Tag: 77005

Featured Posts
11/29/17 5:00pm

Local Office, Local Coffee Coming to Local Office Building Next to Local Bar on Bissonnet

by
Office Buildings, Openings and Closings, Renovations, West University
2 Comments

Work is almost complete on Pipeline Realty’s conversion of the 2-story office building at 2617 Bissonnet (seen at top in a recent photo) into a new second-story coworking space called Local Office. The 13,500-sq.-ft. building, pictured above before the 2 trees standing in front were removed and larger windows were poked into its north and west facades, previously served as the offices of Industrial Audio/Video.

Local Office, due to open sometime next month, will be joined early next year by a ground-floor coffee shop, labeled “Local Coffee” on the rendering below but more likely to be a third outlet of the growing local Cavo Coffee chain:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Offices of West University
, , , , , ,
Featured Posts
11/06/17 2:15pm

Looking Around the Latest Version of the Cleburne Cafeteria Replacement

by
New Construction, Restaurants
8 Comments

Latest promised opening date for the new beer-and-wine serving, credit-card accepting (cash still preferred, and please pay before eating) Cleburne Cafeteria, now appearing in the late stages of construction at the corner of Bissonnet and Edloe St.: sometime this month. Photos from the scene show a new sidewalk, accompanied by 8 new trees from Trees for Houston, making an appearance along the Bissonnet frontage, in place of what used to be a portion of the restaurant’s parking area.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Opening in November
, , ,
Featured Posts
10/25/17 3:45pm

The Zombie Skeleton Army Slowly Storming the Mansions at Main and Montrose

by
Home Decor, Shadyside
8 Comments

Folks are always dying to get in and get a peek inside prominent homes fronting major Houston intersections. And here, adjacent to the roundabout at the southern end of Montrose Blvd. surrounding the Mecom Fountain just north of Rice University across from the main entrance to Hermann Park, a Halloween-season folly has been showing off a fantasy reenactment of just that scenario.

The tableau: Gotta-get-inside skeletons scale the security fences, crawl across the lawns, commandeer the topiary, and clamor for the entrance:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

A Shadyside Halloween
, ,
Featured Posts
08/17/17 2:00pm

Pay No Attention to the Construction Work Now Taking Place on the Ashby Highrise Site

by
Highrises, Proposed Developments
7 Comments

Buckhead Investment Partners tells Swamplot that the work crew, excavator, and large drainage pipes spotted on location yesterday and today at the east end of the site of the residential building known as the Ashby Highrise at 1717 Bissonnet St. constitutes nothing more than “on-going site work.” Multiple permits to construct the proposed 21-story Boulevard Oaks tower have been issued over the past decade — the most recent ones a little less than a year ago. And construction crews have been active on the site before. But Buckhead reports to Swamplot that there is “nothing else meaningful to report at this time.”

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Just Digging It
, , , , ,
Featured Posts
08/01/17 12:00pm

Construction on the MFAH’s New Glassell School Is Ramping Up

by
Museum District, Museums, New Construction, Redevelopment
5 Comments

From the skies above Montrose Blvd. just north of Bissonnet, here’s a view from late last week of progress on the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s new Glassell School of Art. The new building, designed by Steven Holl Architects, is under construction across the street from the Glassell Junior School building (in the foreground, with the curved roof) — and on the same site where the original Glassell School, designed by Houston architect S.I. Morris, was demolished in 2015. Morris’s Glassell School featured exterior walls of glass block; the primary exterior materials of Holl’s replacement building are sandblasted panels of precast concrete, assembled to shape an inclined plane along the long edge of the building’s L shape.

If that part of the building is starting to look like it’ll form a giant ramp, it’s because it will: Models of the structure show an outdoor amphitheater at the ramp’s base; a rooftop public path will ascend beyond it to a sculpture garden on the roof of the building’s northern leg. An addition to the existing sculpture garden to the south will extend into the courtyard shaped by the building’s two wings, fronting Montrose Blvd. The space designated for the garden is filled with construction materials in the center of the photo above; it’s pictured in a more completed state in this rendering by the architect:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

A View from Above
, , , , ,
Featured Posts
06/27/17 2:30pm

Checking in on the Work Underway at Baileson Brewing Company, the Tiniest Car-Repair-Shop-Turned Brewery Ever to Hit Bissonnet

by
Proposed Developments, Renovations, Rice Village
No Comments

The startup 3-barrel “nano-brewery” carving its ferment-and-serve spaces out of the former Bissonnet Auto Service Center garage on Bissonnet St. between Kirby and Greenbriar is scheduled for a Labor Day Weekend opening, according to a recent report in the Chronicle. New glazed overhead doors have been installed in the 2 garage bays, but according to this photo of the spot from earlier today, there’s still a bit of work going on inside.

