COMMENT OF THE DAY: AT THE EDGE OF EXEMPTION “Churches and private education getting a pass on property taxes is just wrong wrong wrong. it opens up too many loopholes. things become clouded, like when 2nd baptist buys the adjacent shopping center. they own it, they operate a portion of it for church activities, does that take the entire property off the tax roles? That’s easily a $20MM property now not part of COH taxes, and yet using an unusually high pro-rata portion of traffic control, road maintenance since the remaining businesses there are high traffic. another example — i want to buy a piece of real estate. i start a ‘church’ and then buy it. i now have a free hold on a piece of dirt forever, don’t I? . . . private schools and universities are no different. st agnes now has taken a 4 corners hard corner off the tax roll @ bellaire/fondren so they can have athletic fields, and theoretically could continue to take in the same manner forever. who is to say a board member there wouldn’t buy/BTS a building for them, then pass on the effective tax savings through a long-term cheap rent deal??? HBU – same thing. the list goes on and on.” [HTX REZ, commenting on There Was a Church, and There Went the Steeple]
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Schools
GALVESTON ELEMENTARY STILL IN AFTER-SCHOOL DETENTION 
Well into Burnet Elementary School’s third year of post-Ike limbo, a school district spokesman says one idea is to fix the hurricane-ravaged property’s exterior, roof, and air conditioning so it can be used as warehouse space. There’s “a good chance” FEMA would pay for repairs, but no funds have been negotiated yet. Then there’s the other option: selling the campus. But the district doesn’t think it would get a very good price in the current market, and what if they need to open up a new school a few years later? [Galveston County Daily News] Photo: Galveston ISD
Photographer Karen Dressel documents the dramatic final moments of the former Shepherd Drive Methodist Church on the corner of Blossom St. in Magnolia Grove, which hit the dirt earlier this week after 57 years of relative motionlessness:
Here are a few pics from the battle that began last Friday between demo crews and at least one of the former Alamo Elementary School’s 2 buildings at 201 E. 27th St. in Sunset Heights. The school shut down back in 1980; since then it’s been used as the site of an HISD storage facility and a series of only imagined — and now, it appears, officially defunct — preservation and repurposing schemes. The original 2-story structure was built in 1913; the single-story structure was added in 1926.
A tipster on the scene reports that the demolition of Sherman Elementary School at 1909 McKee St. in Northside Village is just about complete: “They'[d] been demolishing it piece by piece (windows, interior, bricks, etc) for the last month, but [in late December] started leveling the rest of the gutted structure and the homes around it.” Going up in place of the school, which sat vacant for about a year: A new 86,000-sq.-ft. Sherman Elementary, which when it opens will take students now attending the ready-to-close Crawford Elementary School on Jensen Dr. about a mile southeast.
ST. STEPHEN’S LOSES APPEAL; MONTROSE H-E-B BEER AND WINE SALES BEGIN THURSDAY 
A judge today denied an appeal by St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, allowing the new Montrose H-E-B on the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama to begin pouring beer and wine for customers tomorrow at 2 pm. Earlier this month, County Judge Ed Emmett ruled that the St. Stephen’s building within 300 ft. of the new store’s property line at 1755 Sul Ross St. did not itself qualify as a private school under state alcohol rules, in part because fewer than 100 students attend courses at that particular location. [Prime Property; background; previously on Swamplot]
A Swamplot tipster is claiming that H-E-B’s Montrose Market, which opened earlier this week without a liquor license, will have difficulty obtaining one — unless some strings are pulled. Before the opening, H-E-B had announced plans not only to sell packaged beer and wine in the new store on the former site of the Wilshire Village apartments at the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama, but to allow customers to order drinks by the glass and take them to the store’s outdoor patio as well.
But the license did not come through by the opening date. H-E-B Houston president Scott McClelland told Chronicle reporter David Kaplan on opening day that he expected it to come through in 4 to 5 weeks. A company spokesperson tells Swamplot that until the license is approved by the TABC, the store has stocked its future liquor department with other items for sale. What could have caused the holdup?
Montrose preschool Kipling Street Academy has purchased a 1-acre lot at the corner of Shepherd Dr. and Blossom, where it plans to open a “sister school” to its main (and recently expanded) tiny-tot campus at the corner of Kipling and Mulberry. The 600 Shepherd Dr. address in Magnolia Grove belongs to the former Shepherd Drive Methodist Church; the 1955 church building on the site is currently home to Center Street Ministries. An email sent to parents of Kipling kids indicates that construction on its new facility across the street from the Kicks indoor-soccer complex will begin early next year, and that the new school is scheduled to open next fall — but doesn’t specify whether or how much of the existing buildings on the lot will be retained.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Eastwood’s original Rufus Cage Elementary School would become a landmarked “community facility” under a plan announced today by Mayor Parker. The 1910 2-story brick schoolhouse at the intersection of Telephone Rd. and Baird St. last served as a schoolhouse in 1983; under Parker’s plan, the city would buy the building for $100,000 in credit from HISD, which the school district could use to acquire a city property or right-of-way to be named later. HISD’s trustees approved the sale earlier this month, but city council will have to vote on the plan too. After taking ownership, Parker says, the city would pursue a landmark designation for the property and “work with the neighborhood to seek proposals for conversion of the building to another use.” The schoolhouse, a small auditorium, and a warehouse sit on a triangular 28,700-sq.-ft. lot.
- Mayor Annise Parker Announces Plan to Preserve Historic Rufus Cage Elementary School [Mayor’s Office]
- Previously on Swamplot: HISD Looking for Cage Match in Eastwood
Photo: Candace Garcia
Note: Story updated and corrected.
The Post Oak School’s brand-new Montessori high school will open next year in the former Party Cloths building at 1102 Autrey St., just west of Montrose Blvd. at the edge of the Southwest Freeway. The single-story building, which dates from 1975 and sits on a third-of-an-acre lot, was purchased recently after a year-long search for a Museum District location; Post Oak High School officials announced the deal and the campus address this morning. The private school plans to spend $700,000 renovating the 6,000-sq.-ft. linen-service company building, and begin the 2012-2013 school year with a 9th grade class and maybe a 10th grade class of about 20 students each.
ST. AGNES PICKS UP DROPPED SUIT 
The lawsuit the Academy of St. Agnes filed and then dropped last month against the city, the TABC, and the owners of a nightclub planning to open in the former Finger Furniture space at PlazAmericas is back on again, Purva Patel reports. The suit is an attempt to prevent the planned club, El Corral, from receiving a liquor license. A year ago, the private girls school bought the 18.7-acre former Gillman auto dealership at the corner of Bellaire Blvd. and Fondren, across the street from the former Sharpstown Mall, with plans to turn the property into an athletic campus. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
MORE RIDES TO GYM 
The Westbury Christian School is buying the Westland Family YMCA at 10402 Fondren, south of South Braeswood, with plans to turn the building, its pool, and large playing field into a remote athletic campus. The 31-year-old Y is a little more than a mile west of the K-12 school’s main campus at 10402 Hillcroft. The property wasn’t up for sale, but “declining membership and increasing operating costs” convinced the organization to shut the facility. Members will be transferred automatically to the Y at 5801 W. Orem Dr. when the Westland location closes at the end of the month. [Hair Balls; previously on Swamplot] Photo: YMCA of Greater Houston
ST. AGNES DROPS SUIT St. Agnes Academy has officially ended its lawsuit meant to prevent a nightclub called El Corral — planned for the former Finger Furniture store in PlazAmericas — from receiving a liquor license. The suit was filed last Friday against the nightclub’s owners, the city of Houston, and the TABC. A spokesperson for the all-girls private school, which is building an athletic facility across Bellaire Blvd. from the former Sharpstown Mall, tells Swamplot “any future plans regarding the suit are to be determined,” but offered no further comments. [Previously on Swamplot]
A reader passes on these renderings showing the new Sherman Elementary School planned for the school’s current location at 1909 McKee St. in Northside Village. Construction of the 86,000-sq.-ft. structure is on target to begin within 2 months, after the existing school is demolished. The new school will serve students from Crawford Elementary, which will then be closed.
Renderings: HISD
What’s happening with the old Rufus Cage Elementary School on Telephone Rd., just north of Lawndale? Some roof repairs, and . . . a possible sale? “Now we actually have some people that have interest in the property, but our concern is that the interest is in the land, not necessarily in the building,” HISD trustee Juliet Stipeche tells abc13’s Cynthia Cisneros. The Eastwood school, built in 1910, closed in the mid-1980s and is currently used as a storage facility by the school district. An organization called the Rufus Cage Educational Alliance is trying to find a public use for the building and its 1.021-acre site. A deal the school district had negotiated to sell Cage to Historic Houston fell through long before the nonprofit’s recent financial difficulties. Nine other school properties are listed for sale on the HISD real estate website.
- East End residents try to save old Cage Elementary [abc13]
- Historic Rufus Cage Educational Alliance [Facebook]
Photo: Candace Garcia
