WINTER SNOBALLS FOR HOUSTON 
Just in time to serve up a white Christmas — at least before a few pumps of flavoring are added to your order — MAM’s House of Ice has opened its first-ever non-wheeled, year-round location. It’s at 1040 W. Cavalcade St. in Sunset Heights, about a mile east of the popular mobile storefront’s longstanding trailer-parking spot. That means snoballs (along with a few warmer dessert-y and snack-y items added to the menu) will now be available year-round. [b4-u-eat; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Mam’s House of Ice
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Tag: Retail
CROWDWATERING, CROWDGOBBLING SUCCESSES 
Crowdfunding efforts for 2 separate Houston ventures featured on Swamplot last month have achieved their fundraising goals. Rebecca Masson tells Swamplot that “Fluff Bake Bar will happen,” after a campaign on Kickstarter brought in $53,580 in donations. But Masson says she’s “still in talks” with the landlord about the new Midtown retail sweet shop she’s planning; location details won’t be announced until there’s a signed lease. Meanwhile, $3,035 brought in from a campaign on YouCaring means 20 new trees donated to Meadowcreek Village Park by Trees for Houston will have enough water to drink for 2 years. Got concerns about what the trees will drink after that? The campaign still has 9 days to go before it closes. Map: Meadowcreek Village Civic Club Beautification Committee
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT DO YOU CALL THE TRANSFORMED INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT SOUTH OF THE HEIGHTS? 
“I think the stretch of land North of Washington but South of I-10, where all the big-box retailers are going in, should be called Katyville.” [el duderino, commenting on Grocers Supply Sale Will Supply 15 Acres for Apartments, Shops Across from Studemont Kroger] Illustration: Lulu
AND YET ANOTHER BAR IS COMING TO MAIN ST.’S HAPPENING 300 BLOCK 
The stretch of Main St. downtown between Prairie and Congress that’s been nominated for the Ground-Floor Retail Award in this year’s Swampies will soon have another bar to add to its growing collection. A food-and-mixed-drinks establishment named Bar Materia — at least that’s the proposed name — is planned for the spot shown at left at 312 Main. Last week, the folks behind Anvil, Hay Merchant, and Underbelly announced plans to open The Nightingale Room a couple doors down at 308 Main St., downstairs from Captain Foxheart’s Bad News Bar & Spirit Lodge. [Swamplot inbox; Eater Houston] Photo: Downtown District
The group that completed the purchase of a 15-acre agglomeration of tracts at the southwest corner of I-10 and Studemont this week says it’s planning a mixed-use development for the site, including an apartment complex. Most of the land was owned by Grocers Supply, which has operated a 232,352-sq.-ft. produce warehouse and big-rig parking lot there for 42 years. The facility at 3000 Hicks St. is yet another chunk in the First Sixth Ward-area once-industrial swath south of the Heights that’s been turning to big-box-flavored retail bit by bit over the last decade, and now stretches from Target on the east near Sawyer to Walmart just west of Yale St. Here’s an aerial view of that district from 1990, when it was still entirely industrial (you can see the western edges of Downtown in the background):
A Couple Years To Think About It
A fence is up and some demo work appears to be beginning at Galleria Plaza, across Sage Rd. from Galleria III. The mixed-use site, which stretches between Westheimer and West Alabama, is indeed the planned location of the new Hyatt Regency hotel that Swamplot reported on last month. The 14-story hotel, which was designed by Gensler and is being developed by Songy Highroads and the Carlyle Group, will fit into the surface parking lot at the northwest corner of Sage and West Alabama shown here:
Making Rooms
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SAFEWAY’S PLANS FOR A LEANER RANDALLS OPERATION 
“I’m not buying the ‘pulling out of Houston’ claim. Other chains are debasing themselves to get into the Houston/DFW/Austin markets. Why would an incumbent, distressed or not, just completely pull out? Doesn’t pass logical test, IMO. Reducing cost by eliminating regional management and failing to renew a lease aren’t the same thing as a wholesale abandonment of Houston.” [Tom Opposable Thumb, commenting on Yet Another Sign of a Coming Randalls Houston Pullout] Illustration: Lulu
YET ANOTHER SIGN OF A COMING RANDALLS HOUSTON PULLOUT 
Just in: this market-fresh, unconfirmed grocery-store tip. “Randalls just laid off their entire Houston corporate office. Houston stores will be managed from Dallas.” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Randalls Woodlake Square, 9660 Westheimer Rd.: AmREIT
This was the scene yesterday on the southeast corner of Richmond Ave and Cummins St. near Greenway Plaza, where the Redstone Companies and Hansen Partners are planning to build a new 11-story office building and 5-level parking garage with — if a Planning Dept. staff report describing the project is correct — an attached 5-story retail center. The development received planning commission approval last week for a reduced setback along the 2 streets that meets with planned but not-yet-approved standards for transit corridors; if Metro’s stalled University Line ever gets built, it’ll make its get-off-of-Richmond turn at this same corner. Accordingly, in documents submitted to the city, the developers appear to be holding out the undescribed retail portion for some later date: [Only] “the office building and related parking garage to be built on this site are nearing the time that a building permit will be required,” the variance application reads.
5-Story Retail?
ANOTHER ASTRODOME INDOOR CLEARANCE SALE 
Without a lot of fanfare, Reliant Park officials have just announced another round of sales of extracted Astrodome furniture. And it’s scheduled to begin tomorrow morning at 8 am. Astrodome seats once graced by the posteriors of thousands of cheering sports fans will be available for purchase online at the Reliant Park website at that time. [Reliant Park; previously on Swamplot] Photo: mokambo.0219
Swamplot reader Dave spots the signs up for Bernie’s Burger Bus in the Bellaire Triangle, giving an actual address (5407 Bellaire Blvd., in the former Christian Community Service Center Sunshine Retail Shop) to the growing vehicle-and-restaurant chain’s previously announced somewhere-in-Bellaire location. Like the other non-wheeled Bernie’s locations, this one will be called a Bernie’s Burger Bus Stop — but Bus Station might be more accurate: Owner Justin Turner told Eater back in September he plans to use the Bellaire spot as a “hub” where production and prep takes place and deliveries go out for all the restaurants — including the new one planned for Katy. And in addition to an in-kitchen table for occasional (non-burger) pop-up dinners, there’s an actual bus planned for the interior. Collaborative Projects’ design will let you pick up your orders as they’re passed through a bus window.
- Previously on Swamplot: Park That Bus: Bernie’s To Open 3 Non-Mobile Locations
Photos: Dave
Hamburger Transfer Station
Just what is it with these Atlanta developers and their ground-floor retail? More than a dozen years ago, Atlanta’s Post Properties interrupted Midtown’s otherwise consistent record of first-floor parking, gated windows, and shrubbery with a shopping street along its Gray St. apartment development. And now comes the same city’s Novare Group with plans to wrap the base of its Main St. and Leeland frontage of its 24-story SkyHouse Houston apartment tower downtown with a trio of shop spaces — including more than 2,300 sq. ft. on the ground floor of the building’s separate parking garage.
Ground-Floor Retail Detail
THE END IN SIGHT FOR RANDALLS 
The Randalls grocery store on the southeast corner of Westheimer and Wilcrest is a goner, reports Catie Dixon. And she tags the chain itself as the likely next casualty in the region’s ongoing grocery wars. Landlord Weingarten Realty, which also manages the Whole Foods Market across the street, sent out notice earlier this month that the space occupied by the former top-performing Randalls in the Westchase Shopping Center is now available for lease. But other new grocery stores are coming to the area: another 60 in the next 18 months, keeping up the recent pace, says broker Jason Baker — who also notes Trader Joe’s is experiencing “challenges” with its new store on S. Voss near Woodway. [Real Estate Bisnow; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Randalls at 11041 Westheimer Rd.: Weingarten Realty
The River Oaks Plant House — also known as the greenery purveyor that regularly festoons the corner of Westheimer and Buffalo Speedway with dancing bears and other fake topiary — will be closing up shop at the end December. Headmaster Mark Desjardins writes in an email that St. John’s School notified the owners of the more-than-30-year-old store in September that its lease would be terminated by December 31. The prep school had purchased the property from the Henry J. N. Taub family, along with the land under Blanco’s Bar & Grill, in a 13-acre deal completed exactly a year earlier.
Leaving Soon
COMMENT OF THE DAY: READING BETWEEN THE LINES OF A LEASES-NOT-UP-YET STORY 
“Translation: current tenants have murderously cheap rents and would not leave for a million bucks. Buyer is trying to play hard ball by threatening to let the property sit until the leases are up unless tenants take a crappy buyout offer.
Prediction: Buyer will eventually pay what it takes to get tenants out once they realize that no one will want to pay market rate to be in that old dog of a strip mall.” [Old School, commenting on Apartments and Retail for Westheimer and Montrose Corner? Not Until Half Price Books and Spec’s Scoot] Illustration: Lulu
