Tag: Montrose

Montrose
04/16/10 8:45am

What’s Playing at the Tower Theatre?

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Retail
2 Comments

A reader checks in from the scene at 1201 Westheimer, where the shuttered Montrose Hollywood Video store formerly known as the Tower Theatre appears to be the subject of some primping, cherry-picking marquee action:

Is something happening or are they just making it look better? There has also been surveying done in the area this week. There’s a survey stake at the corner of Waugh and Westheimer.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Bayous and Waterways
04/14/10 12:47pm

Zero Tolerance for the New Buffalo Bayou Bridge

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Montrose, New Construction, North Montrose, Parks, Proposed Developments, Public Art
73 Comments

A number of readers have been asking what’s up with the new construction office set up on the former site of the Robinson’s Warehouse at the southeast corner of Montrose and Allen Parkway. The Aga Khan Foundation bought the low-lying property in 2006 with plans to build another of its Ismaili Centers on it — featuring lecture, conference, and recital facilities, a prayer hall and a social hall, and offices and gardens. Is that building ready to go up?

It doesn’t look like it. In the meantime, the construction office was parked on the property for a different project entirely, across the street: The new Rosemont Bridge, meant to connect the north and south sides of Buffalo Bayou Park. When Mayor White first announced the bridge project in late 2008, it had a different name and a different design. Called Tolerance Bridge, it a featured Moebius-strip-like superstructure that was meant to appear impassable from a distance:

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Montrose
04/13/10 12:28pm

Sabetta Café Makes Sure To Feed the Blogs First

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Vermont Commons
16 Comments

How cute! Just a few days after a restaurant publicist emails news about the new Sabetta Café & Wine Bar set to open in the former location of Café Zol at 2411 South Shepherd just south of Fairview, a Swamplot “reader” sends in a photo (which just happens to be named in the same very specific style as the ones sent by the publicist) of the new sign out front and asks us if we know anything about it.

Only what you tell us! Let’s see: that it’ll be the new digs of former Simposio’s executive chef Riccardo Palazzo-Giorgio and his wife, Donna; that they’ll be serving “classic, signature dishes from the twenty-two different culinary regions of Italy,” and that you expect it to open in May.

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Landscape
04/12/10 12:43pm

Where To Pick Up a Free Bite To Eat in Montrose

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Montrose, Quicklink
5 Comments

WHERE TO PICK UP A FREE BITE TO EAT IN MONTROSE Looking for a little pony’s foot for your salad? You won’t find any in Montrose grocery stores, but you should have no problem picking some up in any number of nearby vacant lots: “. . . in just a three-block radius, [petroleum chemist and urban foraging teacher Mark Vorderbruggen] identifies 34 different edibles. Things like mallows, which have rough leaves with toothed edges, and wild radishes which have long, symmetrical leaves, four yellow or white petals and tastes like horseradish. But urban foraging isn’t only about finding tasty things to munch on. ‘There’s a lot of things you can use for skin irritation. In fact I see some right over here. . . . This is plantain and it’s real good. You just crush it up and make a mash. It’s good against insect bites, mosquito bites, bee stings.” [Houston Public Radio News] Photo: KUHF

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Commercial Real Estate
04/06/10 9:01am

A Few Signs the Montrose Whole Foods Market Is On Its Way

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Land Development, Leasing, Montrose, North Montrose, Proposed Developments, Retail
9 Comments

There’s a new sign up across the street from the Jack in the Box at the corner of West Dallas and Waugh, announcing the new Whole Foods Market. And an employee of the building’s architect, Beckham Design Group of Austin, confirms that the project was recently put out to bid to general contractors.

How big will it be? Another source indicates the new store is now scheduled to be approximately 48,000 sq. ft. — including a mezzanine. That’s up a bit from what we’d last heard: that the market would be 40,000 sq. ft. and include “eco-conscious elements and tons of inviting space for neighbors to congregate.” Whole Foods Market signed a 25-year lease for the land with The Finger Companies back in 2008.

Here’s an aerial view of the site the Finger Companies sent out last year:

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Construction Problems
04/02/10 6:18pm

Breaking Fire Station News

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Hazards, Lancaster Place, Montrose, Quicklink
33 Comments

BREAKING FIRE STATION NEWS The upper floor of the fire station at the corner of Richmond and Dunlavy in Montrose buckled today and the building is close to collapsing, a source with second-hand knowledge of the situation tells Swamplot. Problems with the foundation of the 1979 structure were reportedly complicated by the removal of a building column some time in the past. An engine, ladder, 2 ambulances, and an EMS supervisor are being relocated to nearby facilities and the station will be “closed indefinitely,” reports the source. Station 16 covers the greater Montrose area, roughly from Kirby to Spur 527 and from Bissonnet to West Dallas. [Swamplot inbox]

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Hazards
03/29/10 10:55am

The Allen Parkway Speed Trap

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Montrose, North Montrose, Quicklink, Streets, Traffic, Transportation
27 Comments

THE ALLEN PARKWAY SPEED TRAP “Traffic accidents increased 47 percent and injuries 154 percent on Allen Parkway last year even as the number of motorists ticketed for speeding continued a lengthy and significant decline on the near-downtown roadway, according to police and municipal court records. . . . Houston police, who were unaware of the drop in speeding tickets until asked by the Houston Chronicle and were at a loss to explain them, said they will begin a weeklong study today of motorists’ speeds on Allen Parkway. If high rates of speeding are detected, an enforcement blitz with radar units will begin, said Capt. Carl Driskell, who heads HPD’s traffic enforcement division.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Flickr user Lee Ann L.

