COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON’S REAL ESTATE BOOM IS OVER 
“I’d like to see newer articles start noting that the jobs boom is already over and at this point it’s just the construction industry finishing off contractual commitments before we wrap it up and call the show over. past this it’s only retail & service sectors jobs growing which have a negligible impact on the overall economy anyhow due to the large supply of non-workers in the population and readily available labor. i’m not calling a downturn or anything here, but with drilling activity in the gulf starting to ease up (see hercules note [yesterday] morning about cutting personnel) and falling oil prices barring new onshore fields from starting up i’m not seeing any way for current growth trends to continue. fed pulling out of buying bonds will start hitting mortgage rates and drying up the cash closings that have helped stoked the fire as well so will be interesting to see if any slack appears in the market in the coming year.” [joel, commenting on AmREIT Takeover Approved; Bringing Gino’s East to Houston] Illustration: Lulu
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WHEN TILMAN FERTITTA CAME TO THE SHILOH CLUB 
A reader reports a rare sighting of Landry’s CEO Tilman Fertitta in the Heights over the weekend. Was it part of some sort of kinda-undercover reconnaissance mission? “. . . you’ll NEVER guess where he stopped . . . SHILOH’s! Yes, the old dive bar where you watch your grandparents drink themselves under the table next to a heavily tattooed bicyclist. Tilman came in, ordered a drink and began asking about the neighborhood. I don’t think anybody there recognized him except for myself, the bartender, and my table of friends who were all industry veterans. Not sure what he’s got planned but don’t be surprised if you hear about a new Landry’s property opening in the Heights within a few months.” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Shiloh Club, 1321 Studewood St.: Heights Blog
TXDOT LIKELY TO CUT FUNDING FOR WEST LOOP BUS LANES, SHIP MONEY SOUTH 
In a move that could spell doom for the Post Oak Bus Rapid Transit project, TxDOT’s planning director said Thursday that his agency is now recommending it ax a $25 million commitment to expanding connecting bus service along the West Loop. The plan called for elevated bus lanes  running along 610 from Post Oak Blvd. to the Northwest Transit Center near the Katy Fwy. and 610. The agency now claims that the $25 million would be better spent on an improved Texas 288–Beltway 8 interchange. [The Highwayman, previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Uptown HoustonÂ
THE BACK AND FORTH ON DUNLAVY ST. 
Back in May some Montrose urbanists rejoiced at a report that city traffic planners were hoping to constrict Dunlavy St. from 4 lanes to 2. However, as part of this year’s annual Major Thoroughfare and Freeway Plan, the city’s planning commission advised widening the Dunlavy corridor’s right-of-way 10 feet in certain areas. In an e-blast to her constituents, city council’s Ellen Cohen cited a lack of public input on the widening proposal and its potential negative impact on homeowners as key factors in shaping her “grave concerns” over the prospect of a fattened corridor, so that proposal has been tabled until next year’s review. [Houston Chronicle; Ellen Cohen] Photo: Raj Mankad /OffCite
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TURNING HOUSTON INSIDE OUT 
“It might be that the best outcome for Houston is for the Inner Loop to have an exurban quality of life. Send commuter rail out to the suburbs — not for the suburbanites to commute to downtown — but for the Inner Loopers to commute outbound in the mornings to densely clustered (out of necessity) suburban tall office towers surrounding the stations, and then back into town in the evenings.
This is more viable than the traditional idea of New Urbanist suburbs with transit connecting them to a downtown core since politically none of Houston’s suburbs are on board with cultivating a small town ambience, but are ok with letting office builders do their thing.
To be sure, suburbanites would still commute to downtown but it will be seen as an aberration. Downtown will still have things to do after dark, but other areas of the Inner Loop, connected by LRT/buses/cars/bikes/sidewalks, will do a much better job of providing the QOL aspiring exurbanites may crave.
Suburbanites will, of course, still commute to a large extent to the office towers in their suburb. But they will do so by car, and won’t care about the urbanist quality of life (in other words, nothing will change for them).” [anon22, commenting on Here’s the Freshest Satellite Photo of Downtown Houston You’ll See All Day] Illustration: Lulu
CHELSEA MONTROSE TOWER KICKS OFF CONSTRUCTION WITH A NEW NAME 
Prompted by a press release, the HBJ and the Chronicle announced yesterday that construction has begun on the new apartment complex at 4 Chelsea Blvd., just east of Montrose Blvd. along the southern edge of Hwy. 59. in the Museum District. The 305-unit, 20-story building will be called The Carter, both publications reported. That’s a new name — so new, in fact, that the website for the developer, Dallas’s StreetLights Residential, still identifies the project by its former title, Chelsea–Montrose. The Chelsea name and its NYC pedigree may have conjured up unpleasant images of unmade beds, ugliness, and loud music among prospective tenants, but the new name has its own rich NYC backstory — though an entirely fictional one. As a commenter on HAIF notes, “the Carter” was the name of the complex Wesley Snipes spends the first act of the early-nineties movie New Jack City turning into a vertically integrated crack-producing-and-marketing enterprise. More recently, the appellation has come to be used as an affectionate nickname for troubled residential projects seen to be slipping into similar directions. [Houston Chronicle; Lansing City Pulse; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: StreetLights Residential
WHY DARLING HOMES SMELL THAT WAY 
Just where does that Houston new-home smell come from? The cookies the sales agent baked in the oven just before you arrived? The formaldehyde holding together the OSB and MDF? The VOC-laden paints and finishes still off-gassing indoors? An errant breeze from the Ship Channel? Well, sure, but also, it turns out, from liquid aroma cartridges squirted out by the motion-detector-equipped ScentWave (pictured above right), which shoots out a “clean and crisp . . . sweet floral” aroma to woo potential buyers and passersby who’ve stopped to sniff out a model home display. Reps of Texas’s Darling Homes, now owned by Taylor Morrison, install the ScentWave wafting device strategically in every one of the company’s model homes. The exclusive sign-here-now fragrance the homebuilder employs was whipped up for that purpose by the ScentWave’s distributor, a North Carolina company named ScentAir. That Darling Homes scent isn’t available for purchase, reports the HBJ‘s Paul Takahashi, but the ScentAir website lists a matrix of “euphoric, invigorating, restoring, refreshing, relaxing, or restoring” olfactory options (from a total 1,600 available off-the-shelf) to “blow your customer’s nose’s mind.” [Houston Business Journal; ScentAir] Photo of ScentWave: ScentAir
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SCHOOL CHOICE 
“. . . You have hit upon an issue that is at the core of not only the perception of school quality but also a prime driver of the residential real estate market, especially in the suburbs (and thereby a driver of retail and office markets as well). In my admittedly qualitative, non-scientific observation of the dialogue surrounding schools, the general public perception of school quality is not nearly driven as much by teaching methods, administrative / management styles, or teacher qualifications, as by the demographics of the students themselves. In the greater public’s mind, affluent demographics = good schools, with the demographics being the more independent variable (though there’s obviously a feedback loop as more affluent home buyers will be drawn to schools with already affluent students). Private schools are obviously not as related to real estate (with Strake Jesuit as an example), but the perception issue seems as relevant.
To put the issue another way, is a student from an affluent household likely to perform worse academically if he/she attends a school with less affluent demographics? My sense is, many people seem to think so and make school enrollment decisions accordingly. Perhaps this assertion is justified by empirical data and experience, I don’t know.” [Local Planner, commenting on How The Woodlands Has Gone Astray; A Suitable Houston Honor for the Inventor of Air Conditioning] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: ANOTHER REASON WHY WE GIVE THANKS ON THANKSGIVING 
“If the Pilgrims had landed on the Island of Doom (Cabeza de Vaca’s name for Galveston) the Karankawas may well have simply eaten them. So the first Thanksgiving would consist of long pig festooned with buckle hats.” [Memebag, commenting on Houston’s Baby Boomer Housing Shortage; Cooking Up a Third Coast Thanksgiving] Illustration: Lulu
THE NEWEST PLACE TO GO DOWNTOWN 
A reader writes: “Until this morning I had never noticed this public restroom (really just a port-o-john with a thoughtfully labeled enclosure around it) downtown next to Tranquility Park at the corner of Rusk and Smith. Everybody knows that Swamplot is Houston’s most trusted source for breaking news about the city’s top cat 5 dump hotspots, so I figured I’d send y’all this update. I definitely feel sorry for whoever has to maintain this facility, but if the city has decided to provide a refuge for the park’s inhabitants in an attempt to discourage the use of secluded downtown doorways or parking garage stairwells, then I think it’s a great idea.” Photo: Swamplot inbox
NUHABITAT’S ASKING-PRICE HISTORIES ARE BACK IN ACTION 
Home listing sleuths who’d been relying on historical asking-price data from NuHabitat (when most other consumer-facing MLS sources keep that info hidden) will be relieved to hear that the feature has been restored. Company founder Jeff Burke tells Swamplot the disappearance of the data from NuHabitat’s Price Tracker, which users began noticing last week, was inadvertent; an update pushed out earlier today brings it back. For logged-in users (only), NuHabitat’s Price Tracker provides histories of sales prices as well as details of former asking prices for properties currently on the market, in most cases even if they’ve been yanked over to a new MLS number. (Click on the dollar-sign logo underneath a property listing to see it; the screenshot above shows data for this Cambridge Green property featured on Swamplot last week.) A better dashboard for tagging and setting up alerts on multiple properties should be available to consumer users within a week or so, says Burke, following improvements in the “swipeability” of property images on mobile devices, which went live last month. [NuHabitat; previously on Swamplot]
OAK FOREST BERRYHILL STILL ON ITS WAY 
In the course of providing an overview of Houston’s commercial permitting process likely to open further the eyes of any wide-eyed I-wanna-open-a-restaurant newbie, Betsy Denson provides a quick sorta-update on the current status of the long-delayed Berryhill Baja Grill on the site of a former gas station at 1201 W. 43rd St., even though franchise owner Park Blair isn’t commenting publicly: “Some conjecture that it was an encroachment issue or something similarly major that has caused the delay at Berryhill on Ella. The restaurant applied for a building permit in 2011 and construction has been sporadic for the last two years. Their last approval for a restaurant addition was in February of 2014 and from the looks of things, they will open in the near future.” [The Leader] Photo: Betsy Denson
MAKING THE CASE FOR HOUSTON MURDERS 
“Houston and New Orleans stand alone as the creepiest cities on the Gulf Coast,” declare Mike Vance and John Nova Lomax. “With its pervasive voodoo ambience, sprawling cities of the dead, air of genteel decay and long history of murder and mayhem, New Orleans is undeniably a spooky town. Fright is a cottage industry there. Having said that, Houston is not far behind. Houstonians just don’t celebrate death and the past the way New Orleanians do.” Their new book, Murder & Mayhem in Houston: Historic Bayou City Crime, attempts to resurrect lesser-known crime stories that have “slipped into the recesses of this city’s gargantuan memory hole,“ with chapters on the Todville Mansion murder, the Heights House of Horrors, and the Wig Shop Murder. “Local histories have tended to gloss over this city’s dark side,” they write in the book’s preface, “choosing instead to cite the ever-increasing tonnage coming and going from the Houston Ship Channel, the scientific wonders of NASA and the Texas Medical Center, the ï¬nancial feats of powerful banker-developers like Jesse Jones and the gargantuan deeds of the great oil men. That’s important history to record, but that’s only half of Houston’s story. It’s high time the dark side comes to light.” [The History Press; Amazon]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID ABOUT STRAKE JESUIT 
“If people want to self-segregate and move somewhere like The Woodlands, great. I’m glad they are free to do that. What I don’t understand is the myopia that self-segregation can create, when people forget that anyone would ever value anything else over clean and shiny (and white) suburbs.
An example of what bothers me so much: I was leaving a Strake Jesuit football game earlier this year, and a Woodlands dad and I fell into conversation on the way out. He commented “this is such a great campus. Too bad it’s in this neighborhood.†As a SJ parent, I didn’t have any choice but to answer him politely, so I murmured something about how the lower property costs made it possible for the school to buy more land to improve and expand. But in reality, I was just incensed by his comments — still am, actually. What, a working class neighborhood doesn’t deserve something nice like a private school campus in it? The school has nothing to offer the neighborhood, and vice versa? The neighborhood has less value in absolute terms because it’s not wealthy, or aesthetically pleasing? What is it about living somewhere like The Woodlands that changes the way a person thinks, that they can look at the (abundant) life going on outside their clean little bubble and not recognize its value? I don’t have an answer to this question — it just bothers me an awful lot.” [Vonnegan, commenting on How The Woodlands Has Gone Astray; A Suitable Houston Honor for the Inventor of Air Conditioning] Illustration: Lulu
CURIOUS POLL PUSHERS WANT TO KNOW: SHOULD THE COUNTY SPEND ANY AMOUNT IT WANTS ON AN ASTRODOME REDO? 
The last time a concrete proposal to spend public money to repurpose the Astrodome was on the ballot, Harris County taxpayers voted it down. So how hard could it be to come up with a new poll showing potential voters aren’t especially eager to shell out for the latest floated idea, to turn the public facility into a giant indoor park — about which no details, price tag, or even feel-good drawings have yet been released? Maybe harder than you might think: In stories about a survey sponsored by KHOU and Houston Public Media whose results were released yesterday, a few news outlets did produce dutiful variants of a “Taxpayers Oppose Money for Astrodome” headline. But coming to that conclusion from the actual data collected in the survey might have been a bit of a stretch. Here’s the somewhat ambiguous wording of the question presented, with no context, to likely voters in the coming election: “Harris County proposes turning the Astrodome into an indoor park. Should the taxpayers of Harris County spend any amount to make the Astrodome into an indoor park if no private investors want to fund the entire project?” 31 percent said yes, 51 percent said no, and 17 percent of respondents said they didn’t know. The subset of respondents who thought they were being asked if they’d be willing to give county government a blank check for a plan they’ve never seen wasn’t broken out separately. [Houston Chronicle; KHOU; Houston Public Media; Astrodome coverage on Swamplot] Photo: Russell Hancock
