- 1804 Hickory St. [HAR]
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Tag: 77007
WHERE THE WALMART GOLDEN ARCHES WILL RISE 
The first sign that there’ll be a McDonald’s in the “Washington Heights” shopping-center development at Yale St. and Koehler . . . has appeared outside the Mickey D’s 2 miles away on Washington near I-10, notes the Swamplot reader who snapped this photo there. Where’s the new location? If you’re looking too hard, you might miss it: 111 Yale St. is the address for the Walmart currently under construction; that means you should be able to find your burgers and fries inside the store when it opens. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
Inspired by the photo tour of sidewalk-blocking utility poles along Harrisburg Blvd. featured earlier this week on Swamplot, a reader wonders if anyone might pay similar attention to the poles left lining the west side of Yale St. in front of the San Jacinto Stone property south of I-10 after the street was widened (and a row of street trees removed) to accommodate a new left-turn lane at Koehler St. for the coming Walmart:
ABOUT THOSE “EARLY MORNING” CONCRETE POURS 
A neighbor of the Park Memorial construction site in Rice Military writes: “Just a question on Houston city ordinances. Are there any restrictions on construction in the middle of the night? I was awakened at 3 am this morning by a massive concrete pour. The site has been lit up with floodlights and there are multiple trucks with back up signals, machinery noise and yelling workers. I found some general noise ordinances but wondered if there are any other rules? This is as bad as any nightclub or worse.” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A CITYCENTRE IN THE CITY’S CENTER WOULD’VE MADE THE GRADE “. . . The Ainbinder/Orr/San J Stone sites represent over 30 acres of land being developed with only 280 residential units going up on the old Sons of Hermann site. About the same number of apartments were demo-ed for Ainbinder’s strip mall. That means 30 plus acres of land being developed with no net increase in housing or office space in an area that should be booming with that kind of development. There are no other 30 plus acre tracts west of Downtown that have the same development potential as this site did. It may be one step forward to replace vacant land with strip malls. But it is two steps back when you consider what a City Centre style mixed use development would have done for the area. It would have generated way more in tax revenue and made property values in the immediate west end neighborhood shoot through the roof. Instead, we are getting the lowest possible tax revenue generating development that will cost six million in future tax revenues. It is like being happy when your kid gets a C minus in school. It is better than getting an F and graduating is better than dropping out. But if your kid has the potential to do A plus work, then the C minus should be a huge disappointment. Those thirty plus acres had the potential to be one of the most significant developments in Houston. Instead, it is going to be the same development that gets put in on cheap land in the burbs when a new housing development goes in. If my tax dollars are going to be thrown at wealthy developers, I want to get every dollar’s worth and will not be happy with anything other than the most productive use of the land. Developers who will not deliver that can pay their own way.” [Old School, commenting on Shops Replacing San Jacinto Stone, Just North of the South-of-the-Heights Walmart]
Here’s a parking-lot view — what you’d see from Yale St. — of a 125,000-sq.-ft. strip development planned for the site of San Jacinto Stone, immediately north of the Washington Heights Walmart going up just south of I-10. San Jacinto Stone measures its stoneyard at 4 acres; the proposed 8-acre development taking over for it appears to include a few adjacent properties to the north, including frontage along the new I-10 feeder road and White Oak Bayou.
On a few maps, this false-shutter-and-keystone-bedecked Arlington Court home appears to occupy a lot at the corner of E. Terrace Dr. and E. Terrace Dr. One of those streets, however, is just a stub serving 4 driveways within the enclave development just east of Memorial Park. The property is one lot in from the Memorial Dr. entry of the ungated-but-guarded neighborhood. That puts it on the block-long main drag — the only straight shot in the community of mostly front-loading, 2-story homes lining winding roads, a cul-de-sac, and one loopdeloop. (One interior street discreetly ties into Crestwood Dr. and its by-the-bayou estates.) Listed last week at $1,295,000, this property with a side-loading double driveway previously changed hands in April 2009Â for $1 million and change.
