FORT BEND PARKWAY WILL GROW SOUTH, STAY AWAY FROM THE LOOP 
The Fort Bend County Toll Road Association plans to start construction of a $20 million, 2.3-mile southern extension of the Fort Bend Parkway from Hwy. 6 to the Sienna Parkway later this year. (The Hwy. 6 underpass will cost an additional $20 million). Plans to to build a 3-mile-long northern extension the Fort Bend Parkway — from Rte. 90A through Westbury, so it connects to the southwest corner of the 610 Loop — have been on the books for more than a decade, but Harris County officials aren’t interested in building it. [Houston Chronicle] Map: HCTRA
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Proposed Developments
In what appears to be a last-ditch effort to block construction of Segment E, the straight-throught-the-Katy-Prairie section of the Grand Parkway scheduled to begin construction this month, the Sierra Club has filed a new suit against the Army Corps of Engineers, the DOT, the FHA, the Texas Transportation Commission, and several public officials. But the lawsuit also focuses attention on the health of the Addicks and Barker Dams on Buffalo Bayou, which control waterflow through west and Downtown Houston. According to a July 2010 document unearthed by the environmental group this past March through an information request, the Army Corps has rated the status of both dams as “urgent and compelling” since September 2009; that rating indicates the Corps considers them to be 2 of the 6 most dangerous dams in North America.
Houston burger fans, In-N-Out wants to pack your meat in Fort Worth. No, the California-based burger chain hasn’t announced any Houston locations yet, but clearly they’re on the radar: Only a few months after opening its first Texas location, In-N-Out is asking the city of Fort Worth to lower city taxes by $840,000 over 10 years so it can build a regional distribution center and meatpacking facility near DFW “that would support expansion across Texas and possibly into neighboring states.”
- In-N-Out Burger seeks abatement for regional distribution center [Star-Telegram, via Eater Houston]
Photo: Mike E. Perez
By the time construction of its new museum, theater, restaurant, and hangar is complete 3 years from now, the Lone Star Flight Museum will likely be only one of 3 museums showcasing historic airplanes at Ellington International Airport. After Hurricane Ike caused $18 million in damage and destroyed or submerged several aircraft (see the immediate aftermath above), museum officials began seeking a higher elevation than its current location at Galveston’s Scholes International Airport was able to provide. Houston’s city council approved a 40-year lease for 14 acres at Ellington last week. Also possibly opening at Ellington: A building featuring the Collings Foundation‘s collection of Vietnam and Korean War-era military aircraft; the president of the Texas Flying Legends Museum at Ellington says he’d like to sell tickets that allow visitors to visit all 3 collections.
- Lone Star Flight museum moving inland to Ellington [Houston Chronicle]
- Flight museum to fly north to Ellington [Galveston County Daily News]
- Texas Flying Legends Museum
- The Collings Foundation Collection [Collings Foundation]
- Previously on Swamplot: Space Expansions: Big Upgrades to Ellington Field
Photo: Lone Star Flight Museum
H&M COMING TO HOUSTON — SOMEDAY, SOMEWHERE 
Taking the place of the Borders bookstore space in the Galleria? No one is saying. But the Swedish clothing retailer’s first Dallas store is opening today (at NorthPark Center) and a company PR manager tells Heather Staible that H&M has plans to get down to Houston, too: “The details of where and when are still hush-hush, though.” [Culturemap] Photo: Trill Will
OUT OF THE KITCHEN, INTO THE MARKET Former Kata Robata chef Seth Siegel-Gardner, hunting for a location to lease for the as-yet-unnamed new restaurant he and fellow NYC transplant Terrence Gallivan plan to open in Houston within a year: “We were talking to a real estate agent whose number we had called off a building that we had been eyeing for weeks. So there we sat, our grand vision for the space and our impending total world culinary domination about to be laid at the feet of this person whose name was plastered on a poorly constructed sign on the side of our future culinary castle. First question out of the landlord’s mouth was, ‘Do you have the financing?’ We lie and say yes. The rest of the conversation is a blur, the amount of acronyms this person uses, you’d think they were passing codes to Russia. I make mental notes for all of them and spend many hours that night on wikipedia finding definitions that lead to an endless amount of real estate knowledge, but which will nonetheless take the majority of my adult life to truly understand. On the drive home from this meeting, Terrence and I didn’t talk much. Instead, we said what we experienced were a lot of ‘blow-outs’ — a kitchen term used to explain the feeling when words can’t describe the frustrations, disappointment or just plain exhaustion of the situation.” [Food Republic; previously on Swamplot]
Did you realize that Ellington Field changed its name 2 or so years ago to Ellington Airport? Don’t worry if you haven’t kept up, because there’s already another name upgrade in the works, this time to Ellington International Airport. (“Intercontinental” was already taken). What’s next — Intergalactic? Maybe: Houston Airports aviation director Mario C. Diaz announced plans earlier this year to transform the commercial, military, and NASA facility into a “spaceport” where wealthy passengers could embark on leisure spaceflights — at about $50,000 a pop.
Development firm Read King is “gearing up to break ground on” a mixed-use project at the southwest corner of Shepherd and West Alabama, across the street from the shopping center that houses the vacant Alabama Theater. Real Estate Bisnow‘s Catie Brubaker says preleasing has already begun for 30,000 sq. ft. of “high-end” retail; the development would also include 250 luxury apartments. The targeted opening date is in the middle of 2013, so it shouldn’t much matter that the design “is still in flux,” right? The placeholder rendering appears to show 5 stories of apartments perched above 2 retail floors.
