COMMENT OF THE DAY: HEARD IT HERE FIRST “Keep up the interesting news on the ExxonMobil property. I work for XOM and they’re telling us NOTHING!” [Insider, commenting on A First Look at the Plans for ExxonMobil’s Humongous New Corporate Campus North of Houston]
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Proposed Developments
COMMENT OF THE DAY: EXIT STRATEGY FOR EXXONMOBIL’S NEW NORTH HOUSTON CAMPUS 
“Exxon has sufficiently resurrected the 1980s suburban mall layout. Congratulations. Now, when they decide to move even farther from the educational core of their hometown (read: Willis HQ 2025), they can create “Spring Creek Mall†and populate the landscape with a sampling of deep-discounted soft goods clothing, closeout electronics, and heavily salted/large portion family dining. Everybody wins here.” [jg, commenting on A First Look at the Plans for ExxonMobil’s Humongous New Corporate Campus North of Houston]
So far, ExxonMobil hasn’t revealed any specific information about the new 389-acre North American headquarters just south of The Woodlands it’s apparently already begun sitework on. According to reports, all contractors working on plans for the enormous campus have been ordered to keep their work on the project secret. The new campus is meant to bring together somewhere between 15,000 and 17,000 employees now working in various locations around the Houston area and in Virginia. But documents submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers provide some detail on the plans for an enormous office park near the Harris County-Montgomery County border. The site is bounded by Spring Creek to the north, I-45 to the east, and the proposed 1,800-acre mixed-use development called Springwoods Village to the west and south. The plans were submitted by Palmetto Transoceanic, a mysterious entity that has been viewed as a proxy for the oil company in this area.
Two immigrants from El Salvador who survived what they describe as a “precarious existence” as undocumented workers in Houston for several years plan to buy the 3 Ruggles Grill buildings at 903 Westheimer, tear them down, and build a new 7,500-sq.-ft. restaurant on the site just east of Montrose Blvd. Jose and Gloria Fuentes met each other in Houston after fleeing their war-torn native country in 1978. Their Salvadorian restaurant chain, Gloria’s, now has 12 locations in the Dallas area and one in Austin. The Ruggles purchase hasn’t been completed, the HBJ‘s Allison Wollam reports. But the company also plans to open 3 additional locations nearby: in Sugar Land, The Woodlands, and West U. Ruggles chef and co-owner Bruce Molzan hinted last month that he’d reopen the Ruggles flagship in a new location if the building sold. The 26,812-sq.-ft. property was listed for sale at the end of last year.
- Dallas restaurant eyes Ruggles, plans four Houston locations [Houston Business Journal]
- About Us [Gloria’s Restaurants]
- Is Ruggles Grill on the move? Westheimer institution’s building for sale [Culturemap]
- 903 Westheimer [Moody Rambin]
Photo: Moody Rambin
COMMENT OF THE DAY: IT’S ALL HAPPENING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON! “. . . You do realize that over the last two years, UH has opened up over 2,000 NEW rooms on campus, right? There’s a two year old graduate level loft building and a brand new all freshman dorm. Additionally, the Moody Towers will be getting a much needed rehab soon. The dining facility there has already been turned into a ‘fresh cooking’ concept that is getting rave reviews. AND, in the best news of all category, the Cougar Place apartments are in the process of getting razed right now and will be replaced with new housing. On the academic side, UH has added new space for the Honors College, MD Anderson Library, a new Cemo Hall, a Social Work Bldg rehab, expansion for the theatre school, architecture school improvements, a new home for PBS and the communications department, a new science bldg, and the school is currently building a massive bioscience/health science facility that will house a free eye clinic through the optometry school. This doesn’t even begin to mention the plans for the old Schlumberger property!” [doofus, commenting on UH: Fundraising for Robertson Stadium Replacement Halfway There]
University of Houston athletic director Mack Rhoades reports the university has raised $40 million of the $75 to $80 million it thinks it needs to raise by next spring in order to begin construction of a new 40,000-seat football stadium on the current site of Robertson Stadium at Cullen and Holman streets. The university’s plans for the new stadium — projected to cost $120 million — were announced last summer, along with an extensive renovation plan for the neighboring basketball venue, Hofheinz Pavilion. Construction cost savings, revenue from 22 luxury suites, 200 loge box seats and 650 club seats at the stadium, the sale of naming rights, and financing would make up the difference, Rhoades tells the Chronicle‘s Sam Khan Jr.
