Note: Now there’s video! See below.
All is back to normal at the Warwick Towers condominiums across from Hermann Park after last Friday’s frightening flying dinosaur episode. For Houstonians more accustomed to tracking dinosaur migrations below the earth’s surface, the appearance of a full-scale ankylosaurus dating from the early 1960s hovering high in the sky above its recent home at the Museum of Natural Science must have been a harrowing sight:
“Can’t wait to find a buyer for this condo!” writes real-estate agent Veso Kossev. “Too bad I can’t take [anyone] to see it…..” Huh? Oh, yeah . . . it’s unit E5 at the Park Memorial Condominiums, otherwise known as the 4.85-acre land of limbo just north of Memorial Dr. at Detering. As of a few days ago, you can pick up this 2-bedroom, 2-bath, only partially smashed condo for the low, low price of just $47,000. But you won’t be able to have it inspected — or see it yourself — because the entire complex has been condemned by the city. Where’d these lovely interior photos in the listing come from, then?
HANS’ BIER HAUS ON THE ROCKS 
Restraining orders may have put a little damper on the back-and-forth between Hans’ Bier Haus and some of the fun-loving residents of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condo building that towers over it next door, but Miya Shay reports things are back to uh, normal now. Bar owner Bill Cave tells her he “believes a big chunk of ice crashed through his roof and into the bar” in the wee hours of this past holiday weekend. But gosh, where’s the evidence? (Note: Video posted with the story is out of date; Hans’ Bier Haus already renewed its license.) [abc13; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jack H.
THE SELLOUT CROWD AT PALISADE PALMS 
A Florida real-estate developer who bought up 17 condos in the Palisade Palms towers on Galveston’s East Beach at low, low pre-construction prices 5 years ago was finally able to unload 10 of them at an auction earlier this month, taking what he describes as “a 40 percent haircut.“ Mark Shapley tells the HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson he’s “done in Galveston,” even though he’s still stuck with 3 units in the 287-unit development. (He’d already sold 4 others). Only 50 people showed up to Shapley’s sales event — less than one-tenth of the draw of a June auction where the buildings’ original developer was able to get rid of 27 units. And Shapley sold his units for much less too: from $170,500 for a 1,044 sq.-ft. 2-bedroom to $742,500 for a 2,659-sq.-ft. penthouse. [Houston Business Journal] Photo: Palisade Palms
Residents of the east-facing condos in the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby tower jealous of all the fun their neighbors in the west-facing units have been having with late night partiers at Hans’ Bier Haus next door now have their very own partly open-air next-door bar to mess with: Hudson Lounge opened earlier this week, at 2506 Robinhood. And hey: on this side of the tower, there’s no pesky parking garage to get in the way of any nightclub-condo interaction.
Brothers Adam, Alexander, and Andre Klieber carved the new straight-Mod space out of the former office HQ of Adam and Alexander’s other business, Southampton Homes — after business there slowed down. New swiveling steel doors on the front and back of the 1950 building open to a patio and separate bar pavilion in back.
Just what is it that’s allowed construction on the Mirabeau B. condos on the corner of Hyde Park and Waugh to go forward when so many other projects have stalled? How about a little thing called . . . zero debt. After flirting with turning the building rental last year, developer Joey Romano now says he’s back to the original plan of selling all 14 units in the 4-story building — though he’ll also consider leases with purchase options “on a case by case basis.” Construction began in May; Romano expects the building to be complete by next July.
Welcome home to Park Memorial! More than 2 years after city officials ordered the entire Memorial Dr. complex evacuated, the coast may now be clear for owners of the Park Memorial Condominiums to move back into their homes! Except, umm . . . some of those sheet-rock, copper-wiring, and AC-unit removal operations that have been going on in the meantime on the locked and officially empty grounds might make moving back in a little rough. 11 News’s Gabe Gutierrez reports that a Harris County district judge has ruled that the city’s order to vacate the property violated the state’s due process rules because there was no prior notice or hearing, and that there was “no evidence that there was any emergency or immediate danger that justified” requiring the residents to leave without one. The city plans to appeal the ruling.
Mayor Parker, after a stint behind the controls of JTB Services’ excavator at yesterday’s demolition of the Candlelight Trails condominium complex north of Tidwell:
My most fun day yet as Mayor. Make all the jokes you want. I operated a giant backhoe as we demolished an abandoned property off Antoine!
