Tag: 77007

Featured Posts
01/16/18 1:30pm

Heights Vinyl Skipping Out of the Heights

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Houston Heights, Openings and Closings
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Heights Vinyl is getting ready to box up its collection of grooved disks, turntables, and other analog audio items before bolting from the building it shares with Cat Veterinary Clinic at 3122 White Oak Dr. (The record store’s former neighbor and industry peer — 3mA Audio — moved out of the space directly next to the vet’s office last year.) Last April, an entity connected to developer Ancorian bought the 8,900-sq.-ft. strip — as well as the adjacent apartment building at 3110 White Oak.

On Sunday, Heights Vinyl announced via Facebook that it would be moving to a Fifth Ward warehouse building south of I-10 at 3301 Cline St. That building is divided into 2 tenant spaces — Heights Vinyl will take over the one shown below, fronting the parking lot along Grove St.:

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Fifth Ward Bound
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Featured Posts
01/12/18 2:45pm

The Big New Steel Structure Now Hovering Over Studewood

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Houston Heights, Mixed Use, New Construction
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The 3 fluorescent-vested figures in the photo at top are standing on the third floorplate of the 15,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use building now going up on the northwest corner of Studewood and Omar streets. Developer Chris Dray of NewQuest is planting the 18,731-sq.-ft. property at 927 Studewood with a 3-story office structure including ground-floor retail called Heights Central (not to be confused with Heights Central Station). A house and 2 small retail structures — one of them formerly home to Dan’s Chrysler Marine Service — were demolished on the property in 2015.

Boulevard Realty plans to move into the complex from its current office in the space formerly occupied by Oolala, Heights Candy Bar, and Tulips & Tutus 2 blocks to the south. The storefront portion of company’s future digs is indicated below in a site plan taken from NewQuest’s leasing brochure:

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Heights Corner Redo
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Featured Posts
01/10/18 1:15pm

A Twist in the Mystery of Who Owns Those Heights Holdout House Bones

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Houston Heights, Quicklink
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A TWIST IN THE MYSTERY OF WHO OWNS THOSE HEIGHTS HOLDOUT HOUSE BONES Maybe you were expecting DNA testing to identify those human remains — found inside the wall of a Heights bungalow on Allston St.  — as those of Mary Cerruti, the missing 61-year-old woman who refused to let Trammell Crow annex her home as part of the Alexan Heights apartment complex the developer built on the block. After sending one of the recovered teeth to the University of North Texas last year to compare it to DNA samples from 3 of Cerruti’s relatives, the results are in — and there’s no exact match, reports Emily Foxhall. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences is still working to see if there’s any connection between Cerruti and skeleton left behind at 610 Allston, but according to a spokesperson, further study will take “a lengthy period of time.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HAR

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Featured Posts
01/10/18 11:30am

How Another Deal Warehouse Is Shaping Up in a Former First Ward Halliburton Habitat

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First Ward, Renovations, Warehouse Space
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Following the trail of industrial buildings transformed in the First Ward, a Swamplot reader in motion this morning sends this photo of workers getting a boost to install new siding along the Spring St. frontage of the former Halliburton manufacturing plant at 1907 Sabine St. A company overseen by developer Jon Deal bought the 1.3-acre complex of industrial buildings between Spring and Shearn streets in 2016. Five years earlier, Deal bought the property across Spring St. from the Halliburton plant and transformed it into Spring Street Studios. He also developed the Silos at Sawyer Yards studio as well as 2 other art spaces nearby it — all 3 blocks south of the former plant.

The complex includes a vacant lot on the corner of Spring and Silver streets:

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Oilfield Services Redo
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Featured Posts
01/09/18 12:30pm

Starting Tomorrow, Golden Bagels Will No Longer Rank Among the Not Yet Open

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Houston Heights, Openings and Closings, Retail
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Just how many would-be customers have been pulling up to the Golden Bagels & Coffee storefront at the corner of White Oak and Oxford, yanking on the locked front door, then walking away? Enough that the proprietors have seen fit to post a handwritten sign this morning telling them they’ll SEE YOU TOMORROW. The Heights’ first-ever bagel shop has already received 3 reviews on Yelp — one a 1-star rating (since upgraded to 3 stars) knocking the establishment for not being open this past Sunday even though the hours painted on the front door suggest otherwise, and two 5-star reviews submitted with the intention to counterbalance the first, noting that the shop at 3119 White Oak Dr. has not yet opened for business.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Heights Bagel Stakeout
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Bars and Clubs
12/27/17 12:30pm

Zadok Trashing Washington Ave Nightclub, Getting Back to Business with Former Guadalajara Bakery Building

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Demolitions, Redevelopment, Washington Ave, Washington Corridor
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The pile of mangled disco parts beyond the fence pictured at top is all that remains of the less-than-2-year-old La Roux nightclub building at 4011 Washington after crews brought down the house last week. In March, a real estate company connected to Zadok Jewelers bought the entire 39,000-sq.-ft. block on Washington between Leverkuhn and Jackson Hill St. La Roux was evicted earlier this year.

The club’s entrance was off Leverkuhn:

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La Roux-ined
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Adaptive Reuse
12/14/17 12:45pm

The First New Tenant in 7800 Washington’s Warehouse Redo Won’t Hang Around for Long

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Openings and Closings
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The former packaging warehouse at 7800 Washington — on its way to being reworked so that offices, furniture showrooms, and a restaurant can move into it, likely next year — already has a new tenant in place: The Study, a pop-up gallery and shop selling prints, greeting cards, and design-y gifts. Los Angeles-based artist Jacqueline Levine runs the store, which opened late last month in the southeast corner of the 66,000-sq.-ft. building.

Levine’s father, Larry Levine, is hoping a restaurant will take over the space once more of the building is ready for tenants. He’s the president of Levcor, the development firm that bought the building last year. The Study will be open through January, although it’ll take some holiday time off beginning on December 24.

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The Study
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Adaptive Reuse
12/12/17 3:30pm

8 Letters and a Big Eye Spell Out the Beginnings of Washington Ave Warehouse’s Transformation

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Study the photo at top carefully and you’ll see 2 eye-catching features that were installed in November: the gaping, cycloptic sculpture at the entrance to the parking lot outside 7800 Washington, as well as new lettering spelling out THE STUDY on the warehouse’s awning. Developer Levcor bought the 66,000-sq.-ft. brick building — at that time home to Brian Thomas Display & Packaging — last year and filed construction permits in September to begin renovating it into a space for offices, furniture showrooms, and a restaurant.

Before and after views show how the building’s front side on Washington, just northwest of the Katy Fwy., will be transformed:

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Cottage Grove
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Bars and Clubs
11/17/17 4:45pm

Original Beaver’s Still Closed, but Street Side Now Shows New Openings

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Renovations, Sixth Ward
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The doors aren’t open yet, but the windows are in at Beaver’s’s 10-year-old bar and barbecue joint on the corner of Sawyer and Decatur St., closed since early July. The photo at top shows 3 of the 4 new holes in the wall, including one cut straight through the building’s name tag, preserved in the image above from before the bar closed. The 2,500-sq.-ft. den was originally scheduled to reopen in September. A second location on Westheimer just east of Fountain View Dr., larger than the original, has been in business since January 2.

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Old Sixth Ward
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Apartments
11/14/17 2:45pm

Birdsall Stripped, City Place Apartments Marching into Rice Military

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Demolitions, New Construction, Redevelopment, Rice Military
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Site work has begun on the block of Birdsall St. just north of Memorial Dr., where demolition of the 2-story buildings comprising the former 57 Off Memorial apartments was finished up a couple of weeks ago. The photo above, sent to Swamplot by photographer Sonya Cuellar, shows a view of 160 Birdsall St. looking east in its current naked condition; Birdsall in the foreground and Venice St. on the right. The vacated portion of the Malone St. block beyond is also part of the project.

