Swamplot Street Sleuths: Potholes and Pads

Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:

Scuttlebutt on that decrepit parking lot on Richmond, plus what’s ready to pop up on the site of the Hooters on Gessner:

  • Upper Kirby: “How many professionals in kenneth cole loafers or nine west heels want to navigate lake Ponchartrain just to get to our restaurant for a meal?” asks a commenter from Yelapa Playa Mexicana, one of three restaurants sharing the potholed (and occasionally flooded) parking lot between Richmond and Portsmouth west of Greenbriar. But . . . nothing’s doing:

    We would love to force our landlord to get this mess fixed as soon as possible…any advice from anyone? We’ve been on him for the last 10 months or more (since we took the space in mid-September 09).

    Commenter marmer notes a repair job may involve significant drainage work. “Simply patching the holes won’t last long enough to be worth the trouble.” Plus, where are Yelapa, Blue Fish House, and Hobbit Café customers gonna park while the work gets done? Also left unanswered: Is the existing parking lot required to meet any drivability standards?

Next: What comes after Hooters?

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  • Woodlake Plaza: The Hooters at Gessner and Westheimer is being sacrificed for a brand new . . . pad site. AmReit VP Ron Lindsey tells Swamplot the whole shopping center is being redeveloped, and big changes are in store for the Randall’s Flagship that’s been shut down next door (shown above). After that market is demolished (likely the week of August 13th), a bigger, first-of-its-kind-in-Houston Randalls Flagship “lifestyle center” will be built in its place. The expanded 59,000 sq.-ft. store will likely feature earth tones, a “warm ambiance,” and a greater selection of organic foodstuffs, if recent revamps of brothers-in-chain Safeway and Tom Thumb stores are any guide. The new Randalls will be set 100 feet further back in the lot. A new 15,000 sq.-ft. pad site on southwest corner will become home to a relocated Jos. A. Banks.

Got more questions? Send them!

Photos: Swamplot inbox

5 Comment

  • The parking lot issues isn’t a terribly complicated fix.

    One small truckload of asphalt can be shoveled into the potholes. It doesn’t have to turn into an immaculately smooth parking lot. Just one that you won’t lose a tire or break an ankle.

    Also, no drainage adjustments will be needed since it’s an already developed parking lot.

  • Man, that was the first Hooters I ever went to. Memories…

  • @joey: Memories or “mammaries”?

  • Tearing down a Randall’s to build another Randall’s? How shamelessly decadent!

    That parking lot at the Hobbit, et cetera, is the worst. I strongly suspect it’s a former minefield.

  • Dani, It is a preemptive strike against the planned HEB accross the street… Randalls is going to way of Appletree and Safeway in this town… not surprising considering they are all the same company.