Heavy equipment is back on the scene — and a metal plate on the way, a reader tells us — at the corner of White Oak Dr. and Beauchamp in Woodland Heights, adjacent to White Oak Bayou, where a hole suddenly appeared in freshly spread asphalt just hours after the street was resurfaced yesterday.
HOW YOU CAN HELP HOUSTON’S FIRST FULL-TIME HUMAN TRAFFICKING COFFEE SHOP COME TO LIFE 
Been looking for a good coffee shop somewhere around the Heights where folks can get together and discuss Houston’s role as a major hub for human trafficking? Where caffeine-hunters can experience moments of genuine outrage — then find themselves drawn toward information sessions, group discussions, planning meetings, and double espressos — knowing that all profits from their chatting and coffee-drinking habits will go toward charitable stuff like providing classes and counseling for survivors of human trafficking? If so, then you’ll be happy to learn about A 2nd Cup, which opened as a part-time “incubator” project a couple of years ago. Now the nonprofit, led by former junior-high science teacher Erica Raggett, has begun work on a buildout for a permanent, full-time home — in the Vineyard Church of Houston’s Storehouse storefront at 1111 E. 11th St., just east of Studewood St. (pictured above, right next door to longtime late-night cop favorite Andy’s Café). A 2nd Cup’s backers are trying to raise an additional $100,000 toward the effort on Indiegogo now. [Indiegogo] Photo mockup: A 2nd Cup
All that’s left of a 1956 steel-frame industrial building on the campus of ALG Truck & Trailer Repair at 4101 Fulton St. just south of Patton is these old cast-in-place concrete supports. The building, which lines the west side of the North Line light-rail extension in the Near Northside, was torn down over the last 2 weeks. Why are just these portions left standing?
It’s not entirely clear, but it might have something to do with the guy wires that are holding down a radio antenna tower adjacent to a service bay behind the Love’s Truck Stop directly to the west, which is accessed from nearby Patton St. It’s visible at the far left of the above photo — and in this marked-up view from Google, showing how it looked when the building was still intact:
The sign up at 3401 N. Main St. across from the Hollywood Cemetery leaves little doubt as to who the owner of Casa Grande blames for the Mexican restaurant and dance club’s shuttering. The 18-year-old establishment, which took over the by-then-long-abandoned site of the former Stuarts Drive-in, shut down last month, after several years of slow business. A sign at the entrance (pictured) now reads BANK CLOSED.
Looking a bit like a bricked-up, tricked out Americanized Florentine chapel, a solidly built property facing N. Main St. east of I-45 could swing either way. The property would work as a home or office, the listing suggests. (The second level could be a separate unit.) In a relisting this week after a 9-month break from the market, the undecided property knocked more than $100K off its previous ask, bringing the price tag to $249K. Back in May 2014, the sellers wanted $355K. But even that price was a second whittle for the property. It had first hit the market in June 2012 at $485K, but several adjustments had brought the price down to $385K before the listing expired 6 months later. In other words, the property is available now for just over half of the previous offering’s peak price.
The new brick building across from the Cavalcade station on Fulton St. that went up next to the former Dairy Queen corner spot known as Dairy Land is meant for Dairy Land, new lettering attached to the recently completed replacement structure attests. The signage went up shortly after the old building at 310 Cavalcade St. (pictured below) was demolished last week.
Visiting the former Mark’s Plaza shopping center at 4721 N. Main St. near the end of Airline Dr., reader Christopher Andrews notes that the new facade going up (top) appears to be headed in a slightly different direction than what was portrayed in the rendering (below) floated by Braun Enterprises after the serial shopping-center fixer-upper company bought the Norhill property and renamed it The Heights Place.
Previously remodeled and recently tidied, a Norhill cottage is attempting a flip with a twist — and a big finish. Having last sold in mid-October, for $416,000 after a $369,900 listing, the 1928 property popped up again over the weekend with an asking price more than $200K higher: $640,000. Could the price escalation be an example of how frighteningly frothy the local housing market has become, a reader asks? See if you can spot the updates . . .
Somewhere within this recently renovated and expanded shingle-sided double-decker home in Brooke Smith lies the 1926 single-story version it sprang from. Can you find it?
The Teotihuacán Mexican Café at the corner of Irvington and Cavalcade (now helpfully labeled “Festively adorned Tex-Mex restaurant” on Zagat-powered Google Maps) will be relocating a few blocks south once renovations to a structure the 3-restaurant chain’s owners purchased in late May can be completed. Kuko’s Taqueria shut down at 3707 Irvington Blvd., between Alber St. and Collingsworth, this past June. It appears some work on the interior is already taking place, notes reader Christopher Andrews.
Photos: Christopher Andrews
