Swamplot Archives by Tag: 77020

Friday, October 30, 2009

Secrets of the New Saint Arnold Brewery

October 30, 2009 – 12:21 pm
   

Brittanie Shey reports on the grand opening of the local brewery’s new home at 2000 Lyons Ave. in the Fifth Ward: “We got to see the top secret investor’s bar, a swanky-looking room in the back with a lovely carved wooden bar-top. We also heard the story of how the building, which was once an HISD food distribution facility (a.k.a. a giant freezer and refrigerator) had to be literally thawed out — there were icicles hanging from the ceiling — before it could be inspected. . . . The newery has four floors, but most of the action is in the middle two. The first floor is where the brewing takes place. The second floor, with huge windows looking down to the first floor, is where the tastings are and where parties will take place for those who have rented out the brewery. The company is thinking of using the basement for aging beers, and the third floor, right now it’s just filled with storage.” [Houstonist; previously on Swamplot]

12:21 pm | 1 Comment | Read more about Adaptive Reuse, Attractions, Industrial Properties, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, Quicklink
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Thursday, August 27, 2009

What’s Brewing at the New Fifth Ward Saint Arnold HQ

August 27, 2009 – 10:47 am

Fifth Ward correspondents Vaughn and Terri Mueller drive by the building at 2000 Lyons St., across the railroad tracks from Hennessey Park — the future location for the Saint Arnold Brewery. And they notice the gate and a wide strip of the building open to view:

There aren’t any signs around the old HISD food service building exclaiming that Saint Arnold’s is moving in, but take a quick drive around the block and and it sure looks like a brewery inside. The expansion is still under construction but there is a large door (or unfinished wall) that is open to one of the side streets. . . . You can see some of the fermentation tanks in the corner. One of the only signs at the construction site is for the construction company “Clifford Jackson Contractors.”

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10:47 am | 7 Comments | Read more about Adaptive Reuse, Attractions, Industrial Properties, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Redeveloping Kennedy Place

August 18, 2009 – 11:37 am

Right on time for tonight’s public meeting, Swamplot’s “Bottom” of the Fifth Ward correspondent Vaughn Mueller sends in a bit of information about the proposed redevelopment of the Houston Housing Authority’s Kennedy Place apartments:

It is located in lower fifth ward, bounded by Bayou, Gillespie, Meadow and Baron streets. According to the HHA, it was built in 1982 but in its current condition, it looks reminiscent of a 1950-1960 1-story development. There is currently no central AC or heat in any of its 60 units.

In mid July a sign was put up out front describing the construction. Soon after, we received a notice of public meeting in the mail also describing the construction. The meeting is set for August 18th. The new development will contain 108 new apartments, 88 of which are going to be government assisted while 20 are going to be market rate.

The proposed site plan:

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11:37 am | 14 Comments | Read more about Apartments, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, Proposed Developments, Public Housing, Redevelopment
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Monday, August 17, 2009

Out of the Lead but Into the Fire: Bruce Elementary School Burns

August 17, 2009 – 12:23 pm

The old Bruce Elementary School on Bringhurst St. in the Fifth Ward — featured on Swamplot just last week and apparently just about ready to go up for sale — went up in flames last Friday night, reports our neighborhood correspondent. A story featured on Abc13 news says the building did suffer major damage from the flames, and makes it sound as if arson is suspected. Did any of the asbestos do its job?

Photo of former Bruce Elementary School, 713 Bringhurst St.: Vaughn Mueller

12:23 pm | 3 Comments | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategies, Environmental, Hazards, Land for Sale, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, Schools, Toxic Sites
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Monday, August 10, 2009

Ode to the Fifth

August 10, 2009 – 5:32 pm
   

“The Fifth Ward never let me down all summer long,” writes James M. Harrison, saying goodbye to the neighborhood at the end of his internship at Covenant Community Capital Corp.: “You can talk about drug dealers and violent people all you like– but Fifth Ward would not be what it is without J-Boy Hollins, who owns the corner of Bringhurst and Market every day after 5 PM. Under the shade of some old trees, J-Boy sits back in his trademark overalls, and takes in the end of the afternoon in an old, beat-up office chair. You’re welcome to join him for some friendly conversation, but Mr. J-Boy won’t let you leave until you’ve cracked at least two beers and shared several laughs. He’ll talk with you about anything from the Bible to his boyhood in Mississippi with an outhouse in the backyard. And as long as you don’t disrespect nobody, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” [Neighborhood //#5]

5:32 pm | 3 Comments | Read more about Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, Quicklink
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The Fifth Ward’s Old Bruce Elementary School: Lead Scraped and Ready!

August 10, 2009 – 11:17 am

Swamplot’s new “Bottom” of the Fifth Ward correspondent Vaughn Mueller reports from the site of the old Bruce Elementary School, where a sign indicates the property is for sale. A source tells Swamplot that a few details need to be worked out before it’s “officially” on the market, but an HISD web page provides some information about the property.

The school, which was closed at the end of the spring 2007 semester, sits along Cage and Bringhurst on the I-10 feeder road, and comprises a little more than 2 blocks. Mueller reports that the new Bruce Elementary (built by a 2002 HISD bond) less than a mile away on Jensen opened its doors in the fall of 2007.

Why the move?

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11:17 am | 1 Comment | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Environmental, Hazards, Land for Sale, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, Schools, Toxic Sites
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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Farming Opportunities in the Fifth

July 7, 2009 – 12:57 pm
   

Inspired by a visit to a South Florida demonstration farm that emphasizes resourcefulness — “they’ve built things like a well pump from simple bicycle parts, irrigation systems from cinder blocks, and terraces from old tires,” he notes — summer resident James M. Harrison begins “to notice similar ways that people in Houston’s Fifth Ward are harvesting their own backyard crops. Just up the block, one of my neighbors is growing banana trees on his driveway. He’s been able to do it by building a raised bed from cinder blocks against a fence, and using soil that he composts in his backyard. A couple of days ago, we collected basil leaves from the neighbors herb garden, and used them to make pesto. It went great with the tomatoes from our own back yard. And over the weekend, I snacked on figs, cucumbers, and citrus in a Community Garden on Houston’s south side with some friends.” [Neighborhood //#5]

12:57 pm | 2 Comments | Read more about Gardening, Landscape, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, Quicklink
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Friday, June 19, 2009

5K to the Fifth

June 19, 2009 – 3:42 pm

New Fifth Ward resident James M. Harrison follows the Astros’ “Race for the Pennant” 5K to the front steps of his own neighborhood:

After running the 3.1 mile race with a friend, I decided that 5K’s should be the next topic on [Christian] Lander’s blog, “Stuff White People Like.” Hundreds of people (many of whom were caucasian), rose with the sun for the big race at 7.00 AM. They came outfitted in their lightweight synthetic clothes and hot-to-trot running shoes– the perfect accessories for the meaningless number we all slapped on our chests to make us look like we were about to compete in the Boston Marathon (mine was 2757).

Nobody trains for a 5K. But if you’re up at daybreak, among the crowd of socially aware locals who are in good enough shape for 25 minutes of running, thanks to their motivated lifestyles (and the iPods strapped to their arms, cued to amp the jam for the blitz across town)– then you must be doing something right with your life. It’s so important to be a part of the healthy crowd, that you’ll even pay $25 to get in on the action for a morning. I am a victim of this system.

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3:42 pm | 6 Comments | Read more about Crime, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Last Organic Outpost: The Motion Picture

February 24, 2009 – 11:48 am

Last year Transit Antenna, a 7-person “mobile living experiment,” camped out at Joe Nelson Icet’s Last Organic Outpost, did a little farming, and painted the giant “FARMART” mural at the top of the adjacent Comet rice mill. The group, which travels the country on a city bus converted to run on waste vegetable oil, documented its visit — which included a stint in the Art Car Parade — in a series of website posts.

And not long after the rambling group left its urban campground, Transit Antenna’s Seth Gadsden posted this half-hour documentary the group put together about goings-on at the Emile St. farm and its Fifth Ward neighborhood. An HD version is also available.

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11:48 am | 1 Comment | Read more about Crime, Landscape, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, Transportation
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Monday, February 23, 2009

Next to the Last Organic Outpost: A Few More Notches in the Fifth Ward Farm Belt

February 23, 2009 – 1:53 pm

The Lower Fifth Ward urban farm known as the Last Organic Outpost is set to expand again from its growing campus at 700 Emile, reports founder Joe Nelson Icet:

We are presently working on the Buck Street expansion and hope to get more dirt soon to add to the existing 32 beds we already have growing.

Across the street from the 711 Emile gate, there is a lot up for public auction March 2nd that we hope to farm in the near future. This lot is currently being used for dumping. Also at 4610 Gunter, there is a lot that has been cited by the city for high grass. We would like to take stewardship of these lots for creating a 5th Ward Farm Belt.

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1:53 pm | 4 Comments | Read more about Gardening, Landscape, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Seen on the Street: Holiday Theater

December 31, 2008 – 11:41 am

Again with the fun pix from around town! First: What’s this little toy parking lot?

