A Swamplot reader offers a trade: A few photos of the retention ponds going in north of White Oak Bayou where 6th St. was blocked between Yale and Shepherd (above and below) — in exchange for more details on the park that’s apparently planned for that location, including a scheduled completion date for the construction. “I have no ‘official’ information, only old data and hearsay,” reports the reader. Which includes this map dating from 2010:
THE MULTICOLORED POOP BAGS OF THE HEIGHTS HIKE AND BIKE TRAIL Alas — or should that be phew!? — no photos accompanied this brief report sent to Swamplot’s tip line: “Not sure if this qualifies for publication but I am not sure where else to turn to give this attention. Unfortunately I don’t jog with my camera so no photo yet but hope to submit one at some point. There are dog walkers that go through all the effort to bag their dogs’ poop only to toss it on the Houston Heights hike and bike trail. On any given day there are nice colorful bags of poop along the trail especially on the stretch from I-10 up to Nicholson. Pink, yellow, brown, black, and even turquoise bags preserving dog poop for all to enjoy. I am a bit perplexed at this practice of poop art.” [Swamplot inbox]
Like a beret worn jauntily, an angled steel roof provides a little attitude, a stab of color, and some tilt to an otherwise monochromatic and perpendicular property on a lot-and-a-half in the Melford Heights area of the Heights. That’s near 14th St. west of Studewood, 2 blocks from the Fiesta. The much-discussed 2006 home has a block-on-block facade, light-and-shadow fencing, and landing-pad pavers. But for a boldly toned painted wall here and there, the inside repeats the exterior’s shades-of-gray grid:
It isn’t calling itself a bar, but the website for a new craft-beer retail outlet planned for the former site of Kaboom Books next to the Antidote coffee shop on Studewood says it’ll offer “fresh pours” of draft beer and “growlers to go.” The Twitter account for Premium Draught at 733 Studewood announced yesterday that its construction permit has already been approved.
Meanwhile, the owners of Liberty Station on Washington Ave plan to open the craft-beer-focused Cottonwood Bar in the building shown above on Shepherd at 34th St., just north of Pink’s Pizza, according to the brand-new establishment’s Twitter feed — “adding everything we wanted to do at Liberty Station but didn’t have room . . . kitchen, more taps.”
Photo: Cottonwood Bar
The last time this 1920 Houston Heights home was on the market, it was a tiny bungalow and sold for $235,000. That was way back in 2009, before Arnold Builders remodeled and spiffed it up as the builder’s own home. Earlier this month, the renovated property hit the market — at a much heftier $750,000.
As part of the overhaul, a driveway-covering 1,600-sq.-ft. addition more than doubled the now 2,708-sq.-ft. house. Its revised elevation sports a third gable and a new front room so the porch, formerly off-center, now sits squarely between old and new construction. The redo pumped up many of the home’s Craftsman-y design details, inside and out.
Austin’s Torchy’s Tacos chain will be opening a restaurant in the former Harold’s in the Heights retail space at the southeast corner of 19th St. and Ashland, according to a flyer advertising a new development planned for the former clothing store and connected space. Harold’s closed last year after operating for 61 years at 350 W. 19th St. The flyer says Braun Enterprises — which bought the fifties-mod property from the family of Harold Wiesenthal last September — has already executed the lease with Torchy’s, which is shown taking up 3,340 sq. ft. in the corner spot. The development includes an additional unleased 7,260 sq. ft. of ground-floor space imagined as a cafe and 3,000 more sq. ft. upstairs shown as a dental office in the flyer.
