- 425 Hedwig Rd. [HAR]
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Another shot of that crane that took to the air this weekend by the economy-stalled stub of Skanska’s Capitol Tower comes from a reader peering over the site’s parking structure from Rusk St. yesterday. (That’s the neighboring Chase Tower looming over the scene in the background.) Bank of America was outed as being in talks with Skanska about leasing space in the tower (which might add the bank’s current home in Bank of America Center to the list of recent abandonments of Downtown office towers by their namesake tenants). The other sign of life on the site this year was the addition of a street-level mural to the parking garage’s corner, which was dry in time for the Super Bowl last month:
Sprouting Downtown
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO TILT THE ZERO-SUM HOUSTON TRANSIT GAME 
“‘The overlooked reason why cycling isn’t more popular is because driving and parking are far, far easier in Houston than in Amsterdam.’ You‘re right. So you know what would help increase the use of bikes? Allowing the market to determine the number of parking spaces. If [a business] gets it wrong and offers too few spots, they’ll suffer. But give them the choice. Right now business are required to supply tons of parking, making driving the dominant way people will always get from point A to point B. At least loosen up the regs in areas like Midtown and Montrose where we have a population that’s far more willing to walk, bike, skate, rail, etc. (or even Uber, which, while it puts cars on the road, lowers parking demand.)” [Cody, commenting on Houston Bike Plan Up for a Vote Again This Morning Amid More California-ization Fears] Photo: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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Work has moved into the buildout and dressup phase for Phase II of the high-glycemic-index strip center at the corner of W. 19th St. and N. Shepherd Dr., a reader notes during a recent catty-corner oil change. The Benjamin Moore signage spotted around the new second building last year during the site’s flat-slab days is now reflected by buildout permits for the paint store, which should take up about 1,820 sq.ft. of the building’s 4,298. What’ll be filling up the rest of the space? Looks like the leftovers will house Austin export Tarka Indian Kitchen’s first inside-the-Beltway location.
The cameraman also captured a glimpse of Dallas pizzeria Cane Rosso‘s statue of a somewhat confusingly labeled suina rosso, which overlooks the intersection from its browsing position near the parking lot:
Heights Austinites
Today’s sponsor is ASCOT — also known as the Alcohol Servers Counsel of Texas. Thanks for supporting Swamplot!
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.
Make it a great day: Become a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day.
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HOUSTON BIKE PLAN UP FOR A VOTE AGAIN THIS MORNING AMID MORE CALIFORNIA-IZATION FEARS 
This morning’s city council meeting has the Houston Bike Plan back on the docket, following the most recent round of public-input-based tweaking to the plan (as well as a delay of the vote, which was initially scheduled for earlier this month). Over in the Chronicle Dug Begley recaps some of the arguments being made for and against the years-in-development guidance plan, which have a bit of a chicken-vs-egg flavor: do only 0.5% of Houstonians bike to work because safe-feeling bike paths are scarce outside of certain Inner Loop neighborhoods? Or are those areas where the active bikers are already clustered the only ones where bike path improvements are warranted? Councilman Greg Travis, one of the folks who pushed back the vote at the last council meeting, told Begley he does see a need for some kind of bike safety improvement plan, but adds that he’s “not sure this is the plan for Houston. We’re not Amsterdam or San Francisco, and we don’t know what’s needed here, really needed.“ [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Map of existing ‘high-comfort’ bike paths: Houston Bike Plan Interactive Map
- Single-Family Home Permits in Houston Totaled $387M in February, Down 17% from Year Earlier [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Rent Growth Down 3.3% in February, Finds Axiometrics [Houston Chronicle]
- Baker Katz Acquires 2 Acres Near Baybrook Mall to Develop 2 New Restaurants [Houston Chronicle]
- 67-Year-Old Bellaire Town Center To Be Redeveloped, Expanded [Realty News Report]
- More on That Experimental-Target-Anchored Retail Center Next to the Grand Parkway in Aliana [HBJ]
- The Benefits of Class B and C Office Buildings [Bisnow]
- Texas City Amusement Park Adventure Pointe Moves Forward with Construction Plans [HBJ]
- Nanobrewery 160ft Beerworks Opening Downtown on April 1 [HBJ]
- The Ivy & James Set To Open May 1 in Evelyn’s Park in Bellaire [Houston Chronicle]
- Neighbors of White Oak Music Hall Ask City for List of Investors in the Venue [Click2Houston; previously on Swamplot]
- How Much Houston Families Save By Living in the Suburbs [Culturemap]
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.
