We’re going in blind. But trust us: There’ll be plenty to see off here.
Sign up for the Newsletter
- Memorial Hermann To Build 40-Acre Medical Campus in Pearland [Prime Property]
- United’s New $152M IAH Terminal Opening Later This Month To Feature High-Profile Chefs’ Restaurants [Houston Chronicle]
- Dallas-Based Texas de Brazil Steakhouse Opening First Houston Location Next Week at CityCentre [Houston Business Journal]
- North Forest ISD Annexation into HISD Moving Forward, Effective July 1 [Houston Business Journal]
- Fewer People Want To Drive 85 MPH Than We Thought: Texas 130 Tollway Attracts Half the Predicted Traffic [Off the Kuff]
- Rice Design Alliance Home Tours Showcasing 10 Rice University Architects [Houston Business Journal]
Photo of US-59 at I-10: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Kirksey submitted the rendering above in a 4-firm competition to design a general office with some temporary housing for the Saudi Consulate, now occupying a suite in the 22-story Westheimer highrise shown here, which dates to 1982 and sits across the street from an IHOP. But Kirksey lost that competition — to Studio RED.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DISTURBANCE AT THE HERON HOUSE “We have six pairs nesting in an oak in our yard — they are beautiful birds, but foul creatures. For the next few months, our yard will be littered with crawfish shells and carcasses of frogs and fish. It’s living at the flamingo exhibit at the zoo. And then, when they are too prolific, they’ll start pushing the ‘surplus’ young out of the nests high in the trees and leave them to die in the street below. Again, they are beautiful to look at but difficult to live with.” [Txcon, commenting on Headlines: Marfreless’s Last Call; Salata’s National Expansion]
Main Street and its rail line lie 6 floors below this lofty condo unit within a converted 1908 downtown office and retail property. The unit has a grilled-out balcony right across from the limestone frieze of the former-but-still-formidable Gulf Building, a 1929 skyscraper that’s now the J.P. Morgan Chase building. Architect Alfred C. Finn designed both buildings.
And it looks like the Alamo is standing on its own again: Previously demolished, Alamo Tamales re-appeared last summer as nothing but leaning walls and steel rods, but it re-opened with a stalwart uprightness on Berry Rd. on Friday. Architect Tim Cisneros of Cisneros Design Studio sends the photo of the restaurant’s finished facade sandwiched between a dessert bar and cantina in the 21,000-sq.-ft. Northside strip center west of Irvington Blvd.
- Bienvenidos! [Alamo Tamale]
- Previously on Swamplot: First Stand-Up at the Alamo Tamale, Remember the Alamo Spinach and Cheese: New Tamale Central Coming to the Northside
Photos: Cisneros Design Studio
- 3111 Bissonnet St. [HAR]
Spring’s a time of renewal: And the Yoakum St. apartments — and palm trees, too — pictured here came down this winter so something very like this office building could begin going up. Campanile South, it’s called, is being described by developers Hansen Partners as a 6-story, 82,000-sq.-ft. “boutique” space with retail and restaurants facing Richmond Ave. Setting up on a lot between Yoakum and Graustark, Campanile South will be be the 7th member of the Campanile family that’s clustered around St. Thomas University the University of St. Thomas and Montrose Blvd.; it’s expected to be ready for tenants in 2014.
If you can’t wait until June or July for Dunkin’ Donuts to open inside the Loop at the former Arby’s at South Shepherd and Fairview, you might plan to come here, the former SmashBurger at 10705 Westheimer, where a company rep says that the donut makers will open in May the first of 16 planned Houston stores. Sharing the Westchase strip center with a Cricket store and Brookstreet Bar-B-Que, the coffee-colored endcap has undergone at least one other renovation: A drive-thru lane now cuts through what had been SmashBurger’s treeside patio.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Everybody out of the pool, please.
- Boy Scouts To Purchase 1,442 Acres in San Jacinto County for New Camp Strake [Cleveland Advocate]
- Construction Underway for New Nordstrom at The Woodlands Mall Sears Site [The Isiah Factor]
- Marfreless Serves Last Beer in River Oaks [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- TxDOT To Fund Control Towers Slated for Closure at 13 Airports [Houston Chronicle]
- Downtown Tunnel-Born Salata Salad Chain Planning National Empire [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- St. Mary’s Cathedral Basilica in Galveston Undergoing Restoration [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Galveston Residents Near University of Texas Medical Branch Continue Parking Battle [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Galveston Residents Question Homeowner Who Trimmed Branches of Tree Where Herons Nest [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Gulf Coast Businesses Brace for Severe Hurricane Season [KUHF]
- Body Found Floating in Discovery Green Pond [KHOU]
Photo of Minute Maid Park: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
AND YOU CAN SEE THAT IT IS FRIDAY 
And you can see that it is good. It is Good Friday, you could say. So Swamplot will be back posting even more goodness on Monday, April 1. Really. No fooling. Photo of T.G.I. Fridays at I-45 and Fuqua St.: TripAdvisor
Oh, they’re going away all right. This way.
- Day Pass Returning for Metro Bus Riders Later This Year [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston’s First Sprouts Now Open in Katy; Spring Cypress Location Coming April 17 [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Galleria Plaza Office, Retail Complex Bought By Developer, Could Expand [Prime Property]
- Klineberg: Increasing Quality of Life the Engine for Houston’s Economic Development [KUHF]
- Houston Mortgages Creating Competitive Banking Market [Houston Business Journal ($)]
- City Plans on Raising Appraisals More Than 50 Percent on Nearly 350 Office Properties [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Houston Now Back in ‘Severe’ Drought [SciGuy]
- Galveston Spends $20K To Use Glen Campbell’s 1969 Hit To Promote Tourism [KUHF]
Photo of Williams Tower: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LORDS OF THE FLIES “I’ve found having good relationships with the dumpster divers can be beneficial. While, obviously, we have to be careful of those fishing for information (identity theft, etc.) –– a lot of what we throw away is still very useful: I like to know that it is being used in the best way, even if it makes no financial sense for me to do so. At my business, we have several local characters each with their own wants and needs. One comes through and extracts every piece of large metal (using axes, pickaxes, tools, whatever it takes) –– door handles, buckets, etc., cleans them up and recycles them. Another makes his weekly run on different days, looking for every can in our recycling dumpster. The final one comes through twice a week collecting pallets we stack up for him, so he can go sell them to a local used pallet company. The first two would be considered criminal acts under the law, and there’s no way in hell I’d report them. If they found someone diving for info, they’d drive them off –– because they need to protect their interests and ours to keep access.” [drone, commenting on Mayor Parker Asks City Council To Decriminalize Diving in Public Dumpsters]