NEW SHEPHERD DR. LITTLE WOODROW’S TO SERVE PUB FARE, TOO 
Beer after wine: Closed back in November, Block 7 at 720 South Shepherd Dr. is being replaced by Little Woodrow’s, reports Eater Houston’s Eric Sandler. Just south of the Washington Corridor in Rice Military Magnolia Grove and a block east from the about-to-open Katch 22 from Roger Clemens’s kid Kory, the new Shepherd spot, rep Nick Menage tells Sandler, will house no ordinary Woodrow’s: “In a twist, this location will have a full kitchen that will serve an updated mix of bar foods including burgers, nachos and pizzas from the old Block 7 oven. Menage assures fans of the bar’s popular steak nights that there are plans to maintain that tradition, too.” [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Block 7: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
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Tag: Renovations
Fresh paint in shades of purple is but one of the updates to this 1929 East End bungalow with matching back-lot studio unit. Listed Friday at $115,000, the plummy property is on an otherwise toned-down, mixed-use street located a block north of Metro’s East End rail line on Harrisburg, near Milby St.
Houston Pavilions is to be renamed in honor of 2 urban features the troubled 5-year-old Downtown outdoor mall had so far shunned, its new owners announced yesterday: greenery and streets. The newly dubbed GreenStreet appears to be taking a few cues also from Discovery Green, the younger but far more successful urban attraction a few blocks to the east. Midway, which with Magic Johnson’s Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds bought the 3-block-long mixed-use center out of bankruptcy last August (and the adjacent parking garage on Clay St. between Main and Fannin a few months later), plans 6 to 9 months’ worth of renovations to the property as well, to turn it into a CityCentre-style event hub.
The new design, by Houston architects Muñoz + Albin and the Office of James Burnett, a local landscape firm, will try to soften and connect the 3 separated interior courtyards and make them come across as more park-like. Additional changes won’t exactly make the famously inward-looking mall turn itself inside-out, but they do appear to make a few stabs at poking through to Dallas St., adding signage, storefront windows in some places, and a few outdoor seating areas along its northern edge.
This white box, covering up the emergency exit of a vacated belly-dancing studio, will be the new entrance of Houston’s first indoor rowing facility, says founder Greg Scheinman. In West University Place, ROW Studios is building out the former Sirrom Dance behind the Randall’s in Weslayan Plaza and resurfacing the parking lot facing Academy St.
HERE, NOW, A FEW MORE IDEAS FOR THE ASTRODOME 
Making the rounds this week are a couple more long shots for the Astrodome from people who don’t seem very keen on the 2,500 parking spaces the Texans and Rodeo proposed last week. First, you’ve got Ed Seale and his wife of “Keep the Astrodome,” who say they want to see the ol’ thing renovated into an global bazaar, reports KUHF’s Jack Williams, “a space filled with international, ethnic, cultural and business organizations . . . and ethnic restaurants.” And then there’s the UH graduate student Ryan Slattery, whose friend leaked online parts of his architecture master’s thesis that calls for the big baby to be stripped to a skeleton and used as greenspace: “If you don’t need it,” Slattery tells KHOU’s Jeremy Desel, “it does not need to be there. It is never going to be a stadium again. So you don’t need the seats. You need to take those seats out. Concrete on the facade? You don’t need that.” Adds Slattery: “If and when the Astrodome does come down you will see a grown man cry.” [KUHF; KHOU; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
DOWNTOWN LANDMARK LANCASTER HOTEL TO BE UPGRADED WITH ‘PRESTIGIOUS PLUMBING ACCOUTERMENTS’ 
The Joseph Finger designed Lancaster Hotel at 701 Texas that dates to 1926 will receive about $10 million in “aesthetic and technological upgrades” designed by Gensler, reports Nancy Sarnoff. She cites a hotel press release that claims the Lancaster will introduce Wi-Fi and “intuitive” keycards that you don’t have to insert into the door, as well as new interiors featuring “premier bedding and bathroom fixtures and fittings by WaterWorks, making The Lancaster the first and only Houston hotel to offer this prestigious brand of plumbing accouterments.” To kick up the Lancaster’s ambience a notch, the new decor will feature “men’s suiting fabrics.” The hotel will remain open during the renovations, which are expected to be completed by this summer. [Prime Property] Photo: The Lancaster
A no-fuss shed dormer and its smaller companion perched on the back roof help make this updated home one of the largest on its block in Hilltop Acres. That’s the name given to a hill-free neighborhood west of the West Belt just south of W. Little York; though the listing for the home names it Silver Meadows. Available since Friday, the home has an initial asking price of $119,900; its listing cites all sorts of updates, from paint and floors to kitchen fittings — and a little landscaping streetside. Perhaps of equal interest, however, are the not-updated features touted: EZ access to the tollway and an absence of deed restrictions.
