COMMENT OF THE DAY: WEST HOUSTON’S PLAN FOR SUBURBAN DOMINATION 
“Houston does not have a centralized downtown district. After Gerry Hines built the Galleria, the city fractured into numerous regional shopping centers and has remained decentralized since. Perhaps Houston functions better this way.
Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and all the King’s men cannot put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
MetroNational and Midway Cos. are determined to reconstruct Houston with a new centralized downtown district in CityCentre. They envision Memorial Drive and Gessner as commercial 8-lane thoroughfares. They envision the corridor of residential neighborhoods between the Katy Freeeway and Memorial Drive as one big mega shopping center, an expansion of Memorial City that stretches on for miles. They envision deed restricted neighborhoods of Walnut Bend and Briargrove Park as office parks. Don’t believe me? Just go to the West Houston Association website and click on 2050 map. They are serious about remapping Houston. And what are they going to do with all the storm water run-off from these commercial buildings? They are going to channel it into Buffalo Bayou, of course. To do this they have to deforest the bayou and widen and deepen and concrete it. They are determined to do it. And where are they going to get the money to do this? Out of TIRZ 17 and MetroNational Bank.” [Memorial Resident, commenting on Comment of the Day: Houston’s Westward Tilt] Illustration: Lulu
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Here’s the first image most of us have seen of the 24-story office tower New Haven architects Pickard Chilton have been quietly designing for Amegy Bank. The site is the former West Loop stomping grounds of Micro Center at 1717 West Loop South, just north of San Felipe. The foundation was poured for the building this past weekend; construction is expected to be complete by the end of 2016.
The tower will contain 350,000 sq. ft. of space; Amegy is expecting to use more than two-thirds of that total. The bottom floors of the tower will contain a parking garage.
- Previously on Swamplot: The West Loop Micro Center’s Online Farewell Photo Album; Micro Center Will Move South, Give Up West Loop Site for Amegy Bank HQ; More Info on Amegy Bank’s Plans To Spike Houston’s Micro Center with an Office Tower; Did Micro Center Just Sell Its Houston Location to Amegy Bank?
Rendering: Amegy Bank
This baroque 8th-floor penthouse condo in the Campton at Post Oak building at 4950 Woodway Dr. north of the Galleria has been available for rent at $9,500 a month since last September (marked down from the whopping $11,500 it began with in August). But there a few things you might want to know about the 3,948-sq.-ft. pad before you sign any lease: First, the unit’s owner since 2010 is Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson — who (in case you’ve been on a news blackout for the last several months) last November pled no contest to charges of “recklessly assaulting” his 4-year-old son with a wooden switch, and was suspended from the NFL for the remainder of the season. Second: Peterson hasn’t been paying his taxes on the property; after court proceedings at which Peterson failed to appear, a tax auction was approved by a district court a few days before Christmas.
Here’s a pic showing construction of the new midtown arts center, taken from the corner of Holman and Main St. last week. And the folks behind MATCH are happy to walk you through the steel-outlined spaces of the building-in-progress, designed by Lake Flato and Houston’s Studio Red: “The breezeway is on your left; the café is at your feet and the backstage corridor for Theatre A stretches into the distance on your right where you can see the plumbing stub outs for the laundry and the Theatre A dressing rooms. The high steel in the foreground at 12 o’clock is Theater A and the high steel off to the left at 10 o’clock is Theatre D. The dirt area to your left is the future home of the South building where the offices, gallery and rehearsal rooms will be.”
Construction of the facility at 3400 Main St. is expected to be complete by fall, with or without the last $2+ million of the $25 million budget the organization still needs to raise.
- Construction Underway On MATCH Arts Complex In Midtown [Houston Public Media]
- Previously on Swamplot: Construction Starts Next Week on Main St. MATCH Arts Complex in Midtown; Half the $28.5M Needed for Midtown Arts Center Raised; Grants To Spark Midtown Arts Center Fundraising; Midtown Arts Center Interim Design Review: How Do You Like It Now?; The Midtown Collaborative Arts Yurt That Got Away, A Second Round of Initial Concepts for Midtown’s Independent Arts Collaborative, Architects Agree To Collaborate on Main St. Arts Collaborative, Independent Arts Collaborative Buying Midtown Lot for New Main St. Arts Center
Photo: MATCH
A regular Kirby Dr. street-tree watcher sends in this pair of recent images showing the Wendy’s drive-thru at 5003 Kirby Dr. (at the far western end of oak-tree-bedecked North Blvd.), which reopened after renovations the week before Christmas, and its neighbor a few driveways down, the Burger King at 5115 Kirby Dr. (at the far western end of similarly shaded South Blvd). The photos show the aftermath of a series of chainsaw incidents that took place last year.
The daring but probably not death-inducing trimming of the lone surviving Kirby Dr. street tree in front of Wendy’s (shown at top) took place after the franchise’s owner, Ali Dhanani of Haza Foods, paid the city a $300,000 settlement for the nighttime removal of 6 other oaks on city property surrounding the restaurant shortly before Halloween. A report in November indicated that the city’s legal team was investigating the more aggressive paring of oak limbs in front of the neighboring Burger King, as well as another Burger King owned by Houston Foods, the second-largest Burger King franchisee in the country, which is run by Dhanani’s brother, Shoukat Dhanani.
- Previously on Swamplot: Looking into Houston’s Burger King Tree-Hacking Problem, Beginning Right Down the Street from the Kirby Dr. Wendy’s; Days After $300K Treecutting Settlement, Workers Are Back on the Job at the Kirby Dr. Wendy’s; City Nets $300K Settlement for Late-Night Kirby Dr. Wendy’s Oak-Axing Incident; City Reportedly Planning Legal Action Against Kirby Dr. Wendy’s Late-Night Tree Whackers; Kirby Dr. Wendy’s Renovation Crews Chop Down North Blvd. Street Oaks Overnight; The Burger King Live Oak Amputation Mystery Deepens; Mysterious Oak Beheadings at the Yale and 610 Burger King
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Last May, photos of what appeared to be an intensive indoor plant-growing operation appeared with the MLS listing for the 1992 5-bedroom home at 13630 San Martin Ln. in the Alief-area neighborhood of Pheasant Trace Village. All horticultural-themed photos were removed from the listing, however, after one of the images (above) was featured on Swamplot. The home sold in October for $125,000 — $10,000 above its asking price.
After a “remodeling from top to bottom,” according to a new listing, the new owners have placed the property back on the market, with nary a hint as to what may or may not have been photosynthesizing inside previously under the stares of all those grow lights. New AC units and coils come with the property now too. Offered for lease at $1,995 a month, or for sale for a quick $219K.
- 13630 San Martin Ln. [HAR; for lease; previous listing]
- Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Matrix [Swamplot]
Sure, you might vaguely recognize the Houston street scene shown above, but maybe you’re unclear about what kind of modem you need to make the hard right turn from Memorial Dr. onto the information superhighway? “Maybe you’ve read or heard about the internet, but you’re still not exactly sure what it is? Well if that’s the case, don’t worry. In no time at all you’ll be able to impress everyone with your amazing techno-savvy.” Just by watching this hour-long 1995 PBS program sponsored by Compaq (and Viewers Like You) all about this crazy new Internet thing:
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
If we can get these down quietly, no one will notice.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON’S WESTWARD TILT 
“News flash: the energy corridor is now the economic center of town. Downtown is just where companies go to save on rents bc the EC might be too pricey. There are — of course — big legacy companies still downtown but three super majors are between HW 6 and Dairy Ashford.” [Houstonian, commmenting on Another Chelsea Gets Away] Illustration: Lulu
Behind this row of 9 live oak trees along Leeland St., one block north of the Gulf Fwy. (and the southern edge of East Downtown), Talia Homes is planning a development of 75 gated homes called Talia Village — on the site of what was, until last summer, the Spencer Company’s Florabunda wholesale nursery at 1609 Ennis St. South of the development is the Metro Auto Storage tow lot; to the east lies what a reader describes as “uh, a large pasture next to the bike trail which is used by somebody’s horses fairly often.”
From the Swamplot reader known as Googlemaster comes this parting photo of jewelry store Fly High Little Bunny at 3120 S. Shepherd Dr., featuring — in the view from Sul Ross St. — a new mural. The building stands in the way of a new drive-thru building meant to add heft and balance to a new CVS Pharmacy going in at the corner of Shepherd and West Alabama St. Sunday was the last day of business at the shop.
- Fly High Little Bunny [Facebook]
- Previously on Swamplot: Sprawl Vortex at S. Shepherd and W. Alabama Will Turn Roeder’s Pub into Drive-Thru, Cat Clinic Houses into CVS; The Last Hours of That Shopping Center at S. Shepherd and W. Alabama, Where The New CVS Is Going In
Photo: Googlemaster
ATLANTA COMPANY UPGRADING ENERGY CORRIDOR, WOODFOREST APARTMENT COMPLEXES FROM COUNTRY TO CITY 
A note on the purchase of 2 Houston apartment complexes by Atlanta’s Radco Companies noted in this morning’s roundup of Headlines: Urbanization — in advance or in recognition of actual changes-on-the-ground — appears to be part of the plan. In taking over the properties from Fannie Mae, Radco has renamed the 122-unit Country Place apartments at 1015 Country Place Dr. in the Energy Corridor to City Terrace. And the 458-unit Saddle Ridge apartments (pictured here) at 12800 Woodforest Blvd. at the northern tip of Riviera East, east of Uvalde Rd., is shedding its rural shadings under new ownership as well: It’s new name is City Crossing Apartments. The company also plans to spend an average of $13,300 per unit in upgrades. [Real Estate Bisnow; more info] Photo: Radco Companies
Sources tell Swamplot that the River Oaks Baptist School is buying the building occupied by Walgreens at 3900 Westheimer Rd., at the southern end of the school’s campus on Willowick Rd. The school will reportedly use the 1.8-acre property vacated by the drug-store chain (and pictured above) for a “possible parking garage and secondary exit onto Westheimer.”
Walgreens won’t be leaving the Highland Village area, however. Workers are already transforming the former Fresh Market grocery store at 3745 Westheimer Rd. (pictured below) into a new Walgreens. It’s currently scheduled to open in March:
