MEMORIAL CITY SEARS BITES THE DUST 
Next up for closure as part of the ongoing nationwide Sears shutterings: the Memorial City Mall location. It opened in 1962 along with the mall itself, where it occupies the 195,710-sq.-ft. southwestern wing. Thirty-two other Searses are going away with it across 21 states — reports Business Insider — including one fellow Texas store in Bryan. [Business Insider; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Toru O.
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Tag: Memorial City Mall
Tout Suite’s second outpost is now open in the pedestrian crossroads at the west end of Memorial City Mall. The kiosk version of the East Downtown cafe is currently serving drinks and pastries along with at least a few larger entrees. The opening follows the removal of the construction barricades formerly surrounding the space, finishing work previously started by mall vandals or impatient caffeine addicts:
Mall Mini
A reader notes the logo of freeway-side cafe Tout Suite making an appearance over at Memorial City Mall, smack in the middle of the path leading north-to-south from Target to Sears. The first Tout Suite opened in early 2014 in the former nightclub, warehouse and auto dealership at 2001 Commerce St. just east of the 59 overpass; the same folks also started pastry shop Sweet in CityCentre several years prior.
Signage hints at an opening later this spring for the new spot, in the pedestrian crossroads by Kay Jewelers and Ice Skate USA at the western end of the mall (visible in the top photo). The spot is just down the hall from the freestanding Starbucks kiosk, which sits along mall’s east-west axis between Macy’s and JCPenney. Here’s a more southward facing shot of the Suite spot, looking toward the Sears entrance:
Finding The Suite Spot
The 10,000-sq.-ft. Becks Prime location in the Sears wing of the Memorial City Mall — dubbed the Sportatorium on account of its 30 big-screen teevees showing major league sporting events, video game room, and conference room — shut down for good on Saturday. The location had been open since 2008, when the local hamburger chain was substituted late in the game for a venture originally planned to feature Roger Clemens, back in the days when the former Astros, Yankees, and Red Sox player was best known for his standout pitching.
Burgers Are Out!
That new office tower slated for the site of the 12-year-old Bally’s, then Blast! Fitness building  (pictured at left) at the northeast corner of the Memorial City Mall will be the new American corporate headquarters of industrial gas manufacturer Air Liquide. And it’ll be 2 buildings, actually: A 452,000-sq.-ft. 20-story tower designed by Morris Architects in back, and a 145,000-sq.-ft.12-story office building designed by Gensler in front, facing the I-10 feeder road. It’ll be called Air Liquide Center, but as shown in the rendering above, the core of the 2-building sandwich will be an 8-level parking garage.
Gas HQ by the Katy Freeway
THE NEW HOSPITAL-ADJACENT STEAKHOUSE IN MEMORIAL CITY 
And far below that lit-up crown that you can’t enter, there will soon be a steakhouse you can: Culturemap reports that construction is coming along at the mixed-use Gateway Memorial City development on Vallone’s, the red-meat-and-red-wine concept from the folks who feed you on a first-name basis at Tony’s. General manager Scott Sulma says that they hope to open here on Gessner Rd. and the Katy Fwy. in October. [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Vallone’s
So many pretty close guesses in this week’s game, but we’re awarding the prize to the player who came the closest of all. Flake, congratulations! You’ve just won a one-year individual membership in the NGG’s longtime sponsor, the Rice Design Alliance!
Is this place really (as commenter Phil put it) the “MOST. INNOCUOUS. HOME. EVER.”?
Have a look and judge for yourself. There’s no harm in that.
BECKS PRIME LOCATION FOR A SPORTS BAR That space on the west side of the Memorial City Mall where the Roger Clemens Rocket Sports Grill was supposed to open . . . before all Roger Clemens memorabilia was removed from it? It’s now scheduled to open this summer as . . . the Becks Prime Sportatorium. [Houston Business Journal]
Opening in two weeks: A 15,000-square-foot generic sports bar in Memorial City Mall. Hey, wasn’t that supposed to be the Rocket Sports Grill?
Allison Wollam reports in the Houston Business Journal that Roger Clemens’s plans for a burger empire appear to have been scuttled:
. . . all traces of the seven-time Cy-Young award winner have been erased from the would-be restaurant site.
Just one month ago, construction workers were busy erecting a large red “Rocket” sign at the entrance of the restaurant, while Clemens’ baseball jerseys from the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Houston Astros and The University of Texas Longhorns hung in the entry.
As of this week, the Clemens memorabilia had been removed. The restaurant — which is still under construction — now houses wide-screen televisions, NASCAR video games and a variety of non-Clemens’ related baseball memorabilia.
- Rocket Sports Grill strikes out after several swings and misses [Houston Business Journal]
Having finished with the Memorial Villages, Robert Boyd’s latest bikeride documentary takes us through the neighborhoods lining Gessner, south of I-10:
The houses here were built mostly between 1959 and 1965. The lots tend to be small compared to those in the Villages (just east of these subdivisions). In fact, if you go immediately south or west, the lots and the houses tend to be larger. This is where Memorial starts to become the more familiar kind of Houston suburb–similar houses on same-sized lots, with developers reusing floor-plans and exterior designs.
As usual, Boyd is on the lookout for anything unusual:
I had a Steve Reich album on my IPod as I rode (Sextet, Piano Phase, and Eight Lines played by the London Steve Reich Ensemble–I recommend it highly), and it occurred to me that a neighborhood like this is like a Steve Reich piece, where there is a comfortable, rhythmic sameness with tiny changes as you go along. The tiny changes wouldn’t have even caught my eye while riding through the much more heterogeneous Memorial Villages, but here they stand out.
After the jump: A few more pix of Boyd’s West Memorial picks!
