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The Holocaust Museum Houston unveiled plans Tuesday for a $33.8 million expansion that will nearly triple its size.

A $15-million gift from long-time patrons Lester and Sue Smith, the largest in the museum's history, will ensure that the expansion project breaks ground as planned in October.

On Caroline Street, roughly three blocks east of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Holocaust Museum's current building is a sculptural, brooding presence, a dark-gray cylinder that sits atop a wedge.

 

The renovation will increase the building's size to 57,000 square feet, and alter its architecture. A new roof opening atop the cylinder will let in daylight and emit white light at night — so that a building once notable for its darkness will become a light-filled beacon.

 

The new facilities will allow the museum to significantly broaden its scope and community outreach. Keeping the Holocaust relevant in relation to human rights and genocide issues today is "a ribbon that will run throughout, so you feel empowered when you leave, and hopeful," said Kelly J. Zúñiga, the museum's CEO. She cites the museum's mantra: "Hope is better than hate."

The Smiths' commitment provides a matching grant for the museum's $49.4 million capital campaign. In their honor, the institution at 5401 Caroline St. will be renamed the Holocaust Museum Houston, Lester and Sue Smith Campus.

Lester Smith, a Wharton native, said one of his grandfathers emigrated to Texas from Russia in 1903, and he has always believed strongly in the museum's mission to teach the lessons civilization has learned from the Holocaust.

 

Mary Lee Webeck, the museum's director of education, thinks the museum and its lessons have never been more important than they are right now, here in Houston.

"The rising presence of hate in our world, in our country, is unprecedented," she said. "And the city that we live in, demographically, is 10 to 15 years ahead of the rest of the country. We have a chance to be a model for the rest of the country — to show that people can live together peacefully, can talk with each other."

The addition was designed by the Houston firm Mucasey & Associates, with exhibition and media de-sign by the world-renowned Ralph Appelbaum Associates.

Among the planned improvements:
• The museum's current one-story east wing will be razed and replaced with a light-filled, three-story building that will house much larger exhibition spaces, more classrooms, a larger library and more ad-ministrative offices.
• The size of the Albert and Ethel Herzstein Auditorium, creating a 200-seat theater that can accom-modate professional performances.
Zúñiga expects an increase in collaborations with organizations such as Houston Grand Opera and the Houston Symphony.
•"Bearing Witness," a permanent exhibit with testimony and artifacts donated by Houston-area Holo-caust survivors, will nearly double in size. The museum's signature exhibits, a Danish rescue boat and German World War II railcar, will be brought inside the museum where they will be more interactive.
Berths will be dug into the foundation so that visitors can observe the deck of the boat at eye-level, allowing them to see secret compartments where Danish citizens hid Jews to carry them to safety in Sweden during an amazing three-week episode of World War II history. In the new space visitors will also be able to walk through the railcar, which once carried Jewish prisoners to concentration camps.
-- The Mincberg Gallery will also nearly double in size, permitting the museum to present more travel-ing shows and create more diverse exhibits.
--  The Boniuk Library, one of the largest sources of data in the U.S. for communities destroyed during the Holocaust, will be enlarged. It holds more than 10,000 volumes and resources for in-house re-search and education.
--  A permanent exhibit about Anne Frank and other young diarists will be part of the new Rhona and Bruce Caress Anne Frank and Young Writers' Voices room, the only resource of its kind.
-- The new Moral Choices Hall and Butterfly Loft at the heart of the building will contain a commis-sioned artwork, still to be awarded, as a memorial to the 1.5 million children killed during the Holo-caust.
-- The new Boniuk Center for the Future of Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Studies will provide a research and scholarly forum devoted to teaching today's citizens about the history and memories of the Holocaust, in light of ongoing genocides and issues of human rights.

The museum will temporarily move most of its permanent exhibits, classrooms and offices during the construction. The current facility closes July 24, with the temporary operations opening Sept. 5 at 9220 Kirby Drive, just south of Loop 610.

After the expansion, Houston will have the nation's fourth largest Holocaust museum, behind the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Louisiana's Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance and the Illinois Holocaust Museum.

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http://www.chron.com/entertainment/article/Holocaust-Museum-Houston-unveils-expansion-plans-11234521.php

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If good things are worth waiting for then Houston will be handsomely rewarded once the Hotel Alessandra finally opens in the fall. The Alessandra has been a long time coming: Announced in March 2014, the 223-room hotel in downtown's GreenStreet development was supposed to be completed in time for Super Bowl. Weather-related work disruptions and some logistical challenges prevented the hotel from opening before SBLI.

 

But now things are quickly falling into place as the hotel announced an October opening. And even more welcome news about the restaurant concept in the 20-story hotel that is in the final stages of construction.

According to hotelier the Valencia Group (which will design and operate the hotel in partnership with Houston-based Midway which will own it), the Alessandra's white-tablecloth restaurant will be called Lucienne and the lobby bar has been dubbed Bardot. Both the bar and full-service restaurant are located on the second floor.

 

Details about the dining and drinking venues have only recently emerged. The bar Bardot is styled after American cocktail bar that were popular in London at the turn of the century. Perched above the lobby atrium, Bardot serves as a chic getaway for cocktails and light bites.

Foodies will be excited to learn that Lucienne, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, will feature Mediterranean cuisine executed with French technique, said executive chef Jose Hernandez.

Designed by Gensler with interiors by Rottet Studio, the restaurant suggest a Viennese vaulted café (the long, narrow room has a rib cage ceiling). With walls of banquettes, plenty of natural light, and herringbone pattern floors, the space was designed to feel weightless in its perch above the GreenStreet complex. The restaurant will seat 66 with an additional 30 seats for private dining.

 

Hernandez, currently executive chef at Radio Milano in Valencia Group's Hotel Sorella, will transition to Alessandra in July. He shared with us some additional details about Lucienne, which he says will touch on foods from countries such as Portugal, Greece, France and Spain.

"We will have the freedom to play a little bit with all the Mediterranean countries," he said.

Hernandez, who will oversee all culinary operations at the hotel, said he is working with local farmers and purveyors to ensure that as much of the menu as possible is locally sourced. All the meat will come to the kitchens whole and butchered in house; the hotel will produce all its own artisan breads and pastry.

Lucienne, Hernandez points out, means "light": "We're going to try to bring that to the table – the brightness of the food of the Mediterranean."

Bright doesn't rule out rich, though. Hernandez said he plans to create a foie gras dish seen through the eyes of a Black Forest cake: Pan-seared fresh foie gras and fresh cherries wrapped in a crepe with a chocolate ganache. Another fascinating dish: Sea scallops glossed with white truffle butter mixed with scallop roe served in the shell and covered with puff pastry.

Even with just those two morsels to contemplate (Hernandez said he's still working on the menu), Lucienne sounds enticing. And the chef said he's itching to start delivering a full-tilt white-tablecloth experience.

"I cannot wait to start in the kitchen," Hernandez said. "It's going to be so exciting to start. It's going to be a lot of work but it's exciting to see it all coming from scratch. I'm ready for this to happen."

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Braun Enterprises plans to redevelop the historic Heights waterworks, a city-owned property on 19th Street, into a collection of restaurants in the neighborhood near downtown.

The Houston-based company is under contract to acquire the site from Alliance Residential in late September, according to Zach Wolf, director of leasing for Braun Enterprises. It will purchase the property, which sits on more than 1.5 acres at the northeast corner of 19th and Nicholson, from the Phoenix-based apartment developer.

 

Alliance Residential is buying two catty-corner lots along Nicholson at West 20th streets from the city of Houston, and will in turn sell the lot with the waterworks buildings to Braun Enterprises.

"This is our 25th project in the Heights area," Braun Enterprises president Dan Braun said in an email.

 

"Our intent is to embrace the walkability and help continue to connect Yale to Shepherd along 19th Street," he said, adding that 19th "has always been the bull's-eye in the Heights for retail and by adding four freestanding restaurants, we hope to make this an area for the community to gather in the Heights."

 Art Deco pumping station from 1939; and a pump building constructed in 1949. A proposed building along 19th Street would add 5,000 square feet to the project, which is being designed by Jared Tipps of Tipps Architecture.

A lawn area would be created in the center of the existing buildings, which total almost 12,000 square feet. One of the buildings could be expanded by nearly 1,300 square feet.

 

"We are incorporating a considerable amount of greenery and outdoor space to make it very pedestrian friendly," Wolf said.

"The Heights Hike and Bike Trail runs adjacent to the western side of our property and we expect to generate considerable pedestrian traffic off of the trail."

Braun Enterprises' area developments have attracted tenants such as Harold's Restaurant, Bar & Terrace and Torchy's Tacos at nearby Harold's in the Heights, Mellow Mushroom at 1919 N. Shepherd and Bernie's Burger Bus at 2200 Yale.

The site is directly across from another potential redevelopment site. Earlier this year, JPMorgan Chase Bank put its two-story bank building and land on the market. It is reserving a portion as the site for a new modern building. Just north of that, Alliance Residential plans to develop a Broadstone apartment midrise.

Braun Enterprises would begin work as soon as the property purchase is finalized, with completion targeted in the second quarter, according to Wolf, who anticipates plenty of interest from both national and local restaurants.

"Nineteenth Street has always been the main street. It's where everyone wants to be," Wolf said. "There just hasn't been any space available."

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http://www.chron.com/business/real-estate/article/Heights-waterworks-plan-now-includes-retail-11206224.php#item-38488

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