Leave now the valley yet ye shall not be forgotten, ’til we ourselves meet our ’dozerly fates.
- 42 Commanders Cve. [HAR]
The group of rugby aficionados called the Houston Strikers — seemingly a revival of the name of an 80’s-era semi-professional rugby club — has been showing around the rendering above of a new rugby stadium lately. The facility is said to be planned near the Houston Sports Park along 288 just south of Mowery Rd. by various rugby news sites and discussion groups; the early renderings floating around since last summer corroborate that, showing the stadium tucked next to the distinctively curved crossing of Sims Bayou under 288 (along with some parking lots and a detention basin):
Fields by Streams off 288
The 26th will be the last day of business for the La Madeleine on Kirby Dr. at Amherst St., a rep for the Rice Village District says this afternoon. After that the space’ll get a significant makeover, part of the ongoing de-suburbanization of the 1990s Village Arcade buildings. Changes planned for the space appear to include a total blackout of the corner’s pediments, a gutting of the existing canopy level (paired with a boxy see-through enclosure of that area) and a hip-high hashtag-biscuitpaintwall-style landscaping feature (replacing the existing hedge as Amherst’s walkable zone gets widened). The company says the burger place should be ready to open sometime around November.
- Previously on Swamplot: Leafy Galleria Shake Shack Spot To Open Next Friday, Serve Other Houston Restaurants’ Food;Â Before-ish and After Views of the Rice Village Design Overhaul Now Underway on University Blvd.;Â Shake Shack Will Take Over La Madeleine’s Rice Village Space
Images: Rice Village District (rendering), Swamplot inbox (photo)
Kirby Corner Shake-Up
Leasing signage was tacked up not too long ago at the Dolce Midtown apartment development straddling Bailey St. along the north side of W. Gray, notes a reader relaying years of curiosity about the project’s slow-but-maybe-not-always-so-steady progress. The development’s website doesn’t offer any clues as to when move-in might be possible, but the company has opened a leasing office down the street (in one of the not-getting-knocked-down-any-time-soon segments of the River Oaks Shopping Center).
A few of the hawk-eyed cranewatchers over at HAIF claim to have spotted some backward clock-ticks on the work in the form of partial de- and re-construction of the 2 midrises’ upper stories during late 2015, possibly related to all the torrential rain that year on the building’s siding and wooden framing. But the buildings apparently re-reached their full heights not long after; as of last Friday, there’re even some relatively complete-looking facade sections on the eastern midrise (as shown above). The western building of the 2 still looks to have only been issued its Hardi-plank balcony flaps, however:
Ups and Downs in Fourth Ward
- Crane Pops Up at Construction Site of Skansa’s Delayed Capitol Tower Downtown [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Housing Authority Breaks Ground on Mixed-Income Complex in Independence Heights [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Topped Nation in Housing Permits Authorized Between 2010 and 2016, Based on Census Bureau Data [Forbes]
- Houston Apartment Market Ranked the Riskiest Nationally for Multifamily Investors by MPF Research [HBJ]
- New Target Store Prototype To Debut near Richmond in October [Houston Chronicle]
- King’s BierHaus To Open in the Heights Next Month [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot]
- Report: Houston Has Lowest Number of Farmer’s Markets Per Capita Compared to Austin, Dallas, San Antonio [HBJ]
- How Drones Are Used in Houston’s Oil and Gas Industry [Click2Houston]
- In a City Where Bigger Is Better, Can Houston Build a Startup Scene? [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Hotel Boom in Dallas, Houston, and Austin Driven by Corporate Relocation, Population Growth [New York Times ($)]
Photo of Bellaire: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
A Cavalcade of removed tech; plus the house (above) on Wharton eats it.
- 903 N. Loop [HAR]
