01/04/17 3:00pm

Former Houston Chronicle Building, 801 Texas Ave., Downtown, Houston, 77002

El Big Bad’s corner at Travis and Prairie streets now provides a view straight into (and even through) some long-hidden interior sections of the former Houston Chronicle headquarters at 801 Texas Ave. The building — or, rather, group of buildings bundled together behind in a single mid-1960’s skin — has been coming down gently since the judge for the Hines-Hearst-Linbeck tunnel lawsuit gave the okay over the summer. Most of the 10-story original section of the relocated paper’s former headquarters, on the south side of the block facing Texas Ave. at the Travis corner, has already been removed; a reader snapped the shot above yesterday, as what’s left of the complex was being draped in black again for the next phase of the pull-apart.

Photo: Christine Wilson

Shrunken Headquarters
01/04/17 12:15pm

1801 Richmond Ave. Demo, Richwood Place, Houston, 77098
1801 Richmond Ave., Richwood Place, Houston, 77098From beneath yesterday’s sunset glare off the new Big Tex Storage midrise on Richmond Ave, a reader captured the splintery wreckage of long-empty Cierra Interiors at the corner with Woodhead St. Plans to stick a new Starbucks in its place were submitted back in early November by an entity connected to experienced Starbucks constructor Vaquero Ventures, and the knockout of the building was officially sanctioned just before Christmas. Next door, the land opened up by Vaquero’s teardown of the pair of 2-story brick 4-plexes at 1823 and 1827 Richmond back in August looks to be marked for another Inner Loop outpost of oil change chain Take 5.

And one more door eastward, the former Ruthie’s Place on Richmond looks to be headed for new use by strip-center gelato shop Sweetcup, per some early-stage permits issued in November that note a bar-to-ice-cream-shop conversion. Sweetcup bought the building at 1829 Richmond in September after the bar’s early 2016 shutdown (in the wake of the passing of long-time former owner Ruth Vardilos). Here’s a shot of the whole corner taken in August, shortly after the apartment removal, showing Ruthie’s tucked next to Ely’s Beauty Salon on the far right:

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Richwood Place Replacements
12/29/16 4:30pm

Meteor, 2306 Genesee St, Montrose, Houston
Demolition of Meteor, 2306 Genesee St, Montrose, Houston

Demolition of Meteor, 2306 Genesee St, Montrose, HoustonSome fluffy pink batting stands out amid the debris spotted this week at the corner of Genessee and Fairview streets, being swept clean of shower-centric nightclub and regular drag venue Meteor. The teardown makes room for work to start on that 5-story parking garage (the one that might be getting the artful crust of bicycles). Construction on the Fairview District, a six-block project including the parking garage, some office space, and more restaurant and retail spots, is supposed to get rolling in January, according to developer Fred Sharifi (also behind the Max’s Wine Dive visible peeking out from the left of the shot above, as well as its re-bricked strip-center companions).

A reader driving by caught a few shots of an excavator and a big red dumpster on the scene, loitering close to the Fairview-facing side where the Midtown Aegean Auto shack was — both the auto shop and Meteor received their very own demo permits just in time for Christmas, and the club was reportedly well on its way toward obliteration by Monday afternoon. A view from across Genesee shows that the club’s clumps of privacy bamboo were still standing as of Tuesday:

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Fairview Farewells
12/19/16 3:15pm

THE GRAVESITE BREAKUP MYSTERY NEAR ALDINE MIDDLE SCHOOL Aldine Cemetery, Aldine Meadows Rd., Aldine, 77032Who, exactly, ordered the unannounced, interrupted, and apparently haphazard plant and gravestone removal at the unmarked Aldine Cemetery near Aldine Middle School last week? As of Friday, Mike Snyder writes, the local sheriffs  were still trying to figure that out — as were some of the (living) family members of the buried, and unofficial Aldine historian Elizabeth Battle, who had been working to get the cemetery its own historical marker. Battle tells Snyder she’d been under the impression that “people . . . barreling in and destroying graves without contacting the descendants” wasn’t something that was likely to happen; University of Houston professor and periodic gravesite construction advisor Ken Brown notes that any disturbance of the 30-ish headstones, even by the property’s owner, should have required a court order. [Houston Chronicle] Photo of semi-cleared Aldine Cemetery on Aldine Meadows Rd: State rep. Armando Walle

09/02/16 10:15am

Demo of 12740 Memorial Dr., Memorial, Houston, 77024

An excavator was spotted bowing its head yesterday afternoon in the freshly cleared spot at 12740 Memorial Dr., until recently populated by the likes of Baskin Robbins,  Anne’s Salon, and A-1 Cleaners. Per an associated leasing flier for the property, the newly blanked space looks to be slated for drive-thru bank-dom, with a place next door for a retail friend.  The land sits immediately next to a Bank of Texas branch (visible over the fence on the left), itself across W. Bough Ln. from a freestanding Chase. Heading south down Memorial Dr., a Prosperity Bank keeps watch over the next Memorial Bend bend with help from the strip-center BBVA Compass branch across the street.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Making Bank
08/30/16 3:00pm

DOCUMENTING HOUSTON’S TOWNHOUSIFICATION, ONE TWEET AT A TIME @densifyingHOUWhile you’re waiting for Kuukibot’s polite but insistent stream of air toxics tweets to come back, another Houston-obsessed account has just hit the Twittersphere — this one documenting the city’s infill development, as evidenced by daily before-and-after shots pulled from Google Streetview (like the 2-house-t0-7-townhome transition shown above, from near the intersection of Gibson and Snover streets in Brunner).  The account’s Philadelphia-based author (who’s looking for submissions, by the way) points to the 1999 changes in minimum lot size requirements as the catalyst for the subsequent waves of tightly-packed townhouse do-overs in previously large-lot neighborhoods around town, as explained by Daniel Hertz earlier this summer: Hertz writes that  the decision to allow lots as small as 1,400 sq.ft. within the Inner Loop (a decree later expanded city-wide in 2013) allowed the building of way more housing stock in the city’s core without a switch to multifamily-style buildings. “An important research project in the coming years ,” Hertz notes, “will be to see if Houston’s willingness to allow more housing—and especially missing middle housing—in the center of a growing metropolitan area can reduce the growth of housing prices and keep neighborhoods more diverse and affordable than they would otherwise be.” [City Observatory] Screenshot of Densifying Houston tweet: @densifyingHOU

08/17/16 1:15pm

12740 Memorial Dr., Memorial, Houston, 77024A few readers have written in regarding the fate of the Baskin Robbins and its retail strip neighbors at 12740 Memorial Dr., just south of Town and Country Mall. The building which housed the now-closed scoop shop along with Katy defector Anne’s Salon on Memorial and the local branch of More Hands Maid Service appears slated for a full tear-down and do-over (along with freestanding A-1 Cleaners next door), if plans from Streetwise Retail Advisor’s leasing flier are still on the mark:

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Memorial Bends
07/12/16 1:30pm

Former City of Houston Code Enforcement Building, 3300 Main St., Midtown, Houston, 77002

The 1967 occupant of 3300 Main St., which previously housed the city code enforcement office, is currently getting its asbestos removed in anticipation of its impending demolition, according to a reader involved in the work. The structure and its parking lot grounds were bought from the city in 2011 by the Midtown Redevelopment Authority, who started trying to sell it in 2014; PM Realty (the developers of the glass-petticoated apartment tower at 2929 Weslayan, who are also currently working on the less-is-more-branded Ivy Lofts tiny condo complex in East Downtown) put the property under contract that year.