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Comments
03/16/10 2:39pm

Comment of the Day: Montrose Ain’t Like It Used To Be

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Montrose, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Quicklink
7 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: MONTROSE AIN’T LIKE IT USED TO BE “What’s with the petitions and the rainbows and unicorns? Renderings? Real hippys would squat on the land, throw up some tents to sell their bead jewelry and homemade hippy stuff until the police and/or bulldozers come. 21st century Montrose is full of pussies. 20 bucks sez the guy with the hearts on his sign is in line on opening day ready to fill his hemp messenger bag with organic chicken breasts and a sustainably farmed pomengranate flavored something or other at the overpriced new neighborhood-centric HEB.” [meatsack, commenting on What the Montrose Land Defense Coalition Really Wants To See at Wilshire Village]

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Homes for Sale
03/11/10 4:18pm

Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: TV Temple Ranch

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Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game, North Montrose, Temple Terrace
1 Comment

Determining the winner of this week’s game was tough! But the judges have awarded first prize to Sara — and a very close second place to KimmerTX. Congratulations to you both!

We also acknowledge the solid head-fake thrown by kimberlee ann, who knew exactly where this home was, wrote in to say so, then sent gullible readers a-wondering if it might be somewhere along . . . Navigation?

Nope!

So where might it be?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Audubon Place
03/01/10 1:14pm

What’s Happening to That Spanish Bookstore on West Alabama?

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Buildings for Sale, Land for Sale, Montrose, Retail
8 Comments

Roving Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia spots a for sale sign up at the Libreria Española on the north side of West Alabama between Stanford and Audubon:

I know the owner/manager was elderly, but watching him in the mornings get his shop ready and opening the gates was really a nice thing to see. I’m hoping he is not ill or deceased. It’s always sad to see small businesses close.

Who said it’s closed?

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Comments
02/22/10 1:42pm

Comment of the Day: Colquitters, It’s Your Own Damn Asphalt

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Dearborn Place, Hazards, Lancaster Place, Montrose, Quicklink, Streets
5 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: COLQUITTERS, IT’S YOUR OWN DAMN ASPHALT “What is it about Colquitt? I have seen other streets in your same zipcode surfaced twice in the last dozen years, while certain blocks of Colquitt (the high teens) look like Beyond Thunderdome. I am not so naive as to be ignorant of why some streets get better attention than others, but who did you Colquitters piss off?” [Harold Mandell, commenting on Steve Radack’s Next Little Idea]

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Avondale
02/18/10 1:28pm

Dressing Up Those Little Montrose Drive-Ups

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Commercial Real Estate, East Montrose, Leasing, Montrose, Renovations, Retail
7 Comments

Vespa-riding Montrosian Brittanie Holland is curious about two retail buildings in her ’hood recently dressed up for lease:

We live in the northeast part of the Montrose. I was sad when the Hyde Park Supermarket shut down (across from Ziggy’s on Taft and Fairview) because they sold St. Arnold’s and Mexican Coke and were within walking distance. Plus the Pakistani (?) guys who worked there were so nice and knew me by name. Back when Ziggy’s was BYOB having the store there was, well, convenient.

The building has been vacant since summer but over the past few months workers have painstakingly removed all the original brick, refurbished the structure and the rebricked it with most of the original brick. It’s kind of an interesting mid-century building — it looks like it might once have been a garage, and there is a sign for business lease outside but I can’t believe the owners would do all that refurbishing without a [tenant] in mind. This is right down the street from Boheme and the new Deans, and has ample parking, so maybe they’re hoping to draw some similar high-brow ventures? Is Midtown continuing it’s fast encroachment on my filthy Montrose? (We’ll always have Lola’s. Hopefully.)

The other building probably needed a much more extensive cleaning:

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Montrose
01/11/10 4:24pm

Annunciation Orthodox Looks for More Parking Places in Montrose

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Neighborhood Disputes, Parking, Proposed Developments, Religious Facilities, WAMM
18 Comments

Some neighbors of the Annunciation Orthodox School and cathedral in Montrose are not too happy about the institutions’ plans to build a parking lot on the site of an apartment complex at the corner of Yoakum and Marshall it tore down a year or so ago. But Clifford Pugh suspects even more pavement may be on the horizon:

Even though the lot is prohibited under the deed restrictions, representatives from the school told residents at a meeting last week they plan to proceed anyway. “Our interpretation is that the deed restrictions are not valid and not enforceable,” a school official said.

Actually, the deed restrictions allow the school to petition residents for an exemption. But that would set a precedent I believe the school doesn’t want to acknowledge. It owns several other homes in the area and I suspect officials are itching to tear them down in the future, too. Between the school and the church, they’ve already torn down the equivalent of a block-and-a-half of housing to make way for parking lots — but there’s always room for more.

Photo: Clifford Pugh

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Houston Heights
01/08/10 9:39am

Heights Vs. Montrose: The Legal Battle

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Montrose, Quicklink, Sunset Heights
4 Comments

HEIGHTS VS. MONTROSE: THE LEGAL BATTLE After giving himself 5 months to settle into his new Sunset Heights home, HBJ editor and former longtime west-Montrose resident Bill Schadewald sets about appraising the relative merits of his once and future ’hoods: “Montrose: Dozens of nearby attorneys ready to help me consummate a merger, negotiate an acquisition or initiate a hostile takeover. Heights: Hundreds of lawyers on hand to fix my speeding ticket, handle my uncontested divorce or represent me in a minor traffic accident case. Edge: Heights. Some of the lawyers even have brothers-in-law to do the car repairs and throw in a new set of hubcaps for free.” [Houston Business Journal]

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