COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DIAGONAL LINE BETWEEN FIRST WARD AND SIXTH 
“. . . Congress Street was used as a boundary in the ward system, but that boundary, extended, does not run along Washington Avenue. It instead runs well north of Washington. A look at 1913 and 1920 maps of Houston that designate the wards shows this . . . The upshot: That church is 6th Ward, not 1st.” [Houstonreader, commenting on Vatican’s ‘Supreme Court’ Rules Shuttered First Ward Church Must Reopen, But It Hasn’t Yet] Section of 1920 Houston street map: Houston Past
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Tag: First Ward
Note: This story has been updated to note that the church is located in Sixth Ward, not First.
In April, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura — the highest judicial body in the Catholic Church — issued a ruling direct from Rome to the corner of Silver and Center streets, reports the Chronicle’s Lisa Gray: St. Stephen Church, across from Platypus Brewing, would be required to reopen. (It wasn’t until the fall that members of the church found out, though, seeing as “the Vatican doesn’t just post its rulings on the web. Its documents are in Latin, and are not made public,” Gray writes.) The church’s 1941 brick building had been boarded up since closing in 2016, around which time Lovett Commercial — the owner of the strip housing Platypus and neighboring retail — announced plans to redevelop some of St. Stephen’s parking and expressed interest in buying the church itself, according to congregants.
Divine Intervention
A new indoor golf venue is on its way into the Shops at Sawyer Yards, where it’s laid claim to the empty space marked “B” in the site plan above, adjacent to Sawyer St. It’ll be Loft18‘s first step outside Metairie, Louisiana, home to its only existing location. There, an array of 5 golf simulators — essentially turf teeboxes fronted by large video screens — offer customers 95 different courses to play. Along with bar and kitchen service, it’s all wrapped up within 7,000 sq.-ft.
The rendering at top shows what the west face of the converted warehouse building at 2313 Sawyer St. could look like once Loft18 gets situated. No building permits appear to have been filed yet on that address, however, HAIF users note that both a Houston-specific website and Facebook page for the business recently went live.
- Previously on Swamplot: Awesome Bites Will Take a Chunk Out of Shops at Sawyer Yards’ West Side; B&B Butchers Bull Marking New Territory in Shops at Sawyer Yards; Where Lovett Commercial Is Really Developing That Restaurant in the First Ward
Rendering: Loft 18. Site plan: Lovett Commercial
Teeing Off
The 2016 lawsuit that just last week resulted in a multi-million dollar judgment against Houston developer Urban Living isn’t the only litigation the firm’s caught up in right now. Since the beginning of the year, the same plaintiff, Preston Wood & Associates, has filed 4 more suits against the developer and its partners, alleging that at least 6 more Urban Living projects were based of derivatives of the design firm’s copyrighted townhome plans.
One of the projects, dubbed The Modern on Sabine, is shown at top on the corner of Sabine and Bingham streets. Another, The Modern on Austin, went up in place of a few row houses torn down at Austin and Tuam near the end of 2013:
The Kicker
Coming soon to the west side of the warehouse-turned-Shops at Sawyer Yards building on the corner of Sawyer and Edwards streets: Awesome Bites, a health-minded bakery specializing in fruit- and vegetable-based muffins made without eggs, butter, or milk. A building permit filed last Friday for the strip at 2313 Edwards — the nearer building in the photo above — has the new 1,600-sq.-ft. venue slotted into suite 185. That puts it west of Pokeology in either the box labelled B above (where B&B Butchers once left its mark but never materialized) or potentially right next door to the raw fishery — if the adjacent, yet-to-be announced taco shop’s plans fall through.
- Reinventing Treats [Awesome Bites]
- Previously on Swamplot: B&B Butchers Bull Marking New Territory in Shops at Sawyer Yards; Where Lovett Commercial Is Really Developing That Restaurant in the First Ward
Images: Lovett Commercial
First Ward
The mark of shuttered Rice Military drinking spot R Bar is now cropping up in the site plan for Kaldis Development’s planned redo of the former Montalbano Tire building (top photo) at 1302 Houston Ave.
Back in March, the signage came down from the sports bar’s previous and now-shuttered location in the L-shaped Memorial Dr. strip center half a mile west of Shepherd, where it mediated between Memorial Park Vision and the dental office of Dr. Catalina C. Johnson:
First Ward Redo
The former Haliburton manufacturing plant at 1907 Sabine St. is now the eighth structure to take on a post-industrial life by joining the group of First Ward art buildings collectively dubbed Sawyer Yards. Developer Jon Deal oversaw the redo of what he’s now calling Sabine Street Studios. Its new look consists of freshly-installed siding as well as added clerestory windows and doors along the parking lot on the corner of Silver and Spring streets. Spring Street Studios — another Sawyer Yards building — is just north across the street.
To the south, the building spans the entirety of Shearn St. between Silver and Sabine:
Done Deal
Following the trail of industrial buildings transformed in the First Ward, a Swamplot reader in motion this morning sends this photo of workers getting a boost to install new siding along the Spring St. frontage of the former Halliburton manufacturing plant at 1907 Sabine St. A company overseen by developer Jon Deal bought the 1.3-acre complex of industrial buildings between Spring and Shearn streets in 2016. Five years earlier, Deal bought the property across Spring St. from the Halliburton plant and transformed it into Spring Street Studios. He also developed the Silos at Sawyer Yards studio as well as 2 other art spaces nearby it — all 3 blocks south of the former plant.
