Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Who would have thought the old house to have had so much wood in it?
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- 20682 Sweetglen Dr. [HAR]
ORTHODOX SYNAGOGUE MULLS CROSSING THE LOOP TO SOMEWHAT HIGHER GROUND 
The roughly 820 homeowners in Willow Meadows are now voting on a deed restriction change that — if passed — would allow the United Orthodox Synagogue to build a new structure outside The Loop, in place of 5 houses that sit 3 quarters of a mile south down Greenwillow St. from the congregation’s previous home at the corner of S. Braeswood. Many congregants walk to the synagogue — which could soon be leaving the 100-year floodplain for the 500 after flooding 6 times in the last 25 years, including 3 in the last 3. “According to preliminary renderings,” reports the Jewish Herald Voice’s Michael C. Duke on Studio Red’s proposed design, “the synagogue would be a single-story structure, measuring an ultimate height of 30 feet. Based on new building codes, the finished floor of the building would be built some 3 feet above curb height, and the building itself would have the same 25-foot setback as homes in Willow Meadows.” Passage of the proposal “would prompt Houston’s largest Orthodox congregation to hold its own congregation-wide vote on whether to stay at its current location north of I-610 South and rebuild portions of its campus at a significantly higher elevation; or, to move.” Most of the congregation’s 57-year-old building was demolished last month, except for a few portions including its social hall and mikvah. [Jewish Herald Voice; previously on Swamplot] Photo of United Orthodox Synagogue’s demolition, 9001 Greenwillow St.: United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston
SHIPLEY DONUTS WILL ROUND OUT THE NEW STRIP CENTER ON 28TH AND YALE 
Here’s one early sign of life at the new 8,040-sq.-ft. strip building that developer Ancorian recently finished putting up on the corner of Yale and 28th St. — 2 blocks south of the new Whole Foods that’s under construction on the N. Loop. When the coming Shipley Do-Nuts outlet opens at 2723 Yale., it’ll be a brand-new complement to what’s now the chain’s only Heights location, the standalone drive-thru on the corner of N. Main and Walton St. a few blocks west of I-45. (Shipley’s corporate office at 5200 N. Main is just under a mile up the road from that location.) Most recently demolished at 2723 Yale to make way for the new donut store and accompanying tenants: an L-shaped commercial building home to Heights Insurance and Multiservice that stood on the block for well over a decade. Photo: Swamplox inbox
- Where New, Pricey Homes Are Selling the Fastest in Houston [HBJ ($)]
- Northeast Houston Community The Groves Debuts $2.5M Outdoor Amenity Center [HBJ]
- Midway Adds More Office Space in GreenStreet [HBJ ($)]
- Energy Employment Firm Airswift Expanding Footprint in Houston [HBJ ($)]
- New Midtown Bar Pour Behavior Slated To Open This Winter [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Texas High-Speed Rail Line Will Use Amtrak’s Reservation System To Sell Tickets [Culturemap]
- Galveston Had Record-Breaking 7M Visitors in 2017 [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Austin Scrambles To Regulate Recent Influx of Electric Scooters [The Texas Tribune]
Photo of KPRC: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Go, vanish into air, away!
- 732 Lester St. [HAR]
UNEARTHING THE SPLENDORS OF HWY. 59’S EGYPTIAN TOMB 
“Unless people were here the first time,” a renovator at the mock-Egyptian temple on 59 tells the Chronicle’s Craig Hlavaty, “they had no idea of the magnitude of it inside.” (And even if they tried to find out, they might still be left in the dark: “There is no longer a lick of electrical wire inside,” adds another worker.) And so, for the crew’s next trick: “We need to tear everything out and start over.” In doing so, some of what’s been left behind in the shadowy former club known as Magic Island is now being brought to light: “A covered patio and valet area on the building’s east end is today a graveyard of tables and chairs ripped out of the dining rooms,” reports Hlavaty. “Egyptian art and murals sit idle, some covered in graffiti. Broken marble and glass are strewn about the grounds.” On the opposite side of the building, a few doors down, “renderings of what the two-story, 22,000-square-foot property could look like in the future reside on a table at a doctor’s office” where neurologist Mohammad Athari — who owns Magic Island — practices. After years of on-and-off work to revive it, his current plan is to have it back up and running by the end of the year as a “Houston nightlife destination.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplox inbox
The 2 new METRO bus lanes — linking a proposed Bellaire transit center to the new middle-of-the-road path up Post Oak Blvd. — won’t run over the actual building at Chick-fil-A’s Richmond Ave location, but they will cut through the property. Last month, the fast-food company agreed to vacate its spot at 5005 Richmond after the State of Texas initiated an eminent domain proceeding against it — and the location subsequently closed. (The 4 strip tenants in Weingarten Realty’s surrounding Richmond Square Shopping Center — BestBuy, Mattress1One, Cost Plus World Market, and Luggage & Leather — are also targeted in the proceeding.)
