COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT WENT WRONG IN RICE MILITARY AND THE WEST END “you get what you get. if the buyers of those units and the developers don’t have the initiative to deed restrict unit-divided rentals, it’s at their own fault. The city already dropped the ball by not having a minimum lot divisible in there originally. all of those 5000 sf cottages were not a realistic use of the land, but neither is 4 attached units on a common unregulated drive with gate, set to 20′ wide asphalt roads and no curbs/gutters. your comment that they will become slums is short-sided. i have a friend who lives in this type of housing in Boston, i assure you charlestown is both desirable and nice — his rent is $3.25 psf. forget that little white ghetto pocket you saw in ‘the town’ . . . this is the west end. always has been, always should be. shame on the city for not investing in infrastructure here, and shame on the buyer for not understanding the realities of paying $300,000 for attached unit housing with nobody taking ownership of a cooperative housing complex. really the developers leave that unchartered because the buyers are cheap, and they shy away from a house with an HOA. the assumption is the HOA has froth in it. so instead, they get a paved courtyard that runs into deferred maintenance issues and neighboring owners who say ‘piss off’ on everybody chipping in to fix it. if i owned one and was renting it to carpetbagging yankees, that would be my opinion and attitude.” [HTX REZ, commenting on Comment of the Day: What To Call the Greater West End]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Next month, reports Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon, construction’s supposed to start on 3 more segments of the Grand Parkway: That’s why F1, F2, and G on the map here are colored in that cautionary yellow. And where G ends? Not coincidentally, adds Dixon, at that future intersection with U.S. 59, planned to be completed by 2015, the 1400-acre master-planned Valley Ranch is getting ready to sprawl out.
What’s going on here? From behind a window across W. Dallas, a reader sends this photo and wants to know. According to a construction manager on site, the work to this point has involved utility excavation for what will be, he says, “Class A apartments.”
Why did Tejas Boots leave 208 Westheimer? Owner Mike Kuykendahl says that the family that owns the li’l strip center (above) that Tejas Boots shared with Hollywood Food & Cigars asked them to: The family gave the tenants 2 months to move, explaining that they’re considering upgrading the 4,100-sq.-ft. building, says Kuykendahl, or tearing it down and redeveloping that corner of Helen and Westheimer. Tejas Boots had been here since 1984; they’ve relocated just a few blocks west into the browner, newer retail strip stack shown at right at 415 Westheimer. It’s not much as signs go, but that faint horizontal smudge beneath the Green Park Pilates logo marks the spot where the bootmakers can now be found.
- When only the finest Custom Boots, Belts and Buckles will do [Tejas Custom Boots]
- Previously on Swamplot: Westheimer Bootmakers To Reopen Shop a Few Blocks West on Westheimer
Photos: Allyn West
Here’s a prediction from a reader about the fate of these apartments just inside the Loop at 4724 Oakshire Dr.: “It looks like another older apt. complex in/near Afton Oaks will probably soon be no more. At least, the building is being sold and all the residents just got a 45 day notice to move out (I don’t know for sure they’re tearing it down, but the odds are it will be). It’s a pity, because it’s a very well-made building (and, from what I’ve seen of some of the construction going up in the area, that’s not the case for a lot of the newer buildings).”
CITY COUNCIL TO DECIDE WHETHER DOWNTOWN HOTEL REDO WILL RECEIVE FEDERAL DOUGH 
Houston Politics’ Mike Morris is reporting that city council will vote today to decide whether it will loan Pearl Real Estate up to $7.4 million toward the $81 million renovation and redevelopment of the 22-story slipcovered 1910 Samuel F. Carter building at Rusk and 806 Main St. What does Pearl have in sight? A JW Marriott. (It’d be across the street from BG Group Place.) Last summer, explains Morris, the city applied for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development money that would be passed on to Pearl and ultimately paid back with interest — or that’s the idea, anyway. This kind of deal went off without a hitch in 1998, when the Rice Hotel paid back their $4.8 million right on time. But the city’s been kept waiting before: “In early 2005, it came to light that the Magnolia Hotel (which had gotten $9.5 million in 2002) and the Crowne Plaza (which had gotten $5 million in 2000) had never made a full payment to the city on their loans.” Though by 2012, Morris adds, those loans had been repaid. [Houston Politics; previously on Swamplot] Photo of 806 Main St.: Swamplot inbox
NEW CONVENTION CENTER HOTEL SEEMS A DONE DEAL 
Today, reports Prime Property’s Nancy Sarnoff, the city and developer Rida announced that an agreement has been reached and construction will begin soon on the 1000-room Downtown Marriott Marquis — the one with that Texas-shaped lazy river on the roof. A batch of renderings that Morris Architects released last year suggest that the hotel will replace what’s now a surface parking lot at Walker St. and Avenida de las Americas near Minute Maid Park, Discovery Green, and the George R. Brown Convention Center. Additionally, the Houston Business Journal’s Olivia Pusinelli Pulsinelli reports that much of the initial funding oomph for the development will come from Houston First, which will pay to acquire the property and to add a parking garage before transferring the holding to Rida. [Prime Property; Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Morris Architects
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE NEW DANGERS IN THE SECOND WARD “El Tiempo just opened down the street and is charging 6 bucks per shrimp on the a la carte menu. I’d worry more about that than a ‘stray bullet.'” [doofus, commenting on A Purple Pair by the Green Line in the East End]
NEIGHBORS GLAD TO SEE WESTBURY ‘EYESORE’ GO 
Appearing in the Daily Demolition Report a week ago, this house at 5822 Cartagena St. met its unmaker yesterday. Teevee reporter Erik Barajas reports that the 2,500-sq.-ft. Westbury home located between Hillcroft and Chimney Rock in Southwest Houston had allowed “drinkers and critters to roam free inside” and annoyed neighbors, who gathered to document the destruction with cell phones: “[I’m] really happy,” Becky Edmondson tells Barajas. “The home has been in disrepair for years. It was stalled in court with a tax sale. . . . [It had] rodents, it was open, it wasn’t secured, the roof was caving in. It was just really a bad eyesore.” Barajas adds that the property has sold and a new home is planned. [abc13; previously on Swamplot] Photo: abc13
NEW SHEPHERD DR. LITTLE WOODROW’S TO SERVE PUB FARE, TOO 
Beer after wine: Closed back in November, Block 7 at 720 South Shepherd Dr. is being replaced by Little Woodrow’s, reports Eater Houston’s Eric Sandler. Just south of the Washington Corridor in Rice Military Magnolia Grove and a block east from the about-to-open Katch 22 from Roger Clemens’s kid Kory, the new Shepherd spot, rep Nick Menage tells Sandler, will house no ordinary Woodrow’s: “In a twist, this location will have a full kitchen that will serve an updated mix of bar foods including burgers, nachos and pizzas from the old Block 7 oven. Menage assures fans of the bar’s popular steak nights that there are plans to maintain that tradition, too.” [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Block 7: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
First things first: A sign off Hwy. 6 welcoming you to Imperial Sugar Land is so far the only part of the 716-acre master-planned community that’s under construction, touts a press release from the end of March. Up next? Starting this summer, adds the press release, something like the spout-centered roundabout shown here and a 254-unit apartment complex will begin going up around the minor-league Skeeters’ Constellation Field in the so-called Ball Park District. Plans show that that district will be flanked by a mix of uses:
This relatively gritty Warehouse District warehouse appears to be the subject of some real estate speculation, reports Hair Balls’ Richard Connelly: A website for the Houston Studios building — home to a 10,000-sq.-ft. soundstage with a 30-ft. ceiling for video shoots, rehearsals, and other creative expressions — features renderings that show it as a cleaned-up commercial complex:
GRAND TEXAS THEME PARK: FILLING THE ASTROWORLD VOID 
And this overgrown crossroads in the middle of somewhere near U.S. 59 and FM 242 is expected to be part of the Grand Texas Theme Park. Investors are in place, and the land between New Caney and Splendora in Montgomery County should be closed on this May, developer Monty Galland tells Click2Houston, when construction on the $200 million project — advertised to feature high-noon cowboy shootouts and tractor rides — will begin. And why all the fuss? “If there was an Astroworld,” says Galland, “we probably wouldn’t have even pursued this development. . . . The great thing about it is that we have enough land that we can create a lot of the elements Astroworld had, and it doesn’t detract from the other areas of the park. We’re not going to compete with Disneyland. We want to create an entertainment value that’s similar to going to the movies or going bowling.” [Click2Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Grand Texas Theme Park, via Facebook
A reader sends this stitched-together panorama of the Heights bike trail spanning White Oak Bayou and wonders what’s going on with all the denuding: “This is kitty corner from where the proposed Emes Place condos will go. Mother nature swamped their work in the bayou with the recent rains. They appear to be taking revenge by bulldozing the nearby clump of forest. This is a larger piece of bird/homeless person sanctuary than the tract Emes Place is to be on, so I wonder what the story is. Harris County Flood Control comes by the site all the time, but I can’t find any mention of it on their website, or anywhere.”
- Previously on Swamplot: Comment of the Day: Who Dare Oppose, An End-Around at Emes Place, Viewpoint at the Heights: Back from the Dead?
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOOKING FOR THE HOTEL MONTROSE “Hotel Hotel Hotel. A hotel is long overdue for Montrose. Kimpton, Aloft, W or some other modern brand would be great. I am no developer, so I have no idea if it is doable but it would be welcome. It has the bones and imagine a hip hotel pool bar on that roof! I bring people into Houston who are considering moving here from the West Coast and Northeast. They want to live in an inner city hip walking area; Montrose generally. I don’t want them staying downtown where the streets are dead at night. The ZaZa is great but it is too far to walk to Westheimer. The Galleria has too much traffic. In the end though, I generally recommend the Derek or the ZaZa. If not here then a new build at the corner of Montrose and Westheimer. And what is the story about that lot on Westheimer near Dunlavy where it looks like construction started at one time? Hotel possibility? I am really really convinced that Montrose needs a hotel!” [charlie, commenting on What 3400 Montrose Looks Like Inside]