COMMENT OF THE DAY: UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS AT KIRBY AND WEST ALABAMA “Ulta Cosmetics is taking the ground floor of the former Borders space and Texas Children’s Hospital is taking the upstairs.” [Keep Houston Scenic, commenting on Borders Activity Report]
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Tag: 77098
BORDERS ACTIVITY REPORT 
There appears to be some construction going on inside the former Borders Books at the corner of Kirby and West Alabama in the Centre at River Oaks Shopping Center. Next door, at the restaurant spot formerly occupied by Pesce, workers are busy transforming and expanding the space into a Brio Tuscan Grille. But a Swamplot reader says the work on Borders looks separate: “Workers were going in and out. The whole inside looks gutted and the doors to specifically Borders were open and there was a table behind the green fence with water coolers. Even the 2nd floor doors where the coffee place was inside Borders were open. . . . When they initially started the demo at Pesce the green fence didn’t extend. Its only recently been there.” [Culturemap; Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
Sure, send us anything: “I think I read in your blog recently that you wanted people to send you photos of blocked or unpassable sidewalks in Houston,” writes the reader who sent in these images. They show a tiny community garden — which appears to support its own utility pole — implanted in the sidewalk area on Ferndale St. just south of Westheimer, across the street from the River Oaks Plastic Surgery Center. The sidewalk break fits between 2712 Ferndale St. and its big brother next door, The Belle Meade at River Oaks condo building, at 2929 Westheimer.
A North Carolina company that already operates 18 car dealers in the Houston area plans to build the largest “flagship” Audi dealership in the U.S. on the north side of Hwy. 59 just east of Greenbriar. The dealership would consist of a 7-story building fronting the Southwest Freeway and containing offices, parts and service departments, a parking garage, and a ground-floor showroom. A more dramatic showroom, though, will be on the top floors, where drivers stuck in freeway traffic can ogle recent Audi models parked on display. A fenced-in parking lot for 87 cars would sit behind the building on the north side of Lexington St.
With a giant piano illuminated atop a neighboring property’s parking lot, it’s easy to miss the little griffin statue pictured atop a brick column here. It serves as sentry to the unassuming gate of LeMans Townhomes, located on the south feeder road of the Southwest Freeway, just east of Buffalo Speedway. The 1965-built property has a courtyard shaded by trees in place for decades. Today, the canopy buffers part of the complex from passing traffic and from some of the signage for fast food restaurants and strip centers sharing the stretch of freeway.
A new listing asks $72,5000 for a first floor unit that looks out onto the complex’s landscaped commons.
For the first time since 2008, when Aurora Picture Show left the converted church in Sunset Heights currently commandeered by 14 Pews, the quirky flickhouse founded by microcinema pioneer Andrea Grover will be gaining its own dedicated moviehouse. In the interim, Aurora’s succeeding directors have been organizing film programs from a bungalow on the Menil campus at 1524 Sul Ross. But starting this June, the organization will have a new home with a big screen. It’s a metal-clad building at 2442 Bartlett St. currently used as a studio and gallery by artist and former Aurora board member Molly Gochman, in the small arts compound she owns just east of Kirby.
Trader Joe’s has at last confirmed the second and third of the 3 stores that’ll constitute the idiosyncratic grocer’s Houston invasion. If you’ve been following Swamplot, you already know about these locations: In addition to the already announced shopping-center add-on in The Woodlands (recent construction photo at top), there’s another to be constructed in suburban-style big-corniced splendor (midde photo, above) on Voss just north of San Felipe. And yes — the company is now ready to admit — one in the just-decimated hollows of the once-grand Alabama Theater, last known as the Alabama Bookstop bookstore (bottom photo above).
Isn’t Weingarten Realty going to preserve some of the interior of its landmarked Alabama Theater as it makes the space ready for Trader Joe’s — or if that deal somehow falls through, some other tenant? Sure: The lobby and theater ceilings are being left alone, and a decorative plaster “medallion” on the north wall is supposed to remain in place — though it’ll be stripped of some outer layers. An upper section of the balcony will also stay, along with some light fixtures in the lobby. But other than those items, the entire 1939 theater space — or rather, what’s left of it after Weingarten encased the auditorium’s preserved sloped floor in concrete last year — is being gutted, according to plans drawn up for the project by Heights Venture Architects. A permit for the conversion of the historic Art Deco building to a retail “shell” was granted by the city earlier this week.
