From beneath yesterday’s sunset glare off the new Big Tex Storage midrise on Richmond Ave, a reader captured the splintery wreckage of long-empty Cierra Interiors at the corner with Woodhead St. Plans to stick a new Starbucks in its place were submitted back in early November by an entity connected to experienced Starbucks constructor Vaquero Ventures, and the knockout of the building was officially sanctioned just before Christmas. Next door, the land opened up by Vaquero’s teardown of the pair of 2-story brick 4-plexes at 1823 and 1827 Richmond back in August looks to be marked for another Inner Loop outpost of oil change chain Take 5.
And one more door eastward, the former Ruthie’s Place on Richmond looks to be headed for new use by strip-center gelato shop Sweetcup, per some early-stage permits issued in November that note a bar-to-ice-cream-shop conversion. Sweetcup bought the building at 1829 Richmond in September after the bar’s early 2016 shutdown (in the wake of the passing of long-time former owner Ruth Vardilos). Here’s a shot of the whole corner taken in August, shortly after the apartment removal, showing Ruthie’s tucked next to Ely’s Beauty Salon on the far right:
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Across Richmond next to Big Tex is former Freaky Foods companion King Cole Liquor; recently smoked-out-and-reopened La Tapatia sits right across Woodhead to the west.
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: Rivercrushed; Big Tex Montrose Self-Storage Now Open on Former Freaky Foods Lot; Daily Demolition Report: Extremely Balzy
Photos: Swamplot inboxÂ
So this just leaves Richmond/Hazard to be bulldozed and redone now, right?
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Wonder if sound exchange could even survive a relocation.
Well, doesn’t that sum up Houston nicely: a Starbucks next to an oil change place next to a gelato shop, across the street from a mini-storage mid-rise. You keep being you, Houston.
It describes the gentrification arrow, I’ll give you that ;)
@joel,
“Wonder if sound exchange could even survive another relocation.”
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FTFY. Record Exchange, which morphed into Sound Exchange, was located on Westheimer in the 80s.
@joel I live behind La Tapatia. My neighbors and I are sort of worried that our landlords are going to be offered a really great deal and we’ll have to move…. My brother and his wife actually lived in the apartments that got torn down. They were actually really nice.
Any update on this?
Someone got any information about the small shotgun house on the corner across from King Cole Liquor? I’d hate to see it go to waste; there’s practically no reason to demolish it considering the small/narrow plot of land it sits on. Ideally I’d be happy to live in it.