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11:41 am | Add a Comment | Read more about Construction Materials, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, Neighborhoods: Meyerland
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Southeast Side: A Tour of the Houston Heartland

February 27, 2008 – 1:01 pm

El Torito Lounge, Harrisburg Blvd., Houston

Houston’s lone professional tourists, John Nova Lomax and David Beebe, stop off at the Brady’s Island in the Ship Channel midway into their latest day-long stroll . . . through this city’s southeastern stretches:

The air is foul here, and the eastern view is little more than a forest of tall crackers and satanic fume-belching smokestacks, sending clouds of roasted-cabbage-smelling incense skyward to Mammon, all bisected by the amazingly tall East Loop Ship Channel Bridge, its pillars standing in the toxic bilge where Brays Bayou dumps its effluent into the great pot of greenish-brown petro-gumbo.

While Brady’s Landing today seems to survive as a function room – a sort of Rainbow Lodge for the Ship Channel, with manicured grounds that reminded Beebe of Astroworld — decades ago, people came here to eat and to take in the view. This was progress to them, this horrifically awesome vista showed how we beat the Nazis and Japanese and how we were gonna stave off them godless Commies. As for me, it made me think of Beebe’s maxim: “Chicken and gasoline don’t mix.”

More from the duo’s march through “Deep Harrisburg”: Flag-waving Gulf Freeway auto dealerships, an early-morning ice house near the Almeda Mall, a razorwire-fenced artist compound in Garden Villas, Harold Farb’s last stand, colorful Broadway muffler joints, the hidden gardens of Thai Xuan, and — yes, gas-station chicken.

“There is nothing else like the Southeast side,” Lomax adds in a comment:

I see it as the true heart of Houston. Without the port and the refineries we are nothing. The prosperous West Side could be Anywhere, USA, but the Southeast Side could only be here.

Photo of El Torito Lounge on Harrisburg: John Nova Lomax and David Beebe

1:01 pm | Read more about Air Quality, Houston History, Neighborhoods: Garden Villas, Neighborhoods: Park Place, Restaurants, Tourism, Toxic Sites, Water Quality
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Thursday, December 6, 2007

Reader Report: More New Construction Coming in the Fifth Ward

December 6, 2007 – 4:45 pm

Townhouse at 3421 Gillespie St., Under Construction

There’s more from our Fifth Ward correspondent, who’s been poking around properties near the MDI site:

InTown has various other project coming up in the 5th Ward/East End. The Cage/Gillespie property is now listed on HAR. They also plan on building English style bungalows at 619 Meadow St. However, they are in replatting stages now.

[Tuesday] Swamplot reported “Cline and Fall of Eight Houses“. These are about 2 blocks from the MDI site and there is a variance request up for subdivison renaming. I did some research and it seems they are owned by Lanterra Homes. They were supposed to have a project called Deca but looks like it may have been scrapped. Lanterra has built homes near InTown homes before.

Photo: 3421 Gillespie, for sale on HAR

4:45 pm | Read more about Homes for Sale, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Townhomes
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Fifth Ward: New Urbanists Meet Old Toxic Waste

December 6, 2007 – 2:35 pm

Residences at Seventh at 5th, by DPZ

A reader who lives in the neighborhood points us to drawings and information from New Urbanist planners Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. about the firm’s designs for the former MDI Superfund site in the Fifth Ward. DPZ, of course, is most famous for the enormous small-town-sized stage-set the company designed for the 1998 Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show, which became so popular that it was kept on and is now used as a Florida Panhandle resort named Seaside.

InTown Homes and Lovett Homes owner Frank Liu bought the MDI site — a former metal foundry and spent-catalyst “recycling” facility famously polluted with lead and several thousand chemistry sets’ worth of other toxic substances — from the EPA late last year, with promises that he’ll spend a couple of years and $6.7 million remediating the property before letting Houstonians live there. Still, 36+ acres of inner-loop land at $5 a square foot doesn’t sound like too bad a deal.

After the jump: a look at DPZ’s MDI plans, plus large grains of salt.

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2:35 pm | Read more about Development Strategy, Environmental, Hazards, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward, Proposed Developments, Toxic Sites
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Tuesday, November 6, 2007

I-10: The New Route Beer?

November 6, 2007 – 11:38 am

Current St. Arnold Brewery on Fairway Park, Houston

In a comment on Off the Kuff, Christof sends us a bird’s-eye view of the (unconfirmed) new site for the Saint Arnold Brewery:

As far as I can tell, this is the building in question.

It’s visible from I-10, so there’s some good signage potential (as a counterpoint to the big Budweiser signs at I-10/east loop and I-10 Washington).

Photo of current Saint Arnold brewery: Gary Hunt

11:38 am | Read more about Attractions, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Neighborhoods: Fifth Ward
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