Pending status expired on this updated 1939 Idylwood bungalow, which hit the market a month ago and promptly went under contract. As of yesterday, it’s back as a re-listing at the same asking price: $283,900. The ivy-covered property sits atop a slight ridge on a street just up the block from Spurlock Park at Brays Bayou.
APARTMENTS IN OLD HUMBLE OIL BUILDING DOWNTOWN TO GO THE WAY OF ITS HOTEL NEIGHBORS 
Back in 2003, 2 of the 3Â Humble Oil buildings at 1212 Main and Dallas St. were turned into hotels. The oil-to-hospitality transformation will soon be complete, reports the Houston Business Journal’s Shaina Zucker: A Maryland company has acquired the 3 buildings for about $80 million and says it will convert the last of them into another hotel. Presently, that tower at 914 Dallas St. holds 82 apartments. By 2015, reports Zucker, it will become a 166-room SpringHill Suites, joining the 191-room Courtyard and the 171-room Residence Inn — each of which is now dubbed a “Houston Downtown Convention Center” hotel. [Houston Business Journal]Â Photo: Wikimedia Commons
COMMENT OF THE DAY: CHURCH OF THE SHUTTERED WALMART “Conversion into Goodwill and flea markets has a kind of internal logic. Can’t say the idea that school district administrators are overflowing into defunct Walmarts soothes me all that much, but that’s a personal foible. I expect before it’s all over a fair number of Walmarts will house, for a couple hours a week anyway, new-style churches for people who are ‘broken and hurting.’ Other uses might be these feeding sites I’ve been hearing about and even college. An old Walmart’s as good a place as any to earn your degree in leadership. . . . ” [luciaphile, commenting on And That Makes Two: Construction Begins on Idylwood Walmart]
The son of Sugar Land Skeeters ace and former Astros hurler Roger Clemens is renovating a tapas bar into a house of “sports and spirits” that’ll be called Katch 22. That’s Katch with a K — for strikeout, if you’re scoring at home. Renovations are already underway at the former Convivio space here at 700 Durham in Rice Military. Kody Kory Clemens, reports Eater Houston’s Eric Sandler, will be Katch 22’s executive chef; he studied at Le Cordon Bleu and met co-proprietor Luke Mandola while working at Ragin’ Cajun. Sandler adds that though there will be 11 screens here showing ball games, the owners stress that Katch 22 is not a sports bar. Either way, it’s expected to open in May.
- Mandola and Clemens Bringing Katch 22 to Durham [Eater Houston]
Photo: Allyn West
Redo work on a 1920 cottage with a watching-the-world-pass porch spun off a mini-me houselet in back (above) and an airy, matching carport. The property, located a few blocks west of I-45 — between the Near Northside and the Heights — listed last Friday with an asking price of $399,000. The property had last changed hands in November 2012, for $119,500. But that was in its pink period (at right); it had first listed last March, for $150,000.
Two years ago, a previous version of this 3-bedroom, 2-bath house dating back to 1940 was sold for $45,675. Near Lawndale and S. 75th St. in Mason Park, it’s within walking distance of a hike and bike on Brays Bayou — as well as a Family Dollar, a food truck that sells pupusas, and several payday and title loan stores. This new version of 1212 Smallwood went on the market earlier this year at $171,500.
This Briarmeadow contemporary with broken-pediment facade bleached its previously ruddy exterior as part of an all-over renovation sometime after last December. That’s when it was bought by its current seller — for $247,000. It’s back on the market now, lighter in color but heftier in price, listed for $449,900. The home’s dog-leg driveway across the front lawn still feeds into a side-entry garage, now showing a newly uncovered cinema-screen expanse of wall to the street. Replacement landscaping at the base of that blankness will screen more of it, eventually. Despite the speedy roof-to-garden change-outs outside and flooring-to-cabinetry swap-outs inside, the listing explicitly declares that the transformed 1977 property is “NOT A FLIP.”
$17.5M TO BE SPENT REPAIRING BATTLESHIP TEXAS 
Leaking and taking on Ship Channel water since last summer, Battleship Texas will be receiving some structural repairs beginning this April: Texas Parks and Wildlife announced today — the 99th anniversary of the ship’s call to action — that a $17.5 million contract with a North Carolina firm will cover “about half” the repairs needed; they’ll be “a first step,” says TPWD’s Scott Stover, to ready the sinking ship for its eventual dry berth. During the repairs, history seekers and field trippers should still be able to see some significant sights: “[T]he ship will remain open to the public as conditions allow, and visitors will see plenty of activity at the site, as well as construction equipment and an access barge on the north side of the ship.” [Texas Parks and Wildlife; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
