Tag: Adaptive Reuse

Downtown
04/14/16 4:45pm

Former Gulf Building Jonesing for Throwback to the Sakowitz Days on Main St.

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712 Main St., Downtown, Houston, 77002
The Chase-occupied former Gulf Building at 712 Main St. (above) and the 10-story Great Jones building tucked next to it on the corner with Capitol St. are getting made over and rebranded together as The Jones on Main. Planned updates to the 37-story art deco skyscraper, which between 1929 and 1951 housed the Sakowitz department store in its first 5 floors at the corner of Rusk St. and Main, include a de-conversion of the ground level at that corner from office space back to retail usage — here’s a look at the intended floorplan released by developer Midway this morning, with Rusk at the bottom of the frame:

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712 + 708
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Bars and Clubs
04/11/16 10:45am

A Stroll Through the Underground Beer Garden and Regular Garden Now Below Prairie St. Downtown

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Downtown, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail
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Conservatory Underground Beer Garden & Food Fall, 1010 Prairie, Downtown, Houston, 77002

This latest report over the wireless from Swamplot’s regular tunnel correspondent comes from a brief venture into nearby subterranean territory this weekend to scope out Conservatory Underground Beer Garden & Food Hall. The basement bar and restaurant collection sits in the former Isis Theater building on Prairie  St., just east of sister-facility Prohibition and Main St.-facing Moonshiner’s Southern Table + Bar. Several of the Conservatory’s restaurant tenants spent last week quietly testing out their setups on diners during limited hours; the shots and commentary below come from a Saturday morning jaunt through the venue:

The entrance is just east of Prohibition, under an awning sporting the marquee “Conservatory/Underground Beer Garden and Food Hall”. The lobby level has a stairwell leading to the main basement area:

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In the Conservatory With The Knife
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Featured Posts
04/08/16 12:30pm

New Potato Taking Root at Taco Loco’s Old Spot near the KBR Site

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Fifth Ward, Restaurants, Retail
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Shopping Center planned at 3519 Clinton Dr., Fifth Ward, Houston, 77020

Shopping Center planned at 3519 Clinton Dr., Fifth Ward, Houston, 77020

A reader notes a notice on the formerly-barred now-boarded front window of the building at the corner of Bringhurst St. and Clinton Dr. The sign tells tale of an application to the TABC to sell mixed drinks at the spot, late at night, under the name of The New Potato. The restaurant space, formerly Taco Loco prior a late-2000’s stint as Nina’s Cafe, sits a block east of the Harris Machine Tools facility, a block south of a field of townhomes, and a block north of the 136-acre former KBR site, tagged a few years back for use as a helicopter landing spot.

The bar-to-be’s current grey-and-white color scheme came about back in 2013. Here’s a peek back in time at the the bright orange Taco Loco days, followed by the turn-of-the-decade Nina’s yellowing:

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Clinton at Bringhurst
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Featured Posts
03/29/16 9:15am

Blacked Out Warehouse Getting Ready to Host Parties Near Lanier Middle School

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Montrose
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2512 Woodhead St., Montrose, Houston, 77019

A reader took advantage of an opportunity to peek inside the 1945 warehouse at 2512 Woodhead St., now painted black and getting done up with decorative wooden siding: “A door literally blew open as I was poking around the exterior,” writes the tipster, going on to describe a mostly-open interior and a double staircase leading to a balcony. A building permit was issued in February for the conversion of the warehouse into a ballroom by Life HTX; another earlier permit references future use of the space as a 225-occupant banquet hall, and the as-yet-skeletal Facebook page for the venue also implies plans for a rentable events space.

The building sits just north of the parking lot for The Upper Hand salon, at the corner with Westheimer across from to-be-remonikered Lanier Middle School. Here’s another shot of the redone exterior, followed by a few of the mural that previously faced Bravo Key & Lock and the Shamrock gas station from across Woodhead:

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Woodhead at Westheimer
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Buffalo Bayou Park
03/24/16 4:00pm

The How and Why of Turning the Cistern Buried Along Buffalo Bayou Into a Split Level Public Bath House

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Rendering of Buffalo Bayou Cistern Converted to Bathhouse
Rendering of Buffalo Bayou Cistern Converted to BathhouseAs Buffalo Bayou Partnership continues to seek out tour guides for the cavernous 1927 city water reservoir and maybe-future-art-space buried in Buffalo Bayou Park, University of Houston architecture grad Sheridan Staats sends over her design for turning the structure into a split-level public bath house, complete with pools, saunas, gardens, a bike trail connection, and a cafe. Renderings and schematics are showcased in Staats’s undergraduate thesis, which also dives into global bath house and infrastructure history and the case for reusing the site in a way that nods to its utilitarian aquatic past.

