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https://houston.eater.com/2019/10/1/20892841/the-studewood-cantine-open-houston-heights-tex-mex-margaritas Not sure whether this in any way related to Molzan or Ruggles. But Los Cucos is out and Studewood Cantine is in.

It is where Patterson St. NB dead ends into the trail. There is a vacant lot on the west side of Patterson.

Jinya is now open in the Heights Waterworks.

https://houston.eater.com/2019/8/29/20838118/jenis-splendid-ice-creams-opening-houston-heights-carter-and-cooley-delicatessen-space Smoosh, Fat Cat, Sweet Bribery and now this, all within a mile of each other.

All the wine looks to be along the wall behind the counter in the La Grande Rue part of the building. So, they aren't really sacrificing any floor space for wine bar patrons with retail displays for wine. I thought they might do like Coltivare and not take reservations at Savoir so that everyone would hang out at La Grande Rue drinking wine before dinner. But Savoir is set up for reservations. Wine bars are funny concepts. You have a wide range of consumers that go from someone who just likes to drink and wouldn't know Burgundy from a boxed wine all the way to full on wine snobs who buy Bordeaux futures every year and won't blink at paying $150+ for a bottle. So then, people beat each other with sticks to get a table at Postino to drink some very average but affordable wine and eat above average food, while places like the Tasting Room and 13 Celsius will sell $500+ in wine to a group of 4 wine snobs. It sounds like La Grande Rue is looking to serve the high end of the market. If that is the case, they do not really need a lot of space and the retail side need not rake in a ton of cash.

http://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/08-27-19-savoir-new-restaurant-the-heights-wine-brian-doke-william-meznarich-micah-rideout/#slide=4 First look from culturemap. Says that the wine bar/retail side should open today. Restaurant side is still in soft opening with limited reservations, but they are up on resy now. https://houston.eater.com/2019/8/28/20836675/la-grande-rue-heights-houston-opening-august-2019 Eater article on the wine bar side that is opening today.

Maryam's Cafe on 19th st appears to be gone. Building has been gutted. No permit sign in the window for the interior demo. So, no bread crumbs to follow. I thought the owners of Maryam's were going to be developing the spot next door where the junk dealer used to be. But nothing has happened over there yet. I am surprised Maryam's lasted as long as it did, assuming that the restaurant has closed and is not renovating (which seems like a safe assumption). The food wasn't bad, but it wasn't even close to be competitive with the many other breakfast and lunch offerings in the Heights. It is a great space for a restaurant. Hopefully something better is on the way.

Soft opening is imminent. Looks like they have staffed up and are getting ready.

People in the industry like to say "retail follows residential", but I think this development may have gone the other way. Independence Heights is still pretty rough even though residential construction is on the upswing. I think in about 5-10 years it will start looking a lot like Cottage Grove and will better support the Whole Foods and other retail. I do not think that people are staying away because of the neighborhood. The Whole Foods 365 concept stunk and then HEB opened near by. If HEB opened in the same spot, it would have been just as packed as the one on N. Shep.

Ok. I can see where the wine storage is going to be. But doesn't look like it has been completed.

The build out has taken almost a year. The interior design does look amazing considering what they started with. But it is a bit odd how they left the cinder blocks exposed on the exterior, looking kind of shabby and not in a decorative way. And the parking lot on the north side does not drain properly. A big puddle forms and hangs around for a day or two after a downpour. I thought for sure they would put in a drain when they did all the work on the parking lot. I have only been peeking through the windows, but I cannot recall seeing a big wine fridge anywhere. There is a big open shelf in the La Grande Rue part of the building, but if you are going to sell high end old world reds, you have got to have it ready to pour at the proper temperature. Maybe that will be one of the last things to go in before they open. I presume that they are going to have to valet park a majority of the people coming for dinner. The parking lot on site is tiny. Maybe they have a deal with the funeral home to use their lot in the evening. Given the long build out and quirks, I hope they hit it out of the park and have crowds like Coltivare every night. My fear would be that the restaurant is just another new flashy high end thing that gets forgotten when the next new flashy thing opens.

I was actually shocked that they put in a green space in the middle of this development. Standard operating procedure in Houston is to fill the lot with concrete. Just look at what they did to poor Slowpokes next door.

Sushi restaurant coming to the old Happy Fatz bungalow on 3510 White Oak.

They very purposefully used that background because one of the big issues for this thing is where will cars cue up when it is busy and the robo-garage can only handle so many vehicles at once. If you show people exactly where it is going to go, they will realize that the cue for the garage will spill out onto White Oak or Studewood and block traffic. And the only way this project will not stick out like a sore thumb is if someone puts an even bigger sore thumb next to it (which may be the plan for the Fitz lot).

Read my entire post. I clearly note that the business model stand alone automated garages is for downtown areas. My point is that they would never come to exist purely due to market forces in areas like White Oak Blvd because they are too expensive and demand would never be high enough to generate sufficient revenue. The only way they get built outside of the CBD is if the parking minimums force landowners to use them.

It is true. There are lots of places in Houston where parking is as bad if not worse than on White Oak, but no one has ever even thought about putting in structured parking without being required by the parking minimums. It is pure fantasy to think that these sort of parking garages will start popping up if we let people build retail developments with no parking requirements. The dirt is too expensive. The cost of an automated garage is too expensive. And even regular old structured parking lots are too expensive to run just for profit without having the city require the owners of the retail properties to fund. The robot garage business model for stand alone pay lots is taking very small and otherwise unusable plots in dense urban areas and building very skinny and tall parking garages. These are areas where they can charge $25-40 max for daily use and get contracts for monthly users. On White Oak, you are not going to have any contract parking and no one is going to be willing to pay much more than $5-10 for parking, assuming that there will be some amazing new retail establishments. I am not sure the crowd at BBs and Tacos Agogo are willing to pay anything for parking.

This parking garage would never have been built if there were no minimum parking requirements.

So, parking minimums are bad but giant parking garages are good. Hmmmm.

Not soon enough. https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Significant-damage-reported-after-car-crashes-14019171.php

An entity that looks to be connected to Hansen Partners owns the collection of little cottages at 513 E. 20th (I believe they were all demo-ed) and another lot to the north of that on Oxford. Some sort of small condo/apartment complex is in the works.

Oh come on. The Heights was built out mostly from 1910-20 and is largely Craftsman with some older Victorian homes. The spectrum of the original architecture is not that wide and the McVics, Fauxorleans and especially the $%&@ing modern Victorian farmhouse new builds that have infested the neighborhood stick out like sore thumbs. Of course, everyone who is at all connected with the builders, realtors and architects in the Heights thinks that it all looks great, but that is just because they want to put their own architectural stamp on the neighborhood. But it is totally easy to build consistent with the original architecture and a good percentage of the recent new builds have paid attention to the original craftsman architecture. The Broadstone Waterworks does a good job of respecting the original architecture of the Heights. Brick with some stucco and some Art Deco ornamentation. You can clearly see that they were thinking about what would fit in well in a historic neighborhood. Greystar just came in and basically dropped an architectural f-bomb. They didn't even try. It is boilerplate in a way Craftsman architecture never was. Craftsman architecture was part of a significant artistic movement and the architecture is celebrated and preserved for its brilliantly simple variations on common architectural elements. Greystar's design is just another modern multi-family going for the "Urban Elegance" look. It is stale, out of place and just lame. We are long past the days when we had to thank our lucky stars whenever a developer was willing to put up anything new in the Heights. This neighborhood is in National Geographic. Property values are off the charts. Retail developments are everywhere with every restaurant in Austin and Dallas looking for a spot in the Heights. We deserve much better than this.

Density is fine for that part of the Heights. 12 stories is pushing it, but not so bad considering that it will be almost completely blocked from view from the north by the 8 story Alliance Broadstone and won't be hovering over 19th street. But I would be concerned that it opens the door to go up 20+ stories on the few big lots left to redevelop in the Heights. That would not be good. But just because there are architectural duds from the past along 19th st. doesn't mean that anything goes. We should be trying to undo the crud that was built back when no one wanted to live in the Heights and replace it with good architecture that reflects the history of the neighborhood.

If the only substance of your posts is to attack me, get a day job and go away. They are drilling piers for the foundation already on this one. It is on W 20th at the corner of Nicholson. Nothing has happened to the old Chase bank building yet.

Shit sandwich. The Alliance Broadstone at least paid some lip service to the historic architecture in the Heights. This is just generic modern multi-family infill that you can find in Dallas, Washington DC, Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix and so on. I wouldn't be surprised if the design was 100% recycled from another project (or two or three) that has already been built somewhere else. At least it will front 20th St. instead of 19th. But Greystar will also build another building where the old bank currently sits. Knowing Greystar, it will be another boilerplate modern design.

Wines containing more that 7% ABV are governed by the Federal Alcohol Administration Act and are outside of the FDA's ingredient labeling jurisdiction.