THE RIVER OAKS SHOPPING CENTER’S NEW PARKING METERS 
Hooded, solar-powered parking overseers have arrived on streets surrounding the River Oaks Shopping Center on West Gray St., reader James Glassman notes. Here’s a photo of a meter dressed in a blue cape, awaiting orders to undress on Peden St. at McDuffie. [Previously on Swamplot]Â Photo: James Glassman
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Parking
Surprise! The spot in Houston where the most parking tickets have been issued over the last 2 years is . . . the place where people go to pay for their parking tickets. That would be at the surface parking lot for the city’s municipal courthouse at 1400 Lubbock St. (pictured at right), where a couple advantages accrue for illegal parkers: If you’ve got money with you when you return to find that bright green envelope tucked under your windshield wiper, paying up will be extremely convenient, and the parking while you go back in should be . . . uh, no extra charge!
Working from public data, Click2Houston reporter Jace Larson compiled the top 19 addresses cited in the 415,000 parking citations the city issued in 2012 and 2013, and highlighted 6 of them in his TV report. Of the top 19, only 6 are not directly adjacent to government or public-institution-related buildings; the vast majority of them are Downtown. Among the non-central parking-enforcement hotspots: an IRS service center and a couple of residential blocks near Montrose nightclubs. Here’s a list and map of the parking-enforcement hotspots, along with a few details from Larson’s report and observations of the map:
Hint: They’re Mostly Downtown
Here’s a view of the Wedge International parking garage at 777 Clay St. from across Polk St. taken yesterday. It’s not particularly notable — until you realize what’s no longer visible. For years, while a surface parking lot stood on the lot in the foreground, this was the scene of Houston’s most spectacular grid of auto headlights and taillights — changing daily, and screened from their cliff-like views at each level only by low, light-looking barriers of steel cables. (A closeup side view of the scene from last week, with a few levels already partially masked by new chain-link fencing, is shown at right.)
That’s a Wrap
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A DEALCHASER’S GUIDE TO MONTHLY GARAGE PARKING DOWNTOWN “Do we need more parking downtown? Um, yes. Corporations have bought up many garages and left nothing for everyone else.
I work in the Wells Fargo building, where an unreserved spot costs $400/mo. I had a spot in the Travis Place garage for $150, but Kinder Morgan or El Paso bought all the spots. I got a spot at 919 Milam for $190-ish, and some tenant bought all those spots. Then I got a spot above Pappas BBQ at 1100 Smith, but they kicked out a bunch of parkers (including me) to open up spaces for new tenants at 1100 Louisiana. I tried to get a spot in the Theater District garages, but they have a wait list a mile long. So now I’ve moved to Two Shell, which is $215/mo. Renovations are about to begin there, so I’ll either get the boot again or it will become prohibitively expensive. (Again, all of these prices are for plain-jane unreserved spots. And I can’t take the bus because I am in and out of the car all day.)
So, yes . . . We need more non-corporate parking downtown.” [Montrosian, commenting on Downtown’s New Highrise for Cars Is Going Up!] Photo of Wedge International Tower parking garage: Swamplot inbox
Construction has begun on the 16-story, 1,600-car parking-only highrise at 1311 Louisiana St. When complete, it’ll cover the northeast half of the block surrounded by Polk, Milam, Louisiana, and Clay, and provide layers of automotive insulation for the cars up against the ropes (and more recently installed chain-link fence) on the adjacent Wedge International parking garage. In the meantime, Wedge parkers will have a decent view of the construction activity below.
16 Stories of Vertical Parking Bliss
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FLOODING DOWNTOWN WITH UNDER-FREEWAY PARKING 
“I’d rather see parking garages under 45 and 59 than retail. I’d rather not have to worry about car fires and 18-wheeler accidents on the roof of my building. The insurance costs would be incredible.
Tens of thousands of parking spaces could be made under 45 and 59. Vast quantities of free, or very cheap, parking would reduce the demand for surface parking in the Downtown area. Owners of empty lots would be more inclined to develop the empty lots if drivers were no longer willing to pay $10 to $20 per car for every sporting event. For $1 parking I’d be willing to walk half a dozen blocks or hop on the light rail to get to my destination. Direction way finding for parking for out-of-town visitors would be easy — ‘park under the freeway.’ Developers would gain an advantage as supplying parking levels would no longer be a given necessity of building in Downtown Houston. Even typical parking garage congestion come rush hour wouldn’t be an issue due to the linear nature the 45 and 59 garages would have to take. Multiple entrances and exits could face Pierce and Chartres with dedicated right-of-way lanes to the street. Line the lengthy parking garages with a spine of moving sidewalks so ‘prime’ parking spots are minimized. You’ll always be five minutes from a rail stop.” [Thomas, commenting on Headlines: Metro’s New Bus Plan; The Score Next Door] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE PARKING SPACES OUT FRONT 
“So my friend’s neighbors on both sides and across the street have used pea gravel to make head-in parking spaces in front of the their houses in the Heights.
In doing so they eliminated 2-3 parallel street parking spots in front of each house, as well as taking over what I assume is the city right of way. I assume this can’t be legal, but then this is Houston so who knows?
Anyway these neighbors throw fits if anyone parks in their spaces. My friends like to have people over and now parking is a real challenge. I’ve been confronted by the neighbors before and have told them that these are not their spaces and they vehemently (violently) disagree. Am I right? Am I wrong? Should I just pretend they aren’t there and park behind them on the street like I would have had they not taken over those spaces? Is there anything that can be done?” [charlie, commenting on Where the Sidewalk Goes Private in Cinco Ranch] Illustration: Lulu
It appears that Gensler has submitted for review by the city planning commission this rendering of a 1,600-space, 16-story parking garage. Maps included in the agenda for the October 3 commission meeting show that the garage would stand Downtown at 1311 Louisiana, now a surface lot, and share the block bound by Louisiana, Polk, Milam, and Clay with the 12-story garage for the WEDGE International Tower.
