B TEAM WANTS TO SEND THE GRAND PARKWAY WHERE THEY WEREN’T ALLOWED TO GO 
July 11th is the last day to make on-the-record comments about the route the Grand Parkway planners want to take from 288 to I-45 (known as Segment B of the 170-mile outer-outer loop). The finalized study documents published last week mention that proposed right-of-way runs across about 55 acres of wetlands — though that number isn’t precise: the document also mentions that the study authors couldn’t get permission to enter properties along 70 percent of the route, so the group had to use aerial photos to estimate. TxDOT’s desired route appears to hook in with SH288 at the intersection of CR 60 and follow the Brunner Ditch and South Texas Water Company canals southwest most of the way to SH35; from there it would swing back northeast just past Alvin, then eastward to hit I-45 where FM 646 does. [Previously on Swamplot]
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: A FINAL DESPERATE CRY FOR DEMOLITION PARITY IN THE HEIGHTS 
“The smashing has begun! Heavy machinery is on site, and the bricks are crumbling down. Where are the Friends of Heights Fiesta? Aren’t these bricks special enough to be saved???” [North Heights, commenting on Former Fiesta Site Preps for Teardown as Heights Dry Zone Petitioners Circle] Photo of demolition at 2300 N. Shepherd: Steven Byrne
Another effect of the Memorial Day weekend and early June floods: the EPA says it has had to pause some of its latest study efforts near the 1960s industrial waste pits in the San Jacinto river (shown at the top looking a bit more submerged than usual on May 31, facing north from the I-10 bridge). New rounds of sample-taking were triggered by the discovery in December that the Superfund site’s armored cap (which is made of special tarp material held down by a layer of rocks) had a 25-ft.-long hole where the rocks were missing. The EPA also notes that the damage was found within an area of the cap where no tarp was actually initially placed, in light of concerns that the rocks would slide off of it.Â
Hobbyist demolition spotter Steven Byrne sends portraits of the end of the former Fiesta Mart at the corner of N. Shepherd and W. 23rd St. Byrne snapped these shots of the teardown action yesterday afternoon (right after the structure’s demo permit was issued), though there’s plenty more building left to rip apart today. The excavators at the site appear to belong to Cherry Demolition, which recently wrapped up the sometimes-slow sometimes-unsettlingly-fast takedown of the Corporate Plaza complex at Kirby Dr. and 59.
The Fiesta opened in the space in the mid-1970s and shut down in March. Here’s a few more closeups of the scene for further grocery-minded contemplation:
- 4206 Wiley Rd. [HAR]
Remember that home that was being built in Rivercrest for twice-former Rocket Mike James when he got traded away (the second time) back in 2008? The one that looked uncannily like the Royal Oaks home of Juwon Howard, for whom the Timberwolves swapped James back down to Houston? The pricetag on the 11,384-sq.-ft. home, with full-size regulation basketball court included, is set at $6 million as of the property’s late-May reemergence onto the market. The house was listed at just under $7.5 million back in September 2014 (after reportedly being shopped around for $8 million previously) and was pulled in December of last year following a half-million drop.Â
The new listing mentions hydrotherapy immersion tanks, a putting green, and the pool below:
GROUP FORMS TO CLEAN UP THE UPPER SAN JACINTO BEFORE IT GETS AS BAD AS BRAYS, BUFFALO, SIMS BAYOUS 
The West Fork of the San Jacinto River (implicated in much of the latest flooding between The Woodlands and Conroe) is in a bacterial “sweet spot”, environmental planner Justin Bower tells Matthew Tresaugue in the Houston Chronicle this week  — more contaminated than is acceptable, Bower says, “but not so much that we can’t do anything about it.” Tresaugue writes that E. coli levels have been trending upward since 2002, in some cases running as high as 10,000 colonies per 100 milliters of water (around 80 times higher than the 126-colony limit recommended by the state of Texas). The river’s water quality problems are multifaceted, but generally boil down to increased development in the watershed causing increased runoff that carries more junk — from human and animals waste to sediment from a nearby gravel mining operation — into the river and ultimately the Lake Houston reservoir (from which the city pulls drinking water). The newly formed West Fork Watershed Partnership has no definite plan yet (other than to work with area stakeholders to develop a plan). But Lisa Gonzalez (VP of the Houston Area Research Council) notes to Tresaugue that not doing anything could allow the West Fork’s water problems to get as bad as those of other major urban waterways in Houston. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of West Fork of the San Jacinto: West Fork Watershed Partnership
