RICE VILLAGE DAT DOG RECEIVES TABC BLESSING 
Across the street from Torchy’s and next door to Hopdoddy Burger Bar, the vacant corner storefront at 5504 Morningside now has clearance to serve guests alcohol. It’s the most recent development for the space since a TABC notice appeared in the window, signalling that New Orleans hot dog chain Dat Dog was on its way there. Inside, the lights are on but there’s still nothing inside. Co-working space Platform Houston was the last to occupy its 2,919 sq. ft. Photo: Swamplox inbox
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The Midwestern investment syndicate that developed the Heights originally planned it as a modest outpost for middle-class families. So it’s a little puzzling when Amy Lynch Kolflat — the realtor for Houston architect Bart Truxillo’s Heights pad — tells Nancy Sarnoff a day after posting the listing that “it’s one of two remaining homes built by the founder of the Houston Heights, Omaha and South Texas Land Co.” Take a look at the video tour Kolflat conducts around the property at 1802 Harvard St. Kind of opulent for what historian Stephen Fox called an “industrial working-class suburb,” right?
That’s because Truxillo’s house is modeled directly on the other longstanding Heights structure Kolflat mentions — 1102 Heights Blvd. — situated 7 blocks away. Along that spinal street — planned as Houston’s first divided boulevard — many of the homes went above and beyond those found in the rest of the neighborhood. 1102 was one of those exceptions:
1802 Harvard
The bright red paint job that began creeping up the front face of the closed-down LaDet Motel at 2612 Riverside Dr. a few weeks ago has now reached its eaves, leaving the street-facing portion of the building completely recolored. It’s pictured at top in its current state, behind a trio of off-hue red tags stuck on the gate that closes it off from the street.
The original house — built between 1928 and 1929 — is wrapped on 3 sides by apartments put up decades later. Portions of them — the 2 side walls fronting the entrance driveway and the gables along the street — have gone red as well:
Katharine Mott House
HOW POST OAK’S NEW ROOFTOP MOVIE SCREEN PLANS TO GET TEXANS BEHIND IT 
Tickets sales start today at noon for the first movie to hit the new Rooftop Cinema Club screen atop the Whole Foods BLVD Place garage on October 3: Dirty Dancing. Following a few more blockbusters like Coming to America, Back to the Future, and Footloose the London-born chain will begin courting Texans with a home-grown lineup including Rushmore, Reality Bites, Dazed and Confused, Selena, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (with a showing of Black Panther thrown in there on October 16 just because). At the end of its second week, the theater takes a hard turn out of state with Mel Brooks’ Mike Nicholls’ South Beach feature The Birdcage, only to come back in a big way with Texas Chainsaw Massacre the day before Halloween. [KHOU; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Whole Foods at 1700 Post Oak Blvd.: Dung L.
- $170M, 1,800-Acre Solar Farm Planned Near Orchard in Fort Bend County [HBJ]
- Kroger To Open Sugar Land Store in The Village at Riverstone [HBJ]
- Uptown Park Getting First Texas Location of Williams-Sonoma’s Rejuvenation This Year [HBJ]
- Original Beaver’s To Close, Reopen in a Couple Months with as Something Different [Houston Chronicle]
- Harris County Commissioners Approve First 14 Flood-Control Projects [abc13]
- Houston’s Tourism Industry a Year After Hurricane Harvey [New York Times ($)]
- How Houston’s Floodplain Ordinance Could Negatively Affect Low-Income Communities [Houston Public Media]
- Texas Congressional Candidates Making Harvey a Key Issue [The Texas Tribune]
- Houston Flood Museum Now Live Online [Houstonia]
- Zillow: Houston Homeowners Have More Than $10,000 in Hidden Costs Per Year [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of The Mondrian: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
A farewell to Sullivan’s, and these former outposts:
- 11421 Slash Pine Pl. [HAR]
Here’s a glimpse of what 317 W. 19th St. might look like with a roof over its head for the first time in a few decades and something inside that presumably isn’t junk. An entity connected to the next-door Maryam’s Cafe bought the 6,600-sq.-ft. lot in February. Shortly after, all the odds and ends that once kept it occupied vanished.
