The triangle of land holding Tila’s Restaurante & Bar has a for lease sign up these days, a reader tells Swamplot. That’s backed up by a listing currently up on the Wulfe & Co. website, though there’s no particular availability date mentioned in the leasing notice for the land. The restaurant sits on the irregular block created by the Shepherd Dr. curve between McDuffie and  and Newhouse streets:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: RICE VILLAGE PARKING METER PUSHBACK PUSHBACK 
“Don’t understand the hostility about parking meters. Visited the Briar Shoppe recently, easily found a spot to park, and it cost me a buck. One (1) dollar ($). Took a credit card, no change needed. There’s something else going on here.” [Gisgo, commenting on The Rice Village Plans To Remake Amherst St., Lure Shoppers Into an Alley] Photo of Rice Village parking meters: Matthew Landry
Here’s your chance to see in first person what the city’s come up with for that under-discussion redo of Westheimer Rd. in Montrose. The video above flies viewers slowly through a flatly rendered Westheimer corridor east of Shepherd Dr. (complete with digital versions of all your favorite ex-clothing shops, storied condo buildings, and paired Mattress Firms) with the new street plan in place. Reality check with the existing state of the roadways happens at a handful of the corridor’s intersections.
The biggest change: A drop down to 2 lanes of car traffic in most places (versus the 4 narrow lanes currently in place), beginning around Huldy St. and moving east. The road would briefly widen back out to 4 lanes around the crossing of Montrose Blvd., then back down to 2 until the name swap to Elgin St. at Bagby St. All that slimming down leaves room for wider sidewalks; the plan also includes some set-aside zones for bus drop-off, some left turn lanes, and a few stretches of parallel parking areas, highlighted in pink.
A siteplan and the latest renderings of Melbourne-based Caydon Property Group’s residential highrise, planned in place of the now-erased mental health building and lowrise mural canvas at 2850 Fannin St., show a bit more clearly how the 27-story structure might look amid its more squat Midtown neighbors (not counting that other highrise planned a few blocks down Main St.). The aerial view of the site shown here (tilted so that Main St. is horizontal, with Downtown off to the left) shows the building’s footprint in yellow, alongside the light-rail line and Midtown Park to the west.
One of the new drawings of the project also depicts what appears to be a closeup of the Drew St.-facing side of the building, with a good deal more than just the typical rendering entourage: the block across the street is shown with another multistory development in place of what’s currently a parking lot by the Art Supply on Main lowrise, and a section of the street itself is shown fully pedestrianized.
Neither of these changes make an appearance in any of the other zoomed-out renderings, however:
Today Plan Downtown and the Downtown District are sponsoring Swamplot — with the second of 4 weekly posts focusing on the 4 pillars of the Plan Downtown effort. Thanks for supporting this website!
What’s the second pillar of Plan Downtown? Making Downtown Houston the premier business destination in the region. By building on the strength and diversity of existing businesses, enhancing competitive advantages that serve the energy sector and other industries, and investing in Downtown’s appeal — to attract new business activity to the district as well as the region.
How can this be accomplished? To tackle this question, Plan Downtown has enlisted the expertise of Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan, principal of HR&A Advisors, a consulting firm that provides services in real estate, economic development, and program design and implementation.
Q: What’s remarkable about Downtown Houston’s business center?
A: For any downtown area, you have to evaluate its strengths as a reflection of the region. Houston is the fastest growing job market in the country — the most vibrant, the most international, one of the best talent bases in the country.
So much of what’s special about Downtown is what’s special about Houston. It’s the center of, and the gateway to, the region. It’s the only business district in Houston where you’re likely to rub elbows with your counterparts on the street. There’s a real community of leaders — public, private, and civic — who are shaping the future.
Q: What improvements would you suggest to strengthen business activity? What’s missing?
A: It’s not so much what’s missing, but what do we need more of. Downtown Houston already has so many of the assets that businesses of the future are seeking, which is why they’re already here.
What we hear from the more than 150,000 workers who have chosen to be Downtown is that they love the walkability, restaurants, parks, and transit. They want more of the same. And what businesses of the future want is more of the same.
Q: How can Downtown Houston attract more business and diversify its commerce?
A: Making people aware of all of Downtown’s opportunities and options. I was introduced to Houston from the outside in, like most people are when they come to work here. My first meeting in Houston was in the Galleria, then in Greenspoint. I slowly worked my way into Downtown. It took a couple years for me to get to know the Downtown community.
I think when outsiders come to Houston they see Downtown as the urban core they might have left in New York, London, or Portland. However, it’s a slower process of introducing or reintroducing the Downtown community to them.
Q: Describe the ideal workspace for the future workforce: What will this look like and how can Downtown Houston accommodate it?
A: There are 2 changes: A change in office space, and a change in the fabric we create between the offices.
Within office space, you see square feet per employee going down quite precipitously across the country in all industries. There are a few reasons for that. We’re automating a lot of the routines, the analytical and administrative tasks that no longer require people to sit in cubicles and file. Instead, we work together and collaborate more. In workspaces, we’re seeing more collaborative configurations and less individual areas.
That same ethos needs to extend into the broader Downtown. What we need is less community within a building and more between buildings and public spaces — to create a social network that connects us.
As we get back to how can Downtown grow and attract the businesses of the future, it’s about incubating now the businesses that will be big in 30 years and providing spaces that can support them.
