WAVING THE FRONDS ON PALM ROYALE BLVD. 
As they cruise through Sugar Land, columnist Lisa Gray monitors Houston Architectural Guide author Stephen Fox’s vital signs: “We drove south. He drooped as we drove past red-brick privacy walls, red-brick houses, red-brick office buildings, red-brick churches. For me, everything began to blend together — until we turned on Palm Royale Boulevard, lined with humongous red-brick houses from the last couple of decades, most with turrets, all slight variations on the same nouveau-riche theme. I drove slowly, ogling the spectacle, one whacked-out showstopper after the next, interspersed with undeveloped lots. The red-brick reassurance of niceness clearly wasn’t an assurance of good taste. ‘These 10,000-plus-square-foot Mediterranean extravaganzas bear the same relation to architecture that drag show queens bear to women,’ Stephen had written tartly in The Guide. ‘Not the real thing, perhaps, but entertaining nonetheless in their bold and hilarious voluptuousness.’ Abruptly, the street dead-ended into a T-intersection facing a utility easement. Stephen laughed. ‘Such an ignominious end,’ he said wryly, ‘for such grand ambition.'” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HAR
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Sugar Land
Just over the water from First Colony’s Lake Pointe development, you’ll find this waterfront property with 110-ft. of frontage on Oyster Creek. It faces the Greater Houston Rowing Club‘s Oyster Creek boathouse; behind the home is a cul-de-sac, connecting to Sugar Lakes, an eighties-era neighborhood of mostly brick homes with a tree canopy on its winding streets — plus a neighborhood pool, playground, playing fields, and sports courts. This 1990 home was posted as a new listing earlier this month, for $545,000.
THE RUMORS IN-N-OUT OF SUGAR LAND 
“Sources in the 77478 tell me ‘In an Out Burger’ coming to Sugar Land,” tweets morning talk-show host Matt Jackson. “Suspected location near Skeeters Stadium.” And how about a big ol’ bag of frozen sweet-potato fries to go with that?: “In related but less important news to most of you…Sugar Land also getting a Costco.” [Twitter; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Constellation Field: Aero Photo
The symmetry of this home’s front elevation extends right down to the his-and-hers garages off the motor court. It’s a stylized chateau in the Enclave at the Waters of Avalon development. But the interior of the 10-year-old property, newly listed last weekend, is all contemporary:
Good morning, Sugar Land! As of today, the once-5,400-acre state prison in your midst is no longer. Down for the last decade to a 326-acre core of former Imperial Sugar-owned land near Hwy. 6 and Rte. 90A, the 112-year-old Central Unit shipped out its last prisoners earlier this month; the property was handed over to the state’s General Land Office yesterday. Sugar Land officials are interested in buying the property, but the decision to sell will be up to the 3-member School Land Board, which runs the investments of state’s Permanent University Fund.
- Sugar Land Prison Officially Closes [MyFoxHouston]
- State officials may sell Sugar Land prison site [Houston Chronicle]
- As prison closes, could others be next? [Statesman.com]
- Day 19: Sugar Land’s Prison a Casualty of Budget Cuts [Texas Tribune]
Photo: Justin Dehn/Texas Tribune
TRACKING SUGAR LAND’S SUGAR AND CHEESE 
Where Sugar Land’s Cupcake Cafe couldn’t hold on, macaroni and cheese is going in. The owners of the Jus’ Mac mac-and-cheese-is-all restaurant on Yale St. in Sunset Heights have announced they’re ready to expand to a second location: 16525 Lexington Ave., in a strip center at the corner of Austin Pkwy., behind the First Colony Mall. Expected completion date for the cupcakes-to-pasta makeover: November. [HAIF; previously on Swamplot]
A reader sends us this latest photo (at bottom, with close-up) of the ongoing smashing and crushing action at the former home of Astrodome builder H.A. Lott on Sugar Creek Blvd. in Sugar Land. The low-slung, Frank Lloyd Wright-ish house designed for Lott in 1975 by Houston architect Karl Kamrath was put on the market last year after a renovation.
