EL GRAN MALO TO OPEN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE VERSION DOWNTOWN 
It must be that like attracts like: Another restaurant is getting ready to open near Market Square Park, reports Culturemap’s Eric Sandler: This time, it’s El Big Bad, a Downtown translation of the original El Gran Malo at 2307 Ella Blvd in Shady Acres. El Big Bad will take up that corner pocket at 419 Travis most recently vacated by Pepper Jack’s (and Cabo before that) on the block bound by Preston, Prairie, Main, and Travis — that’s where Hines has said it just might build a residential tower and across Travis from where the 41-story Gensler-designed International Tower just might be going up too. [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo of former Pepper Jack’s: H-Town in Pics
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: Downtown
A reader sends Swamplot what appears to be the first rendering of the Gensler-designed International Tower: What has been tentatively described as a 41-story, 750,000-sq.-ft. office building, developed by Stream Realty and Essex Commercial Properties, would go up on a Linbeck-owned block Downtown that now is a surface parking lot bound by Preston, Prairie, Milam, and Travis; it’s immediately south of Market Square Park and immediately west of where Hines has said it is considering building another residential highrise. The reader adds that the first 2 floors of the new tower would be devoted to retail and what appears to be a restaurant; construction could begin as early as next year.
- 50-story International Tower by Stream/Essex [HAIF]
- Houston’s downtown skyline to be reshaped [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Project aims at ultra-rich wanting to live smaller [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Previously on Swamplot: Hines Interested in Building Residential Tower on Downtown Block Near Market Square Park
Image: Gensler
Here’s a photo of the little rubble pile forming outside the former Houston Club Building at 811 Rusk, a presage of the bigger rubble to come. Skanska, which bought the 18-story building standing on the block bound by Rusk, Capitol, Travis, and Milam, has said it plans to replace it with a 34-story, 700,000-sq.-ft. office tower that’s being designed by Gensler.
- Demolishing the Houston Club at 811 Rusk Street [HAIF]
- Previously on Swamplot: Skanska’s New Downtown Office Tower, Houston Club Tunnel Tenants Making Their Escape, Houston Club Building To Be Demolished, Say Auctioneers, ARCO Office Going Down; Downtown Houston Club Building Will Stay Put, Skanska Goes for a Houston Office Building Hat Trick, Skanska Helping Houston Club to Early Exit, Will Skanska Knock Down the Houston Club?, At Risk on Rusk
Photos: HAIF user Nate99
A reader sends these photos that show a new location — if in name only — of the Tex-Mex restaurant that couldn’t hack it up on the mean streets (and drives and boulevards) that’s getting ready to open in the tunnels Downtown beneath the First City Tower at 1001 Fannin. This would appear to be the 2nd of the version of Maggie Rita’s operated by Tony Shannard, who paid the original restaurateurs Carlos Mencia and Santiago Moreno to use the name; Shannard runs another Maggie Rita’s in the tunnels beneath the JPMorgan Chase Tower at 600 Travis; that’s about half a mile away from here as the mole scurries.
- Tex Mex Grill & Bar [Maggie Rita’s Mexican Kitchen]
- Previously on Swamplot: Maggie Rita’s Closes Shepherd Location, Calls It Quits, Bringing That Lady Home from Maggie Rita’s, Out with Mama Ninfa’s, in with Maggie Rita’s
Photos: philaphonic
WHY NOT BANISH CARS FROM MAIN ST.? 
Monday morning’s fatal collision between the bicycling Rice University architecture student and a southbound Metro train seems to have occasioned the folks at Houston Tomorrow to wonder at the best uses for Main St.: Blogger Kyle Nielsen shows — with a rented B-Cycle and a tape measure — how little room there is for a motorist to give a “vulnerable road user” the 3 ft. now required by the city for “safe passing” and suggests that the Downtown corridor should be closed off, once and for all, to traffic: “It seems to me that it would enhance cyclist and pedestrian safety, encourage the type of walkable retail and bars/restaurants that Downtown needs, decrease motorist frustration at being stuck behind a bicycle, and enhance motorist and transit safety by eliminating the motorist [illegal] left turns that still hit the Metro rail cars sporadically.” [Houston Tomorrow; previously on Swamplot] Photo: kylejack
MAKING SOME FANNIN ST. OFFICE SPACE MORE SPIFFY 
The owners of 1301 Fannin said today that Ziegler Cooper has been contracted to renovate the 24-story Downtown building’s soon-to-be-available office space. Maybe inspired by those unveiled upgrades planned for Houston Pavilions — er, GreenStreet located right next door, the data center and commercial tower with Luby’s on the 13th floor will have almost 80,000 sq. ft. of space come up for lease this August. The building, which just underwent an exterior and lobby renovation in 2009, sits on the block bound by Fannin, San Jacinto, Clay, and Polk. [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot] Photo: LoopNet
DIPPING INTO DOWNTOWN’S BAR SCENE 
Tweeting this photo of its brand-new TABC sign in the window at 304 Main St., Little Dipper has emerged in Downtown’s twinkling constellation of new bars and restaurants: Eater Houston reports that this proposed bar is owned by the same folks who have brought you Poison Girl on Westheimer and coffee shops Black Hole on Graustark and Antidote on Studewood. It appears that the Little Dipper will be going into the space right next to ramen shop Goro & Gun at 306 Main, just around the corner from the OKRA Charity Saloon on Congress and that lot catty-corner from Market Square Park where Hines has said it is considering building a residential tower. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: @littledipperbar
Though we still don’t know exactly what’s replacing it, the Macy’s on Main is now well on its way to becoming nothing. The Downtown block where the Kenneth Franzheim brick box stands is bound by Main, Dallas, Travis, and Lamar. That’s now owned by 1110 Main Partners, an entity connected to Hilcorp; a source there told Swamplot about a month ago that Hilcorp employees had been shown a rendering of a “a regular looking office building tower over 20 stories high†to be built here, but that rendering hasn’t surfaced — so far. This photo shows part of the former Foley’s overhang as though bitten into by a wide-mouth excavator. And a few more shots of the demolition:
Even without the billowing sailcloth and Seussian shrubs accenting the double-height ceiling, a penthouse-level unit in downtown’s St. Germain condo mid-rise is a lofty space. Developer Randall Davis converted the former 1913 Kress & Co. building back in 1999. This bi-level corner unit appeared on the market in June with an asking price of $315,000. It last sold in June 2010 at $259,900.
