- Randall Davis Explains How His Arábella Condo Tower Is Meant To Channel New York [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Toll Brothers Now Selling Homes in New ‘Cane Island’ Development West of Katy Mills Mall [Houston Chronicle]
- Kroger-Anchored Woodshore Marketplace Now Under Construction Near Lake Jackson [Prime Property]
- Wine and Record Store Combo Vino & Vinyl Set To Open on Hwy. 6 in Missouri City Early This Summer [Eater Houston]
- Insurance Assessors Still Deciding Fate of Wunsche Bros. Café After Fire; Nearby Businesses Affected [Houston Chronicle]
- Eastern Chunk of Downtown Near Minute Maid Park ‘Ready to Explode,’ Claims Jackson Street BBQ’s Bill Floyd [Houston Chronicle]
- Bernadine’s, Hunky Dory, and Foreign Correspondents All Opening in the Heights by June [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- CityCentre’s Walkability by the Numbers [Urban Land Magazine]
- Emergency Crews Work To Clean Up Sulfuric Acid Leak at Abandoned Storage Facility on Texas City Wye [Galveston County Daily News]
- Newly Proposed Oyster Fishing Regulation Aims To Restore Texas Coast Oyster Habitat [Houston Public Media]
- Hilcorp Billionaires Mindy and Jeff Hildebrand Pledge $10M to the Houston Parks Board for Bayou Greenways 2020 Project [Culturemap]
- How Houston is Becoming the New Hub for Indian-American Community in Texas [The Economic Times]
- Touring Downtown Houston by Segway [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Downtown: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
The Cane Island project is going to be interesting. $3.79 per $100 valuation = $22,740 in property tax for a $600K home. The same valuation in Kelliwood, for instance, at a $2.62 rate. Throw in a HOA of approx. $1300 per year and say $3K for insurance and you are sitting on an monthly nut of $4,500 for your new crib on the prairie that won’t have anything you could really call a “tree” for another decade. And wait until you get your first water bill!
I have no rational reason to think this, but the accent ‘a’ on that project name comes off as super douchey. Like they’re trying to hard to be — I don’t know — ‘worldly’ ? “European” ? “sophisticated”? Nothing wrong with going for that — but when its obvious you’re trying for that, you’ve failed.
@Cody,
The accent also makes for really strange pronunciation. Is it supposed to rhyme with parabola?
@mike
That’s a hearty calculus. Do you work for the county, though?
I ask b/c I want to know whether your ‘monthly nut’ quib was a simple typo or more of a Freudian slip.
I too am critical of the diacritical. Sounds weird when you try to say it; same rhythm as ‘parabola’?
@Y’all: I found this on Wikipedia regarding the accent A in Spanish:
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‘In Spanish, á is an accented letter, pronounced just the way “a” is. Both á and a sound like /a/. The accent indicates the stressed syllable in words with irregular stress patterns. It can also be used to “break up” a diphthong or to avoid what would otherwise be homonyms, although this does not happen with á, because a is a strong vowel and usually does not become a semivowel in a diphthong. See Diacritic and Acute accent for more details.’
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So if I’m reading that correctly, we pronounce the “a” the same as we would in “arabella” (which would be stressed like “aruBELLa”) but we move the stress to the 2nd syllable, so it’s pronounce “aRUBella”.
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Arubella-dub-dubella!
@Angostura and Gisgo, I already said that last week.
Air-UH-bella, rather than ‘Airah-Bella” – I assume.
Pretty sure in Houston the accent will make it be pronounced uh-rabble-uh.
@DNAGuy, monthly nut is an old term for the amount of money it costs for something, in this case living expenses. Lots of links if you do a search.
Usually I am only deeply misunderstood by my family. Accused of being a county employee….as if there was something wrong with that. I am getting old when what once was a colloquialism is considered puzzling. For Pete’s sake, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.