05/23/18 4:00pm

Longtime Gulfton activist Tammy Rodriguez’s likeness is now fully rendered in the mural above, as well as that of Pastor Alejandro Montes, to her right. The pair makes up one third of the population now flanking the Salvation Army store’s west side along Ashcroft Dr. off Bissonnet, a block east of Hillcroft Ave. Chicago-based artist Rahmaan Statik (who got some design inspiration from students at Braeburn Elementary School) plans to have the work complete for an unveiling ceremony this Saturday.

It’s one in a set of 3 murals that public art organization UP Art Studio has planned for each side of the thrift store building — except for the south face, pictured above — as part of a project dubbed “Growing a Brighter Tomorrow in Gulfton.”

Work on the east side began with this preparatory whitewashing:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Bissonnet and Ashcroft
01/23/18 2:00pm

GANG-RUN BROTHEL NO LONGER IN BUSINESS AT THE CARRIAGE WAY APARTMENTS IN GULFTON Residents in the strip of apartments a block north of Bellaire between Mullins and Rampart don’t seem too rattled — reports Gabrielle Banks — after a criminal operation was shut down in their complex late last year. “But in an adjoining courtyard evidence remained of the recent FBI raid at an upstairs apartment: a cracked window pane and a boarded up door plastered with an eviction notice. The scheme, officials say, involved tenants who rented 10 of about 70 residential units in the complex. Several neighbors at the complex said they saw a team of FBI agents combing through units at the two-story complex during the first week in November. Before the raid, they said, they claimed to know nothing about a busy brothel where up to seven women provided services to customers from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. The building manager at the apartment complex declined to speak with a reporter about the protracted criminal enterprise alleged by police. A Houston attorney who represented the building owner in a 2012 nuisance lawsuit – involving complaints at another residential property – did not return calls for comment.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo of Carriage Way Apartments: Apartments.com

04/25/17 11:30am

Transmission Line Tower Installation, Westpark Dr., 77081

Transmission Line Tower Installation, Westpark Dr., 77081Bits and pieces of the electrical towers formerly stringing CenterPoint’s transmission lines between 59 and Westpark Dr. were spotted laying around just west of West Loop 610 this weekend, though the feet of at least one of the structures were still standing at the ready. The old towers appear to have been fully relieved of their duties at this point, 3 months or so after the taller, sleeker towers started going skyward. Here’s one of the last full-length portraits featuring both kinds of towers, taken in the final days before the changeover began in earnest:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

West Loop Heights
01/11/17 1:30pm

Transmission Line Tower Installation, Westpark Dr., 77081

Transmission Line Tower Installation, Westpark Dr., 77081The view this week around Westpark Dr. at the West Loop includes both the old lattice towers currently holding CenterPoint’s electrical transmission lines and the taller, skinnier single pole models that will be taking over the gig. A reader captured some side-by-side portraits of the old towers and their replacements, which CenterPoint is deploying to raise the lines out of the way of TxDOT’s proposed future edits to the 610-59 interchange tangle. The cherry picker above is shown tethered to one of the new towers in the easement just west of 610; the top shot shows a pole up on the east side of the freeway between the Loop Central office midrises and the Danny Jackson Family Bark Park (which closed down last summer so CenterPoint could work on the land the county had been using as the park’s parking lot).

Here’s a ground-level shot at the base of an old-and-new tower pair just outside the dog park, with some Houston Garden Center inventory in the background for scale:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Bark Park Sparks
12/21/16 11:15am

Triple Chicken junction on S. Rice, Gulfton, Houston, 77081

The density of fast-food chicken options at S. Rice Ave. just south of 59 is increasing precipitously, a couple of readers note. The most recent addition: the newly-constructed Chik-Fil-A at 5325 S. Rice Ave. (visible above on the right, just south of Pollo Loco and across the street from Raising Cane’s). The Chik-Fil-A is not yet officially open for fowl distribution (though it does appear to be giving away prizes on Facebook. The Pollo Loco and Chik-Fil-A represent the fulfillment of the Wal-Mart Supercenter version of the Shoppes at Uptown Crossing site plan, passed around back in 2014; the Marriott Town & Place shown on that plan has since come to be as well:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Flocking Together in Gulfton
07/22/16 11:30am

Jackson Dog Park, 4828 1/2 Loop Central Dr., Pin Oak, Houston, 77081

Update, 2:30 pm: Commissioner Steve Radack tells Swamplot that the dog park itself will also be closed while the parking area is inaccessible. This article has been updated.

Jackson Dog Park, 4828 1/2 Loop Central Dr., Pin Oak, Houston, 77081 A well-labeled notice was spotted by a reader at the Danny Jackson Family Dog Park on Westpark Dr. (south of the Houston Post-turned-Chronicle complex, just inside the West Loop). The sign includes what appears to be a letter addressed to Mike McMahan of Harris County Precinct 3’s parks department, affectionately sign by CenterPoint Energy (which owns the electrical transmission corridor currently borrowed in part as parking for the linear dog run). The note indicates that some or all of the dog park’s lot may be off limits as the company takes care of some work to raise its transmission structures (which cross over the 610 Loop just south of where Westpark crosses under), to get them out of the way of some TxDOT road work planned for the area.

