COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SECRET INGREDIENTS IN ANY GOOD BEDROOM COMMUNITY RECIPE 
“The idea that The Woodlands is a mecca because of some secret sauce is absurd. Places like that can only exist in the vicinity of a larger city. The Woodlands has maintained itself as a high-end housing community, which is of course an achievement that took careful planning, but it’s entirely unsustainable without nearby cities to absorb the lower service economy sector/poorer individuals that any city needs and will have regardless. A similar point can be made about West U, which recently made some list about wealthy cities.” [MrEction, commenting on Avoiding the Lonely Drive to Work; Houston Olympics Speculation] Illustration: Lulu
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Is this time the charm for the long-vacant all-but-freeway-side former hotel at 801 Saint Joseph Pkwy., on at least its 3rd round of intended redevelopers since it was vacated in 1998? The building began its career in the early 1970s as a Holiday Inn, later becoming a Days Inn before being turned into Heaven on Earth hotel by a group founded by embraced-then-renounced Beatles spiritual advisor Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. That group eventually shut down their increasingly dilapidated hotel and turned the place into a Vedic school before code violations forced the structure’s not-just-for-summer vacation; the spot has been courted by fickle would-be-remodelers on and off ever since.
But some work permits have been issued this year to the most recent owner, SFK Development, which bought the site in late 2012 per county records, and Catie Dixon reported last fall that the building will be turned into a Sheraton (an assertion backed up by some more recent tidbits from the structural scrutinizers over at HAIF). Meanwhile, reader Garrett Robles reports that the site is now the most active he’s seen it in 5 years of wandering around the area. Robles sends this set of recent photos peering at, around, and into the ground floor of the structure:
Rebuilding Heaven on Earth
A reader caught sight of some recent stirrings at the southwest corner of W. 20th St. and Rutland, where food truck The Rice Box looks to be setting up a second non-mobile operation in the former home of Chirps Chicken and Rice. Braun Enterprises snapped up the 1,584-sq.-ft. building in mid-2015, when Chirps flew the coop; a TABC permit for the dry zone address was issued to Black Dragon Private Club — an entity listing The Rice Box as a trade name — in early May. Braun also owns the retail strip across Rutland, which replaced those Baptist Temple buildings that were demolished in 2013; the photo above was taken from the Zoe’s Kitchen at the corner.
- Previously on Swamplot: The Retail That’s Replacing the Razed Heights Baptist Temple Buildings
Photos: Jason B. Cockerell (top), Chirps Chicken and Rice (bottom)
Rutland Remake
- 8-Story Lockton Place Tops Out in Westchase [Houston Chronicle]
- Transwestern Sells 3 Class B and C Apartment Properties Totaling 786 Units [Realty News Report]
- 1415 Louisiana Finishes $10M in Upgrades and Renovations to Lobby, Tunnels, Elevators [HBJ]
- CBRE To Market 3 Healthcare Properties for Sale Near the Medical Center [HBJ]
- Woodlands-Based LGI Homes Saw 40% Jump in Homes Sales Revenue in Second Quarter Over Same Period Last Year [Houston Chronicle]
- Titan Homes To Expand To New Houston Neighborhoods Beyond the Heights [HBJ]
- Southampton Contemporary Home Designed by Stern and Bucek Up for Auction Later This Month [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston-Galveston Area Council Launches New Website on How To Avoid a Solo Commute [Houston Chronicle]
- Galveston To Start Expanding 4-Mile-Long Stretch of Beach with New Sand Pipeline [Houston Chronicle]
- Greenspoint Residents Still Waiting To Return Home After April Floods [abc13]
- Just for Kicks, the Pros and Cons of Houston Ever Hosting the Olympics [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of the Alexan Heights: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Watching it watching you watching it – the house sees everything.
- 127 Bracebridge Cir. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WATCHING FOR SIGNS OF A 380 TURN FROM TURNER 
“Mayor Parker threw a lot of candy to developers in the form of 380 agreements and the massive downtown residential housing initiative. No new 380 agreements have come up before council since Mayor Turner took office. If big new projects like the Halliburton site or Tarkett site do not get 380 agreements, it will be pretty clear that there has been a big shift in power in the Mayor’s office away from developers.” [Old School, commenting on Houston Housing Authority Authority Resigns In Wake of Briargrove Mixed-Income Kerfuffle] Illustration: Lulu
Belt West Shopping Center, which previously housed both Grace Presbyterian’s coffee shop The Well and Shelby’s Liquor, has been returning to dust of late, per a reader’s leafy photo of the site from this morning. The western end of the 1975 strip (largely hidden from the northwest corner of Westheimer and Seagler roads by 2 other retail strips and a Shell Station) has also been home to some of the operations of Project C.U.R.E. — a nonprofit named by the late July demolition permit as an occupant, which collects and donates medical supplies to the developing world.
