IT’S HIGH SIGN SEASON IN HOUSTON 
Spring has sprung, notes local film curator Peter Lucas. And that means a fresh crop of hand-painted signs has already sprouted: “Each spring — that all-too-brief time when the sun starts to shine in a few bright spurts but hasn’t yet begun to make being outdoors nearly unbearable and opening our eyes wide nearly impossible — this town begins to reveal an exhibition rivaling those in any of our art galleries and museums. Colors pop against each other. Structures pierce the blue sky. Degraded materials reveal complex textures. Drop-shadows create depth interplay with architectural flourishes and telephone lines. Emerging amidst these illuminated color fields and intersecting shadows are countless hand-painted signs. All around us, unique paintings of tires, kitchen appliances, people, foods, animals, and collages of typography show themselves and remind us that this is quite literally an art town.” [Glasstire] Photo: Peter Lucas
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: SO CONDOS ARE FOREVER? 
“My condo complex sits on about 6 acres of land on the western edge of River Oaks. We’ve been approached a few times by developers, but our bylaws require 100% owner approval to terminate the condo regime. There was a reported offer of $39M, which comes to about $270,800/unit (not accounting for differences in common ownership). That wouldn’t buy squat inside the loop today, so we will probably never get every owner to sell. Fine by me!” [roadchick, commenting on Randall Davis Trying To Buy an Entire Westhaven Estates Townhome Complex, in One Fell Swoop] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE HISTORY WAS 
“. . . The loss of historic architecture does not mean that the area is no longer historic; however, signs could be posted that say something to the effect of, “this historic area used to contain significant architecture that was so undervalued that it was demolished to make way for new, soon to be historic architecture.†[Higher Density, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Kickerillo Down] Illustration: Lulu
DEEP INSIDE THE BOOMING MARKET FOR HOUSTON HUNKER BUNKERS AND PANIC ROOMS 
The Houston area is Atlas Survival Shelters’ best market in the U.S., the California company’s owner tells Houstonia‘s Peter Holley. But who buys the sort of underground bunkers outfitted with a mud room, bunk beds, a kitchen, and a separate escape hatch Atlas markets? That’s a secret, because bunker buyers don’t like to talk about what they’re prepping, and often mask their identities from the security-hawking companies themselves. Holley figures out the contours of the survivalist boom, though: “For several years Houston has been in the throes of a frenzy of domicile defense, with many homeowners throughout the region spending five figures or more to turn their suburban abodes into veritable fortresses, employing elaborate and perhaps dangerous methods in the process. Meanwhile, for companies that sell panic rooms, freeze-dried food, weapons, secret passageways, safes, spy equipment, and booby traps, business is booming, especially in and around the Bayou City.”
A bit cheaper than a dedicated 10-ft.-by-40-ft. underground shelter-in-a-pipe is the $20,000 Fort Knox vault room (a version of which is pictured above on a new-construction site), “a Porta-Potty–size walk-in vault that has been in high demand for several years, especially in Houston, according to Safes R Us owner Eric Bristol, whose store is located off the East Freeway,” Holley writes. “He noted that a single room weighs 20,000 pounds and is encased in harder concrete than the type used to construct highways. Walk inside, swing the 1,300-pound door shut, and you might find that feelings of impenetrability are hard to separate from feelings of panic.
‘My daughter can’t be in here more than a few seconds before feeling claustrophobic,’ Bristol said, pulling a lever and sealing the tiny room during a visit to the Safes R Us showroom. ‘But I’ve sold hundreds of these things over the last few years because people are worried about rising crime, and they know that you’d need a tank to break open one of these babies.'” [Houstonia] Photo: Safes R Us
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW MUCH HOUSE YOU CAN AFFORD 
“. . . Affordable is in the eye of the beholder.
My brother wants to buy his first house, and I explained it to him thusly: To see how much house you can afford, NEVER start with one of those mortgage calculators. Instead, do the following: Evaluate your month to month finances. Figure out how much you can comfortably spend on housing every month, using your own situation of debts, expenses, etc. Multiply by 2/3 to see how much you can pay on a mortgage (the remaining 1/3 is escrow fees to cover required insurance, taxes, etc, which the mortgage calculators leave out.). THEN go to the mortgage calculator and work it backwards to see what price range you should be in. This will be your threshold for affordability. You will then probably want to knock off 10 or 12% and give that number to a realtor (this way if they show you something over your price range that you like, you can still go for it).
