- 11102 Wickwood Dr. [HAR]
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SOUTHWEST FWY. MIDRISE AUDI SHOWROOM TO GET A DEALERSHIP NEIGHBOR ON THE STAHLMAN LUMBER LAND 
Another car dealership is planned for the 2.4-acre Stahlman Lumber property right across US 59 from the 7-story Audi dealership (shown here) at the crotch of southbound Shepherd Dr. and Greenbriar St. The former lumber business’s property was sold in January. Dylan Baddour writes in the Chronicle that details on what the new dealership will look like (or what kind of cars will be on offer) are scant for now, though a VP of Sonic Automotive (the same company that planned the Audi midrise and its freeway-eye-level-showroom) says more info on the “big, beautiful” design will be released by the end of the year. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Audi dealership at 2120 Southwest Fwy.: Audi Central Houston
COMMENT OF THE DAY: AN ALTERNATE ROUTE FOR CLEANING UP DOWNTOWN’S IMAGE 
 “Well, if the problem is defined as ‘Pierce Elevated drivers see blight’ — then one solution is to get rid of the blight; another is to get rid of the Pierce Elevated. It’s probably obvious by now which is more likely to happen.” [_,  commenting on Downtown’s Preeminent Dilapidated Hotel Tower Now Outfitted To Greet I-45ers with New Nametags, Fewer Window Panes] Photo of former Days Inn: Bob Russell
More details on the planned Yale Marketplace development centered around the 365-branded mini Whole Foods planned for Independence Heights (but picking up the Garden Oaks moniker) come this week from Adolfo Pesquera, who posted the rendering above over at VBX of that companion strip mall planned just to the north of the grocery store. The structure looks to be slated for the narrow parcel of land where the long, low, industrial-slash-office park that until January hosted the Potter’s House Christian Church still stands.
Pesquera also reports that Houston Heights ER has officially signed on as the urgent care clinic that’ll be stuck to the side of the 365 (to the left, in the rendering below):
Independence Heights
Today our sponsor is Houston’s own Central Bank. Thanks for the continuing support for Swamplot!
Central Bank has 4 (central) Houston branches available to meet your business or personal needs: in Midtown, the Heights, West Houston, and Post Oak Place.
Central Bank believes that change is essential to its success; the company actively pursues the latest in service, technology, and products. Central Bank aims to know its customers personally and to be their primary business and personal financial resource. The bank’s staff values relationships and strives to be available when you need them.
To learn more about how Central Bank can meet your banking needs, please call any of the following Senior Vice Presidents: Kenny Beard, at 832.485.2376; Bonnie Purvis, at 832.485.2354; Gary Noble, at 832.485.2366; or Ryan Tillman, at 832.485.2307. You can also find out more on the bank’s website.
Join a great group of Houston businesses and organizations — by supporting Swamplot. Here’s how to do it.Â
Sponsor of the Day
A little bit of tune-changing looks to have happened with respect to the University of Texas’s Houston data science campus idea in the month or 2 since UT formally canned the plans to pursue it.  At yesterday’s State of the City luncheon, where Mayor Turner asked a bunch of major regional universities to work together on making a data science research center happen after all, Lindsey Ellis reports that University of Houston board of regents chair and Landry’s CEO Tilman Fertitta also made some comments in support of the project. Fertitta (who back in March immediately issued a victorious press release when UT announced it would sell off the 300 acres of land it’d purchased) told the audience that UH would be “excited to sit down and collaborate” with other Houston and Texas universities on a campus, Lindsey Ellis reports for the Chronicle.Â
The difference now (versus last spring when UH snubbed an invitation to join that task force working up potential uses for the land)? Fertitta says UT wouldn’t be able to single-handedly “come in and dictate” with respect to the final project; he also suggests that perhaps UT might like to donate the purchased property to whatever group of local universities might end up in charge.
UT Houston Rematch
- E Contractors Breaks Ground on 2-Story Office Building in Sugar Land [Houston Chronicle]
- Weingarten Realty Investors Sells Off Broadway Shopping Center in Galveston [Houston Chronicle]
- Island Grill To Open in Coming Weeks in Former Little Liberty Space in Rice Village [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot]
- Dallas-Based Snappy Salads Preparing To Enter Houston Market Next Month on Fountain View [Houston Chronicle]
- Roostar Vietnamese Grill Opens Second Houston Location with Spot in the Uptown/Galleria Area [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot]
- Massive Fire Destroys Long-Running Charlie’s BBQ in North Harris County [Click2Houston]
- Houston-Based Ignite Restaurant Group Said To be Filing for Bankruptcy [Bloomberg]
- 610 Loop Between I-10 and Southwest Freeway the Most Congested Stretch in Texas [KHOU]
- Galveston Residents To Vote Saturday on Bond Issue for Road and Drainage Improvements [Houston Public Media]
- American National Insurance Building in Galveston Kills 395 Migratory Warblers, Orioles [KHOU]
Photo of Hobby Family Pavilion: BOldbury via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
We’re made to demolish. You either evolve or you disappear.
- 15900 FM 1097 [HAR]
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is now promoting a crowdfunding campaign to host some kind of multi-day art-slash-music-slash-sports festival inside the Astrodome, perhaps as depicted in the trippy rendering above shown on the campaign’s online fundraising page. (The campaign is one of the so-called Cities Project projects being coordinated by the National Trust and beer multinational Heineken; other projects around the country getting similar treatment include fundraising for a documentary about the war memorial-slash-swimming-pool in Waikiki, and fundraising for the restoration of some glass sidewalks in Seattle.)
Materials for the campaign (which also has the backing of the Astrodome Conservancy) say the event would “preview the Astrodome’s future use” (assuming no laws that happen to prevent a certain aging Dome from getting remodeled pass in Austin this summer). Details on what such a festival would actually look like are scarce, though some good examples of what not to aim for have been floated recently.
Prepping for DomeFest
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WILL THE BAYOU CITY PLEASE START ACTING LIKE IT? 
“Is the new business going to incorporate the bayou, or keep its back turned to it? Would be nice to see the trend continue of businesses along the bayous turning around and accepting the existence of a recreational green belt and trail network in its backyard, rather than using that as the side for the dumpsters.” [Superdave, commenting on Sixties Ex-Dry Cleaning Spot To Be Made Over as a Brays-Side Wine Bar] Photo of Brays Bayou at Stella Link Rd.: Frank Karbarz
Don’t feel like hopping on your bike to see how construction on that northern piece of the White Oak Bayou hike-and-bike trail is coming along? The click-and-drag-able digital map released this week by the Bayou Greenways 2020 folks may be a decent substitute for the real thing (depending on how often it ends up getting updated). Zoom in closer on the map above to check out completed trail sections (outlined in green), under construction spots (traced in dark purple), and areas planned for trail-ification at a later date (highlighted in a purple haze).
Here’s the area around Mason Park (where that double-V suspension bridge is under construction at the moment):
Green is for Greenway
Today Plan Downtown and the Downtown District are sponsoring Swamplot — with the first of 4 weekly posts focusing on the 4 pillars of the Plan Downtown effort. Thanks for supporting this website!
In this interview, Mike Waterman, president of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau and executive vice president of Houston First, discusses how to make Downtown a great place to be. (A longer version is shown in the video above.) Specifically: how to connect centers of activity, what attractions need to be developed, and how to position Downtown Houston as an authentic, “no-planning” leisure destination:
Q: What are you most proud of about Downtown Houston?
A: For Houston First, that’s Avenida Houston — 3 years in the making. We had the opportunity to unveil it during the Super Bowl, which was magical. We had 1.3 million people experience the whole area, and the reviews were spectacular.
Q: Why was it so important to develop this area?
