The former Starbucks on the southwest corner of the damp intersection of Fountainview Dr. and Westheimer Rd. now appears to be flying the minute flag of advancing Houston chain Minuti Coffee. The green Starbucks siren formerly residing on the west side of the building has been shooed off and replaced by Minuti’s comparatively austere crest, though the Seattle company’s website still lists the store at 5903 Westheimer as operational.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WILL HOUSTON STOP TURNING ITS BACK ON THE BAYOU GREENWAYS? 
“This is revolutionary…they will make a building FACE the bayou, rather than back up to it with a solid concrete wall lined with putrid dumpsters. I have been waiting for this day for decades! To my knowledge, the only business in Houston that has proudly claimed its bayou-ness is Brenner’s on the Bayou (I’m sure there are others, I just can’t think of them right now). I bike many of the trails in Houston’s bayou network and still marvel at how segregated the trails are from city life. The stretch along Brays through the Med Center is the worst – it is a gallery of the backs of parking garages, 2 sewage plants, security fences, and sheer walls on high rises. It’s so barren and inaccessible that hospital employees go there to secretly smoke their cigarettes (some hospitals fire their employees for smoking now, so it’s a big deal to not get caught).” [Superdave, commenting on Bayou-Side White Oak Village Hopes To Woo Cyclists, Ninja Warriors, Coffee Shop to Antoine Dr.] Proposed siteplan: White Oak Bayou Village
A shiny new cistern is now in place at the former Sunset Coffee building at Allen’s Landing, which Buffalo Bayou Partnership and Houston First have been redeveloping into an office-topped boat-and-bike-rental spot. The 1910 coffee roasting facility has once again donned walls after moving past a Summer 2014 minimalist phase, and is currently decked out in a muted Café du Monde orange.
The no-longer-see-through structure is back to limiting the view from the Harris County Jail across the bayou (visible on the far right, above). A set of stairs are in place alongside the new cistern, along with railings around what appears to be the planned rooftop terrace.
It’s been a while since we last recorded a collective thanks to the sponsors who’ve made Swamplot possible — and garnered a lot of attention from our readers at the same time. Here’s our most recent crop:
Thank you, all!
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The former home of the House of Pain’s developer is shown above in a world of hurt this morning, as a demo crew tackles the longtime residence of Oilers-turned-Titans owner K.S. “Bud” Adams Jr. at 3218 Del Monte Dr. in River Oaks. The Oklahoma-bred oil baron moved into the 6,604 sq.-ft. house with his wife in 1954; having survived his wife, Adams died alone at his desk in the house at age 90, in October of 2013Â — just days after the death of Bum Philips, the glory-days Oilers coach Adams hired and fired.
The demo permit for the building was issued on the 16th. According to the photographer, the shutters pictured above and below were long the same Columbia blue once donned by Houston fans:
TREE PROFESSIONALS: PECAN AT 509 LOUISIANA ST. WOULD HAVE JUST DIED ANYWAY 
The pecan tree formerly behind the former Longhorn Cafe on Louisiana St. is down at last, following the 100-plus-year-old buildings at 509 and 517 Louisiana into that Great Big Preservation District in the Sky. Nancy Sarnoff of the Houston Chronicle reports that 2 arborists were called in to examine the tree, and pronounced it dead-or-close-enough: Lauren Lusk Willis, a member of the family that owns the next-door Lancaster Hotel, told the Chronicle that a lightning strike had damaged the tree, and that its core was rotting. Willis said that the pecan “would not likely have survived the leveling of the lot for any construction,” and that “ultimately, it wouldn’t have survived regardless.” The tree, haunted by a both-Sam-and-city-of Houston ghost story, was long visible only to those who entered 509 Louisiana’s hidden courtyard, until the pecan’s 2001 outing by the demo of the Rice Rittenhouse parking garage; it went back into hiding by the end of 2003 with the help of 33-story Calpine Center. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of the pecan tree, following demolition of 509 Louisiana St.: KineticD
Photo of Buffalo Bayou: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
A great opportunity awaits to clear the path and start from scratch.
A version of the peaky rendering above was spotted this weekend at the construction site in the recently-cleared space between Indika and the Cat Doctor. The drawing comes from design firm A Parallel Architecture in Austin, which identifies the project only as “Westheimer restaurant”; the firm’s first restaurant project was the building for Paul Qui’s Austin restaurant Qui, which opened in 2013.
The 3,800-sq.-ft. structure takes after its parental name, sporting 2 parallel peaked patios between what appear to be upstairs terrace spaces. Construction is going on now at the site, which previously housed the LV massage parlor and a psychic.
Rendering: a parallel architecture
Nothing will slip by in the shadows of this 3-bedroom, 2-bath single family home at 3022 Triway Ln. The 1976 Spring Shadows residence has been stripped to the studs and remodeled; the 2,313-sq. ft. home is now filled with recessed lighting and fixtures. The price dropped from $499,700 to $449,700 after its first day on the market last October.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ART OF SLIPPING AWAY 
“The luxury real estate article says that a lot of owner/CEO’s of small oil companies are selling their mansions to help save their companies. That’s an assbackwards way — there’s a reason you stash a few million in your homestead: It’s exempt from creditors and bankruptcy. Let the dying company fold, file bankruptcy, sell the house later, and boom, you’re liquid again and start with fresh paper and zero liabilities.” [commonsense, commenting on The Typical Home Buyer’s Salary; Getting Creative in the Luxury Housing Market] Illustration: Lulu
Plans are in the works to give the shopping center at the southwest corner of Antoine Dr. and W. Little York Rd. a thorough redesign and rebranding as White Oak Bayou Village. A spokesperson for Nankani Development tells Swamplot that the group is seeking both tenants and ideas for the center’s redevelopment, which will be geared toward drawing bicycle traffic. So far, plans include an about-face for the bayou-side building in the back of the shopping center (labeled Building B above) by way of new glassy storefronts opening toward the White Oak Bayou greenway now running behind it; the developers claim the center would become the first private development to cater explicitly to the expanding bayou trail system.
Per preliminary plans, car access to the back of the shopping center would be blocked off. Former parking spaces along the back Building B (currently home to Northwest Beauty School) would be made over into a covered patio leading to the bayou trail. For the pad site of the burned-down former restaurant next door, the development group is considering a park-like events plaza that could host a bi-monthly farmer’s market — along with a giant chess board, maybe, or even a bayou-side zip lining station. “We are open to anything at this point,” writes the Nankani rep.
Hoped-for tenants for the center currently include a coffee shop-slash-electric bike rental joint, an ice house-style music venue, and an outdoor obstacle course and adult gym — possibly from Sam Sann of American Ninja Warrior fame, who trains contestants at his Iron Sports gym in Cypress.
Photo of smoke from Saturday’s Pasadena Refining Systems plant explosion: Swamplot inbox
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
No more gifts, toys, or martial arts at that small muraled building just east of downtown, plus three houses and a garage apartment get cleared to be cleared to start off this week.
