11/11/14 2:30pm

surge-sign-removal-heights

Over the weekend  Surge Homes removed the sign promising “future development” along the Heights Hike-and-Bike Trail. Workers took the recently-installed bike-scaled billboard Saturday morning. It appears that the sign had been squatting on a public right-of-way.

Around the same time, the newly-created Surge Homes released lots of new information for the trailside colony. Surge is run by the same principals involved with Canada’s Group LSR who closed on the property in 2004. Sporadic attempts to develop the site have so far borne no fruit.

Aerial views show that the project would take quite a bite out of the pocket forest currently on the site; access would come via a lengthened E. 5th St., not a trail-crossing extension of Frasier St., as in an earlier proposal.

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Surge Homes Pullback
11/11/14 11:30am

new-flea-mkt-demo-tight

Here lie the remains of the New Flea Market, the most recent occupant of a strip mall site at 8315 Long Point Rd. that once was home to the  Spring Branch K-Mart. Workers are scraping an 8-acre parcel of the larger site at the corner of Hillendahl Blvd. to make way for the Village at Spring Branch, a 100-home David Weekley development offering three-story townhouses and garden and patio homes ringing a pool and cabana. Blue-light specials will be offered around $400k; premium buys will go on sale at $700k. Retail — and the tiny, historic Hillendahl Cemetery (captured below in an old photo) — will remain along the Long Point frontage.

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What’s New Is Old
11/05/14 11:00am

THE RANSACKING OF IDYLWOOD’S LITTLE FREE LIBRARY 4918 little-library-idylwood-ransackedWhen Little Free Library 4918 owner Sally Harris returned home “from an incredibly productive morning and midday” Sunday afternoon, she found the door to her festive Mardi Gras-themed Idylwood book repository hanging wide open and more than half of the books “plundered.” (See photo at bottom.)  Her belief that the security precautions she had taken on Halloween night had seen it through pranking season proved sadly mistaken; and oddly, religious tracts and pictures of Jesus were found in the rifled-through library.  Vented Harris on Facebook Sunday afternoon: “When I set out to create a neighborhood library, I always said you can’t steal ‘free’ but this is vandalism and it has me shaking and angry.” Harris posted that she recently had been considering a remodel anyway, and some of her friends have already pledged to help her restock via book donations. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of Little Free Library 4918, 6644 Lindy Ln.: Sally Harris    

09/18/14 11:30am

Proposed Tunnels and Land Bridge for Memorial Park, Houston

The landscape architecture firm working on a new master plan for Memorial Park is proposing to put portions of Memorial Dr. in tunnels to allow better connections between the long-separated north and south sections of the 1,500-acre space. Drawings shown at a public meeting Wednesday demonstrated a range of strategies Nelson Byrd Woltz is considering to link some of the 24 separate sections of the park so that they are freely accessible to visitors without hazarding traffic. Tunnels over the existing roadway would be covered by an 800-ft. long “land bridge” planted with grass and trees, reports the Chronicle‘s Molly Glentzer:

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Land Bridges
07/29/14 8:30am

802 n. nagle

Photo of 802 N. Nagle: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
07/17/14 2:45pm

Removal of Oak Trees from Yale St., Houston Heights

Tree-liking readers alarmed by yesterday’s oak-trunk sawfest and takedown along Yale St. between 6th and 7th streets, fronting the construction site for the new 352-unit Alexan Heights apartment complex (work in progress shown above), may be relieved to hear it’s all part of a city-approved chop-and-replace plan. Trammell Crow Residential was granted permission to remove 8 trees along Yale and replace them at the beginning of next year, a post on the apartment complex website notes. A total of 18 new live oaks, each of them more than 22-ft. tall, are planned for the complex’s Yale St. frontage, according to the note: “Furthermore, due to the recent burial of existing overhead utility lines and power poles along Yale Street, these trees will be able to grow naturally without encroaching upon any utility lines, as was the case with the existing trees.”