The kelley green box on the map above shows the cistern’s buried footprint on the north shore of Buffalo Bayou (in blue), just west of Sabine St. and south of Memorial Dr.; the darker green line passing through the southwest edge of the cistern shows a plan to run the bayou’s bike trail into the cistern and onto a suspended causeway:

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Underwater Underground
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Featured Posts
03/23/16 10:30am

Lawyered-Up Former Home in Midtown Looks To Get Liquored Up, Too

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Midtown
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TABC Notice at 1916 Baldwin St., Midtown, Houston, 77002

A notice of a TABC application, requesting permission from the agency to serve mixed drinks and stay up late, is now up by a door of the 1930s house-turned-office-building at 1916 Baldwin St. The 2-story home, which was remodeled as office spaces in the early 2000s, is currently listed as the home of D’Olive Law Firm, the Texas Passport Center and Bibby, McWilliams, & Kearney, among the latest in a string of law-minded businesses to inhabit the space 1 block north of Gray St.

The bar-to-be sits between the condos at 207 Pierce St. and the RISE Lofts and Edge condo complexes across Baldwin; the Camden City Centre apartments hedge in the parking lot from the north. The space is also just across Pierce St. from Komodo Pub, another house-gone-bar tucked back a block from the restaurant-filled stretch of Gray to the south.  The building changed hands in early January; the TABC permit notice, naming Basilio Investments as instigator, is hanging to the right of that side entrance visible left of the oak tree nearest to the parking lot — here’s a closer look:

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Taking the Bar on Baldwin
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Featured Posts
03/15/16 3:15pm

Stripped-Down Texas Cafeteria Now Getting Covered Back Up on N. Shepherd Dr.

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Houston Heights, Uncategorized
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Construction at former Texas Cafeteria, 2400 N. Shepherd Dr., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

A construction crew is currently at work around and on top of the bare former site of Texas Cafeteria, shielded from prying eyes on N. Shepherd Dr. by a small dirt pile. MFT Development (the group currently planning new and mixed uses for the site of the increasingly romantic former Heights Finance Station post office) is dressing up the space at the corner with 24th St. as another restaurant and maybe some retail, following the joint’s sale, shutdown, and stripping in early 2015. Behind the property to the right, the Fiesta Mart can be seen across 24th counting down to its March 27th closing, as the flags from Monterrey Tire Center peek over the former cafeteria’s roof.

Here’s a rendering of what the planned buildout could look like, plus or minus some tenant signage:

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Where the Fiesta’s Ending
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Featured Posts
03/15/16 10:15am

Look Where an H-E-B Sign Is Showing Up, Amid Washington Ave Turnover

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Leasing, Memorial Heights, Sawyer Heights
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H-E-B mapped on Washington Ave. by Braun Enterprises

Later update, 2:30pm:  H-E-B’s Cyndy Garza-Roberts tells Swamplot that plans to place a store in the area are only in the discussion phase, and that no agreements have been reached — more here.

Update, 3/16: H-E-B has confirmed to the HBJ that the company has been in talks over a new store on the Archstone property.

A recent flier produced by Braun Enterprises in an effort to lease the former club space at 1815 Washington features a surprising extra: an overlay of the H-E-B logo planted squarely over a map of the not-so-square site of the Archstone Memorial Heights apartments on Washington Ave. between Studemont and Waugh. A 5-acre chunk at the southwest corner of the 1996 apartment complex was cleared out in 2008, then repopulated, then cleared out again in 2012 for redevelopment as the taller, denser Memorial Heights Villages complex (visible just to the right of the word “WAUGH” on the above aerial). CityCentre developer Midway bought the remaining 23.4 acres of apartments with the Lionstone Group at the end of 2014.

