GOOD FIRST WARD COFFEE SHOPS ARE HARD TO FIND 
Houstonia Magazine’s Nick Panzarella likes what he sees — er, drinks at Paper Co., a reincarnation of Taft Street Coffee that’s moved in behind that Marfreless-like blue door at the Ecclesia Church on Elder St. But this door — though just around the corner from the artist lofts at the old Jefferson Davis Hospital, it opens up to a permashaded no person’s land beneath I-45 — seems to give Panzarella some pause: “Its location, being tucked into a dead end on the edge of the First Ward, is its largest drawback.” [Houstonia Magazine; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
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A reader has spotted some signs hanging on the fence outside 4003 Washington near Leverkuhn, where the Guadalajara Bakery used to be: The slick one in the photo above for La Roux, and another just a few feet away indicating that La Roux has applied to sell alcohol. County records show that the 1930 4,368-sq.-ft. building at 4003 Washington and 2 nearby vacant lots — the 5,100-sq.-ft. one at 4011 Washington, and the 28,045-sq.-ft. one at 4015 Washington — are all owned by Kaplan Kalan Properties.
So it turns out that Lovett Commercial is planning to put a new restaurant with retail space on an old industrial site in the First Ward — just not the site we thought. Those 1950s metal warehouses a reader photographed in the midst of demolition were taken down, says a Lovett rep, for the space. And the rep says Lovett has no plans to speak of for that site. But that restaurant, rendered here, will be just across the street on the southeast corner of Sawyer and Edwards. There, says the rep, the long building that stands parallel to the street at 2313 Edwards and backs up against the railroad tracks will not be torn down but renovated into something like what you see here.
More renderings:
Note: Story updated below.
A reader sends this photo of the demolition of the 1950s metal warehouses across the street from the former Johnny Franks Auto Parts at the corner of Sawyer and Edwards St. in the First Ward. County records show that both this 1.2-acre lot and the larger 2.4-acre Johnny Franks lot are owned by the same entity: Westheimer Retail Center Ltd., located at 1520 Oliver St. And it just so happens that retail developer Lovett Commercial, also located at 1520 Oliver St., has posted on its website a pair of pretty pictures of a new cafe — at the corner of Sawyer and Edwards!
Since many of the big-headed attendees here at David Adickes’s former SculpturWorx compound are already dressed in formal wear — well, except for the Beatles — it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for the Vanderbilt, the new event space with the highfalutin name being prepped for an opening later this month. A reader reports that the Vanderbilt has applied for its liquor license, and you can see one of those telltale TABC signs hanging beneath the plywood in the window at the top of the stairs.
- Previously on Swamplot: An Alamo Drafthouse at SculpturWorx? Not So Fast, David Adickes’s Big-Headed Summer Street Studio Getting a Redo
Photo: Allyn West
WHAT’S BEST FOR BUFFALO BAYOU? 
Let it flow, or let it be? Environmentalists and the Harris County Flood Control District disagree — at least when it comes to the 1.5-mile stretch that contributes to the “jungly ecosystem” of the Hogg Bird Sanctuary in Memorial Park, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Lisa Gray. A “restoration” plan proposed by the flood controllers, explains Gray, “would change the bayou’s course in places, fill in an oxbow here, reinforce banks there, widen the bayou’s channel, raising and lowering landmasses and generally move an enormous amount of dirt. [They argue] that the proposed measures are desperately needed to reduce erosion and improve water quality.” They’d do it here as they did it at Meyer Park along Spring Creek, reports Gray. But the environmentalists don’t seem to consider that to have been a “restoration” project, really: “‘Look at that!” [Memorial Park Conservancy board member Katy Emde] told me, outraged, showing me a picture of Meyer Park on her phone. ‘There’s no diversity! It’s not natural! It’s not habitat! It’s horrifying.'” [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo of Hogg Bird Sanctuary: Bayou Shuttle
As many as 8 new bike-sharing stations could open inside the Loop in the next 2 weeks. Will Rub, director of Houston B-Cycle, tells Swamplot that permits are in hand and the bikes forthcoming for these 5 stations: Spotts Park, at 401 S. Heights Blvd; the intersection of Taft and Fairview, at 2401 Taft St.; the Menil Collection, at 1529 W. Alabama St.; Leonel Castillo Community Center, which is undergoing a restoration at 2109 South St.; and the intersection of Milam and Webster, at 2215 Milam St.
And Rub adds that 3 other locations are just waiting for their permits: Stude Park, at 1031 Stude St., and 2 others east, for the first time, of the Southwest Fwy.: Settegast Park at Garrow and Palmer in the Second Ward, and Project Row Houses at Holman and Live Oak in the Third Ward. Rub expects those to be ready to roll September 19th or 20th.
- New Locations Coming Soon [Houston B-Cycle]
- B-Cycle spreading west and north of downtown [The Highwayman]
- Previously on Swamplot: Are Houston’s B-Cycles ‘Merely Toys for Urban Bohemians’?, Going Back to the Near Northside School on the Hill, Multiplying Houston’s Rent-a-Bike Fleet, What Bike Sharing in Houston Might Look Like
Photo of station at Lamar and Milam: Reddit user txsupernova
Dude! Got a snazzy idea for that 1927 underground water reservoir near Sabine St. on Buffalo Bayou, but you just can’t picture what’s down there? Well, grab the potato chips and crank up Pink Floyd, because now you can. The Buffalo Bayou Partnership is reaching out in the hope that entrepreneurs, artists, and visionaries the city over will use the above video, created by SmartGeometrics, for inspiration. (And more 3D images are forthcoming on the partnership’s website.)
Even more action in the Old Sixth Ward: A reader sends this photo of the former Bayou City Market on the corner of Henderson and Kane, which appears to have been chosen as the future location of Bun Penny Food & Wine. The reader says that the neighborhood corner store has been closed for a few years. It’s just a few blocks south of the proposed location of that new office building fronting Washington Ave.
- Previously on Swamplot: Some People Have To Work: An Office Building Among the Bars on Washington Ave, Another New Restaurant in an Old Old Sixth Ward Building?, A Restaurant Renovation in the Old Sixth Ward
Photo: Swamplot inbox
So much for that walkable plaza with bike stations and jugglers and food trucks: It appears that an office building is going to go up instead on this underused triangular slice o’ land along Washington Ave. The variance is to reduce the setback from 25 ft. to 5 ft. in order to make room for parking and a 3,517-sq.-ft. office building. The 0.26-acre triangle is bound by Henderson, White, Union, and Washington. A site plan included in the variance request shows that the office would go up on the Henderson side, across the street from Liberty Station.
A reader frequently on the lookout for new TABC signs has noticed one in the window of this former lounge at 908 Henderson, just a block south of Liberty Station on Washington Ave. Says the sign-spotter: “I was always told [this] was going to be a pizza place but never really believed it.” Does that sound too good to be true? County records don’t show a change in ownership of the 1915 3,036-sq.-ft. structure since 2008, but the TABC sign the reader saw does appear to date to this June.
- Previously on Swamplot: A Restaurant Renovation in the Old Sixth Ward
Photo: Swamplot inbox
THIS OK? GREYSTAR CHECKS IN WITH WOODLAND HEIGHTS NEIGHBORS ABOUT SKYLANE REPLACEMENT 
Motivated to avoid some of the same blowback that developers of the Ashby Highrise, Morrison Heights condos and apartments, and 17-story San Felipe office building have received from sign-making neighbors, Greystar has been busy meeting with folks in Woodland Heights to discuss Elan Heights, the 8-story, 276-unit complex that will be replacing the ’60s Skylane on Taylor St. And what are those neighbors worried about? The usual suspects, writes the Houston Chronicle’s Erin Mulvaney: “. . . [S]pecifics of entry and exit at certain streets, plans for sidewalks, availability of bicycle parking, sewage and the preservation of existing oak trees . . . [and] the implications of the traffic analysis required by the city.” A rep explains why Greystar’s doing what it’s doing: “People more than anything else want to be informed and know what’s happening in their community. . . . The reality is that we are not required to do that. . . . We do it because we want to be good neighbors.” Greystar says it will close on the property next month, and the demo of the Skylane will follow in early 2014. [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Meeks + Partners
A trio of retailers have inked their deals to take up most of the space in that slow-to-develop shopping center along Yale St. on the 8-acre site sold and vacated earlier this year by San Jacinto Stone. The Houston Chronicle reports that LA Fitness, Guitar Center, and Sprouts Farmers Market have all signed leases here. This will be the first Sprouts location inside the Loop. There remains about 22,000 sq. ft. for lease in the proposed 150,000-sq.-ft. shopping center squeezed between the Washington Heights Walmart and the new I-10 feeder roads. Construction on the center could begin in the next few months.
- Developing Smart Opportunities for Retail [Ponderosa Land Development]
- Retailers sign up for center near Heights [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Retailers in upcoming Heights shopping center revealed [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Look What’s Sprouting on Westheimer and Kirkwood, San Jacinto Stone To Reopen at Wholesale Gardens in Bellaire, The End of the San Jacinto Stone Age, Sprouts Far Out, Shops Replacing San Jacinto Stone, Just North of the South-of-the-Heights Walmart, Look Out for Sprouts
Rendering: Ponderosa Land Development
FEARING THE YOGA DADS THE NEW HEIGHTS HIKE AND BIKE LINK WILL BRING 
The Houston Chronicle reports that the Bayou Greenways project is paying for a new 1.35-mile section hooking up the existing White Oak Bayou and Heights hike and bike trails. Part of completing this stretch will require replacing the bridge shown here, a burned-out trestle that butts up to the former Eureka Railyard. Psyched about this new link that, when completed in 2014, will get cyclists from Downtown all the way out to Antoine Dr., Houstonia’s John Nova Lomax still seems more than a little ambivalent about losing the blackened thing: “The eastern foot of that bridge has been a meditation zone / power spot of mine for the last few years, my own trash-strewn bayou-pungent pre- and post-work Eden. No more — soon it will teem with with yoga dads and crossfit maniacs and their occasionally ill-behaved pooches.” [Ultimate Heights; Houstonia; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Patrick Feller [license]
USING PICTURES TO PICTURE USES FOR BUFFALO BAYOU’S BASEMENT 
There’s still no real plan for that 1927 underground reservoir along Buffalo Bayou near Sabine St. But, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Lisa Gray — one devoted parishioner of this “accidental cathedral” — there’s now a new technology in place that might help would-be entrepreneurs visualize the possibilities: “SmartGeometrics, a company whose main business is creating super-precise 3-D digital models of real places . . . will show video-game-like digital models to the public . . . and will explain how, soon, the data will be available to anyone who wants to plug it into his design software. . . . ‘This is a starting point for us,’ [Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s Guy Hagstette] says. ‘We’re trying to decide on the big picture. What should the concept be? Is it environmental art? A giant nightclub? A parking garage?” [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo: SWA Group
