Dude! Got a snazzy idea for that 1927 underground water reservoir near Sabine St. on Buffalo Bayou, but you just can’t picture what’s down there? Well, grab the potato chips and crank up Pink Floyd, because now you can. The Buffalo Bayou Partnership is reaching out in the hope that entrepreneurs, artists, and visionaries the city over will use the above video, created by SmartGeometrics, for inspiration. (And more 3D images are forthcoming on the partnership’s website.)
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USING PICTURES TO PICTURE USES FOR BUFFALO BAYOU’S BASEMENT 
There’s still no real plan for that 1927 underground reservoir along Buffalo Bayou near Sabine St. But, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Lisa Gray — one devoted parishioner of this “accidental cathedral” — there’s now a new technology in place that might help would-be entrepreneurs visualize the possibilities: “SmartGeometrics, a company whose main business is creating super-precise 3-D digital models of real places . . . will show video-game-like digital models to the public . . . and will explain how, soon, the data will be available to anyone who wants to plug it into his design software. . . . ‘This is a starting point for us,’ [Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s Guy Hagstette] says. ‘We’re trying to decide on the big picture. What should the concept be? Is it environmental art? A giant nightclub? A parking garage?” [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo: SWA Group
GRAND TEXAS THEME PARK GETS ITS TEXAS LAND 
Developer Monty Galland has teamed with investors that include a former AstroWorld manager to close, at last, on 600 acres in Montgomery County for the proposed Texas-themed Grand Texas Theme Park. In April, Galland told Click2Houston that he would close on the property in May. But the 3-month delay seems to have allowed time for the development to develop thematically beyond tractor rides and simulated shootouts: Prime Property’s Erin Mulvaney reports that there will be the previously unmentioned Big Rivers Water Park here too. The parks will be carved out of the heavily wooded acreage between U.S. 59 and Hwy. 242, near the proposed EarthQuest dino-resort. But the proximity doesn’t seem to present a conflict in the mind of East Montgomery County improvement prez Frank McCrady, reports Mulvaney: “He compared the two parks to Knott’s Berry Farm and Disney Land in California. In this scenario, Earth Quest would be Disney Land, and Grand Texas is Knott’s Berry.” [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Grand Texas
Where’s Mini? A reader sends this photo of the burned rubber sticking to the stucco wall of design and furniture store Internum at 3303 Kirby Dr., where the 350-lb. promotional fiberglass shell of a Mini Cooper had been not-quite-parallel parked since December. And parked illegally — at first, anyway, garnering a red tag on December 27 from city inspectors to go with that red holiday garland wrapped around the Upper Kirby street lamps.
- Houston Issues Ticket To A Car Parked On A Wall [Jalopnik]
- Previously on Swamplot: Mini Cooper Parked on Kirby Store Wall Now Permitted, The Mini Cooper Parked on Kirby That’s Getting All the Attention,Parked High on the Wall of Kirby Building, Mini Cooper Still Gets Ticket
Photos: Lisa Garvin (Mini); Creative Accidents (wall)
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE TO PUT A TOURIST GAUNTLET IN RELIANT PARK “I’d leave the rail right where it is. Create a City Walk space from the light rail to the Dome. Shopping, night life, restaurants, movies, etc. Sure it’s touristy, but most events at Reliant are visited by tourists.” [Thomas, commenting on Under Plan, Astrodome Would Slim Down Exterior, Shorten Up and Fatten Inside]
SPACE CENTER HOUSTON’S NEWEST ACQUISITION 
The Galileo 7 — shown here in a Star Trek episode as piloted by Dr. Mr. Spock on a doomed exploratory voyage to Taurus — is going to be added to the permanent collection at Space Center Houston in Clear Lake. A stand-in, maybe, for the real retired NASA orbiter that the center didn’t get a few years ago, this teevee spacecraft will be kept separate from “actual flown vehicles,” spokesperson Jack Moore tells Hair Balls. But that doesn’t mean it won’t have its own special effect: “Houstonians and other visitors will be able to see the Galileo at Space Center Houston’s Zero-G Diner, where, Moore says, the area’s overall theme is developing more of a science fiction atmosphere.” [Hair Balls; previously on Swamplot] Image: Memory Alpha
Houston builders Westin Homes seems to be expanding into the luxury replica spaceship playhouse market — at least this summer, anyway, hooking up with HomeAid Houston to imagineer something like what you see here and display it this June and July at Minute Maid Park. (That’s Astros mascot Orbit peeking out, as though a tad reluctant to deboard.) Of course, the playhouse isn’t just for show: It’ll be raffled off, with proceeds going to HomeAid, and it’ll eventually find its way to someone’s backyard, where the lucky winners will enjoy its
. . . space-themed amenities such as a cockpit complete with swivel seats, ‘rocket booster’-framed windows, a 32†wall mounted LCD TV, an XBox, an MP3 player, an iPod docking station with speakers and interior detailing . . . air conditioning and electricity.
It doesn’t appear that the playhouse will be suitable for actual space travel — but there’s always next year. (As Astros fans well know.) Most recently, the nonprofit HomeAid started construction on those 8 single-mothers’ duplexes on W. Bellfort in Meyerland on St. John’s Presbyterian property.
- 2013 Project Playhouse [HomeAid Houston]
- Westin gets on board to build HomeAid Project Playhouse [Westin Homes]
- HomeAid Houston and Westin Homes launches Project Playhouse [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Meyerland Duplexes for Single Mothers
Rendering: Westin Homes via HomeAid Houston
This is where Houston’s food trucks will come to loiter — er, idle: The so-called Houston Food Park is opening in about a week here at 1504 St. Emanuel in East Downtown, in the parking lot beside the vacant Meridian Sports Bar. You might recognize the weedy lot bound by Leeland, Bell, St. Emanuel, and Chartres from its cameo in Alex Luster’s street-art documentary Stick Em Up. (And this is also catty-corner from the human espressos and doggie hemp treats served at The Green Bone on Leeland.) According to Alison Cook Syd Kearney, the Food Park will celebrate its opening with a festival this Saturday, and regular lunch service from 11 to 3 will begin June 24. Co-owner Ponce Tirzo tells Cook Kearney that there’s room here for 8 or 9 trucks, but they’re hoping to use some of the other vacant lots nearby, too.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO MAKE A HOUSTON SUMMER THAT MUCH HOTTER “I thought it was crazy to schedule an outdoor music festival in summer, too, and then I went one year and found myself surrounded by 10,000 girls in barely-there bikinis, and realized that an outdoor summer festival in Houston is, in fact, a stroke of genius. (And the heat wasn’t bad at all that year — the second Summerfest, I believe.)” [Anse, commenting on The Montrose Bar Where Souls Will Be Exchanged for Cocktails?]
GRAND TEXAS THEME PARK: FILLING THE ASTROWORLD VOID 
And this overgrown crossroads in the middle of somewhere near U.S. 59 and FM 242 is expected to be part of the Grand Texas Theme Park. Investors are in place, and the land between New Caney and Splendora in Montgomery County should be closed on this May, developer Monty Galland tells Click2Houston, when construction on the $200 million project — advertised to feature high-noon cowboy shootouts and tractor rides — will begin. And why all the fuss? “If there was an Astroworld,” says Galland, “we probably wouldn’t have even pursued this development. . . . The great thing about it is that we have enough land that we can create a lot of the elements Astroworld had, and it doesn’t detract from the other areas of the park. We’re not going to compete with Disneyland. We want to create an entertainment value that’s similar to going to the movies or going bowling.” [Click2Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Grand Texas Theme Park, via Facebook
The cartoon horse speaks! Alas, Grand Texas Theme Park’s well-heeled mascot isn’t saying where you’ll join him. But at least the theme park’s website is now open, claiming that developer Monty Galland “has determined three different desired sites: Two are in Montgomery County, while the other is in Fort Bend County.” And there are now several new renderings of the park’s proposed “territories” with detailed descriptions of the Texas-themed activities and amenities to come.