Also featured on the aerial: shuttered-over-the-weekend Hughes Hangar, which CultureMap’s Eric Sandler reports has closed along with Paris-minded parking lot companion The De Gaulle. Further east down the corridor is the space Braun is hawking: the former Pandora-turned-Throne nightclub space at 1815 Washington, marked with a star below, across the road from Bovine & Barley B&B Butchers:

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H-E-B Marks the Spot
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Buffalo Bayou Park
03/10/16 10:45am

Now Hiring Tour Guides for That Abandoned 1927 Cistern Buried Along Buffalo Bayou

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Historic Preservation, Parks, Proposed Developments
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The Cistern, Buffalo Bayou Park near Sabine St. at Memorial Dr., Houston, 77007

Update, 3/24: BBP has updated the link to and language of the job posting; this story has been updated.

Wanted: Buffalo Bayou Partnership is seeking some college types folks to show people around the long-empty city drinking water reservoir near the intersection of Sabine St. and Memorial Dr., which the group also hopes to turn into a temporary art space some day. The “accidental cathedral” was only accessible by a set of hatches and 14-foot ladders back when BBP first examined it; a $1.2-million grant is being used to bring the 87,200-sq.-ft. underground space up to code for visitors.

The cistern, nicknamed after the 6th-century reservoir beneath Istanbul, lies just north of the Lee and Joe Jamail Skate Park beneath what will become a raised outdoor lawn intended for concerts and events at Buffalo Bayou Park. The 1927 reservoir was drained and decommissioned decades ago after it started leaking uncontrollably; the structure was planned for demolition and fill-in by the city around the time the park’s planners took an interest in the space, initially imagining uses like parking and mulch storage.

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Work in the Underground
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Adaptive Reuse
03/08/16 2:30pm

Dressed And Accessorized Sunset Coffee Building Ready for Today’s Downpours Downtown

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Allen's Landing, Bayous and Waterways, Correctional Facilities, Green Design and Development, Historic Preservation, Houston History, Houston Landmarks, Mixed Use, Office Buildings, Office Space, Parks, Public Buildings, Redevelopment, Renovations, Tourism
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Renovation of Sunset Coffee Building at Allen's Landing, Downtown, Houston, 77002

A shiny new cistern is now in place at the former Sunset Coffee building at Allen’s Landing, which Buffalo Bayou Partnership and Houston First have been redeveloping into an office-topped boat-and-bike-rental spot.  The 1910 coffee roasting facility has once again donned walls after moving past a Summer 2014 minimalist phase, and is currently decked out in a muted Café du Monde orange.

The no-longer-see-through structure is back to limiting the view from the Harris County Jail across the bayou (visible on the far right, above). A set of stairs are in place alongside the new cistern, along with railings around what appears to be the planned rooftop terrace.

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Nearing Launch at Allen’s Landing
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Featured Posts
03/07/16 12:15pm

Bayou-Side White Oak Village Hopes To Woo Cyclists, Ninja Warriors, Coffee Shop to Antoine Dr.

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Uncategorized
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Proposed White Oak Bayou Village redevelopment, Antoine Dr. at W. Little York Rd., Near Northwest, Houston, 77088Livable Centers plan, Near Northwest, Houston, 77088

Plans are in the works to give the shopping center at the southwest corner of Antoine Dr. and W. Little York Rd. a thorough redesign and rebranding as White Oak Bayou Village. A spokesperson for Nankani Development tells Swamplot that the group is seeking both tenants and ideas for the center’s redevelopment, which will be geared toward drawing bicycle traffic. So far, plans include an about-face for the bayou-side building in the back of the shopping center (labeled Building B above) by way of new glassy storefronts opening toward the White Oak Bayou greenway now running behind it; the developers claim the center would become the first private development to cater explicitly to the expanding bayou trail system.

Per preliminary plans, car access to the back of the shopping center would be blocked off. Former parking spaces along the back Building B (currently home to Northwest Beauty School) would be made over into a covered patio leading to the bayou trail. For the pad site of the burned-down former restaurant next door, the development group is considering a park-like events plaza that could host a bi-monthly farmer’s market — along with a giant chess board, maybe, or even a bayou-side zip lining station. “We are open to anything at this point,” writes the Nankani rep.

Hoped-for tenants for the center currently include a coffee shop-slash-electric bike rental joint, an ice house-style music venue, and an outdoor obstacle course and adult gym — possibly from Sam Sann of American Ninja Warrior fame, who trains contestants at his Iron Sports gym in Cypress.

