59 FEEDER ROAD CONSTRUCTION WITHOUT END 
“Why is there always construction on the feeders between Weslayan and Kirby especially when it seemed like nothing needed to be done?” writes a Swamplot reader, who is under the impression that the work started sometime last summer. “It looks like they are only redoing the road, not adding sewers, nor laying power lines, and doesn’t seem to making it wider. One side is done and then they come back and do the other side! . . . I hope you can find out why they are tearing up a perfectly good feeder road.” Alas, doing so would spoil the chance to indulge in the fantasy of having encountered along the Southwest Fwy. a truly eternal feeder-road replacement cycle. We’ll illustrate that here with the above photo from earlier today of a fresh concrete placement (with shopping cart) on the north side feeder just west of Kirby Dr. Update, 2/27: Clever reader JD finds an actual report outlining the scope of the reconstruction project from last year posted in an obscure online publication. Photo: Swamplot inbox
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Tag: Upper Kirby
NEW LOCAL FOODS IN FORMER TACO MILAGRO ON KIRBY AT WESTHEIMER KINDA ALMOST READY TO OPEN SOON 
The project manager from homebuilder Frasier Homes busy turning the interior of the shuttered patio-fronting Taco Milagro space at 2555 Kirby Dr. into a second location for Benjy Levit’s upscale sandwich shop Local Foods tells Eater Houston’s Darla Guillen that construction will likely be complete in a couple of weeks. How long after that before it opens for duck confit and falafel on wheat? “Shouldn’t be too far behind that completion date,” Guillen says an employee tells her. But we’re guessing they’ll take down the old Taco signage outside before then. Photos snapped of the corner shopping center space’s innards show a completed serving counter with display case and some colorful banquettes. The first Local Foods took over the former Antone’s space in the Rice Village in 2011. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Eater Houston
A slideshow featured on the website of the Houston Business Journal (and noted in our Headlines post this morning) features the 7 most expensive homes sold in Houston last year. Coming in at No. 3 is the full-floor Huntingdon condo unit where former Enron CEO Ken Lay used to live. 2121 Kirby Dr. Unit 33 and its mopey-castle-in-the-sky interior (shown below after the furniture was removed) was listed for sale by his widow, Linda Lay, back in 2010 and featured on Swamplot occasionally over the following years as it hopped on and off the market a few times and descended in fits and starts from an initial (off-market) asking price of $12.8 million to the mid-single-digit millions. MLS and county tax records show the 9-bathroom, 6-elevator, 12,827-sq.-ft. pièd-a-terre with the $10K+ monthly maintenance fee finally sold last February to an entity controlled by another local CEO, for a (still-record-making, but more than half-off) $5.5 million, though the list price had by that time fallen $100K lower.
Much Lower, but Still Sky High
A WESTHEIMER WENDY’S LONG JOURNEY TO A $200 BURGER 
Tracing the culinary histories of several switched Houston hotspots, Marene Gustin catalogs successive scenery changes at 2300 Westheimer in Upper Kirby: “And take the new 60 Degrees Mastercrafted on Westheimer Road. The former home of John Moore’s Palazzos Trattoria, this building goes way back. Originally built as a fast food drive through, when I first came to Houston it was Armandos, then something I vaguely remember called Dish either before or after it was an outside the Loop version of Two Chefs Bistro, which had wonderful angels on horseback, a hot appetizer of baked oysters wrapped in bacon by chef Andreas Zierau.
Then for a long time it was Arturo Boada’s Beso before becoming Palazzos. And now 60 Degrees Mastercrafted, yet another new restaurant I haven’t gotten to yet. New restaurants opening in Houston in the final months of 2013 have been as numerous as bluebonnets sprouting in springtime.” [Culturemap] Photo: 60 Degrees Mastercrafted
Behold the final moments this afternoon of the Goode Company building at 2619 Westpark, just west of Kirby Dr. A reader sends in these images of the once-swank former Elgin-Butler Brick Company Building, built in 1966 with a fine sampling of the company’s glazed wares attached to its facade and converted in 1988 to an office building and commissary for the extended Goode Co. barbecue-seafood-taqueria-armadillo empire. In this hallowed hall — and the attached warehouse building, totaling more than 14,000 sq. ft. altogether — many a brick was spec’ed and many a pecan pie was congealed. But it’s all going away now.
Goode Riddance
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHICH HOUSTON HOTSPOTS WILL MERGE FIRST 
“I think West Ave.-to-Rice Village will become contiguous before Highland Village-to-Galleria ever will.” [Anon22, commenting on Comment of the Day: A Linear Shopping District from Highland Village to the Galleria] Illustration: Lulu
CUPCAKES AND COCKTAILS FOR THE DOME 
It’s been a long week for the Astrodome. And whether you want to see the old thing saved or destroyed you might feel fairly wrecked yourself at this point. Could you stand to tip one back or perk up with some sugary calories? Well, a pair of local retailers are providing wares that just might do the trick: Through November 5, the date voters will decide whether to approve that bond measure that would pay for the Dome’s conversion into convention space, Triniti on S. Shepherd will be offering a special cocktail, the Colt 45. And through October 24 Crave Cupcakes will be selling at its Uptown Park and Upper Kirby locations the “Save the Dome” cupcake toppers shown in this photo. [Preservation Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: @KPRCawillis
Update, 5:45 p.m.: A rep from Midway tells Swamplot that these plans are “nearly a year old” and “conceptual in nature” and writes in an email: “We should have a better idea in the next 60 days of what the project will actually entail.”
