08/16/17 12:15pm

The multi-level steel antenna-support tower that’s long stood on top of the window-deficient AT&T building at 3303 Weslayan St. just north of Greenway Plaza was removed by crane over the last week, a reader reports. At least, that’s what appears to be the case from the ground: The Beck Group construction firm received permits for a partial demolition of the building’s cell tower in June. Also permitted by the city that same month: a Beck Group office remodel of the structure, which is referred to in the permit as the AT&T Weslayan Toll Building.

Here’s a view of the now-dismantled tower from a couple of years ago, as it loomed poolside at the neighboring 3333 Weslayan apartments:

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Hats Off
08/08/17 4:45pm

The 25-story SkyHouse River Oaks apartment tower, completed at the end of 2015 on a portion of the site of the former Westcreek Apartments just west of the San Felipe Target, has actual streetfront retail on its ground floor. And as of last week, it’s all full and open. That’s when Inferno Pizza began serving in the 2,400-sq.-ft. space at 2031 Westcreek Ln. Suite N1. The neighboring space has been a Glow Spa and Nails since last year.

There’s designated parking for spa- and pizza-goers in the first floor of the building’s garage. Pizza Inferno’s interior is organized like most fast-casual you-tell-us-how-to-assemble-it restaurants, though the buildout also added a 600-sq.-ft. mezzanine dining area and some patio seating (tables are coming in a few weeks) in front:

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Tower Pizza
07/07/17 4:00pm

The highrise hotel with apartments River Oaks District developer OliverMcMillan has been promising for a couple years as a tower feature of a promised second phase of the mixed-use development will be an Equinox, according to documents submitted to the city planning department. There’s already an Equinox fitness club in the River Oaks District, fronting Westheimer; the new Equinox hotel will be on the west side of Westcreek Ln., on the rear parking lot portion of the 3.4-acre Sullivan’s Steakhouse–Le Peep shopping center along Westheimer closer to the West Loop that OliverMcMillan leased almost 2 years ago.

The hotel portion of the site is 1.91 acres and set back from Westheimer. Equinox is seeking a variance from the city to allow the hotel to take access from Westcreek Ln., which further to the north also serves as an entry road for the SkyHouse River Oaks and the Wilshire condo towers.

The variance application doesn’t mention how tall the building will be, but renderings of the imagined hotel dating from 2015 (below) show a structure of approximately 25 stories, with a lower parking garage immediately to the west. A shorter building is shown on the 1.5-acre southern portion of the site facing Westheimer:

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Phase Two
07/07/17 11:30am

There’s now nothing left of the 1952 2-bedroom house or its 3 accompanying oak trees that until late last month stood at 4027 Portsmouth St. in Weslayan Plaza, a tiny neighborhood just west of Greenway Plaza and just north of the Southwest Fwy.

Here’s a quick photo recap of recent activity on the site:

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Now You See It
06/26/17 3:00pm

And here we see before, right before, and during photos of today’s demolition of the 2-bedroom home at 4027 Portsmouth St., on the second block north of the Southwest Fwy. and just west of Weslayan St., in the appropriately named subdivision Weslayan Plaza just west of Greenway Plaza. Though the sign posted on the property appears to depict multiple townhouses new construction from Noël Home Luxury Living — better known as a home decor service of the Noel Furniture showroom across I-59 and a mile to the east at 2727 Southwest Fwy. — the buyer’s name on the permit for a new single-family home at this property is CitiView Homes.

Photos: Rex Solomon

Weslayan Plaza Demo
06/22/17 4:30pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: MISPLACING THE AUDUBON PLACES “TIL that Audubon Place (the street in 77006) is not in Audubon Place (the subdivision in 77027). The whole time I was scouring the neighborhoods in and around Westmoreland for a house, I thought the adjoining neighborhood was called Audubon Place. My bad; it’s Montrose. The original. I was misled by the green historical sign at the W. Alabama end of the block.” [GoogleMaster, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Inglourious Buildings] Photo of 804 Harold St.: Audubon Place Association

