COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ART OF SLIPPING AWAY 
“The luxury real estate article says that a lot of owner/CEO’s of small oil companies are selling their mansions to help save their companies. That’s an assbackwards way — there’s a reason you stash a few million in your homestead: It’s exempt from creditors and bankruptcy. Let the dying company fold, file bankruptcy, sell the house later, and boom, you’re liquid again and start with fresh paper and zero liabilities.” [commonsense, commenting on The Typical Home Buyer’s Salary; Getting Creative in the Luxury Housing Market] Illustration: Lulu
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Plans are in the works to give the shopping center at the southwest corner of Antoine Dr. and W. Little York Rd. a thorough redesign and rebranding as White Oak Bayou Village. A spokesperson for Nankani Development tells Swamplot that the group is seeking both tenants and ideas for the center’s redevelopment, which will be geared toward drawing bicycle traffic. So far, plans include an about-face for the bayou-side building in the back of the shopping center (labeled Building B above) by way of new glassy storefronts opening toward the White Oak Bayou greenway now running behind it; the developers claim the center would become the first private development to cater explicitly to the expanding bayou trail system.
Per preliminary plans, car access to the back of the shopping center would be blocked off. Former parking spaces along the back Building B (currently home to Northwest Beauty School) would be made over into a covered patio leading to the bayou trail. For the pad site of the burned-down former restaurant next door, the development group is considering a park-like events plaza that could host a bi-monthly farmer’s market — along with a giant chess board, maybe, or even a bayou-side zip lining station. “We are open to anything at this point,” writes the Nankani rep.
Hoped-for tenants for the center currently include a coffee shop-slash-electric bike rental joint, an ice house-style music venue, and an outdoor obstacle course and adult gym — possibly from Sam Sann of American Ninja Warrior fame, who trains contestants at his Iron Sports gym in Cypress.
Bayou Turnaround
- 434 Thamer Ln. [HAR]
A reader notes a notice of an application to sell alcohol posted on the door of the former Dealer Sales building at 1919 N. Shepherd Dr. The HBJ reported last August that Atlanta-based pizza-and-recently-burger chain Mellow Mushroom leased the space at the corner with 20th St. from serial redeveloper Braun Enterprises. The chain, which dropped its first Houston-area spore up in Spring, appears to be sprouting its second location within the somewhat ambiguous boundaries of the Houston Heights’ nominally dry zone.
The pizza place may provide more savory counterbalance to the sugar-laced shopping strip just to the south on the same block — where Fat Cat Creamery, Hugs & Donuts, and Smoothie King all nestle in with Finch Properties and hair salon Black Sheep Parlor along 19th St., sheltered by N. Shepherd-facing Ka Sushi. Renderings released last year for the redeveloping building show the Mushroom popping open in line with some additional retail space; the strip could also get lawyered up:
Sober News on N. Shepherd
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW HSPVA’S BUILDING SWAP COULD LEAVE HOLES IN STUDENT CULTURE 
“My son is a graduate of HSPVA. His reaction to seeing the photo of the proposed school: ‘Windows?!’†[Colleen, commenting on Scenes from the Set of HSPVA’s Upcoming Downtown Campus, Now In Progress] Rendering of under-construction replacement campus of the High School for Performing and Visual Arts: Gensler
As polling dates roll through the country, the oft-transformed mural outside of the former Obama campaign headquarters in Midtown has been spotted sporting a fresh coat of background white. Allyn West, who first noticed the political banner’s changed stripes on Super Tuesday, sends this Disillusioned Thursday snapshot of the now-blanked wall. So far, the site has featured various incarnations of Obama: in the sky-gazing HOPE poster from Shephard Fairey, in a sunglassed hip-with-the-kids pose, and most recently in the above star-spangled baby-on-banner scene that first appeared in 2013.
The past murals have been the subject of political displeasure for at least one person, judging by 2 previous acts of similarly-angled paint vandalism:
State of the Mural
That’s Galveston Island going for a dip in the before-and-after captures above, from a set of interactive timelapse maps released by the Texas Tribune and ProPublica yesterday (along with several articles by authors Kiah Collier and Neena Satija). The new maps model flooding across the Houston region during Hurricane Ike — as well as what would have happened if Ike had actually hit just south of Houston, as meteorologists initially expected.
The maps are your chance to relive an old disaster, or to see how many of your neighbors you can take out with a hypothetical-but-not-unrealistic future storm: users can pick between Ike, south-er Ike, a storm 15% stronger than Ike (nicknamed Mighty Ike), and a modeled 500-year storm (which the article suggests may actually be a concern on the every-few-decades-or-so level; ‘500-year’ has always meant ‘a low probability in any year’, and climate change is shaking up old modeling assumptions). The graphics also include a few dramatic face-offs:Â Mighty Ike and the 500-year storm VS. 2 of the miles-long multi-billion-dollar coastal protection projects being studied for the upper Texas coast.
You can even search for your home address in the map system to see what flood levels might look like in your own back yard. Here’s what the maps show happening to the Clear Lake, Seabrook, and League City areas at the peak of the 500-year storm model’s storm surge, which the article says is a “not if, but when” event:
Hell and High Water
- 759 Thistlewood Dr. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DRIVING HOME A ROSY VIEW OF HOUSTON’S BLUE TILE DAYS 
“Hopefully [the tile signs are] not just a trend, but a desire to revert to a time when life was much simpler. Maybe one day you’ll be able to walk into a gas station and ask for directions, and if not, call the operator from the closest pay phone to ask where the nearest diner is, because it’s late and you’re tired and hungry from your long drive into Houston. Maybe at the diner the friendly waitress will give the kids an extra cherry on their sundaes while chatting up where a few of the best nearby motels are located. Afterwards, as you drive your 10,000-pound Honda Civic with whitewall tires to the closest motel, you’ll get there by way of curb tiled street signs.” [Toby, commenting on Brand New Vintage Blue Tile Street Sign Now in Place on Upper Kirby Curb]
The Houston location of Canyon Cafe in the Galleria area appears to be closed. A reader sends photos from this morning of locked doors and a leasing sign from Weingarten Realty in the shopping center at the northwest corner of Westheimer Rd. and Post Oak Blvd. The location’s phone number seems to be out of service; also out is serving alcohol, as the restaurant made today’s list of the latest TABC permit delinquencies.
Meanwhile just across Post Oak Blvd., Sports Authority is now sporting signs advertising clearance sales ending May 7th, in the wake of yesterday’s announcement that the chain had gone through with bankruptcy filing and that 140 stores would close in the coming 3 months.
Galleria Groundings
UT WRITES BACK TO UH PEN PALS, LAWMAKERS ON HOUSTON CAMPUS PLANS 
University of Texas Chancellor Bill McRaven sent a letter yesterday afternoon to a list of higher-ups in Texas higher education and in the state legislature. McRaven’s letter comes in response to a February letter signed by 35 former University of Houston regents and addressed to the same crowd; that letter followed UT’s January purchase of 100 acres near the intersection of Willowbend Dr. and Buffalo Spdwy. for a planned Houston campus. Yesterday’s letter from McRaven repeated past assertions that the still-ambiguously-purposed land would not become another university, and that UT is not trying to hinder UH’s development as a research institution, adding that “it takes two or more to collaborate.” McRaven also writes that UT is including the state higher-ed coordinating board on its task force to determine what to do with the new space, and asks if those opposing the expansion are “really convinced that Houston, the fourth largest and most international city in the U.S., has all it needs in terms of intellectual and innovative horsepower for the decades ahead?” [UT System via Dallas Morning News; previously on Swamplot] Conceptual rendering of proposed UT campus: UT System
- 15019 Marlebone Ct. [HAR]
Carvana has confirmed that the work going on now at the former Big Tex Tree Nursery lot at 10939 Katy Fwy. is setup for the giant car vending machine referenced in September bid documents labeled with the site’s address. Building permits issued in January were applied for under the name of largely-non-digital used-car chain DriveTime, an investor in the Phoenix-based startup that also allows Carvana to borrow facilities to prepare vehicles for sale.
The new vending machine could be the first in Texas; Carvana opened a vending machine in Nashville last November, and also has a pickup site in Atlanta for those who don’t want to deal with delivery service. A reader sends some fresh shots of the action at the site, as well as a glimpse at a building plan:
Going Digital on I-10
COMMENT OF THE DAY: 2 ONE-WAY TRAJECTORIES FOR HOUSTON TOWNHOME DEVELOPMENT 
” . . . The big concern that I have about townhomes is that perhaps about 15 to 30 years out, and as they start to show their age in the predictable ways (never mind the less predictable ways that relate to the regional economy or transportation), that some individual owners in fee simple arrangements will shirk repairs and bring down entire clusters or neighborhoods. They are different from condo regimes in that way, but also in another: fractured land ownership and deed restrictions make redevelopment and land use change basically impossible. Forever. It’s possible that state laws and municipal ordinances would change to cope with things, or that Houston will become so affluent as to render the concern moot, but I see it as a risk.” [TheNiche, commenting on Raising the Bar for Upscale Housing; A New Hospital for Galveston] Illustration: Lulu
FALLEN SPORTS AUTHORITY FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY, PREPARES FOR 140-STORE SHUTDOWN 
Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this morning, after some January lay-offs and a multi-million-dollar missed interest payment. Sports Authority had already announced the planned closure of some 140 underperforming stores; employees at a Dallas branch were told in February that all Texas stores would close, including the 11 in and around Houston. The company now says those closings will occur over the next 3 months; CEO Michael Foss told the Denver Post that the timeline will hopefully give the 3,400 employees anticipated to be let go “plenty of time to find their next opportunity, whether it’s in the company, or wherever else it is.” [Denver Post; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Sports Authority in Portofino Shopping Center: Woodlands Monocle