If future passers-by do a double-take after seeing drinkers out on the front patio of the single-story structure at 2322 Bissonnet, it might be because the brewery-bar will be next door to the former Kay’s Lounge, also a single-story building serving drinks on a front patio, which was demolished last fall. These homes are scheduled to go up on that site.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

, , , , , ,
Featured Posts
06/27/17 11:00am

If You Like the Idea of Living Upstairs from Kay’s Lounge, Here’s the Next Best Thing

by
New Construction, Proposed Developments, Rice Village, Townhomes
6 Comments

Newly posted to MLS: a listing for 1 of the 6 townhomes patio homes from Frasier Homes intended for the site of the former Kay’s Lounge. Garages, spare bedrooms, and side yards only will grace the ground floors of the properties in this shared-driveway 6-pack, however, because Kay’s Lounge itself — an establishment that was founded back in 1939 — was demolished last year. The new residential compound covers both the Kay’s lot, formerly known as 2334 Bissonnet, and the one immediately to the west at 2332 Bissonnet, which formerly housed an adjacent structure as well as longtime bar’s parking lot.

But if it’s the idea of living very close to storied nightlife that attracted you to this property in the first place, don’t be disappointed: Just next door to this property, in the former Bissonnet Auto Service Center at 2322 Bissonnet, a new brewery and lounge called Baileson Brewing Company is about to open. The fourth-floor patios at the top of the homes at 2332 Bissonnet (pictured at top right in the rendering above) will overlook Baileson’s driveway-turned-drinking-patio directly.

Here’s the second view from the listing, showing how the shared-drive fronts of the 3 units on the Baileson side might look if they’re completed before the other 3 are begun (they’d be in the foreground):

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

New Neighbors in Rice Village
, , , , ,
Featured Posts
06/08/17 10:15am

Cleburne Cafeteria About To Reopen in Its Third Building, Following Second Fire-Induced Shutdown

by
Upper Kirby, West University
13 Comments

The structure now being finalized at the once-on-Cleburne-St. Cleburne Cafeteria’s space at 3606 Bissonnet St. is notably bigger than the single-story building it’s replacing — a 2-story steel frame went up around the beginning of February, and the restaurant is shooting to open in its newest home by the end of the summer. (The view included here of the old building shows it just shy of the restaurant’s 75th anniversary, last spring; the shot up top shows progress on the new building just shy of the fire’s 1-year anniversary in late April.) Other reasons why this round of recovery has taken longer than the 3-month closure that followed the restaurant’s 1990 fire at the same address: Owner George Mickelis tells Katherine Feser this week that (relatively) new regulations and inspection requirements have drawn out the process, too.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

From the Ashes Near West U
, , ,
Featured Posts
06/01/17 2:00pm

How the 24-Sided Kinder Building’s Roof Swoops Will Fit In with the MFAH’s Expanding Building Collection

by
Museum District, Museums, New Construction
8 Comments

Construction started yesterday on the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, going up in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s former parking lot north of Bissonnet St. at Main. That’s the curvy-roofed structure itself visible in the rendering above — the drawing shows the expected view of the building from the rooftop garden of the already-under-construction nearby replacement for the formerly glass-covered Glassell School (whose underground parking garage opened up when the surface lot closed last week). Both of the new buildings were designed by Steven Holl Architects — here’s where they fall on the map, along some of the other big changes in the works for the Museum’s campus:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Museum District Parking
, , , , , , , , ,
Uncategorized
05/31/17 1:45pm

West University’s Metallic ‘Monstrosity’ House Now Up For Sale

by
10 Comments

That big metal-skinned house on Centenary St. in West University is on the market as of yesterday, listed for a smidge under $2.2 million.  The home’s construction in the early 2010’s touched off some nasty comments and light contractor harrassment from some of the folks in the area (though architect Cameron Armstrong said around the time of completion that most folks thought the final product was fine).  The big shiny box holds 2 floors and 4 bedrooms, with a rooftop patio that allows visitors to rise above any neighborhood hubbub and gaze off toward the Medical Center:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Shiny New Listing
, , , , ,
Featured Posts
05/10/17 11:30am

The Rice Village Plans To Remake Amherst St., Lure Shoppers Into an Alley

by
Redevelopment, Renovations, Restaurants, Retail, Rice Village
5 Comments

Remodeling along the lines of what’s depicted here is now underway on Amherst St. between Kelvin St. and Kirby Dr., according to a Rice Village District rep. A couple of newly released drawings shown here fill in details to some of the previously mentioned changes planned for the south side of Amherst, including the conversion of part of the roadway itself into more walking and sitting room behind some protective planters. And that narrow passageway in the building, running between Amherst and University Blvd., appears to be getting its own signage labeling it as The Alley (complete with light-up arrow directing shoppers inside).

The plans also call for some rooftop greenery and the chopping off of some pointy brick pediments — a swap which the District says will make all that 2-hours-free rooftop parking more visible, in the wake of the recent parking scheme changes:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Retail Redistricting
, , , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page Next Page »