According to several reports, the fire that appeared to be coming from the building that housed the recently shuttered Broken Spoke Cafe began this afternoon at the duplex next door, at 1807 Washington Ave. That structure has been completely destroyed; fire department officials report that the Broken Spoke, at 1809 Washington, has “sustained major damage.” A third house nearby got mighty warm. No injuries have been reported.
- The Broken Spoke Goes Up in Smoke: Pictures and Video [Eating Our Words]
Photos: John Luu (fire), Matt Hackworth (smoke)
The lone residential unit atop the Proguard Self Storage office at the corner of Heights Blvd. and Center St. is available for you to rent — and of course fill up with stuff. Unlike the other units located on the premises, this one comes with a kitchen, a washer and dryer, and an actual bathroom, but lacks roll-up doors. Like the other units, it’s all bills paid. Shaded parking is available under this wooden structure against the north fence, past the controlled-access gate:
It’s twins — and they’re holding their ground as new townhomes morph up the Darling block east of T. C. Jester in Cottage Grove, near Detering. This new listing pegs the double-dip property at $149,999, leaving its future use to the buyer.
Inspired by a Kyrie O’Connor column last month decrying the absence of any Little Free Libraries in Houston, Heights resident Mag Franzoni and her husband went ahead and created one themselves. At the grand opening of the tiny custom-built bright-red exchange box perched on a couple of 4x4s in front of the home at 736 Tulane St. earlier this month, Franzoni had it stocked with a carefully pruned collection that included a biography of Ho Chi Minh, John McCain’s Character Is Destiny, Portia de Rossi’s anorexia tell-all, and Max Brooks’s World War Z, on the coming Zombie War. “I loved the idea where people could go and grab a book (and hopefully — if they can – bring a different one in return) and basically making this library into a gift that keeps on giving,” the newly minted front-yard librarian wrote the Heights Kids Group. “I hope some of you will stop by and pick up/bring a book. And if not, maybe you can share it with everyone you know so eventually everyone in Houston knows where to go when they want/need a book to read.”
Photos: Mag Franzoni
A Swamplot reader offers a trade: A few photos of the retention ponds going in north of White Oak Bayou where 6th St. was blocked between Yale and Shepherd (above and below) — in exchange for more details on the park that’s apparently planned for that location, including a scheduled completion date for the construction. “I have no ‘official’ information, only old data and hearsay,” reports the reader. Which includes this map dating from 2010:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: NAMING THE NEW STUDEMONT KROGER “. . . It’s ‘Broger’ because the guys that hang out at the bars on Washington are ‘dude-bros.’ ‘Party Kroger’ makes it sound like a place where one might have a party, but ‘Broger’ describes the people who will be shopping there.” [Eric, commenting on Up Pops the Studemont Kroger]
“The thing went up in about two weeks,” writes the camera-toting bicyclist from the First Ward who sends us these photos of the new Kroger under construction at 1400 Studemont, just south of I-10. “I was hoping they would link it through to Target,” continues the tipster. “As all this industrial stuff redevelops in that area they are going to have to break up some of the super blocks or the traffic is going to be a mess.” As part of a “380†tax-reimbursement agreement approved by the city last year, Kroger promised to build a block of Summer St. behind the store (part of which is labeled Hicks St. on the plan shown here) to connect it through to Studemont. There’s also a tighter route:
If it’s, say, 1980, and you’re trying to get rid of a dead body, burying it at the foundation level of a brand-new condo complex going up over the reported site of an ancient cemetery might sound like a perfect after-offing disposal plan. But in Houston, you never know what’s going to get dug up next. HPD detective Carlos Cardenas tells Chronicle reporter Mike Glenn he doesn’t think the partial skeleton unearthed by construction workers yesterday on the site of the recently demolished Park Memorial Condominiums at 5292 Memorial Dr. (pictured above in a late stage of assisted decomposition) belongs to the native American graveyard reported to have existed there previously.
Forensic testing should give a clearer answer, but the circumstances of the body’s burial appear to tell a story on their own: The human remains were discovered along Chandler St. near Arnold, at the far northeastern corner of the complex, wedged between a retaining wall and a concrete slab that workers were taking out. The body was likely concealed there when the Park Memorial Condos were built, police detectives tell Glenn.
