The former menswear mod on W. 19th St. and Ashland is being outfitted with some contemporary effects, it appears: Purchased back in 2011 by Braun Enterprises — which also recently snapped up and plans to knock down 2 Baptist Temple Church buildings to make way for retail just north of here — the building has got the signage for what will be Houston’s 3rd Torchy’s Tacos and some fake graffiti advertising a September opening. In the back, the buildout is a bit more substantial: The roof has been popped out rather jauntily for the Heights General Store, a small market and restaurant that will have a terrace, and women’s clothier Emerson Rose.
You can see more photos, going around the corner spot, after the jump:
The first tenant to open on the Morningside side of Hanover Rice Village will be Coppa Osteria, reports Eater Houston’s Darla Guillen, who pins the date in September. Coppa will be run by the folks who bring you Ibiza, Brasserie 19, and Coppa Ristorante Italiano, a fact that strikes Guillen as emblematic of a pattern in Houston’s culinary scene: “
Real Estate Bisnow predicts that in the next year and a half as many as 60 new retail centers anchored by grocery stores will pop up in the Houston area. And not only are the stores proliferating, reports Catie Dixon, they’re getting larger: Many of these new buildings will balloon to 100,000 sq. ft. While national chains like 
A few weeks ago the doors and drive-thru window of this new donut shop in River Oaks owned by billionaires Jeff and Mindy Hildebrand were flung open, and the tony feel of the scaled-up endcap at 3601 Westheimer has apparently won the affection of Houstonia’s Annabel Massey: “
Calculating interest must not be part of the curriculum: The Leader reports that this vacant Kroger in the shopping center at W. Tidwell and Antoine is being renovated into a YES Prep School, with an inaugural class of sixth-graders ready to file in this August. But ACE Cash Express, the former grocery store’s next-door neighbor at 5616 W. Tidwell, seems to have become suddenly unwelcome, as a YES Prep rep explains: “’
This 7th Houston-area Planned Parenthood, which signed a 5-year lease and opened last week here at 4747 Louetta Rd. in a Spring shopping center shared by a Chase branch, party supply store, and daycare, doesn’t seem to have received the warmest welcome:Â 
Note: Story updated with new photos.