Q: What additional services and amenities does Downtown Houston need to strengthen the appeal for businesses to move into the area?
A: I recently had a very interesting conversation with a number of business leaders after asking that question. They all said yes, we need more restaurants, stores, gyms, and daycare centers. But we won’t get any of that until we get more residents.
Of course there’s more that we could, should, and will provide to grow business activity in Downtown Houston, but the first step is to broaden our community outside of the office, supporting the argument that visitation isn’t only for tourists. Regional residents are here not only for a day.
People who are moving to Houston and choose to be Downtown instead of somewhere else are building that community over time. So while we need more supportive services for businesses, those same services are needed for residents.
So there’s a chicken-or-egg argument regarding amenities and who’s using them.
Swamplot is where important conversations happen. Find out how to become a Sponsor of the Day.
Photo of 3505 Sage Road: Patrick Feller via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
The journey to the other side is attainable only after great demolition.
In other grocery-apartment-midrise news, the 2-story hole for the below-ground parking component of the planned Pearl-branded apartment midrise with built-in Whole Foods looks to have touched bottom, and a tower crane on the site has reached its full height. Some of the construction site’s fence decorations have been swapped out with newer renderings, too — the latest drawings show a zoomier design and a new color scheme (this one falling more in the slatey-grey-brown range, compared to the doughy yellows picked out for the older drawings):
DOWLING ST. NOW BEING EMANCIPATED 
The folks at Project Row House posted this snapshot of a new street sign along Emancipation Ave., née Dowling St., which is getting its shiny new labels affixed in the leadup to this year’s Juneteenth festivities. (That’s when the name change will officially take effect, and when majorly overhauled Emancipation Park is once again planning to reopen, as well.) This particular set of signage is at the corner with Francis St., across Dowling Emancipation from the Tiny Treasures house, the crumbling remains of the Beauty Box, and the former site of the Flower Man’s toxic-mold-filled arthouse; the new signs look to have started going up along the road last week.  Photo: Project ROW House
Swamplot’s sponsor today is a house with a name: The Perforated House. It’s at 1134 Waverly St. in the Houston Heights, and it’s being offered for sale by Boulevard Realty. Thanks for supporting this site!
If this modern home seems at all familiar to you, it might be because it made a Houstonia magazine curated list of the 10 greatest homes in Houston (it was 1Â of only 2 on the list built in this decade). It also served as a cover story in Texas Architect magazine, after winning a 2014 TxA Design Award. And it was featured in the AIA Houston home tour that same year.
The basic idea behind the Perforated House — designed by Houston’s LOJO Architecture for the family of Jason Logan (one of the firm’s 2 principals) — is that breezeways are good. You might find a breezeway in the middle of a traditional Texas dogtrot house, separating the 2 sides of the home. Logan and his partner Matt Johnson took this idea a little further, creating a home with 4 breezeways. “If one is good, then four are better,” they note in their own writeup of the property on the firm’s website, where some helpful diagrams illustrate the idea. These breezeways, or “perforations” — along with a few related construction strategies — help keep the home cool with cross-ventilation, increase the amount of indirect natural lighting, and generally reduce the home’s energy consumption.
The most prominent of the 4 breezeways is the home’s front porch (pictured at top) which is sheathed in front with corrugated siding that has — yes — tiny perforations in it. This gives it privacy during the day and a signature glow at night, a feature the architects illustrate on their website with a GIF. A second first-floor breezeway separates the kitchen from the garage, which faces the back alley. The other 2 breezeways are upstairs — one, visible at the top of the second photo above, overlooks (and vents) the double-height living room; the other adjoins the master suite in back.
A yard with 3 separate zones follows the house along the north side of the lot, the middle section covered by a deck just outside the kitchen. A few other notable spaces in the 3-bedroom, 3-1/2-bath, 2,649-sq.-ft. home on a 6,600-sq.-ft. Heights lot: The cockpit-like study at the front of the home, with windows facing the porch; and the back-stair landing that overlooks the kitchen’s breakfast area and pantry. (The third bedroom, at the front of the home, has its own separate staircase.)
You can find photos of many of these spaces on the property website. The Perforated House just went on the market this week — your first opportunity to tour it will be at an open house this Sunday from 2 to 4 pm. (Except for a brokers-only open house this Thursday, May 11, from 5 to 7 pm.) For more information, contact the listing agent, Jaye Tullai of Boulevard Realty.
Photos: Luis Ayala, AIA
Distinctive homes deserve attention. That’s the big idea behind Swamplot sponsorships.
Remodeling along the lines of what’s depicted here is now underway on Amherst St. between Kelvin St. and Kirby Dr., according to a Rice Village District rep. A couple of newly released drawings shown here fill in details to some of the previously mentioned changes planned for the south side of Amherst, including the conversion of part of the roadway itself into more walking and sitting room behind some protective planters. And that narrow passageway in the building, running between Amherst and University Blvd., appears to be getting its own signage labeling it as The Alley (complete with light-up arrow directing shoppers inside).
The plans also call for some rooftop greenery and the chopping off of some pointy brick pediments — a swap which the District says will make all that 2-hours-free rooftop parking more visible, in the wake of the recent parking scheme changes:
Photo of Brays Bayou: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Why not show off if you’ve got something to demolish?