HEIGHTS DRY ZONE SIGNATURE GATHERERS RETURN FROM THE HUNT VICTORIOUS 
Reports comes from both NextDoor and The Heights Life blog that the H-E-B-backed Houston Heights Beverage Coalition has collected the signatures it needs to trigger a local election over legalizing carry-out beer and wine sales in the Heights dry zone. The petition was officially issued in mid-May, at which point the 60-day collection clock started ticking; the group claimed they needed 1,500 signatures to meet the required threshold of 35 percent of the population living in the zone. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of TABC regional headquarters at 427 W. 20th St.: LoopNet
The west wall has been breached at 3615 Montrose Blvd., where Riverway had previously planned to break ground on a Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Glass House-themed condo midrise this spring. The 130-ft. sign (per a city inspector’s disapproving measurement) advertising the most recent condominium project planned for the corner at Marshall St. has been blacked out for about a month, according to a reader surveying the empty corner lot from above.
The comparatively tiny sales center sign is missing altogether; the same round of March inspection ticketing asked for it to be removed from the property. Also gone: HAR’s sales listings for the building’s individual units, which the site indicates were also removed around the end of April and the beginning of May.
- 67 Heritage Hill Cir. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE PROOF IS IN THE PERMITTING 
“You don’t need to read a university study to know the Houston housing market is going through a downturn. You don’t even have to look at HAR. To gauge the health of the Houston real estate market, you only have to look at the Daily Demolition Report: only 2 residential permits today; only 1 yesterday. Crisis!” [Angostura, commenting on Move-In Day Approaches for New Phillips 66 HQ; Montrose’s Crowded Mexican Restaurant Scene] Illustration: Lulu
The management at 717 Louisiana St. has sent out word to tenants that the tunnel segment beneath the vacated downtown Houston Chronicle building is now open again, even though the newspaper’s former headquarters at 801 Texas Ave. are still standing on top of it. Documents filed with the Harris County district clerk’s office show that Hines agreed to hold off on the demo for a while, after Linbeck’s Theater Square group filed a lawsuit to stop them.
The walls and roof of the former Walgreen’s at 3900 Westheimer Rd. are now being teased apart into the tangle above, following the issuance last week of a demolition permit for the 1975 structure. River Oaks Baptist School bought the property in April of last year, around the time Walgreen’s jumped eastward across the intersection of Westheimer and Weslayan/Willowick to inhabit the former Fresh Market space (where it now operates next to what turned out to be a Texas Emergency Care Center neighboring the River Oaks branch of Mattress Firm).
Here’s another angle on the teardown, with the 1963 Willowick Condominiums tower peeking over the scene in the background:
THE ESTIMATED PRICETAG ON A STOP TO HOUSTON FLOODING 
Amid the latest round of area flooding last week, Dylan Baddour traces the roots of Houston’s massive publicly funded drainage projects, which have brought the total length of Harris County waterways up to 2,500 miles (many of those channels widened, lined with concrete, or dug from scratch). Baddour also talks with current county flood control district director Mike Talbott about what it would take to expand and refine the city’s outdated flood infrastructure (which is often locked into place by close surrounding development) up to modern expectations — namely, that the flow of water over land that would otherwise be totally submerged should be totally controlled. Baddour writes that Talbot “has a simple solution: allocate $26 billion, more than a fifth of the state’s 2015 budget, mostly to buy property adjacent to the waterways, bulldoze and expand the canals.” Rice University ecologist Ron Sass tells Baddour he’s surprised the city hasn’t been tearing down old houses to build new bayou channels: “We build freeways. I would think that a bayou would be as important to our infrastructure as a freeway.” [Houston Chronicle] Map of Harris County waterways: Harris County Flood Control District
- 3616 Ella Lee Ln. [HAR]
