- 12131 Fallbrook Dr. [HAR]
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A BUNCH OF NORTHWEST MALL’S TENANTS MAY SHUT DOWN THIS MONTH 
Swamplot hasn’t heard back from the management office of borderline zombie shopping center Northwest Mall yet to confirm plans for the structure — but some of the mall’s tenants have been advertising their own impending closure, including alcoholic cake shop Bundt Cake-a-holic (which is currently trying to crowdfund its own relocation). Rumors on Reddit and The Leader suggest that a few shops like Thompson’s Antique Center of Texas and the in-mall College of Healthcare Professions will stay open, but that most of the tenants are getting booted for remodeling by March 31st.  [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of Northwest Mall: Moni
FACEBOOK COMMENT OF THE DAY: CARL SANDBURG ON GROCERY STORE AESTHETICS 
“Pile the carts high at Auchan and Weingarten. / Shovel them under and let me work— / I am the beige. I cover all. / And pile them high at Globe / And pile them high at Sage and Gemco / Shovel them under and let me work. / Two years, ten years, and shoppers ask the manager: / What place is this?/ Where are we now? / I am the beige. Let me work.” [Jerry Wright on Swamplot’s Facebook page, commenting on Secretly Preserved Weingarten History Quickly Erased from Side of Weingarten-Owned Heights Kroger; original poem here] Photo of briefly revealed Weingarten’s signage at W. 20th St. Kroger: Chris Barnes
Facebook Comment of the Day
The body-oriented retail strip across from the recently browned-out Alabama Theater has just swapped second-or-more-hand clothing retailer Buffalo Exchange into the spot by Kipling St. last occupied by Centre Fitness Fusion, a reader notes. (Centre Fitness took over from Orange Shoe Fitness, which itself succeeded bike shop and implicit fitness purveyor Cycle Spectrum.) Buffalo Exchange joins Epique Massage next to Darque Tan, separated only by a driveway and some parking spots from Demeris Bar-B-Q.
And what of the old Buffalo Exchange spot, recently spotted sporting a variance request notice out front?
Fashion Recycler Recycling
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WAIT, SO ‘KEEP ADDING FREEWAYS’ WAS THE LONG-TERM FIX? 
“The Chronicle article made a fairly big deal out of the following H-GAC quote: ‘Future growth and the resulting travel is expected to surpass our ability to meet regional mobility needs by relying solely on increased roadway capacity.’Â I question the significance of this excerpt. Is that not the case at the present time? Has that ever not been the case?” [TheNiche, commenting on Houston #1 in Sublease Office Space; Downtown Getting a WeWork] Illustration: Lulu
Today’s sponsor is a Houston Midtown classic: the C.L. House Building, on the 3200 block of Milam St., just south of Elgin. Thanks for the support!
Built in 1928 as a neighborhood mercantile center by grocer and banker Charles L. House, this masonry-and-steel-frame structure originally housed the Montrose Grocery in its main downstairs space. Other tenants in spaces lining both Milam St. and Stuart St. included Butera’s Café, Puccio’s Champion Shoe Hospital, a corner drugstore, and a barber shop. Upstairs was a ballroom and a speakeasy.
This 14,400-sq.-ft. building is now available for redevelopment.
The location is unmatched — and with continued development in Midtown it keeps getting better: On adjacent blocks you’ll find 24 Hour Fitness, High Fashion Home, HCC, and the new Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH). 14 square blocks of new midrise multifamily development are within easy walking distance. The new Whole Foods Market residential development by the Morgan Group is going up 2 blocks away; just to the north on Travis St., the new Midtown Park has taken shape. Many of Houston’s finest restaurants are nearby — including Brennan’s, Artista, Holley’s, and Mai’s — not to mention the restaurant row along lower Westheimer that includes Uchi, L’Olivier, El Tiempo, Indika, Dolce Vita, Sorrento, and Aladdin.
There’s easy access to Downtown from here, as well as to the Texas Medical Center and Rice University via Spur 527, which begins just 6 blocks to the south. Prefer to ride the rail? The Ensemble/HCC stop on the Red Line is just 2 blocks away.
For showings and more information, please contact broker Douglas McAninch at (713) 247-0000. To see historic and recent photos of the property and gather more details about its history, take a look at this website.
Also now available: Swamplot sponsorships. Click here to find out how to become a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day.
