ANOTHER CHELSEA GETS AWAY 
Good morning! It’s 2015, oil is already checking out the territory south of $50 a barrel, and Swamplot is ready to begin its coverage of cancellation and delay announcements from real estate developers. We’ll start this one gently, with an Inside the Loop project you probably hadn’t even heard of — though its name certainly sounds familiar: The developers of Chelsea Museum District, a proposed apartment complex atop a podium garage with a bit of retail thrown in planned for the north side of Blodgett St. between Crawford and La Branch, tell the HBJ‘s Paul Takahashi they are “contemplating holding [the] project to see how the multifamily market fares amid low oil prices.” But don’t confuse Trans Unity Investment’s Chelsea Museum District with another project less than a mile to the west at 4 Chelsea Blvd. that used to be called Chelsea Montrose, but has since been renamed The Carter (no, not kidding), and which developer StreetLights Residential has already begun building (see construction photo above from just before Christmas). [Houston Business Journal] Photo: Marc Longoria
Sign up for the Newsletter
- December Houston Home Sales Will Likely Finish More Than 2% Ahead of 2013’s [Tom Plant’s Houston Real Estate Blog]
- Luxury Home Sales Up 13% in Houston Last Year, More Than Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio [Prime Property]
- The Most Expensive Homes on the Market in Houston Right Now [Culturemap]
- East End Brewery 8th Wonder Opens Astrodome-Inspired Taproom [Eater Houston]
- Snap Kitchen Opens Heights Location, Its Eighth; Cinco Ranch and Museum District Spots To Follow This Month [Houstonia]
- Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill in the West Oaks Mall Has Closed for Good [Click2Houston]
- Houston Needs a Swimming Hole Kickstarter Reaches Its $30K Goal with Time To Spare [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- League City Commuter Bus Service Connect Transit To Add More Buses, Expand Schedule in Coming Weeks [Houston Public Media]
Photo of San Jacinto River: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
The last day of business for the original Ruggles Green location, in the Persona Day Spa shopping center at 2311 West Alabama St. east of Kirby Dr. (above), was New Year’s Eve. But the restaurant claims it won’t be gone from the neighborhood for too long. A new Ruggles Green is scheduled to open up in the street-facing retail space on the ground floor of the Gables Upper Kirby apartments going up next door (portrayed above left), once construction on that project is finished. That’ll be this spring, a note on the Ruggles Green website promises. The new address, 2305 W. Alabama St., will be one door down from the former Mission Burrito, recently renamed Ãœberrito Mexican Grill to avoid tortilla torts.
Meanwhile, up in The Woodlands, a brand new Ruggles Green in the shopping center at 2501 Research Forest Dr. is scheduled to open any day now — “whenever the chairs arrive,” the company’s Facebook page declares. Here’s a pic of that standing-room-only (for now) location:
But First, The Woodlands
THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING, ONCE YOU DRIVE ALL THE WAY OUT THERE 
The latest event in the growing trend of establishments far from the center of the city adopting names that convey an aura of centrality comes from the firm turning the former Camp Strake Boy Scout facility just south of Conroe into a large suburban residential development. Henceforth, Johnson Development announced today, the 2,046-acre property just west of I-45 and south of Loop 336 — north of The Woodlands — shall be known as Grand Central Park. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jones Lang LaSalle
USPS NOW SAYS IT WILL CLOSE AND SELL THE HEIGHTS POST OFFICE 
A new public notice taped to the door of the Heights Finance Station post office at the corner of Heights Blvd. and 11th St. last Friday indicates the U.S. Postal Service has moved on from “considering” moving out of the property and is now prepared for a full-on “disposal” action: “This property has been determined by the Postal Service to be excess and is no longer necessary for Postal operations,” reads the notice, which also indicates that “Postal Service policy requires the property to be sold at Market Value.” Though public comments are still being encouraged, it typically takes more than a few discouraging words to prevent a local post office from shutting down. The 6,161-sq.-ft. building at 1050 Yale St. sits on more than an acre of land. [Previously on Swamplot] Photos: Swamplot inbox (post office); Nick Panzarelli (notice)
We’re still awaiting photos of the scene — both to confirm and to allow everyone to revel in the destruction — but a regular tipster informs Swamplot that the building backing up to Buffalo Bayou on the south side of I-10 near Voss Rd. that until mid-2009 housed the Las Alamedas Restaurant is being demolished. The back side of the building has been ripped open, the reader reports;, but as of a visit yesterday the front of the building remained intact.
