- 2425 Colleen Dr. [HAR]
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Pearland
- 2730 Leroy St. [HAR]
- 2985 Creek Falls Ct. [HAR]
Even before hitting the courtyard pool, an Asian-inspired home in Pearland’s Green Tee Terrace golf community takes a dip with its pagoda-style roof — and hand-dipped gold leaf panels on the living room ceiling (top). Could the distinctive 1982 property be too distinctive for the area? In a series of successive listings, its price has kept dropping. Last week, the stately home popped back up on the market again, this time seeking $699,000. In its initial listing back in 2011, the asking price started at $1.2 million and was whittled back to $895,000 over a 2-year period. A 6-month interim listing in September 2013 found no takers at $800,000 or at the $750,000 reduction in December. Back in 2005, it sold at $614,000, down from a 1999 sale for $649,000.
Attention to detail is one of the property’s hallmarks; so are shoji screens in many of the rooms . . .
Serving Tee
COMMENT OF THE DAY: INNER LOOP REUNION OF THE EX-PRESIDENTS’ HEADS “I wish someone would get all of the presidents back together! They are very sad now. A kind donor, say perhaps the magnanimous Landed Gent who always boasts of his splendor here on Swamplot, should cut a deal for the Wilshire Village property and foster the development of a Presidential Park. I’m sure it’s like a buy 20 get one free sort of deal, so maybe we could get that nifty telephone too.” [Bobby Hadley, commenting on Pearland Heads Cut Off: The WaterLight District’s Giant Presidential Bust]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE THE WATER AND THE MONEY WERE “wow. in 2007 lenders doing 66% debt on raw land. raw land that looks flood prone. wow.” [JPSivco, commenting on Pearland Heads Cut Off: The WaterLight District’s Giant Presidential Bust]
The property intended to be home to the Waterlights District — the proposed mixed-use shopping and eating extravaganzorama in Pearland — has been posted for foreclosure by its main creditor, Amegy Bank. The 1.9 million-sq.-ft. development was to feature condos, luxury apartments, office buildings, retail space, restaurants, 2 hotels, a conference facility, a “water wall,” and a Venice-like “Grand Canal.”
The site, off the Shadow Creek Pkwy. exit on the west side of Hwy. 288, has been marked for more than 2 years now by a curious semicircle of David Adickes sculptures, a preview of the development’s Presidential Park and Gardens. That park was to feature giant white busts of all 38 U.S. Presidents. But unlike Adickes other presidential suite, I-45’s Mount Rush Hour just north of Downtown Houston — in which each of the sculptor’s busts rests on its own podium — in the Waterlights grouping the 7 Presidents moved to the site appear from the freeway to be buried in the earth up to their chests, somehow managing to keep their heads above the often-times-soggy land around them. Yes, it was the perfect marker for a freeway-side development buried in debt and treading quicksand just to keep itself afloat:
PEARLAND MANSION MYSTERY — UNREVEALED! Having been indoctrinated into the bizarre cult of the 64,000-sq.-ft. unfinished residence-like warehouse she calls the Pearland Mystery Mansion, Katharine Shilcutt appears dedicated to keeping its secret: “What became of the house after Dr. Watkins abandoned it and went on to build the halfling mansion next door isn’t a matter of public record, suffice to say it’s a bizarre story of its own that deserves to be told one day. What will happen to the houses is anyone’s guess. The bank that owns both houses has had a feasibility study performed to determine whether or not they would be appropriate for group homes or assisted living facilities. Having been inside, it seems like the most fitting application for at least the larger of the two, if not both. It’s difficult to imagine why someone in their right mind would build what is — essentially — the world’s largest shotgun shack (or, more to the point, what architect conceived of this monstrosity as a residence). But it’s not at all difficult to picture these two buildings on this serene piece of land housing elderly or assisted care patients one day.” [Hair Balls; the house next door, featured on the Neighborhood Guessing Game]
You saw the video. Now comes the detail: OffCite has more on recent Rice University architecture grad Lysle Oliveros’s proposal for turning that putrid pile of garbage next door to Shadow Creek Ranch into an exciting outdoor playplace! The fun comes in 3 phases.
In phase 1, trash haulers would start a new pile with each year’s take, completing a mound every 12 months:
Each monument compared to the next would create an awareness of the massive amount of disposed consumer goods. For example, the 2008 “index†created by Hurricane Ike debris would have been 400 feet tall.
Too bad about the City of Pearland’s recent agreement with Republic Services limiting those piles to a mere 130 ft. Oh, well — just wait until 2029!
Here’s a brand-new home-search tool that will likely change the way you hunt for residential properties in Houston. And you can find it on the website of . . . a real estate agent working out of this Pearland strip center??
Actually, the new search tool is just a branded implementation of Diverse Solutions’ dsSearchAgent, which has been around for a few years in other markets, and received a major makeover late last fall. The same system might be hiding on some other area broker’s website, but this is the first we’ve seen it working with Houston MLS data.
What’s so special about dsSearchAgent?
On the City of Pearland website, the fire marshal has posted a photo presentation highlighting a few of the more than 2,800 safety violations found this past weekend at Cole’s Antique Village & Flea Market. And on the Cole’s Antique Village website, the owners have put up an MP3 recording of Elvis Presley singing “My Way,” which plays automatically for visitors.
Cole’s had more than 900 permanent vendors on its extensive campus at 1014 N. Main St., at the southwest corner of Beltway 8 and Telephone Road. But the flea market’s likely regrets are clearly not too few to mention: The fire marshal’s photos show personal padlocks on emergency access gates, mounds of stacked tires and mattresses, insufficient and improperly marked exits, bypassed circuit breakers, Gordian tangles of extension cords, propane tanks stored indoors next to generators, and a broad range of other problems.
State agencies have finally caught up with the chemical soup left to seep into the soil for two decades at a 3.5-acre abandoned tank farm in south Pearland, poisoning the wells of nearby residents with high levels of lead and other contaminants. Now the Camtraco Enterprises site, at 18823 Amoco Dr. — along a rail line running west of Highway 35 — is poised to become the latest addition to Texas’s Superfund registry.
Camtraco, which operated the fuel storage, blending, and distillation facility under a series of assumed names (Beaumont Chemicals, Camtraco Chemical Corp., Glycols Inc., Mondobello Chemical Services, Picos Chemical Plant, Okemah Hydrocarbons, and Southeastern Oil Company), halted work at the site in 1992. A sampling of the chemical bouquet discovered both on- and off-site from recent TCEQ efforts: arsenic, barium, chromium, lead, mercury, bis(2-ethylhexyl)adipate, bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, diethyl phthalate, di-n-butyl phthalate, methylene chloride, 1,4 dicholorobenzene, toluene, and tricholoroethene (TCE).
- Pearland Gets The State’s Newest Superfund Site! Take That, Pasadena! [Hair Balls]
- Camtraco Enterprises [TCEQ]
- Hazard Ranking System Documentation Record (PDF) [TCEQ]
Map showing the Camtraco Enterprises site’s former features: TCEQ
IS SHADOW CREEK RANCH READY FOR THE BUSH LEAGUES?
“JD Daniel, USA Partners’ managing principal, said the firm has received approval from former President George Bush and wife, Barbara, to name the proposed complex in their honor. The facility, to be located on a 30-acre site west of Kingsley and north of Shadow Creek Parkway, would be called the George and Barbara Bush Sports Complex.” The Pearland City Council will vote on the proposal the Monday after Labor Day. [Houston Chronicle]
Thinking of taking a test drive on those Pearland Town Center parking lots this weekend? Why not stop by these Silvercreek open houses nearby? Silvercreek is “the community that feels like a neighborhood”!
Location: 2618 Misty Grove Dr., Manvel
Details: 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths; 2,923 sq. ft.
Price: $235,000
The Scoop: Trendmaker Homes doubled down on crown molding in this 2002 one-story. Large Kitchen with granite countertops and tall maple cabinets. Tile and carpet downstairs; carpet up. Large Master Bath has several slender columns, large mirrors, space for TV. Owners are VERY!!! interested in selling this house to you.
Open House: Saturday, 2-4 pm
More brick-faced sprawlers — after the jump!
The drive-thru mall with extras known as Pearland Town Center opens this Wednesday, at the intersection of 288 and FM 518! But it’ll be so much more than just a collection of chain stores arranged neatly in a giant parking lot:
Sixty-two apartments rest on top of retail stores, giving residents a downtown feel without the hassle of daily traffic. Granite countertops complement the kitchen of each unit along with stainless-steel appliances.
The above-retail units will be available for leasing July 30 while another set of 238 freestanding residential units will be accessible in late 2009. One-bedroom apartments will lease for $1,300 per month, and two-bedroom loft apartments will lease for $1,900 per month.
75-percent of the 85-percent-leased mall will be open Wednesday, reports David Kaplan in the Chronicle.
- Pearland Town Center ready for grand opening [Brazosport Facts]
- Macy’s makes its way to Pearland [Houston Chronicle]
- New shopping mecca set to open [abc13]
- Pearland Town Center (with sound)
- Pearland’s New Drive-Thru Mall [Swamplot]
Plan of Pearland Town Center: CBL & Associates
