The new owner of the floody Spaghetti Warehouse building downtown has cooked up a novel idea for how to deal with its proximity to Buffalo Bayou: crack open its lower stories and fill them with a floodable dining area that sits below an upper-story bar. Renderings from Diamond Development show how they’re hoping to pull it all off by removing several doors and windows from the back of the 15,000-sq.-ft. building (which an application to Houston’s historic commission notes will be stored away for potential future use) and adding louvers to the building’s east side.

The slats would go in place of the parking-lot-fronting wall shown missing part of its face during Harvey:

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It’s since received some new artwork, pictured below:

On the west side of things — shown below — 2 new entrance portals for delivery vehicles, food trucks, and trash pick-up will be punched in along Travis St.:

An existing awning spanning that full facade will cut off midway to make room for the new openings:

You can see some kind of mobile vendor peeking out of the entryway on the left in this rendering of the building’s north side along Commerce:

The front facade would remain mostly unaltered except for some renovations to fix up walls and columns that were damaged by floodwaters.

A first floor plan shows a pair of food trucks (indicated by white rectangles) pulled all the way into the ground level, where they separate 2 sets of seating. On the far right, a long white strip indicates a shuffleboard court that could accompany the dining amenities:

Upstairs, a mezzanine terrace looks out on the eating area below and bridges the gap to a separate staircase leading to the top floor:

That’s where the yet-to-be named bar will hole up:

After Harvey, the Dallas-based restaurant chain auctioned off everything it could recover from the decades-old building it had occupied since 1973.

Photos: Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission (post-Harvey); Kelsie H. Dos Santos (during Harvey). Renderings and floor plans: Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission

Floodable Food Court