02/09/18 12:00pm

Swamplot Sponsor: Central Bank

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Swamplot’s Sponsor of the Day today is Houston’s own Central Bank — thanks! We sure appreciate 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.

Tell us about your local business! Become a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day.

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Headlines
02/09/18 8:30am

Brazoria County’s Housing Boom; Where New Texans Are Coming From; A Dockless Bike Dispatch from The Woodlands

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Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

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02/08/18 4:30pm

What Houston’s Got in Common With La-La Land

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WHAT HOUSTON’S GOT IN COMMON WITH LA-LA LAND L.A Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne has this observation about Los Angeles: “This kind of city has grown so large — in economic and environmental as well as physical reach — that it begins to stretch beyond our field of vision.” Remind you of anywhere else? Hawthorne is responding in part to a New York Times article that blames the L.A. Times’s recent struggles on Los Angeles’s “absence of strong institutions to bind it together.” His response: we’re not the only ones like that — and it’s not entirely a bad thing, either. For a city like L.A. — and for example, he says, Houston — “The flip side of its great tolerance is a certain lack of cohesion, a difficulty in articulating a set of common civic goals.” Put another way, “The greatest thing and the worst thing about Houston are one and the same: Nobody cares what anybody else is doing.” [Los Angeles Times] Photo of West Loop: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Apartments
02/08/18 4:00pm

UT Study: Houston Suffering from Epidemic of Dilapidated Apartments

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UT STUDY: HOUSTON SUFFERING FROM EPIDEMIC OF DILAPIDATED APARTMENTS A new study from the University of Texas School of Law says that Houston is full of deteriorating apartments, has weak building standards, does a bad job enforcing its own rules, responds slowly to residents who seek help with unsafe homes, fails to keep track of its own building data, and struggles to communicate clearly between departments overseeing different aspects of safety. Houston has the third highest number of occupied apartments in any U.S. city — but of all the complexes in the city, nearly a third are missing Certificates of Occupancy, according to the researchers. The yellow dots on the map above indicate the 1,000-plus multifamily structures that lack the document, which certifies that a building has passed a basic inspection for structural, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing issues. On top of that, the city only employs 2 health inspectors to check for sanitation problems like bedbugs, rodents, mold, and sewage leaks inside Houston’s 320,000 occupied rental units. “In summary,” says the study, “the City of Houston is operating a largely dysfunctional system for addressing tenant safety that appears to have little or no oversight by city leaders.“ [UT School of Law Entrepreneurship and Community Clinic; more info] Map of multifamily properties without Certificates of Occupancy as of July 2017: Texas Low Income Housing Information Service

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02/08/18 8:30am

New Retail Center for The Woodlands; Rockin’ Robin Guitars Up for Sale; Houston Rugby Stadium Gets Go-Ahead

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Photo of construction on Lyric Market, 411 Smith St.: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool

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02/07/18 4:30pm

TxDOT Wins Custody of Head-Turning Tiny Law Office in Seabrook Ahead of Planned Hwy. 146 Widening

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The 660-sq.-ft. law office marooned on a traffic island in Seabrook for 86 years might finally get ousted from its spot in local what-is-that-thing lore when TxDOT’s planned road widening project gets underway along a 3-mile stretch of Hwy. 146. Attorney Michael Valentine bought the building on the corner of Bayport Blvd. and 2nd St. in 1989 and did it up with the leafy haircut and  shark dolphin-themed metal edging. (Bayport Blvd. is the segment of 146 that runs through Seabrook — shown to the left of building in the photo at top.) In its past lives, the 2-story wedge at 1210 Bayport had been at various points an ice house and a bait shop.

Documents filed with Harris County Clerk show that TxDOT agreed to snatch the building from Valentine for a sum of $114,356 last October after filing an eminent domain proceeding against the entity he uses to administer the property. At least 9 other businesses along Bayport, including Ryan’s Cleaners, Tookie’s Burgers, and Laredo’s Tex-Mex Cafe have already closed or relocated ahead of the roadwork that plans to turn 146 between Red Bluff Rd. and Clear Creek — currently 4 lanes — into 12.

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Eminent Domain
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02/07/18 1:45pm

Comment of the Day: Texas Central’s Parking Garage Isn’t Just a Side Gig

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: TEXAS CENTRAL’S PARKING GARAGE ISN’T JUST A SIDE GIG “Site plans of both stations (Houston and Dallas) make it clear that the revenue model for this project isn’t selling train tickets — it’s selling parking. This site is ideal for that purpose: there’s no where nearby (walking distance) to compete for parking revenue, and it has a much cheaper land cost than Downtown. If you’re going to make the station 80 percent parking garage, why bother spending the extra money running it all the way to Downtown?” [Angostura, commenting on What Texas Central’s Proposed Houston Bullet Train Station Looks Like in Place of the Northwest Mall] Conceptual rendering of Houston bullet train station from W. 18th St.: Texas Central

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Apartments
02/07/18 1:00pm

Construction Nearly Rounded Out on the Kirby Collection of Buildings Between Colquitt and W. Main

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Been a while since your last Kirby Dr. drive? Here’s a look over developer Thor Equities’s collected works — dubbed the Kirby Collection — now standing tall between Colquitt and W. Main. The complex just north of Richmond began rising back in 2015 on the site of Cafe Express and a set of bars carved out of the former Settegast Kopf funeral home. A few pioneers have already settled in the 25-story ribbed apartment tower, shown on the left in the photo above. A boxier 13-floor office building rises at the south end of the block, on the right.

On the complex’s Kirby-fronting side, you can see where street-level shops will move into the Collection’s 65,000 sq. ft. of retail space, north of its ringed entrance court:

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In the Upper Kirby Air
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02/07/18 12:00pm

Swamplot Sponsor: Blast Can Trash Can Cleaning Service

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Today’s sponsor is trash-can cleaning company Blast Can. Thanks for supporting this site!

How dirty and smelly are your home’s city trash and recycling containers? Have you ever tried to clean them yourself after pickup? How’d that go? Well . . . what if you could hire a service to clean them for you?

Houston, meet Blast Can Trash Can Cleaners. 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.”

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.

Do you offer a service Houston needs to know about? Become a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day.

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Headlines
02/07/18 8:30am

H-E-B Grabs Land in Upper Kirby; An End to the Downtown Tunnel Dispute; Space-Themed Brewery for East Downtown

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Photo of W. Gray St. at McDuffie St.: Katie Schon

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