COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: WATCH FOR TOMORROW’S FLOODING TODAY! “
Homeowners in the area would be wise to keep a keen eye as to the elevation of the current Fiesta property, document with photos and watch as the builders elevate the ground of the property two or more feet above existing grade. This elevation of property will push water off the commercial property and onto lower lying homeowners and existing small businesses. I attended a talk this week with a flooding expert from Texas A and M who pinpointed development as the primary driving cause of Houston’s flooding. This was a highly intelligent and well regarded college professor and researcher. He says he gets phone calls from first time flood victims and always asks if anything was recently built in the area. Often they will say that a Wal-Mart or something similar was built immediately before their flooding problem started. This is real, everyone. Document your lawsuit evidence today.” [Tired of flooding, commenting on H-E-B To Scoot Groundbreaking Back to End of Summer Break, Scoot Building Up Toward N. Shepherd] Illustration: Lulu
Sign up for the Newsletter
A congregation of relocated trees — many of which have been plucked out of the way of the bus lane work going on along Post Oak Blvd. in Uptown right now — was spotted this week by a Fifth Ward resident checking out the former KBR site along Clinton Dr. CityCentre developer Midway is gearing up the process of rebranding its new old campus along the industrial stretch of Buffalo Bayou as East River; early marketing materials now floating around say they’ve collected some 300 trees from the Uptown work and are saving them for later redeployment in and around the 136-acre development, as part of parks and streetscaping.
Save the Trees for Later
H-E-B TO SCOOT GROUNDBREAKING BACK TO END OF SUMMER BREAK, SCOOT BUILDING UP TOWARD N. SHEPHERD 
Work on that Fiesta-supplanting H- E- B on N. Shepherd Dr. is now scheduled to kick off on August 25th, Scott McClelland tells Landan Kuhlmann in The Leader this week. That’s purportedly due to variance-related pushbacks — namely, to H-E-B’s request to put the edge of its proposed 2-story structure closer to the street (like the request it briefly filed around the start of November but pulled just before the alcohol sales election). That variance request was re-filed in January and was granted, but triggered another round of permitting approvals and associated waiting periods, McClelland says. Estimates on an opening date have also slid back to the end of next year’s summer vacation — by which time we’ll know whether the rest of the area’s alcohol sales laws have gone the way of the off-site sales rules H-E-B helped campaign to remove last fall. [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of H-E-B with N. Shepherd setback variance approval, as originally filed in 2016: Houston Planning CommissionÂ
- Missouri City Development Park 8Ninety Signs First Tenants [Houston Chronicle]
- Chicago Title Insurance Co. To Move into 609 Main [HBJ ($)]
- How Houston Home Sizes Have Changed Over the Years [HBJ ($)]
- Pulte Homes Planning New Residential Community Northwest of Houston [HBJ ($)]
- Dallas Restaurant, Bar, and Live Music Venue The Rustic To Break Ground Downtown by GRB Next Year [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Hotel ZaZa Memorial City Opening Dec. 1 [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Emsi Ranks Houston Fourth Among Major U.S. Metro Areas for Talent Attraction in 2017 [Houston Chronicle]
- Do the Fashion Police and the Regular Police Intersect in Upper Kirby? [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- How Street Art Took Over Houston [Houstonia]
- How Battleship Texas Was Readied for Tropical Storm Cindy [Houston Public Media]
- Storm Surge from Cindy Causing Flooding in Low-Lying Areas of Bolivar Peninsula [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot]
- After Cindy, Houston To See a Rainy Pattern Through the Weekend [Space City Weather]
Photo of Margaret Long Wisdom HS: BOldbury via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
If you need heroes, send in the bulldozers.
- 5370 Lynbrook Dr. [HAR]
It may not look like a hole lot is going on in there in this photo taken a few months ago, but the 2,492-sq.-ft. 1940-vintage retail building at the southeast corner of White Oak Dr. and Oxford St. in the Heights — a crooked saunter across the street from Onion Creek Coffee House and a lot and a street down from the Heights hike-and-bike trail (and this) — will be filled with bagels this summer, promises its new proprietor. Behind its plywood poker face, the property at 3119 White Oak Dr. has been stuffed with a bagel oven, tile-front counters, and a walk-in refrigerator, according to the social media accounts of the establishment, known as Golden Bagels and Coffee. Soon to be on the menu, in addition to the comestibles promised in the shop’s name: local cured and smoked fish.
Bagels for the Heights
A flyer from NewQuest Properties is now hawking an imagined retail-or-restaurant building at 3215 White Oak Dr., across the street from the parking lot for Juiceland and Black Swan Yoga. The lot, which spans from the corner of Columbia St. to the western edge of the Heights hike-and-bike trail that slices diagonally across White Oak, is currently home to an Aqua Hand Car Wash (seen from Columbia St. above), as well as a few rented-out residences behind it and next to the trail.
