11/16/11 10:50am

What’s the difference between the new H-E-B Montrose Market on the site of the former Wilshire Village Apartments at the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama and the Buffalo Market — designed by the same San Antonio architects — the company opened last year? Well, at 75,000 sq. ft., the new store is a bit bigger and has wider aisles, and the site it sits on is a bit more storied. Plus, photographer Candace Garcia notes from her preview tour, the doors on the milk coolers seem more sleek and contemporary. And the new store carries Philosophy skin-care products. Clearly, the Menil influence shows.

In front, below a couple of preserved trees, are several outdoor-eating and gathering options:

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11/11/11 5:59pm

In a late-Friday afternoon press release that doesn’t mention Trader Joe’s at all, Alabama Theater owner Weingarten Realty is announcing that the company has begun construction on the landmarked 1939 Art Deco building at 2922 S. Shepherd to “create a more desirable space for future retail tenants.” What does that mean? Apparently, removing the few elements of the interior that made the building suitable as a movie theater: The entire screen wall along with the murals flanking both sides of the screen, and the auditorium’s sloped floor.

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11/11/11 12:37pm

How did an artist out of L.A. convince the owners of Houston’s West Oaks Mall to turn the vacant building of former mall anchor JCPenney into a 100,000-sq.-ft. department-store-sized arts complex? Well, it helps that the building — at the northern crotch of the West Houston mall — has been sitting vacant for 8 years and has received no major retail anchor interest in the 2 years Pacific Retail Capital Partners has owned the property. It also helps that the artist, Sharsten Plenge, is a Pacific Retail employee — and that her father is the firm’s managing principal. But Plenge tells Swamplot the company is behind her novel rehab concept, which is currently her main focus at work.

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11/08/11 10:46pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN THE NEW H-E-B MARKET OPENS ACROSS THE STREET “I shop at the Dunlavy Fiesta fairly regularly. To brace themselves for the new competition, the staff just got spiffy new uniform shirts, and they’ve put out a banner that says that location has housed a neighborhood grocery store for 60 years (indeed, my grandmother shopped there decades ago when it was a Safeway). I keep wanting to ask the employees if anyone is moving over to the HEB, because if I were running HEB the first thing I’d do is hire away the best Fiesta employees. But I’m sure it’s a touchy subject. I love HEB and will probably shop there, too, but I’m going to feel like a traitor.” [Carol, commenting on Meanwhile, on the Former Site of the Wilshire Village Apartments]

11/08/11 10:55am

The Trader Joe’s market in The Woodlands looks like dirt. For now, at least. Yesterday, the company finally admitted that this tree-stripped site in the under-construction Woodlands Crossing Shopping Center at the corner of Kuykendahl Rd. and Woodlands Parkway will be the first Houston-area store to open (even though the other potential TJ’s location on the horizon — in-town, inside the former Alabama Theater — appears to be in the moving-dirt-around stages as well). Swamplot broke the news of The Woodlands store’s location last week — then asked readers to send in pics showing how far construction has progressed. And our Woodlands-area readers came through with these photos from yesterday and over the weekend, showing just how a baby shopping-center TJ’s is born:

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11/07/11 10:59pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY WE MOVED UP TO THE WOODLANDS “My mom moved to Afton Oaks as a child & went to Lamar. I grew up in the Galleria area & my family now lives in TW because we work out of our homes and, when that’s the case, TW becomes the more rational place to raise a family. The air is cleaner, the free schools better; the city has been officially declared bike friendly, and the 160 miles of paths are great for a runner like me. I really don’t want to spend $300,000 over 12 years sending my children to private and then never be able to retire. Sometimes as a native Houstonian who lived in H-Town — Galleria, Rice Military, downtown loft — for much, much longer than we have lived here, this back-and forth is tiresome. “Chains” up here include Hubbell & Hudson, 1252, and the G’s, and those who tend to blindly diss TW are simply ignorant. So; fine; I’m glad we’re getting a TJ. Houston’s going to be getting one too.” [M77002, commenting on Here’s Where the First Trader Joe’s Is Going — in The Woodlands]

11/04/11 1:21pm

If any ghosts of Alabama Theater moviegoers were still intent on haunting the spaces once occupied by their old seats, they’d be buried in sand by now. A Swamplot reader and theater buff shows us the current state of the building’s innards — as seen yesterday from strategic views through the front and rear glass doors. On its way to a new level and Trader Joe’s-worthy surface, the auditorium’s basement and raked floor have been transformed into what now appears to be the city’s largest indoor sandbox. (From the photos, it looks like only a single motorized sand toy gets to play in it, though.)

