Tag: Renovations

Montrose, Renovations, Restaurants

The building on the corner of Montrose Blvd. and Bomar St. is showing signs of rebranding as Les Ba’get’s owners prepare to open a new, more pho-friendly joint in its place — dubbed Les Noo’dle. February 2 was closing day for the original Vietnamese restaurant; it’s now getting situated in a new Oak Forest shopping center on Ella Blvd. where it will double its space.

Apostrophe Intact

77006, East Montrose, Montrose, Renovations, Restaurants

Adaptive Reuse

03/21/18 12:00pm

Smoosh, Teapresso Setting Up Next to Snooze in Lowell Street Market off Shepherd

Houston Heights, Mixed Use, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants

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In the wake of Snooze, 2 more businesses with names suggesting AM activities are on their way to the new Lowell Street Market on 18th St. between Shepherd and Durham. Radom Capital began transforming the 3-building former warehouse complex in something retail- and restaurant-ready back in 2016. Since then, SnoozeÂ has been the only restaurant to open in the development.

Building permits filed for the empty spots neighboring Snooze and Smoosh now show reveal the name of a third eatery that could be on its way to 718 W. 18th St.: Teapresso Bar. The Hawaiian tea shop chain has most of its current locations on Oahu, with a few on Maui as well. Lowell Street Market would be its first step onto the mainland.

The site plan below indicates all 3 buildings in the complex:

The Early Risers

77008, Adaptive Reuse, Houston Heights, Mixed Use, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants

Churches

03/20/18 12:30pm

Churchyard Excavator Now Breaking Down Walls Between Sojourn Heights’ Current Home on Aurora and Its Soon-To-Be Sanctuary

Demolitions, Houston Heights, Renovations, Sunset Heights

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Crews are now digging a hole through the middle of the Sojourn Heights church campus off Gostick St., south of Aurora in Sunset Heights. The rendering above looks west across Gostick to show the fenced-off lawn that will eventually grow in place of the demolished building. The new green space is bookended by renovated street-fronting structures and backed by a smaller addition that’s planned on the far west side of the just-over-an-acre church property.

Before the takedown got started yesterday, the complex consisted of 3 buildings that lined Gostick:

Prayer Semi-Circle

77008, Churches, Demolitions, Houston Heights, Renovations, Sunset Heights

Comments

03/13/18 4:30pm

Comment of the Day: What’s Still Missing from the Top of the Central Square Plaza Redo

by Swamplot

Midtown, Office Buildings, Quicklink, Renovations

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT’S STILL MISSING FROM THE TOP OF THE CENTRAL SQUARE PLAZA REDO “After all the beautiful exterior enhancements, does Claremont plan to update and restore functionality of the enormous electronic retro clock on top of the building? The building now looks so nice. I canâ€™t believe the clock sitting on top has not been restored, paint peeling off and not turned on, especially when it completes the whole retro-mod feel of the entire project.” [Unsure About This, commenting on Midtownâ€™s Redone Central Square Plaza Looking To Lure Tenants to Its Empty Ground Floor] Photo of former Central Square Plaza clock: meltedplastic [license]

77002, Comments, Midtown, Office Buildings, Renovations

03/12/18 4:00pm

Midtown’s Redone Central Square Plaza Looking To Lure Tenants to Its Empty Ground Floor

Midtown, Office Buildings, Renovations, Restaurants

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A building permit filed recently on the Central Square Plaza complex that takes up the block of Travis St. between Gray and Webster reveals Kraftsmen Coffee as the latest restaurant slated for the renovated tower’s empty ground floor.Â Work to install plumbing for the 1,768-sq.-ft. space that the owners of coffee shop plan to take over began last year.

The photo at top views the west portion of the building’s ground floor, which sits about halfway down the block on Gray St. and faces Milam. A parking garage is off-camera to the right. Around the corner — on the building’s north side — a TABC flyer for Malawi’s Pizza still hangs in the window of the empty storefront on Gray where it was originally posted back in 2016:

Kraftsmen Coffee

77002, Midtown, Office Space, Renovations, Restaurants

03/09/18 12:45pm

Is El Ahorro Planning To Land Where Kroger Took Off on Airline Dr.?

Northline, Renovations, Strip Centers

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Crews are now clearing out the northern portion of the strip center at the corner of Airline Dr. and Parker Rd. that Kroger departed last year. The photo at top, sent in by a Swamplot reader, shows the no-longer-automatic doors fronting the former grocery store space next door to Tostada Regia, Yumar Beauty Salon, Texans Discount Liquor, and others.

A building permit filed just over a week ago on location at 6749 Airline lists its occupant as El Ahorro. The grocery chain specializing in Mexican foodstuffs already has one nearby spot in Northline — on Irvington Blvd. just north of Berry Rd.

Dietary Cleanse

77076, Northline, Renovations, Strip Centers, Supermarkets

Bars and Clubs

03/09/18 11:00am

New Katy Board Game Brewery Will Pick Up Where Food Bank Left Off on Hwy. Blvd.

Katy, Renovations

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No longer the Eternal Food Ministry food pantry, the awninged brick building at 6801 Hwy. Blvd. is about to become Katy’s first board-game-themed brewery. The location is a short drive west from Katy High School and was abandoned when the food bank relocated to Pin Oak Rd. within the past few years. Now, the owners of the new competitive drinking venue, dubbed Wood for Sheep Brewing, are getting ready to resurface their parking lot and pipe in new plumbing for the 6,000-sq.-ft. building. Only a fifth of the space in the brewery will be devoted to its main feature: a pub and cafe area with a library of board games. The rest of it will be used for brewing, storage, offices, and other logistical functions.

Board game cafe, meet brewery [Wood for Sheep Brewing]

Photos: Wood for Sheep Brewing

Wood for Sheep Brewing

77494, Bars and Clubs, Katy, Renovations

03/08/18 2:15pm

Arrival of Construction Fencing Heralds Upcoming Ye Olde Haircut for Uptown Park

Renovations, Retail, Uptown

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Construction fencing is now up in Uptown Park, marking the last call for cornices, pilasters, pediments, faked balcony windows, and assorted handcrafted Styrofoam faÃ§ade detailing slated for removal as part of renovations planned for the vintage 1998 shopping centerÂ parked along the West Loop feeder road.

The new project — announced last October by owner Edens Investment Trust — will pare down the complex’s Olde World gewgaws, leaving behind simpler and more modern exteriors. Live oak trees are to be planted near some of the parking lots’ sunnier spots. (Former owner AmREITâ€™s plans for adding hotel and residential buildings to the complex were scrapped when Edens bought the entity in 2015.)

The 2-story space shown in the photo at top (next to Cafe Express) was abandoned by women’s wear store BB1 Classic at the end of last year. Soon, it will be remade into a restaurant dubbed Flower Child. The vacant, porticoed east side of the building in the northwest corner of the center — pictured above — is also now fenced. (Class, however, is still in session at the MISS Academy finishing school on the west side of the structure.)

This parking-space corral is now up at the building’s northeast corner:

Just a Trim Trim

77056, Renovations, Retail, Uptown Park

Bars and Clubs

03/02/18 2:00pm

PJ’s Sports Bar on W. Gray Now Fully Healed from Its Run-In with an Off-Roading Audi S4

Montrose, North Montrose, Renovations

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Repairs on PJ’s Sports Bar’s patio have the outdoor space back up and running after a sports car hopped the curb near the corner of W. Gray St. and Stanford and nearly totaled the seating area in January. One driver was hospitalized, but there were no major injuries at the scene pictured above; it was past last call when the accident occurred. The bar’s patio, however, remained in pieces for nearly 2 months after emergency workers removed the projectile.

Now, only one pre-crash item remains absent from the bar’s frontage at 614 W. Gray: the fluorescent crosswalk sign shown on the ground in the photo below:

High-Speed Corners

77019, Bars, Montrose, North Montrose, Renovations

Downtown

03/01/18 11:15am

Signs Are on the Door to WeWork’s New Downtown Branch at 708 Main

Office Buildings, Quicklink, Renovations

SIGNS ARE ON THE DOOR TO WEWORK’S NEW DOWNTOWN BRANCH AT 708 MAIN The buildingÂ on the corner of Main and Capitol — known since 2003 as the Great Jones building — is showing signs of the new WeWork office that’s heading into it. Last April, the workspace provider signed a lease for 86,000 sq. ft. in the building — originally billed as its first Houston location, although a smaller WeWork branch snuck in and opened on 3 floors of the Galleria I tower last December. 708 Main St. has been undergoing renovations since 2016 when its developers Midway and Lionstone Investments announced they planned to link the structure to its neighbor — the JP Morgan Chase building on the corner of Main and Rusk — via a first floor and mezzanine common area dubbed the Currency Lounge. The entire block between Capitol and Rusk is now being marketed as a single property termed The Jones on Main. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of WeWork entrance: Swamplot inbox

77002, Downtown, Office Buildings, Quicklink, Renovations

02/28/18 1:30pm

The Heavy Metal Taco Redo Now Taking Shape on N. Main off I-45

Renovations, Restaurants, Woodland Heights

10 Comments

Facial adjustments to the building at 3701 N. Main have left it rustier than it was when El Taquito Rico shuttered in the same space last May. The former Woodland Heights Mexican restaurant’s yellow sign has been removed, as has the standing seam mansard roof-style awning that wrapped its frontage on N. Main. In their place, a headband of corrugated metal now hugs the top of the structure — which sits on a narrow 8,375-sq.-ft. lot at the end of Pecore St., just west of I-45 (and across the street from the O’Reilly Auto Parts building that Asia Market is moving into).

Floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the restaurant’s entryway have also been truncated:

Heights Wrap-Up

77009, Renovations, Restaurants, Woodland Heights

02/26/18 1:00pm

KHOU Call Letters Now Gone from Allen Pkwy.

North Montrose, Renovations

Crews took down the letters on KHOU’s antenna tower one by one last Friday — as shown in the drone footage above — leaving the channel’s signage absent from the vacant studio next to Houston’s main drainage channel, Buffalo Bayou. At the beginning of this month, the station reported that an undisclosed buyer had the 1945 Allen Pkwy. property under contract.

For the past 5 months, the teevee crew has been broadcasting temporarily from Houston Public Media’s office at UH, which it expects to leave for a permanent home at the end of this year. The whereabouts of the new newsroom — which will incorporate the original KHOU signage in its design — haven’t been announced yet. However, plans were revealed last December for a coming satellite studio that’s slated to open opposite Discovery Green in the GRB before the station goes live from a new main headquarters.

Video: Shern-Min Chow

Channel Changes

77019, North Montrose, Quicklink, Renovations, Signs

02/26/18 11:45am

Midday Drinking Promos Have Vanished from the Postino Patio at Heights Mercantile

Houston Heights, Renovations, Restaurants

1 Comment

Postino hasn’t opened yet, but there’s already been a notable change to the decor at the Arizona-based wine cafe chain’s first Texas location. Gone from the construction fencing outside the restaurant’s patio are the signs pictured at top that read, “DRINKING WINE AT LUNCH IS NOT A CRIME.” In their place, new banners featuring only Postino’s name and social media handle have appeared. The photo above views them from the west side of the Heights Mercantile development at the corner of 7th St. and Yale.

Here’s another look at the current fence abutting Rye 51’s storefront on 7th St.:

Restaurant Rebranding

77007, Bars and Restaurants, Houston Heights, Renovations, Signs

02/14/18 11:45am

Braun To Swap Out Brown Brick Next to Johnny’s Gold Brick, Redo Warehouse Behind It All

Houston Heights, New Construction, Proposed Developments, Retail, Sunset Heights

Braun Realty is gearing up to replace Johnny’s Gold Brickâ€™s next door neighbor and redo the warehouse behind the 2 structures as part of a new retail development it has planned for the corner of Yale and Aurora.Â An entity connected to the developer snatched up the property on Yale — as well as a few adjacent parcels east on Aurora — last October. The site plan above taken from Braun’s leasing flyer for the complex now indicates all 3 buildings decked out with new adjacent patios. East of the buildings, a parking lot sports entrances on both Aurora and an alley that runs north of the site.

The photo at top shows the front door to Johnny’s Gold Brick next to the brown brick building that Lucas Craftsmanship contractors moved out of in 2015. Here’s the view from the corner of Yale and Aurora showing the 2-story structure that’s slated to replace the former construction office: