06/20/12 11:37am

Dancers ranging through the 100,000-sq.-ft. former JCPenney at the West Oaks Mall — now known as the West Oaks Art House — “got pretty vigorous,” explains local art blogger Robert Boyd, who attended one of the inaugural performances in Houston’s newest, largest, and loneliest independent arts facility. One of them kicked the hole in the wall pictured at right. No grief from the free-range arts center’s laid-back L.A. landlord, though: “I kind of love the hole in the wall,” Pacific Retail’s Sharsten Plenge tells him. “It is like a souvenir of the energy that Suchu graced WOAH with.” (Yes, Plenge is an artist herself.)

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05/31/12 2:13pm

The very first event at the brand-new West Oaks Art House takes place this Friday night, when the Suchu Dance company performs its first work in the eerie fluorescent-lit cavern left behind by JCPenney when it gave up on its freestanding building at the West Oaks Mall in 2003. The performance kicks off the appropriately named Big Range Dance Festival. It’s not just the repositioning dance of the vacant mall department store: 16 Suchu dancers will range around the enormous space in a piece called “Afternono.” To counter claims that this event is a bit too “way-out” for Suchu’s usual East Downtown audiences, the company is commandeering a trolley-style bus to bring audience members from the Spring Street Studios north of Downtown to the West Houston mall at Westheimer and Hwy. 6.

LA artist Sharsten Plenge, who’s been working to transform the abandoned 100,000-sq.-ft. store into some sort of arts center — in part by offering free rent to artist groups willing to venture so far from their usual haunts and set up shop or exhibits there — tells Swamplot she hopes the inaugural Suchu performance (as well as additional ones on subsequent Saturday afternoons) “marks the beginning of what we hope to be many more unique projects” in the building, which now bears the acronym WOAH.

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11/17/11 10:03pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: FEEDING THE WEST OAKS MALL JCPENNEY ARTS BEHEMOTH “At 100,000 square feet, it is more than twice as big as all the alternative/artist-run spaces currently in existence in Houston combined. If it can actually be filled with stuff and events in a compelling, convincing way, it moves the center of gravity for Houston art to the west purely by virtue of its size. The more I think about it, the challenge will be figuring out ways to effectively use that space. Usually the issue for an art exhibit is a lack of space — a show at, say, Labotanica can feel uncomfortably cramped. For a curator or artist, this space presents the precise opposite problem. A good model in this regard might be Mass MOCA, the enormous museum in North Adams, MA. Filling the cavernous old factory buildings required big, bold artworks. Are there Houston artists who could step up to this challenge? I’d say yes — for example, Sharon Engelstein’s inflatables.” [Robert Boyd, commenting on New Arts Complex Planned for Abandoned JCPenney at West Oaks Mall] Photo: Sharsten Plenge

11/17/11 2:09pm

After a couple years of threats, live-music straggler Walter’s on Washington finally closed its doors at 4215 Washington Ave. this summer. Almost exactly 6 months later, it’ll open for a Christmas show in a new location: This former classic-car showroom, video-production studio, car-parts distribution center, and cabinet shop at 1120 Naylor St. just north of Downtown, behind DiverseWorks and the UH-Downtown parking garage. Owner Pam Robinson had hoped to open the 190-person-capacity venue much earlier. She told the Houston Press‘s Chris Gray in June that she had run into problems meeting city parking requirements for the location.

Photo: LoopNet

11/11/11 5:59pm

In a late-Friday afternoon press release that doesn’t mention Trader Joe’s at all, Alabama Theater owner Weingarten Realty is announcing that the company has begun construction on the landmarked 1939 Art Deco building at 2922 S. Shepherd to “create a more desirable space for future retail tenants.” What does that mean? Apparently, removing the few elements of the interior that made the building suitable as a movie theater: The entire screen wall along with the murals flanking both sides of the screen, and the auditorium’s sloped floor.

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11/11/11 12:37pm

How did an artist out of L.A. convince the owners of Houston’s West Oaks Mall to turn the vacant building of former mall anchor JCPenney into a 100,000-sq.-ft. department-store-sized arts complex? Well, it helps that the building — at the northern crotch of the West Houston mall — has been sitting vacant for 8 years and has received no major retail anchor interest in the 2 years Pacific Retail Capital Partners has owned the property. It also helps that the artist, Sharsten Plenge, is a Pacific Retail employee — and that her father is the firm’s managing principal. But Plenge tells Swamplot the company is behind her novel rehab concept, which is currently her main focus at work.

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11/04/11 1:21pm

If any ghosts of Alabama Theater moviegoers were still intent on haunting the spaces once occupied by their old seats, they’d be buried in sand by now. A Swamplot reader and theater buff shows us the current state of the building’s innards — as seen yesterday from strategic views through the front and rear glass doors. On its way to a new level and Trader Joe’s-worthy surface, the auditorium’s basement and raked floor have been transformed into what now appears to be the city’s largest indoor sandbox. (From the photos, it looks like only a single motorized sand toy gets to play in it, though.)

A new, permanent concrete floor ordered by the owners of the landmarked 1939 Art Deco building, Weingarten Realty, will replace the removable raised-floor system put in place in the early 1980s, when the theater at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr. was transformed into the Alabama Bookstop bookstore.

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10/24/11 5:42pm

More details about City Acre Brewing Co., the brewery the owners of this home adjacent to the Eastex Freeway just south of Parker Rd. plan to open late next year: Chron beer blogger Ronnie Crocker says Matt Schlabach and Meredith Borders had envisioned turning their 2,700-sq.-ft. home at 3421 Folger St. into a brewery when they bought it back in July 2009 for $210,000. The freeway-side oddity took 6 years to build and was completed way back in 1983. Schlabach’s vision: a bar taking over his foyer and guest bedroom in front; customers lounging on couches upstairs, sitting at tables on the front porch, or milling about the garden acreage.

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10/17/11 4:01pm

According to an unattributed report published today on Culturemap, beer-and-movie pioneer Alamo Drafthouse plans to open its second third Houston-area location at 2500 Summer St. off Sawyer in the First Ward, in David Adickes’s former SculpturWorx compound. But a spokesperson for the movie theater’s owners would neither confirm nor deny the plans either to Culturemap or the Chronicle. And Phil Arnett — who with partner L.E. “ Chap” Chapman announced plans last year to buy and redevelop the 3-building, 3-acre compound and convert portions of it into commercial space — tells Swamplot there’s “nothing definitive” about any Alamo Drafthouse plans. Representatives of Triple Tap Ventures, the theater’s parent company, did look at the space, but nothing’s come of it yet, Arnett says.

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10/11/11 8:57am

According to the Greater Houston Planning Alliance, which heard the news from the Texas Historical Commission — which heard the news from the project’s architect in Dallas — current plans for turning the former Alabama Theater into a Trader Joe’s now call for the terrazzo flooring at the theater’s Shepherd Dr. entrance to be left in place. Building owner Weingarten Realty apparently still has plans to move the front doors 7 or 8 ft. further toward the street, though; according to the GHPA, an accessibility consultant has advised project architect Don Sopranzi that there is no problem with the existing floor’s slope. Weingarten received approval from the city last month to scrape up the swirly patterned flooring outside the entrance and replace it with concrete.

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10/06/11 2:59pm

Independent grocery store Klein’s Super Market closed down in April, after doing business in Tomball for 89 years — almost half of them at the corner of West Main St. and Buvinghausen. Next up for the 31,628-sq.-ft. vacant space at 1200 West Main: New life as a “community-based outpatient clinic” for the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. The Veterans Administration has signed a 20-year lease for the property, Congressman Michael McCaul announced today. Renovations are expected to be completed next summer; the clinic should open to patients next fall. Also announced: a similar clinic at 750 Westgreen Blvd. in Katy, in an existing medical building.

Photo: Jesse Smith

10/06/11 1:12pm

At a city historic commission hearing 2 weeks ago, a representative of Weingarten Realty noted that the swirly patterned terrazzo flooring at the front entrance of the former Alabama Theater was sloped a half-percent too steep to meet current accessibility standards, and therefore will have to be removed to allow Trader Joe’s to move into the space. Not a problem for the noted preservationists at Weingarten, the building’s owner — the company plans to rip out the decorative design and replace it with a brand new concrete surface for its new tenants.

Too bad for fans of the original front vestibule design of the 1939 Art Deco theater at 2922 S. Shepherd, which is listed as a protected landmark: The commission approved Weingarten’s plans. But the helpful folks at the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance decided to do a little homework for the building’s owners anyway.

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09/26/11 5:13pm

Trader Joe’s hasn’t yet signed a lease for the former Alabama Theater location at 2922 S. Shepherd it’s considering for its first-ever Houston store. But the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance has scouted out a few details on what would likely stay and what would likely go in a Two Buck Chuck-ified Art Deco theater interior. Staying: the building’s mezzanine and lighting, though with “some modifications.” Going: the Shepherd-side entrance vestibule of the 1939 building, including original enameled panels and poster frames and the swirly-patterned terrazzo flooring — which is sloped too steeply to meet current ADA requirements, according to the city’s planning director. A Weingarten Realty spokesperson says current plans are to replace the terrazzo with concrete. Also, the mural shown above — which formed the right cheek of the theater’s movie screen (later the magazine section of Bookstop) — is slated for removal.

Photos: David Bush (terrazzo) and Jim Parsons (mural)

09/22/11 4:44pm

Changes to the exterior of the Alabama Theater proposed by Weingarten Realty to accommodate grocery store Trader Joe’s debut appearance in Houston were approved today by the city’s Archeological and Historical Commission. Because it’s a designated city landmark, the commission’s approval is required for changes to the building’s facades (though an alternate wait-90-days-and-you-can-do-whatever-you-want option is also available). Trader Joe’s or Weingarten’s plans to restore, alter, or strip the innards of the Art Deco building at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr., though, won’t require any commission approvals — only construction or demo permits.

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09/22/11 12:00pm

Note: Story updated and corrected.

The Post Oak School’s brand-new Montessori high school will open next year in the former Party Cloths building at 1102 Autrey St., just west of Montrose Blvd. at the edge of the Southwest Freeway. The single-story building, which dates from 1975 and sits on a third-of-an-acre lot, was purchased recently after a year-long search for a Museum District location; Post Oak High School officials announced the deal and the campus address this morning. The private school plans to spend $700,000 renovating the 6,000-sq.-ft. linen-service company building, and begin the 2012-2013 school year with a 9th grade class and maybe a 10th grade class of about 20 students each.

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