COMMENT OF THE DAY: MY SUITE CHILDHOOD YEARS IN A DOWNTOWN HOUSTON HOTEL 
“My dad was the innkeeper when the Holiday Inn opened, and we lived in the building for a couple of years. It was quite a place — with the Orbit Lounge, one of A. J. Foyt’s Indy cars in the lobby, and so on. But its day has passed.” [Patrick, commenting on Downtown Houston’s Foremost Abandoned Building Now Listed for Sale]
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Once you get in, 5501 Regency Dr. provides 2 options for how to ascend. The 5,120-sq.-ft., 5-bedroom house hit the market yesterday with an asking price of $1,098,000. Across the street from it is the far west cove of one of the numerous ponds that water the surrounding neighborhood, dubbed Waters of Avalon.
The only thing hidden from the front doorway is the baby grand:
Waters of Avalon
The transit-themed entryway Lennar Homes wants to build to its 39-lot development — dubbed Fulton Station — on the corner of Fulton and Cavalcade will get another shot at city approval when it goes before Houston’s planning commission this afternoon. Lennar’s new residential neighborhood hugs the Charisma Design Studios & Art Gallery Building, west of the southbound stop for METRO’s Red Line in the middle of Fulton St.
The gated entrance would go at the foot of a private park Lennar has planned just across the street from the rail platform, on the parcel highlighted red in the map below:
Red Line Scenery
- 5531 Cedar Creek Dr. [HAR]
All 10 slabs are in place for the row of 2-stories — dubbed Avenue Meadows — that community organization Avenue CDC wants to plant along Meadow Lea Dr. in Northline just south of Berry Rd. and just shy of the bend where Madie Dr. begins. Each 1,304-sq.-ft. house will sit on somewhere between 5,100 and 5,400 sq. ft. of land (with the exception of 72 Meadow Lea — the westernmost lot — which bookends the development at 8,414 sq. ft.). Half of the structures will look like the one shown in the rendering at top — nicknamed The Monarch (and noted as plan A in the site plan below).
The others lose the carport and go by the name The Admiral:
Meadow Lea and Madie
The Holiday-Inn-turned-Days-Inn-turned-Heaven-on-Earth-Hotel at 801 St. Joseph Pkwy. has now been posted to CoStar by commercial broker CBRE following a 2-week period of higher-than-usual on-site cleanup activity. Crews removed debris from its garage and pool late last week; and just yesterday, 2 workers scaled nearly all 31 stories of its western face to take down the semicircular light box of the Days Inn sign that once hung near the top of it (see photo above).
The seller, SFK Development, bought the property in 2012 — becoming the building’s third owner in its post-Maharishi era. (The building — which for a time was home to a Vedic school run by the former Beatles spiritual advisor — was shut down by the city in 1998.) Since then, it has been fertile ground for numerous urban explorers, as well as the imagination of several would-be redevelopers.
The sale listing includes images of possible makeovers:
Heaven On Earth Up for Grabs
CITY COUNCIL APPROVES MUD FOR 800 NEW HOMES ON PINE CREST GOLF COURSE 
Houston’s city council voted today to approve a proposal to create a municipal utility district for an 800-house development Meritage Homes wants to build on the former Pine Crest Golf Course. The golf course, which lies within the 100-year floodplain, is located at the corner of Gessner and Clay in the Brickhouse Gully watershed — where 2,300 residential structures flooded during Harvey. Today’s vote was on a proposal identical to one that was considered by the council last October but instead referred to the mayor’s office for further review. A representative of Meritage Homes told the Chronicle following the initial proposal that it would publish an analysis of “where or how floodwaters would flow across the surrounding land” after construction. But it later decided not to — reported the Chronicle’s Mike Morris — claiming that such a study would have been “irrelevant” in light of the city’s new standards for building in floodplains. A no vote by city council today would not have necessarily killed the project, council member Brenda Stardig noted to Morris — although it would have forced Meritage to find an alternate source of funding for the neighborhood’s infrastructure. The developer bought the 150-acre former golf course from MetroNational last year. [Houston Chronicle; more; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Meritage Homes
- 23522 Creekview Dr. [HAR]
After hauling all 6 of their endangered Victorian cottages 8 blocks and arranging them neatly off Sampson St. 4 years ago, Michael Skelly and Anne Whitlock are now ready to part with the 2 pictured at top. $700,000 is the asking price for both structures — which occupy a single 5,000-sq.-ft. lot at 3408 Garrow St. They’ve been on the market for a week.
Since relocating them, Skelly and Whitlock have also redone the interiors of the 2 cottages:
Firehouse Backyard
A wide spectrum of paint shades and window shapes fronts W. 15th St. in the rendering above of Hampton Heights — the 5-story residential row Surge Homes has planned just west of Dian St. in Shady Acres. Its 2-story parking podium is about the same height and length as the site’s current resident: Car Cafe, a 37,341-sq.-ft. used-car dealership headquartered in a windowless warehouse. Just under two thirds of an acre — shaded red in the aerial above — comprise the lot at 1800 W. 15th where the garage sits now.
- 1800 W. 15th [Surge Homes via HAIF]
Rendering and aerial: Surge Homes
Shades of Shady Acres
- 32319 Archer Prk. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SELF-DRIVING BUS ASPHALT PALIMPSEST CHALLENGE 
“Have any readers here taken the [southbound] exit off of 59 to the West Loop lately? If some hypothetical autonomous driving system could navigate that tangle of past and present lane markings, then they might just have something to build on.” [TimP, commenting on METRO Now Testing Out Self-Driving Buses for Houston] Photo: Roy Luck [license]
The Southmore bridge — known to get real cozy with floodwaters as they course down 288 — made its last stand this weekend as crews cleared the way for a new, presumably higher roadway that’ll be built in its place. Lanes of 288 — pictured above from the northbound side — shut down to accommodate the demolition. The bridge itself had been closed since earlier this month closed on Friday. Now, thru-traffic is being detoured to the Blodgett and Binz St. bridges across the highway via its north- and southbound feeder roads. The estimated opening date for the new structure: mid-to-late next year.
- Southmore Bridge [Drive288]
Photos: Swamplox inbox (from Southmore); Drive288 (from 288)
High-Speed Demolition
Mayor Turner announced last Thursday that 115,000 storm drains would be put up for adoption as part of the city’s new Adopt-A-Drain program — already 5 have been claimed downtown by members of the public. (One of them — dubbed the “Director’s Drain” — is cared for by public works director Carol Haddock, reports the Chronicle’s Mike Morris.) The custodians Houston really wants to engage? “Schools,” as well as, “individuals, families, youth organizations, businesses (large and small), civic and non-profit organizations, fraternities, [and] sororities,” according to the website set up for the program. There, prospective adopters can view an interactive version of the map above showing what drains are and aren’t yet spoken for, as well as claim their own.
Then comes the responsibility: “Turner wants Houstonians to clear their drains at least four times a year, particularly when rain is in the forecast,” writes Morris. Although, the city adds, they should: “stop working and call the city’s 311 helpline if they encounter needles, construction debris, animals, firearms or chemicals.â€
- Houston leaders ask residents to Adopt A Drain to keep storm waters flowing [Houston Chronicle]
- Adopt-A-Drain Houston [City of Houston]
Adopt-A-Drain
- 1207 Sterrett St. [HAR]