That said, on a macro scale, the affordability indices do have merit. Large corporations use the data to help determine where to locate offices. Federal and State governments use them to help determine who gets housing dollars. But it is important that we not treat those numbers as gospel for what we, individually, can afford in terms of housing.” [ZAW, commenting on Where Houston Ranks for Affordability; The Rise of Bicycle Commuting] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THAT SINKING FEELING 
“At 13 seconds in, those houses across the water at the top of the frame are at the end of my street, South Burnett Drive, in the Lakewood subdivision. The street rises gradually as you travel away from the water, but the low end of the street lost over 20 houses during Hurricane Ike. Some owners have rebuilt on pilings, some have rebuilt at grade, and others have abandoned the property. (My own house is further up the street, at about 31 feet elevation.) The end of the flood debris field from Ike was about three lots south of my house. So, while the name ‘Swamplot’ is amusing, to some of us it is no joke.” [Reeseman, commenting on Flying High Over the Baytown Subdivision That Sunk] Illustration: Lulu
DIRK’S COFFEE ON MONTROSE IS SHUTTING DOWN TODAY 
The Dirk’s Coffee drive-up spot on the corner of Montrose and Branard is closing its business today, reports Eater’s Darla Guillen — along with a number of disappointed caffeine-starved fans on Twitter and Facebook. Opened as an outpost of the Diedrich Coffee chain in the mid-aughts mid-nineties, the 4005 Montrose Blvd. location changed its name to Dirk’s Coffee a few years ago after its former parent company exited the retail hot-brew-serving business. “No word yet on why they’re closing, if they’re moving to a new location or if they plan to rebrand yet again,” writes Guillen. Swamplot reader (and social media director at the mayor’s office) Melissa Ragsdale Darragh notes a Dirk’s employee confirms that they will close at the end of the day today: “He stated they would love to reopen at a new location in the future however nothing is planned at this time.”  [Eater] Photo: Jazi H.
HAVE HOME PRICES IN LINDALE PARK REALLY JUMPED THAT MUCH, THAT FAST? 
“I’d be curious to know what your more knowledgeable readers think about the rising prices in Lindale Park,” a reader writes. “Just today I saw this listing — for north of $400k! Over the past couple of months there have been a number of homes listed, and quickly pending, for around $300k. Most (all?) of these appear to have been flipped.
I bought my (not updated, in need of work, but a not-bad 3-2) house in Lindale Park for around $150k in 2010. There were a number of factors to picking Lindale Park, but the biggest was that we could get a decent-sized house in a close-in neighborhood that seemed to be on the up-and-up without breaking the bank. (The rail was a big reason too.) But when I saw this home — big and updated but right on 610 — for more than $400k . . . my jaw dropped.” [Swamplot inbox] Photo of 511 Kelley St.: HAR
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE BOOM IN SPRING BRANCH 
“This part of Spring Branch has seen the median listing price go up from ~$150k to ~$250k over the past two years. Listings all over SB get multiple cash offers on the first day; a $400k listing will get bid up well into half-mil territory by week’s end. If this ball keeps rolling, we could start to see the first teardowns north of Long Point before the end of the year. Decision, decisions . . . best to buy now, or sit tight and wait for the pop?” [Rodrigo, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Auto Air] Illustration: Lulu
THE TOP SECRET WEST HOUSTON ROOFTOP CABINETS GRABBING HOUSTON TV SIGNALS FOR INTERNET STREAMING 
Chronicle tech reporter Dwight Silverman tours the rooftop base housing tens of thousands of tiny, dime-size antennas used by a New York-based company whose business model of capturing local TV, storing it on DVR servers, and streaming it to customers, is headed for a Supreme Court showdown: “Aereo’s local operation is located in a data center in west Houston. (I can’t say more than that – not because of Aereo, but because the data center is very security-conscious and keeps the location secret to protect other customers.) The location was picked partly because TV signals for most of Houston’s broadcast stations are strong there.
The antennas are stored in cabinets mounted on a platform on the center’s roof. To get there, you must climb about 20 feet up a vertical ladder (after receiving a detailed safety briefing) and exit through a hatch onto the roof.
The two cabinets each have a locked door that provides access on one side. Open them, and you can see long circuit-board racks, each about 14-16 inches long, that hold the antennas. Below them is equipment that converts the radio frequency signals to MPEG-2 video. The back side of the cabinets have what [Aereo founder and CEO Chet] Kanojia described as ‘RF transparent windows,’ made of a material that lets TV signals penetrate easily.
The converted MPEG-2 video is fed via 10-gigabit fiber-optic cables to a set of servers in the floor below the roof. Aereo has a relatively small space in the data center, but still has plenty of room to add more servers. A rack of transcoders convert the MPEG-2 video into MPEG-4, which is more easily streamed over the Net.
Two racks of hard drives, each with 3 terabytes of storage and spinning at 7,200 RPM, stores the data. Aereo saves each customer’s signal to the drives, even if they’re watching live, which is what allows its users to pause and rewind live TV. The drives also store recorded shows, with the amount varying based on whether a customer has the $8 or $12 Aereo plan.
When someone wants to watch a show, it’s streamed out through the data center’s big fiber-optic connection to the Internet.” [TechBlog; more info ($)]
Photo of Houston West Data Center (probably not the Aereo location) at 5150 Westway Park Blvd.: CyrusOne
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A PROPERTY TAX PROTESTOR’S GUIDE TO HCAD BUILDING GRADES 
“There is no process to request that a home be considered an economic misimprovement. When a neighborhood has changed to the point that the original homes are no longer the norm, either by new construction or remodeling, HCAD can deem the remaining original homes as econ improvements.
