Headlines
07/05/18 8:30am

Independence Day Downpour; Wilcrest Dr. Sinkhole; Questioning the Height of Fertitta’s Post Oak Hotel

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Photo of Wrightwood St. in Woodland Heights: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool

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Featured Posts
07/03/18 5:00pm

Awesome Bites Will Take a Chunk Out of Shops at Sawyer Yards’ West Side

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Coming soon to the west side of the warehouse-turned-Shops at Sawyer Yards building on the corner of Sawyer and Edwards streets: Awesome Bites, a health-minded bakery specializing in fruit- and vegetable-based muffins made without eggs, butter, or milk. A building permit filed last Friday for the strip at 2313 Edwards — the nearer building in the photo above — has the new 1,600-sq.-ft. venue slotted into suite 185. That puts it west of Pokeology in either the box labelled B above (where B&B Butchers once left its mark but never materialized) or potentially right next door to the raw fishery — if the adjacent, yet-to-be announced taco shop’s plans fall through.

Images: Lovett Commercial

First Ward
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Featured Posts
07/03/18 4:00pm

Stanley Park Soil-Shufflers Tagged for Jumping the Gun After Mayor Puts Floodplain Neighborhood Construction on Hold

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At last week’s city council meeting, Mayor Turner told residents that the Stanley Park subdivision now on the rise in the 100-year floodplain south of Timbergrove Manor “is currently on hold. I know Harris County Flood Control has put a hold on it. We have also put a hold on it to take a look at it.” But as of Monday morning, site work was still continuing on the 12-acre parcel — according to StopStanleyPark, an organization nearby residents set up to oppose the project — until the red tag pictured above was issued for it in the afternoon.

A pair of dump trucks, along with an excavator were the latest visitors to the job site at the end of Shirkmere Dr.:

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Splash of Color
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Featured Posts
07/03/18 12:00pm

Trailblazing a New McGowen St. Miniature Bike Lane Perpendicular to the Columbia Tap Trail

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Over the weekend, members of cyclist group BikeHouston along with a number of volunteers sent to Houston by Evangelical Lutheran Church made a few bike-friendly modifications to the McGowen St. roadway between Burkett and Nettleton streets — the block that’s bisected by  the Columbia Tap Trail. Armed with stencils, paint, and a supply of rubber armadillos, the group sectioned off a protected bike lane along the road leading toward the trail.

Along they way, they included a few helpful reminders:

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Tactical Urbanism
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Headlines
07/03/18 8:30am

Ivy & James Out at Evelyn’s Park; 8th Wonder Distillery Debuts; The Fix for Hwy. 146

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Photo: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
Apartments
07/02/18 4:30pm

Everyone Ordered Out of Memorial Club Apartments’ Remaining Half, New Apartments Set To Rise in Its Place

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Residents of the Memorial Club apartments at 955 Westcott St. now have 5 months left to beat it from the complex in order to make way for a new residential building that’s set to rise in its place. According to a letter that landlord Greystar sent out on June 11, the deadline to vacate is December 31. Up until then, the company “is engaging a relocation specialist” to assist tenants with their moves.

The photo at top shows the apartment’s yard sign, with an arrow (since covered up) pointing across Westcott to where its leasing office once sat within the demolished eastern portion of the complex. Greystar tore that section down in 2014, about a year after buying both halves of the complex and announcing a 2-phase redevelopment plan for the land, to include 550 units spread across a pair of buildings.

297 of them are already housed across the street in the 6-story Elan Memorial Park building — pictured below — that the developer put up in 2016:

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Exodus on Westcott St.
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Churches
07/02/18 2:30pm

What Kind of Afterlife Can Bethany United Methodist Expect on Linkwood Dr.?

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Bethany United Methodist Church has officially closed its doors at 3511 Linkwood Dr. after 68 years of services, putting a question mark on the map between Timberside Dr. and Buffalo Spdwy. At the back of the 5.5-acre religious complex, a portion devoted to the Bethany Methodist Weekday School remains open. But the church — which occupies the majority of the structure’s 48,000 sq. ft. — has been shuttered since early last month.

The last time Bethany planned to use its land for non-clerical purposes, it signed off on a 4-story senior living development that would’ve gone right up on a portion of the church complex — but the midrise never got off the ground. Had it risen, it would’ve been the first real shakeup on the block since the late ’90s, when the decades-old Dome Shadows nightclub fronting Buffalo Spdwy. bit the dust and nearly 70 newly-built homes rose up in its place — just east of the church.

Here’s what the club looked like on one of its slower days:

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Latest Religious Relics
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Downtown
07/02/18 12:15pm

Here’s 2 Years of HSPVA Construction Crammed into 30 Riveting Seconds

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From start to finish, the video above fast forwards through about 2 years of construction on the Kinder High School for Performing and Visual Arts’ new building at 790 Austin St. Following an official groundbreaking in late 2014, workers stacked 5 floors atop a 2-story underground parking garage (which took on about 10 in. of water during Harvey) — leaving space in the front face on Austin St. for a multistory jigsaw-like window.

That opening started out as more of a hole:

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Assembly Period
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Audubon Place
07/02/18 10:00am

Texadelphia’s Takeover of the Wooden Box on Montrose Blvd. Now Nearly Complete

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TEXADELPHIA’S TAKEOVER OF THE WOODEN BOX ON MONTROSE BLVD. NOW NEARLY COMPLETE With construction on Houston’s second Texadelphia now wrapping up ahead of its planned opening, it appears the restaurant’s remodelers have opted to preserve the woodsy exterior decor originally added onto the end of the strip center just shy of 2 years ago — when the storefront switched over from Berryhill Baja Grill to Yucatan Taco Stand. That gives the restaurant a different outward character than the chain’s only other Houston location — its first step back into the city after and 2-year absence — on the corner of Westheimer and Dunvale Rd. Over there, renovations stopped short of any exterior work as well (save for the installation of the brand’s signage in place of longtime tenant Potbelly Sandwich Shop’s), leaving the restaurant to pick up in a pale stucco endcap that’d been unchanged for over a decade. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplox inbox

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Headlines
07/02/18 8:30am

Affordable Housing Project for EaDo; The End of FEMA-Funded Hotel Rooms for Harvey Victims

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Photo of 1020 Holcombe: BOldbury via Swamplot Flickr Pool

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