COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: WHAT’S ON SALE AT THE HOUSTON PERMITTING CENTER? “When visiting the permit palace please ask about their red tag specials.” [lhd, commenting on Newly Historic Renovated Permitting Center To Hold Preservation Workshops on Renovating Historic Buildings]
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Tag: Retail
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: HOUSTON’S SHRINKING BLAST! ZONE “I have had enough with Blast! Things went downhill fast at the Memorial City location with the ownership change. No soap in the showers, dirty sauna and steam rooms, weight equipment not being properly maintained, etc., etc. I said I would maintain my membership due to its location. Then in February 2013, Blast announces that the Memorial City location would be closing in a few weeks. I was VERY UPSET! I received a letter in the mail stating that my membership would be transferred to the Sharpstown location. That gym is out of the way for me so I started working out at the Barker Cypress location. On Monday, May 6 I go to work out and the landlord has locked Blast! out of the building due to non-payment of rent! Blast! closed the Galleria, Sugar Land, and Memorial City locations, and it seems as if the Barker Cypress location is shut down indefinitely. It’s time to find another gym!” [Floyd Worsley, Sr., commenting on Blast Begins Total Houston Takeover of Bally Total Fitness] Note: The Memorial City location of Blast! Fitness has closed, but the Barker Cypress location at 17750 Katy Fwy. is still open.
The other tenant in this new retail center at Westheimer and Dunlavy will be Space Montrose. Owner Leila Peraza says that by August the artsy and crafty retailer at 2608 Dunlavy will be relocating from this spot behind Cafe Brasil into the 4,800-sq.-ft. building under construction at the corner about 200 ft. away. Space Montrose will take up 1,200 sq. ft. of that and share a wall with what a pending liquor license names Leaven & Earth, a pastry cafe from well-schooled, globe-trotting chef Roy Shvartzapel. Recently, 2608 Dunlavy has been an art gallery and yoga studio; Peraza says she heard a book store is next.
- Supporting Handmade in the USA [Space Montrose]
- Previously on Swamplot: More To Come at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy, Dirt and Flour Moved To Create New Place To Drink at Westheimer and Dunlavy, Burned Building Next to Agora on Westheimer Returns — As a Backpack, No, Dunkin’ Donuts Is Not Coming to the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy, The Commotion at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy
Photos: Allyn West
HANOVER AT RICE VILLAGE FEEDING THE HUNGRY 
The retail ring facing Morningside, Dunstan, and Kelvin around the bottom of Hanover at Rice Village seems to be filling out: With Zoës Kitchen opening in February at 5215 Kelvin and Cloud 10 Creamery making plans to since January, Prime Property’s Nancy Sarnoff drops the names of the other 4 restaurants on the way: There’ll be Cyclone Anaya’s (shown in the photo here on Morningside to the right of Cloud 10 Creamery), a coffee shop called Fellini, Punk’s Simple Southern Food, and Coppa Osteria. Sarnoff also mentions the lone non-restaurant planned, “a boutique” called Saint Cloud. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
A rep from Edge Realty Partners says that that new retail center that’s now under construction at Westheimer and Dunlavy will have 2 tenants. The primary one, occupying 3,600 sq. ft. of the new building’s proposed 4,800, will be a well-bread pastry cafe from Roy Shvartzapel, the globe-trotting chef profiled recently in Eater Houston. A TABC permit application, filed April 17, suggests that the cafe will be called Leaven & Earth.
And the other tenant? The Edge rep says that names can’t yet be named, but that a lease is all but complete for a “boutique” retail shop that’s already in Montrose to relocate inside the remaining 1,200-sq.-ft. suite that’s depicted in the rendering here as right next to Agora.
- Pastry Chef Roy Shvartzapel Reveals Plan to Bring World-Class Cafe to Montrose [Eater Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: Dirt and Flour Moved To Create New Place To Drink at Westheimer and Dunlavy, Burned Building Next to Agora on Westheimer Returns — As a Backpack, No, Dunkin’ Donuts Is Not Coming to the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy, The Commotion at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy
Images: Edge Realty Partners (rendering); Allyn West (building)
Note: More here.
It looks like that retail center that’s replacing the art gallery that burned down is beginning to shape up. And it looks like at least one of the future tenants intends to serve adult beverages. The sign behind the chain-link at the site names the applicant as Leaven & Earth, and a rep from the TABC confirms that the application, filed on April 17, is pending. The original plans for the site here at 1706 Westheimer describe a 4,829-sq.-ft. building — with 36 parking spaces behind it, accessible from Dunlavy — designed to replace the Galerie Mado Chalvet, which was lost in a fire and immortalized on a backpack in 2012.
- Previously on Swamplot: Burned Building Next to Agora on Westheimer Returns — As a Backpack, No, Dunkin’ Donuts Is Not Coming to the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy, The Commotion at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy
Photos: Allyn West
COMMENT OF THE DAY: COMPETING VISIONS “Someone from the HOA for the townhomes across from this claims the construction is for a development similar to that on West Ave with high end condo/apts on top and retail on the first floor. I’m hoping it’s a Sonic though. My husband hopes it’ll be a high end strip club.” [Audrey, commenting on The Apartments Behind the Finger Apartments Behind the Montrose Whole Foods]
Note: Story updated with new photos.
An update comes in from reader Nicole Sherman, who saw this bare facade-to-be and fruity Sprouts Farmers Market sign at the end of last week and snapped these photos: Filling in for the former Sports Authority in the Kirkwood Shopping Center at 11940 Westheimer, this will be the 4th Sprouts in Houston and the farthest in, only 2 miles beyond the Beltway. In October, the green grocer revealed the first 3 locations it would open in Houston this year:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RIVER OAKS SHOPPING CENTER’S COMING DOUBLE MOCHA LATTE PROBLEM “Finger is adding 431 units next to Whole Foods, Regent Square is putting up 290 units down the street in their apartment tower, Hanover at W. Gray and Waugh will be 275 units, the Richdale development on W. Gray where the ballet used to be is supposed to be 160 units and this new one on Montrose and Dallas will probably be at least 250 judging from the size of the lot and the economics of apartment complexes. That makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 1300-1400 new units all within about a mile of each other. That will certainly impact traffic in the area. The bigger impact is going to be on retail in the area. A couple thousand more people are going to be living in the area, yet the retail layout is largely going to remain the same. Regent Square may finally get active and save the day with some needed retail and restaurants. But once all the apartments fill up, there will be long lines at Starbucks whether you are on the north side of W. Gray, southside or inside Barnes and Nobles.” [Old School, commenting on The Apartments Behind the Finger Apartments Behind the Montrose Whole Foods]
Why did Tejas Boots leave 208 Westheimer? Owner Mike Kuykendahl says that the family that owns the li’l strip center (above) that Tejas Boots shared with Hollywood Food & Cigars asked them to: The family gave the tenants 2 months to move, explaining that they’re considering upgrading the 4,100-sq.-ft. building, says Kuykendahl, or tearing it down and redeveloping that corner of Helen and Westheimer. Tejas Boots had been here since 1984; they’ve relocated just a few blocks west into the browner, newer retail strip stack shown at right at 415 Westheimer. It’s not much as signs go, but that faint horizontal smudge beneath the Green Park Pilates logo marks the spot where the bootmakers can now be found.
- When only the finest Custom Boots, Belts and Buckles will do [Tejas Custom Boots]
- Previously on Swamplot: Westheimer Bootmakers To Reopen Shop a Few Blocks West on Westheimer
Photos: Allyn West
First things first: A sign off Hwy. 6 welcoming you to Imperial Sugar Land is so far the only part of the 716-acre master-planned community that’s under construction, touts a press release from the end of March. Up next? Starting this summer, adds the press release, something like the spout-centered roundabout shown here and a 254-unit apartment complex will begin going up around the minor-league Skeeters’ Constellation Field in the so-called Ball Park District. Plans show that that district will be flanked by a mix of uses:
This photo of the strip center just west of the Lower Westheimer restaurant row shows the recently closed Tejas Custom Boots and Hollywood Food & Cigars. A Swamplot reader says that a sign posted in the window here at Helen and 208 Westheimer says that the alligator- and ostrich-unfriendly bootmakers will be moving the stretching and stitching operations farther west to the 400 block of Westheimer. As of Friday morning, calls to Tejas Custom Boots for comment about the relocation and reopening haven’t been returned. City records show that the 4,100-sq.-ft. 1960 building and 11,322-sq.-ft. property are owned by a single family.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Construction’s expected to begin next week on this Whole Foods at that once-forested spot near Louetta and Cutten Rd. east of the Tomball Pkwy. The 40,443-sq.-ft. store in the master-planned community The Vintage, south of the path of the Grand Parkway, will be the first Whole Foods in North Houston. Houston Business Journal‘s Shaina Zucker notes that the Gensler-designed store will anchor the 18-acre Vintage Marketplace.
- North Houston Whole Foods ground breaking ceremony set for next week [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Breakfast Bar of Champions
Image: Judy Nichols & Associates, via Houston Business Journal
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE STRIP CENTER MANDATE “Wait, so there’s no nail salon now? Is that legal? I thought that municipal laws required all strip centers of a certain size to have tax prep, a dry cleaner, a nail salon, and a coffee shop/ice cream parlor/yogurt bar.” [Sihaya, commenting on Telephone Road’s New Sweet and Sweat Shops]
As though mandated by some surgeon general recommendation for commercial development, the new neighbors in the Tlaquepaque Market at Telephone and Lockwood are an ice cream shop and a fitness studio. Scoops, the sign for which recently appeared above those window bars, is replacing a nail salon at 724 Telephone; it will share a wall with a Zumba studio, a former dollar store that doesn’t have a sign yet — but it does appear to have been renovated to provide rump-shakers inside the comfort and convenience of opaque window screens. These new interests are just a few blocks from the new Oak Leaf Smokehouse that opened for lunch in late February at 1000 Telephone Rd., and just a few suites from the new-ish Blue Line Bike Lab.
- Previously on Swamplot: Telephone Road Smokehouse Replaces Telephone Road Smokehouse, Heights Bike Lab Expands, Opens Shop Near UH in East End
Photos: Allyn West