Hines says that it isn’t quite ready to say that the office tower planned for 609 Main will be taller than the previously described 41 stories and 815,000 sq. ft. Still, a rep from Hines says that increasing demand for office space Downtown is driving a redesign from Pickard Chilton, and it’s likely that the tower will end up comprising more square footage — if not more stories. The proposed block, bound by Main, Texas, Fannin, and Capitol, is shared now with the vacant Texas Tower — though it’s still unclear whether that building would be torn down to make room. At any rate, it seems that we’ll soon know: The second round of designs should be completed by the end of the year, says the rep, and construction could begin as early as January.
- Houston’s next great skyscraper? Hines to Texas size new Main Street office tower, speed up development [Culturemap]
- Previously on Swamplot: Does New Hines Highrise Mean Old Texas Tower’s a Goner?
Rendering: Hines
Last week’s announcement by Chevron of the 50-story tower it plans to add to its blue-glass twins is just the latest development in the 77002. This map from the Downtown Management District shows projects that are recently completed, under construction, or in various states of planning and speculation. Those projects, denoted by purple and yellow on the map, include Skanska’s 34-story office tower that’s replacing the old Houston Club Building, Hines’s highrise on Main, the residential renovation of the Texaco Building, and the 5-story apartment complex near the under-construction SkyHouse apartment tower, among others. You can scroll through a complete legend for the map after the jump:
To form a power trio with the 2 curvaceous Enron hand-me-downs it has occupied since 2004, Chevron will be building a more boxy 50-story tower on the urban meadow left behind when Kenneth Franzheim’s Downtown YMCA came down in 2011. Chevron announced today that the HOK-designed building at 1600 Louisiana and Pease will provide 1.7 million sq. ft. of space, including training and conference rooms, more parking, and a cafeteria. This rendering suggests there will also be plinth-top common areas and — as though a subtle homage to what preceded it on this 85,000-sq.-ft. lot — a gym.
When Twitter’s landlord Shorenstein Properties out of San Francisco acquired in January the ExxonMobil Building, it made a fuss about wanting to sync the somewhat standoffish tower at 800 Bell St. with the tunnel system that serves the rest of the Downtown fraternity of skyscrapers and extensively renovate what was, at the time it was completed, the tallest building west of the Mighty Mississip’. The rendering you see at the top from Kirksey Architecture shows one take on just such a renovation — except, says a rep from the firm, it ain’t gonna happen. Apparently, Kirksey wasn’t awarded the bid to get the building ready in 2015 for a new tenant once ExxonMobil packs up and moves north to the under-construction campus among the trees in Spring.
But the rendering comes from an action-packed presentation video that Kirksey put together and posted online less than a week ago — and removed this morning. And it’s too bad: The video opens with a magical installation of the shards of a glass curtain wall atop the shade-providing tiers that now hula-hoop their way up the 45-story building. It’s the kind of thing you’d see were Magneto a general contractor and not a comic-book evildoer. Fortunately, a HAIF user grabbed some stills from the video and posted them, giving us a good idea of what’s not going to be:
HINES INTERESTED IN BUILDING RESIDENTIAL TOWER ON DOWNTOWN BLOCK NEAR MARKET SQUARE PARK 
Culturemap reports that Hines is under contract to buy up a Downtown block and is planning a residential tower. How big a residential tower? Ralph Bivins doesn’t say. The block is bound by Prairie, Preston, Travis, and Main, catty-corner from Market Square Park; it’s directly across Preston from street artist Gonzo247’s Treebeards mural. It’s unclear from Bivins’s report whether Hines would build on the entire block and tear down the existing buildings — which include Frank’s Pizza and the recently closed Pepper Jack’s (and closed Cabo before that). If it seems as though Hines has been busy of late, it’s because Hines has been busy of late: The developer has also said it’s considering building a 20- or 22-story residential tower next to the Asia Society Texas Center, a 17-story office building off San Felipe, an apartment complex at the old Westheimer Cafe Adobe site, and a 41-story office tower at 609 Main. Update, 2:15 p.m.: A rep from Hines says that, though it’s too early to comment on the details of the proposed “multifamily development,” it would replace only the surface parking lot on the block in question. [Culturemap; Houstonia Magazine; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Market Square Park: Swamplot inbox
FROM NO SUCH HEIGHTS: DOWNTOWN’S NEXT APARTMENT BUILDING TO RISE JUST 5 STORIES 
Developer Alliance Residential has shared with the Houston Chronicle this rendering of the comparatively puny 5-story apartment complex it says it plans to build on the Downtown block bound by Bell, Leeland, Main, and Fannin. That block now is a surface parking lot. The 207 units planned for this complex, if built, might be rather overshadowed by the 30-story Houston House Apartments catty-corner from here and the 24-story SkyHouse that’s under construction just one block to the south. Alliance rep Bart Barrett tells Nancy Sarnoff that construction could begin as early as this fall, once the sale of the property is complete. [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Alliance Residential Company
