SKYHOUSE MANAGEMENT: THAT’S FUNNY, NOBODY SAID ANYTHING ABOUT OUR PICTURE WINDOW TOILETS BEFORE 
Sure, the SkyHouse Houston features from-the-street views of window-side toilets on the second and third floors of the new Downtown highrise. But a spokesperson for the management company in charge of the 24-story tower and 2 other largely identical SkyHouses still under construction in Houston tells the Chronicle‘s Craig Hlavaty that the prominent display of bathrooms was not part of any marketing strategy. Simpson Property Group’s Thornton Kennedy says he wasn’t aware that anybody had even noticed the toilet views before Swamplot readers began writing about them: “We have nearly 10 [SkyHouses] completed from Florida to the Carolinas and over to Texas and we’ve never gotten a call about this,” he says. “But we get it.†Kennedy’s explanation for the Pease St. display involves a reference to window coverings in the photo (above) published earlier this week on Swamplot. “Those units that were photographed are not yet occupied, and therefore those blinds are open all the time,” he explains. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Swamplot inbox
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Apartments
“Not sure if you can see from this picture,” writes the Swamplot correspondent who sent the image at the top of this story, looking into a few of the units in the new 24-story apartment tower at 1625 Main St. from Pease St., “but it appears the ‘view’ from the bathrooms at the new SkyHouse will be excellent.” Of course you already knew that.
Bonus: The design of the SkyHouse Main going up across the street will be identical.
- Previously on Swamplot: Comment of the Day: Suggested Improvements for the Next Highrise Sky Throne;Â Comment of the Day Runner-Up: The Best Views in Every SkyHouse;Â Have a Look Where Crews Have Begun Digging for the Second Downtown SkyHouse;Â Second Downtown SkyHouse Highrise Will Go Up on Main St. Just South of the First;Â The Street Shops in Store for SkyHouse Houston, Now Under Construction Downtown;Â Downtown SkyHouse Clearing the Ground First
Photos: Swamplot inbox (view); Simpson Property Group (tower)
Headquarters
A couple of Swamplot readers are reporting action on the scene of the Midtown Superblock, the uninterrupted-by-cross-streets acreage stretching between Main and Travis St. south of McGowen and north of Anita, where a Camden Property apartment complex (at the northern end) and a park with underground parking (at the southern end) are planned. In the view at top taken from somewhere high above the backside of Downtown, you can spot demo crews at the end of the grassy field making strip center history this morning out of the former home of Escobar and Thien An Sandwiches at 2905 Travis St.
Meanwhile, the first signposts of some fresh chain-link fencing appeared along Main St. closer to McGowen., as seen in the second photo, taken a couple of days ago.
- Previously on Swamplot: The Park-and-Apartments Plan for Midtown’s Superblock
Photos: Swamplot inbox (overhead view); Robert Boyd (fence)
Strip Center Teardown
A reader wants to know what, if anything, is happening to the run-down apartment complex at 1201 Wilcrest Dr. just north of Briar Forest Dr. and across the street from the Westside Tennis & Fitness Club: “Some renovation work began many months ago, including new windows and the start of a roof. Unfortunately, the roof was never completed, windows have been boarded up, and now the whole place looks abandoned.” The complex is called the Oaks of Brittany.
Boarded Up
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: THE BEST VIEWS IN EVERY SKYHOUSE 
“I love how the big picture windows in some of the units allow residents to actually sit on the toilet and look out onto the street. I can’t say I want to SEE a resident doing this but it does make this tower unique.” [Daphne Graham, commenting on Have a Look Where Crews Have Begun Digging for the Second Downtown SkyHouse] Plan detail: SkyHouse Houston
Work has begun on Houston’s third SkyHouse apartment tower — the second one Downtown. To distinguish it from the similar building just topping out across the West Loop from the Galleria on the former site of one the Westcreek Apartments (the SkyHouse River Oaks), and its twin, the SkyHouse Houston, which also lines Main St., the developers from Atlanta’s Novare Group are calling the new building the SkyHouse Main. The new building and parking garage, at 1725 Main St., will be a block to the south, on the former surface parking lot shown here, on the block also bounded by Pease, Jefferson, and Fannin. Like the SkyHouse Houston, which opened last year, the 24-story SkyHouse Main will have 7,200 sq. ft. of retail space on the ground floor.
The 336-unit highrise is expected to be complete in the first half of 2016.