- Previously on Swamplot: Battle Over Swank Sugar Land Supermod Won By Komatsu Excavator, OMG Mod Begone: Sugar Land’s Lott House Meets Its Wrecking Crew, Wright Style: A Long View in Sugar Creek
Photos: HAR (before), Swamplot inbox (after)
Courtesy of a Swamplot reader who spied the wreckage, we now have photo confirmation that the recently renovated former home of Astrodome builder H.A. Lott, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright devotee Karl Kamrath in 1975, is currently being smashed to pieces. That’s the steel frame of the north end of the house being mangled above. And we have a video, too! Not of the demolition — but of the sleek-looking home itself last year, when it was on the market for just over a million bucks. Treacly but ultimately ineffective soundtrack included:
Yes, it looks like demo equipment has already arrived in the driveway of the MacKie and Kamrath house in Sugar Creek featured a little less than a year ago on Swamplot. The home was originally built in 1975 for Astrodome builder H.A. Lott, in the Houston architects’ famed signature Frank-Lloyd-Wright-without-the-cape style. The photo above was sent in by a reader, who passes on a rumor from neighbors — that the 4,426-sq.-ft. home’s new owners plan on tearing down the structure and putting up a 2-story something in its place. After an extensive renovation, the the 4-bedroom on a 36,041-sq.-ft. waterfront lot was listed for north of $1 million last August. It sold in April for around $800K. A few pics of what now appears to be headed for the landfill:
A MICROSOFT STORE FOR SUGAR LAND? 
Chron tech guy Dwight Silverman zooms in on Microsoft COO Kevin Turner’s map showing the 75 new retail stores the software company plans to open in the next 2 to 3 years. And yes, that sure looks like a tiny Windows flag flying somewhere Sugar Land-ish. (The flag over the red dot indicates the store Microsoft opened last month in the Galleria, the company’s first Texas location.) A Microsoft spokesperson hedges on the map, saying it’s only “representative of the types” of locations that might be considered. But Silverman doesn’t buy it: “Given that Turner offered a very specific number in his speech, and the locations on the map seem to be specific as well, I suspect this is more than just a case of the ‘mights.'” [TechBlog; previously on Swamplot] Image: Microsoft
The next landing site for Chindian food in Sugar Land? A 4,000-sq.-ft. space wedged between Busybody Home Fitness and the Stomping Grounds kiddie playland, in the First Colony Commons shopping center at 59 and Williams Trace, just a few doors down from the Home Depot. The new Hakka Chinese joint there should have its soft opening around the end of next week — presuming all goes well with the inspections scheduled for Monday. A grand opening is scheduled for the middle of March. “In India, Hakka cuisine is like Tex-Mex in Texas — kind of. It’s a very popular cuisine,” Irfan Motiwala tells Swamplot. But it’ll be all new for Sugar Land. Fortunately, Motiwala explains, the Hakka people are used to adjusting flavors to meet local tastes. That’s how the whole Chindian food thing came about, after all: in the 1950s, once large numbers of the already nomadic people fleeing Mao’s revolution settled in India, they started incorporating local spices like coriander and tandoori masala into their cooking, giving it a little more zing. Motiwala’s wife, Hsiaolin, and her brother-in-law, Gary Yan, both of whom will be running things in the kitchen, expect a little bit of the same process to take place at the 15425 Southwest Freeway location of Aling’s Hakka Chinese Cuisine. “If I find the people of Sugar Land eat more spicy than normal, i will adjust it,” Yan says.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SOUND OF SUGAR SHAKING OUT OF SUGAR LAND “I’m going to assume that the building is no longer since at 7:01am [on Sunday] I heard a rather low but loud boom followed by my desk shaking a little. I’m about 10 miles away as well.” [geequeue, commenting on Sugar Land Sugar Box Implosions Back on for This Sunday]
It took several tries and a bit of a scare to take down the second building from the former Imperial Sugar factory and refinery off Highway 90A in Sugar Land Sunday. As shown in more than a dozen YouTube videos, the metal bin building collapsed after the first blasts of dynamite shortly after 7 am, as planned. But the metal furnace house, directly adjacent to the brick char house, didn’t budge; getting it out of there turned out to be a little trickier. A second series of blasts (shown in the video above), set around 7:45, produced . . . well, not much. Then, maybe 40 minutes later, after most of the crowds had left and workers had gone inside the building to try to figure out what was wrong, and when the remaining onlookers least expected it, there was this frightening scene: