We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses.
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- Sale of Downtown’s 1000 Main Has Attracted a Dozen Bids; Could Become Houston’s Biggest Deal Ever [Realty News Report]
- Marquette To Break Ground on 28-Story Residential Tower on Texas Ave. between Austin and LaBranch on November 5 [Houston Chronicle]
- Construction Starts on 68K-SF Medical Office Building and Surgery Center in Spring Valley Near Katy Fwy. and Blalock [Prime Property]
- Houston Area Led Country in Construction Hiring with 13,500 Jobs Added Over 12 Months Ending in September [Houston Public Media]
- 5 Residential Projects Under Construction Downtown with 9 More Planned, According to Central Houston [Houston Business Journal]
- Hearsay Gastro Lounge’s New Hearsay on the Green Now Open Inside Embassy Suites Next to Discovery Green [Houston Business Journal]
- City Lowers Fundraising Requirement To Keep Gus Wortham Golf Course from $15M to $5M, but Doesn’t Like Houston Golf Association’s Plan To Take Over All 4 City Courses [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Galveston Home Sales Increased 11%, Sales Volume Up 22% So Far This Year, Finds Sand ’N Sea Properties [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Roof of Vietnamese Buddhist Center at 10002 Synott Rd. in Sugar Land Collapses Overnight; No One Injured [abc13]
- Lyft Preparing To Pause Operations in Houston Over New Background-Check Regulations That Take Effect Next Week [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Downtown from site of Elan Heights: Ashley Day
Headlines
- 2020 Sunset Blvd. [HAR]
If future residents of the new 8-story apartment building that’s being planned to go up in place of the El Tiempo 1308 Cantina and quite a few of its neighboring buildings don’t want to wait around for management to fix their leaky faucets, they won’t have far to go to find spare washers or other plumbing parts. Neighboring fix-it-yourself plumbing supply store U-Plumb-It will likely still be around to sell them parts and hand out advice — because it won’t be included in the redevelopment. But everything north of it, on the block bounded by Marconi St., West Clay St., and Montrose Blvd. will. Developer Sunrise Luxury Living is planning to build 5 stories of apartments — 220 units in all — over 3 levels of parking, a source tells Swamplot. Plans currently include some sort of retail component on the bottom floor, facing Montrose Blvd.
More Redevelopment Details
Notice any differences between the view of the Wendy’s Drive-Thru at the corner of Kirby Dr. and North Blvd. taken yesterday (at top) and a similar image (above) taken this morning? Well, sure, there’s a new construction fence up, and some of the heavy machinery’s been moved around. But you might also note the sudden disappearance of 6 or 7 mature oak trees lining the streets surrounding the restaurant. How did they vanish so quickly? Tree-removal crews worked very quickly, overnight (see photo above left). Here’s another before-and-after comparison:
Upper Kirby Trees After Dark
CHELSEA MONTROSE TOWER KICKS OFF CONSTRUCTION WITH A NEW NAME 
Prompted by a press release, the HBJ and the Chronicle announced yesterday that construction has begun on the new apartment complex at 4 Chelsea Blvd., just east of Montrose Blvd. along the southern edge of Hwy. 59. in the Museum District. The 305-unit, 20-story building will be called The Carter, both publications reported. That’s a new name — so new, in fact, that the website for the developer, Dallas’s StreetLights Residential, still identifies the project by its former title, Chelsea–Montrose. The Chelsea name and its NYC pedigree may have conjured up unpleasant images of unmade beds, ugliness, and loud music among prospective tenants, but the new name has its own rich NYC backstory — though an entirely fictional one. As a commenter on HAIF notes, “the Carter” was the name of the complex Wesley Snipes spends the first act of the early-nineties movie New Jack City turning into a vertically integrated crack-producing-and-marketing enterprise. More recently, the appellation has come to be used as an affectionate nickname for troubled residential projects seen to be slipping into similar directions. [Houston Chronicle; Lansing City Pulse; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: StreetLights Residential
El Tiempo’s Roland Laurenzo reports that the land under his family’s El Tiempo 1308 Cantina on Montrose Blvd. is being sold by the owner for a “multi-story apartment project development.” The restaurant, which leases the space, is looking for another Montrose spot where it can relocate after it closes early next year. Greg Morago’s report in the Chronicle doesn’t provide any additional detail about the proposed apartments, but the 1308 Cantina, bounded by West Clay St., occupies the northern third of a long block capped on the southern end by the for-sale and shuttering Gibbs Boats at West Gray St. Between those 2 properties are a tire shop and the U-Plumb-It supply store. The 1308 Cantina took over from a restaurant called Sabor, a mid-aughts upscale replacement for La Jalisciense at the same 1308 Montrose Blvd. spot.
Update, 4:30 pm:Â Here are some more details on the apartment development replacing the 1308 Cantina and many of its neighbors.
- El Tiempo 1308 Cantina may soon close [Food Chronicles]
Photo of El Tiempo 1308 Cantina from Marconi St. parking lot:Â Bill Coatney [license]
Getting Ready To Move
- Houston Multifamily Market Nearing Historical High of 91% Occupancy, According to CBRE [Prime Property]
- Website for Hines’s 609 Main Includes Promo Video, Floor Plans, Simulated Downtown Views [Prime Property; site; previously on Swamplot]
- Ruggles Green Opening in January on Research Forest Dr. in The Woodlands; Cheese Shop, Nestlé Toll House Café Headed for Waterway Square [The Woodlands]
- Amalfi Ristorante Italiano & Bar Scheduled To Open at 6100 Westheimer on November 10 [Food Chronicles]
- HPD Data Appear To Show That Car Crashes Have More Than Doubled at Intersections Where Red-Light Cameras Were Removed [Houston Chronicle]
- Children’s Discovery Center, Heritage Museum Slated To Take Over Former Imperial Sugar Container Warehouse in Sugar Land [Your Fort Bend News]
- A Real Estate Photographer and His High-Flying DJI Phantom Quadcopter Shoot a Lot of Roofs [Houston Business Journal]
- Pending Approval This Thursday, Grand Pkwy. Toll Rates Will Increase Starting January 1 [The Highwayman]
- An Unofficial Guide to November 2’s Sunday Streets Event Along Dowling, Alabama, and Almeda in the Third Ward [OffCite]
Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
- 1767 De Milo Dr. [HAR]
Somewhere within this recently renovated and expanded shingle-sided double-decker home in Brooke Smith lies the 1926 single-story version it sprang from. Can you find it?
Porches and Roof Pitches
The Goode Company 4-restaurant fiefdom on Kirby Dr. near Westpark is planning another expansion. Plans submitted to the city show the local chain is seeking to expand Goode’s Armadillo Palace with additional covered patio space, a new courtyard facing Bartlett St., and covered walkways connecting them — all on the current parking lot directly across the street from Goode Company BBQ. In addition, a new Goode’s Armadillo Palace General Store is planned for the far eastern end of the site, with a raised covered porch in front of its entrance facing Bartlett St. The single-story structure housing the store, according to the documents, would be built in a “traditional German country style.”
Moving Around the Corner
WHY DARLING HOMES SMELL THAT WAY 
Just where does that Houston new-home smell come from? The cookies the sales agent baked in the oven just before you arrived? The formaldehyde holding together the OSB and MDF? The VOC-laden paints and finishes still off-gassing indoors? An errant breeze from the Ship Channel? Well, sure, but also, it turns out, from liquid aroma cartridges squirted out by the motion-detector-equipped ScentWave (pictured above right), which shoots out a “clean and crisp . . . sweet floral” aroma to woo potential buyers and passersby who’ve stopped to sniff out a model home display. Reps of Texas’s Darling Homes, now owned by Taylor Morrison, install the ScentWave wafting device strategically in every one of the company’s model homes. The exclusive sign-here-now fragrance the homebuilder employs was whipped up for that purpose by the ScentWave’s distributor, a North Carolina company named ScentAir. That Darling Homes scent isn’t available for purchase, reports the HBJ‘s Paul Takahashi, but the ScentAir website lists a matrix of “euphoric, invigorating, restoring, refreshing, relaxing, or restoring” olfactory options (from a total 1,600 available off-the-shelf) to “blow your customer’s nose’s mind.” [Houston Business Journal; ScentAir] Photo of ScentWave: ScentAir
The vanquishing of Memorial Bend’s former sales office, and other not-so-surprise endings:
- Shorenstein Properties Selling 28-Story Amegy Building at Five Post Oak Park [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
- ShowBiz Cinemas Planning New Multiplexes with Bowling Alleys at I-10 and Highway 146, Beltway 8 and Highway 90, and Beltway 8 and Wilson Rd. [HKA Texas]
- Trader Joe’s in Cinco Ranch Will Open Next February [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital’s New 9,600SF Freestanding Emergency Care Center at Hwy. 290 and Fairfield Creek Dr. in Cypress Expected To Open Next Fall [Impact News]
- Niko Niko’s To Open Fourth Location, in Former Chili’s at Beltway 8 and I-10 Next Spring [Montrose District]
- The More Than 165-Year-Old Burial Crypt Located Under the Franklin Street Bridge over Buffalo Bayou [Houston Chronicle]
- The 4 Most Haunted Places in Houston, According To Some Unidentified People on the Internet [CBS Local]
Photo of Buffalo Bayou Park: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