The complex includes a vacant lot on the corner of Spring and Silver streets:
Oilfield Services Redo
Here’s what’s expected to park in the garage at Montalbano Tire and Auto Service after the business shuts down next week: a restaurant or 2, retailers, and office tenants. Kaldis Development Interests purchased the .81-acre property at 1302 Houston Ave in mid-October and plans to renovate it before reopening it as a 15,000-sq.-ft. retail-and-office center.
On the Houston Ave front (see top drawing), windows would be fitted into the building’s current garage bays, with a restaurant patio facing the street at the northern end. On the south side, the metal structure facing Dart St. would be punctured with new window bays as well as doors for individual storefronts.
According to the site plan for the proposed new development (below) 7 head-in parking spaces off of Houston Ave would remain after the redo:
First Ward Redo
Water levels from Harvey have made the underpass just north of Center St., where Houston Ave. tucks under the rail lines, impassable. But there are consequences to trying to drive around the underpass structure, as this photo taken yesterday afternoon by a Swamplot reader attests: The ground drops off sharply on the south side of the tracks to the west of the street, and that’s not so easy to see if you’re driving south.
Photo: Kelsie H. Dos Santos
Avoiding High Water
The self-styled “House of a Million Parts” at 1225 Sawyer St. once known as Johnny Frank’s Auto Parts Company was torn to pieces last summer. Freshly applied to the chain-link fence surrounding the now-vacant lot: a new TABC notice, announcing to passers-by that an establishment named the Sawyer Ice House is hoping to sling cocktails on the premises before too long. The land is across the road from those arted-up rice silos on Sawyer St., which are across Edwards St. from the Shops at Sawyer Yards. It appears to be another of the projects in that neck of the woods that trace back to Lovett Commercial, which is working on parking lots and a slew of other developments in the area as well. Here’s what Sawyer Ice House might look like, per what appears to be the bar’s new save-the-name Facebook page:
Car Lot Reincarnation
The partially ruined former Jefferson Davis Hospital nurses quarters at 1225 Elder St. — until very recently in the running for a spot on the National Register of Historic Places — was recommended for demolition at last week’s Harris County Commissioner’s Court meeting following a public hearing the day before. The building, tucked west of the elevated freeway tangle where I-45 splits from I-10 near Downtown, would have joined the nextdoor former Jefferson Davis Hospital itself on the historic registry — instead, it looks like the structure will finally meet meet the ‘dozers after its long slow decline, accelerated by damage from a fire in 2013 that lead to last year’s semi-collapse.
Next door, the 4-story hospital structure (built in 1924, and replaced by 1938 with another Jefferson Davis Hospital where the Federal Reserve building now stands on Allen Pkwy.) cycled through various modes of use and disuse until its early 2000’s restoration into the Elder Street Artist Lofts, which serve as low-rent apartments and studios for artsy types. That redevelopment, of course, involved carefully digging around the dozens of unmarked graves turned up on the surrounding land, which beginning in 1840 had served as the second city cemetery (and as the final resting place for a hodgepodge likely including  Confederate soldiers, former slaves, victims of the 1860s yellow fever epidemics, people who died in duels, Masons, and a variety of others). The hospital’s name is still carved above the lofts’ entrance:
First Ward Fire Damage by HFD
CLUB NOMADIC SHOWS OFF LATEST TRENDS IN JUST-IN-TIME NIGHTCLUB DELIVERY 
Temporary 3-story nightclub and performance venue Club Nomadic has received its final checks and OKs from the city for tonight’s 9pm opening — with just over 6 hours to spare, if the time a city rep gave to St. John Barnard-Smith and Mike Morris is correct. Both Club Nomadic’s owner and folks at the city permitting office say it’s totally normal for a temporary event structure like this one to cut the permitting process close; the temporary nature of the project also means on-site parking is not required for the 9,000-or-so visitors expected, and organizers are stressing that tow trucks will be on the prowl. The Club is currently selling parking passes for the 1600 Smith St. garage, with plans to shuttle guests between the garage and the club site at 2121 Edwards St.; other enterprising Houstonians appear to be getting in on the action as well. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of 2121 Edwards St.: Club Nomadic
Despite being marketed previously as a potential site for up to 15 freestanding townhomes, the townhome-fringed lot at the corner of Houston Ave. and Spring St. now sports a TABC permit notification instead. A reader caught some evening views of the corner and the sign announcing mixed-beverage and late-night plans for its little 1996 building (which names Spring Street Beer and Wine Garden as the incoming occupant). New owners (at least the 6th to purchase the property since 2005, per county records) purchased the property in the fall, and the Attack of the Killer Condos mural previously facing the Heights Hike & Bike Trail along Spring St. has already been painted over:
Holding the Line in First Ward
BOXES OF EVIDENCE TAKE COLD SHOWER IN HPD PROPERTY ROOM FREEZER 
The still-under-investigation malfunction of an evidence freezer fire sprinkler at the HPD Property Room on Washington Ave. yesterday may have compromised evidence in as many as 4,200 cases, a Harris County district attorney’s office rep tells KHOU. Acting police chief Martha Montalvo says that some the moistened cardboard boxes and envelopes contained DNA evidence (though seemingly none related to sexual assault cases); she also adds that most of the individual samples are bagged in a few layers of sealed plastic. Mayor Turner announced that HPD’s forensic folks will help repackage the dampened evidence and see whether any of it has been damaged or compromised; reps from the DA’s office say they will be in touch with the lawyers of anyone whose case might be impacted by the samples in question. [KHOU] Photo of HPD Property Room at 1202 Washington Ave.: City of Houston
