Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
It’s only after we’ve demolished everything that we’re free to build anything.
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The artsy building at the pointy intersection of White Oak Dr. with Morrison and Beauchamp streets appears to be prepping for the possibility of a new gig. City permission for some interior wall smashing in the former King Biscuit space (shown above in full 2011 Technicolor) was granted at the beginning of August, and a reader sends the topmost photo of the scene this afternoon with reports of some recent scuttling about inside.
The space at 1606 White Oak is currently listed for sale on LoopNet as part of a 2-fer: buy the Biscuit for $2.17 million, and the owner will throw in the well-camouflaged house across Morrison at 1528 White Oak for free:
White Oak 2-Fer
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW HOUSTON’S PARK(ING) PROPONENTS SHOULD TAKE IT TO THE STREETS 
“While I understand, generally, the sentiment behind this initiative, I think in Houston it may be a little misguided. If we want a more walkable environment, with fewer buildings set back behind parking lots, we actually need more on-street parking spaces (to both accommodate business patrons arriving by car and help buffer pedestrians on the sidewalk), and fewer off-street ones.” [LocalPlanner, commenting on The SUV-Sized Parks Parked By City Hall Will Expire in About An Hour] Photo of Park(ing) Day: Allyn West
 Proponents Should Take It to the Streets... "Pin It")
YALE ST.’S MIDDLE-AGED TREES JUST GOT MORE EXPENSIVE TO CHOP DOWN 
Now that the petitioning and voting on the matter has wrapped up, The Houston Heights Association and Trees for Houston had a party this weekend to celebrate Yale St.’s designation as the city’s first official green corridor (between 6th and 19th streets. Organizers gave out baby trees as party favors, Nancy Sarnoff reports, noting that the existing treescape is largely the product of area folks planting seedlings “on both sides of the four-lane road in 1986. Volunteers kept them watered and fought city efforts to expand the roadway, which would have eliminated many of the trees.” Houston’s general colorless tree laws give the city jurisdiction over cutting down certain trees more than 20 inches wide; the green corridor label, defined in 1991 but never actually used before now, trims that protection threshold down to just 15 inches wide along the 1.6-mile stretch of Yale. Other than the reduced belt-size standards, the same rules apply for getting approval to cut down a protected tree anyway — whether by planting  new trees, going after tree preservation credits, or making some pay-by-the-inch contributions (as adjusted for inflation) into the parks and rec department’s tree fund. [Houston Chronicle; city tree ordinances] Photo of Yale St. trees: City of Houston
Today’s sponsor of Swamplot is NoLo Studios @ Acres Homes, a new development of 14 modern residences. Thanks for the support!
NoLo Studios will provide live-work space for people seeking a creative home environment — within a unique, semi-rural neighborhood north of downtown and west of I-45. The project bills itself as a “creative community in the woods” offering privacy, community, and workspace. The developer’s stated goal is not to transform Acres Homes or to ignore its rich social history, but to plant in it a singular 3-acre retreat that by the siting of the homes and careful attention in their architecture to light, views, and personal space establishes an alternative to the confines of a traditional house.
The 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom homes at NoLo Studios all feature smooth, highly durable cement-board siding, Galvalume roofs, and tall-ceilinged studio spaces lit by clerestory windows (one of them pictured above) with their own separate entrances. Combined living-dining-kitchen spaces open onto side decks sited for privacy. There’s room for customization and expansion.
The architect and developer of the project is Francois De Menil, FAIA, perhaps best known in Houston as the designer of the Byzantine Fresco Chapel on the campus of the Menil Collection (established 30 years ago in the middle of a Montrose neighborhood by his parents). Listing agent Star Massing of Boulevard Realty, who focuses her real estate business on Houston’s art, architecture, and design communities, has been actively involved in the research and construction process. (Her husband, artist Jack Massing — with longtime partner Michael Galbreth — holds court at the Art Guys World Headquarters less than a mile away.) Southern Green Builders is constructing the project.
To learn more about the 14 residences at NoLo Studios, check out the property website, where you’ll find more renderings and details about the project.
Need a little creative space where you can get your message out to Swamplot readers? It’s available to you right here — when you become a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day.
Sponsor of the Day
The once-white house at 435 Hawthorne — where a young LBJ stayed rent-free with his Uncle George in his early 1930’s pre-politickin’ teacher days — is up for grabs again. The 2-story 3-bedroom at the corner with Garrott St. (half a block east of Taft) is back on the market as of just under 2 weeks ago for just under $750,000. The Westmoreland Historic District home was sold back in 2012 for $266,000 and change, and most recently went for about $535,000 in 2013 (post flip-ready redo).
What’s new this time around? You can look for yourself at some of the new finishes in the click-and-drag 360-degree photo tour set up by the current sellers, including some rotate-in-place views inside what’s advertised as a use-it-or-rent-it garage apartment suite out back. The new sales site also notes that the back yard has been redone with an easy-to-please spread of artificial lawn:
Westmoreland Historic District Modern Updates
- Hotel Revenue Down in Houston, Up Across Texas, Finds Source Strategies [HBJ]
- Friendswood Development Making ‘First Real Foray into Urban Redevelopment’ with Knoll Park in Spring Branch [HBJ]
- ARA Newmark on 5 Trends in Houston Real Estate Amid Downturn [HBJ]
- Sigma Brewing Company Taproom To Debut Sept. 30 in East Downtown [Eater Houston]
- Nobie’s Taking Over Former Au Petit Paris Space on Colquitt St. [Houston Streetwise; previously on Swamplot]
- Dallas-Based Juicery Buda Juice Opening in Rice Village This Fall [In the Know Houston]
- Uber Experimenting with Daytime Fixed-Price Fares in Houston To Help Curtail Congestion [Houston Chronicle]
- The Effort To Save the Endangered Houston Toad, Last Found in Houston Around 1975 [Houston Public Media]
- A Walking Audio Tour of the Bayou City with ‘Remote Houston’ [Houstonia]
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.
