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Sorry. I guess "Moon Rabbit" is a pretty popular restaurant name these days. The Houston version is doing take out only right now. Here is the menu: https://www.ubereats.com/store/moon-rabbit/aMQB24p0TjyT6HRIVCJPnQ

Moon Rabbit is replacing Vietnam Restaurant on 19th. Contemporary Vietnamese and much more high end/night on the town place compared to its predecessor. https://www.moonrabbitdc.com/

I like the MCM quotes on the design. Surprisingly good article from the Leader on how the City screwed over the immediate neighborhood on SMLS on this lot. https://www.theleadernews.com/real_estate/city-amends-smls-policy-after-unique-case-in-heights/article_043908f4-fae2-11eb-97b2-e7f5aa70d2d7.html?fbclid=IwAR0nft5VTYDlGAVyt8eziujRxFsk_2ckDoJI92ogEf1yAAwC00FRdNc76mU

The lawsuit is ongoing and has a September trial setting (courts are pretty log jammed due to COVID, so odds aren't very good that trial will happen in September). HOA's argument is pretty thin. The tract with the Tanglewood Corp building has an exception to the deed restrictions and specifically says that the tract can be used for commercial purposes. The HOA claims that the tract is also subject to the deed restrictions that restrict using property for apartments, etc. There were also attempts in the 2000s to amend the deed restrictions to make it clear that the tract could not be used for an apartment/condo tower. The owner of the tract argues that the clear intent of the deed restrictions was to exempt the tract from the residential only restrictions and the subsequent attempts to amend did not follow the property code. Just to make things fun, the owner hired Rusty Hardin, although Mr. Hardin probably isn't doing much of the legal leg work. This kind of dispute would usually be resolved on summary judgment motions, but the judge in this case does not like to rule on anything because she gets reversed a lot on appeal. I don't see the HOA prevailing. It is pretty hard to argue that a commercial use exception does not apply when the property has been used for commercial purposes for decades. And that is the fun part about Houston's lack of zoning and dedication to deed restrictions. Developers can stomp on the rich and poor alike.

Chef announcement with rendering. Guess we now know why Michael Hsu opened an office in the Heights. https://houstonfoodfinder.com/news/austin-based-loro-announces-chef-for-houston-restaurant-in-the-heights/?fbclid=IwAR1H5YxwhgvgFYrFPANpt-ag9_dpXomQE_BaQEwlosm5YgsZv7M3LKPgl9s

This is a rare time capsule Midcentury Modern over in Lazybrook. No info on the architect. But almost everything looks to be original. https://www.har.com/homedetail/2442-brooktree-dr-houston-tx-77008/7911476

Culberson and TxDOT were able to keep light rail from becoming an effective alternative for commuters in Houston. Culberson submarined significant federal funding and TxDOT kept rail off the Katy freeway expansion. Light rail is effectively just a centralized alternative to a few bus lines. So, the light rail has no sort of nickname because it is just an alternative for bus riders. Downtown was blossoming in a big way before COVID and will hopefully come back quickly if the Delta variant doesn't send everyone back to working at home. There are a number of food halls downtown that are pretty amazing and some big developments (Post office and a few towers) that are going to continue to transform downtown. Energy prices in Houston are the result of the deregulated energy market. Had you moved to town several months ago, you would have had the pleasure of sitting in the dark while your thermostat sank to 37 degrees. Deregulated energy markets have resulted in higher prices and near third world service. The apartment scene is odd due to overbuilding of high end units. CoH gave out millions in tax incentives for developers to build apartments downtown. All those units are pretty high end. Most of the other new apartments inside the loop are fairly similar. Everyone is trying to maintain a floor of $1,500 a month for the smaller one bedroom apartments, but the market has been so volatile that no one wants to put out that much info about pricing.

https://www.har.com/homedetail/1435-rutland-st-houston-tx-77008/2969610 Only non-historic home I have put on this thread. I have to say that the interior is a bit underwhelming, but that may be more due to the random updating. I am sure whoever buys this will rip everything out and completely redo the interior. Gary Eades designed it and I always liked the building. The many McVics that came after and the current awful fad of the modern Victorian farmhouse look very cheap compared to the well thought out homage to classic Victorian homes that Eades did here.

Probably never, but not a bad idea as W 8th St. ends up being a cut-through for people driving between Shep and Heights. When they did the detention pond, there were plans floated to turn it into a park with a water feature. The soil pollution at the site was so bad from prior use as a refinery and city incinerator that they could not afford to dig any deeper than what was necessary for the detention pond. I would assume that any attempt to build a bridge across the pond would be prohibitively expensive due to having to disrupt the soil to build supports.

If Tillman ever got his way and got casinos on Galveston, there might be enough demand to make a commuter rail line make sense. But there really aren't that many people flying to Houston to vacation in Galveston. I remember when I was a little kid in the 70s, on the Price is Right showcase showdown there was always one really great prize package and one lousy one. On the lousy one, they would have a trip to Galveston. I love going to the beach in Galveston, but it is pretty obvious why people would choose to go to Florida or Mexico instead of Galveston. Houston needs commuter rail for commuters. There should be rail from the Woodlands, Sugar Land, Cypress, Pearland, Clear Lake and Katy to downtown as well as connecting the energy corridor to the Woodlands and Sugar Land. That would be an amazing option for commuters to save money and time in traffic.

Same author wrote an article urging politicians to build an Ike dike, citing the prospect of a 20 ft storm surge tossing around giant oil tanks along the Houston ship channel and creating an epic environmental disaster. Houston real estate will always be cheaper than Austin because everything floods here. Even if you luck out and live somewhere that doesn't flood, you just have to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to lose your car to a flood. My house in the Heights does not flood. But I parked around the corner one afternoon and a sudden downpour filled the street with water flooding my car. The desirable neighborhoods in Houston are not far off from the pricing in the hot neighborhoods in Austin. Same for the burbs with the top schools and neighborhood amenities. Houston really only looks significantly cheaper when you throw out statistics like median home price. Austin's gentrification has gone farther and wider than Houston's. So, Austin's median is much higher. But the reality on the ground is that there are no big housing bargains in Houston, unless you want to live next to an oil refinery or in a 60s rambler with a wavy foundation and crappy schools. Yes, Austin's real estate market is hotter than Houston's right now and if you are a young attorney at a big law firm you have a better chance at finding a nice house in Houston than having to compete with Silicon Valley tech millionaires looking for a second home in Austin. But for everyone else, there really isn't a huge difference that would justify fleeing Austin for the swamp.

Been here for 21 years. When I first got here in 2000, everyone was talking about how much Houston had changed over the past 20 years. So, this city is certainly dynamic. I like living in Houston. I take my family to the beach on the weekends. Road trips on weekends to Hill Country for camping, tubing etc. Very diverse city. My white kids are at best a plurality in their schools and often a minority. The city has come a long way with new bike paths, park improvements and lots of great restaurants. My favorite thing about Houston is that it is mostly a laid back, come as you are city where everyone has room to be who they want to be. I am originally from the East Coast and all everyone does is talk about getting their kid into an Ivy and working for the top law firm, corporation, or medical practice. I have had bbq's with an O&G engineer, artist, pastor and environmental non-profit organizer. I am concerned about the future in Houston. I have been through Allison, Ike, Harvey and all the other big floods and hurricane near misses. I am concerned we are living on borrowed time with a direct hit that could destroy the ship channel refineries and cause an environmental disaster that would take years to recover from. I hope the winter freeze is a once in a lifetime event, but I am concerned that we are going to have another grid failure either in the summer or during another cold snap. I am lucky to live in the Heights and to have flood waters flow quickly down towards the bayous. But it is hard to see so many people get hurt and have the city paralyzed during Harvey, Ike, etc. And it has been almost 13 years since Ike and the Ike dike is still in the planning stages.

HAIF used to be almost like an 8chan for people interested in real estate development. Niche and RedScare could be as vicious and line crossing as they could be interesting and well informed. And a lot of posters would follow their lead making hot topics pretty toxic at times. I had fun sparring with everyone but it got to the point where the tone was limiting who could participate to only those who had very thick skins. It is interesting to reflect back on the whole stop Walmart thing. I always wondered how much that fight influenced developers like Radom, Deal, Braun and others who have broken with the longstanding Houston development pattern of demolishing anything old and building strip malls, townhomes and generic apartments in its place.

I would take a golf course over a strip mall and concrete any day. Of course, an open prairie filled with native grasses is better for the environment than a golf course. But Bermuda grass is pretty good at beating the heat without needing a ton of water.

Pretty amazing the turnaround there has been in participation in golf. A bunch of course in the Houston area closed or turned into frisbee golf hybrids after participation dropped off in a big way with millenials. But the big hitters like DeChambeau and Koepka and the fact that golf was one of the few safe activities during the pandemic have caused a massive surge in participation. I do see a lot of 20 somethings out playing and socializing over golf. Something like this is great because it lets serious players work on short game while playing with people who would not be ready for 18 at Memorial (not sure anyone is really ready for 18 at Memorial). The only par 3 course in Houston is Melrose Golf Club in North Houston. It could be a nice place to practice and play, but the greens are completely destroyed and there are dogs running around the course all the time.

https://www.theleadernews.com/food_drink/grease-monkey-to-open-in-fall/article_9d549eb6-ce2f-11eb-bd48-3b6e01e70c5b.html This is still happening. Going to be called Grease Monkey and targeting an opening in the Fall.

If it was 20 years ago, this would have been the end of her career. TV reporters are a dime a dozen and there are always younger and more attractive reporters who are willing to work for nothing coming up every year. But Hecker is probably going to end up getting elevated to a national job at OAN or Blaze or end up with a youtube channel making millions. What is amazing is that her big whistleblower story is just pathetic. Her manager told her she didn't want to run bitcoin stories at 5-6pm because the ratings would be bad due to low income black viewers not being interested in bitcoin. The other scandal is that she thought that Fox News shut her down on stories about hydroxychoroquine because Trump was for it. Fox News. And basically, they did not want her going rogue on social media. The other big revelation: ads go to the highest bidder and the CDC has paid for ad time. And she is unable to provide a concrete example of ad dollars driving content. If she was a journalist who was worth a crap, she would have easily been able to do that. We all know it happens. So, after all of this fuss, she can't even establish what Noam Chomsky and Ed Hermann demonstrated conclusively in Manufacturing Consent 33 years ago. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Project-Veritas-releases-video-of-Fox-26-reporter-16250476.php

HAHC has generally gone soft recently on things like siding, windows, etc. I do not see HAHC getting in the way of this development.

Not a lot to work with. 1950s era strip center that probably never looked like much. But I do not like the architectural group think that we seen on the new apartments on 19th. This rendering is along those lines.

Volvo and Star Motors did go to a hearing over the termination of the franchise and Star lost. Star is a bit of an auto dealer anachronism with a relatively small store trying to hold down multiple franchises in an age where highline dealers in Houston are all fighting each other for national sales rankings (and have mostly been bought up by publicly traded dealer groups).

Someone tried to get a demo permit for the print shop but HAHC denied it. So, all I know is that the print shop building has to be redeveloped.

Can be yours for $4.3 mil. The Houston lore I heard years ago was that the design was a combination of a stealth bomber and Darth Vader. There is also a story that the owner was doing work on the house just after it was built and suffered a heart attack but had an AED and was able to shock himself back to life. Interior is everything you would expect. Giant face sculpture better come with the house. https://abc13.com/realestate/houstons-darth-vader-house-is-for-sale/10702918/ https://www.har.com/mapsearch/?map_tools_nwlat=29.71712786809151&map_tools_nwlng=-95.43479118705496&map_tools_selat=29.711203714972953&map_tools_selng=-95.42283717407774&for_sale=1#g26540977

This is now open. Hopefully, the bridge over the bayou will get fixed this summer so it will be a short ride from the Heights to this park. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lifestyle/article/Bayou-Greenways-Park-opens-this-week-as-part-of-16204438.php#photo-21042848

To live in Houston and to have trepidations about new food trends is like living in Hawaii and being afraid of the ocean.

Katyville strikes again. Honestly, I think they were just too slow to the punch to make this into a nice urban mixed used development. Too many projects around town (MKT, post office, Sawyer Yards and the Allen Pkwy developments) have sucked the wind out of the kind of leasing that this would have needed.