A mere 189 homes and businesses will be knocked down beginning Saturday, designated by Mayor Parker as the city’s third annual Demo Day. That number is down a bit from last year, when the city marked the occasion by beginning the destruction of more than 400 structures deemed blighted (it took a while). Members of the Houston Contractors Association will be donating their bulldozing services for the citywide event. Most of the structures appeared on Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Reports this week; the city’s official list is here (PDF). The mayor will be on hand at 4007 Ebbtide St., just behind Madison High School, to make sure that home gets the smashing it deserves. Photo from last year’s event: Houston Contractor’s Association
Included in the lawsuit filed yesterday by Houston and Harris County attorneys against the owners of Treasures, which labels the Westheimer strip club a public nuisance and attempts to shut it down: allegations that the venue is a site of “human trafficking” — of dancers from Vegas. From Cindy George’s report: “
Long before he sold the land where the brand-new BBVA Compass Stadium for the Houston Dynamo soccer team now sits to the city, former council member and longtime land speculator Louis Macey had a deal ready to go that would have turned the vacant land into some sort of close-to-Downtown entertainment venue, Catie Dixon reports: “He ended up with six blocks around Bastrop and Texas, which 
Aldi isn’t exactly Trader Joe’s without the hype, but the 2 grocery chains are owned by sister companies from Germany. (Aldi Nord operates 1,200 stores in the U.S., mostly in the eastern half; Trader Joe’s is owned by Aldi Süd) Both of them specialize in private-label products. And they’ll be traveling in some of the same circles too: While Trader Joe’s is opening a measly 3 stores in the Houston area this year, its bigger and cheaper cousin has just announced a much grander Houston-opening gambit (after plans for a store outside Katy’s Oak Park Trails subdivision were About Swamplot
Swamplot covers real estate, home design and renovation, architecture, and the landscape of Houston, Texas. Swamplot did not flood during Allison — or Ike! Honest!
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Comment of the Day: Your Basic Housemoving Deal
“We’ll be moving a small house in the Heights off a lot that we are clearing for construction. Basically the removal company pays you $10 for the structure, and after they move it they scrape the lot to a demo standard. So you save the demo costs, maybe $5k, and you recycle the house. The house we bought was the childhood home of the man we bought it from — it had been in the family for decades — so it felt like the decent thing to do; the savings will be used to upgrade my future oven, and not much more, given the cost of building a new house.
The movers sell the house for $20k—$30k, maybe more if its in good shape. So as long as their own costs for the demo and the move are less than the sale price, they make out okay. The houses tend to be used as rentals, starter homes, hunting camps, etc.
It takes a good deal longer to clear a lot this way compared to a straight demo, and you run the risk that the structure will never sell. But if you have a bit of patience it’s a good deal.” [KG, commenting on Bungalow on the Loose: Duplex Splits West Drew in the Middle of the Night]