- 2 Memorial Point Ln. [HAR]
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Several readers reported this morning that the Garden Oaks-Independence Heights border location of construction equipment rental shop Neff Rental, on the northeast corner of Yale St. and the North Loop, has been clearing out this week. That’s a prerequisite step before any new construction equipment can be moved back onto the site, to start work on the 365 Garden Oaks store Whole Foods has planned for the property (as rendered above).
Plans for the corner depict the mini-store accompanied by both attached and freestanding retail spots, 3 of which have pending leases with a dentist, a cellphone company, and a medical business respectively, according to the marketing materials trying to hawk the remaining space (highlighted in yellow):
Yale Marketplace Marketing
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BOOTSTRAPPING INNOVATION WHILE GIVING UT THE BOOT 
“It’s absolutely surreal to see these extraordinarily non-innovative approaches to becoming an innovation hub. Does anyone really think ‘being innovative’ is a status that one can inherit, or subcontract out, or buy like a product? . . . Also, I can’t help but wonder how much of this push for innovation was based on an expectation of that UT grad-student center being built. It would seem Houston’s last chance to be an actual center for innovation walked out the door along with that project.” [justaswell, commenting on Houston’s Innovation Problem; Sneak Peek at The Carter Penthouses] Conceptual rendering of cancelled UT Houston campus: UT System
As heralded by last Wednesday’s daily demolition report, the low-slung insurance and marketing office building at 2723 Yale St. is now in tatters. The post-smashing shot above was taken in a drive-by by a reader yesterday (who notes this morning that most of the debris has since been hauled off).
Planned for the lot is a new strip center being marketed by East Village developer Ancorian as a retail-office-restaurant mashup, “anchored” by the mini Whole Foods in the works across 610. The property is loosely sandwiched between the combination KFC-Taco Bell to the south and the side-by-side Burger King and new El Rey sitting along the North Loop feeder road (visible to the right).
Renderings of the proposed strip show a mix of brick, wood, metal grating, glass, and patches of other skin materials; a Newquest Properties leasing flier shows the building turning away from Yale St. to face W. 28th St., behind a thick protective later of parking:
Cleaning Up in the Heights
Our sponsor today 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.
Join other great Houston businesses who are supporting Swamplot. Become a Sponsor of the Day.
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The latest report from Swamplot’s anonymous tunnel correspondent indicates that neighboring Asian fast casual and counter spots Thai Spice and Sidewalk Cafe appear to have both closed in the tunnel beneath 811 Louisiana (also previously and variously known as Two Shell Plaza or 777 Walker. Signage from the building’s management folks went up by the end of February, and the Thai Spice branch’s phone number is now out of service as well. An outdated leasing flier still up on the 811 Louisiana LoopNet page shows the layout of the spaces amid the rest of the tunnel stretch, between the Esperson building and the tower at 611 Walker:
Out and About Downtown
- Building Formerly Known as 600 Jefferson Now Renamed 1801 Smith [Realty News Report; previously on Swamplot]
- Austin Management Group Acquires 14-Story Office Building Northborough Tower in the Greenspoint Area [Realty News Report]
- Enbridge Moving Houston Operations from Downtown to Newly-Acquired Office Near the Galleria [HBJ]
- Report: Construction Costs in Houston a ‘Bargain’ at 10% Below National Average [Houston Chronicle]
- The Companies with the Largest Chapter 313 Tax Breaks in Houston [HBJ]
- KB Home Opens Westview Landing Neighborhood in Northwest Houston [Houston Chronicle]
- Texas One of the Worst States for First-Time Homebuyers, Says Bankrate [Culturemap]
- Chinese Restaurant Yauatcha To Open in the Galleria’s ‘Jewel Box’ on March 29 [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Hermann Park’s Clubhouse To Undergo $5.8M Renovation To Restore Historic Elements and More [abc13]
- Rice Art Gallery Closing To Make Way for a Rice University Welcome Center [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot]
- Potential Deportation Of Taqueria Gómez Food Truck Operator Spreads Fear In Southwest Houston [Houston Public Media]
- City Council Set To Vote Today on the Latest Version of the Houston Bike Plan [The Urban Edge]
Photo of the Kirby Collection: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is demolition and demolition will have his day.
- 38483 Buller Blvd. [HAR]
HARRIS COUNTY GETTING IN ON THE PASADENA REFINERY AIR POLLUTION LAWSUIT ACTION 
In the wake of the lawsuit the Sierra Club and Environment Texas filed last week alleging that the century-old Pasadena Refining System plant has violated the federal Clean Air Act some thousands of times, Harris County attorney Vince Ryan has filed another suit against the plant.  This one’s to do with the facility allegedly breaking state level environmental laws, Diana Wray writes in this week’s Houston Press; incidents of particular note include last summer’s major sulfur dioxide leak, which briefly shut down both the nearby Washburn Tunnel and the rest of the Ship Channel (while sending Galena Park into duck-and-cover mode). Wray writes that both lawsuits seem mostly geared toward getting the plant to clean up its act; each suit also has the potential to require that some kind of compliance watchdog or overseer be assigned to plant to ensure that it’s doing so. [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Pasadena Refinery Systems, Inc. plant at 111 Red Bluff Rd.: Center for Land Use Interpretation (license)
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO EITHER ELIMINATE OR WILDLY EXACERBATE THE HOUSTON TRAFFIC JAMS OF THE FUTURE 
“Once people figure out that it’s cheaper to keep the autonomous cars on the road rather than storing them in parking garages, and that having them circle the block at a very low rate of speed in perpetuity keeps them in a ready state – ready to zoom off to pick up passengers and bring in income while the owner is at work – then, and only then, will Houston residents know the true meaning of ‘gridlock’ and immediately wish that legitimate mass transportation alternatives had been built long ago.” [justaswell, commenting on Comment of the Day: Holding Out for that Younger, Sexier Mass Transit Option We Haven’t Met Yet] Illustration: Lulu
The little house on the angular 10,000-sq.-ft. lot along Patterson St. (wedged between Nett St. and the railroad tracks that run along scattered segments of Allen St.) is looking more like a bar these days, now that a tentacled tree logo has been applied to the side of the building. That logo doesn’t match the name originally picked for the spot on its TABC application — Mission Athletic Club and Drinkery — but a few other aspects of the plan have likely changed since 2015 as well, given the handful of revisions to the house-to-bar conversion plans on file with the city (the most recent of which dates to January).
Some digging around has been going on in the property’s yard of late:
Digging In off Washington Ave.
The ongoing saga of the Allen’s Landing trees coming down recently in bits and pieces — apparently the handiwork of an elusive Buffalo Bayou beaver or 2 — has come to a likely end with the non-rodent-assisted removal of the final stumps, Swamplot’s semi-regular Franklin St. correspondent and wildlife tipster notes. But life around the White Oak-Buffalo confluence goes on! Spring is here, which means the ducks have been out and about, while the cranes are busy pulling fledgling parking garage superstructures up into the air:
Didn’t Leave It To Beavers
- Houston’s First Baptist Church Set To Close on 40K-SF Downtown Union Office Building [abc13]
- Luxury Sports Club in Downtown’s Allen Center Starts Multimillion-Dollar Renovation [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- SurePoint Self Storage Planning Facility in Pearland [Houston Chronicle]
- Breakfast Chain First Watch Opening Second Houston Location March 13 at 5503 FM 1960 [Houston Chronicle]
- The Republic Grille Planning a Third Restaurant in Montgomery County [Houston Chronicle]
- Christian Boutique Altar’d State Opening in Former Rice Village Starbucks Spot This Spring [Houston Chronicle]
- Sunnyside Residents Worried That Site of New Multi-Service Center in Landfill-Adjacent Sunnyside Park Is Polluted [Houston Press]
- What Houston Restaurants Sites Looked Like a Decade Ago, Courtesy of Google Maps [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Ramen Tatsu-Ya: thranth via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
People may hear your words, but they feel your demolitions.