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Bayou Turnaround
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Adaptive Reuse
03/04/16 4:30pm

Mellow Mushroom Germinating on Fertile Former Car Dealership Site in Heights Dry Zone

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Houston Heights, Notices, Proposed Developments, Restaurants, Retail
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Proposed Mellow Mushroom, 1919 N. Shepherd Dr., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

A reader notes a notice of an application to sell alcohol posted on the door of the former Dealer Sales building at 1919 N. Shepherd Dr. The HBJ reported last August that Atlanta-based pizza-and-recently-burger chain Mellow Mushroom leased the space at the corner with 20th St. from serial redeveloper Braun Enterprises. The chain, which dropped its first Houston-area spore up in Spring, appears to be sprouting its second location within the somewhat ambiguous boundaries of the Houston Heights’ nominally dry zone.

The pizza place may provide more savory counterbalance to the sugar-laced shopping strip just to the south on the same block — where Fat Cat Creamery, Hugs & Donuts, and Smoothie King all nestle in with Finch Properties and hair salon Black Sheep Parlor along 19th St., sheltered by N. Shepherd-facing Ka Sushi. Renderings released last year for the redeveloping building show the Mushroom popping open in line with some additional retail space; the strip could also get lawyered up:

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Sober News on N. Shepherd
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Downtown
03/02/16 10:15am

Scenes from the Set of HSPVA’s Upcoming Downtown Campus, Now In Progress

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New Construction, Redevelopment
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New HSPVA Building at Austin St. and Texas Ave., Downtown, Houston, 77002

The first act of construction of the new downtown facilities for the High School for Performing and Visual Arts featured an extended solo by a lone excavator supported by a small cluster of white vehicles, per photos of the site released yesterday. Work on the former parking lot bounded by Austin, Capitol, Caroline, and Rusk streets got the go-ahead in late February now that some budget issues are settled, according to HISD.

Here’s a ground-level shot that introduces a few more characters to the production — in this scene, the Excavator meets with the Man in Yellow, as a Blue Semi observes in stony silence:

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Encore on Austin St.
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Featured Posts
03/01/16 10:15am

TABC Permit in the Works for the Brutalist Christian Science Church on Main St.

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Interiors, Midtown
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First Church of Christ, Scientist, 1720 Main St., Downtown, Houston, TX 77002

First Church of Christ, Scientist, 1720 Main St., Downtown, Houston, TX 77002A new gig appears to be on the horizon for the turquoise-and-concrete Christian Science church at 1720 Main St. A notice announcing an application for a TABC license for the spot is up at the site; the license is being sought by an entity under the name of 1720 Main Reception Hall. Attached to that name, in the public notice for the application, is another: Salim Dehkordi (of nightclub Clé Bar down the road at 2301 Main) is listed as president, secretary, and treasurer.

The Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects put in a bid on the space back in January, hoping to use the sci-fi Brutalist building as their new headquarters. The organization purportedly lost out to a cash buyer asking for no due diligence period, spurring suspicions that the structure would be torn down. It seems, however, that the building will be maintained in some form by its next owners (though there could be a very different set of activities going on beneath that geometric gold spire).  A new setup for the interior might be on the horizon as well:

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Getting Saved Downtown
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Featured Posts
02/19/16 10:15am

Parking Augmentation Procedure Planned for Former Dorsey’s Beauty Academy in the Heights

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Houston Heights, Proposed Developments, Retail
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Proposed Development at Yale and 21st streets, Heights, Houston, 77008

Proposed Development at Yale and 21st streets, Heights, Houston, 77008Here’s the latest cloud-edged rendering of what could be coming to the corner of Yale and W. 21st streets, if Wellington Development gets its requested setback variance wish granted. A reader noticed the notice of the request posted outside of the building currently at 2105 Yale, which formerly housed Dorsey’s Beauty Academy prior to a decade of abandonment.

Wellington bought the spot last July, around which time Collum Commercial put out a leasing flyer showing a new floor-slash-parking plan for the property, which is boxed in on the non-Yale-and-21st-streets sides by the 2125 Yale apartments. Planned renovations to the building, which is listed in county records as 13,000 sq.ft.,  appear to involve some major trimming and resculpting to fit in new off-street parking spaces:

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Yale Street Plaza
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