SWAMPLOT GIVEAWAY: WIN FREE TICKETS TO CHEF FEST 2018 
Swamplot is giving away a pair of tickets to this year’s Chef Fest, which takes place on March 4th on the grounds of the 12-acre Harvest Green Village Farm in Richmond. To learn more about the giveaway or to sign up for it, click here.
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Sponsor of the Day
Swamplot Sponsor: Central Bank
Today we’re thanking Houston’s own Central Bank for being our Sponsor of the Day. Swamplot appreciates the continuing support!
Central Bank has 4 (central) Houston branches available to meet your business or personal needs: in Midtown, the Heights, West Houston, and Post Oak Place.
Central Bank believes that change is essential to its success; the company actively pursues the latest in service, technology, and products. Central Bank aims to know its customers personally and to be their primary business and personal financial resource. The bank’s staff values relationships and strives to be available when you need them.
To learn more about how Central Bank can meet your banking needs, please call any of the following Senior Vice Presidents: Kenny Beard, at 832.485.2376; Bonnie Purvis, at 832.485.2354; Carlos Alvarez, at 832.485.2372; or Ryan Tillman, at 832.485.2307. You can also find out more on the bank’s website.
What do you have going on? Let Swamplot readers know about it — become a Sponsor of the Day.
JUDGE EMMETT: KATY PRAIRIE DEVELOPMENT SHOULD STOP ONCE AND FOR ALL 
Here’s Harris County Judge Ed Emmett’s declaration Wednesday at a Rice University flooding conference: “We need to completely protect the Katy Prairie. Just set it aside and not touch it.” Or . . . what’s left of it. Last October, he called for a third reservoir in west Houston to “be part of a larger project to create a state or national park for the Katy Prairie.” And he wants Gov. Abbott to tap the state’s “rainy day fund” in order to build the prairie pond. (As for where it would go, a 2015 Harris County Flood Control District study proposed several sites, all on not-yet-developed parcels west of the Grand Pkwy. between Hwy. 290 and FM 529.) [Travis Bubenik] Photo of Matt Cook Wildlife Viewing Area on Warren Lake, south of Hockley: Katy Prairie Conservancy
- H-E-B-Anchored Shopping Center Tanglewood Court Up for Sale [Bisnow]
- Zillow: Houston Home Values Up 6.6% Over the Year to Median $186,800 [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Buyers Spent Slightly More for Smaller Homes in 2017 [HBJ ($)]
- Slideshow: The 10 Most Expensive Homes Sold in January, According to HAR [Houston Chronicle]
- Secret Army Corps Forecast Predicted Harvey Would Fill Barker Reservoir to Record Levels, Flood Adjacent Neighborhoods [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Army Corps To Study Storm Improvements to Addicks and Barker Reservoirs [Houston Public Media]
- Harriet Tregoning on How To Build Resilient Cities [The Urban Edge]
Photo of Main St. at Commerce St.: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable demolition.
- 1422 Ravenel Ln. [HAR]
Here’s the 1,340 sq.-ft. storefront Modern Acupuncture is now stuck in near the east end of the River Oaks Shopping Center building that hugs Origin Bank on the corner of W. Gray and Shepherd. The clinic took over the vacant spot at 2021 W. Gray earlier this month after women’s wear shop Em & Lee abandoned it several years ago. It’s the chain’s first treatment center in Houston, although 2 others are nearby in Webster and Sugar Land. So far, the company has 23 locations either open or in the works across 10 states — and expansion plans call for 20 more in and around Houston alone.
Update, 7:00 pm: At the request of the copyright holder, the images of Caydon Properties’ proposed development have been removed.
The Australian company that’s already begun construction on a residential tower in place of the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Association building on the corner of Main and Tuam has plans for a pair of additional towers on the 2 blocks north of that site, along Metro’s red line. These renderings from visualization studio Large Arts show the extent of the complex — including a hotel, offices, residential space, and street-level retail fronting the rail up to McGowen St.
The rendering at top views the development from the corner of Main and Drew St. to show the new southern tower — home to a hotel — fronting Fannin while the northern one faces Main. Further up the tracks, a train pulls into the northbound McGowen St. station stop — shown lined with storefronts that sit below the north tower. An alley runs along the north end of the development, between the building and Greensheet Media’s former office — just out of view on the left at the corner of Main and McGowen.
More retail fronts the alley, adjacent to the McGowen platform:
Sponsor of the Day
Swamplot Sponsor: Just Buyers Houston
Sponsoring Swamplot today: Just Buyers Houston, the Houston real estate firm that represents buyers only. Thanks for the support!
Just Buyers Houston’s Judy Thompson has been tracking gentrification: “I have always been sensitive to the neighborhood gentrification issue and would prefer that the original housing stock of neighborhoods be renovated rather than demolished and replaced by new construction,” she writes. “But gentrification seems to be an economic fact of life in Houston. I keep my eye on it and have created the chart shown here so you can too.”
The Just Buyers Houston gentrification page ranks 22 popular local Zip Codes by a statistic Thompson presents as a proxy for gentrification: the percentage of sales in a neighborhood in which the sold home is older than the average home in that neighborhood.
