THE COMING LOCAL HP IMPLOSION 
Two former Hewlett-Packard office buildings from the original Compaq World Headquarters campus at the corner of Hwy. 249 and Louetta will be demolished in a “controlled demolition” on September 18th. The 2 buildings, a 1,200-car parking garage, and a central chiller plant were purchased for $12.6 million by the Lone Star College System last year, as an extension to the 8 buildings the former North Harris Montgomery Community College System bought a year earlier to create its new University Park campus. But it’s clear the college was mostly interested in the parking spaces that came with the latest purchase. According to the terms of the sale, HP itself will manage the implosion of the 2 buildings, before turning over the resulting “usable green space” to the school. LSCS facilities guy Jimmy Martin explains the reasoning: “The cost to properly maintain the buildings in a ‘mothball’ state until they might have been needed in the future is $1.25 million annually. It was more cost-effective to have the contractor tear the buildings down as part of the purchase agreement.” [Champions Sun; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Geoff Sloan [license]
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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
OUT WITH THE IMPORTED PO’ BOYS, IN WITH THE LOCAL BOLOGNA 
The owners of Benjy’s Restaurant next door plan to open a local-foods market in the recently vacated Antone’s Import Co. space at 2424 Dunstan St. Benjy Levitt describes the market, which he’s calling Local Foods in Rice Village, as a local version of its predecessor. There’ll be sandwiches and salads, as well as prepared foods from next door, including Benjy’s beer nuts and cheese crackers. Levitt tells Sarah Rufca the store, expected to open in October, will get its food supplies from 15 to 20 local vendors: “We’re going to be using artisan bread; if there’s bologna in a sandwich, it’ll be house-cured.” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: West U Examiner
COMMENT OF THE DAY: RETAIL JUSTICE “I agree . . . It would have been much more efficient for the county to have just rented space in a strip shopping center. Maybe they could have found some place with a drive through. May we affirm your conviction? Would you like fries with that? Just imagine the possibilities.” [J., commenting on Inside Downtown’s Brand-New 1910 Courthouse]
BOLD NEW CONCEPT FOR ASTRODOME TO EMERGE FROM DALLAS CONSULTANTS CONDUCTING FOCUS GROUPS, INTERVIEWS WITH BIGSHOTS 
A Dallas-area consulting firm known for its consistent recommendation that cities expand their convention space is expected to come up with a plan for what Houston should do with the Astrodome — before the end of the year. Willie Loston, who as executive director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. has spent the last decade mulling over one proposal after another for the vacant facility, tells West U Examiner reporter Mike Reed that whatever the folks from Plano-based Convention Sports and Leisure propose “will resolve one of the thorniest issues involving public expenditures in Harris County.” Best of all: Loston says the new recommendations will somehow emerge from “50 to 75 interviews with education, community and business leaders, before moving on to focus groups.” Why hadn’t someone thought of this sort of approach before? The consultants’ $500,000 fee is being picked up by the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Houston Texans, the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, Aramark Corp., the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, and Harris County. [Boston.com; West University Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TOURISM, THE FINAL FRONTIER “Let’s face it, if you’ve ever been to Space Center Houston, it’s mostly geared towards elementary school field trips. It wasn’t til just a few years ago, one of the *real* crown jewels of America’s leftover space hardware, a complete friggin Saturn V, was even given a roof to protect it from the elements for posterity. I love NASA and remember being able to run around all over the campus with nary a locked door as a kid, but JSC simply hasn’t kept up with being a top toursist destination, domestically or internationally. Much like other ‘attractions’ in Houston, people see them incidentally when here visiting relatives or on business, they’re not destinations in themselves. I swear I think more people come down 45 and 59 from other states to see Galveston than Houston. Maybe we need to build that giant dome over the Loop after all to get some tourist cred.” [SL, commenting on Why No Shuttle for Houston? Because Space Center Houston Isn’t So Big with the Tourists]
ROUTE 44 CHERRY LIMEADE FROM MASON RD. SONIC DRAWS OUT FBI FUGITIVE 
Why did an accused child rapist from Oklahoma come out of his hiding place of 5 days along the Brazos River in Stephen F. Austin State Park? “Because he was tired and thirsty and wanted a Route 44 cherry limeade from Sonic,” Charles Dyer apparently told authorities after he was captured near Pecan Grove carrying the drink in a cooler. As a shirtless pedestrian in a Richmond drive-in, Dyer may have aroused suspicion at the Sonic at 9835 S. Mason Rd. But it took someone spotting the former Marine blocks away to call the authorities. Over the last couple of years, Dyer has posted a series of YouTube videos (as July4Patriot) documenting his views about and problems with the government, as well as the various criminal charges filed against him. A member of the Oath Keeper militia movement, he has claimed that the rape charge was concocted as part of a government conspiracy. [KHOU 11 News; Instant News Katy] Photo: NEDSCO
COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOU GO RIGHT AHEAD “When I first visited Texas in 1980, the TxDOT signs said ‘Drive Friendly.’ I thought this was a charming sentiment, so when the opportunity came to move here, I looked forward to ‘driving friendly’ with all the other Texans. Imagine my surprise when I got here, and went looking for those ‘Drive Friendly’ signs, only to find they had been replaced by ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ . . . whoa. OK. My then-new husband told me that just meant that a gunrack gives you the right-of-way.” [Claire de Lune, commenting on Don’t Mess with Don’t Mess with Texas]
RED-LIGHT CAMERA SWITCH: OFF The latest signal change in the ongoing saga of Houston’s on-again, off-again traffic-light cameras: City council has just voted to turn off the red-light cameras, again. [Houston Politics; background; previously on Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: JUST MESSIN’ WITH YA “More than once, a non-Texan has cited ‘don’t mess with Texas’ to me as an example of what they perceive as Texans’ aggressive, arrogant superiority complex. I love the sheepish look I get when I tell them, ahem, it’s an anti-littering campaign, and not something we made up to sound like bad-asses. . . .” [Katk, commenting on Don’t Mess with Don’t Mess with Texas]
CLEAN YOUR OWN DAMN TOILET 
The rent ain’t so bad — just $350 a month for a 600-sq.-ft. single-bedroom house steps from Heights Blvd. and I-10. But you’ll be renting this place “as-is,” and these pics are here to help you figure out what that means. [HAR, via Swamplot inbox]
TRACKING SUGAR LAND’S SUGAR AND CHEESE 
Where Sugar Land’s Cupcake Cafe couldn’t hold on, macaroni and cheese is going in. The owners of the Jus’ Mac mac-and-cheese-is-all restaurant on Yale St. in Sunset Heights have announced they’re ready to expand to a second location: 16525 Lexington Ave., in a strip center at the corner of Austin Pkwy., behind the First Colony Mall. Expected completion date for the cupcakes-to-pasta makeover: November. [HAIF; previously on Swamplot]
NEW BRAUNFELS CANS THE BEER CANS As expected, the city council of New Braunfels voted last night to prohibit the use of any type of disposable container within city limits — including the beer cans that regularly pile up underwater on stretches of the Guadalupe and Comal Rivers popular with tubers. The new ordinance is scheduled to go into effect next January: “The ban was approved – on a 5-1 vote – after one protester had been arrested, another had thrown a volleyball-sized wad of dollar bills at the council, a lawsuit had been promised, and citizens had paraded to the podium for an hour to express their support or opposition.” [Herald-Zeitung; previously on Swamplot] Video of Comal River bottom after Memorial Day: Texas Bottle Bill
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THAT WILL KILL THIS “We are excitedly discussing the replacement of bookstores with clothing stores (no matter how generic the former or how euro-cool the latter) . . . I’ve been rooting for an H&M in Houston for years, but I never thought it would be moving in to the empty shells of half the city’s booksellers. This is sad.” [Ares, commenting on H&M in Houston: All in the Malls]
TUBING IN NEW BRAUNFELS WITHOUT THE CANS 
The New Braunfels city council is scheduled to vote this evening on an ordinance that would change the face of Guadalupe and Comal River tubing as we know it, by banning all disposable containers on those popular waterways within city limits. The same body already voted 5-2 in favor of the beer-can ban earlier this month. The vote has been moved from city hall to the city convention center to accommodate expected crowds. “[Don’s & Ben’s liquor store assistant manager Brendon] Keith and other retailers are scratching their heads over what devices tubers might employ — the proposed ordinance doesn’t specify. A Thermos or canteen wouldn’t keep carbonated beverages fresh on an hours-long float, and you’d have to have a nondisposable cup . . . Another potential problem is that any beverage delivery device that’s not sealed would be, strictly speaking, a violation of the state open container law.” [Statesman] Photo: Lelombrik