What’s going to take the code building’s place, between the new MATCH box theater collection and the Houston Community College buildings to the north on Main St.? The involved reader confirms that the rendering below shows the current design in place along the light rail line; materials from AECOM (a partner in the project) say the highrise should hold 336 apartments and 14,390 sq.ft. of retail space:

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Trading Up in Midtown
07/06/16 4:15pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: A MONUMENT TO WHOLESOME AND SEEDY TURNOVER IN RICE VILLAGE Village Arcade Sign“The Village Arcade sign was a nod to the Village Theatre marquee (which was promptly razed in January of the year after a Jim McConn-administration moratorium on demolition of historic structures expired).  . . . There was, actually, some effort to save the Village Theatre and its block of shops (including World Toy and Gift), but it came to naught. It was a nice MacKie & Kamrath neighborhood theatre design, but by the time of its demise it was probably irretrievably tainted by its waning days as a porn house.” [marmer, commenting on Hanover Montrose Move-In Day Nears; Rice Village Arcade Sign Comes Down] Photo of Village Arcade sign: Swamplot inbox

06/23/16 2:45pm

Allen Center Skybridge Remodeling, 500 Dallas St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

Currently underway: the partial disassembly of 1 of the 2 skybridges connecting One and Two Allen Center at the corner of Dallas and Smith streets downtown. The bridge pictured above is expected to survive the planned 3-tower redevelopment — a permit to remodel it was issued on Monday with some other OKs on the work, which includes turning the rubble-filled space to the east into a Smith-St.-facing events lawn and concert space. Renderings previously released by Brookfield suggest that the other skybridge, from which the above photo was taken, won’t be so lucky:

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Last Days Downtown
06/15/16 12:45pm

2332 Bissonnet St., Greenbriar, Houston, 77005

On Monday afternoon a reader caught part of the smash-and-drag action at 2332 Bissonnet St., right next to Kay’s Lounge. That’s part of the exterior staircase of the 2-story retail-residential structure lying curled up in the foreground; a remaining member of the bar’s shrinking entourage of smaller structures can be spotted peeking around the fence on the right.  

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Greenbriar Goodbye
06/07/16 4:15pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE PROOF IS IN THE PERMITTING Bulldozer Illustration“You don’t need to read a university study to know the Houston housing market is going through a downturn. You don’t even have to look at HAR. To gauge the health of the Houston real estate market, you only have to look at the Daily Demolition Report: only 2 residential permits today; only 1 yesterday. Crisis!” [Angostura, commenting on Move-In Day Approaches for New Phillips 66 HQ; Montrose’s Crowded Mexican Restaurant Scene] Illustration: Lulu

06/07/16 2:45pm

Proposed Prairie Tunnel Map, per Theater Square lawsuit filings

The management at 717 Louisiana St. has sent out word to tenants that the tunnel segment beneath the vacated downtown Houston Chronicle building is now open again, even though the newspaper’s former headquarters at 801 Texas Ave. are still standing on top of it. Documents filed with the Harris County district clerk’s office show that Hines agreed to hold off on the demo for a while, after Linbeck’s Theater Square group filed a lawsuit to stop them.

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Downtown Downtime
06/07/16 12:45pm

Demolition of former Walgreen's at 3900 Westheimer Rd., Highland Village, Houston, 77027

The walls and roof of the former Walgreen’s at 3900 Westheimer Rd. are now being teased apart into the tangle above, following the issuance last week of a demolition permit for the 1975 structure. River Oaks Baptist School bought the property in April of last year, around the time Walgreen’s jumped eastward across the intersection of Westheimer and Weslayan/Willowick to inhabit the former Fresh Market space (where it now operates next to what turned out to be a Texas Emergency Care Center neighboring the River Oaks branch of Mattress Firm).

Here’s another angle on the teardown, with the 1963 Willowick Condominiums tower peeking over the scene in the background:

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Born Again in Highland Village
05/25/16 10:45am

Houston Toros Downtown facility, 2202 Summer St., Sawyer Heights, Houston, 77007

The new Houston Toros facility on Summer St. is getting polished up for next month’s soft kickoff, per reader Rony Canales’s latest panoramic update. The training spot and community center is across a railroad easement and some now-warehouse-free fields from the rice silo complex being redeveloped into the Silos at Sawyer Yards artsy-retail space to the south.

The new soccer center appears to incorporate at least the shells of few of the warehouses previously occupying the site, though a few structures on the block have ejected — including the house at the corner of Summer and Hemphill streets, where a playing field is now being smoothed into place (as shown above). Check out the aerial rendering of the entire site, facing toward the silos and the Downtown skyline:

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Summer St. Summer League