06/06/17 3:00pm

THE UNDERAPPRECIATED RICHES OF HOUSTON’S ANTIQUE SET “Someday,” antique dealer and appraiser David Lackey muses to intrepid radio reporter Allison Lee, “the Millennials . . . may be horrified when their children want mahogany furniture and doilies and figurines.” But for now, Lackey seems resigned to the great generational decline — and accompanying price drops — in the market for antique furniture: “There are half as many antique shows in Houston as there were 20 or 30 years ago,” he tells Lee. “Traditional English and American furniture, overall, has fallen maybe 50 to 75 percent.” Lackey operates his business out of the Antiques of River Oaks antiques megashop (pictured above) in the home-furnishings-themed shopping center at 3461 W. Alabama north of Greenway Plaza, but he’s also out and about, soaking up the zeitgeist: “I go into more estates — or I’m working with older people and they’re selling a lot of their stuff because they say their kids and grandkids do not want it. They’ve made it very clear. The younger generation, for the most part, is not very interested in formal candlelight suppers. They don’t want silver, china, crystal, because they don’t intend to entertain that way.” [Houston Public Media] Photo: David Lackey Antiques & Art  

06/01/17 11:30am

A couple of projects on the near and more distant horizons at the corner of Weslayan and W. Alabama turned a reader’s head this week as he passed by the short-skirted base of the 2929 Weslayan highrise. To the west, a sign posted alongside the parking lot of the half-moon-footed 2900 Weslayan office midrise bears a rendering of a new retail building PMRG is planning for the site. A few more views of the 6,500-sq.-ft. project make a somewhat rosy appearance in the new leasing materials for the space:

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Sneaking Some Peeks
05/17/17 5:00pm

A waste-no-time tipster briefly stuck on the southbound West Loop earlier this week spent the downtime documenting some of the current activities of various cranes hanging around north of the US 59 junction. On the right is Tilman Fertitta’s The Post Oak, being fleshed out behind the Landry’s headquarters as part of a new mixed-use development; the previously tipped hand of 4 logo diamonds are already being framed at the top:

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Uptown Updates
05/03/17 4:45pm

On Monday a reader noted some changes to the well-spotted storefront formerly occupied by Kate Spade New York, facing Drexel Dr. in the Westheimer-straddling Highland Village shopping center. The store name is now a mere shadow of its former self, and an employee reached at the location’s former phone number this afternoon tells Swamplot that the branch has closed for business. The space’s mirror-backed neon unibrow (the replacement for the one that caught fire back in 2015) looks to still be hanging around for now, but the windows have been papered over (presumably to provide a bit of privacy as the space gets changed.) There’s still a Kate Spade down the road a few blocks — the one that was tapped to trade its old Galleria locale for a place in the new wing.

Photos: Swamplot inbox (top); Amanda W. (bottom)

Westheimer Coverup
04/03/17 4:30pm

Zone D'Erotica, 2626 West Loop South, Galleria Area, Houston, 77027

The always-open pink-and-purple site of adult accessories shop Zone d’Erotica, which has long served as a retina-searing guidepost to westward-bound Galleria traffic, is currently listed as for lease on the website of retail real estate brokerage The Retail Connection, a keen-eyed reader noted this morning. The trapezoid-heavy building is tucked on a trapezoidal plot of land between the yellow-bedecked corner Shell station and the austere gray facade of Dillard’s, and served as a Luke’s Hamburgers in a past life before making the Zone transition well over a decade ago (presumably with the aid of Houston’s lack of zoning laws). Just down the road along the Galleria’s Westheimer Rd. edge, a younger, prettier pad site (built recently as part of the Galleria’s ongoing makeover and reconstruction) has now been filled in with the likes of Michelin-starred dim sum joint Yauatcha, which opened last week.

Photo: The Retail Connection

Westheimer Zone-ing
01/04/17 4:15pm

Harlow's in Edwards Grand Palace 24, 3839 Weslayan St., Greenway Plaza, Houston, 77027

Harlow's in Edwards Grand Palace 24, 3839 Weslayan St., Greenway Plaza, Houston, 77027Tilman Fertitta’s Harlow’s Food & Fun arcade-bar-restaurant, located since the mid-aughts inside the southwest corner of the Edwards Greenway Grand Palace 24 on Weslayan St., is now closed forever, a woulda-been visitor reports. The entertainment-complex-within-an-entertainment-complex shut down by New Year’s Eve, and signage has already been pulled from the main entrance (though the explanatory yellow placard shown here is still visible behind the space’s security grate at the other entrance). The Harlow’s website has already been scrubbed and redirected to the main Landry’s page; some folks operating out of a Landry’s-branded pickup truck were spotted this afternoon cleaning up at the scene (above).

The signage on the Norfolk St. side of the theater has been removed as well:

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Grand Palace Exit