Unverified rumors from 2 sources that appear to be separate have now made their way to Swamplot, but we have no details or confirmation. The first is that Fiesta Mart is considering taking the Randall’s Flagship location at the corner of Westheimer and Shepherd Dr.; the second is that Fiesta actually will move into the space — from the West Alabama and Dunlavy location now slated for an apartment building. If you’ve got more of the scoop, let us know!
- Previously on Swamplot: Apartments Planned for Montrose Fiesta Site Will Go Tall Mediterranean
Photo of Randall’s Flagship Shepherd Square: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
HOUSTON PRESERVATIONISTS MOVE TO STRIP CENTER, CHANGE NAME 
The Greater Houston Preservation Alliance’s days as a scrappy preservation organization housed in offices in the historic 1929 Gulf building downtown are over. From now on, it’ll be a scrappy preservation organization housed in offices in a Westheimer Rd. strip center. Okay, it’s that fancy brick-clad River Oaks strip center with the argyle tower across at 3272 Westheimer, across from Lamar High School. And it’s name is gonna change too. The GHPA shall now be known as Preservation Houston. [GHPA Preservation Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jim Parsons/Preservation Houston
STOLEN FROM A CLOSELY GUARDED GARDEN 
Yes, those bees were under camera surveillance; don’t even think they aren’t watching the radishes too. A beehive on the small garden campus adjacent to Haven Restaurant on Algerian Way near the corner of Kirby and the 59 feeder was stolen in the early morning hours Saturday, by someone driving a dark truck with a camper — reports chef Randy Evans after reviewing security footage. Film at 11 5, promises KTRK reporter Miya Shay. [Twitter] Photo: Miya Shay
Does the Saint Germain Foundation qualify as a church? That’s the story the listing agent sticks to in her description of the property for sale on the corner of Greenbriar and Portsmouth. As a qualifying religious institution, it’s exempt from local property taxes. The Illinois-based group, founded by mining engineer Guy W. Ballard in 1934, is selling its longtime Houston home across Greenbriar from the Shepherd Plaza shopping center and worldly-goods discounter Tuesday Morning. According to followers of Ballard’s teachings, the organization’s founder had previously completed earthly stints in the person of Achilles, Alexander the Great, Kings Richard I and Henry V of England, and George Washington; in 1939, in lieu of dying, he became Ascended Master Godfre. The 3,000-sq.-ft. home at 3700 Greenbriar was built a year later.
The decent-apartments-not-too-far-from-Rice gig is up for the red-brick Greenbriar Chateau Apartments just south of Hwy. 59: According to a couple reports, residents of the buildings at 4100 Greenbriar received a letter today from Kaplan Management, notifying them they have until March 8th to leave. The courtyard-style 3-story Mansard-roof buildings, which date from 1969, will then be torn down and replaced with a “‘state of the art’ housing complex.” Renters current on their payments will be offered $250 to help pay for moving expenses, the letter said. An entity connected to InSite Commercial Real Estate bought the 3.63-acre site last August.
- Inner-Loop residents get the boot; apartments to be demo’d [Prime Property]
- RIP, The Semi-Venerable Greenbriar Chateau Apartments: You Have Five Weeks To Clear Out [Hair Balls]
- Previously on Swamplot: Demolition Watch: Greenbriar Chateau Apartments
Photos: Apartment Guide
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DEATH OF COOL “The FrankenTuscan style is a bit like a normalizing virus looking for a healthy, vibrant, diverse host. When countercultures build up and make cool certain neighborhoods, they are seen by developers as suddenly desirable, so the developers move in, hoping to capitalize on this cool authenticity. But rather than succumbing to the local conditions of Montrose, for instance (tattoo parlors and halfway houses and comic book stores and so on) they put a veneer of normalcy over it. Make it safe enough that yuppies with slight aspirations toward hipsterism can understand and participate. These developers market a lifestyle just cool enough that the West U set will move in, but not so cool that it veers into rebellious anti-establishment cool. As a result, what’s great and exciting about these progressive neighborhoods becomes slowly watered down, normalized, made monocultural again. This virus seeks sameness–it seeks to flatten any bumps, to smooth out any rough edges. It is insidious and impossible to resist. Montrose will FrankenTuscanified, whether we like it or not. As every cool neighborhood in the history of the world has been. . . .” [MJ, commenting on Comment of the Day: Moving on from Montrose]
Possibly the largest house numbers in Houston belong to this painted-brick structure at — what is it? Oh, yeah — 2101 Banks St. in Boulevard Oaks. Among the perks available with the revamped 1935 home: built-in bookcases in the entryway, a 2-story back porch overlooking a landscaped back yard, and a vastly reduced likelihood that you’ll ever receive someone else’s mail by mistake.