MAKING A KILLEN OUT OF THE OLD STELLA SOLA SPOT 
A whole bunch more tables will be added to the restaurant Ronnie Killen is opening up at 1001 Studewood St. in the Heights, last known as the location of Stella Sola. Also, the name hasn’t quite been decided yet: either Killen’s Steakhouse in the Heights or KS2. Other details in Patrice Shuttlesworth’s report from the ready-to-demo interior: There will be outdoor dining on a new rooftop garden, accessible by elevator; and the floorplan will be mixed up a bit, with the front door and meat locker both relocated. Killen hopes to have the place open by the middle of next month. [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Stella Sola
How do you discover that the house you’re renting out has become the focus of a scam? Well, If the scam’s targets show up on your doorstep, that’s one clue. The owners of the Heights home on Rutland St. pictured above found themselves in that situation last night. So this morning one of them sent Swamplot this tale, hoping readers will have some helpful advice to offer:
We recently bought a bigger house in the Heights and listed our current house for rent on the MLS. All went well (had a lease signed with a great tenant in just three days!) until last night. This friendly couple rang the doorbell and told me that they had been texting with the owner of the house for a week about renting it. She told them she was on a mission trip in Washington DC and couldn’t show them the house right away, but that they should come by the house and look in the windows. If they liked what they saw they were to send her a deposit check. I was flummoxed since I am the owner and had signed a lease two weeks earlier with someone else. I had heard about this happening with rentals listed on Craigslist but didn’t think the scammers would take it to this level. They had posted fraudulent listings on several sites, including Trulia.com and HotPads.com. They listed it for less rent than the real posting and said we’d take dogs and cats.
A reader sends in this photo from over the weekend, illustrating what townhouse neighbors can accomplish when they pitch in together — this time at the corner of 20th and Arlington St.
Photo: Stating the Obvious
Are they still gonna serve crepes in the parking lot? Co-owner Bryan Caswell cites the departure of chef Adam Dorris along with the possible impending sale of the wild-western-style mixed-use building his restaurant is housed in as the reasons he shut down Stella Sola over the weekend. “For me to go out and try to recruit a chef would have been the wrong thing to do — to convince a young chef to get excited about something we couldn’t guarantee,” Caswell tells Chronicle food reporter Greg Morago. Stella Sola moved into the restaurant space at the corner of Studewood and 10th St. in late 2009 as a replacement for Bedford, which had opened with the building the previous year.
Photo: Stella Sola
A KINK IN THE PATH 
“Walking the sidewalks in the Heights is sometimes tricky,” quips the reader who sent in this pic of the year-or-so-old sidewalk in front of the year–or-so-old house at 919 Arlington St.: “This walk is built to the 5′-0″ standards currently in place where as the older walks are built at 4′. However the alignment was so off from the 2′ distance required from the property line location of the other residents’ walks. I could only assume that the developer was thinking that he could allow more room to park a car between the street and walk if he shifted it west two feet.” Photo: Swamplot inbox
This home’s walls have ears. And eyes. And behind all the portraits lining them, a lot of nail holes for new owners to fill. Located at the corner of 9th St. and Tulane in the Houston Heights, this little casa is part of a small enclave of Spanish Colonial homes that rose on the block a decade ago. Inside you’ll find 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, and enough wall space to field a collection of collections.
Some burger stand, street signs, a car wash, bungalows: So many little Heights-y things muck up the foreground in development blog Going Up! City’s construction pix of the 6-story concrete-and-brick condo building going up just north of the restaurant-heavy corner of 11th St. and Studewood. 1111 Studewood Place, which at last report included 9,000 sq. ft. of retail space on its ground floor, has a website up which for now carefully avoids use of the word “condo.”
Repair work on the exterior of the 2125 Yale apartments in the Heights, built 4 years ago on the site of Kaplan’s Ben Hur, has been taking place all week. Gone already: the aluminum panels on the building’s northwest corner, facing 22nd St. But: Couldn’t find any explanation of what’s going on in the complex’s newsletter for residents, a neighbor reports.
The new restaurant opening in the space left behind by the shuttered 11th St. Cafe, also known for a time last year as the Ruggles 11th St. Cafe? Ruggles Green. No, seriously. But apparently it’s not the same Ruggles the restaurant started with.
For about 5 months last summer, the 11th St. Cafe at 748 E. 11th St. took on a new name: Ruggles 11th St. Cafe — after Ruggles Grill owner Bruce Molzan agreed to operate the restaurant. But Molzan later pulled out of the arrangement because “he considered the quality of the food there poor,” he told Chronicle reporter Purva Patel last month. A trademark-infringement lawsuit Molzan then filed against the cafe prompted owner Archie Patterson to remove the Ruggles name from the restaurant in early December; he closed it entirely — after 35 years of operation — at the end of the year, announcing that a new tenant for the space would be named in late January.
