabrook’s Highway 146 Expansion [Houstonia]
Photo: thranth via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
The excavator will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.
- 802 Monte Cello St. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MISPLACING THE AUDUBON PLACES 
“TIL that Audubon Place (the street in 77006) is not in Audubon Place (the subdivision in 77027). The whole time I was scouring the neighborhoods in and around Westmoreland for a house, I thought the adjoining neighborhood was called Audubon Place. My bad; it’s Montrose. The original. I was misled by the green historical sign at the W. Alabama end of the block.” [GoogleMaster, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Inglourious Buildings] Photo of 804 Harold St.: Audubon Place Association
STARTING IN JULY, YOU’LL ONLY NEED 2 BUS RIDES TO GET TO GALVESTON 
Since 2013, when the last regular bus service was canceled, taking a trip from Houston to Galveston on public transportation has been a bit of a challenge: It might take you 1 light-rail train ride, 4 buses, a 3-mile walk, and 4 hours. Thanks to a 2-year grant from TXDoT, support from Galveston County and Texas City, and an approval by Houston’s Metro Board today, it’s about to get a whole lot easier. Beginning July 10th, an Island Express route coordinated by the 2 cities’ transportation agencies will allow weekday service between the Downtown Transit Center in Houston and Island Transit’s Downtown Transit Terminal at 25th St. and the Strand in Galveston 3 times a day — with a transfer at the Bay Area Park & Ride — for $9. There’ll be a stop in Texas City, and bikes can ride too. Metro expects about 20 riders a day to use the service. [OffCite; Christof Spieler] Draft schedule for Island Express: Metro
