03/16/15 12:15pm

Townhome Under Construction, 5902 Schuler St., Woodcrest, Houston

The upper floors of a townhome under construction at the corner of Knox and Schuler streets in Woodcrest were dismantled by workers over the weekend. Late last week, the mostly framed but still unsheathed building went askew after — according to a reader report — a forklift bonked it a little too hard. The damage appeared to be restricted to the bottom floor, with studs gaining a noticeable lean. The reader also reported seeing bulges appear in the back of the structure.

At the time of the accident, workers under contract to Suca’s Home Builders had framed 3 and a half stories of the 4-story townhome at 5902 Schuler St. By Saturday, the building was down to 2 stories, as pictured above. The following day, most of the second floor was removed as well, and the structure had been pulled straight by the forklift, according to the reader — as shown here:

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Downright Upright in Woodcrest
03/16/15 10:00am

CAFE JAPON, MISSING FROM KIRBY DR. SINCE LATE LAST YEAR, DISCOVERED IN FORMER ZUSHI SPOT AT MEMORIAL AND WESTCOTT 5900 Memorial Dr. at Westcott St., Rice Military, HoustonA World of Beer is headed into 3915 Kirby Dr. spot just north of the Southwest Fwy. that Café Japon quietly left near the end of last year, after a $14K-a-month listing for its 4,000-sq.-ft. space went up over the summer. Meanwhile, the exiled sushi restaurant reopened late last week in the slightly larger space formerly occupied by Zushi Japanese Cuisine in the bottom of the small office building at 5900 Memorial Dr. [Eater Houston] Photo: Greenberg & Company

03/13/15 5:45pm

Townhomes Under Construction at 1301 Knox St. and 5902 Schuler St., Woodcrest, Houston

“Yesterday around 4:30 pm we heard a strange creak, and when we looked across the street, this is what we saw,” reports a Swamplot reader who was at the corner of Knox St. and Schuler in Woodcrest. The unintended lean in the first floor of the westernmost of 2 townhouses under construction on the site was apparently caused by a nudge from a high lift forklift. The 4-story structures at 1305 Knox and 5902 Schuler are under construction by Suca’s Home Builders.

“It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the back of the house has bulged out about a foot as well,” writes reader Matthew, who also reported seeing workers around, in, and on the building today, which he considers “in serious danger” of collapsing.

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Don’t Fall for This
03/11/15 3:45pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SIGHTS ON AND OFF THE MEMORIAL DR. STRIP Starbucks Drive Thru, Houston“. . . The whole thing of having this parkside expressway that drops to 35 and morphs into a suburban strip for all of 1/4 mile before resuming high-aesthetics high-speed is wonderfully convenient. Your last chance gas, your breakfast tacos and kolaches, your late-night eats . . . it’s all right there, no mucking about with U-turns or feeder roads required. And no, this stripmall won’t be a huge visual contribution . . . but who cares? The views just 100 yards to the south are about as aesthetically pleasing as one can find in our fair city, and after all, isn’t that what matters? So much discussion of the urban form boils down to complaining about what we see from our car windows. But if the view from home and office is nice, isn’t that really what matters?” [Purple City, commenting on How a Stretch of the Memorial Dr. Strip Earned Its Newest Strip Center] Illustration: Lulu

03/10/15 12:45pm

A MISSION ATHLETIC CLUB AND DRINKERY WANTS TO STRETCH OUT AND SERVE DRINKS IN AND AROUND THIS NETT ST. BUNGALOW 4504 Nett St., West End, HoustonA TABC notice went out earlier this week to neighbors of this 1,430-sq.-ft. bungalow on a 10,000-sq.ft. lot on the northeast corner of Patterson and Nett streets in the West End. Hoping to serve beer and wine at 4504 Nett St. (misidentified as 4505 Nett St. on the notice): a new establishment called the Mission Athletic Club and Drinkery. Washington Ave is 2 blocks to the south. Photo: Swamplot inbox

03/10/15 11:45am

Park Place Memorial Strip Center, 5801 Memorial Dr., Bayou Bend, Houston

Katherine Feser has the inside scoop on how the $7 million strip center portrayed above — but loaded with a Dunkin’ Donuts, a dry cleaner, and — yes, a mattress store — is coming to land in its rightful place along the south side of Memorial Dr. just east of Westcott, 2 doors down from the MFAH’s Bayou Bend Collection. Developer Amir Taghdisi tells Feser he and his brother Alan chose not to build a 3- or 4-story office building with below-grade parking on the site “because it would have been an outdated format from the beginning.” Instead, the 10,000-sq.-ft. strip center is now under construction at the back of the three-quarters-of-an-acre lot, with rows of parking facing Memorial Dr. and Knox St.

Why think so small? “I had all the big names wanting to do a 30-story high-rise for lease,” Taghdisi tells Feser. But he says the homeowners association of Bayou Bend Towers, directly to the south, wouldn’t let him.

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The Towers and the Strip
03/09/15 3:00pm

602-e-9th-03

602-e-9th-01

Fronting byways rather than bayous, a 1993 Creole-style cottage in the Houston Heights has room-like porches on the front and back. The bisque-hued property looks over more plantings and pavers than free-range lawn; in its initial listing last week, the price is $989K.

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Creole Cooking
02/23/15 3:30pm

pearl-washington-pano

Fresh from the Twitter feed of pics-about-town provider Christopher Andrews, here’s a panoramic view of the northeast corner of Washington Ave and T.C. Jester Blvd., where construction is proceeding on the Morgan Group’s 6-story Pearl Washington apartment complex. The 322-unit property will feature this courtyard deck facing the front entry at 5424 Washington Ave, a mile west of the similarly named but differently purposed Pearl Lounge.