Architecture firm Stern and Bucek has come up with this rendering of the Menil Collection’s new cafe, part of the free museum’s long-planned expansion of its Montrose campus. The design for the cafe — which is yet to be named but will be run by Greg Martin (of Cafés Annie and Express and Taco Milagro) — appears to adapt and elaborate upon the gray bungalow at 1512 Sul Ross St., on the other side of that path from the Menil Bookstore; this is the same site, says a press release from the Menil Collection, that architect Renzo Piano originally had in mind for a similar amenity. So there’s that. Whatever it’ll be called, the cafe, it appears, will split the difference between the museum’s main entrance and the parking lot off W. Alabama.
Rolled-in brick planters, some fake grass, a place to sit to sip your Starbucks: You’ve got yourself a park! Or, in this case, a seat-of-your-pants impromptu parklet, a li’l green gesture toward leisure and recreation where before there had been only the cool impersonality of curbs and the business of parking meters. All this stuff was set up first thing this morning — which just so happens to be National Park(ing) Day, devoted to pop-up experiments like this one — atop those 3 parallel parking spots in front of Frank’s near the corner of Travis and Prairie in Downtown, creating a like outlier just catty-corner from Market Square Park.
This is how it went down:
All day Friday these 3 parking spots in Market Square in front of Frank’s — and where Hines wants to build that 33-story residential tower — will be unavailable. Why? Well, Gensler and the Houston chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (including firms Asakura Robinson, SWA Group, M2L, and Elizabeth Austin Landscapes) are gonna be using ’em to set up a parkette for National Park(ing) Day.
Just as the similarly hopeful Better Block project attempts to reproduce pedestrian-friendly street life for a few hours in a controlled environment, these wee pop-up parks work like dioramas of urban leisure: A rep tells Swamplot that a shade structure, trees, shrubs, and board games (checkers and Jenga, yo!) will be rolled in and set up here at 417 Travis from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for anyone who wants to park it and stay awhile.
Additionally, a group of architecture students from Texas Tech are trying to stimulate the same simulation at the corner of Leeland and St. Emanuel in East Downtown, near the food trucks at the Houston Food Park.
- Houston Park(ing) Day [Facebook]
- Previously on Swamplot: A Few New Views of the 33-Story Apartment Building Hines Wants To Build in Market Square, A First Look at Some of the 33-Story Apartment Tower Hines Wants To Build in Market Square, How To Build a Buffalo Bayou Pedestrian Bridge: A Photo Tutorial, Hines Interested in Building Residential Tower on Downtown Block Near Market Square Park, East Downtown’s Food Truck Parking Park, Planning for the Future of Washington Ave, The Great Houston Street Life Simulation
Photo: Barbara Novoa
At a meeting yesterday, reps from the Houston Parks Board told reps from the Idylwood Civic Club that the HPB would agree to let alone that grassy knoll, shown here, where a trailhead providing access to the Brays Bayou hike and bike was to have been installed. Described in 2009 documents as “Sylvan Dell Parking Lot,” it appears that the proposed trailhead would have provided 19 off-street parking spaces, benches, lighting, a gazebo, and exercise equipment. Though those specs don’t really matter now: Houston Parks Board rep Jen Powis tells Swamplot that the Idylwood residents “chose to eliminate” the project.
IN PRAISE OF CARNEGIE VANGUARD’S MIXED-USE PARKING GARAGE 
What does HISD have to show for that $805 million approved in 2007 for new school construction and renovation? MaryScott Hagle reviews the results at Lockhart, Herod, and Peck elementaries and gives props to RdlR Architects for the design of Carnegie Vanguard High School at 1501 Taft — though she seems most taken with the parking garage, which was, she writes, “originally planned for one story that grew to two when the City of Houston offered to pitch in, in exchange for community access to the school’s ball fields on the weekends. . . . Furthermore, the garage itself is dual-purpose: when the academic day is over and the students who park on the garage roof go home, the Carnegie tennis team takes over for practice.” [OffCite] Photo: HISD
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: WHAT RETAILERS WANT, IF THEY CAN GET IT “I do this for a living. Tenants of any magnitude want that parking field in the front. Parking in the rear means liability, and the potential to thwart customers when they don’t see ‘rockstar’ parking. they want as few trees as possible, and the landscaping/irrigation systems to be as lean as possible. they want maximum street signage and building logo signage. the good news is there’s a solution for all of this. land price. it dictates EVERYTHING without one bit of regulation. when land is expensive, the ability to do things with a piece of dirt becomes cost prohibitive . . . and the market will figure it out.” [HTX REZ, commenting on Comment of the Day: Why There’s No ‘Parking in Back’ Requirement]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY THERE’S NO ‘PARKING IN BACK’ REQUIREMENT 
“The idea of requiring on-site parking to be put somewhere else beside the primary frontage along the street was considered during the Urban Corridors process (that led to the current Transit Corridor ordinance). The message from the development community was loud and clear: you cannot prohibit front-door parking within a certain area — that makes properties just outside the boundary of the restriction more valuable and attractive to a greater range of potential occupants, and therefore unfairly diminishes the value of the restricted properties. The idea of making such a restriction mandatory was thus scrapped; it is now an ‘opt-in’ feature of the ordinance in return for the ability to do a reduced setback. Only on streets in light rail corridors though — it doesn’t apply in places like Washington and Rice Village, sadly.” [Local Planner, commenting on Comment of the Day: Too Many Parking Spaces] Illustration: Lulu