A: The George R. Brown Convention Center really didn’t have a front door. The 8-lane bus access road made sense when there wasn’t as much activity, when Discovery Green wasn’t there. Turning this into 6 lanes of pedestrian friendly space, plus 4 restaurants and hotels is a game changer for Houston and Discovery Green. There are 12 restaurants within a block of the GRB that weren’t there 4 months ago. That’s an amazing asset for the city, residents and visitors.
Q: Talk about ways that different areas of Downtown can be connected and energized. How is this achieved?
A: There are pockets of Houston that have unique characteristics. Still, they need to be connected. EaDo is a classic example of an area that’s up and coming. But the freeway is a barrier. Do we light it? Paint it? How do we make the barrier go away or become an attractor rather than a detractor? METRORail has achieved connecting EaDo to Downtown Houston, but there’s more we can do.
If we think about all the pockets in and around Downtown such as Market Square Park, Theater District, Museum District, Avenida Houston, and Midtown, all of these can be connected through programming or ease of access. It would make the city more vibrant.
Someone told me that Houston was designed by engineers — its grid pattern is very efficient and it makes a lot of sense. Our job now is to add some character back in so there’s ease of moving from one area into another — from Market Square Park to the Theater District to Buffalo Bayou Park and the bayou down to Discovery Green.
Q: What new attractions would you like to see in Downtown and why?
A: We’re working on opportunities to program and activate the city, primarily around Discovery Green. Festivals are a great way to achieve this. Think about the Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or the Sydney Opera House. All these landmarks have created a gathering place that’s of wide interest. Houston is ripe for a destination like this as well. What if it were a lighting, pyrotechnics, 3D spectacle that activated the area around GRB? Something authentic to Houston. It would give another reason for people to come to Downtown Houston.
Q: Why should Downtown be a “no-planning” destination? A place where people can come without an agenda and find lots of things to do.
A: I think it’s extremely important. Downtown Houston is seen already as the place to do business. The leisure piece is newer in our history and evolution. In New York and Chicago, for example, you can visit without a plan and find infinite things to do. In Houston, we have more work to do on that front.
Q: Name buildings, areas or landmarks that you feel are being underutilized: How would you activate them?
A: The Cheek Neal Coffee Building in Eado is beautiful and ripe with opportunity. I’d love to see it turn into a farmers market. The JP Morgan Chase Building, where we have an observatory (or had it), has closed it to the public for a variety of reasons. Most cities have some sort of place where you can get a bird’s eye view of the city that attracts tourists and visitors. Houston doesn’t have that.
Sam Houston Park is another diamond in the rough. Much like GRB, it doesn’t have a front door. The historic homes are really fun and interesting, but I think programming and activations could really enliven the space.
Some smart Houston companies and organizations are sponsoring Swamplot. Find out more about our Sponsor of the Day program here.
Sponsor of the Day
The ex-service station sitting on the sliver of land edged by N. Durham Dr., W. 16th St., and Nashua St. is being remodeled and repainted, with signage already in place for burger bar Balls Out. The late-sixties space, home to the Guero Deluxe Car Wash before Re:Vive Development snapped up the property in 2015, was occupied by used car dealership Sabinas Cars and Trucks a few years before that.
The former service station’s canopy is still in place; the now-blank sign space on top previously served as a canvas for one of those Wiley LOVE murals:
Heights Drive-By
- NexPoint Residential Trust Acquires Multifamily Project in Northwest Houston, Selling Off Another in Seabrook [Realty News Report]
- Crestwood Moving from Bank of America Center to BG Place [Houston Chronicle]
- King’s BierHaus Opening Near the Heights on May 8 [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Sam’s Boat To Expand to Katy’s Stableside at Falcon Landing Early Next Year [Houston Chronicle]
- Chef Ryan Hildebrand Opening FM Kitchen + Bar on Shepherd Drive in the Next Few Weeks [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot]
- Green Stormwater Management Could Be the Answer to Houston’s Drainage and Flooding Issues [Realty News Report]
Photo of Armadillo Palace: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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