Here’s an aerial view of the site from June:

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07/14/14 3:00pm

STREET POOPING, WIPING, AND PHOTOGRAPHING IS BACK IN THE WOODLAND HEIGHTS Man Pooping on Sidewalk, 500 Block of Byrne St., Woodland HeightsAccording to a Houston Chronicle report, a resident of Byrne St. reported to police earlier today an encounter with yet another act of public pooping in the 77009. And it appears to be the work of a familiar figure from that neighborhood: that of the defecating, toilet-paper-toting man commonly referred to as the, uh, “serial pooper” of Woodland Heights. Back in May, a surveillance camera posted in a tree had caught images (above right) of the sidewalk hijinx of a man who, residents say, had repeatedly been defecating in and around the yards and driveways of the 500 block of Byrne St. A 56-year-old man had confessed to the defecatory acts after he was later picked up on a related charge of public urination near the Fiesta Mart at Quitman and Fulton  — but was not charged with a crime at the time, because “the man had serious mental health issues,” Heather Alexander reports. There’s apparently a photo of the man’s most recent exploits as well; Harris County precinct 1 spokesperson J.C. Mosier tells Alexander “there’s a very good chance it is the same guy,” but is waiting to receive a copy of the photo before confirming. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Click2Houston  

06/25/14 5:30pm

6404 Lakeshore Dr., Lago Vista, Texas

6404 Lakeshore Dr., Lago Vista, TexasWhy is Houston architect Karen Lantz putting up for sale the 1963 split-level cabin near Lake Travis she painstakingly brought back to life and renovated? To free up funds for more on-her-own projects for her family, she tells Swamplot. Of course, a real-estate listing of an architect’s own home can do double marketing duty: There’s always the chance someone might see your home and want to buy it! But there’s also a chance someone might see your home and want something kind of like it, but somewhere else. . . .

So Lantz went a little wild with the online show-and-tell, repurposing many of the images she had had taken and drawn of the property when she submitted it for professional recognition (both Lantz and the home won awards from the AIA last year) into a fancy listing website that pokes into all sorts of different sections of the half-acre lot, pointing out the “drainage swale,” “bamboo grove,” “firefly grotto” (with video of the bugs in action), “firefly patio,” BBQ patio, “arroyo,” swings (above left), and — oh, yeah, the house too:

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Letting Go in Lago Vista
06/13/14 10:15am

Fire Aftermath at 717 E. 8th St., Houston Heights

Builders of a home under construction in the 700 block of E. 8th St. in the Heights, near Antidote coffee house, are looking at the damage to the large structure after an apparent fire that took place a few hours ago. “We heard a fire truck, with sirens blaring, at 4:30 this morning,” reports a Swamplot tipster. The house, which is being constructed by Whitestone Builders, “dwarfs its bungalow neighbors and appears to fill the lot,” writes the tipster: “I have no idea how the fire started but it appeared to have been underneath the house with visible damage to the siding on both sides and on the porch.”

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Under Construction
06/10/14 10:00am

LUCKY BURGER FLOATS ON Former Lucky Burger Building for Lease, 1601 Richmond Ave., Montrose, Houston And there it is, like a floating keg tossed into the water after a decades-long cookout: the empty hull of Lucky Burger. It all seems a bit forlorn, writes the Swamplot reader who sent in this photo of the tapped-out fast-food joint at the corner of Richmond and Mandell. A for-lease banner from the property’s landlord, Braun Enterprises, now covers the painted-on Lucky Burger sign on the side of the barrel. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox

05/30/14 3:00pm

Rendering of Proposed Oaks on Caroline, 4820 Caroline St., Museum Park, Houston

The former single-story office building at 4820 Caroline St. where the coworking space called the Caroline Collective set up shop and operated for 5 years until last August was demolished earlier this year. And the companies redeveloping the property are sharing details of the 5-story condo building they plan to build in its place. A giant oak tree in the back was taken down with the demo, but Urban Flats Builder (formerly known as Infinity Texas Development) is still planning to call its building the Oaks on Caroline. The remaining oak, in front of the property, is featured in the rendering shown above.

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Museum Park