BREAKING UP WITH THE ART GUYS 
Will the newest installation at the Menil Collection be a hole in the ground? The Art Guys were told last week that the museum intends to remove the live oak they “married” in 2009 in “The Art Guys Marry a Plant,” a public ceremony at the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden at the MFA,H. The museum acquired the tree in 2011 and held another public ceremony when it was planted in Menil Park on Branard St.; the little site (shown at right) backs up to the bamboo grove walling off the park from the Rothko Chapel and Barnett Newman’s “Broken Obelisk.” [Houston Press] Photo: Robert Boyd
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Last year, the Urban Land Institute Houston gave one of its Development of Distinction Awards to Gulfgate (shown here). Near Telephone Rd., one of the city’s first malls was upgraded to an outdoor strip center with a few restaurants and many links of chain retail: Old Navy, Staples, Ross, Best Buy. (The other 2012 “for-profit” award went to a fancier version of the same: CityCentre.) Typically, a jury selects the winners; but this year the ULI has introduced a new People’s Choice category. Now you can vote for all your favorite developments, such as . . .
Welcome to the new Houston Club: this rendering shows Gensler’s renovation plans for the lobby near the top of the 50-story One Shell Plaza, where the city’s oldest social club is merging with the not-as-old Plaza Club and moving in. Since 1955, the club met at 811 Rusk (shown at right); but Skansksa bought the 18-story building last year, hastening the move. Swamplot reported in early January that much of 811 Rusk’s contents are being auctioned off tomorrow — the less club members will have to drag up 49 floors to their new fancy digs:
A January newsletter from The Southampton Civic Club informs members that Hanover, building the mixed-use midrise pictured above, has purchased additional property on Morningside in Rice Village “just north” of the current construction site. The newsletter states that Hanover is planning to begin Phase II: a 12-story, 200-unit residential building with no retail. The newsletter’s language suggests that the property is bound by Morningside, Tangley, Dunstan, and Kelvin; that’s where the Village Commons, the Tangley Building, the Village Apartments, and Garden Gate are — at least for now.
Stoked by the success of the Lee and Joe Jamail Skate Park on Sabine St., the City of Houston earlier this week broke ground that’ll soon be smoothed over by 72,000 sq. ft. of concrete; the 10-acre Spring Recreational Area in Greenspoint will feature what’s being billed as the largest skate park in the U.S.
Something like the rendering above is planned for the site on Kuykendahl, just west of I-45 and north of Beltway 8. It’s projected to cost $5.5 million. That cost includes the construction of “speed hips” and “flow bowls” and “a couple of backyard-style pools,” the Greenspoint District says — things any park worth its vert ramps needs to attract national competitions.
Skateboarders will share the acreage with Dylan’s Park, a “Park Without Limits” that will include equipment and implements designed for children with disabilities. Greenspoint District says the designs are done; the whole thing’s going to be ready in Spring 2014.
- New Park Complex Coming to Greenspoint [Greenspoint District]
- Previously on Swamplot: Headlines: 290 Redo Speeding Up; Greenspoint Lands Skate Park
Rendering: Greenspoint District
ONE FINAL FIESTA FIESTA 
It’s adios for the 60-year-old Heights market — Bridgewood Properties is building a 4-story senior-living complex in its place — but there will be one more flicker before the lights go out: Bridgewood President Jim Gray tells the Leader he pushed back the start of construction “so that the Houston Heights Association could hold its annual Candlelight Dinner & Auction … the Heights’ premier social function.” Gray adds: “It seemed like the right thing to do.” [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
This drawing shows the proposed replat of a 3.5-acre lot in the Heights. It appears that Dallas-based Trammell Crow is planning to build apartments on the property bound by Allston, Yale, 6th, and 7th, about half a mile from I-10. Terra Associates, identified on City of Houston paperwork as the replatting applicant, tells Swamplot that the development will be 4 stories of apartments atop 2 levels of parking, one of which will be underground. There are no plans for retail. Seventh St. dead-ends here; the Heights hike and bike trail runs past the lot on the north. The replat is slated to be presented at a public hearing on Jan. 17.
Images: Swamplot inbox
Doug Britton thought he had the deal of a lifetime: a contract to buy 101 acres of land (in red on the map) just south of the spot in Spring where — it was rumored at the time — ExxonMobil planned to develop a new corporate campus. And it was available for cheap: just $5 million. Britton contacted two brokers at Bandier Partners to help him move on it.
Animal bones, mirror shards, scrap lumber destined for a landfill: Dan Phillips builds houses up in Walker County out of almost anything he can get his hands on. The former Sam Houston State dance instructor finished this one, known as the Charleston House, in 2004. It’s got a hallway floor composed of corks (at right) and a fence (above) detailed with the wine bottles from which those corks very well might have been popped. Phillips’s organization Phoenix Commotion tells Swamplot that he likes to sell to low-income families and hungry, if not starving, artists, who often help build the houses themselves. But the Charleston House is one that’s changed hands a few times. Now it’s ended up on the “regular market.” The 935-sq.-ft. 3-bedroom at 912 University was originally listed last fall at $899,900. Then it came down a bit to a rather more sober $89,900.
Photos: HAR
Downtown has been missing out, RIDA President Ira Mitzner tells Bisnow: “A CVB study found we lost 630,000 room nights from conventions” between 2008 and 2012 because of a “lack of activity” around the George R. Brown Convention Center — Â the largest in Texas, says Mitzner, but only the fourth-most booked. Swamplot reported in December that RIDA worked with Morris Architects to develop a 30-story, 1,000-room Marriott Marquis — you might remember the rendering of a Texas-shaped lazy river on the roof. And other developments are coming. Houston First COO Peter McStravick lays them out to Bisnow step by step:
1 is the Marriott Marquis. 2 is owned by HISD and will be a high school for visual and performing arts, and the western half of block 3 may become a limited-service hotel. 4 is Houston First’s tract (1.5 blocks) and 5 is the site of the new [1,800-space parking] garage. 6 will house the Nau Center for Texas Cultural Heritage, and 7 (two blocks) will be the Finger 8-story tower.
Houston First wants that tract to become apartments and retail; the Finger tower of apartments and retail is planned for the same site where the Ben Milam Hotel stood until it went crumbling down in a cloud of glory in early December.
- Convention District Makeover [Bisnow]
- Morris Architects unveils downtown convention center hotel design features [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: A Texas Island on the Next Convention Center Hotel
Map: Bisnow
Long a fixture on White Oak in the Heights, the Blue Line Bike Lab has opened a second location in the East End. In early November, the repair shop and retailer moved into a suite that had been gutted for a CrossFit gym at 740 Telephone Rd. in the Tlaquepaque Market, a little more than a mile from U of H. The shopping center, bound on the east by Lockwood and on the west by Dumble, might not be the most obvious location for pedal-pushing hipsters looking for a fixie: next door, as the photo above shows, is Space City Hearing Aids. But Bohemeo’s is just a few doors down and Thai restaurant Kanomwan is tucked in there somewhere, as well. And the East End has had two railroad right-of-ways transformed into hike and bike trails. Paul Dale, one of the lab’s resident gearheads, says, “We’re betting on the neighborhood.”
- How to find us [Blue Line Bike Lab]
- Hike and Bike Trails [City of Houston]
Photos: Allyn West
St. John’s School has purchased 13 acres of land, expanding its 29-acre campus in River Oaks. Headmaster Mark Desjardins tells the Houston Chronicle that the school on Westheimer won’t be developing the new acreage right away and hasn’t decided what will become of the businesses already there at the intersection of W. Alabama and Buffalo Speedway. Those include a fortune teller, the River Oaks Plant House, known for its oversized topiary-like Chia pets (dancing at left), and Blanco’s Bar & Grill, sitting there in a dusty parking lot as though it’s on a far-flung farm road and not right across the street from the 23-story Lamar Tower. (It’s hiding behind the Blanco’s sign in the photo above.)
- Exclusive private school buys River Oaks-area land [Houston Chronicle ($)]
KICK A BUILDING IN MEMORIAM Former New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable liked Houston. In 1976, she called it “the city of the second half of the twentieth century.†It’s the first half of the twenty-first century now. Houston’s status is no more cemented than it was then, but Huxtable’s is. She passed away yesterday at her home in Manhattan, at the age of 91. [New York Times]
It might not be sporting an engine — and KHOU reported yesterday that the vertically parked car’s Fiberglas shell weighs in at just 350 lbs. — but at least the headlights work. Similar Mini Coopers have popped up before on billboards and storefronts, especially in Europe, but a rep from design and interiors store Internum told auto blog Jalopnik yesterday that the Mini on their Kirby wall is “the first example of a Mini-on-building ad in the U.S.” It’s also the first to have been given a special citation by the city.
What’s this? Near the intersection of W. Gray and Milam, a for-sale sign has popped up on the Central Square Plaza buildings on a 1-acre lot in Midtown. We’re hoping to get more details soon. The fate of the 12- and 14-story offices and parking garage at 2100 Travis has been tied up in court for years; Swamplot reported last summer that owner Alfred J. Antonini won a skirmish in a ongoing battle against the city, which had in 2011 ordered him to make “a bunch of repairs” to the buildings, vacant now for a real long time.
- Previously on Swamplot: City Loses Skirmish in Battle To Repair Central Square
Photo: Swamplot inbox (sign); LoopNet