Gone as well: the sheet-metal facade that shielded them from the public eye. But not entirley:
Next to Maryam’s Cafe
The latest generically named Houston co-working space is on its way to the BBVA Compass Plaza office building at 2200 Post Oak. Despite the corporate moniker, the brand isn’t all business. Its existing locations offer a few options for blowing off steam, like workout and shower facilities in the Austin Firmspace, as well as weekly catered lunches and “after hours events” both there and in Denver. (There’s even a private Firmspace social network that allows you to take your office relationships digital.) Topping things off are the picturesque views; the Austin location overlooks Lady Bird Lake, and Denver: the Rockies.
Setting the scene outside the planned Houston location: the Galleria. It’s just a block away from BBVA Compass Plaza, buffered from the tower by the Centre at Post Oak shopping center. Since going up in 2013 on the site of the former 15-stories-shorter Compass Bank building, the 22-floor tower shown above has changed hands once — in 2015 for what veteran real estate reporter Ralph Bivins then termed Houston’s new per-sq.-ft. record high price: $524.
Nice Coworking if You Can Get It
MATTRESS1ONE HAS SHUTTERED IN THE PLAZA ON RICHMOND, ACROSS FROM THE OTHER MATTRESS1ONE 
The closed location at 5132 Richmond Ave is the younger one: it opened up in 2016 on the north side of the street, opposite the 5129 location that’d already been in business for 2 years. On deck for the empty 6,555-sq.-ft. Plaza On Richmond box indicated above: Amazing Lash Studio. The cosmetic chain has roughly a dozen outer-Loop Houston locations. Map of The Plaza On Richmond: Greenwich Management
2424 Rice Blvd., Suite A. is about to become part of Katy Chinese chain Tiger Noodle House’s 2-restaurant dynasty. Since nonprofit home goods shop Ten Thousand Villages left the storefront — its last in Houston — between H&R Block and neighboring occult shop Serenity Studio, all of its meterless parking spots have been hogged by the dumpster shown above.
It’s been on standby as renovators take things out of the 2,664-sq.ft. interior. Now, they’re about to start putting things in: a building permit filed yesterday gives clearance for the restaurant conversion to begin.
Photo: Swamplox inbox
Village Arrivals
- Spec Industrial Project Called Thompson 10 Logistics Center Breaks Ground in Baytown [Realty News Report]
- Spec Warehouse and Distribution Center Planned for Humble [HBJ ($)]
- Crystaphase Relocating Corporate Headquarters from Greenspoint to Downtown at 1201 Louisiana St. [HBJ ($)]
- Heights Clock Tower Fully Leased for Office Space [CoStar Group]
- Heights Victorian Mansion Where Preservationist Bart Truxillo Lived on the Market for $2.28M [Houston Chronicle]
- Spaghetti Warehouse Opening New Restaurant Concept Called Warehouse 72 in Spring Branch [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Getting 2 New Restaurants for Shabu Shabu with Shabu Zone and Shabu Squared [Eater Houston]
- J.J. Watt Foundation So Far Has Raised $41.6M for Hurricane Harvey Relief [NFL.com]
- An Analysis of Evictions Before and After Harvey [The Urban Edge]
Photo of home renovations in Meyerland: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
In today’s report: the fall of Westcreek Market & Deli, plus a small-budget takedown:
- 2410 Pickerton Dr. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ANOTHER MFAH STICKER SOLUTION 
“It will be a sad day in Houston when there are no MFAH stickers stuck to things in the Museum District. You’d think that the museum long ago would have embraced the tradition and added some weird sculpture-looking things in front of all exits that say ‘stick stickers here.’ It would reduce the occurrences of random vandalism by hoodlums. I wonder how many tags they expect to ‘lose’ as part of this experiment?” [toasty, commenting on Flood Bond Passes; Harvey Movie Sets Its Premiere Date; MFAH Stickers Swapped Out for Reusable Tags] Photo of sticker collage at Binz and San Jacinto streets: Alley Lyles
