Sign up for the Newsletter
 
The Friends of Downtown Friendswood withdrew its plan last week to install a new wooden carousel in Stevenson Park next-door to City Hall. Since last November, the site’s been home to a concrete pad left behind when the 42-year-old Fire Station #1 pictured above was demolished and its staff relocated to a new facility at 1610 Whitaker Dr., built with funds from a 2013 bond referendum. By the time of the teardown, the carousel idea (code-named “Project C”) was already on the table, and some residents accused city council of being a little too demolition-happy, owing to their friendliness with the civic organization that proposed it, reported the Chronicle‘s Jeremy Gingrich.
Instead of getting rid of the building, some argued, why not turn its 9,000 sq.-ft. into a community center to double down on the space offered by the city’s existing 9,500-sq.-ft. Friendswood Activity Building shown below at 416 Morningside St.?
Stevenson Park
Preservation Houston’s 2018 Good Brick Tour is coming up at the end of October. And it’s our sponsor today. Thank you for supporting Swamplot!
Before its new owner took action, the classic Sixth Ward Victorian pictured above was on the verge of collapse. Rehabilitating the property included recreating lost design elements and restoring the historic floor plan. Beautiful 19th-century woodwork survives throughout the home; even the original Prussian Blue wall tint is still visible — an appropriate choice of color for the immigrant German carpenter who built this house.
2219 Lubbock St. is one of 5 award-winning historic homes and buildings that will be welcoming visitors in the 2018 edition of the Good Brick Tour — with guided tours from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 27, and Sunday, October 28.
Purchase advance tickets for the 2018 Good Brick Tour online for $25 per person through Thursday, October 25. After that, prices will go up: Tickets will be available for $30 per person at any tour location during the weekend. Tickets are valid both days of the tour and provide 1 admission to each location on the tour.
Preservation Houston has recognized all the properties on this tour with Good Brick Awards for excellence in historic preservation. The other locations on this year’s tour are:
- 67 Tiel Way, River Oaks: Prominent architects MacKie & Kamrath took their inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright when creating this classic mid-century residence (1949).
- 3702 Audubon Pl., Montrose: This distinctive Craftsman-style home (1921) reflects the eclectic ideas of its colorful builder.
- 934 Louise St., Sunset Heights: A traditional bungalow (1921) has been updated for modern living with its historic character is intact.
- Heights Textile Mill, 611 W. 22nd St., Houston Heights: A visionary renovation has repurposed this sprawling Victorian landmark (1894) as studios and offices.
Know of an important upcoming event that deserves attention? Let readers know about it through Swamplot’s Sponsor of the Day program!
Sponsor of the Day
- 85 Apartment Complexes Planned Across Houston, According to ApartmentData.com [Houston Chronicle]
- Costco Looking for Up to 1M SF in Houston for Distribution Space [HBJ ($)]
- Where the Next Industrial Market Might Be After the Houston Ship Channel [Bisnow]
- The Most Expensive Lots for New Home Construction in Houston [HBJ ($)]
- Inside the Newly Renovated 5 Houston Center [HBJ ($)]
- CityCentre Inks 4 New Tenants [Bisnow]
- Chinese Hot Pot Chain Spice World Coming to Asiatown [Eater Houston]
- The Roastery Coffee Kitchen Opening Stand-Alone Locations in Select Houston H-E-Bs [Houston Chronicle]
- City Spending on Drainage Projects Has Dropped Since Drainage Fee Went into Effect [abc13]
- Is Houston Doing Enough To Be Resilient? [The Urban Edge]
Photo of The Mount at McGovern Centennial Gardens: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Twilight of the ranchitos supreme.
- 13518 Taylorcrest Rd. [HAR]
The developers behind the Plaza 88 retail center on Beltway 8 south of Bellaire Blvd. are now marketing the 2 existing buildings in their planned 5-building complex to those looking to get in on them. And already, an eclectic group has leapt at the opportunity. Texas Star Bingo Hall is the latest to sign up for space; it filed a building permit last week to take over most of the second story in the double-decker strip shown above. Below it, DSI Chinatown Hemodialysis Center and a separate but equal-in-size senior center will split the ground floor — and potentially provide a good portion of the customers base for what’s upstairs.
South of the strip, an additional one-story retail building sits perpendicular to it. That’s where a venue dubbed the High End Bellaire Gun Range will go ballistic next to a not-yet-leased space set to buffer it from a restaurant at the other end of the building, as shown in the site plan below:
Getting in Edgewise
Twelve standard Mattress Firm locations (red) are going out of business, as well as 4 Final Markdowns (orange) and one Clearance-branded location (yellow). That’s 17 closures altogether, 2 shy of the number Mattress Firm announced would shutter across the rest of Texas when it filed for bankruptcy last week.
