WILL THE RODEO OR THE TEXANS PAY RENT TO USE THE ASTRODOME? 
Contradicting teevee reporter Ted Oberg’s declaration a couple of weeks ago that the county’s own projections show that the renovated Astrodome would barely break even, the Chronicle’s Kiah Collier produces the county’s underlying single-sheet financial summary (PDF), which projects net operating income of $1.9 million a year for a redone Dome, based on $4 million in revenue. There’s not a lot of detail behind any of the “ballpark” figures that go into that projection, though — and there’s clearly been disagreement over a couple of revenue sources that may or may not be included in it. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has now officially endorsed (PDF) the bond proposal on tomorrow’s ballot that would fund the conversion of the Astrodome into “The New Dome Experience” — but only, it seems, after wresting commitments from county officials to create some sort of repair fund for Reliant Stadium and to pay for repairs to the Reliant Arena — before replacing it, somewhere down the line. Judge Emmett and the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp.’s Edgar Colón now say the Rodeo may not have to pay rent to use the revamped facility, but whether the free-rent deal the Rodeo had with the Astrodome legally applies to a renovated and seemingly repurposed facility isn’t quite so clear to other officials Collier talks to, who claim any payments would be “worked out later.” The Houston Texans, meanwhile, who earlier this year with the Rodeo promoted a study showing how a $29 million demolition of the Dome would clear way for 2,500 shiny new parking spots — have been standing on the sidelines while the bond proposal is put to voters. Really, the team would have no interest at all in using a completely revamped name-brand facility right next to the site of the 2017 Super Bowl, even? “If the Astrodome is renovated,” the team’s coy statement reads, “we would consider using it, but do not have a specific use in mind at the present time . . .” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of the New Dome Experience: New Dome PAC/Kirksey Architecture
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW CROWDFUNDING MIGHT CHANGE THE LOCAL LANDSCAPE 
“I actually really like the idea of crowdsource funding for real estate. The real estate market is too frequently weighed down with the plodding work of the institutional investors and REITs. Anything that steps slightly outside of the box is tossed before renderings are even drawn. While industries like consumer electronics and automobiles race to deliver the next and greatest new thing to customers, the real estate industry seems to be forever stuck in doing the same crap over and over as long as it makes the predicted return. If done well, crowdsourcing could potentially offer up some real innovation in real estate and shake up the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ work of the established actors in the industry. And if people lose their shirts, they will only have themselves to blame and cannot hide behind some big name REIT or investment bank.” [Old School, commenting on Headlines: ’380 Agreements’ for the East End; Real Estate’s Crowdfunded Future] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: FEAR OF CRIME EPIDEMICS “A good friend of mine lived in Third Ward up until about four years ago. Never had a problem with crime. Seriously. I recall stopping at a little convenience store on MacGregor, a bit nervous being the only white guy in the place, but god how stupid I felt when the worst I encountered was a hello, and an enterprising young man selling pirated DVDs out of his car in the parking lot. Meanwhile, up here in Oak Forest, we’ve got residents going positively bananas every time a car gets broken into or a mysterious car is seen driving slowly around the block. Check out the Oak Forest Facebook page. It’s an astonishing epicenter of paranoia. It’s so bad that I think it’s actually hurting efforts to make a good community. We can’t go a week without some poor black guy having his picture plastered on the page with somebody asking if anybody recognizes him. And most of the time, it’s a plumber or an electrician or somebody going about their work. And now we’ve got a group handing out shotguns to everyone in the name of security. I’m sure that’s going to work out just fine. It’s not that I don’t feel safe here; I absolutely do. I just get tired of the gossip passing for actual news. I want to live in a place where people are happy and engaging and hospitable, but I worry that it’s not going that way at all. And as somebody with a mixed-race child, I admit that I do worry about some crazy neighbor calling the cops because she’s out riding an expensive bicycle or something. And that makes me almost as paranoid as some of my neighbors.” [Anse, commenting on Comment of the Day Runner-Up: Splendors of the East]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DOWNTOWN TURNAROUND 
“I’ve always thought it was a little strange that the entire country has adopted a geographic reference specific to Manhattan to refer to the place in a city where the tall buildings are. Elsewhere in the Anglophone world, the terms ‘city center’ or CBD (central business district) are used, which makes a lot more sense.
