YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY 
Has Midtown become too hip even for the federal government? The Social Security Administration is leaving, having lost its lease at the low-slung building at 3100 Smith (shown at right), reports CultureMap’s Whitney Radley: “Once a sort of wasteland, the surrounding neighborhood teems now with development, restaurants, bars, mixed-use complexes and multifamily units . . . . speculation that the building might be prime space for a restaurant or even torn down to make room for a mid-rise, is rampant.” [CultureMap] Photo: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
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Tag: Midtown
They’re both Pearls. But one of these Morgan Group renderings is destined for a lot in Midtown; the other for Greenway Plaza. Can you tell which is going where?
What’s this? Near the intersection of W. Gray and Milam, a for-sale sign has popped up on the Central Square Plaza buildings on a 1-acre lot in Midtown. We’re hoping to get more details soon. The fate of the 12- and 14-story offices and parking garage at 2100 Travis has been tied up in court for years; Swamplot reported last summer that owner Alfred J. Antonini won a skirmish in a ongoing battle against the city, which had in 2011 ordered him to make “a bunch of repairs” to the buildings, vacant now for a real long time.
- Previously on Swamplot: City Loses Skirmish in Battle To Repair Central Square
Photo: Swamplot inbox (sign); LoopNet
So these apartments might not have the same shimmery glamour as their namesake, Beyoncé Knowles. But the pop star and Houston native, moved by the devastation in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, did chip in with her sister, Solange, and mother, Tina — as well as Destiny’s Child co-star Kelly Rowland, St. John’s United, and Temenos CDC — to help provide housing for Houston’s low-income and homeless populations.
The 43-unit building (shown above) at 1719 Gray went up in 2007. Now, Temenos has laid out on its website plans for a second building — with almost twice as many units as the original — at 2200 Jefferson, less than a mile away on the east side of I-45.
There’s no mention whether Beyoncé is involved in Phase II. But there are renderings:
The conquest of a long strip of land between Travis and Main known as the Midtown Superblock was completed last month, Shaina Zucker reports in today’s Houston Business Journal. The strip center at the corner of Travis and Anita once known as Liberty Square, and more recently for tenants Escobar and the Thien An sandwich shop, was sold to the Midtown Redevelopment Authority in September. Escobar, Thien An, and a second nightclub in the building will have until the end of the year to scram. The TIRZ plans to swap the land under the strip center with Camden Property Trust, in return for a couple of properties at the northern end of the same superblock.
That’ll give the Midtown authority a tiny bit less than 3 acres of land facing McGowen St., leaving Camden with the superblock’s slightly larger southern portion. The organization plans to build a park on its end — but one that includes 8,500 sq. ft. of retail space and 250 underground parking spaces, according to Zucker:
Montrose-area real estate investor (and frequent Swamplot commenter) Cody Lutsch expects to close later this month on 3 apartment buildings on Holman just east of HCC between Crawford and 288 that he calls “the worst of the worst” in Midtown. A web listing for the properties cautions potential buyers: “DO NOT WALK THE PROPERTY AND DISTURB THE TENANTS. (it’s for you own good, i mean it).” Lutsch calls the group of buildings, which date from 1938 and has seen half a dozen owners over the last 10 years, “very very rough . . . Police are always going over there, there is drugs, prostitution . . .”
GRANTS TO SPARK MIDTOWN ARTS CENTER FUNDRAISING 
The consortium of independent arts organizations planning a theater and gallery complex at the corner of Main and Holman just got a step closer to the $25 million it needs to build the project. Two weeks ago, the group received a $750K grant from the Fondren Foundation. Last week it got word of an even bigger haul: a $6 million grant from the Houston Endowment. In August, the group — which includes DiverseWorks, Fotofest, and Main St. Theater — changed its name from the Independent Arts Collaborative to “The MATCH,” short for the Midtown Arts and Theatre Center Houston. The 59,000-sq.-ft. complex at 3400 Main St. is being designed by a match-up of San Antonio’s Lake Flato Architects and Houston’s Studio Red. [Previously on Swamplot] Rendering: The MATCH
- 2016 Main St. Unit 2313 [HAR]
How long does DiverseWorks plan to stay in the new Midtown location it announced yesterday? A press release put out by the 30-year-old performing and visual arts organization doesn’t say, but DiverseWorks had been listed prominently as one of several groups meant to anchor the proposed Independent Arts Collaborative building planned for a now-vacant block at 3400 Main St. The new DiverseWorks spot in a 5,500-sq.-ft. portion of the former Cleburne Cafeteria building at the corner of Fannin and Cleburne is just 7 blocks south. It’ll open September 7th. With its move out of the warehouse district slot north of Downtown at 1117 East Fwy. it’s occupied for 20 years, the DiverseWorks Artspace will lose its built-in theater as well as its large parking lot and covered dock. It’ll gain a perch closer to the Museum District — and an address first-time visitors will be able to find. (4102 Fannin St.)
- DiverseWorks will move Sept. 7 [Houston Chronicle]
- Diverseworks Reboot: Goodbye Docks! [Glasstire]
Photos: arch-ive.org and Cleburne Cafeteria
Y’know this long-vacant 12- and 14-story office-building-and-parking-garage complex at 2100 Travis St. between Webster and Gray in Midtown — the one also known as “those Central Square Plaza buildings that somebody besides taggers ought to do something with”? Back in late 2009, the city ordered the owners to make a bunch of repairs within 60 days. What happened next? Owner Alfred J. Antonini filed suit to block the order; it’s been tied up in court ever since. Now 3 years later, Antonini has won the latest round in the ongoing tussle. An appeals court ruled this morning against the city’s claim that Antonini’s suit was invalid because he didn’t file it quickly enough. The case will go back to a lower court for more Midtown cleanup fun.
- HDW2000 256 East 49th Street, LLC and Plaza De Central Square v. The City of Houston [First Court of Appeals]
- Vacant Buildings in Houston [InnerLooped]
- This Blows! [Houston Press]
Photo: LoopNet
Triple Tap Ventures officially announced 2 new Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas locations yesterday: One in the fake-Venetian Vintage Park Shopping Village off Tomball Parkway and Louetta (reported back in April), and another in Midtown. The company didn’t provide extensive detail about the planned Midtown location, though: It’ll be part of a new mixed-use development by Crosspoint Properties at 2901 Louisiana St. And it’ll sit on top of a 3-level parking garage. A lobby bar will be visible from Milam St. and feature views of Downtown; there’ll also be a ground-floor lobby entrance.
But a variance request submitted earlier this year for Crosspoint’s development adds to the picture. It included the “conceptual” rendering above — for the new parking structure facing Milam St., one block north of Van Loc Restaurant. A movie theater would sit on the top floor of the parking garage, the variance explained. The parking would serve the theater as well as new retail spaces (on the first floor) and offices (on the second floor) inserted into the 1957 building on the west half of the same block, which faces Louisiana St.:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WORKING IN THE EAST END, ATTENDING MIDTOWN “. . . In the East End, there is Talento Bilingue, Frenetic Theater, Box 13, El Rincon Social, Super Happy Fun Land, Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex, Kalinen Contemporary, and probably some things that I’m missing. That’s a pretty good set of arts spaces, but it’s very spread out (from near 59 all the way out to Broadway). What is definitely going on in the East End is that a lot of artists have living and/or work spaces there (even though they have exhibits, both El Rincon Social and Box 13 are primarily studio spaces). But that’s not the same as being a destination for people to see art/performances. Whereas the Midtown/Museum District arts area is much more compact –– only 1.5 miles from the Midtown Arts Center to the MFAH — and in between you have the Continental Club, Inman Gallery, Bryan Miller Gallery, Art Palace, Devin Borden Gallery, War’House, the Houston Center For Contemporary Craft, Lawndale, the Ensemble Theatre, the MFAH — and that’s just on Main St. . . . If I was a scrappy young arts group looking for a physical home, I’d look out in the East End before Midtown. You just aren’t going to get things like Super Happy Fun Land, Frenetic Theater or Box 13 in Midtown.” [Robert Boyd, commenting on Midtown Arts Center Interim Design Review: How Do You Like It Now?]
San Antonio’s Lake Flato Architects and Houston’s Studio Red have completed what they’re calling a schematic design for the new 59,000-sq.-ft. Midtown arts center planned for the full city block at 3400 Main St., adjacent to the Ensemble/HCC light-rail stop. And that means: Yes, presentations to the board of the Independent Arts Collaborative, but also the follow-on posting of the design on the organization’s Facebook page — to see what further reactions come in. The latest plans elaborate on the design team’s concept of separate spaces connected by an open-air central breezeway (the tall structure at right in the above image, viewed from the corner of Main and Holman), but make clear that the theaters are the project’s focus.
Two-time The Bachelor star Brad Womack is planning to open a nightclub with his business partners in Midtown Houston, right across the street from the Metro Midtown apartments, at the corner of Bagby and McIlhenny. Womack’s twin brother Chad, brother Wes, and partner Jason Carrier — they call their company Carmack Concepts — own Sixth St. bars Chuggin’ Monkey, Dizzy Rooster, Molotov, and Dogwood in Austin. Their Houston bar, which they’ll call Dogwood Houston, will be a transformation of a small 1956 commercial building at 2403 Bagby St.
Surveillance video from a car lot across the street showed 2 men removing a long object — later identified as a bench — from Late Nite Pie not long before the Midtown pizza joint at 302 Tuam St. went up in flames in the early morning hours of February 8th. 10 minutes later in the video footage, after the bench removers had driven off and as smoke rose from the west side and southwest corner of the building, a man is seen exiting through the front door, hesitating, then driving off in a Chevy Astro van. Police have now charged that man, identified as Raymond Pecher, the restaurant’s former day shift manager, with arson.
- Manager of Midtown pizza restaurant charged with arson [KHOU]
- Raymond Pecher, Late Nite Pie Manager, Accused Of Arson (Read The Criminal Complaint) [Hair Balls]
- Previously on Swamplot: Headlines: Virgin Mary in Garden Oaks; Early Morning Fire at Late Nite Pie, Will Late Nite Pie Rise Again?, Late Night Pie Scheduled To Reopen Monday, The Late Late Night Pie, Latest on the Late Late Night Pie Location
Photo: Candace Garcia