Going up in place of the 120 apartment units knocked out by the excavators: Jonathan Farb’s new City Place Memorial Park apartments, which renderings show would follow the pattern of Farb’s City Place Midtown apartments, only taller because the garages will be underneath and with more prominent cornices and balconies: 4 wood-framed stories will sit on top of 2-level concrete parking garages fitted with courtyard swimming pools on their decks. It’ll have 264 units in 2 separate buildings.

Photo: Sonya Cuellar. Rendering: Farb Homes/Wallace Garcia Wilson Architects

Farb Homes
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Adaptive Reuse
11/13/17 4:00pm

Post-Retirement Plan for Montalbano Tire: Restaurant, Retail, Offices

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First Ward, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments
6 Comments

Here’s what’s expected to park in the garage at Montalbano Tire and Auto Service after the business shuts down next week: a restaurant or 2, retailers, and office tenants. Kaldis Development Interests purchased the .81-acre property at 1302 Houston Ave in mid-October and plans to renovate it before reopening it as a 15,000-sq.-ft. retail-and-office center.

On the Houston Ave front (see top drawing), windows would be fitted into the building’s current garage bays, with a restaurant patio facing the street at the northern end. On the south side, the metal structure facing Dart St. would be punctured with new window bays as well as doors for individual storefronts.

According to the site plan for the proposed new development (below) 7 head-in parking spaces off of Houston Ave would remain after the redo:

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First Ward Redo
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Bars and Clubs
11/03/17 1:00pm

Washington Ave’s New Drive-Thru Daiquiri Spot, Just Down the Street from the Drive-Thru Margaritas

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Restaurants, Washington Ave
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A fourth Candy Shack Daiquiris To Go is planning to open next year on Washington Ave, just 2-and-a-half blocks to the west of the existing W Grill Margaritas To Go drive-thru at Washington and Durham.

Candy Shack is slated to take over the property at 5111 Washington Ave (pictured above), where Coast Eatery + Bar both opened and closed this year. (The property was listed for lease in August.) Before Coast’s tenure, the space was occupied by itinerant Mexican-food joint Taqueria La Macro.

There’s much more than just a drive-thru going into this location, however: The Washington Ave Candy Shack will include a bar, for drinkers not speeding off to their next appointment.

Photo: LoopNet

Packing a Punch
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Evictions
11/02/17 12:45pm

2100 Memorial’s Eviction Order, Completely Transformed

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Lawsuits, Quicklink, Sixth Ward
5 Comments

2100 MEMORIAL’S EVICTION ORDER, COMPLETELY TRANSFORMED A statement from the Houston Housing Authority yesterday says it “is making every effort to comply” with a judge’s temporary restraining order issued last week ordering the public agency to fix the fire-safety systems at the 14-story 2100 Memorial senior living apartment complex, test the building’s electrical transformers, and replace them if necessary. Judge Daryl Moore also prohibited the authority from terminating the leases of any of its tenants without demonstrating better cause than it has. An estimated 80 percent of the former Holiday Inn’s residents have already moved out. [Houston Chronicle; more; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Realtor.com  

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Featured Posts
11/02/17 11:30am

Unhappy with Neighbor, Happy Fatz Shuts Down Its White Oak Hot Dog and Bakery Operation

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Houston Heights, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
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Specialty hot dog shop and bakery Happy Fatz closed its bungalow doors for good yesterday at 3510 White Oak Dr. — after 6 and a half years in the Heights. “The uphill battle with the ‘neighboring’ house for the last 2 years became a greater challenge than expected,” reads a brief announcement posted yesterday to the restaurant’s Facebook page. A new 2-story, 4,400-sq.-ft. home was constructed last year on an adjacent property — a portion of which formerly served as a patio and parking lot for the restaurant. It’s currently listed for sale.

Happy Fatz’s owners write that they’ll continue to open pop-up shops in the Houston area. But they say they’ll be turning their attention to the Hill Country, opening a restaurant called Wildflour Artisan Bakery & Grill in Canyon Lake.

Photo: Kim W.

Out of the Dog House
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