Here’s the big hole being dug at the corner of Branard and Argonne, just off Kirby Dr., where it looks like Carrabba’s Italian Grill is moving forward on its plan to build a 275-car multi-story parking garage. After Mission Constructors completes the garage, the next step in the multi-stage expansion plan — which includes 2 additional restaurants and some office space — will be to build a new Carrabba’s right next to the existing one along Kirby. That Carrabba’s is one of only 2 still owned by the family of restaurant cofounder Johnny Carrabba. The more than 200 locations in the Carrabba’s Italian Grill chain are owned by Outback Steakhouse’s corporate parent, OSI Restaurant Partners.
Has Metro ever made a more expensive mistake than spending $42 million on a contract with a Spanish rail-car construction firm that violated federal procurement rules? Now that the American subsidiary of Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles has agreed to return $14 million of that money, the answer is yes: That would be the $41 million Houston’s transit agency reports it spent on developing an intermodal terminal at the corner of Main and Burnett streets just north of Downtown. Metro CEO George Greanias confirms the agency has given up on the design (above), which would have included a giant octopus-like dome, bus bays, a commuter rail terminal, a “kiss-and-ride” area, and maybe a Metro RideStore, restrooms, newsstands, food stands, and gift shops. There will still be a Burnett Transit Center station with a North Line rail stop, but Greanias tells the Chronicle‘s Chris Moran the trashed design would have been too expensive to run. Metro may have even killed the bus station part: Greanias says they haven’t decided whether any other modes of transit will connect to the light-rail line at that location.
- Metro admits it blew a large fortune [Houston Chronicle]
- Intermodal Terminal Frequently Asked Questions
- Previously on Swamplot: Main St. Intermodal Transit Center Kiss-Off, On the Shelf: That Grand North Main Intermodal Center
- Previously on Swamplot: Houston’s Next Light Rail Lines Delayed Until 2014, Feds To Metro: Back off the Spanish Trains and We’ll Fund Your North and Southeast Lines
TEAS NURSERY BUYERS: WE DID IT FOR MOM 
The new public open space on the former site of Teas Nursery will be named Evelyn’s Park, in honor of the mother of Jerry and Bo Rubenstein — the 2 brothers whose foundation bought the 5-acre property a little more than a year ago. The deed to the property at 4400 Bellaire Blvd. between Newcastle and Mulberry Ln. was turned over to the city of Bellaire at yesterday’s city council meeting. Also set up: a nonprofit conservancy to raise funds and develop the space for recreational use. The park’s planners hope to have it open within 4 years, with gardens, water features, and possibly some sort of monument or memorial to Evelyn Rubenstein on part of the property. [Previously on Swamplot]
This weekend, while New York crowds flock to a recently opened exhibit of Forbidden City treasures belonging to China’s last emperor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Houstonians will have a chance for a much more satisfying and interactive experience with the wonders of the ancients: Crowds here will be swarming to plunder a replica of the massive gravesite of China’s first emperor. It has come to this: Forbidden Gardens, the garden-free (and yes, until now open-to-the-public) little 60-acre museum and cultural center on the Katy prairie has found no buyer willing to purchase intact its collection of 6,000 one-third-scale terracotta soldiers from the 2,200-year-old Xi’an tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di, its one-twentieth scale model of Beijing’s Forbidden City, or its many other handcrafted and made-in-China models of historic Chinese treasures. So everything in the museum will be sold off piece by piece, in one giant 2-day artificial-grave-side blowout liquidation sale.
“CASH ONLY!! ALL SALES ARE FINAL!!” screams a notice posted to the ordinarily staid museum’s website:
Apple fans, don’t be distracted — as Swamplot was earlier this week — by the construction being set up on the west side of the newish Highland Village Shopping Center building that houses Sprinkles Cupcakes at 4012-4018 Westheimer. Unless, of course, you’re wanting to know where the new Restoration Hardware will go once it relocates from across the street. The newly expanded housewares store will take up all of the space on the Galleria side of Paper Source.
Meanwhile, here are your verified coordinates for Houston’s first non-mall Apple Store: After a little bit of demo work, it’ll go on the east side of the same building (shown above), at the Drexel driveway. Across the street, there appears to be less urgency now that Tootsies has fled to West Ave, but the shopping center’s management still plans to tear down the stylish but now-vacant building the women’s clothing boutique occupied at 4045 Westheimer:
An effort led by former Houston mayor Lee P. Brown to recruit wealthy Chinese investors for a proposed 1000-room East Downtown hotel project on the opposite side of the 59 freeway from the George R. Brown convention center appears to be picking up steam. Brown is listed as chairman of the managing general partner of the project, a company named Global Century Development. Brown and Global Century’s president, Dan Nip, hope to raise money for the $225 million project from investors who want to immigrate to the U.S. through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ EB-5 Visa program. That program, established as a result of the Immigration Act of 1990, allows foreign nationals to obtain a green card by investing a minimum of $500,000 — and thereby create 10 or more jobs — in qualified areas with high unemployment rates. An East Downtown investment zone identified by Global Century Development in the area bounded by Preston St., the 59 Freeway, I-45, and Dowling is the only area in Houston that qualifies as a “regional center” under the program.
A Powerpoint presentation prepared by Global Century Development that appears to date from last year sites the proposed hotel on three adjacent blocks near Saint Emanuel and Polk St. But a report in today’s Houston Business Journal by Jennifer Dawson indicates plans for the East Downtown hotel are focused on only 2 of those blocks, which Nip controls: They’re bounded by Polk, Saint Emanuel, Bell, and Chartres. Dawson reports that a pedestrian bridge connecting the hotel to the convention center across the freeway is being planned, but a schematic drawing of a bridge featured in the presentation appears to show it only crossing Chartres St., requiring pedestrians to cross under the freeway:
It’s not as if drawings showing the industrial look of the new Dynamo Stadium hadn’t been floating around for a little while, but today marks the day the folks at Populous, the building’s designers, officially “unveiled” the design for the East Downtown soccer venue. Hiding behind that veil, of course, is . . . a giant veil: a meshy, irregular metal skin wrapping the structure, lifted up at corner entrances to reveal a glowing orange polycarbonate surface behind. Kinda like the approach to that big reception desk at the new Downtown Y — just a whole lot more, y’know, grand.
When you’ve already designed Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium, and the Toyota Center, what’s left in Houston for these guys to do? Will they get to push the button for the Astrodome demo too?
Just as Swamplot was reporting on the leaked site plan showing that a new full-size Walmart SuperCenter is being planned off the Gulf Fwy. at South Wayside Dr., Councilmember James Rodriguez comes back from a meeting with the company waving a slightly different site plan. And look, this one shows the proposed East End store between Idylwood and the freeway has already slimmed down by 58,000 sq. ft.! Does that qualify as a rollback? Plus: This plan (shown above, again rotated to fit Swamplot’s format) features 13 more parking spaces! Meanwhile, Walmart spokesperson Kellie Duhr tells the Chronicle the new store would be “about 150,000 sq. ft.” and feature a full grocery. That number jibes with the plan above. Also included this time, at no additional charge: an extra Tire and Lube Express next to the Garden Center on the south side. One curious detail, though: Both this plan and the one featured in Swamplot’s story on Monday are labeled with the same date.
What’s going into the lot at the corner of Maxwell Rd. and the I-45 feeder next to the driveway at the southwest corner of the site, labeled “Outlot 1” on both plans? A source tells Swamplot it’s being eyed for a gas station from Walmart sidekick Murphy Oil.
- Wal-Mart eyes East End
- Previously on Swamplot: Surprise! Walmart Buying Land Next to Idylwood for Houston’s First Inner-Loop SuperCenter
Plan: Doucet and Associates
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TO THE VICTOR GO THE SPOILS “Undoubtedly, Walmart was attracted to Idylwood by Swamplot’s prestigious ‘Best Neighborhood’ award. I am now thankful my beloved River Oaks was omitted from the contest.” [LandedGent, commenting on Surprise! Walmart Buying Land Next to Idylwood for Houston’s First Inner-Loop SuperCenter]