SPORTSWRITER: TEARING DOWN ASTRODOME WOULD HELP HOUSTON ‘MOVE ON’ 
Depending on which city gets the Super Bowl in 2016, Houston will be vying with either Miami or San Francisco to host the big game in 2017, reports Culturemap’s Chris Baldwin, and Houston’s in great shape to put together an attractive proposal — but there’s still one thing standing in the way: “When the Astrodome opened in 1965, it deserved its Eighth Wonder of the World moniker. It screamed innovation. Now, it screams . . . embarrassment,” Baldwin writes: “There have been more than enough multi-million studies. There is no need to put off a decision yet again. Sometimes, the simplest choice, the most obvious choice, is the best one. Put together a demolition crew. . . . This isn’t Fenway Park. It’s not Wrigley Field. It’s not that old Yankee Stadium that went through all those remodels. It’s a relic that long ago lost its last bit of charm.” And if you want to save the “rotting giant,” Baldwin suggests, you’re “showing as much sense as someone featured on Hoarders.” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
“If you really wanna pass on the secrets, if you really wanna pass on truth, embed it in architecture,” says Glenn Beck in the January 10 episode of the Blaze. “That’s what I intend on doing.” The Dallas Observer‘s taking him at his word, speculating that Beck’s planning to build something like that radiant city in the screenshot above: it’d be a $2 billion master-planned community — with a theme park and an Alamo-inspired non-denominational church. It’d be called Independence, USA. And the Dallas Observer says it’d be in Texas.
At a Neartown meeting two days ago, Kirk Baxter presented these two drawings for a Mary’s memorial, according to a HAIF poster, celebrating the 30-year heyday of the Westheimer bar for Montrose’s gay community. Some 300 memorial services were held here over the years. Mary’s was closed in 2009; the building where it sat since the early ’70s opened this weekend as the coffee shop Blacksmith.
The drawings show a kind of replica Mary’s installed near Waugh and Hyde Park; two of Mary’s original doors — donated to the project by Blacksmith owner Bobby Heugel — would sit underneath tiles reclaimed from the original roof.
Nothing about the memorial has been approved or decided yet, says the HAIF poster. During the meeting several other potential locations were brought up: a spot behind the original building the regulars called the Out Back, and across the street, facing the building, in front of Half Price Books.
- A Memorial in Montrose for Mary’s [HAIF]
- Previously on Swamplot: Blacksmith Now Serving Coffee In Former Montrose Leather Bar, Restored Mary’s Mural on Westheimer Painted Over Again
Photos: HAIF user trymahjong
A FAKE STREET FOR REAL ESTATE SHOPPERS IN SPRING 
Opening in February, reports CultureMap, is a 10,000-sq.-ft. real estate “park” where a dozen lavishly turned-out showcase homes, ranging in styles from “The Midtown” to “The Calais” to “The Ashby Manor,” are presented for your perusal on a private cul-de-sac near I-45. Think of the immersive, don’t-mind-if-I-do shopping at IKEA blown up to the scale of Disney World — except at MainStreet America there will be fireworks and Christmases and tailgating parties and almost everything will be for sale: “Do you like the paint color, the metallic faux technique on the ceiling or the graphic wallpaper accent in the bedroom? The details are available and so are the prices. In fact, you can make the purchase on site. If that couch, occasional table or rug is what you are looking for, swap that credit card and have them delivered. Floral arrangements? Yes, those are for sale as well. Mirrors? Check. Artwork? In stock. Window treatments? You bet.” Admission for adults is only $10; children aged 5-17 can get in for half that. [CultureMap] Photo: MainStreet America