In Houston we’ve gone a step further: we refer to a place 5 miles WEST of ‘downtown’ as ‘uptown,’ and the place immediately SOUTH (ok, southwest) of ‘downtown’ as ‘midtown.’” [Angostura, commenting on Comment of the Day: Downtown Is on the Edge] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: SPLENDORS OF THE EAST 
“. . . So much of our City and our history lies EAST of downtown but all too often, white people (largely) ignore that entire side of town. I’d argue that the ship channel and the refineries that line it are the backbone of the City. That U of H and TSU shouldn’t be ignored. That there’s hidden treasure to be found in the 3rd and 5th Wards. That Riverside Terrace is amazing. That Hobby Airport is way better than IAH unless you are flying overseas on a carrier not named United. That Clear Lake-NASA-Kemah are better than Greater Katy. That the San Jacinto Monument matters. That unless you’ve visited the original Ninfa’s, eaten at Kanomwan, chugged beer at Moon Tower Inn, or stood in line for fried chicken at 3 a.m. at Frenchy’s, then you need to get out of the City Centre bubble. Oh, and the soul of the ‘old’ Montrose and Heights can be found East of US 59.” [doofus, commenting on Comment of the Day: Downtown Is on the Edge] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENTS OF THE DAY: THE CENTERS OF THE CITY 
“CityCentreâ„¢ is not the center of the city. Not by a long shot.
The center of population for the the city of Houston is at Kirby Drive in River Oaks. This is as close to downtown as it is to Uptown, and it is further east than Greenway Plaza. It makes sense that it’s slightly west because the COH’s annexed land is to the west. Other populated cities to the east — Pasadena, Jacinto City, Deer Park, Channelview, and La Porte — are incorporated separately.
The center of population of Harris County is basically in the Heights. It makes sense that it’s further north since Houston is located in the southern part of the county.
This is all based on 2010 Census data. . . . I just calculated the center of population for the metro area (Greater Houston MSA). It’s . . . in the rail yard just west of TC Jester about 1/3 mile north of I-10.
Interesting how by any measure — COH, Harris County, or metro area –– the population all seems to be centered inside the loop.” [eiioi, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Diluted Center City]
THE APARTMENTS THAT WANT EXXONMOBIL PASSAGE 
Here’s a rendering of the complex Alliance Residential has just started building north of the ExxonMobil campus. The 3-story, 341-unit building will be located on 1615 Sawdust Rd. — which the developer appears to hope might be used as a kind of driveway for that big new campus in the pines to the southeast: “Alliance said there are plans to extend Sawdust, which will provide an avenue leading directly to the . . . campus without getting on Interstate 45,” reports the Houston Business Journal. “However, this portion of the project is still in the planning stage and is waiting for funding from the city.” Alliance is also building the midrise Broadstone 3800 complex at the corner of Alabama and Main. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Alliance Residential Co.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DOWNTOWN IS ON THE EDGE 
“It is a common misconception that downtown Houston is the ‘center’ or ‘core’ of this great City. Downtown is IN the core of the city, but downtown is in fact the farthest east PORTION of the core.
Draw a ring around Downtown, the Med Center, Uptown, Memorial Park and (maybe) the Heights. THIS entire area is the core of Houston. Downtown is the eastern edge of the core. Just like Downtown Manhattan is the southern edge of Manhattan. Downtown is a very important part of the City, but is not the core. It hasn’t been the core for decades. It will not be the core in the future.” [Bernard, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Diluted Center City] Illustration: Lulu
MAKING MORE SPLASH IN PASADENA 
The Pasadena city council got together last week to have a look at a $4 million plan that would expand the community pool at Strawberry Park on Lafferty Rd. and Parkside Dr. into something a bit splashier, reports the Pasadena Citizen: “Progressive Commercial Aquatics’ Steve Davis explained the success public and private entities have had with water parks, including nearby Pirates Bay, owned by the City of Baytown. In Davis’ plan for Pasadena, the . . . project would add a new bath house, ‘lazy river,’ concession area, multiple shaded areas and lots of other pool features.” But not all council members were sold. Says Pat Van Houte: “To me, it’s not really a priority. I would look at the economics of, ‘How much is this going to cost long run?’” [Pasadena Citizen] Drawing: Progressive Commercial Aquatics
HOW EASY IS IT TO GET OUT OF IDYLWOOD? 
A reader wonders if subdividing lots might get you new subdivision rules: “There is a great big ole sign [pictured at right] in the vacant lot at 6636 Meadowlawn in Idylwood. It is a notice of a request to replat the lot into two single family lots. It is plenty large enough, being one full lot and parts of the two lots on either side. As it stands, I can understand why they’d want to replat. The company that bought the property is Nadco LLC.
That in itself is not so strange but what is strange is that the sign also says that the two new lots will create a new subdivision known as Idylwood Partial Replat #1.
. . . I’m wondering if the ‘new subdivision’ would be subject to Idylwood deed restrictions or if they could totally disregard setbacks and lot lines among other things.” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DILUTED CENTER CITY 
“. . . Maybe Houston’s growth seems slower . . . compared to other similar sized cities because Houston is almost unique in that our growth spreads out radially from the downtown core. There’s not a socially defined ‘good’ side of town where 98% of development takes place. In Atlanta, most of the growth is north, with a little bit to the east. In Dallas, the only ‘right’ place to live is north. LA favors its Westside, and most of the high dollar real estate in Chicago marches north up the Lakefront. Houston has long had a bias toward the west side of town, but the Museum District/Med Center to the south has grown, EaDo is moving ahead, and The Heights and The Woodlands are doing just fine. So instead of concentrating the development dollars in only one favored area of the city, growth here happens in all quadrants.” [ShadyHeightster, commenting on Stadium-Side Apartments in EaDo a No-Go] Illustration: Lulu
COASTAL INSPIRATIONS BROUGHT HOME IN MEADOWBROOK 
“Needs lots of TLC,” says one of the captions of one of the few photos of this 1934 house, designed and built by the C.C. Bell Construction Company just southeast of the Glenbrook Park Golf Course here in Meadowbrook. But the caption and the rest of the photos in the listing suggest only what the house might need in the near future, failing to mention much about its past: The 3-bedroom, 2.5-bath Spanish Mediterranean is described in Stephen Fox’s most recent edition of the AIA guide as one of the “original Coral Gables-inspired bungalows” built in this neighborhood by Bell after a trip to Florida in the ’20s. Want this piece of — er, history? The 2,258-sq.-ft. fixer-upper went on the market on Friday, with an asking price of $135,000. [HAR] Photo: HAR
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN TOWNHOMES COME TO LINDALE PARK 
“Most of the best appreciation in the Heights is in sections that are already deed restricted for lot size or have adopted the minimum lot size under chapter 42. Lindale is not like Midtown or parts of Montrose that have already been torn apart by non-residential development or have been chopped up with lots of townhomes. It looks more like Oak Forest did ten years ago. And if comps were a deterrent, no one would be replacing 1200 sq. ft. ranch homes in Oak Forest with 3500 sq. ft. custom homes.
When a neighborhood gets bought out for town homes, the incentive to maintain the existing housing stock is lost. Your house is only worth what the dirt is worth. A foundation that has $5,000 of repairs to get it level looks just the same as one without after an afternoon with back hoe ripping through it. The result is that the existing neighborhood will go way downhill while the new construction takes over.” [Old School, commenting on Headlines: A Giant Kroger for Kingwood; Inn at the Ballpark Rebranding] Illustration: Lulu
ALEXAN PICKS UP MIDTOWN APARTMENTS IN FIRE SALE 
How, uh . . . successful was the 9-year-long, $9 million fundraising effort for the new Houston Fire Museum exhibit hall planned for the vacant lot on Hadley St. in Midtown, between Main and Travis? Reporters Nancy Sarnoff and Allan Turner explain it this way: “No money will be returned to donors, [Museum board member and treasurer Bill Edge] said, because none was collected.” Plans to turn the 1.44-acre grass-covered site next to the rail line into a fire-themed public park also flamed out. Instead, the museum is giving up and selling off the land — to Trammell Crow Residential, which plans to construct the 7-story, 215-unit Alexan Midtown apartments on the site, beginning in January. [Houston Chronicle ($)] Photo: Ethan Grossman
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A PROPER HOUSTON WELCOME 
“I’d like some of the astroturf to use as a floor mat for my entry.” [toasty, commenting on Great Astrodome Parts Sell-Off Now Scheduled To Begin Before Votes Are Even Counted]
