This new build on the corner of Navigation Blvd. and Terminal Rd. has aroused the curiosity of a Magnolia Park resident: Though its utilitarian appearance and ballast-sharing trackside location suggest a storage facility — or maybe a roll-by gift shop for forgetful conductors — a neighbor on Terminal Rd. says he heard it’s going to be the new location of Players Ice House.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE NEW DANGERS IN THE SECOND WARD “El Tiempo just opened down the street and is charging 6 bucks per shrimp on the a la carte menu. I’d worry more about that than a ‘stray bullet.'” [doofus, commenting on A Purple Pair by the Green Line in the East End]
HUMMUS AND FALAFEL TAKING OVER FOR COLD CHICKEN IN SECOND WARD 
Pita Pal plans to turn the 93,000-sq.-ft. former refrigerated processed meats factory at the corner of Canal St. and North Palmer east of Downtown that it just bought from Tyson Foods into a well-oiled hummus, salad, and falafel-making machine — powered by 100 new employees, and maybe another 100 later. A full 39,000 sq. ft. of the warehouse space on the 4-acre site is refrigerated; when Tyson ran it there was room for 1,300 workers. Pita Pal president Melissa Navon tells reporter Molly Ryan it may be tough to find experienced food-service workers in Houston, but that she expects to find enough experienced oil industry and medical personnel to meet the company’s needs. [Houston Business Journal] Photo of 3100 Canal St.: LoopNet
MOON TOWER INN’S BICYCLE PARKING SCORE 
Whenever it gets around to reopening as a brewery, Second Ward hotdog HQ Moon Tower Inn will still have only a single off-street parking spot — thanks to an accommodation agreed to by the planning commission. Owner Evan Shannon agreed to provide rack space for 40 bicycles instead of the 5 additional car spaces that would have otherwise been required at 3004 Canal St. Helpful in securing the exception from the city: a few bike-riding employees — and plenty of on-street parking in the food stand’s mostly industrial neighborhood. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Marty E.
WTF IS TAKING THE SHIPPING CONTAINERS SO LONG AT THE MOON TOWER INN 
An only slightly cleaned-up report on the progress of the brewery and shipping-container redo at the Canal St. bar, straight from the Moon Tower Inn Facebook page: “as you all should know, we’re late for everything and some time’s we just plain don’t show up. but DO NOT WORRY, moon tower will be OPEN SOON. using new technology (shipping containers etc) is tricky business and moves a lil slow with our fine city. so, we’re not gonna say exactly when we’ll be back open yet ’cause we’re ass holes like that and we like the suspense. but, our brewery equipment is damn near built and the containers for the kitchen and bar are being fitted at a welding yard and are almost ready to bring on-site! so… everything’s a go! SEE YOU THIS SPRING . . .” [Moon Tower Inn on Facebook, via Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Eddie S.
MOON TOWER INN’S NEW SHIPPING CONTAINER BEER COOLER A few details on the brewery redo taking place on the hotdog reinvention grounds of the (currently shuttered) Moon Tower Inn at 3004 Canal St. in the Second Ward, from blogger Leslie Sprague: “One of the two new shipping containers being used to renovate the old space, to expand the kitchen and the tap wall to 42 taps, will be a walk-in cooler for cold storage. The brewhouse will be set-up in part of the office space, behind the old ordering counter. I wasn’t even aware there was an office. They have a 3 1/2 barrel brewhouse on order from Portland Kettleworks and are expecting delivery in mid-February. That’s definitely cutting it close to the planned February reopening.” [Lushtastic] Photo: Marty E.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SLICE OF HOUSTON WHERE NOBODY’S HOME “I did NRFU (Non Response Followup) surveys for the census in the wedge between 45 and the Ship Channel and this doesn’t suprise me at all. LOTS of people don’t answer the door. Lots more told me of one, two, or three residents when in fact an evening visit’s observations yielded six or eight.” [Some d00d, commenting on Houston to Census Bureau: Count Again]
And now, a rare look at the Second Ward’s indigenous Ship Channel dance ceremony, performed along the gentle banks of Buffalo Bayou and celebrating the bountiful fall harvest of crushed concrete.
Video: Freneticore
ALEXAN LOFTS ON THE MARKET Trammell Crow Residential and Morgan Stanley are ready to sell the 224-unit Alexan Lofts, the Second Ward apartments just northeast of Downtown on the site of the failed El Mercado del Sol. Multi-year historic tax credits on the property expire in September. [Globe St.]
