Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Special on garages going today. Please move your cars.
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- The Hidden Original Design Elements Houston Restaurateurs Found While Repurposing Old Buildings [Houston Chronicle]
- Aldi To Open First 9 Houston Stores This Thursday [Houston Business Journal;Â previously on Swamplot]
- ‘Decaying Surfaces’ Along Westheimer, West Alabama Not on City’s Priority List [Culturemap]
- La Madeleine Plans To Add 8 to 10 More Restaurants in Houston in Next 5 Years [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- $30M Fifth Ward Renaissance Project Aims To Attract Businesses, Homeowners [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- MetroRail Celebrates 100M Boardings with Free Rides Tomorrow [HAIF]
Photo of I-10 near Downtown East at Gessner: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
A reader sends this stitched-together panorama of the Heights bike trail spanning White Oak Bayou and wonders what’s going on with all the denuding: “This is kitty corner from where the proposed Emes Place condos will go. Mother nature swamped their work in the bayou with the recent rains. They appear to be taking revenge by bulldozing the nearby clump of forest. This is a larger piece of bird/homeless person sanctuary than the tract Emes Place is to be on, so I wonder what the story is. Harris County Flood Control comes by the site all the time, but I can’t find any mention of it on their website, or anywhere.”
- Previously on Swamplot: Comment of the Day: Who Dare Oppose, An End-Around at Emes Place, Viewpoint at the Heights: Back from the Dead?
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOOKING FOR THE HOTEL MONTROSE “Hotel Hotel Hotel. A hotel is long overdue for Montrose. Kimpton, Aloft, W or some other modern brand would be great. I am no developer, so I have no idea if it is doable but it would be welcome. It has the bones and imagine a hip hotel pool bar on that roof! I bring people into Houston who are considering moving here from the West Coast and Northeast. They want to live in an inner city hip walking area; Montrose generally. I don’t want them staying downtown where the streets are dead at night. The ZaZa is great but it is too far to walk to Westheimer. The Galleria has too much traffic. In the end though, I generally recommend the Derek or the ZaZa. If not here then a new build at the corner of Montrose and Westheimer. And what is the story about that lot on Westheimer near Dunlavy where it looks like construction started at one time? Hotel possibility? I am really really convinced that Montrose needs a hotel!” [charlie, commenting on What 3400 Montrose Looks Like Inside]
This photo of the strip center just west of the Lower Westheimer restaurant row shows the recently closed Tejas Custom Boots and Hollywood Food & Cigars. A Swamplot reader says that a sign posted in the window here at Helen and 208 Westheimer says that the alligator- and ostrich-unfriendly bootmakers will be moving the stretching and stitching operations farther west to the 400 block of Westheimer. As of Friday morning, calls to Tejas Custom Boots for comment about the relocation and reopening haven’t been returned. City records show that the 4,100-sq.-ft. 1960 building and 11,322-sq.-ft. property are owned by a single family.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Houston Pavilions is to be renamed in honor of 2 urban features the troubled 5-year-old Downtown outdoor mall had so far shunned, its new owners announced yesterday: greenery and streets. The newly dubbed GreenStreet appears to be taking a few cues also from Discovery Green, the younger but far more successful urban attraction a few blocks to the east. Midway, which with Magic Johnson’s Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds bought the 3-block-long mixed-use center out of bankruptcy last August (and the adjacent parking garage on Clay St. between Main and Fannin a few months later), plans 6 to 9 months’ worth of renovations to the property as well, to turn it into a CityCentre-style event hub.
The new design, by Houston architects Muñoz + Albin and the Office of James Burnett, a local landscape firm, will try to soften and connect the 3 separated interior courtyards and make them come across as more park-like. Additional changes won’t exactly make the famously inward-looking mall turn itself inside-out, but they do appear to make a few stabs at poking through to Dallas St., adding signage, storefront windows in some places, and a few outdoor seating areas along its northern edge.
- Former Renaissance, Now DoubleTree in Greenway Plaza Getting $15M Renovation [Houston Business Journal]
- Commuter Biking Options in Houston Will Soon Reach Critical Mass [The Highwayman]
- New Pedestrian Bridge at Bringhurst in Fifth Ward Will Help Schoolkids Get to the Other Side of the Tracks [Houston Chronicle]
- Low-Slung Car Shop Next to Hubcap Grill Envisioned as Home to CK Steakhouse Already Demolished [Eater Houston]
- The Story Behind That House on Kirby Near Rice Village with the Second-Floor Garage Doors [CultureMap]
- Annual RDA Home Tour This Weekend Features Homes Designed by Rice University Faculty [RDA]
Photo of District at Washington apartments under construction at T.C. Jester and Schuler: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Behind the curbside growth gone wild, a far tidier contemporary home has been hiding (above) in plain view since 1998. The Upper Kirby property dropped its price April Fool’s Day to $745,000, down from an initial $770K when listed in mid-March. Facing west — and located across from older apartments and the back of a more recent mid-rise complex — this home on an end-cap lot not too far from Whole Foods Market saves its outdoor impact for the back side of the fenced lot (above) and uses the scene as its view from rooms within.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: POLICING THE STREETS OF RICE MILITARY WITH BIG ROCKS “I live on a street that is just wide enough for a car and a half to pass each other on the road, so inevitably someone has to drive on the grass or in the ditch. I happen to live on the side that has the grass section of ROW. For the past 2 years that I have lived there I have not once seen the city come by and mow that section or repair the ruts that someone has left behind. Since I live in Rice Military I don’t have the pleasure of having CURBS like Montrose, so I have boulders set in place to keep the drunks from parking on the sidewalk and that still happens on a biweekly basis. On our street we have legal No Parking signs and there will be cars parked there and I have seen cops drive by and do nothing. I guess it’s not worth the time, and I guess the city doesn’t need the revenue.” [Tejas, commenting on How To Spot a Fake ‘No Parking’ Sign]
A reader sends this photo of what went down today at 6000 Richmond and Fountain View: The Magnolia Bar & Grill, cleared for demo last month, has been reduced to rubble and that sideways sign. And what’s in store for this Briargrove corner southwest of the Galleria? Kenneth Lewis, a rep from the partnership that owns the property, says you’ll soon see a McDonald’s.
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: Lucky Strike
Photo: Pat McCarley
The only thing that’s really changed about 3400 Montrose, a tipster tells Swamplot, is the name of its owner: Global Paragon, which bought the former podium for Scott Gertner’s Skybar in 2011, went “belly up” this past November, the tipster says, and the vacant 10-story building’s now owned and managed by a 40-person LLC that’s looking for a buyer or a joint venture.
And that’s where these interior photos, from a short-on-info listing posted recently on Cushman & Wakefield’s website, come in:
MULTIPLYING HOUSTON’S RENT-A-BIKE FLEET 
Yesterday, reports abc13, the city added to the original 3 B-Cycle kiosks 18 more, bringing the fleet of pay-to-play bikes to 175. Thus far, most of the rental racks are clustered Downtown — including the one shown here at the Tellepsen Family YMCA on Pease St. — but the expansion, funded wth $750,000 from Blue Cross and Blue Shield, also added racks to Hermann Park and the Westheimer restaurant row near Blacksmith and Underbelly. And even more are planned, says abc13, for the East End, the Med Center, and unnamed universities. (You can mess around with an interactive map of B-Cycle locations here and here.) [abc13; Houston Chronicle; B-Cycle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