Do these numbers surprise you? Or confirm your sense of these local markets?
You’ll find plenty other perusable stats for these neighborhoods on the Just Buyers Houston website. If you’re looking for an experienced, data-minded agent to guide you through the buying process, give Judy Thompson a call.
All the cool people are moving to Swamplot sponsorships. Won’t you join them?
Radom Capital is entertaining 2 different ideas for the former Stages theater on the block of Rosine across D’Amico St. from its planned new complex: either a hotel or a combination of retail, restaurant, and office tenants. The developer bought Stages’ current spot in the long structure at 3201 Allen Pkwy — built in 1929 to house the Star Engraving Company — as well as the warehouse behind it last year. Renovations are now slated to begin on both the Star building and the warehouse behind it — both indicated in the site plan above — once the theater takes off in 2019.
The rendering of the warehouse at top put out by Radom shows new openings in its exterior, including a boxy balcony on its second floor and an entrance at ground level fronting D’Amico. An outdoor staircase ascends from where the greens-skinned building meets its western neighbor — the parking garage for the Reata at River Oaks condos — and heads up to a second-story entrance. Stages’ new theater sits across D’Amico, opposite a front lawn at the other end of the colorful crosswalk on the left.
Here’s a look at the new playhouse — dubbed The Gordy — sitting in its own renovated warehouse with touch ups by architecture firm Gensler:
- Wulfe & Co. Breaks Ground on Retail-Office Project in The Woodlands [Houston Chronicle]
- Heitman Affiliate Acquires 17 Buildings Nationwide, Including Medical Office Properties in Sugar Land, Katy [HBJ]
- Rice Village Shake Shack Officially Opening Feb. 28 [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot]
- Aldi Opening New Store Today on West Rd. Just off North Fwy. [Houston Chronicle]
- Restaurant Fig & Olive Opening in Former Saks Fifth Avenue Space at The Galleria Next Month [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Several Houston Private Schools in the Midst of Expansion [HBJ ($)]
- City Council Now Set to Vote on New Floodplain Regulations on March 21 [Houston Public Media]
- What Houston Could Learn from the Virgin Islands About Hurricane Recovery [Houston Public Media]
- Reddit Approaching Consensus on the ‘Ugliest Building in Houston’Â [Click2Houston; Reddit]
- How Cities Search for People the Census May Miss [New York Times]
Photo of Local Foods at Heights Mercantile: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, demolish it.
- 8448 Westview Dr. [HAR]
Spear Street Capital is teasing a rendering of what it has planned for Exxon Mobil’s former Buffalo Spdwy. research campus, a new complex that takes the initials of River Oaks without daring to speak its name: The RO. The glossy new view above looks west across Buffalo Spdwy. to show 3 new highrises planted on the Upper Kirby site — the stockiest of which rests atop a 3-story windowed pedestal likely to house retail between W. Alabama and a new roadway.
The new street appears in place of the driveway that entered the 16.9-acre complex on Buffalo Spdwy. and ran just north of the 1962 building MacKie and Kamrath Architects designed for the oil giant. The aerial photo above shows what that building looked like from the south before crews began tearing at it last year. South of the new street and directly in place of the MacKie and Kamrath structure, a complex of retail buildings with upper-level patios retreats along a pedestrian corridor that starts at Buffalo Spdwy. and heads toward the 2 other highrises on the west side of the site, near Mercer St. A few outdoor seating areas front Buffalo Spdwy. — one by the footpath, another on the north side of the new street. A larger patio appears on the corner of W. Alabama.
The buildings shown shaded on the left in the rendering likely make up other additions planned for the block. Here it is viewed from its backside looking toward Buffalo Spdwy. last year:
Sponsor of the Day
Swamplot Sponsor: Blast Can Trash Can Cleaning Service
Our sponsor today is trash-can cleaning company Blast Can. Thanks for supporting Swamplot!
Houston, have you washed your trash cans? Do you use hot water? Where do you dump the dirty water? Do you really want to do this yourself?
Why not relax and let Blast Can Trash Can Cleaners do the dirty work? The company’s custom-built container-cleaning truck comes to your home and cleans your trash and recycling cans in minutes — in an affordable and eco-friendly way. Blast Can’s approach is unique in this city — and has quickly won it praise from satisfied clients.
“I was in the trash and recycling business for over a decade and saw this problem,†says John Mixon, the company’s founder. “We’re offering a smart and easy way to make stinky trash cans a thing of the past.â€
The Blast Can cleaning method helps eliminate the bacteria, germs, odor, and filth that can live in garbage and recycle cans. Cleaning trucks lift and clean the cans right at the side of the curb.
The company’s truck uses extremely hot water during the process, but dirty water isn’t poured back on the street afterward. Instead, it’s all collected in the trucks after washing. Services are scheduled on the same day as your trash and recycling pickup.
If you’d like more information on this service — including pricing, a video of the truck in action, and a map showing where the company currently offers service, check out the Blast Can website. Both one-time and recurring plans are available.
Become a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day. Because Houston deserves to know about your company.
