Tag: 77019

Buffalo Bayou Park
01/23/17 10:30am

Dandelion Fountain Caught Naked at Buffalo Bayou Park in Yesterday’s High Wind

by
No Comments

Bald Gus S. Wortham Memorial Fountain, Buffalo Bayou Park, Houston

gus-wortham-fountainHoustorian James Glassman sends in this shot of the Wortham Fountain on Allen Pwky. yesterday, with only the nucleus of the dandelion-shaped structure left standing in place amid a dry basin. The unusually windy Laura Day weather did knock out electricity for tens of thousands throughout the Houston area, but isn’t what precipitated the fountain’s depetaling — that  appears to have been the hard freeze that damaged the fountain’s slender bronze pipes at the start of this month:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Happy Laura Day
, , ,
Featured Posts
12/09/16 10:45am

In Search of the Elusive Midtown Boundary, at the W. Gray and Webster Split

by
Fourth Ward, Midtown
6 Comments

Midtown Entry Portal site, W. Gray at Matthews St., Midtown/Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

Where exactly, these days, does Fourth Ward end and Midtown begin? That may be a little bit clearer before long (depending on how you define the 2) — a reader notes that someone looks to be getting ready to stake a visible claim for Midtown on the narrow strip of land at the crotch of Webster and W. Gray streets, just west of Matthews St. and the latest add-on to the Post Midtown Square development. (The yellow signage of that recently scorched Fuzzy’s is visible on the left.)

The silt fencing rimming the median segment as of late comes with a construction sign calling the spot “Midtown Entry Portal — Site 3.” That grassy sliver does sit at the end of a short but pointy finger of land jutting out of the northwestern boundary of the area’s tax increment reinvestment zone, which as of 2009 is shaped about like this:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

TIRZspotting
, , , , , ,
Fourth Ward
12/02/16 1:45pm

City Wants To Create Historic District To Protect What’s Left of Freedmen’s Town Historic District

by
Quicklink
12 Comments

CITY WANTS TO CREATE HISTORIC DISTRICT TO PROTECT WHAT’S LEFT OF FREEDMEN’S TOWN HISTORIC DISTRICT Following last month’s sudden brick relocation incident, Mayor Turner has announced a plan to make a plan to create a “cultural district in Freedmen’s Town — one that would preserve historic churches, schools, and homes,” as Andrew Schneider describes it this week. A section of the Fourth Ward roughly bounded by W. Gray, W. Dallas, Genessee, and Arthur streets has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1985 as the Freedmen’s Town Historic District — but that national designation didn’t provide much local protection to the area’s architecture, and many of the buildings listed in the district’s nomination form to the register have since been demolished. Archi-historian Stephen Fox told Claudia Feldman back in February that a city of Houston historic district designation, however, would be different; Fox noted that “it might require gerrymandering to pick up the proper concentration of historic buildings. But it could be done.” [Houston Public Media and Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Freedmen’s Town Historic District sign: Freedmen’s Town Preservation Coalition

, , , , ,
Featured Posts
11/28/16 12:15pm

Hookah Bar Car Wash in Fourth Ward To Let You Smoke While Your Vehicle Gets Clean

by
Fourth Ward
3 Comments

The Garage Car Detail & Hookah Lounge, 1818 W. Dallas St., Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

The latest new identity for the 1930s-ish auto service station across W. Dallas St. from the Gregory Lincoln Education Center: The Garage Car Detail & Hookah Lounge. The property at W. Dallas and Taft St., which was occupied by dry cleaning chain Pilgrim Cleaner’s prior to the turn of the decade, has hosted a succession of car cleaning services since then, including the latest group to set up in the space. The property sold last summer to an entity called Rockfort Builders, and is now offering on-site hookah for waiting customers in the artistically tire-spangled alleyway shown above.

Here’s a look inside at the hookah collection and some other car-parts-turned-decor:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Where There’s Smoke on Dallas St.
, , , ,
Featured Posts
11/21/16 10:30am

Mysterious Midtown Fire Blackens Fuzzy’s Tacos to Crispy Shell

by
Midtown
6 Comments

Burned Fuzzy's Tacos, 138 W. Gray St., Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

That warm glow early Sunday morning on the edge of Fourth Ward turned out to be a major fire at the eastern W. Gray outpost of Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. The blaze is now under investigation, with an eye for possible arson — a manager at across-the-street Oporto Fooding House and Wine told KHOU that security cameras caught sight of a car parked outside the closed shop just before the start of the fire, somewhere around 5 AM. The upstate taco chain opened the freshly roasted branch in January in the 1940’s house formerly housing bar and barbecue joint Hefley’s (a little less than 2 miles down the street from the Fuzzy’s now lurking in the back of the River Oaks Shopping Center).

Standing around in the background of the west-facing shot above: the Dolce Living apartment complex under construction on the north side of W. Gray on either side of Bailey St. A few other angles captured yesterday by a reader on the scene show the newly reconfigured profile of the taco shop’s roof:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Soft Tacos Overdone
, , , , ,
Avalon Place
11/15/16 11:30am

Leafy Green Mustaches To Help Latest Planned Mimosa Dr. Condo Midrise Keep A Low Profile

by
10 Comments

Rendering of Mimosa Terrace, 2240 Mimosa Dr., Avalon Place, Houston, 77019

A rep from Citiscape tells Swamplot that the company will be starting up presales for 11 multi-million-dollar condo units in the 7-story midrise it’s planning for 2240 Mimosa Dr. The building would replace the 1965 apartment complex currently occupying the space (half a block east from the corner with Revere St. where that other condo midrise project got tangled in a protracted variance request fight last fall). Citiscape’s chief designer says the project is designed to eventually “fade into the landscape” with the help of some up-the-wall greenery on the facade:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Camouflage Near Avalon
, , , , ,
Featured Posts
11/01/16 10:45am

KFC Flies the Fairview Coop

by
Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Vermont Commons
11 Comments

KFC at 2359 S. Shepherd Dr., Vermont Commons, Houston, 77019

The Colonel is still hanging around by the door, but KFC is in the process of leaving the building at 2359 S. Shepherd Dr., a few readers report. The spot at the corner with Fairview Dr. has been sporting now closed signage, and the location has already been eradicated from the annals of KFC’s store database. The chicken shop’s decommissioning follows the late-June sale of the property to an entity called 2359 S. Shepherd, which shares a Smith St. address with Crosspoint Properties (responsible for the redevelopment of a number of Midtown and properties, including the building that now houses Reef and Proof).

The drive-thru sits just south of the Shepherd Place office tower (once the site of those 1960s lesbian bar raids, in its pre-highrise days), and across Shepherd from the former Arby’s, converted to the Inner Loop’s first-ish Dunkin’ Donuts back in 2013.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

S. Shepherd Retreat
, , , , ,
Buffalo Bayou Park
10/27/16 1:45pm

Sedated Allen Pkwy. Double-Crossed by Crosswalk to New Buffalo Bayou Park Parking

by
6 Comments

Crossing at Gillette St. and Allen Pkwy., Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

Courtesy of a stripe-skeptical reader, here’s a partial walkthrough tour of the new parking scheme along Allen Pkwy. west of Downtown — these days looking a lot more like the flyover videos released of the planned changes last year. Those changes, including a lower speed limit for the rest of the roadway and and some strategic tree deployment, are intended to make the pseudo-highway into a “more urban environment” and to slow traffic down to next-to-a-park speeds. Also included in the deal: a series of crosswalks, like the over-then-over-again setup now striped into place at Gillette St. (seen above posing with the Federal Reserve Bank building, with the former city garbage incinerator site out of the frame to the left).

The new setup divvies up much of the turf formerly occupied by Allen Pkwy.’s westbound traffic lane into angled spaces — some almost long enough to “put 2 normal sized cars in each spot,” the reader claims:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Stripe Scrutiny
, , , ,
Featured Posts
10/21/16 11:15am

Yale Street Industrial Park Redoers Don’t Want To Pave New Ways to Garden Oaks

by
Independence Heights, Oak Forest
3 Comments

Yale St. Commons Variance Request, Yale St. at 34th, Independence Heights, Houston, 77018

The name Yale Street Commons is currently sprinkled about the edge of the Pine Forest Business Center northeast of Yale and 34th St. in the form of a few variance request notices (like the one shown above standing by the abandoned strip of rail track running along the 36th St. side of the warehouse park).  That notice is for a request to merge 2 chunks of land within the rectangle made by Yale, 34th, 36th St., and the north-south line where E. 35th St. currently dead ends into the industrial-slash-office park, a few residential doors west of Cortlandt St.  The applicant also appears to be asking for permission not to extend E. 35th St. all the way through the property, which sits near the border between Independence Heights and Garden Oaks.  The 6-acre center, which in recent years has housed a variety of construction contractors, was sold in May to Stonelake Capital — currently at work on the Westheimer Oaks center and that Westheimer-fronting 5-acre make-it-a-park-for-now on either side of Mid Ln.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Yale Street Commons
, , , ,
Featured Posts
09/30/16 4:30pm

Whole Foods Montrose Scraps Parking Lot Parklet To Make Room for Parking Lot Spaces

by
North Montrose, Parking
9 Comments

Whole Foods Montrose, 701 Waugh, North Montrose, Houston, 77019

View of New Whole Foods Market, 701 Waugh Dr., North Montrose, HoustonFrom the AIG tower neighboring to the north, a reader peers down behind the construction fencing now up at the corner of Waugh Dr. and D’Amico St., in an effort to figure out what might be gettin’ real in the Whole Foods Montrose parking lot. An employee tells Swamplot over the phone that the store is planting additional parking spaces on top of what was previously a walkway lined with grass and picnic tables, adding parking has been a squeeze on the weekends (which lines up pretty well with earlier reports from the scene). The rep also says that the tables (positioned across Waugh from BMW service garage Bavarian Machine Specialties and catty-corner to the health-and-beauty-shop-laden strip center across D’amico), were almost never used. Permits for the pave-over were issued at the end of May.

Photos: Randy Saad (top), Swamplot inbox (bottom photo showing opening day, 2011)

Leaner Green
, , , , , ,
Featured Posts
08/26/16 5:45pm

The Mixed-Use Towers That May Rise from the Ashes of Allen Parkway’s Former Waste Incinerator Site

by
Fourth Ward, Proposed Developments
25 Comments

Rendering of Tianqing Group/DC Partners Allen Pwky. Mixed Use Site, Allen Pkwy. at Gillette St., Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

A look at what could be headed for the rest of that 10.5-acre Gillette St. former city park-slash-brownfield property comes from Tianqing Group, the Chinese firm involved with DC Partners’ recently announced mixed-use development at the site (to be funded via the EB-5 investment-for-greencards program). The northern 6 acres of the property (which at various points in its storied history has housed San Felipe Park, a SWAT substation, and the Gillette St. garbage incinerator) were sold to a then-unnamed investor last year, and DC Partners snagged the land in May.

The view above, displayed on Tianqing’s description page for the project, shows 3 highrises and 2 midrises in place at the edge of Fourth Ward, with the Downtown skyline visible in the distance to the right. Another of the renderings includes slightly clipped logo marks from both DC Partners and architecture firm Gensler; that rendering (below) provides a closer look at the towers from the west, as well as some green rooftop terraces:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

West of Downtown
, , , , , , , , , ,
Featured Posts
08/23/16 12:30pm

Matching River Oaks Mansion Free with Your $5.4-Million Playhouse Purchase

by
Homes for Sale, River Oaks
2 Comments

36 Tiel Way, River Oaks, Houston, 7701936 Tiel Way, River Oaks, Houston, 77019

The air-conditioned 2-story playhouse at 36 Tiel Way is on the market as of last Friday, along with its 5-bedroom mansion mate. The playhouse, featured as yesterday’s Home Listing Photo of the Day, was built back in 2011 by Kristi Schiller (the radio personality turned police-dog philanthropist formerly known as Lucy Lipps) and her husband. The playhouse includes running water, window planters, and a minifridge; the just-under-1-acre property backs up to Buffalo Bayou and also plays host to an outdoor kitchen and a saltwater pool.

Here’s the playhouse’s living room and upstairs, followed by a tour of the rest of the digs:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Playmates
, , , , , ,
« Previous Page Next Page »