CANDLELIGHT TRAILS IS GOING DOWN 
The demolition of the 11-acre Candlelight Trails empty-condos-and-crime site could begin as early as today. Officials at city hall tell 11 News reporter Sherry Williams that a judge approved the demolition of the abandoned complex — in the 5500 and 5600 blocks of DeSoto, off Antoine north of Tidwell — this morning: “The city recently sued about 150 of the condo owners to get them to sign off on the demolition. Some of those lawsuits added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties. . . . ‘As long as they agree to sign over their title to the city, then we’re not going after them for money,’ said Houston City Councilwoman Jolanda Jones. ‘It’s really sad that they bought into a place where the people who ran it absconded with their money, but I’m thankful that we are not further, I don’t know, kicking them while they’re down.’” Update: The demolition is now scheduled to begin at 1:30 pm, according to the Near Northwest Management District. [KHOU; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Matt Stiles
Neighbors in the Freeland Historic District who imagined the nationwide economic downturn and neighborhood protests a few years ago would have been enough to kill a threatened 65-70-condo development on a wooded tract next to the new Heights hike-and-bike trail have been buzzing about the project’s apparent reappearance. On the agenda for this week’s planning commission meeting: the Emes Place Subdivision, which will give the long-landlocked site access by connecting Frasier St. and E. 5th St. across the trail, just north of White Oak Bayou. The subdivision plat is listed as a “consent item,” meaning its approval is not scheduled to be put up for a separate vote.
Viewpoint at the Heights, slated for that subdivision, is a project of Canada’s Group LSR, which goes by the name Inner Loop Condos in Houston. The company developed the Serento Condominium near the Med Center and the Piedmont sorta near River Oaks. Freeland residents have heard the building being proposed for the 1-acre site will be 4 or 5 stories tall.
EVEN IF SHAYA BOYMELGREEN CAN MAKE IT THERE, HE WON’T BE BUILDING TOWERS HERE In his first interview with a reporter in 3 years, international developer-in-distress Shaya Boymelgreen tells the New York Observer he’s back in Manhattan, scouting for “new development opportunities,” and singing an old movie tune: “Unless I get an offer I can’t refuse, I would like to concentrate now in Manhattan. I believe this is now the opportunity and the time. If I cannot make it in Manhattan, I don’t know where else I can make it.” Translation: His long-threatened twin condo tower development planned for San Felipe at the end of Woodway in Houston is officially toast. [New York Observer; previously on Swamplot]
WHO GOT THE POLICE TICKET FOR THE HANS’ BIER HAUS MEAT BOMB? In an update to its previous story about the 20 or 40 pounds of rotting meat that was unceremoniously dumped in the private alley between Hans’ Bier Haus on Quenby and the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condominiums over the weekend, abc13 is now reporting that police following up on the incident have issued a citation to “one person” for “causing a nuisance” with the festering stink bomb. Another fun fact from the latest teevee report: “According to the city health department, the property where the meat sits belongs to neither the bar nor the condo, but a third party with [groan] no stake in the case.” Update, 7/9: abc13 has updated its story again, this time removing the name of the person previously identified as having received the citation. We’ve followed suit. [abc13; previously on Swamplot]
Did someone really dump 20 pounds of rotting meat in the private alley between the side wall of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby Condos and the bar patio of Hans’ Bier Haus? Or was it actually 40 pounds? A commenter first alerted Swamplot readers to the smelly situation on Monday, just a few days after a TABC judge — over the live and videotaped objections of several condo residents who live next door — renewed the bar’s alcohol license. But an abc13 report from yesterday gives the latest episode in the ongoing feud a marvelous twist: The alley where the maggot-infested meat is resting is in the Rice Village bar war’s DMZ:
Bar employees can’t enter the area because of a restraining order, and no one from the condo has removed the meat. The bar says the stench is hurting business.
Photos: Sandra Gunn (top) and abc13
THE PARTY WILL GO ON AT HANS’ BIER HAUS The little bar in the long shadow of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby Condominiums can keep its alcohol license, a TABC hearing judge ruled today. Residents of the Rice Village condo building contested the license renewal of Hans’ Bier Haus after earlier efforts to silence nosy patrons — with beer cans, lasers, water hoses, and video surveillance — failed. “In his decision, Donovan noted that although police had been called to the bar more than 20 times for noise, they never were cited. . . . The feud continues to be litigated in civil court.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Thought Judge Hancock’s January restraining order had quieted the ongoing feud between residents of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condo tower and the little Rice Village bar next door, Hans’ Bier Haus? Well, maybe a little. But both sides pulled out their best complaints for yesterday’s hearing at commissioners’ court, where Robinhood residents are protesting the renewal of the partly open-air bar’s beer and wine license. While January’s court order appears to have quelled the beer-can throwing, the band-dousing, and the collar-grabbing, lawyers for the bar claim that condo residents have been intimidating bar patrons by putting them under surveillance: “They installed high tech videotape and audiotape recording and surveillance microphones and cameras and filmed virtually everything that occurred on the premises of Hans Bier Haus,” bar piano player and attorney Ken Ward complained to the court. Sure, but how else are they gonna have highlights to show in court? The hearing will continue on Thursday.
