Here’s a concept that HKS came up with for a site just behind the Hotel Granduca, Montebello, and Villa d’Este towers in Uptown Park. The concept shows how it might go if you wanted to build a conference center and a combo hotel-condo tower on 14 green acres between Tilbury and N. Wynden off S. Post Oak, just west of the Loop. This rendering shows the boxy exterior of what appears to be the conference center flanking a linear park shooting off from the banks of Buffalo Bayou.
Board members of Houston Botanic Garden, a nonprofit formed in 2002 that’s been looking to bring a big-time garden to the city ever since, have had their eyes on several properties, including the KBR site in the Fifth Ward. But it’s the 150 acres home to the 18-hole Gus Wortham Golf Course — the oldest in Texas — that they are after now. The course, which includes a driving range, is owned by the city, and Jeff Ross, president of the garden club, explains that the organization hopes to ink a “long-term lease” that would allow it to “repurpose the property,” much like the 55-acre VanDusen Botanical Garden had done with the old Shaughnessy Golf Club in Vancouver. Ross explains that this repurposing could mean reserving as many as 65 acres for a 9-hole course — which could be built from scratch or involve a kind of rejiggering of the existing holes — and setting up the gardens on the remaining 85-90 relatively hilly acres that roll here toward Brays Bayou.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT’S THE SCOOP ON EASTWOOD? 
“I’m new to the site and researching Eastwood. Considering buying a lot or tear down and building. Currently own/live in a wonderful townhouse in Montrose, but have a growing family and we’re outgrowing a townhouse and can’t afford to buy what we need in Montrose. So, we’re looking in Eastwood, Third Ward, and other close-in neighborhoods that are more affordable. Anyone have suggestions on the ‘best’ residential streets/blocks in Eastwood? We’ve driven around a lot but I haven’t committed the streets to memory — there are a few with a median that are gorgeous and walkable with a stroller. Any info will help! Oh, and what about Idylwood as a place to live with a young family?” [Htown Convert, commenting on A Bayou-View Property Rises in Idylwood] Illustration: Lulu
A STRAIGHT-UP SAM’S CLUB SWAP IN WEST HOUSTON 
Tomorrow, one big old Sam’s Club will be closing and another new one opening, reports the Houston Business Journal: The store on Hwy. 6 and the Katy Fwy. near the Addicks Reservoir will turn out the lights after 20 years, and the new 136,000-sq.-ft. store will begin its run at 13331 Westheimer near Eldridge Pkwy. [Houston Business Journal] Photo: Ben Huynh
DOWNTOWN BURGER GUYS CLOSES DOWN 
There’s one fewer restaurant along the light rail line: Culturemap reports that the Burger Guys spot at 706 Main St., on the ground floor of the Great Jones Building at the intersection of Main and Capitol, closed on Friday. Owner Jake Mazzu seems to believe that this particular address might be the victim of some bad karma: “[Mazzu] notes that the location . . . has housed ‘four restaurants in seven years.’ Asked if he believes in cursed locations, Mazzu says ‘completely, now. Never would have before.'” [Culturemap] Photo: H-Town in Pics
THE COVERED-UP HISTORY IN THE FORT BEND COUNTY COURTHOUSE BASEMENT 
Renovations to restore as much as possible of the 1908 Fort Bend County courthouse, standing at 500 Jackson St. in Richmond, have revealed a couple of surprises from the building’s past, reports the Sugar Land Sun: “Beneath the building’s carpeting was finely-made Italian Terrazzo flooring, dating back to the courthouse’s original construction. . . . While installing the building’s electrical system and sump pump in its basement, a walled-up room with glazed tile was uncovered. [Director of Facilities Management Don] Brady said the hidden room is likely a segregation-era restroom for African-Americans.” [Sugar Land Sun] Photo: Terry Jeanson
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WITH OR WITHOUT LIGHT RAIL 
“I would dispute that the light rail has had any substantive quantitative impact on Houston’s development patterns, except to shuffle around the placement of some developments within a distance of several blocks. (That is to say, for instance, that downtown was destined to pick up a few big highrises over the last decade, but perhaps they were closer to Main rather than Allen Center.)
A lot of people forget that the re-gentrification of the Heights took place over a span of decades — without light rail. The gentrification of 3rd Ward, the East End, and the Near Northside has been ongoing for a shorter period of time, and these neighborhoods simply aren’t as well-located as Rice Military — which also transformed without light rail. I would suggest that these neighborhoods are all destined for gentrification, that it will happen slowly because we’re talking about a huge geographic area — and that it would’ve happened with or without light rail, just as with other neighborhoods.
I might be swayed if it were the case that some meaningful number of people move to Houston because it has light rail, but aside from some extremely narrow subset of people, that strikes me as bullshit. It’s not an effective economic development tool, and certainly not without zoning (which I also oppose).” [TheNiche, commenting on A First Look at the Strip Center-and-Apartments Combo That Could Go Up Between UH and TSU] Illustration: Lulu
Now have at it: SmartGeometrics has made available for free on a website launched yesterday the data from 3D scans of the allegedly leaky, 87,500-sq.-ft. 1927 underground water reservoir near Sabine St. along Buffalo Bayou. Though the Buffalo Bayou Partnership would like to do something cool with the “accidental cathedral,” as Houston Chronicle columnist and cistern sympathizer Lisa Gray has called it, there’s no more funding available. Thus, the partnership is hoping some smart cookie who knows her way around AutoCAD (and programs like it) will use this free data to come up with an idea that woos someone or something else — like, say, Bud Light — to pay to make it happen.
Image: Buffalo Bayou Park
BUILDING TRIVIA IN THE WOODLANDS 
Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports a remarkable factoid about this 6-story, 154,213-sq.-ft office building that Stream Realty started construction on in August at 1585 Sawdust Rd. in the The Woodlands: When it’s done, writes Dixon, the so-called Reserve at Sierra Pines II, which is being built with 30-ft. panels swung into place by 300-ton cranes, will be the tallest tilt-wall building in Texas. [Real Estate Bisnow; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Stream Realty Partners
Part of the so-called “New Dome Experience” devised by the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. proposes that the space-age icon be slimmed down — and, if this new promo video is any indication, that means more than just removing ramps and staircases from the stadium’s unwashed exterior, but also chopping its name in half. You’ll see in this new commercial, produced by the recently formed committee to persuade voters in advance of this November’s this-or-nothing bond election, that the Astrodome is referred to throughout solely as “the Dome,” whether it’s hosting technology conferences, Ferris wheel demonstrations, or generic swimming championships.
Video: TheNewDomePAC
Last week, the city and the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to build almost 14 new miles of hike and bike trail — from I-45 to west of 288 — along Sims Bayou. The project, construction for which could begin as early as November, will cost about $7 million, and it will connect 7 city parks: Reveille Park, Stuart Park, Law Park, Sims Bayou Park, the County’s Hill at Sims Park, Scottcrest Park, and Townwood Park.
The first stretch to be built will be a 10-ft.-wide 3.1-mile span from I-45 to Stuart Park on Bellfort, just a few miles from Hobby Airport. Also included in the trail construction? The usual swag: Picnic tables and pavilions, benches, drinking fountains, lighting, and parking lots.
Photo of Sims Bayou: Allyn West
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN IT RAINS, IT’S RECOUPED 
“I live close to Buffalo Bayou. I lost two cars during a heavy rain in 2009. The water came up too fast to save the cars. By the time I found out they were flooding they were in a couple feet of snake infested water. The insurance company paid up right away and didn’t raise my rates. These people should have no problem if they have insurance.” [jgriff, commenting on Headlines: Putting the Creek in Cross Creek Ranch; Flooding the Omni Hotel Parking Lot] Illustration: Lulu
DITCH REPAIRS, BRIDGE REPLACEMENT TO CLOSE STRETCH OF SAN FELIPE FOR NEXT 2 WEEKS 
San Felipe St. near Mid Ln. and the Loop is going to be out of commission for about 2 weeks, according to the Harris County Flood Control District: After tonight’s rush hour subsides, workers will move in to remove concrete from the sides of the eroding and underperforming drainage ditch, shown here, and install closed culverts. And that means the 50-year-old bridge on San Felipe will need to be demolished and replaced. The area to be closed is near the new Liberty Kitchen spot and the luxury apartments under construction on Briar Hollow Ln. [HCFCD; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HCFCD
GOOD FIRST WARD COFFEE SHOPS ARE HARD TO FIND 
Houstonia Magazine’s Nick Panzarella likes what he sees — er, drinks at Paper Co., a reincarnation of Taft Street Coffee that’s moved in behind that Marfreless-like blue door at the Ecclesia Church on Elder St. But this door — though just around the corner from the artist lofts at the old Jefferson Davis Hospital, it opens up to a permashaded no person’s land beneath I-45 — seems to give Panzarella some pause: “Its location, being tucked into a dead end on the edge of the First Ward, is its largest drawback.” [Houstonia Magazine; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
Here’s a plan that looks to plug in to Metro’s still-under-construction Southeast Line and redo about 8 blocks along Scott St. in the Third Ward between UH and TSU. Though the plan, drawn up by LAI Design Group and dubbed “University Place Redevelopment,” is provisional, it appears to have in mind something like what the rendering above shows: A reshaped streetscape on Scott St. that would combine apartments, restaurants, shops, offices, and community buildings.
The first phase appears to call for a strip center facing Scott between Holman and Reeves, with 289 1- and 2-bedroom apartments and a parking garage in the rear:
