POST OAK BRT THAT MUCH CLOSER TO GETTING ITS MONEY 
After a month’s delay to take a longer look at the project, the transportation arm of the Houston-Galveston Area Council finally decided to go ahead and recommend that Uptown receive $62 million in federal funds to pay for the proposed Post Oak Blvd. bus rapid transit system. This is just a provisional step, of course, since 2 actual approvals, not mere recommendations, are needed — but it does move things along. Through tax revenue, Uptown is already paying for about half the estimated $148 million project. The Houston Chronicle’s Dug Begley is reporting that this federal money would help buy up $30 million of land so Post Oak could be widened for the bus lanes. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Drawing: Uptown Management District
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Proposed Developments
If this deluxe 26-story residential tower is built, as proposed by Interfin and Pierpoint, it’ll add 44 new condos and 2 penthouses to Uptown’s deluxe stock. And it’ll come at a premium: The Houston Business Journal is reporting that the Kirksey-designed, so-called Belfiore will be built with just 2 4,650-sq.-ft. condos per floor, each going for about $600 per sq. ft. These pricey places are planned to start going up in 2014 on a site inside Uptown’s recently expanded tax zone, just west of the Loop on S. Post Oak Ln., near that horseshoe of Wynden Dr.
- Even more luxury living for the Uptown District [Houston Business Journal]
- New high-rise condo project planned in Galleria-area [Prime Property]
- Previously on Swamplot: Mayor Parker’s Plan for a Bigger, Friendlier Uptown TIRZ
Rendering: Interfin
Local planning firm Asakura Robinson has released a 250-page study on the past, present, and future — as they would like to see it — of the Washington Corridor. The study seems to stem from Better Block Houston, a kind of experiment the firm performed in a vacant lot near their mural-stained offices on Washington and Silver: The street was transformed into a pop-up plaza: Food trucks rolled in, bike repair stations set up, and local retailers spread out. The study imagines this kind of pedestrian life happening along the entire length of Washington, from Westcott to I-45 and between I-10 and Buffalo Bayou.
MOM’S LETTER LEADS CITY TO RAZE DERELICT FIFTH WARD HOUSING 
Yesterday, this Komatsu finished the job that Hurricane Ike started, taking out 63 damaged units of the Houston Housing Authority’s Kelly Village Apartments at 1119 Grove St. in the Fifth Ward — and at least one of the residents is happy to see ’em go: “Lacrecha St. Jules,” who wrote a letter to the Housing Authority requesting that something be done, reports the Houston Chronicle, “spent plenty of sleepless nights worrying about her four children as drug dealers and thugs made themselves at home in [the] vacant buildings. . . . ‘It was dark, and there were rapes back there . . . It was a bunch of negatives, and I just wanted to turn it into a positive.'” North of I-10 and east of U.S. 59, the apartments, which showed up in yesterday’s Daily Demolition Report, date to 1930; the city says it plans to build an $800,000, 3-acre park in their place, with room for a jogging trail and garden. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: KHOU via Facebook
Only Cougars allowed: Prime Property is reporting that Fountain Residential, a Dallas developer, will build, own, and operate this residential complex for students immediately southwest of the University of Houston campus. The 5-story, 347-bed dorm being called The Vue on MacGregor — which will indeed provide a vue of Brays Bayou — will be up by the fall semester of 2014, standing where there’s now a boarded-up gas station at the corner of S. MacGregor and Calhoun. This is just one of the many projects underway on campus, as the Robertson Stadium replacement continues to go up, along with another residence hall, student apartments, and a restaurant and retail space near Elgin St.
- University of Houston expands student housing [Prime Property]
- Previously on Swamplot: Let the Designs Begin: UH To Renovate Aging Basketball Arena, UH’s Dead-End Den for Cougars of Age, New UH Football Stadium Will Point Team in a Slightly Different Direction, Goodbye, Robertson Stadium: Replacement UH Football Venue Gets Go-Ahead
Rendering: 5G Studio Architects
The unkempt homes that used to obscure that towering yellow pole on the Gulf Fwy. feeder were undone last month, after 2108 and 2110 Sunnyland St. showed up in the Daily Demolition Report in late April; architect Tim Cisneros, whose firm is named on the variance request, says a 2,000-sq.-ft. law office will be built to replace them. In the East End, the lot faces the feeder between Telephone and Wayside, near where the 2nd inside-the-Loop Walmart is under construction.
FIGHTING THE INVADERS OF BUFFALO BAYOU 
Though much of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s (BBP) plans for that eponymous waterway involve adding things — kayak rental shops, pedestrian bridges, etc. — there seems to be the need for subtraction, too: “‘People look at the park and see that it’s filled with trees and grass, what most people don’t realize is that most of those plants shouldn’t be there,'” BBP’s prez Anne Olson tells Alex Wukman of Free Press Houston. “A study of the park’s vegetation, which the Partnership filed with the Texas Forest Service, found Buffalo Bayou to be overrun with invasive species — primarily White Cedar and Chinese Tallow. . . . Olson explained that the Partnership plans to combat the invasive species problem by removing 50 percent of the park’s lawn, which is mostly made up of easily-maintained but non-native Bermuda grass, and replacing it with native grasses.” Adds Olson: “‘We’re going to create an 11 acre urban prairie.'” [Free Press Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user barryDphotography
A plan on the website of Hnedak Bobo Group, a developer an architecture firm based in Memphis, showcases this rendering of a shiny 38-story residential tower named (for now, anyway) “Houston Luxury Apartments,” standing behind the Texaco Building at 1111 Rusk St.
This view shows the lot bound by Capitol, Fannin, San Jacinto, and Rusk, where the 13-story Texas Company Building — said to be the first major oil company headquarters in Houston — and its add-ons has stood since 1915. The few details Hnedak Bobo mentions indicates that that building would be maintained and renovated into age-appropriate apartments, as well.
And there’s more:
Here’s a view of the senior living and memory care facility that will go up in place of the Heights Fiesta that’s now coming down at 14th and Studewood: Though what’s being called the Village of the Heights was initially described to the Leader by “boutique senior living developer” Bridgewood Properties as “Craftsman style” with 80 units, descriptions accompanying this rendering omit any mention of style — and add 23 units. Either way, it’s supposed to be up and running next summer; Real Estate Bisnow reports that money to get construction going is in place.
Meanwhile, the sacking of that long-standing Fiesta continues:
RUDYARD’S OWNER BUILDING BIGGER BAR IN SHADY ACRES 
The owner of Rudyard’s British Pub in Montrose has announced that she’ll be building TikTok, a bar, restaurant, and venue for live music in Shady Acres — and, apparently, this new one will be a lot more building than what you get at Rudyard’s. Owner Leila Rodgers tells the Houston Business Journal that TikTok “is expected to have a capacity of 750 to 800 people. She said she expects to be able to host 450 to 500 people in the performance area and 250 to 300 in the restaurant area.” Rudyard’s is at 2010 Waugh Dr. When it opens next summer, TikTok will be at 1412 W. 20th St., near the intersection of W. 20th and T.C. Jester Blvd. — that’s just around the corner from the Hubcap Grill. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Panoramio user hermieb
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BRING IT ON “As we all learned from the Ashby debacle, anyone who lives within a 2 mile radius of a proposed project has the right to go all NIMBY on it. Well, I live within a 2 mile radius of this project, and I’d like to declare myself to be a BIMBY — Build In My Backyard. I purchased inside the loop so that I could be in a dynamic urban environment; that includes high density housing options mixed in with single family; that includes the associated traffic; that includes noisy bars letting out at 2am right in the middle of neighborhoods; that includes Ferraris wailing at 120db at 7am on Sunday even if they’re only going 15mph. Bottom line, I’d love it if the Heights became more like Greenwich Village or Tribeca. While the Heights, or Montrose, aren’t likely to get there in the near future, projects like this (and Ashby) help get us just a little bit further in that direction. And I consider that to be a good thing. BIMBY!” [Walt, commenting on A Land Use Counterattack from the Yale St. Alexan Heights]
A LAND USE COUNTERATTACK FROM THE YALE ST. ALEXAN HEIGHTS 
Though the variance for unrestricted use that Trammell Crow had sought to make way for the Alexan Heights apartments along Yale St. was denied, other amendments to the existing single-family restrictions on that lot bound by Yale, Allston, and 6th that the developer is now seeking might allow the 366-unit complex to go up after all, reports The Leader. And, besides this play in the land use game, it seems as though Trammell Crow has also responded, in part, to the first round of objections coming from neighbors: “TCR has restricted the project’s driveway on Allston Street to be a service exit, left turn only, to divert traffic away from the neighborhood,” reports Cynthia Lescalleet. “[And] if the city will approve a HAWK signal — a crossing signal controlled by pedestrians or bicyclists — at the bike trail adjacent to the . . . site, TCR will fund and build it.” This revised application will go up in a public hearing Downtown this Thursday. [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Trammell Crow Residential
Here’s a second rendering of that new office tower Hines tells the Houston Chronicle it hasn’t announced it will build. Of course, a different story is coming out of this neighborhood near River Oaks, where the 35,000-sq.-ft. property on the corner of Spann and San Felipe, purchased in November by an entity connected to Hines, has been cleared of its garden home and staked with flags, as the photos after the jump show:
Hines is planning to build an 18-story office building on a 3-lane section of San Felipe between Shepherd and Kirby, across the street from tony River Oaks. The site is the 35,000-sq.-ft. former lushy garden and grounds of a Vermont Commons home, which features several trees and at least one giant oak. “No one knows anything about this,” a source tells Swamplot. “They think a few nice townhouses are about to rise from the earth. That is the story that’s circulating the hood.”
This is the rendering for Harbor Hospice, what Three Square Design Group and Camden Construction are saying they hope will serve as a kind of template for similar facilities to be built in Texas and Louisiana. The whole 24,000-sq.-ft. thing will have room for 32 beds and a 5,000-sq.-ft. outpatient clinic; Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that construction could begin as early as this summer. A site plan from Camden shows the hospice going up outside the Loop southeast of Sunnyside, across from the Houston Amateur Sports Park on Mowery Rd. That’s west of Hwy. 288, between Airport Blvd. and W. Orem.
- State-of-the-Art Hospice to Break Ground [Real Estate Bisnow]
Rendering: Camden Construction
