Christine Gerbode

4 Comments

Houston Map of risk management plan facilities from UCS/tejas

The little and not-so-little red dots on the map above show off sites on the EPA’s list of plants and refineries required to have a Risk Management Plan due to their potential for accidental hazardous chemical releases — with the larger dots showing the places that have already had an accident (or, in some cases, as many as 43). Clicking each dot will tell you what the facility’s name is, as well as how much toxic or flammable material it stores on site (to the nearest thousand pounds or so).

The Union of Concerned Scientists and t.e.j.a.s. put together the interactive map as part of a report released late last week, which compares the EPA’s data on air quality and cancer rates in a few neighborhoods on the west side of town (specifically in Bellaire and in the West Oaks and Eldridge area, just inside Hwy.6 near the Barker reservoir) with the same data in a couple of east side spots (Galena Park and Manchester).

Sniffing It Out

Bellaire, Chemical Facilities, Galena Park, Industrial Accidents, Manchester, Maps, Pollution, Refineries, West Oaks

Homes for Sale

10/28/16 5:45pm

Magnolia Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Prairie Home Companion

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33029 Wright Rd., Magnolia, TX 77355

33029 Wright Rd. [HAR]

77355, Animals, Home Listings, Homes for Sale, Magnolia

Hermann Park

10/28/16 5:30pm

Grassy Knolls, Children’s Swamp Part of Possible Hermann Park Parking Coverup

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GRASSY KNOLLS, CHILDREN’S SWAMP PART OF POSSIBLE HERMANN PARK PARKING COVERUP Existing Hermann Park Map This week landscape architect Michael Van ValkenburghÂ has been discussingÂ some of his firm’s preliminary designsÂ for the next 20-year master plan for Hermann Park, writes Molly Glentzer this afternoon — including the possibility of turning the park’s central parking area,Â between Miller Outdoor Theatre and the Houston Zoo, into “a place where children could scamper up a knoll to a creature forest, swings and a marsh,” with parking spaces underneath. Van Valkenburgh says that a few hundredÂ of the 1,300 spaces in the main lotsÂ may also be moved to the corner of MacGregor and Cambridge streets, and would also be covered over by ecological and built attractions. Glentzer writes that “along with the forest and marsh, the preliminary drawings for the central knoll include a sensory maze, a desert ruin and a slide bluff. The smaller knoll would have a water play dell.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Map of existing Hermann Park layout: Hermann Park Conservancy

77005, Hermann Park, Landscape, Parking-Garages, Proposed Developments

Downtown

10/28/16 3:30pm

A Preview of Lyric Centre’s Non-Faux Retail Parking Garage Plans

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Lyric Center garage site, 440 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

lyric-centre-cellist-sculpture A few readers note that work is underway on the site of the newÂ parking garage planned next to music-themed office highrise Lyric Centre at the corner of Louisiana and Preston streets (catty-corner from Market Square Tower’s newly-filled sky-high resident display tank).Â The top photo above shows the crews digging around on the former surface parking lot as of yesterday afternoon; the city issued a permit for work on the building-to-be’s exterior shell earlier this month. Â A glass-skinned design forÂ the structureÂ can be seen in the rendering above, which peers at the site from the north along Smith St., looking past the skybridge between the Wortham Theater and the Houston Ballet’s Center for Dance. The drawing showsÂ folks making use of the ground floor of the structure, which is intended to house retail (in contrast toÂ the garage going up a few blocks north at Milam and Franklin streets, which is intended to look like it could house retail).