- Previously on Swamplot: Second Downtown SkyHouse Highrise Will Go Up on Main St. Just South of the First
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Twin Tower
Remember the Cornelius Nursery at 1200 N. Dairy Ashford Rd. just south of I-10, which closed down at the beginning of the year? (The photos here show the establishment, which sat at the corner of St. Mary’s Ln., just before its final uprooting.) The 3-acre property, it turns out, had been bought by an entity set up by Trammell Crow Residential in early December. A new complex called the Alexan Ashford Apartments is slated for the site. At least that’s the plan.
Ashes to Ashford
It sure looks like demolition is a-coming for the Greenway Gardens apartments at 3131 Timmons Ln. near Greenway Plaza. Either that or the 43-year-old 10-building apartment complex is undergoing a rather brutal first phase of a renovation — as portrayed in the photos shown here, which were taken late last week. The 3-story complex sits on 6-and-a-half acres between W. Alabama St. and Richmond Ave.
Greenway Plaza Demo
Fresh from the Twitter feed of pics-about-town provider Christopher Andrews, here’s a panoramic view of the northeast corner of Washington Ave and T.C. Jester Blvd., where construction is proceeding on the Morgan Group’s 6-story Pearl Washington apartment complex. The 322-unit property will feature this courtyard deck facing the front entry at 5424 Washington Ave, a mile west of the similarly named but differently purposed Pearl Lounge.
Apartments at T.C. Jester
And now, a new 5-story apartment complex that’s outstanding in its field. Which is directly across I-10 from BP headquarters, and just south of the Addicks Reservoir. The reader who sent in this photo (showing the building at 13710 Park Row Dr. right in the center of the image) dubs it “Houston’s loneliest apartment complex.” But not for long — right?
Where the Action Is
OIL CRASH CHEATING HOUSTON OUT OF 50 NEW APARTMENT COMPLEXES IT DESERVES TO HAVE 
So it may be bouncing back a little, but the precipitous drop in the price of oil since last summer has been responsible for the axing or delay of a considerable number of large-scale residential projects in Houston. How many new apartment buildings would we have had available to gawk at or choose from if it weren’t for the freefall? Ralph Bivins reports: “We’ve heard 50 multifamily projects have been cancelled or postponed,†says local Colliers prez Patrick Duffy. [Realty News Report] Photo of proposed (and delayed) Hanover River Oaks: Solomon Cordwell Buenz
NEW MONTROSE APARTMENT LISTING SERVICE ON A LEASH 
Interested in seeing what kind of only-a-sign-in-the-yard rentals are available in Montrose, but don’t have time to walk the neighborhood with your dog to find them all and scoop up the phone numbers? No problem! Montrose Corgi Lady is doing it for you, and posting all the yard-and-sign pics she comes across (“Rentals I find while I’m out walking my dog”) on her new Tumblr. [Walkabout Rentals, via Reddit] Photo of 2501 Whitney St.: Montrose Corgi Lady
Thor Equities came out with a video this week showing whiz-around views of the Kirby Collection, its ready-to-go but (as of late January)Â still seeking construction financing mixed-use complex on the Kirby Dr. block surrounded by W. Main, Colquitt, and Lake St. And the New York development group is at long last dropping the (big) name of the design architect for the long-promised $125 million project: Richard Keating Architecture, which operates out of L.A. (Houston’s Kirksey Architecture is producing the construction documents.)
Kirby Collection
Last call came for the Mimosa Lane Apartments a couple of months ago — residents of the 1960 garden apartment complex in Avalon Place (along with those of its neighbor, the Argonne Forest Apartments) were given notice in early October of an end-of-November clear-out. That was apparently plenty of time to get word out about a goodbye party or 2.
A Garden Apartment Sendoff
The end of the year marked the end of residency for all tenants of the Kirby Court Apartments. Renters of the 2-story 1949 townhouse-style units fronting oak-lined Steel St. across Kirby Dr. from the Whole Foods Market were required to move out no later than December 31st. Houston-based Hanover Co. had a portion of the complex under contract, and was planning to complete the transaction early this year.
But funding for the apartment tower Hanover had planned for that parcel (marked down to 30 stories and 300 units at last report) fell through sometime in December, a company rep tells the Houston Business Journal‘s Paul Takahashi; since then, the company has been “scrambling to find new investors.” Hanover has now postponed completion of the purchase until August. The architect, Solomon Cordwell Buenz, is still reportedly working on the design.
Funding Dries Up