On to grade — Grade is set when the home is constructed. There is usually a discussion between the builder and the appraisal district as to what level of customization is going into the property as it’s being built. Think of a typical Pulte starter-home as a C+. For every level of better materials or customization, the grade will be increased up to a maximum of X+. This is, for the most part, impossible to change on a permanent basis. Especially after the construction is complete. The key here is to get in either during construction or immediately after. It helps if your home is exactly the same as the rest on the block, but for some reason, your grade is higher. Bring in floor plans and show which houses are similar.
On to Condition/Desirability/Utility (CDU) – This is the one you can play with. A home with a reasonable amount of un-repaired deferred maintenance should be in Average condition. In the old days, all new homes were put on at Excellent condition, but HCAD has since changed that policy and puts most new homes on in Average condition. This is the one you need to work on with signed written repair estimates and pictures. Every year. Big stuff — electric, plumbing, foundation, windows, storm damage, etc.
Finally, Level of Remodel — None, partial, extensive, total, new/rebuilt. This causes a great deal of angst to many people, because there is no real written explanation of what each one is, and how long a remodel actually lasts. There are homes from the early 90s in West U that are still being considered New/Rebuilt, and, as such, are being compared to brand new construction. Additionally, HCAD does not know about every remodel — they only started getting the building permits about 6 years ago. So, your neighbor with the spectacular new kitchen who did it under the table may still be listed as having no remodel. Unless you want to bring in pictures of their kitchen from the last BBQ, there’s not much you can do, other than show that yours is in worse shape than HCAD shows. Additionally, many ARB boards and appraisers have different ideas as to what makes a remodel — putting new cabinet doors up in the kitchen? I’ve seen that called a partial remodel. Replacing knob and tube wiring without increasing capacity to avert a possible fire? I’ve seen that called a repair, and not an improvement.” [BrewWench, commenting on How Do You Get on HCAD’s ‘Cheap’ List?] Illustration: Lulu
SAWYER HEIGHTS ARBY’S UPGRADING TO LA MADELEINE, ADDING SAUCE 
The shuttered Arby’s waving to I-10 eastbound feeder road drivers exiting at Taylor has been gutted, there’s a hole in the outside wall, and the drive-thru window is being filled in. All in service of transforming the Sawyer Heights shopping center slot at 2423 Katy Fwy., next to Vitamin Shoppe, into a La Madeleine, notes reader Christopher Andrews. Included in his tweeted photo report from the Target-anchored center: a TABC notice posted in the storefront, for the wine portion of the “country French café” menu. [Twitter] Photo: Christopher Andrews
COMMENT OF THE DAY: GETTING RID OF WASTEFULNESS 
“It amazes me that we’ve become so rich as a society that we can collectively afford to have fashions of home improvements that will go in and out of style (although remain perfectly functional) the same way clothes do. The funniest to me is when you see on one of these HGTV shows someone espousing all the right ‘green’ mantras, but the first thing they do when they get the house it tear out all the perfectly functioning appliances, cabinets, counters and carpet…etc to be thrown in a dumpster. All the while feeling smug about how sustainable the place is because they are putting in bamboo flooring . . .” [longcat, commenting on Comment of the Day: Your ‘Updates’ Are Dating You] Illustration: Lulu
WHERE SKINNY RITA’S WILL BE SQUEEZING IN ON NORTH MAIN 
Contractor-turned-Realtor-turned-fraud investigator-turned-restaurateur Randy Bower and the team behind Ruggles Green plan to open the first of 2 Skinny Rita’s Grilles in the space at 4002 N. Main St. on the triangular block bounded by Walton and Melwood in Brooke Smith that’s been home to Rico’s Cantina, Rico’s Luchadores, and more recently the Frida Kahlo-themed La Casa de Frida and Frida’s Cucina later this year. Skinny Rita’s Grille is meant to be a “farm-to-table” Latin restaurant. “Skinny Rita’s food is rustic, healthy, and ‘sexy to the bone®’ as are our drinks and décor,” reads the text on the restaurant’s dummy website. A rooftop patio will feature long views of Downtown. A second Skinny Rita’s is apparently being planned for Kemah. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Skinny Rita’s Grille
WHAT A PLACE AT THE SOVEREIGN WILL COST YOU 
A couple of readers have written in noting their own sticker shock at the pricing announced for the 290 apartments at the still-under-construction 21-story Sovereign at Regent Square tower. One bedrooms will start at $2070 a month, two bedrooms at $3070, and studios at $1615. A temporary leasing office run by Boston-based Windsor Communities will open in a couple of weeks; the first units at 3233 West Dallas St. should be ready for occupancy by July 15th, the company says. [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Alonso Ortega