Swamplot is still waiting to hear back as to whether the park itself will stay open Precinct 3 says that the park itself will also be closed during the work period, which the letter says will run from August 15th through June 1, 2017. We’ll update as soon as we have more info; meanwhile, here’s a closeup of the text:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Marking Territory
08/15/14 12:00pm

Proposed Site Plan for Shoppes at Uptown Crossing Shopping Center, S. Rice Ave. and Westpark, Houston

The site plan for the Shoppes at Uptown Crossing shopping center planned for a 3.5-acre lot at the southeast corner of Westpark and S. Rice Ave across from Sam’s Club has undergone a big change since Swamplot last featured it in April. A giant Walmart Supercenter is now shown in the southeast corner of the L-shaped parcel, facing S. Rice Ave. but shielded from the street by a sprinkling of fast-foody pad sites — including spots earmarked for an El Pollo Loco, a Chick Fil A, a Jack-in-the-Box, and a Starbucks. The requisite huge parking lot stands between the Walmart and its chain-store add-ons.

The new 32,000-sq.-ft. building for the soon-to-be-relocated Micro Center is going north of the Walmart, pushed close to Westpark, taking its entrance from S. Rice Ave. directly across the street from Sam’s Club. Shown tucked just south of Micro Center is a new TownePlace Suites hotel.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

South of the Galleria
04/21/14 3:30pm

Future Site of Micro Center, 5205 S. Rice Ave., Uptown Crossing, Houston

The 3.5-acre field at the corner of S. Rice Ave. and Westpark shown here, where the Wald Relocation Services complex stood until 6 years ago, will be the site of the new Micro Center store later this year. The site plan for the Uptown Crossing shopping center intended for this location shows a big-box store set way back in the right distance, at the end of a new curvy street-drive thing cut through to it from S. Rice, across from Sam’s Club. That’s the most likely spot for the 32,000-sq.-ft. building Micro Center is planning. Micro Center sold off its larger 47,759-sq.-ft. West Loop location to Amegy Bank earlier this year. Here’s a rendering of the new, terrifically brown-and-boxy big box Micro Center:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Big Computer Box in Field
05/20/13 10:00am

New construction has crept west across Chimney Rock Rd. and onto this Richmond Plaza street south of Bissonnet. Plans for this builder-owned ladder-to-little-loft property, however, may have changed recently. Last week it was relisted with an asking price of $299,000. That’s a big, big price reduction from the $799,000 sought in the previous 6-month listing — perhaps for something new built on the site? (Back in 2010, the 1950 home hit the market at $328,000.) Meanwhile, the lot remains listed by Blum Custom Builders as a potential new home site.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

05/10/10 5:45pm

University of Houston architecture professor Susan Rogers explores the Bellaire-Holcombe corridor from Highway 6 to the Med Center and finds a donut in her path.

For each census tract that intersects Holcombe or Bellaire Blvd., Rogers tallied the total number of residents born outside the United States and those residents’ country of origin, using 2000 Census data. The results surprised her:

Most of the action is in the zone between the Loop and the Beltway. “The diversity drops steeply inside 610,” she notes:

I had graphed the street from just 610 to Hwy. 6 for a talk on the links between Asia and Houston and then decided to add the rest as a potential “contrast” – what I found when I completed it absolutely astounded me – the absolute drop is so stark – and of course the income graph is nearly the exact opposite . . .

That graph showing median household income in the same census tracts:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

01/19/10 1:31pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: AND THE NEXT NEW HOT SPOT WILL BE UNCLE JOE’S CLUB ON HILLCROFT “. . . My problem is that it is getting harder and harder to find places that are ‘unbeautiful.’ I want a bar, not a drinking experience. It’s not a hard formula: old building + inexpensive spiritsinterior design planning = bar. I guess I’ll just have to stick to Uncle Joe’s and stay away from downtown altogether from now on.” [Brad, commenting on Leon’s Lounge Takes a Turnover Break]

10/03/08 3:07pm

Pool, Jefferson Estates at Bellaire Apartments, Houston

More real-estate-firm troubles you haven’t read about in the newspaper: JPI, a multifamily developer based in Irving, Texas, earlier this week shut down or canceled all new development and construction projects — and laid off development, design, and construction teams. Existing projects already underway will be “completed and wrapped up by a small team that will remain behind until they are complete,” according to a company email provided to Swamplot. The email blamed “the ongoing credit crisis” and “the inability to obtain credit at any price” for the closings.

JPI did not appear to have any projects planned for Houston, but JPI Living does operate Jefferson Estates at Bellaire, an apartment complex at 4807 Pin Oak Park, just inside the Loop between Bissonnet and the Southwest Freeway.

Photo of Jefferson Estates at Bellaire: JPI Living