H-E-B SCOPING OUT ITS OPTIONS IN THE HEIGHTS 
In response to questions about the possibility of building an H-E-B near the corner of Studemont St. and Washington Ave, H-E-B public affairs director Cyndy Garza-Roberts tells Swamplot that no contracts have been signed, and that the grocery store chain is talking to area developers that have “several tracts of land” in and around the Heights. Garza-Roberts told the Leader in 2015 that the Heights dry zone makes it hard to find suitable store locations, which also need to be at least 6 acres; the company is also eyeing the Garden Oaks/Oak Forest area. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of H-E-B at 5130 Cedar St.: Wayne A.
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Tag: 77008
A for sale sign has appeared on the fence outside of the 1918 house on the northwest corner of 20th and Harvard streets, notes a reader. The 2-story brick-over-concrete home, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as the Banta House, was listed for sale in February along with the Ink Spots Museum next door at 117 E. 20th. The 21,120 sq.ft. now mentioned by the sign as up for grabs and division appears to include the parking lot behind the 2 buildings, along with the land holding the blue house at 2005 Harvard St. (also penned in by the fence).
Houses Divided
A construction crew is currently at work around and on top of the bare former site of Texas Cafeteria, shielded from prying eyes on N. Shepherd Dr. by a small dirt pile. MFT Development (the group currently planning new and mixed uses for the site of the increasingly romantic former Heights Finance Station post office) is dressing up the space at the corner with 24th St. as another restaurant and maybe some retail, following the joint’s sale, shutdown, and stripping in early 2015. Behind the property to the right, the Fiesta Mart can be seen across 24th counting down to its March 27th closing, as the flags from Monterrey Tire Center peek over the former cafeteria’s roof.
Here’s a rendering of what the planned buildout could look like, plus or minus some tenant signage:
Where the Fiesta’s Ending
Alabama Furniture & Accessories’ 2-decade locale is getting cleared out for its planned redo, a neighbor notes. The building at 2200 Yale St. got a demo permit yesterday and started coming down later in the day. The site at the corner with 22nd St. is being cleared for another Braun Enterprises project: a third non-mobile Bernie’s Burger Bus location, as confirmed in October. The furniture store (named for its original 1992 location on Alabama St.) cleared out of its Yale home by the start of March, and has flown even further north to 4900 N. Shepherd Dr. between W. 43rd St. and Tidwell Rd.
- Bernie’s Burger Bus lands Heights brick-and-mortar location after months of speculation [HBJ]
- 2200 Yale; Is Bernie’s Burger Bus Coming to the Houston Heights? [Not Of It]
- Alabama Furniture to relocate as Yale Street developers move in [The Leader]
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: Hard Cornered
Photo of demo at 2200 Yale St.: Mosaic Clinic team
Migrating North
Update, 5 pm: Work on the wall is finished; this article has been updated with additional photos.
A reader catches more than a dozen folks in the act of dolling up the former post office at 11th St. with some giant hearts and numbers this morning. The building, which was recently given a Valentine’s-themed makeover on the opposite side by some likely-taller members of the Houston mural scene, has been getting romantic attention while waiting for MFT Development to go forward with plans to demolish the structure to build a lowrise retail and office complex.
In the interrim, MFT says they’ve set the art students of Hogg Middle School on the Heights Blvd. side of the building. Here’s another shot of the action, looking closer to 11th:
Love All Around
THE FIESTA ON N. SHEPHERD WILL BE SHUT DOWN IN 17 DAYS 
The Heights branch of parrot-adorned grocery store Fiesta Mart at 2300 N. Shepherd Dr. will be shuttered for good after closing time on March 27th, the store’s assistant manager told Betsy Denson of The Leader. The land has been owned by 2ML Real Estate since mid-2015, but 2ML president Jim Arnold, who’s other company owned the Fiesta until a few years ago, tells Denson it was Fiesta’s choice to bow out. As for the land itself, Arnold has “been approached by someone wanting to put in apartments – but any decision will wait for land studies and surveys. When asked if he’d like to see an H-E-B on the land, Arnold said he wouldn’t rule it out.” [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Fiesta Mart at 2300 N. Shepherd Dr.: Terah K.
A reader notes a notice of an application to sell alcohol posted on the door of the former Dealer Sales building at 1919 N. Shepherd Dr. The HBJ reported last August that Atlanta-based pizza-and-recently-burger chain Mellow Mushroom leased the space at the corner with 20th St. from serial redeveloper Braun Enterprises. The chain, which dropped its first Houston-area spore up in Spring, appears to be sprouting its second location within the somewhat ambiguous boundaries of the Houston Heights’ nominally dry zone.
The pizza place may provide more savory counterbalance to the sugar-laced shopping strip just to the south on the same block — where Fat Cat Creamery, Hugs & Donuts, and Smoothie King all nestle in with Finch Properties and hair salon Black Sheep Parlor along 19th St., sheltered by N. Shepherd-facing Ka Sushi. Renderings released last year for the redeveloping building show the Mushroom popping open in line with some additional retail space; the strip could also get lawyered up:
Sober News on N. Shepherd
The recently dumped Heights Finance Station post office at Yale and 11th streets was treated to a makeover this month, as demolition looms on the horizon. If all goes as planned, the building will eventually be brushed aside to make way for the younger-and-likely-prettier Heights Central Station mixed-use shopping center headed for the site; until then, it’s playing canvas for some Houston graffiti artists, including Wiley Robertson (one of the usual suspects behind giant love notes spotted around town).
A reader sends a fresh batch of lunchtime snapshots of the mural, which seems to have been wrapped up in the last few days:
Love Is In The Aerosol
The custom home and office building of Heights homebuilder Fisher Homes at 832 Yale St. is currently up for sale or lease. Construction on the just-under-15,000-sq.-ft. building south of 9th St. wrapped up near the end of 2014; the property listing indicates that availability started in January of this year.
Amenities at the Morrison Heights and Studemont Mid-Rise developer’s mixed-use space include an indoor basketball court, downtown views from the above-3rd-story rooftop terrace, and various conference rooms. Floorplans of the building show the middle-of-the-house driveway (which provides access to the backyard parking lot) separating a 437-sq.-ft. apartment (circled in dotted red below) from the main structure:
For Sale on Yale
Here’s the latest cloud-edged rendering of what could be coming to the corner of Yale and W. 21st streets, if Wellington Development gets its requested setback variance wish granted. A reader noticed the notice of the request posted outside of the building currently at 2105 Yale, which formerly housed Dorsey’s Beauty Academy prior to a decade of abandonment.
Wellington bought the spot last July, around which time Collum Commercial put out a leasing flyer showing a new floor-slash-parking plan for the property, which is boxed in on the non-Yale-and-21st-streets sides by the 2125 Yale apartments. Planned renovations to the building, which is listed in county records as 13,000 sq.ft., appear to involve some major trimming and resculpting to fit in new off-street parking spaces:
Yale Street Plaza
A brand new multi-building mixed-use development is planned for the site of the former Heights Finance Station post office, which shut down at the end of last year after being declared “no longer necessary” by USPS. The land on 11th St. between Heights Blvd. and Yale St. will move on, change its name to a less-stodgy Heights Central Station, and start a new life as the site of multiple 2-story lowrises housing ground-floor retail and restaurants with office spaces on top.
Heights Central Station
This after-dark snapshot of a lone excavator hunched atop a pile of its own debris comes from Wright-Bembry Park last Friday — tear-up work at the Shady Acres greenspace, located between W. 23rd and W. 24th Sts. west of Durham Dr., began last Monday, according to a reader’s report. The work is part of a redo of the entire park, as shown in the plan below (oriented with west at the top of the frame):
Shady Acres
A last fleeting glimpse — a reader snapped this shot of the permanently closed Paradise Motel at 8405 Hempstead Rd., between the junctions with W. 11th St. and Washington Ave and just northeast of Hines’s Somerset Green development. A rent-a-fence is now up around the 6-building complex, which sits next door to Custom Duct and across the railroad tracks from Non-Ferrous Extrusions metal fabrication. The hotel opened in 1963, back in the pre-290 days when the Hempstead Hwy. was the primary route to Austin.
- Hempstead Rd. [West Houston Archives]
Photo: Gail Garcia via Swamplot inbox
Industrial District Motel
Eureka Heights Brewing Company employees will get to work on beer as soon as they’re done “powerwashing the hell out of this warehouse” — that 22,000-sq.-ft. one formerly occupied by Jake’s Finer Foods on W. 18th St., half a block west of N. Durham Dr. (and even closer to the border of the Height’s historically (nominally) dry zone.) The brewery’s webpage also proudly touts its proximity to the trace of the Eureka Heights Fault, which crosses White Oak Bayou about where Ella Blvd. does (just a few blocks to the west of the newly leased space).
Other beer endeavors currently fermenting in and around the Greater Heights area include Platypus Brewpub (preparing to slip in behind the Tacodeli and upscale barbershop on their way to Washington Ave), Holler Brewing Company (planned for the Artists Alley section of the Sawyer Yards Development), Allen’s Landing Brewing Company (3540 Oak Forest Dr., a few blocks west of Petrol Station), and the seemingly-yet-unmoored Great Heights Brewing Company, which claims a numberless address on Heights Blvd. on its Facebook page.
Shady Acres at Fault
A makeover is underway at the Heights Plaza at 420 E. 20th St. between N. Main and Heights Blvd. Swamplot reader JerseyGirl sends photos of the strip center, once home to Sunny’s Washateria and J & R Boudin; the building is keeping some of its 1970s architectural details (such as those embedded cinderblocks) but is also getting some updates, including a total interior redo and a new white and bubblegum color scheme extending to the parking lot.
Workers on the site confirmed that one of the new tenants will be Birds Barbers, an Austin salon known for providing Shiner Bock as part of its customer experience — in addition to using it as a styling product, for “hair that is smooth and full of shineâ€. Steel City Pops will also move in — the Alabama-based popsicle chain, which the owner modeled off a Mexican paletas store encountered in Nashville, currently lists flavors including buttermilk, wassail, and spruce on the menu of their Dallas location.
Earlier renderings from Schaum & Shieh show the Heights Plaza strip center (to be rechristened The 420) as it may soon appear — give or take a high-gloss sheen, and those pink parking stops and bricks:
Heights Gets the Birds
