COMMENT OF THE DAY: EAST DOWNTOWN, BROUGHT TO YOU BY MONTROSE 
“I totally agree with what’s going on in EADO. Face it. It’s way too close to everywhere people want to be not to turn around. And I don’t see any bubble bursting as it’s not inflated at all. Things are still super cheap.
Our strategy for EADO, 3rd ward, and med center area can be summarized in 3 words: “BUY BUY BUY†(and sell in Montrose, at stupid high prices, to get the cash to do so).” [Cody, commenting on Townhouses Going Up in East Downtown] Illustration: Lulu
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Third Ward
It’s been 20 years since artist Rick Lowe and friends bought up that row of shotgun shacks on the 2500 block of Holman St. and transformed them — and much of the neighboring Third Ward blocks — into a lively community of art installations and performances, duplexes for low- to moderate-income residents, and architectural experimentation. The latest round of installations kicks off this Saturday.
Here’s a plan that looks to plug in to Metro’s still-under-construction Southeast Line and redo about 8 blocks along Scott St. in the Third Ward between UH and TSU. Though the plan, drawn up by LAI Design Group and dubbed “University Place Redevelopment,” is provisional, it appears to have in mind something like what the rendering above shows: A reshaped streetscape on Scott St. that would combine apartments, restaurants, shops, offices, and community buildings.
The first phase appears to call for a strip center facing Scott between Holman and Reeves, with 289 1- and 2-bedroom apartments and a parking garage in the rear:
Frequent flipper and Swamplot commenter Cody Lutsch of Fat Property is upgrading this apartment complex in the Third Ward. A listing for the remaining 2-bedroom units on HAR describes some of the improvements: “central air, new paint, ceilling fans [sic], windows, blinds, refinished hardwood floors, etc.” Apparently, Lutsch has also found a buyer for the property, who will be closing on the 3-building complex at 3008 Truxillo, just south of Alabama, in October. The photo above shows the northwest face of the complex — right across the street from the Truxillo Washateria — as seen from Ennis St.
As many as 8 new bike-sharing stations could open inside the Loop in the next 2 weeks. Will Rub, director of Houston B-Cycle, tells Swamplot that permits are in hand and the bikes forthcoming for these 5 stations: Spotts Park, at 401 S. Heights Blvd; the intersection of Taft and Fairview, at 2401 Taft St.; the Menil Collection, at 1529 W. Alabama St.; Leonel Castillo Community Center, which is undergoing a restoration at 2109 South St.; and the intersection of Milam and Webster, at 2215 Milam St.
And Rub adds that 3 other locations are just waiting for their permits: Stude Park, at 1031 Stude St., and 2 others east, for the first time, of the Southwest Fwy.: Settegast Park at Garrow and Palmer in the Second Ward, and Project Row Houses at Holman and Live Oak in the Third Ward. Rub expects those to be ready to roll September 19th or 20th.
- New Locations Coming Soon [Houston B-Cycle]
- B-Cycle spreading west and north of downtown [The Highwayman]
- Previously on Swamplot: Are Houston’s B-Cycles ‘Merely Toys for Urban Bohemians’?, Going Back to the Near Northside School on the Hill, Multiplying Houston’s Rent-a-Bike Fleet, What Bike Sharing in Houston Might Look Like
Photo of station at Lamar and Milam: Reddit user txsupernova
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: IN THE THIRD WARD ART ZONE 
“I live in Riverside/Third Ward. I’m a painter. My upstairs neighbor is a painter and kind of a well-known musician in Houston. A block away lives another musician that was often played on KTRU. A block from me in the opposite direction there is a house where my friend and some other female artists live. On Oakdale there’s the house-turned-artspace Alabama Song that frequently has shows and lectures. Most of us lived in Montrose and other areas before and moved here because it’s less expensive and the spaces are larger. My studio now is pretty awesome. Many of our friends are looking into the area as well for similar reasons, as well as Eastwood.” [is, commenting on Comment of the Day: Getting Ahead of the Game in the Third Ward] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: GETTING AHEAD OF THE GAME IN THE THIRD WARD 
“The developers are usually the 3rd or 4th step in gentrification. My understanding is that it goes like this: First are usually the lower income artistic types who give the area a ‘vibe.’ Then come slightly higher income artistic types who find fixer-uppers and start increasing property values. Then come the affluent who scrape the lots to build their own houses. Finally, the developers come in to build on any remaining semi-large contiguous lots. I don’t spend much time in this part of town, but I’m not aware of much of steps 1 or 2 happening there yet (but am open to being corrected). This feels more like developers trying to sell the area as being gentrified, make a quick profit (nothing wrong with that), and then leave the purchasers stuck with condos that will be underwater for the next 10 to 15 years. So if it is gentrification, I would call it ‘Astroturf Gentrification’ — from a distance, it might look like the real, but up close, its really pretty fake and inferior to the real thing.” [Walt, commenting on New Townhomes for a New(ish) Blodgett St. in the Third Ward] Illustration: Lulu
This pack of Larry S. Davis-designed townhouses, clad in metal and stucco, is under construction in the Third Ward just a few blocks from TSU. A site plan shows 24 of ’em spanning Wentworth and Blodgett — the sidewalks along which are being repaired and gussied up to include new landscaping, granite benches, decorative pylons, and purty brick inlays. Floor plans show that the 2-bedroom, 2-bath townies range in size from 1,470 sq. ft. to 1,956 sq. ft.; some include a study. All but 3 appear to have been already sold. Those remaining start at $269,900.
 Blodgett St. in the Third Ward... "Pin It")
A pair of Houston artists have really spruced up what’s left of the interior of this former beauty parlor on Dowling St. in the Third Ward. Funded in part by the Houston Arts Alliance, reports Glasstire, Robert Hodge and Phillip Pyle II bought secondhand furniture, wallpaper, knick-knacks, framed photographs of JFK, MLK, Jr., and JC (Jesus Christ, that is) and a rug for this crumbling shell of a building at Dowling and Stuart near the Project Row Houses, turning it into an temporary installation they’re calling “Beauty Box.”
It would seem that McDonald’s has resolved the steely staring contest between these 2 signs from 2 different eras, having gone ahead and ushered out the old restaurant here on Elgin and Cullen near the U of H campus to put up a brand-new one, a regional rep from the company confirms. No renderings of the next generation are available yet, but the rep says that it should be open in time for the fall semester.
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: Gone Underground, Growing Up With McDonald’s
Photo: Allyn West
IS HISD KEEPING REBUILDING JOBS FROM MINORITY-OWNED FIRMS? 
That’s what the Houston chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (or HNOMA) seems to suspect, having sent a letter to HISD superintendent Terry Grier alleging “disenfranchisement” and wanting to know why so few jobs funded by last year’s $1.89 billion bond to rebuild 40 schools have been awarded to African-American-owned firms, reports Hair Balls: “Only two percent of the monies assigned have gone to the six [Houston-area] architectural firms run solely by African-American owners,” says Jeff Balke. “According to the letter, it appears that none of the six firms in question were even interviewed for projects pertaining to the four traditionally African-American high schools being rebuilt,” one of which is Yates High School, shown here. Adds HNOMA veep Anzilla Gilmore: “In the 2007 Bond, all of these firms got work, so we assumed that with a Bond this big, these guys shouldn’t have any issues. . . . They just need the chance, and if they don’t get the chance, they should be told why.” [HISD; Hair Balls; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HISD
INSERTING BATHROOM B INTO HOUSE SLOT A 
A trio of Rice grads has come up with what seems to be a kind of golden mean between gentrification and decay, when it comes to restoring an old home that no longer works the way it should and yet still preserving the character of the neighborhood: Andrew Daley, Jason Fleming, and Peter Muessig are calling it InHouse OutHouse, reports OffCite, and it’s a prefabricated core consisting of a kitchen, bathroom, and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems that’s then inserted — like a transplanted kidney, say — into a hole cut in the wall. The photo here shows just such an insertion of the team’s prototype — which they estimate cost almost $35,000 and took 220 hours to build — at the Bastrop Stuart House among the Project Row Houses in the Third Ward. [OffCite] Photo: Mary Beth Woiccak via OffCite
Flanked by a pair of churches, these stick frames just popped up in the Third Ward. Plans for the development called Bastrop Plaza show a row of 9 townhouses on a vacant lot at the intersection of Webster and Bastrop. That’s a block west of Dowling St., 2 blocks south of the Gulf Fwy., and 2 5 north of Emancipation Park, primed for a very expensive redevelopment project of its own this summer. A sign at the construction site here announces that the townhouses will start at $260,000.
THIRD WARD’S RYAN MIDDLE SCHOOL TO BECOME MEDICINE MAGNET 
HISD voted on Thursday night to reopen the closing Ryan Middle School next year as a magnet for students interested in the medical field. Though community protests have tried to move HISD to keep the Third Ward school open, a vote a month ago decided that the 263 Ryan students — the fewest at any HISD middle school, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Ericka Mellon — would be consolidated at Cullen Middle School, about 4 miles away on Scott St. The 1926 Elgin St. building that was the original Yates Colored High School, reports abc13, will be reopened as the Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan to “allow more students to compete for admission into the highly selective DeBakey High School for the Health Professions.” Also approved in Thursday’s vote is a second magnet, the Energy Institute High School, though HISD has not yet chosen where that will be. [Houston Chronicle; abc13; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
HISD TO CLOSE THIRD WARD’S RYAN MIDDLE SCHOOL Despite the community’s protests, HISD voted 5-3 last night to close Ryan Middle School at the end of the school year, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Ericka Mellon: “Roughly two dozen speakers — mostly alumni and community activists — blasted the Houston Independent School District over the closure plans, at times nearing tears and shouting from the audience. They called the Ryan closure ‘blatantly discriminatory.'” Ryan’s 263 students, reports Mellon, are the fewest among HISD middle schools; the students will be consolidated about 4 miles away at Cullen Middle School on Scott St. HISD superintendent Terry Grier says that Ryan’s 1958 Elgin St. building might be repurposed into a DeBakey-like health-careers magnet. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