Sponsor of the Day
The skewed look of the retail center planned by Braun Enterprises for 2401 N. Shepherd Dr. comes in large part from the misaligned footprints of the upper and lower stories of the eastern building, each twisted in opposite directions off of the right angles of the Heights street grid (though the lower layer appears to get mashed flat up against a setback line on the north side). Renderings of the site posted recently by Tipps Architecture show the twisty building paired with another single-story structure stretching west along W. 24th St., with some hangout space wedged between the 2. Some bent vertical strips and boxcutter window angles add that sat-on-the-delivery-box touch to the upper story of the eastern building, tentatively labeled with spots for retail, a café, and an upstairs fitness studio.Â
How does one stray from the straight-and-narrow of classic Houston strip mall design while still fitting in all those required parking spots? Braun’s leasing flier shows a parking lot behind the 2 buildings, some angled-in street parking along W. 24th, and — perhaps taking a hint from the double-decker design of the H-E-B planned catty-corner across N. Shepherd — an additional level of parking tucked away on the roof:
Rising Above on N. Shepherd
- Renovated Downtown Office Tower 811 Louisiana Lands 4 Tenants [Houston Chronicle]
- HAR: Top Houston Neighborhoods Where Home Prices Rose and Fell the Most in 2016 [HBJ]
- South Korea-Based Chicken Chain Vons Chicken Opening in Houston at 10020 Long Point Road [HBJ]
- City Council Approves ‘Special Parking Area’ for Montrose [Houston Chronicle]
- The Faux Sheep Grazing at GreenStreet, and Other New Amenities To Draw Visitors to the Development [Houstonia]
- Houston Winter Brings Record High Temperatures, Flooding [Houston Press]
- Texas Lands Near Bottom of U.S. News and World Report’s Inaugural State Rankings [HBJ]
Photo of Greenleaf Wholesale Florists in EaDo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Demolition is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.
All that booing over the last year and a half from Houston’s most expansive university system and its legislative friends looks to have paid off: UT has cancelled its plans for a new research campus south of the Astrodome, citing fears that continuing to press for the project could throw a wet blanket on projects at its other campuses. The school’s press office announced the pivot this afternoon, adding that UT’s real estate office will look into how to sell the 307 acres they’ve spent the last year collecting, though it might take some time to put together a sale that makes sense.
UH Board of Regents chairman and reality real estate TV star Tilman Fertitta said today that the sustained backlash to UT’s land buy was really a team effort, assisted by elected officials, administrators, and other folks aiming to prevent what Fertitta calls an unnecessary duplication of state resources. UT had previously announced that the campus wouldn’t have been a 4-year university; chancellor Bill McRaven suggested this afternoon that plans for the land might have shaped up to include a big data science center with a focus on health care, energy, and education, and that the ideas from the task force put together to plan for the land could be put to use elsewhere instead.
- Chancellor McRaven ends plan for UT project in Houston [UT Press Office]
- UT System Says It Won’t Proceed with Houston Campus [Texas Tribune]
- Previously on Swamplot:Â McRaven: New UT Houston Campus Not a ‘Dump’; Just a Contaminated S. Main Industrial Site Like Any Other;Â UT Writes Back to UH Pen Pals, Lawmakers on Houston Campus Plans;Â Texas A&M Weighs Houston Expansion As UT Collects Land for Its Planned Campus;Â What That Land UT Bought on Friday for Its Houston Campus Might Have Turned Into Instead;Â The Best Views of the New UT Houston Campus Are Available Now from the Fairway on the 5th Hole, Above a Trash Heap;Â What You’ll Find In and Around UT’s New Houston Campus
Conceptual rendering of UT Houston campus:Â Houston Public Media
Higher Ed Shutout
It may not come as much of a surprise to the city’s more meticulous athletics outlet trackers that the Luke’s Locker at the corner of W. Gray and Driscoll streets has taken off: on January 20 the Texas chain announced via Facebook that they would be temporarily closing their Houston store, among others; a follow-up post a few days later clarified that the company had filed for Chapter 11. As of late last week, the name markers were coming down from the store’s exterior, a couple of “For Lease†signs were up, and the space had been emptied out.
The company still lists 1953 W. Gray address as a store location, complete with an image of the shop wrapped up in a bygone era of River Oaks Shopping Center aesthetics, when everything was more black-and-white:
Run Off on W. Gray
Update, 6pm: UT announced this afternoon that the Houston campus plans are cancelled — more here.
UT system chancellor Bill McRaven objected in letter form this month to senator and Astrodome scrutinizer John Whitmire’s characterization of the 300 acres UT’s been buying in Houston as “a dump,” the Austin American Statesman’s Ralph K.M. Haurwitz reports. Excerpts from the letter assert that the property, nestled amid the industrial-residential jumble south of the Astrodome, has never in fact been a landfill. Sure, there’s a little bit of contamination from an old polymer facility that needs to be mopped up.  And sure, there may be a healthy smattering of old oil wells from the Pierce Junction boom days, as illustrated by the Rail Road Commission’s map of current and former wells drilled in the area. (UT’s new parcels are just inside the crook of the Holmes Rd.-S. Main St. elbow, to the northwest of the ring of wells drilled around the salt dome’s buried upper reaches.)
