11/22/10 12:58pm

Building a baseball stadium can be a complicated job. But the latest drawings released by PGAL, the architecture firm that’s been doing design work for Sugar Land’s new minor league ballpark, make it look like the project’s designers are doing their best to break down the process into some easily understood components, which should make the task simpler to comprehend for whichever design-build contractor is selected. Can you build some bleachers? Great! How about a brickface strip center, or maybe one of those drive-up apartment complexes? Knew you could! Now just wrap it around the outside from 1st to 3rd base, and you’ve pretty much got it.

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11/01/10 4:31pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: OF COURSE, RESTORING THE ACTUAL ASTROWORLD WOULD BE A LITTLE MORE INVOLVED “I went to see this Saturday night. It’s in fairly ragged shape, but with a little skill and time it could easily be restored. I think the skills that an avid model railroader possesses would be adequate to restore this. Many of the familiar Astroworld rides are depicted, although no rollercoasters (except for the Alpine Sleigh Ride, which just barely qualifies). All the big roller coasters came later. Among the excellent features in the 1:144 scale model were Judge Hofheinz’s personal on-site office as well as his personal train station!” [Robert Boyd, commenting on For Sale: Early Model AstroWorld]

10/29/10 5:59pm

FOR SALE: EARLY MODEL ASTROWORLD Sure, AstroWorld shut down 5 years ago tomorrow — and the site still lies vacant. But Ed Henderson, builder of the original model of the amusement park (shown at left with his creation 43 years ago), is looking for a buyer who’ll preserve and restore it. The recently recovered 8-ft.-by-10-ft. construction goes on display for 6 weeks beginning this Saturday night at Bill Davenport’s Optical Project gallery on 11th St. near the Heights. The model was originally displayed in September 1967 at Foley’s Department Store Downtown. “After the park’s opening, the model resided in [Judge Roy] Hofheinz’s private model room on the Astrodome’s 9th level. When Astroworld was being dismantled in 2006, the model was found in a warehouse, sawn into six irregular pieces and covered in dirt.” Davenport, who’s already spent a while cleaning up the model, tells Swamplot he can’t decide if the $3,000 asking price is “expensive for a big project in need of restoration or unbelievably cheap as a unique piece of Houston history, or both.” [Optical Project; previously on Swamplot] Photos: Bill Davenport

10/11/10 3:28pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: MAKING HISTORY IN GALVESTON “what’s equally funny is that the sign on the [pier] now reads ‘[coming] soon: galveston’s historic pleasure pier’. i guess on this island, things are now considered historic even before they’re built.” [JC, commenting on Landry’s Kicking Galveston’s Flagship Hotel Off the Pier, for Amusement] Photo: Ellen Yeates

10/06/10 2:12pm

HAIKU OF THE DAY: AMUSEMENT PARK WEATHER Landry’s not on land, sell gale storm rides with dinner. OK, Fertitta? [houku, commenting on Landry’s Kicking Galveston’s Flagship Hotel Off the Pier, for Amusement]

10/06/10 10:30am

First order of business for Tilman Fertitta, now that he’s finally succeeded in turning Landry’s Restaurants back into a private company under his control (the deal closes today): announcing the demolition of Galveston’s hobbled-on-a-pier Flagship Hotel. Actually, Landry’s officials jumped the gun slightly, showing plans for a large hotel-free amusement park on the 25th St. Pier site of the shuttered hotel to Galveston’s city council yesterday. In place of the Flagship — which was built a few years after Hurricane Carla hit the island in the early sixties — yep, you guessed it: There’s gonna be a Ferris wheel. Plus: a double-decker carousel and other attractions meant to vaguely resemble the amusement park originally on the pier when it was built in 1943.

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09/17/10 5:05pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: AS SEEN ON TEEVEE “Remember the show “Houston Knights”? I loved watching that for [its] single season. My favorite part was the [scenic] hills off in the distance, and the heroes speeding to downtown from NASA via the Galleria. The scenes were always the same loops that they filmed here at one point put into different orders and called by different landmark names. The Astrodome was usually consistant but that was the only landmark they got right. I can’t wait to see all of the Dallas/FW landmarks called by Houston names. Sounds like a drinking game to me.” [SCD, commenting on Jerry Bruckheimer Knows All the Hottest Houston Cop Action Is in Dallas]

08/30/10 12:30pm

ANGELIKA THEATER UPDATE: WHO’S ON DECK? From a statement issued this morning by Gary Rhodes, Bayou Place Limited Partnership’s general manager: “The Angelika Film Center had a terrific run at Bayou Place over the past 13 years. We had hoped that they would stay longer but unfortunately, after saying they would commit, Angelika changed its mind. It is amazing to think how far downtown Houston has evolved since Bayou Place first opened and helped spark the rebirth of downtown. . . . We will be upgrading Angelika with an operator of the highest quality and we will be making the announcement shortly.” [MyFox Houston; previously on Swamplot]

08/30/10 9:27am

Some managers at Downtown’s Angelika Film Center who showed up for work Sunday morning didn’t know any better than customers showing up for the Sunday morning matinees of Eat Pray Love and Farewell that the indie theater had been shuttered overnight. “After 13 years of continued service to the Houston community,” read a note posted on an empty ticket-booth window and papered-over front doors, “the Angelika’s lease has been terminated by the Angelika’s landlord, Bayou Place Limited Partnership, an affiliate of the Cordish Company.” But Cordish officials weren’t even returning phone calls from the Chronicle. Anyone want to tell us what really happened?

