FURNISHED RETAIL AVAILABLE 
Reporting on the desires of several big-box retailers to shrink the size of their stores, David Kaplan notes the owners of Ashley Furniture are considering subleasing 6,000 to 15,000 sq. ft. of space in any of the company’s 9 Houston-area stores. “‘It would have to be a good fit,’ [CEO Gary] Seals said. Ashley would adapt to a smaller space by taking slower-selling merchandise off the floor, Seals said.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Ashley Furniture
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Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Marvelous and magical demonstrations await you at these select in-town locations:
A WYNDHAM HOTEL IN EAST DOWNTOWN? 
The San Antonio developer who recently tore down the former On Leong Merchants Association building at 801 Chartres behind the George R. Brown Convention Center tells reporter Jennifer Dawson that Wyndham Hotels will operate the $12 million, 12-story Wyndham or Wyndham Grand he plans to build there, not far from where Dynamo Stadium is being built. According to Dawson, the hotel site — which Ocean2Ocean Development acquired from foreclosure last month — incorporates a half acre on the block surrounded by Rusk, Chartres, Walker, and Saint Emanuel. Behind that property currently: the strip-center location of East Downtown mini-grocer Epicurean Express (in photo). [Houston Business Journal] Photo: Candace Garcia
- 7514 Apache Plume Dr. [HAR]
PINKBERRY HOUSTON CAMPAIGN: WEBSTER AND THE WOODLANDS FIRST Beachhead for the inevitable local invasion of second-wave frozen-yogurt pioneer Pinkberry: across I-45 from Baybrook Mall in the Baybrook Passage Shopping Center. The location, at 19325 Gulf Fwy., is scheduled to open on September 30th. The second of the dozen spots planned for the greater Houston area by the regional franchisee will be somewhere in The Woodlands, but won’t open until next year. [Houston Business Journal] Update, 11:30 am: That Woodlands location will be in The Woodlands Mall.
A little urban fire cleanup, along with a few more of the usual put-aways:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: CAN’T YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS HEADED? “At some point, the successful food trucks that provide consistently good food will setup tables and chairs, stake out an “area†in this experiment that is their spot, get so busy they’ll need someone whose only job is to take food orders and handle payment, even bring the food to your table. Eventually, they might even stake out parking just for their customers. OH WAIT, WE ALREADY HAVE THOSE, THEY’RE CALLED RESTAURANTS. This food truck-mania is just getting silly. Now pass me an apple/lemon-strudel cupcake with neon princess sprinkles with 15% of the profit going towards gloves for people displaced by encroaching solar panel farms.” [SL, commenting on Heights Shipping Container Food Court]
HEIGHTS SHIPPING CONTAINER FOOD COURT A food-truck-court-like conglomeration of shipping containers housing vendors selling waffles, burgers, barbecue, Mexican, Asian, or Cajun cuisine is being planned for a 25,000-sq.-ft. lot co-owned by the proprietor of C&D Scrap Metal at the corner of North Shepherd and 14th St., the Chronicle‘s David Kaplan reports. “Kitchens on 14th,” as designed by Uptown Sushi and Tiny Boxwood’s architect Issac Preminger, is expected to include trees, water features, and communal eating areas in a park-like setting. [Prime Property]
This home nestled on the south bank of Buffalo Bayou north of Woodway and just outside the West Loop has made brief appearances in the MLS for the last 2 fall seasons. This time, though, the price is almost $200K lower. It’s a 4-bedroom, 3-1/2-bath open-plan home designed by William Floyd in 1954, sporting a few obvious updates and alterations. The 3,519-sq.-ft. home is now on the market for $1,299,000; it’s just a few doors down from the home fellow architect Preston Bolton built for himself on Pine Hollow Ln. 16 years later.
BECAUSE WHERE THERE’S SMOKING, THERE COULD BE FIRE In the aftermath of a West Houston grass fire that scorched 1500 acres of George Bush Park, Mayor Parker and some city council members are considering instituting a temporary smoking ban at all city parks for as long as the drought lasts. This week city council gave its blessing to a ban Parker instituted earlier on open-flame barbecuing and grilling in city parks. A burn ban in county parks — which includes smoking — has been in effect since April. [Houston Chronicle; park fire]
How design blogger Joni Webb’s Calacatta slabs have been acclimating themselves to West U.: “Is white marble really practical in a kitchen? Yes, that age old question. Doesn’t white marble stain? I’ve had my marble countertops for almost three years now and I have to say, I don’t have any stains at all. But, what I do have are a few smudges. You can’t really see them unless you look sideways in the sunlight – and then you might notice that there are – for lack of a better word – smudges. These spots look like clear water dried on the marble. I know that all I need to do is get the marble cleaned and resealed again, but truthfully, these few marks don’t bother me at all.”
- White Marble For the Kitchen, Yes or No? [Cote de Texas]
Photo: Cote de Texas
Pardon us while we make a few residential adjustments:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SHARON TYLER’S TILES “I have to agree this house is over the top and she went ‘architect’ nuts with it. I actually live in one of the few other houses that Sharon Tyler built in West U. She built a few others and acted as the ‘architect/builder.’ I have to say the house is built super solid and has a timeless design to it. The bathrooms did have the Sharon Tyler signature floor to ceiling 2×2 tiles and that got old as soon as the 90s hit. Hoewever, in one of the bath remodels I brought a tile vendor to give me a quote to knock down all the tiles and put something more current. The guy liked the Sharon tiles so much that I thought he was going to hit me with a bat for wanting to tear them down. So to each its own. However, I have to say that having lived in a Sharon Tyler house, I have the outmost respect for that woman. No detail was overlooked and I understand she oversaw the construction herself and it was not uncommon for her to stop at the construction and asking to start from scratch on a particular job if she was not pleased with the work. And it shows, the house is solid quality construction.” [west u rez, commenting on Living Large in Houston, Before Her Homes Got Not So Big]
HOW THE KUBOSH BROTHERS PUT THE KIBOSH ON HOUSTON’S RED LIGHT CAMERAS 
Mandy Oaklander doesn’t include too many interviews with ardent red-light camera supporters in her cover story, but she does provide an engaging, from-the-top account of how the city got to its current situation: cameras turned off, lawsuits a-brewing. Tasty excerpt: “‘I agree with the Mayor,’ Feldman told city council in his low, measured voice. ‘We are in a Catch-22. No matter what we do, there is somebody out there who is going to sue us.’ Feldman cracked a rare, thin-lipped smile. ‘That’s why I became city attorney.'” [Houston Press] Photo: West U Examiner
WATCHING WHERE YOU PARK IN RAINTREE PLACE 
A resident of Raintree Place received an email complaint from the community’s property owners association approximately 10 minutes after her parked car was spotted in her own driveway. Dianne Josephs, who rents her home, tells the Houston Press she had been loading up her vehicle with clothing and household goods to donate to wildfire victims. Regulations in the private gated neighborhood of 86 lots inside the Loop at 10 South Briar Hollow Ln. between San Felipe and Post Oak Blvd. prohibit residents from leaving cars anywhere other than in their garages or in a few designated visitor spaces. This isn’t Josephs’s first run-in with neighborhood authorities: “Josephs says her neighbor circles the complex several times a day to report open garages and cars parked in driveways. Once, she reported him for having his garage open, and she says he flipped her daughter off with both hands. ‘I wanna buy it [the house], but the people here are so mean!!’ squealed Josephs. ‘They yell at me and say, “You’re nothing but trouble.”…but I question authority. When I think it’s crazy, I question it.'” [Hair Balls] Photo: Raintree Place