But Whitmire’s comments, McRaven’s letter notes, might “lead a listener to conclude that the property and the surrounding area are blighted and unlikely to ever be developed. In fact, the property is adjacent to apartments, neighborhoods, and commercial buildings, and it is highly likely that these adjacent developed lands had similar characteristics.â€Â Meanwhile, the Wildcat Golf Course directly across Holmes Rd. from UT’s campus-to-be actually was a bona fide landfill; the only giveaway is all those rolling hills.
- UT System’s $215M Campus Site in Houston Is Not a Dump, Chancellor Says [Austin American Statesman]
- Previously on Swamplot:Â UT Writes Back to UH Pen Pals, Lawmakers on Houston Campus Plans;Â Texas A&M Weighs Houston Expansion As UT Collects Land for Its Planned Campus;Â What That Land UT Bought on Friday for Its Houston Campus Might Have Turned Into Instead;Â The Best Views of the New UT Houston Campus Are Available Now from the Fairway on the 5th Hole, Above a Trash Heap;Â What You’ll Find In and Around UT’s New Houston Campus;Â The Houston Zip Code Where the Kids Don’t Leave Home
Image: Texas RRC Public GIS Viewer
What Lies Beneath
Today Swamplot is brought to you by the Downtown District and Plan Downtown, a new effort to . . . well, just read on and you’ll learn. Thanks for the support!
What’s next Downtown? Once an underutilized, work-driven district that had seen its better days, Downtown has again become a thriving core of the Bayou City and the region. It’s buzzing with development of all kinds — new hotels, restaurant rows, luxury residential projects, and convenient public transportation options. But the city center didn’t get to where it is today by happenstance.
“Thirteen years have gone by since Downtown’s last comprehensive plan, and we’ve made tremendous progress since then,†says Bob Eury, Executive Director of the Houston Downtown Management District (aka the Downtown District). “Now it’s time for us to take a fresh look at what lies ahead and prepare for the future. Can Houston adapt to driverless cars, a sharing economy, collaborative work environments, and work-life integration? How can we better prepare Downtown Houston for the next few decades?â€
With that in mind, the Downtown District has launched Plan Downtown, a 20-year vision plan that will outline recommendations for short-, middle-, and long-range planning, development, and design within and around Downtown. Downtown has established itself as a destination for working, living, and recreation, but Plan Downtown will recommend ways for it to continue to be a relevant and welcoming gathering place for all Houstonians.
Throughout the spring and early summer, the Plan Downtown project team will lead a series of leadership group meetings, planning stakeholder workshops, topical small-group discussions, and public workshops. In addition, the public will be invited to participate in planning efforts by website and text-based visioning exercises.
Mark your calendars for the first public meetings — they’re scheduled for April 12. You can find the time and location on the Plan Downtown website, at plandowntownhou.com.
How’s your marketing plan? Make it work smarter by becoming a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day.
Sponsor of the Day
The removal of the “Right Store Right Price” sign tacked onto the side of the Kroger at 239 W. 20th St. briefly revealed long-buried evidence of the building’s long-hidden relationship with Weingarten, a parking lot cruising reader notes. Yes, that Weingarten (which currently owns the shopping center): the company’s account of its own history notes that the Weingarten family started out in the grocery biz, then got into real estate to build its own stores. The company dropped supermarkets altogether in the early 1980s and went into real estate full time.
By mid-afternoon yesterday, the newly unearthed traces of the company’s former association with the building had already been beiged out:
Uncovered on W. 20th
- Houston Has the Most Sublease Office Space of Any Market in the Nation, Finds CBRE [Houston Chronicle]
- Texas Education Agency Updates List of Houston Buildings Subject to Tax Recapture [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Co-Working Company WeWork To Open First Houston Location in Downtown This Year [HBJ]
- Katy ISD’s New $70M High School Football Stadium Will Be Called Legacy Stadium [HBJ]
- Tomball’s First Food Truck Park, 403 Eats, Gets Closer to Opening [Houston Chronicle]
- Residents Suing White Oak Music Hall Call for Hearing on the Venue’s Sound Permit [Click2Houston]
- Prohibition Supperclub & Bar’s New Split Identities [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston-Galveston Area Council Warns Roadway Capacity Won’t Meet Regional Mobility by 2050 [Houston Chronicle]
- Proposed Bill Would Create Statewide Toxic Emergency Alert System for Residents Near Chemical Plants [Houston Public Media]
Photo of Buffalo Bayou: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
