COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOLDING DOWN THE FORT AT 3400 MONTROSE “The building has not been shut down, I am still renting there. They have not communicated any plans. It would make an excellent art studio building, and there is money in that- take Winter Street Studios as an example. Would also make great living spaces, but would require tremendous remodel. If you hear any clues about plans of owners, please post!” [Stoney, commenting on Scott Gertner’s Skybar Closing, May Take the Whole Building with It]
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Tag: Montrose
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS BAD PUBLICITY “Only in Houston would someone use a blog post about a building’s code violations to advertise FOR the building.” [JCoy, commenting on The Somewhat Public To-Do List Posted at 230 West Alabama]
“Apparently ‘Houston’s newest chic address‘ has some code violations on its hands,” writes the reader who found a well-worn code enforcement tag at 230 West Alabama, the Midtown-ish apartment tower formerly known as Executive House:
I stopped by on Sunday, July 4, to see if the leasing office was open and found this notice on the door. The violation from the City of Houston Code Enforcement Department says: OBTAIN ELECTRICAL PERMIT AND REPAIR UNSAFE ELECTRICAL IMMEDIATELY…OBTAIN PLUMBING PERMIT AND REPAIR UNSAFE PLUMBING IMMEDIATELY…REPAIR UNSAFE STRUCTURAL IMMEDIATELY…SEE REPORT FOR DETAILS…SUBJECT TO CITATIONS DAILY FOR NON-COMPLIANCE. The date in the bottom right hand corner appears to be 04-04-10. I think I’ll keep searching for that apartment elsewhere.
The tag:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A 3400 MONTROSE BLVD. INSPECTION REPORT “I did due diligence on this building a few years ago for the prior owners (The Ali Brothers). It was in pretty bad shape back then. The chilled water system was byzantine and the egress (especially from the Skybar) was not anywhere near complying with code. The garage needed work and had headroom problems on the ramps. For re-purposing, 3400 Montrose actually laid out well into residential or a hotel. I thought that given the limited parking situtation that they should give the Skybar the boot and convert the building to rental apartments. The structural bay depths and the continuous glazing on each floor laid out nicely, and the garage was almost the perfect size for this. Of course the entire building would have to be gutted in the process to accomplish any major update to the building. I swore I would never go into the Skybar again when I saw how unsafe the egress would be in a fire.” [mt, commenting on Why Scott Gertner’s Skybar Is Leaving the Montrose Sky]
WHY SCOTT GERTNER’S SKYBAR IS LEAVING THE MONTROSE SKY Gertner says he’s now interested in opening up a new club somewhere near the Galleria. A company out of Waco called FH Properties bought the 10-story office building at 3400 Montrose that serves as a podium for the Skybar in February. After that, the bar owner and Grammy nominee tells the Chronicle‘s Joey Guerra, everything went downhill: “About five months ago, the building was purchased in auction. We tried over the past months to work out a new lease, but they kept putting me off saying they didn’t know what they were going to do. I started to see that the building was being neglected — even to the point that my staff would walk the entire four-story parking garage and lobby to clean it ourselves after the nightclub was closed — wipe the windows, clean the elevators, everything that my prior lease included that was the responsibility of the landlord. Big, orange, neon City of Houston stickers started to appear on all doors listing the permits were outdated. We had several visits from the fire marshal about the building and even thought they were going to shut it down two weeks ago. Nothing like closing us down on the second biggest holiday of the year. Skybar was always one of the best venues to view fireworks on the fourth of July.” [Peep; previously on Swamplot]
Note: Story updated below.
News comes from a reader that Scott Gertner’s Skybar, on the top floor of 3400 Montrose, will be closing for good this Saturday — “due to the building closing its doors.” We don’t have further information about why the entire 10-story office building across Hawthorne from the Montrose Kroger might be shutting down, but a Twitter-fed rumor is that it’s for “safety concerns.”
Scott Gertner’s Sports Bar, safely ensconced on the ground- (and only) floor of a parking-lot site on Fountainview just north of Richmond, is apparently in no danger of collapse, and will remain open. The complete message passed onto us from Gertner after the jump:
Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:
Not sure the “answers” readers provided for this week’s Street Sleuths feature were satisfying enough to merit a summary post, but it’s nice at least to have another excuse to run Jason Tinder’s dramatic photo showing the end of the Komart Marketplace. Here’s what we, uh, “learned”:
- Spring Branch: So yes, Tinder now does have some “clues” that might help him figure out what’s going on with the Gessner Place Shopping Center on the west side of Gessner just north of I-10, and the remains of Komart. The property is owned by MetroNational, but any redevelopment schemes the company is hatching from its Death Star overlook remain a mystery. Harmonica adds another tidbit to the Memorial City Mall area rumor mill:
I also understand that they own the center on the other side of Kingsride from the professional building on the South side of 10 and have not been renewing leases.
In this photo, the Death Star surveys its vanquished foe:
The Norman apartment building at 717 West Alabama at Stanford St. caught fire and burned last August. The 8-unit Montrose building, which the Houston Press saw fit to declare the city’s “Best Apartment” back in 2004, showed up in Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report just before Christmas. A reader sends in pics of the new multicolored stucco-and-foam construction going up in its place and notes:
It appears that they were quick to rebuild, It looked to me that they used the old piers, and just added the support beams for a (pier & beam foundation). Glad to see that they took advantage of the exsiting foundation.
And look, new foam quoins at the corner, to hold the stucco rainbow together! Are they fireproof?
Got an answer to any of these reader questions? Or just want to be a sleuth for Swamplot? Here’s your chance! Add your report in a comment, or send a note to our tipline.
- Midtown: A couple of readers are curious about this new sign, which went up at the end of last week at the long-languishing lot south of West Alabama between Travis and Main, across the street from Julia’s Bistro and the Breakfast Klub. There were plans to build a hospital in this location a few years ago. In the last year it’s become an inexpensive parking lot, notes roving Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia, who’s curious how whatever’s being envisioned for the property might “tie in with the rail, the church (SMBC), and the Men’s Center nearby.”
- Spring Branch: Reader Jason Tinder snaps the dramatic photo below, showing the final moments of vanquished Korean grocery store Komart, and notes the entire Gessner Place Shopping Center, on the west side of Gessner just north of I-10, is being demolished. It looks to him like something else is going in there . . . can anybody give him some clues?
In this edition of our occasional photo feature, a new shipment of street art opens around town. First up: this bit of spray-painted enthusiasm for BP cleanup efforts, installed in an impromptu outdoor gallery at the corner of Missouri and Commonwealth in Montrose.
What’s next to see?
Austin sushi dude Tyson Cole is planning to name the new restaurant he’s eyeing for the longtime location of Felix Mexican Restaurant at Westheimer and Grant “Uchi” — just like his Austin original. The new owners “do not intend” to tear down the building (if they did, current development regulations might make it difficult to rebuild so close to the street). Cole’s publicist confirms to Swamplot that Austin restaurant designer Michael Hsu “will be involved” in the project, but notes that the sale of the building hasn’t been finalized. The restaurant wouldn’t open until late 2011.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SPENDING AN ETERNITY BEHIND MARY’S LOUNGE “. . . there is a garden in the back which holds the ashes of men who passed in the early AIDS epidemic. I am shocked no one in the Houston Community has brought this to anyone’s attention. . . .” [j, commenting on Swamplot Street Sleuths: Gotta Fight for Your Right]
In other Montrose Tex-Mex news, MyTable reports that the building on the corner of Westheimer and Grant that for 60 years housed Felix Mexican Restaurant is likely toast. Famous white-guy sushi chef Tyson Cole and the owners of his standout Austin restaurant, Uchi, have bought the building and are planning a new restaurant in that location. The structure will “probably be torn down,” MyTable reports. Both Uchi on South Lamar and Cole’s about-to-open restaurant on North Lamar, called Uchiko, were designed by Austin’s Michael Hsu Design Office. Hsu’s best-known work in Houston: Sushi Raku in Midtown.
Late Update: Not so fast with the Felix building obits, please.
- Heard on the Street [My Table SideDish]
- Tyson Cole [Uchi]
- Brett Anderson on Sushi’s Great White Hope [Oxford American]
- Uchiko on the horizon [Austin360]
- Previously on Swamplot: Goodbye, Felix, A Look at the New Midtown Restaurant in the Mix
Photo: Debra Jane Seltzer
Permitting has already begun for a new Tex-Mex restaurant in Montrose, which will be neatly inserted into the former Tower Theater building on Westheimer at Yoakum. The marquee on the Art Deco building has already been restored to neon-and-fluorescent glory. Next up: rebuilding the theater’s former balcony, removed when the building was gutted and converted to a Hollywood Video store a few years back. The yet-to-be-named restaurant will be a joint project of Bill Floyd and Bryan Caswell of Reef and former Houston Press restaurant critic Robb Walsh, who’s written several Tex-Mex cookbooks. My Table reports the new restaurant is scheduled to open at the beginning of 2011.
- Heard on the Street [My Table SideDish]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Tower Theatre Puts No Name in Lights, Drive-By and Walk-By Reports on the Tower Theatre’s New Headliner, What’s Playing at the Tower Theatre?, Going Attractions: Hollywood Video Gives Up on the Tower Theatre
Photo: Matthew Rutledge [license]
Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:
Answers — of a sort — to your questions:
- Montrose: Alas, none of our readers were able to identify concrete plans for the uh, seminal Montrose nightclub at the corner of Westheimer and Yoakum, which closed last year. But some of you were happy to pass on rumors about Mary’s: “Last I heard it was being purchased/leased again and will become a new Montrose hangout paying homage to the original, but that was about two months after it closed,” reports kjb434. LandGuy points out that the next-door parking lot between Mary’s and Burger King is owned by someone else; however HCAD records indicate the owners of Mary’s still also own the lot directly behind the former club, facing California St.
- Riverside Terrace and beyond: Can anyone snap photos of your home? “If you are in a public space, you can photograph anything you like. There may be restrictions around military installations or FBI buildings, though,” declares roving pic-snapper RWB. But watch out for overzealous security guards and cops, he warns. RWB has some experience in that department; but not so much as Downtown electric shuttle entrepreneur Erik Ibarra — who, sadly, did not weigh in to this discussion. (Ibarra founded REV Eco-Shuttle in 2008, shortly after he and his brother received a $1.7 million lawsuit settlement from the city. Six years earlier, sheriff’s deputies had entered their home near Park Place, seized their film, and arrested them after Ibarra’s brother took photos — from his own and public property — of a drug search being conducted at their next-door neighbor’s home.)
Lauren
offered a link to this handy guide to photographers’ rights. But a couple readers were certain the would-be design stalker was casing, not admiring: Says montrose: “They were just seeing if anyone was home before they robbed the joint. Nobody wants to take a picture of your house.”
We’ll post the next set of reader questions next Tuesday. Send us what you’ve got before then!
Photo of 1022 Westheimer Rd.: Swamplot inbox