The included renderings show the building fronting the sidewalk on White Oak, with a patio in front:
Signage!
As heralded by yesterday’s daily demo report: Time is up for the little mod condo complex on Welch and Revere streets, which is being cleared out for Pelican Builders’ 9-story not-quite-in-River-Oaks The Revere at River Oaks condo midrise. A reader sends these up-close shots of the demo crew’s work this morning, including the extensive remodeling the once-narrow walkway between segments of the now-empty carport along the south side of Welch:
1 If By Komatsu
Today Swamplot is sponsored by TechSpace Houston. Thanks for supporting this site!
Have you seen the new TechSpace Houston campus? It’s a new modern flexible workspace in Westchase. There’s a total of 450 workstations and 95 private offices in 46,000 sq. ft.; each of the 2 floors houses a variety of different office space configurations. Co-working, 1-to-3-person private offices, large private office suites, conference rooms, event spaces, and a variety of thought-provoking collaboration lounges are available — including a unique social platform-style seating area and an outdoor Wi-Fi enabled patio.
At TechSpace Houston, there’s no need to commit yourself or your company to a long-term lease. TechSpace works for all types of businesses, including startups, SMEs, growth companies, and Fortune 100 teams. Whether you work alone and need a co-working desk to tap into the local business community, or have 2 to 50 employees who need a private office, if you need flexible office space, TechSpace Houston can be a smart choice for your business.
TechSpace Houston is located on the first and second floor at 2101 CityWest Blvd. in Westchase. For pricing and tour availability, contact TechSpace Houston by filling out this brief online form — or by calling 877.569.5959. Can’t wait to see the space in person? Take a look at this 360-degree virtual tour!
Reach Swamplot readers by becoming a Sponsor of the Day. It’s easy!
Sponsor of the Day
CINDY LIKELY TO SKIP THE HOUSTON HOTSPOTS, MAKE A BREAK FOR THE STATE LINE 
Voluntary evacuation is the name of the game this morning for folks on parts of the Bolivar peninsula (at least for those with health conditions that make the possibility of power failure a big gamble to take). To the east, much of the upper Gulf Coast is already getting hammered with touring bands of pre-landfall rain from Tropical Storm Cindy, and the governor of Louisiana has declared a preemptive state of emergency in anticipation of flooding and tornadoes. But today’s weather models generally peg the bulk of the wind and water from the storm as veering back to the east of Houston itself, Eric Berger notes over on Space City Weather this morning. The worst of the storm seems likely to pull northward toward the swampy, beachy stretch around Beaumont, Port Arthur, the Sabine River, and western Louisiana; only a few feet of higher-than-normal tides and a (relatively) few inches of rain are expected around Houston and near the Ship Channel’s pretty lucky-so-far chemical complexes, along with some pockets of high winds. [Space City Weather] Capture of current conditions on Sunrise Beach: Bolivar Peninsual, TX
- Agricole Hospitality Announces 3 Bar and Restaurant Projects at 1201 St. Emanuel in EaDo [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- More on Bravery Chef Hall, Proposed for Aris Market Square Apartment Tower Downtown [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- CBRE Group Consolidating 3 Offices in New ‘Workplace360’ at Williams Tower [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Area Ranked No. 3 Among the Nation’s Most Undersupplied Apartment Markets [HBJ ($)]
- How Crime Affects Houston Apartment Rents [HBJ ($)]
- Holocaust Museum Houston To Double Size with $49.4M Expansion [Houston Press]
- Dallas-Based Coffee Shop Ascension First Restaurant Tenant Announced for Heights Waterworks Development [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Kansas-Based Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburger Opening Restaurants in Pearland, Pasadena, League City [Houston Chronicle]
- Kolache Shoppe Coming to Heights Central Station in Summer 2018 [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- About 13.2% of Texas’s Total ‘Booked Listings’ on Airbnb Last Month Were in Houston [HBJ]
Where the ‘Ike Dike’ Stands as Houston Prepares for Arrival of Tropical Storm Cindy [abc13; previously on Swamplot] - Metro Holding 2 Dozen Open Houses Starting June 27 Where You Can Pitch Projects for Its Regional Transit Plan [The Urban Edge]
- What Happens When You Try To Get a Street Sign at the Border of 2 Cities Repaired [KHOU]
Photo of Imperial Sugar Factory: 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 are no demolitions, only interpretations.
- 5211 Bayou Glen Rd. [HAR]
Here’s a shot from a recent hard-hat tour of the Hotel Alessandra, under construction on a corner of the GreenStreet don’t-call-it-a-mall Downtown. The view hints at what a poolside scene might look like when the hotel opens in October, though not exactly: Marlowe, the 20-story Randall Davis Company condo seen rising in the left background (in front of the Hilton Americas), should look a bit less stubbly stubby by then.
Next, a few pics from the Alessandra lobby, highlighting the swervy ceiling:
And Other Sneak Peeks
