08/12/16 12:00pm

Swamplot Sponsor: Central Bank

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Downtown Houston Skyline

Swamplot’s sponsor today is Houston’s own Central Bank. Our thanks to the bank — for the continued support!

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.

Become a Swamplot sponsor and get your company the attention it deserves. Here’s how to do it. 

Sponsor of the Day
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Featured Posts
08/12/16 11:30am

Southampton Stern and Bucek Mod Back Up for Sale, Back Down $1.75M on Asking Price

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2115 Wroxton St., Southampton, Houston, 77005

The double-lot-straddling 2008 Lesem House at 2115 Wroxton is back on the market yet again, this time sporting about a 40 percent discount from the price listed earlier this year (after some gradual price declines since 2013 culminated in a sharp upward jump to $4.5 million last December). Following the increase, the 5-bedroom 2-kitchen home was pulled off the market around the end of May (having crept back down to $3.5 million); the new listing —with its markedly more modest price tag of $2.75 million — showed up last Friday.

This most recent listing seems to have retreated back to some the shots used in older sales attempts, as opposed to the edgier portraits that showed up in December:

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Mod Markdown
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Headlines
08/12/16 8:30am

Minute Maid Park’s New Center Field; The Logistics of a Cat Cafe in Houston

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houston-downtown

Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
Featured Posts
08/11/16 5:15pm

Inside the Masonic Lodge Now Selling Out in the Woodland Heights

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114 Byrne St., Woodland Heights, Houston, 77009
A veil of mystery and enigma comes free with your purchase of this 1920s building on Byrne St., which hit the market last week. Woodlands Lodge 1157 moved out of the building in the early 1980s citing neighborhood decline, and headed north to its current locale near the I-45 split from Veterans Memorial Dr. The Byrne building is listed by Camelot Realty as having 5 bedrooms, including the 50-by-50-sq.-ft. space upstairs; asking price is $1.5 million. Step into the waiting room and look around:

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Doors Open
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Quicklink
08/11/16 4:00pm

Yes, The Heights Dry Zone Petitioners Really Did Collect Enough Signatures For a Vote

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YES, THE HEIGHTS DRY ZONE PETITIONERS REALLY DID COLLECT ENOUGH SIGNATURES FOR A VOTE TABC regional headquarters in Heights Medical Tower, 427 West 20th Street, Suite 600 Houston Heights, Houston, 77008Tuesday’s city council meeting gave the formal OK to the H-E-B-backed Heights Beverage Coalition’s petition for a local option election on whether or not to allow the take-home sale of beer and wine within the boundaries of the nominal dry zone formerly known as City of Houston Heights. The number of signatures required was set as 35 percent of the voters in the affected zone who voted in the 2014 governor’s election — which county clerk Stan Stanart pegged at 1,511 in early July. The city secretary announced the petitioner’s total as 1,759 valid signatures; Tuesday’s vote to approve those findings means the measure will be on the ballot in November. [City of Houston, Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot] Photo of TABC regional headquarters at 427 W. 20th St.: LoopNet

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Downtown
08/11/16 1:45pm

The Cheesiest New Addition to the Downtown Tunnel Spread

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The Cheese Course, 1001 McKinney St., Downtown Tunnel System, Houston, 77002 The Cheese Course, 1001 McKinney St., Downtown Tunnel System, Houston, 77002Swamplot’s anonymous tunnel correspondent sends another dispatch from beneath the former City National Bank building at 1001 McKinney: chain cheesemonger The Cheese Course Bistro & Cheese Market is now open in the nook formerly employed as one of Subway’s more literal Houston locations. Following a spot in Boulder, CO, and another in The Woodlands, the Houston shop makes for chain’s 3rd foray beyond its native Florida.

The basement space doesn’t look to be offering wine pairings like many of the chain’s stores do, perhaps in connection to the shop’s pre-5-o’clock hours of operations; the store will open for breakfast at 7 am and close at 4. Here’s a look around the shop’s interior seating arrangements, allowing cheese-nibblers to see and be seen by the tunnel lobby set:
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Underground Cheese Storage
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08/11/16 12:00pm

Swamplot Sponsor: This Remodeled 3-Bedroom Ranch in Woodside

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3607 Durhill St., Woodside, Houston

3607 Durhill St., Woodside, Houston

Today’s Swamplot Sponsor is the 3-bedroom, 2-bath home at 3607 Durhill St. in Woodside. Thanks for the support!

Among the recent changes made to this brick 1956 Ranch: additions to the master bedroom suite — enlarging it, adding a separate room-sized (144-sq.-ft.) walk-in closet and fitting a new walk-in shower in the bathroom. At the back of the home, a courtyard off the family room has been enclosed to make a sun room, which now faces a wooden deck built around a large oak tree. The deck connects to the detached garage as well as to the back yard of the 8,256-sq.-ft. lot.

You’ll find hardwood floors in most rooms, including the 3 bedrooms; the kitchen, which has a breakfast bar facing into the adjacent family room (at right in the photo above), features stainless-steel appliances and Carrara marble countertops. The neighborhood, Woodside, covers most of the triangle formed by Brays Bayou, the South Loop, and S. Main St. This property is near its center, between Stella Link and Buffalo Speedway.

More information about the home — along with many more photos — are available on the property website. It’s listed for sale by New Leaf Real Estate, which offers unique savings programs for both buyers and sellers.

Renovations ready to show off? Reserve a spot as a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day!

Sponsor of the Day
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Quicklink
08/11/16 11:30am

Google’s Map of Houston’s Interesting Places

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GOOGLE’S MAP OF HOUSTON’S INTERESTING PLACES Google Maps Areas of Interest ScreenshotThe light smudges of orange seen here are some of Google Maps’ latest updates to its slow digital document-everything push: highlighted areas of interest, based on density of retail and dining options. A glance around the new map, which rolled out late last month, reveals a fair amount of orange shading in strips and spots from Downtown west toward the Galleria and out along the Westheimer corridor, with bits of color appearing around Heights hotspots and the Rice Village area, among others. The areas east and north of the city’s center, however, are notably barren by Google’s accounting; Kyle Shelton writes that “This doesn’t, of course, mean that no activity occurs. It means the algorithm Google used did not register the form of activity that predominates there: more isolated shops and businesses spread among homes, along roadways or next to larger industrial tracts. What are the consequences of Google Maps, a visible, popular product showing that no areas of interest exist in these areas? How might that designation affect the bottom lines of businesses not within a hub?” [Urban Edge via Houston Chronicle] Map of Houston Areas of Interest: Google Maps

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Featured Posts
08/11/16 10:30am

On The Kirb Now Settling In Behind Its Kirby-Fronting Parking Lot

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On The Kirb, 5004 Kirby, Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098 On The Kirb, 5004 Kirby, Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098The former Kirby Dr. site of Chinese fast food outpost O’Yeah Cafe (which ousted General Joe’s Chopstix) appears to be getting ready to open again, this time as restaurant-sportsbar On The Kirb. Temporary signage beneath the venue’s more permanent marker (still framed within General Joe’s octagonal medallion) indicates that would-be recruits should apply inside. The restaurant will sit at the northernmost extreme of the 5000 Kirby strip center (located in the thick of Goode Company’s Inner Loop territory, just south of the North St. McDonald’s). The new spot will share the strip with long-time residents Upper Kirby Nails Salon and Joe Omar Hair & Makeup, as well as bisyllabic sister clubs Lumen and Crimson (protected by a few segments of low wall and hedge from the prying eyes of nextdoor neighbor Mr. Carwash).

Photos: Swamplot inbox

Off the Curb
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Headlines
08/11/16 8:30am

Houston Housing Market Takes a Hit; Pokemon Go Economics

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galleria

Photo of the Galleria: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
Uncategorized
08/10/16 5:15pm

A Quick Peep at All the Glammed Up Bagby Boyscout Building’s Signage

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Former Mr. Peeples, 1911 Bagby St., Midtown, Houston, 7700
If you duck southwest under the Pierce Elevated from near the maybe-not-vacant-much-longer downtown Days Inn highrise (and maybe dodge a few exit ramps), you’ll find the logo of sparkle-happy steak and seafood house Mr. Peeples still peering coyly out from behind the greenery at 1911 Bagby St. — accompanied more recently by a less shy sign advertising the freed-up space’s availability, notes a reader. Landmark said in a press release when the spot closed in March that it would “emerge as an exciting new venue in the near future”; the informational signage from WLC Interests implies that that emergence may occur elsewhere, and that other folks may have a chance at the spot for less culinarily focused uses.

Here’s a shot of the place pre-glitzification (circa 2007) when it was a more conservatively decorated Boy Scouts office:

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Prepping for the Next Costume Change
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