EXTREMISTS WANT TO COME BACK TO HOUSTON 
The producers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition are already looking to return to Houston for another frenetic rebuild — less than a year after volunteers here put up a brand new house (complete with upstairs fashion runway) for the Johnson family in South Union, and showed it off before a national audience. Know a family whose home is “making it difficult, or even impossible, to cope with challenges that face them”? The show’s casting director wants your nominations “for the deserving people and inspiring families that America can really root for.” [abc13; signup; previously on Swamplot] Photos: ABC
The new owners of the Bennigan’s restaurant chain are hoping to get as many as 10 new Bennigan’s franchises opened in Houston, and they’ve hired a broker to scout for sites. All 20 Bennigan’s in Houston (as well as 6 Steak and Ale restaurants) closed in 2008, after their parent company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Bennigan’s Franchising Co. is also searching for as many as 10 locations in its Dallas-Fort Worth home base and 5 each in San Antonio and Austin, as well as single locations in other Texas cities. New restaurants will likely look something like the new 4,200-sq.-ft. prototype the company built last fall in Appleton, Wisconsin (above), but don’t necessarily have to be stand-alone buildings, says Daniel Harris of Henry S. Miller Brokerage. Also in development: a fast-casual “Bennigan’s On the Fly” for airports and colleges.
- Bennigan’s To Relaunch in the Lone Star State [Globe St.]
- Previously on Swamplot: Bennigan’s Rides into the Sunset
Photo: Real Points
DIGGING OUT FROM HEAVEN ON EARTH 
Updated task list for the investor group that bought the dilapidated and long-vacant Heaven on Earth Plaza Hotel at 801 St. Joseph Pkwy. at Travis St. Downtown 3 years ago: 1) Pay off $4.2 million mortgage on property; 2) work way out of bankruptcy (declared just last week, to avoid foreclosure); 3) close on $22 million construction loan to redevelop the 31-story former Holiday Inn (and later Days Inn) into an “as economy class as possible” hotel. Meanwhile, New Era Hospitality — the group that bought the property in 2008 from a fund connected to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi — recently spent around $30,000 to secure the building, after receiving a stream of municipal citations for “dangerous building parts, visual blight, unsecured entrances, and signs of urine and bodily fluids.” The project’s general contractor tells Purva Patel that plans to turn the gutted property into an “upscale” hotel have been scaled back. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: arch-ive.org
HAIF poster ricco67 adds to the collection of videos showing views along the paths of the under-construction or promised light-rail routes with this mostly accurate west-to-east drive-through of the promised University Line, from Hillcroft to Eastwood. It’s a long trip, made only a little faster by the absence of any Metro construction work along the way.
- University Line On Richmond [HAIF, via InnerLooped]
- Previously on Swamplot: Early Driving Tours of Metro’s Next Light Rail Lines
Video: ricco67
Harrisburg Blvd. and the East End light-rail line Metro is building along it will dip under the Union Pacific East Belt freight rail line between the future Altic and Cesar Chavez stations, Mayor Parker announced today. The city has committed $20.6 million of “existing money” to the build the underpass — in part by delaying other area improvement projects. The alternative, a longer freeway-style overpass, was opposed by many area residents and businesses.
- We have found the funding for an underpass and City of Houston has committed $20.6 million to put part of the East End Metro line underground. [Twitter]
- East End residents fight plan for Metro rail overpass [Houston Chronicle]
Drawing: City of Houston
A reader traces the provenance of some of the store and restaurant names prominently featured in some newly released renderings meant to show off the assorted new strip-center spaces Moody Rambin Retail hopes to fill near the new Walmart off Yale at Koehler St. in the West End. And finds a few not-so-fake names mixed in with the fake ones:
“Keohler Coffee” is obviously fake, or just bad spelling. But, there is actually a “La Gra Italian Tapas” in St. Louis MO (of all places). I wonder whether they are coming to Houston? And there is a “Nono’s Bistro” on the rendering which has a logo that looks just like the logo for Nino’s Bistro in Harrisburg, PA. The most mysterious of the mystery tenants might be “Krakatoa Seafood and Game”. The logo on the rendering is just like the logo on this logo designer‘s website. But, I cannot find a restaurant anywhere that resembles the logo.
WALLER COUNTY’S LOOMING WALL OF GARBAGE 
From a group opposed to the Pintail Landfill just proposed for the 723-acre Rainey Ranch property, a mile north of Hempstead: “The company’s plan for the property is to build an industrial park fronting on Highway 6 for approximately ¾ of a mile. Behind the industrial park, a system [of] 20 foot high berms will be constructed to hide the 215 acres of landfill behind. Neither [GreenFirst, LLC’s Oscar L.] Allen nor [Thad] Owings could or would say how many cubic yards of garbage is being planned for the life of the site or how high the solid waste will be piled up on the site. Some individuals have opined that the plan is to have the solid waste site rising to an elevation of over 130 feet. When challenged on his comment that ‘property values will not be affected,’ Allen would only shrug his shoulders in response. Neighbors believe that the mere rumor of such a development has damaged property values for up to 10 miles around the planned project, which would include Hempstead and the surrounding area. Allen praised GreenFirst’s existing Turkey Run Landfill, 45 miles south of Atlanta, Georgia, and claimed certain landowners have been offered all expense paid trips to visit the landfill in Georgia.” [Stop Highway 6 Landfill; more info] Landfill illustration: GreenGroup Holdings
