WESTHEIMER RD. CAFE ADOBE CLOSING ON MOTHER’S DAY 
At the palm-obscured corner of South Shepherd Dr. and Westheimer since 1981, Cafe Adobe announced that it will be closing this Mother’s Day, May 12, reports the Houston Business Journal. The property at 2111 Westheimer Rd. was purchased last year by Hines, which has said it plans to tear down the restaurant to build a 215-unit apartment complex. An up-to-date rendering of the complex-to-be hasn’t been made available. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: OUTSIDE OF THE LOOP ON TRAFFIC “Nothing confuses a non-Houstonian like traffic reports in H-town: ‘There’s an accident on the east loop north at 225, traffic is backed all the way from the south loop east to the west loop south.’†[HEYZEUS, commenting on Comment of the Day: Isn’t East of 59 and 288 Inside the Loop Too?]
A few more views of the renovations from Cisneros Design Studio planned for the office buildings at 3701 and 3801 Kirby Dr., near the Elevation Burger and the closed Maggie Rita’s on Richmond: To be removed from the façade, it appears, is that throwback turquoise-and-red detailing, replaced with what architect Tim Cisneros tells the Houston Chronicle is a kind of stretchy vinyl skin.
Does the green fence mean go? It looks like demolition is just a shot away for this westernmost building of the former Shell Technology Center. Lovett Homes has said it plans to build 39 3-story homes —Â scaling back after some Southside Place residents raised concerns at public hearings its original plan for 45 3.5-story ones —Â on the 3.2 acres here at the corner of Braes and Bellaire Blvd.
Here’s a rendering of the classroom studio (and vegetable garden and recycled shipping container) that’s now under construction at the Monarch School in Spring Branch. North of the Katy Fwy. near Kempwood and Gessner, the school serves students with neurological disorders, and it says that the design elements and architecture of this very green 1,120-sq.-ft. studio from Architend will become part of the curriculum:
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Let’s knock them down 2 by 2.
- Houston’s Hottest Zip Codes for Home Sales [Click2Houston]
- Kirby Towers’ Multimillion-Dollar Renovation To Add Rooftop Decks, New Facade [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- How Discovery Green Has Influenced Downtown Development [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- El Gran Malo To Take Over Recently Shuttered Pepper Jack’s Spot Downtown [Eater Houston]
- Legal Fight Slows Work on $6M Downtown Galveston Transit Terminal [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Competing Visions of How to Preserve Freedman’s Town’s Brick Streets [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- What Memorial Park Might Look Like in 20 Years [KUHF]
- Even with Reams of Data, Predicting Floods is Hard [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Starting in June, Umbrella Use No Longer Restricted at Galveston’s Stewart Beach [Houston Chronicle]
- The Giant Scope of Invasive Species in Texas [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- The Collection of Public Art on University of Houston’s Campus [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- River Oaks Real Estate Listing To Be Featured on Bravo’s New ‘Property Envy’ Show [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Downtown: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
WILL POWER LINE BIKE TRAILS COME TO HARRIS COUNTY? 
Approved this week and sent on to Gov. Perry was a new draft of that bill proposing bike trails along CenterPoint utility rights of way. CenterPoint didn’t seem too crazy about the first draft of the bill, saying back in February that it wouldn’t allow the trails unless it was assured it wouldn’t be liable should something shocking happen. This revised draft, the Houston Chronicle’s Mike Morris reports, covers CenterPoint all the way up to “willful or wanton acts or gross negligence.” And Morris writes that as many as 142 miles of right of way in Harris County could be available for trails if Gov. Perry signs off on the bill, many of them providing missing north-south connections between the existing trails that run primarily east-west along the bayous. (Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot) Photo: StateImpact
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ISN’T EAST OF 59 AND 288 INSIDE THE LOOP TOO? “. . . I tell people all the time, I live inside the loop, a few miles from DT. Everyone is all ‘oh, where do you live? in Montrose, the Heights, on Washington, museum district?’ I’m all like ‘um, no, over by UH’ then they’re all like ‘oh, UHD, so like Last Concert, that’s edgy!!!’ then I’m like, sigh ‘no, the real UH, there’s a fleet of taco trucks by my house, and that soccer stadium thingy.’ Then they just start running away.” [toasty, commenting on Houston: The Divided City]
LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF THE ASHBY HIGHRISE 
Though the demo of the Maryland Manor apartments at 1717 Bissonnet has already started, a group of homeowners still seems intent to stop the Ashby Highrise from going up in their place, filing a lawsuit this week against developer Buckhead Investment Partners that argues the building will cast a shadow — literally — over the neighborhood: Among other concerns about traffic and privacy, the suit alleges that the 21-story tower would deprive neighbors of sunlight and rain, limiting the enjoyment of their yards and making the maintenance of their gardens impossible. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
The low-lying Skylane Central apartments beside the Taylor St. bridge are about to be sold to Greystar, which says it plans to tear them down and put up something like this parkside 8-story complex — but that’s just one of several renderings the Houston Chronicle is reporting that the developer is considering for the site near White Oak Dr. at the southern end of the Woodland Heights. The deal should be done by September.
- Aging apartment complex near downtown to be replaced with luxury building [Houston Chronicle]
Rendering: Meeks + Partners
A new stick frame began going up Wednesday on the corner of Heights Blvd. and E. 2nd St., on a concrete slab cleared of the heap of wood studs, trusses, shear walls, and framed staircases that had landed there with a crash last Saturday night. All remnants of the 2 toppled Keystone Classic Homes 4-story townhouses in the Madison Park development just south of White Oak Bayou have been swept away. The site, pictured above in a photo taken by a Swamplot reader this morning, now looks rather different from the way it appeared last Sunday:
- Craigslist Scammer Steals Spring Real Estate Listing [KHOU]
- Brokerage Firm Colliers International Opens Third Houston Office with Woodlands Location [GlobeSt.com]
- Energy Industry Draining Houston’s Construction Talent [Houston Business Journal ($)]
- U.S. 59 Northbound Connector to West Loop Northbound Closing This Weekend for Repairs [KUHF]
- League City Residents Complain Parties at Butler Longhorn Museum Too Loud [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- No-Swimming Advisory Lifted at Galveston’s Stewart Beach [Houston Chronicle]
- Environmental Groups Sue EPA Over Way It Reviews Refinery Emissions [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Why Houston Has Been Attracting Conventions [KUHF]
Photo of Hermann Park: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