Both the church’s Facebook page and a church representative reached by phone this afternoon indicate that the church-owned property will remain a part of the Grace Presbyterian fold. The shots below from Seagler show the strip midway through its retail-to-ruins transition last week:
Plans To Rise Again
HOUSTON HOUSING AUTHORITY AUTHORITY RESIGNS IN WAKE OF BRIARGROVE MIXED-INCOME KERFUFFLE 
By both letter and Tweet, Houston Housing Authority chairman Lance Gilliam has announced plans to resign early following Mayor Turner’s criticism of the agency last week, writes Erin Mulvaney. During Wednesday’s council meeting, Turner chided the agency for not having constructed new housing units in the past decade (though Gilliam’s Friday resignation letter notes that thousands of additional people have been added to the organization’s voucher program). The agency has had the majority of its recent proposed construction projects blocked following last year’s US Supreme Court decision, which struck down Texas’s system of awarding public housing project tax credits because it was found to promote racial segregation into low-income areas (deliberately or not). The Briargrove project, which involved replacing one of the Houston Housing Authority’s own Fountain View office buildings with a mixed-income apartment complex, was the Houston agency’s first attempt to build new affordable units in a high-income area; following extensive neighborhood pushback, Turner asked the agency to look for other locations in the same area, and blocked tax credit financing for the project by not bringing it to a council vote. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of proposed apartments at 2640 Fountain View Dr.: HHA
For at least the 3rd time this summer, the city is back in emergency heat plan mode in the face of the in-the-shade 105 to 110 heat indices forecast across the area yesterday afternoon (and again today, from 1 to 7 pm). The plan kicks in when indices hang around 108 for more than 1 day in a row. A chat with the folks at 311 will get you a ride to one of the nearest air-conditioned chillout centers, mapped above — the majority are public libraries (marked in yellow), with a few municipal multiservice centers thrown in for color (namely blue). The list of centers is also broken out by postal code on the city’s emergency website, along with each spot’s operating hours — in the process providing a quick review of how some of those turn-of-the-decade library hours cuts shook out.
- Heat Advisory Continues for Houston [abc13]
- City of Houston Heat Plan In Effect [City of Houston]
Map of emergency cooling centers: City of Houston
Reading is Cool
- Holiday Inn Express To Break Ground in September at 10500 Katy Freeway Near CityCentre [HBJ]
- Packwell Signs 286,000-SF Industrial Lease at Bayport Distribution Center in Pasadena [Realty News Report]
- Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe Law Firm Joins Tenant Lineup at 609 Main Downtown [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Roeder’s Pub Owners Planning New Sports Bar in Former Corkscrew Space in the Heights [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot]
- Did a Fire Close the Montrose Outpost of La Tapatia for Good? [Eater Houston]
- Harris County Commissioner Says Some People ‘Enjoy Floods’ Because They Get New Cars or Homes Redone [Click2Houston]
- Scammers Have Created Facebook Pages for at Least 60 Houston Restaurants That Don’t Exist [Houston Press]
Photo of the Fifth Ward: o texano via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
A new take on an old farm house with fresh and loud 1905 factoids, plus a few other readjustments on today’s list.
- 5308 Pocahontas St. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE MORE HOUSTON CHANGES, THE MORE IT STAYS THE SAME 
“The problem is that Houston is in a constant state of flux. The Houston you know at 20 is unrecognizable at 50, no matter what year you were born. There is no classically recognizable Houston or Houstonian — the only thing most Houstonians share as a character trait is a mutual lack of interest in the past. When I wrote a novella about Houston, I made it ground zero of a global amnesia plague. Seemed appropriate.” [AMP, commenting on Novel Approaches to Houston] Illustration: Lulu
Once again, 706 Main St. is clearing out — here’s a shot of the freshly unwrapped restaurant space in the base of the Great Jones Building. The light-rail-side storefront just south of Capitol St. was taken over in 2014 by Bombay Indian Grill (not to be confused with the nearby Bombay Pizza Co. 2 blocks to the south) in the wake of a string of restaurant turnovers averaging less than 2 years apiece of tenure.
A reader spotted someone boxing up the leftovers early last week, and sent the photo above this afternoon showing the space sans signage. The restaurant was previously marked in place in April floor plans from Midway, which is currently remodeling and repackaging the Great Jones Building together with the former Gulf Oil building as The Jones on Main:
Still Jonesing Downtown