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Apartments at T.C. Jester
02/20/15 11:45am

NO PARKING VARIANCE FOR HEIGHTS MERCANTILE RETAIL REDO ON 7TH AND YALE Proposed Heights Mercantile Retail and Office Complex,  7th St. at Yale St., Houston HeightsDespite a recommendation from the planning department staff to allow the development to proceed with significantly fewer parking places than required by ordinance, the planning commission yesterday denied a parking variance for the proposed Heights Mercantile mixed-use building complex along 7th St. between Yale St. and Heights Blvd., the longtime site of a warehouse complex for the Pappas Restaurant group. The Finial Group, the project’s developers, had hoped to be allowed to count 58 existing head-in public parking spaces along 7th St., many of them fronting the MKT Hike and Bike Trail, toward the development’s off-street parking requirements. [Previously on Swamplot] Rendering of proposed new building along Yale St.: Michael Hsu Office of Architecture

02/18/15 3:15pm

Wortham Insurance Visitors Center, Buffalo Bayou Park, Houston

Here’s a photo from earlier this month showing construction progress on the new Wortham Insurance Visitors Center on Sabine St., fronting the “Waterworks” area of the ever-expanding Buffalo Bayou Park complex. When it’s complete — sometime this summer — the 2,736-sq.-ft. building will house an info desk, a bike-rental facility, and — yes — restrooms. A terrace on top will be available for special events. A gaggle of insurance companies led by Wortham Insurance donated $750K toward the building’s more-than-$1-million construction cost.

The building, designed by Page — the same firm responsible for the buildings on Discovery Green — is meant to serve as the “primary gateway” to Buffalo Bayou Park, including these surrounding features:

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Same Wortham, Different Center
02/09/15 10:45am

Coltivare, 3320 White Oak Dr., Houston Heights

Red Tag at Coltivare, 3320 White Oak Dr., Houston HeightsHeights pizza-and-veggie spot Coltivare now sports a bright red tag (shown at right) next to its front door — after a city inspector found fault with its newly protected-from-weather patio space facing the side garden (the white tent-like structures in the photo above) last week. What’s wrong with covering a patio with a temporary structure for the winter?

Nothing, but it does trigger some permitting issues. “An uncovered patio isn’t considered an occupied space,” a Swamplot reader familiar with Houston building regulations writes. But: “A lot of folks don’t realize covered patios count as building square footage and must be permitted.”

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Restaurant Creep
02/05/15 12:45pm

Proposed Heights Mercantile Retail and Office Complex,  7th St. at Yale St., Houston Heights

Proposed Heights Mercantile Retail and Office Complex,  7th St. at Yale St., Houston HeightsResidents near the section of 7th St. between Yale St. and Heights Blvd. have been discussing plans to turn the group of warehouse buildings long held by Pappas Restaurants into a 4-building “creative neighborhood and shopping destination” called Heights Mercantile. The Finial Group, which bought the properties from Pappas and a few other landowners last year, hired Austin architect Michael Hsu to come up with plans for renovating 3 of the buildings lining 7th St., tearing down the long warehouse lining Yale St. and replacing it with the new 2-story structure pictured above. The new project is a joint venture between Finial and a local investment firm called Radom Capital.

A notable feature of the 1.4-acre site plan is 3 stretches of head-in parking along 7th St. The plan shows 36 spaces on the north side of the street, facing the row of wooden bollards lining the hike-and-bike trail converted from the path of the former MKT rail line and 2 banks of 11 spaces in a row on the opposite side. Although head-in parking configurations dominate in some portions of the city (Rice Village, for example), new stretches of more than 4 spaces in a row have been prohibited by city regulations for decades.

The Pappas warehouses have head-in parking along 7th St. The developer not only wants to preserve and adjust that arrangement for the new development, but is asking the city to count these on-street spaces toward the required number of off-street spaces. The planning commission is scheduled to rule on the associated parking variance application this afternoon.

Here’s a site plan:

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Retail Revamp
01/22/15 12:45pm

Los Dos Amigos Mexican Restaurant, 5720 Washington Ave, Woodcrest, Houston

Los Dos Amigos Mexican Restaurant, 5720 Washington Ave, Woodcrest, HoustonThe last date to order cheese enchiladas at Los Dos Amigos, the Mexican restaurant that’s stood at 5720 Washington Ave at the corner of Birdsall for the past 39 years, is February 28th. In early December, the longtime owners of an L-shaped group of parcels spanning the entire north side of the Washington Ave block between Birdsall and Malone — along with an adjoining “L” around the corner facing Birdsall (see map above) — sold the whole thing to a developer out of Dallas operating under the name of a partnership calling itself OSF Washington. Among the other entities linked to the buyers: Vintala Partners, which has developed apartments in the past.

Also on the block and going away: the Premo’s Grocery building at 5702 Washington. The entire site, including both buildings and parking lots, measures 26,675 sq. ft.

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Developers from Dallas
01/14/15 5:15pm

3500 White Oak Dr., Houston Heights Historic District South

3500 White Oak Dr., Houston Heights Historic District South

The owner of this 1930-ish former gas station and duplex bungalow at 3500 White Oak Dr. in the Houston Heights Historic District South plans to tear down the 2 structures and build a single-family home on the 8,800-sq.-ft. site — likely facing the side street, Cortlandt. Last week by a vote of 12 to 6 Houston’s planning commission reversed the decision of the archaeological and historic commission, allowing the demo to go through. The HAHC had denied the owner’s demolition request in November, insisting that the structures could be rehabbed. But experts hired by the owner indicated that the underground gas tank beneath the station couldn’t be removed without demolishing that structure, and that redevelopment of the duplex would be “cost prohibitive.”

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They’re History