Headlines
04/27/12 8:30am

Headlines: Fire Station Rehab; Hermann Park Apartment Building’s Loose Python

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Photo of AXIOM offices, Fire Station 6, 1702 Washington Ave.: KUHF

Comments
04/26/12 11:48pm

Comment of the Day: How the Game Is Played

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28 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED “This is awesome! This is what makes Houston entertaining. With no zoning rules in place, our residential landscape is essentially open to a free for all when it comes to building. Residents have little or no protection against what can go up right next to them. SO what do you do to protect your current neighborhood, you get creative and fight back. Just as the developer has as much of a right to build there, the community also has the right to reject or stop it any legal way they can.” [MericaRulz, commenting on A List of Gentle Ashby Highrise Protest Methods]

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Buying and Selling
04/26/12 12:45pm

Shell’s Tech Center Saying Goodbye to Southside Place, Piece by Piece

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It’s 1 down and 2 to go for the properties comprising Shell Oil’s Bellaire Technology Center on Bellaire Blvd. A 3.2-acre slice leased by Shell for years is under contract for future redevelopment. The tech facility’s remaining 2 properties on the same megablock — one leased, one Shell-owned — will also hit the market as Shell ceases its 75-year presence in Southside Place later this year.

The oil company had announced in 2008 that it would close the center and relocate its operations to other facilities. City of Southside Place sources said the exodus ought to wrap up by the end of November.

Listed a month ago, 3747 Bellaire Blvd. (above) is at the west end of the block that stretches from Braes Blvd. to Poor Farm Ditch.  The asking price was about $50 per sq. ft., Transwestern’s listing rep says. He had nothing to add about the buyer or plans for the property, which has 475 ft. of frontage on Bellaire and 300 ft. on Braes Blvd. It’s zoned (yes, zoned) for low-intensity mixed-use development. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year.

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Boulevard Oaks
04/26/12 11:49am

A List of Gentle Ashby Highrise Protest Methods

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A LIST OF GENTLE ASHBY HIGHRISE PROTEST METHODS A settlement of its lawsuit with the city earlier this year guarantees that developers of the 21-story residential highrise planned for the corner of Ashby and Bissonnet (at right) next to Southampton will be able to receive building permits. But Culturemap editor Clifford Pugh reports that neighbors still opposed to the project have approved and sent a letter to the developers of the highrise at 1717 Bissonnet that includes a laundry list of the proposed tactics they plan to take to stop the project from being built — or to make things difficult for the company, Buckhead Investment Partners, if it proceeds with the project. Among them: filing their own lawsuit against the developers; appearing at the businesses and homes of the project’s investors and lenders (“as soon as we can identify [them]”), contractors, and other service providers to demonstrate opposition; monitoring and reporting construction violations; picketing the building’s leasing office whenever it is open; sending regular communications to tenants “to let them know that they are not welcome in our neighborhood”; challenging the permits of the building’s restaurant tenant; boycotting the restaurant and — if it’s a chain — all of its other locations; appearing at the homes of the restaurant’s owners, investors, and chef to demonstrate opposition; and (possibly worst of all:) posting “unfavorable reviews” of the restaurant online. [Culturemap; more from the West University Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia Update, 10 pm: The most recent draft of the “open letter” has been toned down a bit, reports the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff. The new draft makes no mention of the homes of the project’s investors, lenders, contractors, and service providers, or its restaurant’s owners, investors, or chef; says the leasing office will be picketed only “regularly”; and (most notably) drops any suggestion that area residents might post negative restaurant reviews online.

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Demolitions
04/26/12 10:27am

The Restaurant Replacing Ruggles Grill on Westheimer

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Fresh off its work transforming the former Monarch Cleaners/Fox Diner/Cafe Serranos Cantina/Crome/Pravada building on Shepherd into Triniti Restaurant (with the help of some colorful perforated metal), Houston’s MC2 Architects is now designing its second restaurant — this time from scratch. It’s a “contemporary building with a rustic farmhouse feel” that’ll take the place of the shuttered and soon-to-be-dismantled Ruggles Grill at 903 Westheimer, just east of Montrose. Inside will be a new (yes) rustic American restaurant for the same owners — called Brande, Triniti chef Ryan Hildebrand announced yesterday. All that rusticity will take time, of course: The scheduled opening season is a far-off fall 2013.