Marketing materials on the website of Midway Cos. — developers of CityCentre and GreenStreet — include this rendering of a 16-story office building standing at the corner of Richmond and Wakeforest in Upper Kirby. The materials show the building as part of a “mixed-use pedestrian-focused transit node,” with additional restaurants and retail, that Midway appears to be planning with the Upper Kirby Redevelopment Authority here to jazz up Levy Park. An application to reduce the setback on this site along Richmond was approved in July.
Also included in the materials are renderings of a 300-unit loft building facing the Southwest Fwy. and flanking a greenspace:
It appears that this former caterer’s at 3030 Audley St. and Sul Ross is being converted into a restaurant. Photos of the building show that permits for the Upper Kirby location on the other side of W. Alabama from Lamar High School have been acquired to rebuild the roof, which, according to info on NuHabitat, was damaged by Hurricane Ike. The name of the new restaurant will be the Audley Street Cafe.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
A 1979 townhome amid Upper Kirby’s newer midrise apartment complexes comes with an atrium and roof deck, but only the patio entry off the development’s cul-de-sac has glimpses of greenery (at right). For more nature, just head over to Whole Foods. (It’s a block away.)
Seems the concerned neighbors around that 17-story office building that Hines is considering building on San Felipe aren’t worried only about traffic. This map, created by a member of the recently formed nonprofit East San Felipe Association — which says it is committed to supporting “reasonable development” in this area around S. Shepherd, Kirby, and San Felipe — suggests another threat to the ’hood: copycatting.
Clearly speculative, the map takes pains to show those sites where other unreasonable highrises could pop up in response to the precedent that Hines is setting with 2229 San Felipe. On S. Shepherd, for ex., you might see the Red Lion Pub forgo its street-level scale, or Petco abandon the confines of its big box. (But wouldn’t that long elevator ride down give you some quality time to bond with your recently adopted pup?) If this map is to be trusted, it seems like it would be only a matter of time before the bug spreads north and Chipotle throws up a tower of burritos. The last thing the neighbors want, says just one of the messages on that oppositional website that they set up, is for this residential area to become “the next Greenway Plaza.”
- What is it? [Stop the San Felipe Skyscraper]
- A New Boutique Office Address for the River Oaks Community [2229 San Felipe]
- Previously on Swamplot: Hines Develops Website To Explain 17-Story San Felipe Development, “Stop†Signs Oppose 17-Story Hines Office Building on San Felipe, A Look Around San Felipe at the Randall Davis Condos and Planned Hines Office Building Site, Hines Plans a Shiny New 18-Story Office Building Across San Felipe from River Oaks
Image: Swamplot inbox
Now that Cafe Adobe is coming down on the corner of Westheimer and S. Shepherd, Hines says it is going to start building this apartment complex later this month. A Hines rep tells Swamplot that this rendering of the so-called 21 Eleven at — wait for it — 2111 Westheimer is current — though it doesn’t appear to be all that different from the one published back in April that Hines said wasn’t. At any rate, the complex is planned to hold 215 units in 5 stories that will sit atop 2 levels of “podium parking.” And no ground-floor retail.
- Hines breaks ground on next Houston multifamily project [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: Adobe Creative Cloud, Westheimer Rd. Cafe Adobe Closing on Mother’s Day, Hines Replacing Cafe Adobe With Apartment Building — Just Not This One
Rendering: Hines
The new restaurant moving into the old Palazzo’s Trattoria space on Westheimer is 60 Degrees Mastercrafted, a “ranch to table” concept from Certified Master Chef Fritz Gitschner. In keeping with this culinary philosophy of full disclosure and transparency, 60 Degrees also seems intent to reveal the process of its own becoming. Says a post on its Facebook page: “We are looking forward to having you follow us along this amazing journey and watch the restaurant come to life!”
The first stop on this amazing journey? The Houston Permitting Center. Now, write that check . . .
This corner of Richmond and Wakeforest appears likely to be developed into a new office building, part of what a recently approved application to reduce the building setback on both streets from the Upper Kirby Redevelopment Authority suggests is a plan to transform this block between Wakeforest and Eastside into a “mixed-use pedestrian-focused transit node.” The demolition of vacant office buildings here near Levy Park appears to have begun in 2009; the office building shown in the photo above, also apparently vacant, is likely the next to go.
A WEST AVE SUSHI SHUTDOWN 
Friday was the last day for West Ave sushi joint Katsuya in Upper Kirby. Next up to throw its use into the mix? Nara, which claims in a press release that it will be Houston’s first Korean restaurant inside the Loop. Katsuya was open here for about a year and a half, reports Eater Houston, feeding the likes of NFL pals Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow, but seemed to lose a certain something: “One Eater tipster reported that things had become grim at the end, with the restaurant only serving sushi but not prepared entrees.” Nara is expected to open this fall. [Eater Houston] Photo: Ryan Forbes
