IT’S DEVELOPMENT CAMPAIGN SEASON ON WASHINGTON AVE 
Brand strategy outfit Axiom is applying its “creative communication” skills to a campaign to gain recognition for the company’s rehab of the former Fire Station No. 6: A banner now hangs outside the firm’s compound at 1702 Washington Ave (at right), asking passersby for help procuring wider recognition for the company’s multi-year office conversion project. The Fire Station renovation, along with northeast Houston’s James Berry Elementary School, the Heights’s Don Sanders pet adoption center, Dynamo Stadium, and BG Group’s wrench-shaped downtown skyscraper have been nominated in separate for-profit and nonprofit categories in this year’s local Urban Land Institute awards program, but only a group of 3 judges will pick those winners. Separately, though, they’re all competing against each other for top spot in the new-last-year “people’s choice” category, which you can sway with votes on this website — before January 21st. [ULI] Photo: John Luu/Axiom
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Sadly, her report doesn’t include renderings of this little detail, but Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon notes that the Schreer Partnership’s planned redo (depicted at left) of the 152,000-sq.-ft. Kingwood Shopping Center at the northeast corner of Kingwood Dr. and Chestnut Ridge Rd. it just bought will add gates — “to give the center an exclusive feeling and to mirror the gated community of Kingwood.” Also coming, behind those wrought instigators of shopping security: a kiddie playground and outdoor dining area. The new owners tell Dixon they’re envisioning a “town center” concept (perhaps inspired by the 600,000 “first of its kind” Kingwood Parc town center complex announced last summer and planned for a couple blocks west, directly adjacent to the Eastex Fwy.). The new owners will add only one “e” with their gates, however: the shopping center shall henceforth be known as the Shoppes at Kingsgate.
- Goodbye, Kingwood Shopping Center [Real Estate Bisnow]
Rendering: Schreer Partnership Interests
Stein Mart Will Stay
The 1,500-sq.-ft. space deep in the crotch of the Ella Plaza Shopping Center just south of the railroad tracks at 3480 Ella Blvd. is the new home of modern dance troupe Suchu Dance. It’s also the former longtime Houston haunt of Patsy Swayze‘s Houston JazzBallet Company and the Swayze School of Dance. Long before the dance teacher made it big with her choreography for Urban Cowboy in 1980 and decamped to Hollywood, Swayze taught hundreds of gyrating Houstonians — including her 5 children, in the strip center corner. Her son Buddy, who as Patrick Swayze went on to star in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, started barging in on classes there at the age of 3, long before playing football at Waltrip High School across the street; he met his wife, Lisa Niemi, in the strip-center studio as well. He died from pancreatic cancer in 2009; his mother passed away in California’s Simi Valley last September.
Somebody Put Baby in a Strip Center Corner
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Wake up on the demolished side.
- The Woodlands’ Hubbell & Hudson Will Close Its Grocery Store and Cooking School by March 12 in Advance of Whole Foods Competition [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Inspired by Karbach’s Success, Petrol Station Owner Ben Fullelove Bringing Brash Brewing Company to Houston [Culturemap]
- Former Samba Grille and Alma Chef David Guerrero Opening Andes Cafe East of Downtown This Week [Eater Houston; more info]
- The Most Expensive Homes Sold in Houston Last Year [Houston Chronicle]
- The ‘Manhattanization of the United States’ Reaches Houston with Micro Apartments from Katy to The Woodlands [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Residents Protest Potential Closure of Southmore Post Office [abc13]
- Sugar Land Named One of America’s Safest Cities by CQ Press [Click2Houston]
- Muralist Daniel Anguilu Working To Save Graffiti Artist NEKST’s Last Legal Piece in Houston, at 3000 Crawford [Houston Chronicle ($)]
Photo of Dona Maria at 2601 Navigation: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
There’s a jumbo terrace outside the second-story corner condo unit in this here Il Palazzo building that listed earlier this week. It brings an extensive, open air view of the surrounding Museum District, from the corner of Austin and Calumet. But the main portions of the terrace aren’t exactly the most private part of the property:
Il Palazzo Plaza
Atlanta’s Novare Group is getting ready to announce construction of its second SkyHouse apartment tower in Houston. According to the company, it’ll be “just like” the 24-story building (and adjacent parking garage) currently under construction on Main St. between Pease and Leeland downtown (shown in the rendering above, which in turn looks very similar to the company’s SkyHouse developments in other cities). Novare appears to have designated the building the River Oaks SkyHouse. Though it’ll be a bit south and west and on the other side of the tracks from the actual River Oaks, the new building will sit closer to its namesake than the River Oaks District mixed-use project currently under construction directly south of it.
Just Like Downtown
- 12322 Old Oaks Dr. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO GET THAT SEWAGE SMELL OUT OF YOUR AIR CONDITIONING 
“Had this same issue with our home in Midtown. The issue ended up being the air intake was not large enough where the filter was. Because of this, the blower would suck air from the drainage pipe in the pan for the hot water heater that was next to it. Removed the filter and reduced the stress of air coming through; the sewage smell went away.” [Mr.Clean19, commenting on Mysterious ‘Odor Beyond Our Control’ Forces Closure of Strip Center Chinese Restaurant in Spring] Illustration: Lulu
A passer-by sends this photo showing the scene this morning at the site of the Chateau Ten scaffolding accident that took place a few days before Christmas. The plank-covered Mercedes is gone, but the neighboring apartment building at 2233 Welch St., still wearing its recent quoined stuccover, doesn’t look much worse for the dust-up — does it?
Flashing News Update
A northern branch of Mercantile, the combo espresso bar and mini-mart that opened a few months ago in the Rice Village, will be opening up in the vacant First Stop Food Store spot shown above at the corner of Stanford St. and Hawthorne in Audubon Place, its owner confirmed this week. Mercantile could be described as the upscale version of Washington Ave’s Catalina Coffee (they’re run by the same owner). And that’s exactly what Houstonia‘s Katharine Shilcutt felt free to do: “Catalina Coffee is the brooding, sensitive, bookish older sister, while Mercantile is the peppy younger sister who wears Ralph Lauren and daydreams about horses and joins a sorority in college yet is no less intelligent or passionate than her sibling.” The perky youngster also carries more baked goods, groceries, and gift items on her dainty shelves.
- First Look at Mercantile in Rice Village [Houstonia]
Photo of First Stop Food Mart at 3321 Stanford St.: Swamplot inbox
Groceries in Small Packages
Filling out a missing properties report — in advance. Here’s what we’ve got so far:
- With Grand Pkwy. Now Open, Parkside Capital Ready To Build Mixed-Used Development Verde Parc on Former Proposed Katy Grand Mall Site [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Downtown and Shady Acres Burger Joint Hubcap Grill Opening a Third Location, Will Be in Kemah Near the Boardwalk [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Luby’s-Fuddruckers Combo Concept Expands with Openings in Katy, Medical Center [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Baytown City Council Considering Proposals for Deteriorating 65-Year-Old Art Deco Brunson Theater [abc13]
- Cinco Ranch, Riverston, The Woodlands Rank Among Top-Selling Master-Planned Communities in the Country Last Year [Houston Business Journal]
- Houston Named One of the Top 10 Least-Hipster Cities in the Nation by Movoto.com [Houston Chronicle]
- HISD Hosting Networking Event Monday for Potential Subcontractors To Meet School GCs [HISD]
- Second Michael Brown Auction, This Sunday, Will Feature Cars, Tools, Restaurant Equipment [Houston Chronicle]
- Midtown’s New Gallery Closes; Artists Suing Owner for Outstanding Payments, Missing Artwork [Culturemap]
Photo of RJ’s Boot Company sign at 3321 Ella: Molly Block via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
- 23515 Peacock Gap Ln. [HAR]
A curious 2-month-old “growing sewage odor” has forced 2-and-a-half-month-old Koya Asian Kitchen to announce that the restaurant will shut its doors forever, its owner claims. Before coming to the decision, owner Lisa Zhou says she employed a sequence of smell-be-gone techniques, including lighting scented candles, deploying a phalanx of air fresheners, and even opening the doors of the Szechuan establishment in a brand-new strip center at the corner of Spring Cypress and Old Holzwarth Rd., across from H-E-B. “In the end,” writes Zhou in a Facebook post published yesterday, “none has been effective against the horrendous smell.”
Sniff, Sniff
