- 350 New Home Sites in Conroe’s Grand Central Park Development at Former Camp Strake To Begin Construction Early Next Year [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
- H&M To Open Fifth Houston-Area Store This Fall with 20K-SF Location in CityCentre [Prime Property]
- Blue Bell Building Fifth Houston-Area Branch Distribution Facility, in Tomball [HBJ]
- Houston Office Rents Among the Top 5 Fastest-Rising, According to Report [HBJ]
- Houston’s Apartment Boom Contributed $22.6B To Local Economy in 2013, Multifamily Boosters Claim [HBJ]
- Harmony in Spring Adds Taylor Morrison, Shea Homes as Homebuilders [Prime Property]
- Stern and Bucek Design for Weingarten Mansion Renovation Includes Expanded Kitchen and Master Suite [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
- Opening of Southern Goods in Former Table 19 Space at 632 19th St. Delayed By Permitting Process [The Leader]
- Complaints About Memorial Park’s Master Plan [Houston Press]
- Mom Would Like to Revive the Tradewinds Skating Rink in Oak Forest [The Leader]
Photo of Houston Club building demo: El Kento, via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
When those 350 houses in Conroe get added, people who choose to drive their commute to downtown will now have to leave the house at 4:15am as opposed to 4:30am in order to beat the morning traffic. Because buses and smaller lot sizes are not acceptable.
It seems that even experienced restaurant owners consistently under-estimate the time it takes to get through permitting. Just in that immediate area, there are five eagerly-awaited restaurants (Southern Goods, Ka Sushi, Hugs & Donuts, Bernadine’s & Foreign Correspondents), all of which have faced permitting delays.
CoH really needs to look at streamlining this process. A year or more to open a restaurant has to be a big financial impediment for restaurateurs, and leaves them little room for error once they finally do open.
@Complaints About Memorial Park….
“I can’t even…. I literally can’t even w/ these guys.”
wasn’t there a boat playhouse in the water at camp strake that you could go out and play on. not seeing anything of the sort on google maps which has me questioning if this thing was torn down a long time ago. any other reminscent scouts on here know the story about it?
Angostura: It’s truly disgusting.
DNA: Eh?
Agree with Angostura. The permit process for the City, and also the County is a labyrinth of codes that few people without years of experience can easily negotiate. It adds unnecessarily to the cost of doing business here, and is a burden to small business people without deep pockets. I get why we need some permit regulations. We don’t want buildings catching fire due to faulty electrical work, or toilets backing up due to improper sewer connections, but it seems we’ve stuffed the book to cover any and every scenario. Same could be said for other regs in our city. Look at all the taxi regulation hoops that Uber had to jump through.
Would be nice to see one of the candidates for the next mayoral election make a campaign plank out of streamlining the permit process. We know it’s not going to happen with the current administration.
As a scout I did so, so many things at Camp Strake and vaguely remember the boat house. But how about the hike to the camp-store? Not the Canteen– the “store” which was where you could purchase absolutely 100% real cool BSA branded paraphernalia (mess-kit’s, canteens, socks, and more). Things that you couldn’t even get in, geez, Houston (Bagby location). Did my first Death-March there as well as OA was always creepy. For one, I’m heartfelt about it’s departure; and, at the same time, glad that BSA is improving facilities, I suppose. And even though I got my Survival Merit Badge at El Cinco, I always thought Strake was the real Survivor Man set: alligators, ants, mosquitoes, and feral raccoons in latrines, mixed with the occasional snipe (hiding next to the left-handed-smoke-shifter, no doubt). Good times.
permitting is ugh. not only do you have to worry about MEP, and of course, fire safety and other very important safety issues. That’s all very important, but to add insult to injury, some guy comes in after you get a pass on all those safety related permits and gives you a red sticker because the mirrors in your bathroom are not at the regulation height.
.
I can say, the next time I build something, I am going to consider how long the GC says it is going to take to build, then add 3 weeks for each inspection that has to be done.
@joel
There was an anchored raft/deck thing out in the middle of Grand Lake. It sounds like what you’re talking about. A troop would canoe out to it in the night and sleep out there. I never got to do it though; one year we instead canoed across the lake to the “treehouse” on the other side. It was still pretty fun. The mosquitoes were even more unbearable out there than in camp.
The raft might have fallen out of service or been dismantled; there were a couple things like that. Like there was this giant wooden fort/city thing on the Cub Scout side that I only got to go to once because it was getting dangerous.
Anyone remember those incredible $1 snow cones? I mean, creamy, perfectly shaved ice, giant cup. Being outside all day in the summer probably helped a lot.
Legend was the deed came with a Scouting-only clause, but I guess not. I read the Scouts are buying better, hillier, more isolated property NE of Conroe, mostly surrounded by SHNF, and still in the Piney Woods with the money. I’ll still miss it though. Grand Central Park: Not grand, not central, not a park.
definitely not the raft thing, and is more along the lines of the wooden fort/city thing mentioned. quick search on google only links to a previous swamplot posting with a picture of what I presume is what I’m recalling. it’s of course surrounded by water and looks about 10x bigger in my head though.
http://swamplot.com/astros-owner-pitching-camp-strike/2013-10-01/