Adding the new transit route (shown in the map below as a vertical orange line partly covered-over with yellowish-gray) is part of a whole tangle of changes TxDOT has planned for the 610-59 interchange:
Eminent Domain
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DOWNTOWN APARTMENTS THAT RAN IN MY FAMILY 
“My uncle, J. Holly Brewer, bought the Plaza Court and Peacock apartments sometime about 1942. It was managed by his mother, Kate Lillian Brewer, and my mother, Edith Fox Bannerman, until J. Holly Brewer and my father, James Knox Bannerman, returned from service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. J. Holly Brewer then operated the apartments alone until his death in 1984. Edith Fox Bannerman and her sister, Frances Marion Marchiando, then inherited the property and jointly managed it. After Mrs. Marchiando passed away her son, Michael Marchiando, jointly managed the buildings with mom until 1995. At that point I, James Knox Bannerman II, and my mother, Edith Bannerman, shared the management of the buildings until we sold them in 2014. I felt it was time to sell them as [my] mother was 97-years young. Mother did not speak to me for a week after the sale. When she did speak her first sentence was, ‘You took my job away.’ Go figure. She is amazing. She drove the Houston freeways until she was 93 with never a citation or accident. Mom is 100 now and occasionally we drive her to visit some of the long-term tenants. These buildings have many stories to tell. I am delighted to see they are to be updated and preserved.” [James Knox Bannerman II, commenting on The Changes Coming to the Pre-War Peacock & Plaza Apartment Complex Downtown] Photo of apartment courtyard: LoopNet
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Black-tie renderings show off the porte-cochere that’ll soon front the former Delta Fasteners warehouse at 7122 Old Katy Rd., one door down from the West Loop. It’s one element in the batch of changes that party planning firm A Fare Extrordinare has slated to transform the building not only into its office, kitchen, and storage space — but also into an event space dubbed The Revaire. Inside the venue portion of the structure, 2 rooms — one 10,200-sq.-ft., the other 4,130-sq.-ft. — will be up for grabs by party-throwers.
Adaptive reuser Braun Realty had previously planned to turn the 57,925-sq.-ft. building — pictured below — into a festival marketplace including a brewery and food hall, but sold it to the events company last year:
The Revaire
- More Than 400 Dickinson Apartment Units Flooded By Harvey Won’t Be Ready for Up to a Year [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Houston Premium Outlets in Cypress Gets Upgrade, New Retailers [HBJ]
- Garden Oaks Shopping Center Expansion To Bring in New Tenants Including Aldi [Houston Chronicle]
- Gander Mountain Store in Spring To Reopen This Month as Gander Outdoors [HBJ]
- Burlington Stores To Reopen Harvey-Damaged Store in East Houston Today [Realty News Report]
- Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken To Make Houston Debut within the Next Week [Eater Houston]
- Galveston Considering Expanding Its Bus Trolley System [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Dioxin Spread from San Jacinto Waste Pits To More Than 30 Hotspots Along the River, Houston Ship Channel, and in Galveston Bay [AP]
- How Natural Disasters Like Harvey Show the Need for Resilient Communities [U.S. News]
- New Study Finds Sea Level Rise Would Drastically Increase Damage from Hurricanes Around Galveston Bay [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Ranked No. 2 on WalletHub’s Study of the Most Diverse Cities in America [Houston Chronicle]
- Slideshow: Houston’s Most Famous Signs, Marquees, and Billboards [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Beachside Village: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Where floodwaters, expanding soils, and housing trends lead, excavators will follow:
- 409 Scenic View [HAR]