They are . . . on Westheimer near Hillcroft Ave., on I-10 in the Village Plaza at Bunker Hill shopping center, in Westgate Marketplace retail center off I-10 along N. Fry Rd., next-door to the other Mattress Firm in the Westmont Shopping Center at Westheimer and Montrose Blvd., on the W. Loop S. feeder road between Westheimer and Richmond, across Tomball Pkwy. from Willowbrook Mall, on Hwy. 6 north of Bissonnet, across from Baybrook Mall in Webster, in the Riverstone Shopping Center on Hwy. 6 in Missouri City, on 59 in Richmond near the beginning of the Grand Pkwy., in Sugar Land’s Market at Town Center shopping center next to First Colony Mall, at Pearland Town Center, across from the Mason Village shopping center in Katy, further south down S. Mason Rd. near Highland Knolls Dr. in Katy, on I-45 south of Robinson Rd. in Spring, at The Woodlands Mall, and on I-45 north of W. Davis St. in Conroe.
- Is your Mattress Firm store closing after Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing? See the list here [USA Today]
- Previously on Swamplot: One of the 2 Side-by-Side Mattress Firms at Westheimer and Montrose Is a Goner; Mattress Firm Has Filed for Bankruptcy; The Latest Casualty of Mattress Firm’s Chain-Wide Slump Is on Westheimer Next to NJoy Thai;Â Mattress Stores Making a Sleepy Retreat from Shepherd; A Mattress Store Has Closed in Montrose; Mattress Firm Now Wants To Shut Down Redundant Storefronts; How and Where Mattress Firm Is Conquering Houston, One Sleepy Strip Center Storefront at a Time
The Big Sleep
Soon it appears there’ll be only one Mattress Firm again in the Westmont Shopping Center at Montrose Blvd. and Westheimer: The one on the right at 1005 Westheimer is set to close while the one on the left at 1003 Westheimer is sticking around — for now, at least; more closures are on the way according to the plan Mattress Firm announced in its bankruptcy filing last week to, among other things, thin out areas it thinks are too crowded with its own stores by closing 700 of them after an initial group of more than 200 get axed “within the next few days.â€
In a court filing, the chain said no liquidation sales are planned at any of its ill-fated stores. But signage outside the former Mattress-Pro–turned-Mattress-Firm Final Markdown this morning indicates otherwise:
Final Days of a Final Markdown
- In the Year After Harvey, 1 in 5 New Homes Permitted in Houston Is in a Floodplain [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Developer Allen Harrison Buys 7-Acre Tract Near Timbergrove for Apartments [HBJ ($)]
- Early Redevelopment Plans for the Former Chevron Office Campus in Bellaire [Houston Chronicle]
- Coworking Space Vinegar Hill Houston To Take Over Original Beaver’s on Decatur St. Next Month [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Noodle House Mian Planned for Bellaire Blvd. in Asiatown [Eater Houston]
- California-Based Churned Creamery Opening in Sugar Land on Saturday [Eater Houston]
- Sneak Peek at the New Midtown Bars Jack & Ginger’s and 77 Degrees [Culturemap]
- The Historian That Saved Thousands of Historic Houston Photos During Harvey [Click2Houston]
Photo of 1002 Woodland St., Woodland 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.
After each flood, rebuild with taller floors.
- 3007 Reba Dr. [HAR]
A few of the tenants inside this 7-unit, now-up-for-sale apartment building on Hawthorne St., 2 blocks from Spur 527 appear to be on the same page design-wise. The photo above shows the living room inside one of the building’s 6 one-bedroom apartments done up with a Persian rug, atop which sits a glass tabletop covered in curios surrounding a floral centerpiece.
Now, compare that to that to the living room the building’s sole 2-bedroom unit, shown below:
429 Hawthorne
WHY ALL THE FOOD TRUCKS VANISHED FROM EAST DOWNTOWN’S TRUCK YARD 
Health department officials ousted all food trucks from the open-air structure pictured adjacent to outdoor seating in August — reports Samantha Morris over at Houston Food Finder — nearly 4 months after the Lamar St. bar opened. Their justification: City code bans food trucks from parking within 100 ft. of dining areas and from parking underneath “any canopy, awning or other covering,†that isn’t attached to the truck itself. (If the covering’s already there for another purpose, and the truck just happens to park under it, the city lets it slide.) As a partial fix, “We’re going to take the roof off,†Truck Yard’s general manager tells Morris. Until the city okays plans for that change, cheesesteaks from the bar’s in-house kitchen will be the only food source available. [Houston Food Finder; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Truck Yard Houston
MATTRESS FIRM HAS FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY 
The nationwide chain filed for Chapter 11 this morning in order to deal with its debt — $3.2 billion by Paul Takahashi’s accounting — as well as what the company calls “certain economically inefficient store locations.” 700 stores nationwide are goners, 200 of which will be closing “in the next few days,” according to the company. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of shuttered Mattress Firm at 208 Westheimer Rd.: Swamplox inbox
