Tag: Upper Kirby

Featured Posts
06/12/17 11:45am

Weingarten Offering Up Maiko Spot for Makeover by the Alabama Theater

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Restaurants, Upper Kirby
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Another round of changes appears to be on the horizon for the oft-swapped Asian fusion joint just south of the former Alabama Theater, a reader notes — a leasing sign advertising the shopping center’s (only) restaurant endcap spot was spotted behind the center along W. Alabama St. last week. The space has been serving under the banner of Maiko Bar + Bistro since 2014 (reportedly acting as a test kitchen for the restaurant’s Austin location of similar name); Maiko replaced short-lived Onaga Pan Asian Bistro, which took over from Zake Sushi Lounge.

Any swapouts in the space will follow in the wake of some more skin-deep touchups the shopping center received back in January — the pastel rainbow forehead of Trader Joe’s was redone in a monotone grey-brown, as was the pale yellow block behind Petsmart‘s logo:

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S. Shepherd Restaurant Sequels
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Featured Posts
06/09/17 2:30pm

The Latest in a Distinguished Line of Fine Restaurants Forged from a Westheimer Wendy’s Drive-Thru Is Almost Ready To Open

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Renovations, Restaurants, Upper Kirby
7 Comments

Has any former Wendy’s drive-thru — or really, any fast-food joint anywhere — ever had such an illustrious culinary afterlife as the one that once stood at 2300 Westheimer, halfway between Kirby and Shepherd? The standalone burger stand never left us — it just went upscale, time and time again: To Torcello’s. To Armando’s. To Dish. To Two Chefs Bistro. To Beso. To Palazzo’s Trattoria. To 60 Degrees Mastercrafted. (Did we miss any?) To the Harwood Grill.

Then there was the time last year when it was supposed to go Berryhill. But that was not to be.

Instead, this extremely mutable property is now on its way to becoming a champagne-themed restaurant called a’Bouzy (pronounced as you’d expect).

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Cheers to A’Bouzy
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Uncategorized
06/05/17 3:00pm

Persona Medical Spa Now Massaging Innards of Former Ruggles Green Spot on W. Alabama

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There’s been a bit of activity inside the former restaurant space under the slanted roofline at the 2311 W. Alabama St. mini-mall on the corner of Revere St., a reader notes. A dumpster is parked outside; workers have been poking, prodding, and injecting all sorts of reconfigurations to the interiors.

No new restaurant is going in, though: Ruggles Green decamped from the space at the beginning of 2015 — and reopened a few hundred feet to the east the following year. The adjacent Persona Medical Spa is now expanding into the 2,122-sq.-ft. former dining space, making more room for its full range of massaging, de-wrinkling, plumping, resurfacing, pricking, heating, and cooling services.

Photo: sfalumberjack

Revere St. Retail Reinvigoration
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Quicklink
05/30/17 5:00pm

Nice Park If You Can Get to It, and Other Houston Encapsulations

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Upper Kirby
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NICE PARK IF YOU CAN GET TO IT, AND OTHER HOUSTON ENCAPSULATIONS George Ristow’s take for OffCite on the recently unveiled public-private redo of Levy Park? It’s become “one of Houston’s best outdoor public spaces” — as long as you can get yourself there: “The park is tucked away from view, dwarfed by the Kirby Grove building, which undermines its connection [to] Richmond Ave. (bringing visitors from Upper Kirby). Although there are sidewalks immediately surrounding the park, no sidewalk exists on either side of Eastside St. between the park and Richmond. Just one block south of the park, the Southwest Freeway, with a right-of-way as wide as the park itself, walls off West University’s upper reaches as if it were an international border crossing. Consider the Olive Garden restaurant, surrounded by a typical suburban parking lot, built within the same time period as the Levy Park facelift just on the other side of the freeway. Here we have Houston in a nutshell: a state-of-the-art destination public park next to a 19-lane freeway next to a chain restaurant, with no way to walk between them.” [OffCite; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Levy Park Conservancy

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Featured Posts
05/22/17 12:30pm

Small Flock of Bungalows Getting Shepherded Around at Bammel Ln. Highrise Site

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Greenway Plaza, Upper Kirby
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The pointy glass Gardens of Bammel Lane conservatory isn’t the only structure on the block southeast of Bammel Ln. and Earl St. getting picked up and hauled elsewhere as part of the block’s cleanout for the 26-story Villa Borghese condo highrise. A handful of Cherry House Moving trailers were spotted on the site this weekend, hanging around and under several of the bungalows on the block (which date between 1900 and 1950 per the county’s records, and were used most recently as commercial spaces). As of Saturday, the conservatory structure (shown above in wedding attire) had already departed the site (presumably headed for its new home at the Madeley Gardens events space in Conroe).

Some of the bungalows have already been shuffled around on the block. The former law office at 2714 Sackett St. was spotted stripped of its hedge and address markers, with a moving trailer poking out from beneath the front porch:

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Upper Kirby Shuffle
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Featured Posts
04/19/17 4:30pm

Richmond Ave’s Contender for Worst Parking Lot in Houston Gets Smoothed Over

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Parking, Upper Kirby
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2241 Richmond Ave., Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

Pothole in Parking Lot for Hobbit Cafe, Blue Fish House, and Yelapa Playa Mexicana, 2241 Richmond Ave., Upper Kirby, HoustonThe folks at Rim Tanon (the Thai place that recently replaced the former Blue Fish House sushi spot on Richmond) send word that the hole-spangled brick, asphalt, and rubble parking lot at the center of the Portsmouth Square restaurant clump has been freshly paved over. The spot, which won top honors on a 2011 list of Houston’s worst restaurant parking lots, was resurfaced from Richmond to Portsmouth St. just in time for Tax Day. Above and below are a couple of damp shots of the lot circa some 2010 gawking:

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Flattening the Competition
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Featured Posts
04/12/17 5:15pm

Kirby Strip Mall Showroom That Took a Falling Car Through the Roof Still Closed For Now

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Upper Kirby
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Westheimer Plumbing & Hardware, 3600 Kirby Dr., Upper Kirby, Houston, 77005

Westheimer Plumbing & Hardware, 3600 Kirby Dr., Upper Kirby, Houston, 77005Michael Morrow (that’d be the -morrow in kinneymorrow architecture) sends along this update from his latest visit to Westheimer Plumbing & Hardware’s showroom at 3600 Kirby Dr., which turned out to be still closed in the wake the February incident that shut it down temporarily. (You know — the one where a driver hit the wrong pedal and fell off the 7th story of the nextdoor River Oaks Tower’s parking garage, landing on and through the roof of the strip mall.) A somewhat incredulous but friendly note on the door from the hardware store’s owner says that, though the 17-year-old driving luckily sustained surprisingly little injury, the showroom has been pretty roughed up, including severed water, sprinkler, and electrical lines (not to mention the hole). The note says that the business is currently operating out of its warehouse on E. T.C. Jester Blvd., and will be back in its spot on Kirby as soon as possible. (Neighboring sugar pusher Dessert Gallery, however, reopened just a few days after the accident in early March.)

The damage to the parking garage itself is still visible from ground level:

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Upper Kirby Progress Report
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Featured Posts
03/23/17 12:00pm

What’s Going Down at the Former Exxon Upstream Site: An Aerial Take

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Greenway Plaza, Upper Kirby
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Former Exxon Upstream Facility, 3102-3120 Buffalo Spdwy., Greenway/Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098Former Exxon Upstream Facility, 3102-3120 Buffalo Spdwy., Greenway/Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

More angles on the ongoing obliteration of structures at the freshly former Exxon Upstream Research facility on Buffalo Spdwy. at W. Alabama St. come this week from one of reader MontroseResident’s more elevated perches. The most prominently visible act of deconstruction has been the shattering breakup of the parking garage in the campus’s northwest corner, due south of the now-mostly-reskinned River Oaks Luxury Apartments midrise on Westheimer (which was stripped down to the slabs in the last 2 years for retooling as The River Oaks condo tower, visible below on the far left):

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Crushing on Buffalo Spdwy.
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Featured Posts
03/23/17 10:30am

A Sushi-Thai Swapout Between Hobbit and Capone’s

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Upper Kirby
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2241 Richmond Ave., Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

2241 Richmond Ave., Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

One of the low-slung spots fringing Portsmouth Square (the gravelly picket-fenced space between Portsmouth St. and Richmond Ave. which a reader refers to as “arguably Houston’s worst parking lot”) has been getting worked over for an identity swapout planned to take effect later this month. The former Blue Fish House sushi restaurant, just north of vegetarian- and Lord-of-the-Rings-geek-friendly Hobbit Cafe and facing off with Capone’s Oven and Bar, is now decked out in signage for Rim Tanon, billed by its Richmond-facing banner as a Thai street food joint.

Some of the Blue Fish’s old signage was still visible on the back side of the building as of earlier this week (as seen above), though the space’s hanging placard sign has already been replaced. And the building’s trees-in-the-holes front patio area has been getting a little bit of retooling:

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Tradeoff on Richmond Ave
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Featured Posts
03/17/17 5:30pm

Lonely Corporate Plaza Lot Now Proffering Affections To Nearby Office Workers

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Upper Kirby
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Corporate Plaza site, Kirby at Norfolk, Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

A sky-high reader (and self-proclaimed messenger of love) sends this shot of the lonesome-heart-shaped puddle sequestered away these days behind the wooden wall around the former site of Corporate Plaza and its Swamplot Award-winning parking garage. The increasingly grassy land doesn’t appear to have gotten much action since the erection of the heavier-duty fencing last October; no plans to change that any time soon seem to have been announced yet by the lands new owners, California-based developer Triyar.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Hopes Up on Upper Kirby
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Demolitions
03/15/17 11:15am

Mashing, Smashing Begin in Earnest at Buffalo Spdwy. Ex-Exxon Campus

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Upper Kirby
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Former Exxon Upstream Facility, 3102-3120 Buffalo Spdwy., Greenway/Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

Former Exxon Upstream Facility, 3102-3120 Buffalo Spdwy., Greenway/Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098Permissions started to trickle in earlier this month for the  knockout of various buildings on the newly former Exxon Upstream research facility at the corner of Buffalo Spdwy. and W. Alabama St. California-based Spear Street Capital and Transwestern admitted to buying the property last week but stayed mum on plans for the site. A reader took a wandering tour around the edge of the 1950s lab complex yesterday afternoon, noting the parking garage teardown shown above, and the various signs of deliberately accelerated wear-and-tear around the rest of the structures:

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Upstream Going Down
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Featured Posts
03/13/17 10:45am

The Denton Suburban Roadways Quietly Impersonating West Houston’s Iconic Streets

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Streets, Streetscapes
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Summit Oaks neighborhood with Houston street names, Denton, TX, 76210

Summit Oaks neighborhood with Houston street names, Denton, TX, 76210The fastest way to Westheimer Rd., if you happen to be wandering north looking for it in the 76210 ZIP code, is a left off of Heights Blvd. and an immediate right off Gessner Dr. Lauren Meyers captured some scenes this weekend around the Summit Oaks subdivision on the south side of Denton, TX, which has a whole section of streets sharing names with major Houston roadway (with a few bizarro-world tweaks here and there, like Chimney Rock Dr. and an only-1-L Hilcroft Ave.) The imposters range from Briar Forest Dr. to Dunlavy St. to Willowick Cir. and beyond:

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A Road By Any Other Name
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Featured Posts
02/28/17 11:30am

New Owner of Exxon’s Buffalo Spdwy. Research Campus Knocking Out Exterior Defenses This Week

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Greenway Plaza, Upper Kirby
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Former Exxon Upstream Facility, 3102-3120 Buffalo Spdwy., Greenway/Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098Former Exxon Upstream Facility, 3102-3120 Buffalo Spdwy., Greenway/Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

Pieces of the fencing surrounding the MacKie and Kamrath-designed ExxonMobil Upstream Research facility on Buffalo Spdwy. were spotted sprawled out on the grass yesterday along the campus perimeter after being plucked from their stations; more barriers are getting yanked up this morning, as seen in the second shot above. The property (which appears to have been transferred to the nonprofit Exxon Foundation in 2015 after the oil giant’s plans to offload the site were announced) was  sold this month to an entity directing its mail to real estate investment and development firm Spear Street Capital. A couple of readers report that other major shuffling around and cleaning out appear to have been going on at the facility for at least the last few weeks, with vehicles bearing the Precision Demolition logo making periodic guest appearances on the scene.

Across W. Alabama St. from the building’s more curvaceous end, the spot occupied until early last year by the empty shell of honky tonk Blanco’s has since been filled in with athletics stuff for St. John’s School:

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Exxon Exit
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Featured Posts
02/27/17 11:15am

Kirby Collection’s Crane Collection Expands Then Shrinks

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Upper Kirby
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under-construction Kirby Collection, Kirby Dr. at Colquitt St., Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098
under-construction Kirby Collection, Kirby Dr. at Colquitt St., Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098

Rendering of under-construction Kirby Collection, Kirby Dr. at Colquitt St., Upper Kirby, HoustonAn extra crane was spotted standing around in oncoming Kirby Dr. traffic on Saturday morning just north of Richmond Ave., helping to disassemble the tower crane that’s been used to lift pieces of the Kirby Collection’s under-construction office building into place over the last year-and-a-few-months. A representative from Thor Equities tells Swamplot this morning that the office midrise should be wrapped up by the end of 2017. The ellipse-footed residential tower (peaking over the top of the rectangular office building’s frame in the shot above) hit its full height earlier this month as well:

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Down To Earth
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