The floorplan included with the listing for that 41,000 sq. ft. of space shows a ramp for the garage hitting Smith St.:

Sowing Downtown Parking Space

77002, Downtown, Mixed-Use Developments, Office Buildings, Parking-Garages

10/28/16 12:45pm

Leafy Galleria Shake Shack Spot To Open Next Friday, Serve Other Houston Restaurants’ Food

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Rendering of Shake Shack Houston, 5015 Westheimer Rd., Uptown, Houston, 77056

The first Houston Shake Shack will beÂ opening on November 4th nearÂ the mall’s new parking lot jewel boxÂ pad site, a rep for the New York burger chain announced this morning. On the menu, on top of the usual fare: a handful of concretes made withÂ donuts from Morningstar on N. Main, Houston roasterÂ Greenway Coffee‘s coffee, and baked goods from Fluff Bake Bar on the western edge of Midtown. On the exterior: aÂ living moss wallÂ created by Austin-based Articulture Designs, as seen in the rendering released back inÂ January. The firm designed a plant-coveredÂ wall for the Shake Shack that opened in Austin last year as well — here’s a shot of howÂ that one turned out,Â with an accompanying succulent planter out front:

Side of Greens

Galleria Mall, Landscaping, Openings and Closings, Plants, Restaurants

Near Northside

10/28/16 10:15am

White Oak Music Hall Truce: Rebuild Temporary Stage Temporarily, Go Permanent in February

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WHITE OAK MUSIC HALL TRUCE: REBUILD TEMPORARY STAGE TEMPORARILY, GO PERMANENT IN FEBRUARY Rendering of White Oak Music Hall, 2915 N. Main, Houston, 77009 The city and the developers of White Oak Music Hall have hammered out an agreement over the outdoor stage situation, reports Erin Mulvaney: the temporary stage can come back up for the shows that have already been booked, and stay up through February. Then the freshly-permitted permanent stage will start goingÂ up — and a bunch of other conditions will have to be met, as detailed inÂ a letter from the cityÂ to W2 partner Will Garwood on Wednesday. On the list: the construction of “38Â bathrooms and 9 lavatories” (also permanent), and the use of a sound monitor at all outdoor events, which (other than next Wednesday’s planned outdoor Pet Shop Boys concert) will have to be on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of original outdoor stage plans:Â White Oak Music Hall

77009, Building Permits, Music venues, N. Main, Near Northside, White Oak Music Hall

Braeswood Place

10/27/16 4:45pm

Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Slideproof

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3622 Glen Haven Blvd.

77025, Braeswood Place, Home Listings, Homes for Sale, Staircases

10/27/16 3:30pm

Living Room Pools and Other Places To Swim in a $4.5 Million Hunters Creek 80’s Mod Mansion

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214 Voss Rd., Hunters Creek, TX 77024

The 5Â master suites in this 6-bedroom home in Hunters Creek Village are tucked out of sight ofÂ the pool-surveying viewpoint above, onÂ the second of 4 floors (plus or minus some splitting of levels). The listing for the 1980 home popped up yesterday sporting a $4.496-million asking price and no exterior photographs of the13,963-sq.-ft. structure, which sits on 1.3 acres of well-treed lot backed up against the Houston Racquet Club’s land to the east.

The downstairs wet bar is within easy striking range of the hot tub partitioned away from the main pool:

High But Not Dry

77024, Home Listings, Homes for Sale, Hunters Creek Village, Modern Architecture, Pools

Buffalo Bayou Park

10/27/16 1:45pm

Sedated Allen Pkwy. Double-Crossed by Crosswalk to New Buffalo Bayou Park Parking

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Crossing at Gillette St. and Allen Pkwy., Fourth Ward, Houston, 77019

Courtesy of a stripe-skeptical reader, here’s a partial walkthrough tour of the new parking scheme along Allen Pkwy. west of Downtown — these days looking a lot more like the flyover videosÂ releasedÂ of the planned changes last year. Those changes, including a lower speed limit for the rest of the roadway and and some strategic tree deployment, are intended to make the pseudo-highway into a “more urban environment” and to slow traffic down toÂ next-to-a-park speeds.Â Also included in the deal: a series of crosswalks, like the over-then-over-again setup now striped into place at Gillette St. (seen above posing with the Federal Reserve Bank building, with the former city garbage incinerator site out of the frame to the left).

The new setupÂ divvies up much of the turf formerly occupied by Allen Pkwy.’s westbound traffic lane into angled spaces — some almost long enough to “put 2Â normal sized cars in each spot,” the reader claims:

Stripe Scrutiny

77019, Buffalo Bayou Park, Parking, Speed Limits, Urban Planning

10/27/16 11:00am

Black Page Brewing in the Works Upstream from White Oak Music Hall’s Outdoor Stage Scramble

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210 Glen Park St., Near Northside, Houston, 77009

A few twists and turns up Little White Oak Bayou from N. Main St. and the White Oak Music Hall complex, work is underway on a bayou-side brewery on another piece of land owned by W2 development (and going by the name Black Page Brewing Co.) The city issuedÂ a few more permits for the brewpubÂ this week (fast on the heels of the permit issued Tuesday for the music venue’sÂ permanent outdoor stage — a few days after construction allegedly got rolling, though not quite in time for tonight’s planned outdoor The Head and The Heart concert). Owner Anthony Heins tells Swamplot the pub is just leasing the land from W2, which country records show bought the property in April of last year. And builder KUEHN Inc. has been snapping photos of progress at the former warehouse, which sits near the stretch of waterway where an area resident took those videos ofÂ chainsaw aftermath back in May; that area is down beyond the orange fencing below on the left:

Near Northside Neighbors

77009, Adaptive Reuse, Bars, Bayous and Waterways, Breweries, Food Trucks, Near Northside, Redevelopment

Homes for Sale

10/26/16 5:30pm

Spring Home Listing Photo of the Day: Hang On

2 Comments

24207 Lone Elm Dr., Spring, TX 77373

24207 Lone Elm Dr.Â [HAR]

77373, Home Gyms, Home Listings, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Paint Colors, Spring

10/26/16 4:30pm

Now On View: Inversion House Duo’s Latest Work in Copper Foil and Doomed Sharpstown Bungalow

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'Sharp' by Havel Ruck Projects, 6822 Rowan Ln., Sharpstown, Houston, 77074

The now-glimmering interior of theÂ former house at 6822 Rowan Ln. in Sharpstown is open to the public as of this weekend, and will be for the next 2 months — up until the scheduled demolition of the heavily fire-damaged 3-bedroom structure. Demolition artists Dan Havel and DeanÂ Ruck (who these days sign their work as Havel Ruck Projects) recently converted theÂ condemned building into another tunnel-through-the-living-room-style temporary art piece, though with much sharper lines than their previous Inversion House. Last Saturday’s opening reception for the newÂ place (which is actually called Sharp) is part of theÂ October-November-straddling Sculpture Month Houston campaign (which is setting upÂ promotional events forÂ other art installations around townÂ through November 19, if you’re interested).

The pentagonal hole in the front of the structure matches the outline of the knocked-out front windows, as seen in these pre-conversion-but-post-fireÂ listing photos of the demo-bound house:

Condemned Open House

77074, Art, Demolitions, Sharpstown

Downtown

10/26/16 1:30pm

Fake Storefronts Help Downtown Parking Garage Get City’s Historical OK

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Crews are digging in at the northeast corner of Milam and Franklin streets, a reader notes, where a 10-story parking garage is planned. The rendering up top (labeled as Powers & Brown’s) made a recent appearance at a city historical and archaeological commission meeting,Â following several months of deferrals and redesigns — including the addition of some ground-floor canopies and simulated window frames (which will have no glass “for flood reasons”). The application says the features are meant help the structure blend in with the surrounding buildings in the Main Street Market Square Historical District, including the Magnolia Ballroom across Milam, the Cotton Exchange building across Franklin at Travis St., and the Bayou Lofts building one block to the east.

Here’s the garage design originally submitted back in June:

77002, Downtown, HAHC, Historical Preservation, Main Street Market Square Historical District, Parking-Garages

Ground Floor Faux Retail

10/26/16 11:30am

Tiny Hills Now Rolling in Levy Park’s Triangular Dog Park in Upper Kirby

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Nestled inÂ near theÂ Seuss-ical spirals and curves of Levy Park’s under-construction pathways and playgrounds is theÂ lumpy triangular dog-park-to-be above, now partitionedÂ off byÂ its metal rod setup (seen here facing northwest up Eastside St. toward the corner with Richmond Ave.) Â A reader trekked around the site yesterday and snapped some updates; first, here’s how the dog park fits into the most recent set ofÂ plans for the site: