05/05/11 2:20pm

While thousands of ExxonMobil employees wait patiently to hear confirmation from the oil giant’s tight-lipped management about their rumored “possible” consolidation in a brand-new enormous office campus just south of The Woodlands, aerial photos that show work proceeding on the site have shown up in an update to Google Maps. The photo update appears to be relatively recent; it shows a level of clear-cutting similar to what was evident in the images leaked to Swamplot last month, which dated from March 12:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

04/20/11 4:42pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: EXXONMOBIL OFFICE PARK CONSTRUCTION REPORT “On [my way] in to work this morning, driving south on 45 and going over the Rayford/Sawdust bridge, I could clearly see a crane poking out above the trees in the Exxon campus area.” [Jessie M, commenting on Aerial Views of ExxonMobil’s New Sprawling, Top Secret Houston Headquarters]

04/15/11 8:55am

What’s been going on deep in this pine forest north of Houston, behind the fencing and security guards, where all those trucks have been driving in and out for months? A whole lot of logging at least, it looks like. While ExxonMobil continues to tell its employees that no decisions have yet been made about whether to consolidate approximately 17,000 of them from Houston and Virginia into a new 3 million sq. ft. office campus just south of The Woodlands, contractors working for the company have been stripping what looks like thousands of trees from its 359-acre property and preparing the site for construction of as many as 2 dozen office buildings, 4 enormous parking garages, and several other structures. These aerial photos of the site sent to Swamplot are dated March 12th.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

03/29/11 12:51pm

A show of hands, please: How many of you knew about the public notice posted by the Army Corps of Engineers this January asking for comments on environmental issues related to the new 389-acre office campus that ExxonMobil plans to build for its employees north of Houston, just south of Spring Creek? If you heard about the permit application before the February 17th commenting deadline, please let us know — just add a comment to this story.

Why is Swamplot asking?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

03/22/11 4:08pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HEARD IT HERE FIRST “Keep up the interesting news on the ExxonMobil property. I work for XOM and they’re telling us NOTHING!” [Insider, commenting on A First Look at the Plans for ExxonMobil’s Humongous New Corporate Campus North of Houston]

03/18/11 1:41pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: EXIT STRATEGY FOR EXXONMOBIL’S NEW NORTH HOUSTON CAMPUS “Exxon has sufficiently resurrected the 1980s suburban mall layout. Congratulations. Now, when they decide to move even farther from the educational core of their hometown (read: Willis HQ 2025), they can create “Spring Creek Mall” and populate the landscape with a sampling of deep-discounted soft goods clothing, closeout electronics, and heavily salted/large portion family dining. Everybody wins here.” [jg, commenting on A First Look at the Plans for ExxonMobil’s Humongous New Corporate Campus North of Houston]

03/17/11 4:58pm

So far, ExxonMobil hasn’t revealed any specific information about the new 389-acre North American headquarters just south of The Woodlands it’s apparently already begun sitework on. According to reports, all contractors working on plans for the enormous campus have been ordered to keep their work on the project secret. The new campus is meant to bring together somewhere between 15,000 and 17,000 employees now working in various locations around the Houston area and in Virginia. But documents submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers provide some detail on the plans for an enormous office park near the Harris County-Montgomery County border. The site is bounded by Spring Creek to the north, I-45 to the east, and the proposed 1,800-acre mixed-use development called Springwoods Village to the west and south. The plans were submitted by Palmetto Transoceanic, a mysterious entity that has been viewed as a proxy for the oil company in this area.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

11/21/08 10:53am

NOT JUST SPRING CHICKEN More chain chicken joints are heading this way: “At least 10 area Zaxby’s locations are planned by franchisees Jim Stokes and Matt Monds, with the first slated to open in January in Spring. Monds is a former Chick-fil-A operator who had been looking for a reason to return to the Houston area. Monds says the franchisees already have scouted the next few locations and hope to be able to open a new restaurant every six months. Zaxby’s most popular items are hand-breaded Chicken Fingerz and Jumbo Buffalo Wings, smothered in a choice of eight sauces with names like Wimpy, Tongue Torch, Nuclear and Insane. The 3,495-square-foot Spring restaurant can seat 90 guests and will offer drive-thru and phone-in services. Company officials think the Texas market can support as many as 250 Zaxby’s restaurants, with 50 of those in the Houston area.” [Houston Business Journal]

11/12/08 11:57am

Lakes of Avalon Village Subdivision, Spring, Texas

The attorney for Lakes of Avalon Village developer Robert A. Hudson is now saying that economic conditions make it “unlikely” that Lennar Homes and J. Patrick Homes will build on homesites in the path of a new proposed route for Segment F2 of the Grand Parkway in Spring.

But there’s no need to give up hope entirely: Lennar and J. Patrick apparently encountered few difficulties building and selling 60 homes sitting on the new highway’s earlier proposed route, in a different portion of the same subdivision. The developer’s stated reluctance to repeat the trick means the homebuilding market must be pretty tough now.

The new route would swing around the homes that have already been built and into not-yet-developed areas of Lakes of Avalon Village and neighboring Willow Trace.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

10/28/08 1:38pm

MORE SHOPPING CENTERS LIE IN WAIT FOR THE GRAND PARKWAY Under previous owners it was going to go residential, but now all the site at the southeast corner of Kuykendahl and Spring Stuebner in Spring needs is an offramp:Steve Gregory, president of Hopkins Commercial, said the site is a long-term investment for a retail center that will be built, possibly in one to three years. The site is attractive to the company because a leg of the Grand Parkway that will start construction in late 2010 will go by the 56 acres. The site is just north of a big collection of retailers at FM 2920 and Kuykendahl, including Wal-Mart SuperCenter, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Kroger, Palais Royal and 24 Hour Fitness.” [Houston Business Journal]

10/15/08 2:49pm

Van Missing Letters, Houston

A few fun — and not-so-fun — sights around town: First, Houston visitor Mike Smith’s photo shows some of the few letters left after Ike’s attack.

More hurricane photo souvenirs below!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

08/26/08 10:02am

OFF-MAP JOGGING IN GLEANNLOCH FARMS Another lost jogger, rescued by iPhone. But what happens when Google Maps fail? “Every time I am in Houston I am filled with renewed trepidation over the in-laws neighborhood. It’s lovely, of course, but it’s also a Houston suburbs’ subdivision. Despite having visited numerous times over the course of the past three and a half years, I am remarkably unable to maintain any sense of cardinal directions or relative location once we enter the sprawling land of pale-red-and-cream houses in well-manicured cul-de-sacs with nice names.”

08/20/08 11:22am

Lakes of Avalon Village Subdivision, Spring, Texas

Some brand-new houses sold by Lennar Homes will be very convenient to the new Grand Parkway!

Robert A. Hudson, a Spring developer who partnered with Lennar on the project, said builders knew the highway might come through the subdivision.

“We are not up there on a daily basis to make sure that the builders make it clear to everybody else,” he said.

Plans for the Grand Parkway have been on the books for 25 years, but only 28 of its proposed 185 miles have been built. Environmental and neighborhood groups have opposed the project.

It would include 11 segments traversing seven counties. The 12.1-mile Segment F2 would cut directly through the Lakes of Avalon Village, a subdivision with several hundred homes located on FM 2920 just west of Kuykendahl Road.

About 60 homes are in the right-of-way and would have to be demolished to make way for the parkway once construction began, [executive director of the Grand Parkway Association David] Gornet said.

Talk about offering transportation options! But it’s not just Lennar . . . J. Patrick Homes also is selling models in the Lakes of Avalon Village subdivision.

But hurry! The subdivision is in “close out”!

After the jump: pics of a Lennar Homes model for sale in this quaint little village in Spring!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

07/17/08 1:40pm

SPRING’S ETERNAL HOPE: RELEASE FROM HOUSTON ETJ

Almost 1,000 petitioners want to create a new city called Spring-Klein: “‘I called the state and they said there was no city of Spring, and that Spring was in the city of Houston’s extraterritorial jurisdiction,’ [Najjia’s Fine Furniture owner Earl] Hodge said. ‘There has to be at least 400,000 people out here, and that has to be equal to the size of the fifth or sixth-largest city in Texas.’ Hodge said he created the petition to test the waters and has found that many are supportive of an effort that would prevent another city, such as Houston, Conroe or a possible future city of The Woodlands, from swallowing up the Spring Klein community.” [Houston Chronicle, via HAIF]