Photo: Candace Garcia

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Headlines
04/26/12 9:00am

Headlines: Skeeters’ Opening Day; Raining Concrete Under Highway 59

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Photo of Montrose bridge over US-59: Candace Garcia

Nightlife
04/25/12 4:47pm

A New York Post Reporter’s Lost Houston Weekend

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A NEW YORK POST REPORTER’S LOST HOUSTON WEEKEND “Exhausted and content, I retired to the patio at El Gran Malo, a cool but divey tequila bar on a superbly awful corner facing a shoot ’n’ stab gas station, a Mexican restaurant and other assorted random Houstonia; I went here because every chef I encountered during my visit told me that this was the spot. I absolutely had to go, they said. So I went and I drank tequila, because that’s what I saw everyone else doing. A lot of it too, apparently — by the end of the night, I vaguely remember being on the other side of town stalking a food truck selling lobster that may or may not have actually existed. Which was fine — it would be days before I was in a position to eat a proper meal again.” [New York Post] Photo of El Gran Malo: Almost Veggie Houston

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Franchises and Chain Stores
04/25/12 1:48pm

Growing Up with McDonald’s

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GROWING UP WITH MCDONALD’S If it seems like there’s a McDonald’s on every corner in Texas, it’s because the hamburger giant keeps building 40 to 50 new pad sites a year, says the company’s regional real estate manager. Reporter Catie Dixon explains: “The company isn’t increasing its density; it’s just trying to keep up with Texas’ rapid population growth.” [Real Estate Bisnow] Photo of McDonald’s at 1421 Nasa Rd.: Hua Bao

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Afton Village
04/25/12 12:36pm

It’ll Take a Little While To Assemble That New IKEA Rooftop Furniture

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IT’LL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE TO ASSEMBLE THAT NEW IKEA ROOFTOP FURNITURE All the pieces are there, but now here comes the hard part. A scene familiar to many IKEA customers is now taking place on a large scale on top of the Houston IKEA store’s roof, where workers from contractor REC Solar are assembling flat-packed stacks of 3,962 solar panels into a 116,400-sq.-ft. PV array. The panels arrived on site at the end of last year, but construction won’t be complete until sometime this summer. When it’s done, the company says, the installation will generate enough energy to power 113 homes — or a larger number of in-store room displays. [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot] Photo: IKEA Houston

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Midtown
04/25/12 11:47am

Austin Rejection Artist and Bar Partners Opening Midtown Nightclub

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Two-time The Bachelor star Brad Womack is planning to open a nightclub with his business partners in Midtown Houston, right across the street from the Metro Midtown apartments, at the corner of Bagby and McIlhenny. Womack’s twin brother Chad, brother Wes, and partner Jason Carrier — they call their company Carmack Concepts — own Sixth St. bars Chuggin’ Monkey, Dizzy Rooster, Molotov, and Dogwood in Austin. Their Houston bar, which they’ll call Dogwood Houston, will be a transformation of a small 1956 commercial building at 2403 Bagby St.

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Headlines
04/25/12 9:00am

Headlines: Galveston Resort Bankruptcies; Tomball, Party City

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Photo of 610 and Fannin gas station: Gonzvales via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Comments
04/24/12 11:46pm

Comment of the Day: Would’ve Knocked It If I Hadn’t Tried It

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1 Comment

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WOULD’VE KNOCKED IT IF I HADN’T TRIED IT “Normally, I’m all for jumping on the ‘this is why we’re fat’ bandwagon, as well as the one that’s opposed to Austin imports. But having sampled a Tootie Pie, they are dang good. I’m actually excited about this one.” [MJ, commenting on More Houses Wanted for More Pies]

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