- 32 Sunset Park Ln. [HAR]
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Sugar Land
- 4314 Saint Michaels Ct. [HAR]
RESIDENTS NEAR SMART FINANCIAL CENTRE: DON’T WANNA LIVE WITH ‘EM, MAYBE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT ‘EM 
Mike Snyder reports from a dead empty plaza at the new Smart Financial Centre in Sugar Land for the Chronicle this week — utilizing the deserted backdrop for some quiet contemplation and speculation regarding the development’s likely ability to draw long-term business. So-called “destination center” projects like Smart Centre and Town Square are “a big part of [Sugar Land’s] long-term financial strategy to broaden our economic base and keep our property taxes low,” city business director Jennifer Mays tells Snyder — but Snyder and others suggest that a lack of nearby residential development may make it harder for Smart Centre to take off the way Town Square has. Snyder also notes that 900 new apartments were originally planned near Smart Centre, but were nixed on account of objections from “residents concerned that renters would increase traffic, crowd schools and damage their suburban lifestyle.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Smart Financial Centre
- 1205 Horseshoe Dr. [HAR]
ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE SAYS IT’LL OPEN 4 MORE HOUSTON SPOTS NOW THAT VINTAGE PARK IS OFF ITS HANDS 
Alamo Drafthouse followed up this week’s confirmation that its Vintage Park theater is becoming a Star Cinema Grill by announcing that it plans to open 4 more Houston area locations. Details on where and when are still murky (other than a reiteration that plans for the Imperial Market spot in Sugar Land are still on), but a rep told Kyle Hagerty earlier this week that the company has already signed 3 leases. That may or may not include the 10-year lease signed back in 2013 for a spot in the long-stalled Regent Square development — which did get some permits this fall, as somebody at Morris Architects previously claimed would happen. [Previously on Swamplot] Rendering of proposed Alamo Drafthouse in Sugar Land: Imperial Market
- 63 Sterling St. [HAR]
- 35 Legend Park Dr. [HAR]
Johnson Development, the company behind that sugar-company-themed master-planned community in Sugar Land, announced yesterday that it has officially handed over the land for the project’s refinery-centric Imperial Market mixed-use district to the folks who will develop it. The 26 acres freshly sold are along Oyster Creek just north of the crossing of Hwy. 90 (visible on the far left of the rendering above, which faces south). That’s Kempner St. running directly alongside the proposed development and crossing the creek as well; a pair of former railroad bridges currently upstream of Kempner are shown replaced with car and pedestrian bridges respectively.
Plans for the development incorporate structures from out-of-use former facilities of the Imperial Sugar Company. The refinery’s silos (instead of becoming an art space) are marked to host a couple of fast-casual restaurants; the 1925 char house, where huge quantities of carefully burned animal bones were once used to whiten and filter cane sugar syrup, will become a boutique hotel. Both structures are more prominently visible in the southeast-facing view below — the boxy brick char house appears to the left of the single-pour-concrete silos:
Refining Sugar Land Master Plans
- 723 Epperson Way [HAR]
- 6610 Kendall Creek Dr. [HAR]
The Memorial Branch of Big Tex Tree Nurseries at 10939 Katy Fwy. is closed for good, and its tree-dealings have moved south to the company’s Sugar Land locale for now. The Christmas trees disappeared after the holiday season, and everything else followed suit: “even the port-a-potty,” writes the reader who sent in photos of the now-bare freeway-side lot at Wycliffe and I-10, just outside Beltway 8. A Big Tex employee says the company is planning to open up another Houston location at some point, but for now the other spots in Sugar Land, Conroe, and Spring will have to do.
The lot is shown below post-faux-forest-departure; meanwhile, someone was out marking up the sidewalk with orange paint last week:
Land Cleared on I-10
- 5507 Chesapeake Pl. [HAR]
- 1310 Horseshoe Dr. [HAR]
Incorporated as a city in 1959, Sugar Land was still Imperial Sugar’s company-owned town when the original part of this expanded, updated 1940 home went up east of Main St. in “the Hill” neighborhood of Old Sugar Land (loosely defined as north side of U.S. 90). Listed earlier this week with a $349,900 asking price, the property sports a wraparound side porc  (above) that faces a Texas Historic Landmark across the tree-lined street: Sugar Land Auditorium, formerly Lakeview Auditorium, is the last remaining building of the original 11-structure campus of Sugar Land ISD District 17.
It’s a Wrap
 Sugar Land, a Pieced-Together, Porchified Property Seeks $350K... "Pin It")
You’ll find just a splash of red in almost every interior pic here. No, you aren’t looking at a portfolio of images from National Geographic: This is a renovated 1990 Georgian in Sugar Land’s William’s Glen neighborhood, southwest of Sweetwater Blvd. Listed on Monday, the 4,232-sq.-ft. spread is now asking $619K.
Flipping for Red
