If you’ve been keeping track, you’ll have counted 7 categories announced so far in the 2013 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. And they are: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, the Best Houston Transplant, the Ground-Floor Retail Award, Houston’s Least Recognizable Neighborhood, Houston’s Most Recognizable Neighborhood and Neighborhood of the Year.
We promised you 8. So here’s the final, and probably broadest, category: What was the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of 2013?
For this same award in 2012, Swamplot readers selected voter approval of funding for the Bayou Greenways Initiative. But we want to know what this year’s big moment was. That’s pretty much the whole point of Swamplot — to find the moments that define, change, and make Houston, day in and day out.
To help find that one big moment from this year, we need your help. Add your comments to this post or send us an email describing the moments you’d like to nominate. And don’t forget to tell us why. If you need to jog your memory, browse through the site. And if you have any questions about how to make a nomination, you’ll likely find the answers here.
Now nominate away! Just make sure you get your entries in by midnight on December 11, when the window for all nominations closes for good.
- Nominations Are Now Open for the 2013 Neighborhood of the Year, Calling for Nominations for Houston’s Most Recognizable Neighborhood, Now Seeking Nominations for Houston’s Least Recognizable Neighborhood, Another New Category in This Year’s Swampies: The Ground-Floor Retail Award, Introducing the Award for Best Houston Transplant, Second Category in the Swampies: Best Demolition of 2013, First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
- The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2013: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2013 [Swamplot]
Urban Living’s comeuppance in their suit against Christopher Drummond.
Anything to do with the threatened destruction of the Astrodome, since it may have been the most frequent topic and seemed to raise a lot of hackles. Since I really don’t care, I’ll just make the pitch: some other citizen of Swamplot nation should step up to the plate and knock this one out of the park (heh).
The Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate in 2013 will be whatever the jury decides in the Ashby high-rise trial.
Downtown is ALIVE!!!! A slew of new office towers are coming. Hines and Finger are adding residential with another already under way just on the southern edge of downtown. A slew of new hotels are coming to the convention center. Market Square is hopping. The dog of a development f/k/a Houston Pavillions is getting a reboot as “Green Street” with better street visibility and more green space inside (bless the poor developer’s souls who are trying to make a go out of this thing). Sam Houston Park was nicely rehabbed. Two new light rail lines are almost ready to connect downtown to the north and east side. The almond croissant I had at Phoenicia this morning was delicious. But seriously, this year, downtown Houston officially began to emerge from being just a business district that rolled up the streets at 6 pm every night to starting on the journey to becoming a real metropolitan city center.
I agree with Mike, The Urban Living lawsuit, especially when they said they would spend a thousand dollars on the suite to win a dollar.
(Inner-Loop) Houston crossing the threshold from being somewhat sprawly to becoming the somewhat urban, walkable city, known for bicycle trails as much as car traffic. This is the year Houston’s urbanity has arrived.
I think Urban Living lawsuit is the one.
The voters spoke to demo the dome
Tanith27: More correctly: Voters defeat a bond issue, which they are told means “death to the Dome”, only to learn later that their local leaders had their fingers crossed, and don’t intend to do anything until they are convinced the last $$$s for their cronies have been squeezed out of the structure, or the constable shows up with handcuffs, whichever occurs first.
The underconstruction mega- campus for Exxon Mobil. The sea of cranes is an impressive view from I-45. While a multitude of other oil and gas companies have added new buildings, Exxon’s new campus is above them all. It shows their commitment to Houston. In the words of Ron Burgundy, “Its kinda a big deal”.
Foley’s/Macy’s downtown being blown to smithereens.
@Blake Actually, it shows Exxon’s commitment to The Woodlands and the greater Houston region, but abandoning a downtown Houston HQ to set up shop in a far flung suburb doesn’t really indicate a commitment to Houston itself. That said, I don’t think it diminishes the size or impact of the undertaking. There aren’t many projects of this scale anywhere, especially when considered in the context of the massive residential developments going in right next door.
Regent Square’s completion in 7 short years. Oh wait . . . .
Ashby suit- no question. It doesn’t matter what the jury decides, developers better start working with neighbors and being good neighbors because the test case survived summary judgment and has been handed to a jury of the homeowners’ peers.
@densify, ExxonMob corporate headquarteds were never in downtown Houston, they are in Dallas (las Collinas suburb actually). They are abandoning the 800 Bell building down, which was not their greatest/ largest presence presence in the Houston metropolitan area (that they are vacating) either….
I vote for eminent start up of the North Line trains (still scheduled for Dec 19 2013?)
The greatest moment is Houston real estate this year was the “what seemed like just a moment” amount of time between when a house went on the market and when the contract was signed. That “moment” might’ve only affected the buyer and seller, but it happened everyday all day all over Houston all year! Looking for a new home over this past year, I had to check HAR’s website daily, and often the same day something went on the market, a showing was scheduled immediately, an offer made, then word comes that there are/were 5 other offers, and then waiting to see if you GOT IT! Several times I didn’t GET IT, until finally I offered many thousand over the asking price. I got my house within 12 hours of it going on the market. A month later, I put a sign up in my yard, showed the house 8 times before dinner, took one of many offers that was shockingly over my asking price and that set a new record for my block, and walked around for days with a huge grin of disbelief on my face. The dust and smell from the Foley’s demolition floated into my open Midtown windows longer than the time it took to sell that home!
I second Michael’s nomination. Greatest moment was when a new listing in the prime neighborhoods popped up on HAR.com.
Ok, nominations are closed, but I am reurging the Ashby suit, but now because of the verdict, which will have a bigger effect on Houston real estate than any of the other nominees. Wahoo for property rights!