07/23/12 12:14pm

What’s going on with these newly created tall-suspension-only parking spots outside Marfreless behind the River Oaks Shopping Center — at the corner of Peden and McDuffie? “This story all began with a strip of grass,” explains Brinn Miracle, who documented the strip’s disappearance, its re-landscaping, the replacement of the landscaping with a ramp, the removal of the ramp, and finally, the appearance of the configuration you see here. Sure, It may look like a couple of parking spaces bisected by a row of wheel stops, but don’t let your eyes fool you: As careful study and comparison of her photos looking west (above) and east (below) should make clear, half of each space is now meant to serve as a sidewalk . . .

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07/23/12 9:00am

Photo of Alabama Theater Trader Joe’s: Brett Falkenhagen

07/20/12 11:26pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE LOWDOWN ON THE ELEVATION BURGER LEASE “Update on this corner: Elevation Burger is set to open up in the near future. Jonathan Kagan Properties bought the property and did a fairly extensive update to the structure, then turned it over to Elevation Burger for their build out, which is currently well under way. Trust me, Mai Thai’s closing was a good thing. I own the property next door and saw a steady parade of roaches, rats, and various other vermin going in and out of that building over the past few years. Anytime you see a blue tarp on the roof of a building for months and months on end, it’s a pretty sure sign that they are in decline. If you don’t have the funds to fix your leaky roof in Houston, the end can’t be far off.” [Jared M, commenting on Bye Bye, Mai Thai? Feeding Another Kirby High-Rise Rumor]

07/20/12 5:29pm

The Alamo reinforcements have arrived! Okay, they’re just temporary steel props, but they’re now holding the tilt-up concrete facade out of the mud around the tamale-themed strip center Warwick Construction is putting up on Houston’s Northside. The 23,000-sq.-ft. Alamo Tamale Company development at 809 Berry Rd. just west of Irvington will include a bakery, a reception hall, a restaurant and cantina, a dessert bar, and — yes — an on-site tamale-construction facility. Plus: a drive-thru meant to accommodate about 20 tamale-pickup vehicles.

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07/20/12 2:18pm

Gated and front-loading, this 1983 contemporary lot-filler throws a curve or two onto an otherwise straight-from-the-fifties street of ranch-style homes in Meyerland. Earlier this month, the stucco, steel, and glass brick specimen returned to the market after a 4-month break, with a new and lower price of $829,000. It’s a re-listing by a new agency. A previous listing for the home initially sought $975,000 back in October, but by January that price had dropped to $899,000.

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07/20/12 1:41pm

The robbers who held up a couple of IBC Bank locations inside Houston-area Kroger stores in 2 separate incidents over the last few months won’t have those branches to kick around any more. The IBC Bank in the Kroger at 11565 Hwy. 6 South in Sugar Land (at the corner of West Airport) and the one in the store at 3135 FM 528 and Bay Area Blvd. in Friendswood (featured in the surveillance video still above) have now been shut down — along with 2 other in-Kroger locations. The closings weren’t a direct result of the robberies, but part of International Bancshares Corp.’s plan to close up grocery-store locations — which have grown unprofitable as a result of new restrictions on bank fees — and open a few more standalone branches. IBC closed 20 Houston-area grocery-store branches — 19 in H-E-B Markets and another inside a Randall’s — last December.

Photo of suspect in Friendswood Kroger IBC Bank: Bay Area Citizen

07/20/12 8:30am

Photo of hoax Shell billboard off I-45 downtown: Jess Wilson

07/19/12 3:43pm

HARK, A FENCE! Six years ago the Aga Khan Foundation purchased and demolished the Robinson Warehouse at the corner of Allen Parkway and Montrose Blvd., announcing plans to build a new Ismaili Cultural Center in its place on the often soggy 11-acre site. With the exception of the appearance last year of a construction trailer for the assembly of the Rosemont Bridge over Buffalo Bayou across the street, though, there’d been no action there since. Until this week, that is, as several readers have reported: Fence posts are going up around the lot, from Allen Parkway all the way back to and along West Dallas. “I am wondering if this is actually a sign of construction on the center or if they are just tired of people parking/running dogs on the property,” writes one correspondent. “I will be on the look out for Port-A-Cans.” Photo: Swamplot inbox

07/19/12 2:15pm

Y’know this long-vacant 12- and 14-story office-building-and-parking-garage complex at 2100 Travis St. between Webster and Gray in Midtown — the one also known as “those Central Square Plaza buildings that somebody besides taggers ought to do something with”? Back in late 2009, the city ordered the owners to make a bunch of repairs within 60 days. What happened next? Owner Alfred J. Antonini filed suit to block the order; it’s been tied up in court ever since. Now 3 years later, Antonini has won the latest round in the ongoing tussle. An appeals court ruled this morning against the city’s claim that Antonini’s suit was invalid because he didn’t file it quickly enough. The case will go back to a lower court for more Midtown cleanup fun.

Photo: LoopNet

07/19/12 1:22pm

FAIR WARNING: ABOUT TO MESS WITH ALABAMA THEATER MARQUEE Publicists for Weingarten Realty want Swamplot readers to know that workers about to poke into the underside of the Alabama Theater marquee aren’t dismantling it. They’ll only be replacing the lights there with new LED fixtures. Doing that will require removing the soffit panels below the Shepherd-facing sign on the soon-to-be first Houston-proper Trader Joe’s. “The marquee will look just as it does today with the only exception being new energy efficient lighting on the underside,” the shopping-center owner tells Swamplot. The work should take about 2 weeks. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Weingarten Realty