The old Mr. Steak restaurant on Hillcroft has cleared its last meal, and other tales of empty tables.
- 4911 Holly St. [HAR]
UBER’S SELF-DRIVING CARS HIT STREETS WITH ACTUAL PASSENGERS, DRIVERS JUST IN CASE Meanwhile, in Pittsburgh: As of Wednesday, Uber is letting some of its customers opt into possible pickup by its fleet of heavily tricked-out self-driving Ford Fusions. The rollout is the company’s first testing of the autonomous cars with real passengers in the urban wild; so far, they still come equipped with a prepared-for-takeover human in the driver’s seat (as well as a data-monitoring shotgun rider). Paying passengers interact with the car from the back seat via electronic tablet, which shows them the LiDAR data the car collects and allows them to take selfies. TechCrunch’s Signe Brewster got to check out one of the cars as part of a press preview and reports that the car’s driving was “so normal it got a little bit boring” by the end; Brewster does note that he “had a flurry of butterflies the first time the car encountered an obstacle — an SUV backing into the road. You don’t notice how many unexpected incidents occur during a routine drive until you ask a robot to take the wheel.” [WTAE, TechCrunch; previously on Swamplot]
What’s all this sitting by the meters on the 500 block of McKinney St. today? Allyn West sends over some shots of the parking-spot-sized pocket parks currently occupying a few of Downtown’s on-street spaces. And you, too, can sit there, but only if you hustle: The ephemeral parklets are open for communal use until about 3 PM as part of the annual Park(ing) Day affair, now in its 12th year of instigating fleeting streetscape conversions in hundreds of cities around the world.
One of this year’s parks has its very own ideologically-conflicted seesaw:
Metered Park(ing)
Swamplot’s sponsor today is the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects, which wants you to know about the Interior Architecture Tour scheduled for this Saturday, September 17th. Thanks for the support!
If you’re interested in gaining an inside view of the world of architectural interiors, you’ll want to attend this event tomorrow. The AIA Houston Interior Architecture Committee is hosting an interior architecture tour featuring the offices and works of 4 Houston architecture firms.
The firms on the tour are all located within a 4-block radius of each other — downtown. (Here’s a handy map.) They are:
- Page, 1100 Louisiana St. Suite One (Enter on Smith St.)
- DLR Group, 919 Milam St. Suite 100 (Enter on McKinney St.)
- PDR, 909 Fannin St. Floor 39 (Enter on the corner of Fannin St. and McKinney St.)
- Gensler, 711 Louisiana St. Suite 300
The tour will have a special emphasis on exploring the practice of interior architecture. Featured interactive presentations in each of the various offices will highlight the tools and talents that go into creating some of our city’s most exciting interior spaces. You may begin the tour at any of the listed firms, and make your way to the others on your own schedule.
It all takes place this Saturday, September 17, from 10 am to 2 pm, and it’s all open to the public. Tickets are $10 — $5 for students. They’re available for purchase online in advance — and at each of the offices on the day of the tour. Find out more about the tour on this page of the AIA Houston website.
Got something behind the scenes Swamplot readers should see? Becoming a Sponsor of the Day can make that happen.
Sponsor of the Day
That mosaic-filled penthouse in the north tower of the split-up-then-stuck-back-together Mosaic highrise complex has been relisted once again as of Friday, this time down at $1.49 million. The unit hit the market in 2014 asking for $2.05 million (up from the $930,000 it originally sold for in 2012, in the wake of the original owners’ bank-rupturing bankruptcy). Since then, the listing has taken only a few quick days off here and there to step down the price. The customized 3-bedroom pad includes the mother-of-pearl show-off-whatever-you-want slots in the main entryway (shown above; sick guitar collection not included). Here’s a look around at some of the unit’s other tilework:
Hermann Park Outlook
- Energy Company Freeport-McMoRan Puts 475K SF of Pennzoil Place, 717 Texas Space on Sublease Market [HBJ]
- Downtown’s Newest Office Building Partnership Tower Now Open [Realty News Report]
- How New Living Aims To Redevelop the East End’s Former Imperial Linen Services Plant Without Pricing People Out [Houston Chronicle]
- Average Apartment Unit in Houston Has Shrunk by 1% in Recent Years, Finds RCLCO [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Housing Authority Opening Wait List for Voucher Program for First Time in 4 Years [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot]
- City Has Applied for $12M Loan To Buy HCC Land Eyed for H-E-B [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- J.J. Watt’s Pearland Home On the Market [Houston Chronicle]
- Juice Girl Opening in Former Flow Juice Bar Space in East Montrose [In the Know Houston]
Photo: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Into each life some houses must fall.