Now It’s Never Coming Back
Juxtaposed “before” and “after” pics (recreated above) of the 1963 used-to-be-Mod house at 2042 Forest Oaks Dr. in Meadowcreek Village have garnered a mere 1002 comments (so far) on a Facebook Mid Century Modern fan page. Many of the comments decry the roofing and landscaping changes made to the home, explaining that the renovator doesn’t appear to “get” the style of the original. Others wonder whether some sort of Photoshop trickery might be involved. But a few commenters note that the home, whose Houston Mod open house was featured on Swamplot in 2012, was a foreclosure, that many of its modern features had been altered before its most recent sale, or that the 4-bedroom, 3-bath, 2,650-sq.-ft. home appears to be much more livable in its current state.
Unfortunately, the earlier listing included only a few additional photos, making direct before-and-after comparisons of the extensive changes made to the home’s interior — including the addition of laminate floors and granite countertops — difficult. The home was listed for sale in mid-December for $210,861. Pre-renovation, it sold in March of 2013 for $78,000.
- 2042 Forest Oaks Dr. [HAR; previous listing]
- Lamenting a former Mod in Houston, TX [Mid Century Modern on Facebook]
- Previously on Swamplot: A Meadowcreek Village Help-You-Sell
Remuddling
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday permit offices were open.
The best way to start the new year is by getting rid of the old.
- Stages Repertory Theatre Buys Its Longtime Home at 3201 Allen Pkwy. from City [Prime Property]
- Open Since 1976, Los Dos Amigos To Close at 5720 Washington in February To Make Way for Condo Development [Eating Our Words]
- Trendmaker Homes Starts Construction of Homes in Benders Landing Estates in Montgomery County [Houston Chronicle]
- Big Spikes in Apartment Rents Expected To Become a Thing of the Past in 2015 as Oil Prices Drop [Houston Chronicle]
- Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill Locked Out of West Oaks Mall [KHOU]
- Early Sunday Morning 3-Alarm Fire Destroys Part of Historic St. John Missionary Baptist Church on Dowling St. [Click2Houston]
- Conroe Bus Service Connecting Northern and Southern Portions of Loop 336 To Start This Month [Houston Public Media]
- Grand Parkway Tolls Now Cost 1 to 4 Cents More Than They Did Last Year [Houston Business Journal]
- The Case for Lowering Houston’s Speed Limit to 25 MPHÂ [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Parks Board Sending Workers Sporting Panoramic Cameras To Capture Bayou Trails for Google’s Street View [The Leader]
Photo of 290 at 610: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
It’s just about over: a year of winners, losers, also-rans, and the many others who just keep working at it. Swamplot is signing off for 2014, but we’ll be back next Monday to offer additional helpings of Houston real estate craziness. A Happy New Year and best wishes to all; you deserve it.
Photo of San Jacinto Monument: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Year, Out
- 2010 Ashford Hollow Ln. [HAR]
Converted to condos in 1977, hacienda-themed 1963 Trafalgar Place is part of an architectural lineup encompassing Georgian and French Empire inspired apartment, townhome, and converted properties of the same era — plus more recent residential developments. Old and new properties share a block-long street — extra-wide to accommodate both a median and complex-serving feeder lanes — that spurs south off Westheimer Rd. just west of Fountainview Dr. The tidy, stucco-clad property lies across Westheimer from Briargrove, and across Briarhurst Dr. from the Lambo Chinese Buffet.
One of its updated 1-bedroom units popped up on the market earlier this month, and it’s asking $93K. It last changed hands in 2010, for $65K.
Converted
Reader Sean McManus was on the spot for yesterday’s demolition proceedings at the southwest corner of W. Alabama St. and S. Shepherd Dr., where Roeder’s Pub, Ruchi’s taqueria, Fly High Little Bunny jewelry store and the River Oaks Dry Cleaners are being swept away in favor of a CVS pharmacy.
“As I was taking [the pictures], one of the deconstruction workers asked if he could help me,” McManus writes. “I told him that I was just taking a couple of quick photos. His response: ‘Pfft… Memories.’”
More hot demo porn after the jump:
Fly High, Little Ruchi and Roeder
Whaddya say we knock back a couple Karbachs, then go out for a bit of the Fifth? You game?