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08/16/10 9:43am

PASADENA STILL WAITING FOR ITS SHIPS TO COME IN The 96,000-sq.-ft. Bayport Cruise Terminal is sitting empty, reporter Jenalia Moreno notices. Still, Port of Houston chairman James Edmonds is optimistic about the future of the 140-acre $81 million facility, which was completed in 2008: “The port is offering to work with cruise lines to develop 40 acres of land near the terminal, hoping that will encourage one to base a ship at the Pasadena property. Restaurants, hotels and other attractions could be built on the land and turn the spot into a destination point, Edmonds said . . . The Bayport cruise terminal was part of a $387 million bond proposal Harris County voters approved in 1999. Cruise ships were calling at the port when voters approved the bonds and when construction began on the new terminal. They were gone by the time the terminal was complete, however, mostly because of financial problems at both cruise lines.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Silent Z

08/09/10 12:33pm

DYNAMO STADIUM DESIGN NO LONGER SKETCHY AEG president Tim Leiweke says the design for the new Dynamo Stadium just east of Downtown is “100 percent complete,” and that at least 2 local companies have expressed interest in naming rights, which he’s eager to sell. “We are pricing the construction out now. We have a pretty good handle on the budget. The project will probably come in including the land at $110 million and the fact that we are sitting here talking about a ground-breaking by the end of the year and playing soccer and football for TSU by June of 2012 is amazing. It has come together quickly in the last few months.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of stadium “conceptual” version: Populous

07/23/10 10:02pm

A representative of Margie Beegle Sales expects this two-story home in Southgate across the street from Rice University to hit the market next month. If you’re interested in a sneak preview of the home or would enjoy the opportunity to participate in the frenzied dismantling of the rather astounding collection of collections mounted inside, here’s your chance. The estate sale at 2141 University Blvd. is this weekend. Looking for a Kabuki mask or a vintage Hell Driver Rodeo racetrack? You’re in luck! A few more featured items from among the assembled treasures: KISS Psychic Circus action figures, some rather large Nutcracker figurines, and two full size mirror-image representations of Cracker Jack’s blue and white logo-man Sailor Jack with his dog Bingo. A much abbreviated preview of the scene:

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07/22/10 12:54pm

AURORA PICTURE SHOW’S ORIGINAL MOVIE HOUSE HAS A BUYER The woman who’s buying the former home of the Aurora Picture Show from microcinema pioneer Andrea Grover plans on starting her own new film and arts organization and running it out of the former Sunset Height Church of Christ at 800 Aurora St. Artist, filmmaker, and law student Cressandra Thibodeaux‘s name for her new concept: 14 Pews. She hopes to host theater and film productions, weddings, art exhibitions, classes, and workshops in the space, along with occasional screenings from . . . Aurora Picture Show. Writer Steven Thomsen gets Thibodeaux to gush: “‘I’m going through a divorce and thought that Houston would be the best place to lick my wounds,’ she tells CultureMap. ‘It’s always treated me like a forgiving lover who wraps me in her warm moist arms. And the moment I landed at the airport I was engulfed in her warm moistness. . . . I have spent 10 years tossing ideas and projects at the walls in Los Angeles,’ she explains. ‘I came to Houston and in one week everything I tossed stuck to the walls. I credit the humidity.’” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Kenny Haner

06/24/10 11:48am

Having displayed a remarkable ability to minimize outside participation in the “open call” for Astrodome redevelopment proposals it conducted half a decade ago, the brilliant and methodical minds behind the Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation now appear ready to demonstrate similar mastery of the process of public-opinion polling. The corporation is counting actual votes in the online poll it set up last week, which allows website visitors from any country to choose from one of 2 kitchen-sink redevelopment proposals — or the garbage-disposal option pictured above. With 5,800 “votes” cast, longtime corporation executive director Willie Loston notes that the “save the Dome” options are winning by a landslide. But wait! Maybe they just haven’t been asking the right people?

To solicit more participation, Loston has asked some of Reliant Park’s tenants — the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Houston Texans and the Offshore Technology Conference – to encourage their constituents to take the survey.

Asked if that could be construed as an attempt to manufacture support for a more costly park makeover, Loston said he does not see it as an attempt to shape the survey’s outcome.

Note to contracted visitors: Local Zip Codes begin with “770.”

Drawing of flattened Astrodome: Reliant Park

06/17/10 2:14pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WRITE-IN ADDITION TO THE NEW KITCHEN-SINK ASTRODOME REDEVELOPMENT PLAN “How about turning the Astrodome into the Smithsonian Museum of Energy and Power? Just like the National Air & Space Museum, it could collect the actual artifacts of the industry that calls Houston home and that plays such an important part in all of our daily lives. You could put a whole supertanker, a few notorious drilling rigs, some significant parts of an oil refinery, working solar panels and several generations of windmill turbines inside. Divide up the concourse spaces for offices (alternative energy business incubators, etc) Could be really interesting and also an appropriate use for the facility.” [SCL, commenting on Latest Astrodome Redevelopment Proposal Features Large Domed Space for People To Mill About, Wondering What To Do with Astrodome]