A new, permanent concrete floor ordered by the owners of the landmarked 1939 Art Deco building, Weingarten Realty, will replace the removable raised-floor system put in place in the early 1980s, when the theater at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr. was transformed into the Alabama Bookstop bookstore.

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11/04/11 9:58am

HOUSTON, THE PROTOTYPICAL CITY With its new “more interactive” 1,600-sq.-ft. prototype store now open in The Woodlands Mall, high-end beanbag and furniture retailer LoveSac “can add its name to the long list of retailers and restaurants that have chosen Houston as the market in which to debut a new store design or concept,” writes Allison Wollam. Her recent tally: “Last month, Pollo Campero unveiled its new prototype restaurant and expanded menu in Houston, and in September, Beef O Brady’s sports bar and restaurant debuted its new store design in nearby Lake Jackson. In May, popular sandwich shop Spicy Pickle Sandwich Co. also chose Houston as the first location for its new prototype, featuring a revamped menu, upscale decor and open kitchen.” [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Pollo Campero

11/03/11 2:55pm

Woodlanders wondering where Trader Joe’s is going to land, here’s your answer: Next to Petco in the Woodlands Crossing Shopping Center at 10868 Kuykendahl Rd., across from the H-E-B market at the intersection of Woodlands Pkwy. There’s nothing too dramatic about the plans for it, either: It’ll be a 13,500 sq. ft. space, with what looks like a typical shopping-center storefront:

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10/31/11 10:14am

It sure looks like it: Here’s a photo of the theater’s west parking lot, sent to Swamplot by a reader who noted that a concrete pour began on Saturday morning. Earlier this month, Weingarten received a permit for “Landlord Improvements — Infill/Leveling,” though the permit’s title doesn’t make it clear what kind of leveling the national REIT wanted to do to the landmarked structure at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr., which is expected to be transformed into Houston’s first Trader Joe’s market.

Why would Weingarten want to pour a thick layer of concrete onto the floor of its historic building — and how much demolition of the theater’s interior might be accompanying this work?

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10/26/11 2:58pm

FEEDER FARMERS MARKET Houston’s first freeway-side farmers market debuts this Friday at 3 pm in the parking lot of the HCC Southwest College’s West Loop campus. Appropriately enough, the market’s organizers at Urban Harvest are telling visitors this new market at 5601 West Loop Fwy. South “will have more of a ‘street food’ component with more food trucks” as well as locally prepared foods. The HCC campus was created out of what was originally a store for Incredible Universe, Tandy Corp.’s short-lived mid-nineties venture into big-box electronics retailing. Also beginning soon: another Urban Harvest farmers market on Thursdays, in Sugar Land Town Square. [Fort Bend Sun] Photo: WhisperToMe

10/26/11 10:55am

STUDEMONT KROGER 380 AGREEMENT PASSES By a 10-5 vote this morning, city council approved the mayor’s plan for a so-called “380” development agreement between the city and Kroger. Under the agreement, the grocery company would receive up to $2.5 million in sales and property tax reimbursements from the city in return for job-creation guarantees connected to a new store and gas station at 1400 Studemont St., just south of I-10. Also in the deal: a land exchange with the city to allow Summer St. to connect to Studemont through the company’s property. [Previously on Swamplot]

10/20/11 11:42pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DESIGN SHOPPER “Call me crazy but I believe architectural style and design matters. This is why I’ll be doing my grocery shopping here and not at my boring Garden Oaks or Heights Kroger.” [MericaRulz, commenting on Meanwhile, on the Former Site of the Wilshire Village Apartments]

10/19/11 3:52pm

From photographer Candace Garcia: recent construction pix of the Montrose H-E-BMarket, designed by San Antonio’s Lake Flato Architects (with a little local help on the roof design), and going up at the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama, across from Fiesta. Scheduled completion date: uh, sometime soon?

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10/18/11 4:07pm

STRIP MALL LIFE Late last month undercover detectives arrested 3 women working at the Touch of Class Spa in the strip center at 8201 Broadway in Pearland on prostitution charges; 2 male customers found on site during the sting operation were questioned and released. Last week, a fourth woman, suspected of running the operation, was also arrested. After an intensive investigation that included poring over the massage parlor’s in-house video surveillance system, police officials concluded that the spa workers were not being held against their will: “However, surveillance video revealed the women actually lived and worked at the spa 24 hours-a-day, using their massage tables as make-shift beds.” [Pearland Journal; Pearland Today] Photo: Pearland Journal