Tag: Retail

Montrose, Quicklink, Redevelopment

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DEMOLISHED WESTHEIMER SPY EMPORIUM’S NEXT MISSION: SURFACE PARKING The new-ish owner that brought down Spy Emporium‘s abandoned building at 1550 Westheimer Rd. earlier this year is now getting ready to turn the property into a parking lot, reports one local urban planner. The building changed hands at the beginning of this year — around the time the spy shop left for 610 and Westpark — to a group that owns the parcel home to Hugo’s on the other side of Mandell St.. That roughly half-acre property already includes its own set of spots in a back lot north of the restaurant building. Spottier in terms of parking availability: the recently-opened UB Preserv restaurant that took over Poscol’s former space in the strip center across Westheimer from Hugo’s about 2 months ago. It currently shares one lot with the other tenants lined up next door to it: Star Tailors & Alterations, D & S laundromat, and Urban Vapes. [C Money; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Spy Emporium

77006, Cherryhurst, Montrose, Redevelopment, Retail

07/24/18 10:30am

Warby Parker Will Pick Up Where Yankee Candle Left Off in Rice Village

Openings and Closings, Retail

The storefront between Athleta and Altar’d State on University Blvd. won’t be vacant for much longer: a building permit filed yesterday indicates Warby Parker is about to move into the space. Before it gets there, a few renovations will overhaul the 2,500-sq.-ft. box pictured at top, which lost its Yankee Candle lettering (shown above) around January when the former tenant wrapped up its close-out sale and shut its doors for good.

Previously on Swamplot: Rice Village Yankee Candle Going Dark This Month

Photos: Trademark (vacant store); Swamplox inboxÂ (Yankee Candle)

Village Newcomer

77005, Openings and Closings, Retail, Rice-Village

07/19/18 5:00pm

New Laundry Tag Could Soon Hang from Gibbs Boats’ Redone Building as a Sign of Its Pre-Nautical Past

Montrose, North Montrose, Redevelopment, Renovations, Retail, Signage

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Next Saturday, Houston’s historic commission is set to consider a request that new old signage be installed on the former Gibbs Boats building at 1110 W. Gray as part of the renovation to turn it into a new shopping center dubbed RÃªve Montrose. The QUALITY LAUNDRY lettering is a nod to theÂ 1936 structure’s original tenant — pictured above — which turned the place over to Gibbs in 1958. According to the rendering above, the replica sign and accompanying pyramidal support structure are set to be installed in the same location as the originals.

Since the Oxberry Group announced its redo plan for the building in March, some of its W. Gray faÃ§ade has been scratched off, revealing traces of the original brick underneath where the G in Gibbs used to front the street:

W. Gray and Montrose

77019, Historic Preservation, Montrose, North Montrose, Redevelopment, Retail, Signage

Adaptive Reuse

07/19/18 2:00pm

Meet Railway Heights: The New Wash Ave Food Hall and Beer Garden with a 600-Car Automated Garage Out Back

Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Restaurants, Retail, Timbergrove, Warehouse Space

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The owners of the 22,860-sq.-ft. warehouse at the bend where Wash Ave becomes Hempstead Rd. have plans to refashion the building as Houston’s latest food hall, complete with 25-plus restaurant tenants, a few grocery and trinket vendors, and an adjacent beer garden — all fronting 22,000-sq.-ft.-worth of park space. Aside from homonymous salad bar concept Let Us, no specific tenants have been announced for the space yet — formerly home to the Emmett Perry oriental rug store and Sugar Creek Interiors’ design studio. But the developer hints that most food stalls at Railway Heights will be of the fresh-never-frozen variety, staffed by “the farmer who reared the animal, the fisherman who caught the fish, the baker who baked the bread.”

Later on, plans call for a 600-car automatic parking garage (about 2-and-a-half-times the size of that other robo-valet proposed next to Tacos A Go Go on White Oak) to be added on to the site at 8200 Washington, along with a complex of “container apartments” in the southeast corner of the things. Along with the food hall, they’ll all go in the area marked red in the map above, across the train tracks from InTown Homes’ forthcoming Cottage Grove Lake community.

The map below shows how the site will layout in greater detail:

On the Timbergrove Menu

77007, Adaptive Reuse, Redevelopment, Restaurants, Retail, Timbergrove, Warehouses

Apartments

07/19/18 10:00am

Excavators Sink Their Teeth into River Oaks Shopping Center’s CafÃ© Ginger Leftovers as Part of the Buildup to 30-Story Highrise Replacement

Demolitions, Montrose, North Montrose, Retail

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It’s crunch time at the vacated original CafÃ© Ginger in the northern portion of the River Oaks Shopping Center, where a new 30-story apartment tower dubbed The Driscoll is planned to rise up over W. Gray St. Views from beyond the blaze orange barricades scattered around the parking lot since site work began in March show the crushing scene.

Since yesterday, the building’s been spilling its guts out onto the pavement in this particular area:

The End of the Endcap

77019, Apartments, Demolitions, Proposed Development, Retail

Crime

07/17/18 10:00am

HPD Has North Houston Mattress Store Murderer in Custody

Quicklink, Retail

HPD HAS NORTH HOUSTON MATTRESS STORE MURDERER IN CUSTODY The manhunt for alleged mattress store killer Jose Gilberto Rodriguez came to an end at N. Eldridge Pkwy. and Wortham Landing Dr. earlier this morning after a brief police chase, reports abc13. Just last night, Chief Art Acevedo identified Rodriguez — a 46-year-old parolee who was released from prison last September — as a suspect in 3 homicides over the last several days. He was believed to be driving a dark Nissan Sentra — Acevedo explained — that he took from his latest victim, an employee of the Mattress1One pictured above at I-45 and Crosstimbers found shot to death in the store yesterday afternoon. Previously on Saturday night, the manager of a Mattress Firm across from the Willowbrook Mall walked into that location’s back office and found a 28-year-old female employee lying dead between 2 mattresses. Between the 2 retail slayings, Rodriguez also allegedly shot and robbed a METRO Lift driver (who’s expected to recover), and earlier last week, killed a 62-year-old woman after breaking into her house on Bent Pine Dr. in Cypress. [abc13] Photo of Mattress1One at 4400 N. Fwy.: Jessica Willey

77022, Crime, Quicklink, Retail

07/09/18 3:00pm

ArtMix Studio Debuts in Times Blvd. Storefront That a Part of G&G Model Shop Still Won’t Let Go Of

Openings and Closings, Renovations, Retail, Rice Village, Signs

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Since longtime Times Blvd. tenant G&G Model Shop left its storefront last August, the space has been whitened, renovated and snapped up by ArtMix Creative Learning Center — a children’s art school that relocated from 3701 W. Alabama St. earlier this year. But the model shop — located at 2522 Times for over 60 years — remains attached to the space. A G&G representative told Swamplot previously that the metal sign would follow the business over to its new spot in the strip center at the corner of 59 and Shepherd (home to a few more elderly Rice Village expats as well).

But just last Thursday, a poster on HAIF noted that address is still crowned by a temporary vinyl banner:

Rice Village Relics

77005, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Retail, Rice-Village, Signs

07/09/18 10:00am

What the Toys R Us on OST Looks Like Shut Down and Completely Cleaned Out

Openings and Closings, Retail

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The lights are on but no one’s home anymore at the Toys R Us on OST, shuttered along with the rest of the chain’s 18 Houston locations (including Babies R Us stores) since the end of last month. Flyers advertising everything-must-go-style sales have come down from the building’s front windows — and they weren’t exaggerating: restroom signs, cash registers, and other normally priceless appointments were pawned off during the store’s last days, reported KHOU’s Jessica Borg.

But not all of them. A few extra glances through the glass fronting the parking lot reveals a good deal of hardware that last-minute shoppers didn’t manage or didn’t care to get their hands on:

No More Fun and Games

77054, Openings and Closings, Retail

06/29/18 2:45pm

Former Starbucks Across Richmond from Current Starbucks Slated for Pacific Poke Transformation

Galleria, Restaurants, Retail

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Pacific Poke is the latest newcomer to Houston’s booming raw fish restaurant scene, and it’s taking over the empty 1,802-sq.-ft. spot on Richmond once occupied by Starbucks, next to what’s now Roostar Vietnamese Grill. The Starbucks location — shown above —Â closed down shortly before a brand-new Starbucks showed up across the street from it, just east of Chimney Rock in early 2016.

That left the building briefly vacant before Roostar arrived the following year in the spot next door to the abandoned coffee shop — now slated for a redo. Its Vietnamese restaurant space is shown below, done up with the 2-location chain’s abstract poultry-like logo:

Raw Seafood Chaser

77056, Galleria, Restaurants, Retail

06/27/18 12:00pm

The Unseen Evidence in the Buc-ee’s vs. Choke Canyon Lookalike Logo Legal Battle

Lawsuits, Retail

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Buc-ee’s scored a sweeping victory in Texas federal court last month when a judge found rival rest stop chain Choke Canyon guilty of 4 wrongs: trademark infringement, dilution, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment. But the battle might not be over: “Choke Canyon is expected to appeal,“Â reports Law360, “and Texas intellectual property experts say the store has a strong case that it was wrongly barred at trial from presenting key defense evidence.â€

Among the facts unheard during the 4-day trial: findings from an expert Choke Canyon commissioned to ask 300 people what they thought of the logos’ similarity. 99 percent of them “said there was no likelihood of confusion,” between the two.

Then there are the images that went unseen during the jury’s deliberation. Within that 6-hour period, jurors’ first question to Judge Keith P. Ellison was whether they should compare the set of logos pictured above — which includes the brands’ names — or picture-only versions, like the ones shown below:

Anatomy of the Case

Lawsuits, Marketing, Retail, Signage

06/21/18 1:00pm

Nail-Tique Flameout Leaves Salon, Steinway Piano Gallery Shuttered Next to River Oaks Theatre Building

Fires, Montrose, North Montrose, Openings and Closings, Retail

The east side of theÂ building that fronts McDuffie St. — next door to the River Oaks Theatre — has been quiet since an early Monday morning blaze torched Nail-Tique salon, doing some damage to the Steinway Piano Gallery in the process. It all started when an air conditioner on the roof overheated and caught fire, shorting the connection to an electrical box on the building that then ignited as well, reports the Chronicle.

No pianos caught fire — according to an employee at Epicure Cafe around the corner on W. Gray — but there was smoke damage in the music store, and firefighters busted out some of its windows to access the flaming salon next door. Nail-Tique is now closed indefinitely, while the adjacent piano store plans to reopen next month, as decreed by the sign now posted in its window. Unharmed by the blaze: the building’s movie theater anchor, reports one of its employees.

Fire damages River Oaks shopping center [Houston Chronicle]

Photos: Swamplox inbox

McDuffie St.

77019, Fires, Montrose, North Montrose, Openings and Closings, Retail

Castle Court

06/21/18 10:30am

Arrival of The Pet Barber Will Make 1415 Richmond Strip an Interspecies Hair Care Hot Spot

Renovations, Retail, Strip Centers

The shaggy customer base seeking a trim at the 1415 Richmond strip between Mandell and Yupon should see some increased biodiversity once The Pet Barber moves in 2-doors down from Henry’s Barber Shop.Â At nearly double the size of the neighboring human hair care facility, it’s ready to start transforming the space that once housed D&S Washateria (pictured at top) into a Castle Court companion to its existing Spring Branch grooming location.

The laundromat left sometime after Pepino’s gave way to Ms. Saigon Cafe and Michael’s Outpost on the west side of the building. Since then, The C Store also took off; its still-vacant Suite A — shown below in blue at the strip’s east end — is now the only hole left in the building:

Well-Groomed

77006, Castle Court, Renovations, Retail, Strip Centers

Adaptive Reuse

06/15/18 1:00pm

The RePurpose Depotâ€™s Repurposed East End Warehouse

East End, Retail

4 Comments

The middle structure in the row of 3 warehouses on McFarland St. just north of Navigation is seeing some new action since former NASA flight controller CarolineÂ Kostak turned it into RePurpose Depot, a material reuse retail space selling cheap lumber, siding, flooring, fixtures, and other supplies and furnishings. Before opening the retail operation last December, she’d worked on salvaging materials from soon-to-be demolished houses. The space at 305 McFarland now draws its inventory from those kinds of deconstruction missions as well as donations.

That makes it a hub for homeowners looking for building supplies after Harvey, along with thrifters seeking more ornamental, DIY-ish trinkets. A grand opening is planned for next Saturday, June 23.

Reclaimed Building Materials [RePurpose Depot]

Photos: Swamplox inbox

Off Navigation

77011, Adaptive Reuse, East End, Retail, Warehouses

Adaptive Reuse

06/13/18 10:45am

What the Midtown Sears Looks Like Almost Entirely Unwrapped

Midtown, Renovations, Retail

10 Comments

Almost all the metal siding that covered up the Midtown Sears building at 4201 Main has now been taken down, leaving behind rows of metal brackets used to mount the outer shell. Mayor Turner announced 2 months ago that the building would be turned into a startup incubation headquarters, and work to pull down the cladding began shortly after.

A few decorative details are now visible from the street, as shown below from Fannin: