COMMENT OF THE DAY: AREN’T THESE THE HEIGHTS DESIGN GUIDELINES WE’VE BEEN ASKING FOR? 
“Here we go again with the sky-is-falling BS on the historic ordinance. For years, the builders have whined about how they needed a design guide for the Heights. HAHC takes 2 years to collect input from the HDs [historic districts] on design guidelines. There were many meetings, direct mailings, surveys and even direct invitations from Steph McDougal to have one-on-one meetings with stakeholders to discuss the design guidelines. The response HAHC got from the HDs was that we are sick and tired of builders trying to fill every lot with gratuitous square footage. Additions are fine, but building a 3300-sq.-ft. house behind a bungalow is atrocious. And stop with the BS about families. Families do not need giant houses. They need affordable houses. Every time I talk with a family about moving to the Heights they always say that they have been priced out because everything is so huge and expensive.” [Old School, commenting on June Is Your Last Chance To Make Noise In Person About the New Heights Historic District Design Guidelines] Photo of 519 Heights Blvd.: HAR
Sign up for the Newsletter
W. 20th, East of Waterworks
Corner Lot Hidden Away for Decades Beneath 1904 Heights House Could Join the Commercial Crowd
A commercial realty sign was spotted this week near the 110-plus-years-old house on W. 20th St. at the northeast corner with Ashland St., per the report of a reader on the prowl with a pet. The double-decker 1904 home is actually the only piece of land at the intersection that isn’t already involved in some sort of business dealings, whether by way of conversion to retail space (like the house across Ashland hosting the Heights Florist Shop), as simple logistical support (like the parking lot across W. 20th), or as part of higher commercial aspirations (as demonstrated by the St. Joseph medical midrise, diagonally across). CRBE, meanwhile, has its own tentative suggestions of what could be done with the .64-acre property, which is being marketed for ground lease:
The partially ruined former Jefferson Davis Hospital nurses quarters at 1225 Elder St. — until very recently in the running for a spot on the National Register of Historic Places — was recommended for demolition at last week’s Harris County Commissioner’s Court meeting following a public hearing the day before. The building, tucked west of the elevated freeway tangle where I-45 splits from I-10 near Downtown, would have joined the nextdoor former Jefferson Davis Hospital itself on the historic registry — instead, it looks like the structure will finally meet meet the ‘dozers after its long slow decline, accelerated by damage from a fire in 2013 that lead to last year’s semi-collapse.
Next door, the 4-story hospital structure (built in 1924, and replaced by 1938 with another Jefferson Davis Hospital where the Federal Reserve building now stands on Allen Pkwy.) cycled through various modes of use and disuse until its early 2000’s restoration into the Elder Street Artist Lofts, which serve as low-rent apartments and studios for artsy types. That redevelopment, of course, involved carefully digging around the dozens of unmarked graves turned up on the surrounding land, which beginning in 1840 had served as the second city cemetery (and as the final resting place for a hodgepodge likely including  Confederate soldiers, former slaves, victims of the 1860s yellow fever epidemics, people who died in duels, Masons, and a variety of others). The hospital’s name is still carved above the lofts’ entrance:
Sponsor of the Day
Swamplot Sponsor: Central Bank
Today our sponsor is Houston’s own Central Bank. Thanks for 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.
Swamplot readers would like to hear from you. Become a Sponsor of the Day.Â
- Katy’s 77450 ZIP Code Ranked Among the Best Places To Live Based on Schools, Home Prices [Houston Chronicle]
- Top 5 Houston Regions with the Most Homebuilding Activity [HBJ ($)]
- Developer Russell Gordy on Buffalo Heights, Washington Avenue Projects with Midway [HBJ ($); previously on Swamplot]
- The 8 Largest Sublease Spaces Expiring in the Next 24 Months in Houston [Bisnow]
- Houston Among Metropolitan Areas Leading the Shift Away from Sprawl, Finds Study [The Urban Edge]
- Houston’s Trailer Parks Offer Cheap Housing, But With a Catch [Houston Press]
- Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital Breaks Ground on 5-Story Building in Its Humble Campus [Houston Chronicle]
- A Sneak Peek at Hotel Alessandra Underway Downtown [HBJ ($); previously on Swamplot]
- Vista Equities Group Starts Final Phase of LaCenterra at Cinco Ranch in the Katy Area [Realty News Report]
- East Village Development Opens First Retail Tenant, Chapman & Kirby [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Blend Bar with Davidoff Cigars Planning First Texas Location in The Woodlands [HBJ]
- Jonathan’s The Rub Opening Second Houston Location at Midway Mixed-Use Development Memorial Green [Culturemap]
- More Than 2 Dozen Payless Shoes Locations Expected To Close in the Houston Area [KHOU]
- Big Horn BBQ Opening New Location in Manvel [Houston Chronicle]
- I-45 Widening Project Moves South to FM 517 Near Dickinson [Houston Public Media]
Photo of the Texas Packing Company building: Patrick Feller via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Houses must be dealt with before the hour gets too late.
- 12 Pleasant Shadows Dr. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: NOSTALGIA FOR THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE HISTORICAL HEIGHTS BUILDING GUIDELINES 
“The big problem isn’t just the restriction on the size of the addition, it’s how they will allow you to add the square footage. Instead of allowing you to build out your attic with dormers, or do an addition on top of the back half of the house, they want you to basically build a new historically incompatible structure in your existing back yard and connect it to the house through some little hallway which will look like crap, AND use up your yard/permeable surface, AND create a structure looming over your neighbors’ backyards. The first year or 2 of the historic district, things worked pretty well in regards to stopping teardown and allowing responsible additions. Then it all went off the rails.”
[Arlington Gal, commenting on June Is Your Last Chance To Make Noise In Person About the New Heights Historic District Design Guidelines] Illustrations of Heights houses: Dalia Rihani
Construction started yesterday on the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, going up in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s former parking lot north of Bissonnet St. at Main. That’s the curvy-roofed structure itself visible in the rendering above — the drawing shows the expected view of the building from the rooftop garden of the already-under-construction nearby replacement for the formerly glass-covered Glassell School (whose underground parking garage opened up when the surface lot closed last week). Both of the new buildings were designed by Steven Holl Architects — here’s where they fall on the map, along some of the other big changes in the works for the Museum’s campus:
Sponsor of the Day
Swamplot Sponsor: Alcohol Servers Counsel of Texas (ASCOT)
Our sponsor today is ASCOT — also known as the Alcohol Servers Counsel of Texas. Thanks for supporting Swamplot!
If you work in a restaurant, or in any kind of food-service or food-prep operation, you’re probably already familiar with state requirements for training in food-handling safety. And if you work in a bar or for an alcohol distributor, you probably already know why it’s so important that everyone who has anything to do with selling, dispensing, or delivering any kind of alcoholic beverage complete state-certified training in alcohol safety.
Since 1988, ASCOT has been licensed by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission to provide TABC-certified alcohol-server training programs. That makes ASCOT one of the oldest and most established food and beverage certification programs in the country — as well as Texas’s longest-running provider of training in this important field. And ASCOT has been a preferred source for training in food handling in Houston since 2004.
If you’re responsible for making sure new employees are trained promptly and well in these particular areas, you can be sure they’re getting the exact program they need — in the most helpful format possible — by sending them to ASCOT. ASCOT offers its training courses both in a classroom setting and online, in both English and Spanish.
Use the discount code ASCOT on the alcoholservers.com website and the online alcohol-server training course works out to just $9.89 per class. The food-handling class costs just $7.00 — no discount code is needed.
ASCOT’s server-training program is certified by the TABC, and its food-handler program is ANSI Accredited as meeting the ASTM E2659-09 standard. For more details, or to sign up, head over to the ASCOT website — alcoholservers.com — or call 713.922.1223.
Support Swamplot — and get your message out! Become a Sponsor of the Day.
... "Pin It")
Sneaking Some Peeks
What’s Sticking Up Near and Underneath 2929 Weslayan’s Frilly Skirt
A couple of projects on the near and more distant horizons at the corner of Weslayan and W. Alabama turned a reader’s head this week as he passed by the short-skirted base of the 2929 Weslayan highrise. To the west, a sign posted alongside the parking lot of the half-moon-footed 2900 Weslayan office midrise bears a rendering of a new retail building PMRG is planning for the site. A few more views of the 6,500-sq.-ft. project make a somewhat rosy appearance in the new leasing materials for the space:
- Nitya Capital Acquires 510-Unit City West Apartments in Westchase Area [Realty News Report]
- Construction Underway on $9.4M Tool-Flo Manufacturing HQ in Pearland’s Lower Kirby District [Houston Chronicle]
- Museum of Fine Art, Houston Breaks Ground on New Kinder Building [abc13]
- New Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Tops Out Downtown [HBJ ($)]
- M.D. Anderson Facility Underway in The Woodlands [HBJ ($)]
- Restaurant Supplier Ace Mart Opens Fifth Houston Store [Houston Chronicle]
- Thousands of Bees Swarming Vacant Home in Northwest Houston Subdivision Windsong [abc13]
- According to a Lyft Press Release, Galveston and Katy are Within City Limits [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Hotel ZaZa: Patrick Feller via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Whether survey or chalk, these houses are done for.
JUNE IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO MAKE NOISE IN PERSON ABOUT THE NEW HEIGHTS HISTORIC DISTRICT DESIGN GUIDELINES 
As of this evening, the Heights-applicable design guidelines being presented at the public meeting planned for June aren’t posted on the City’s website yet, but they purportedly will be by the end of next week. In the meanwhile, Jonathan McElvy has a rundown of some of the proposed rules, which he suggests in the Leader today has shifted his view of the codification process from a cause for celebration (no more seemingly arbitrary denials of that raised eave that looks just like your neighbor’s!) to a potential cause for concern — particularly for those hoping to populate the neighborhood with families wanting to add on to their bungalows. “What should frighten people the most in the Heights,” writes McElvy, is that “the proposed guidelines say that if you have a 6,600-square-foot lot, your home can be no more than 2,700 square feet. If you have a 5,000-square-foot lot, your home can be no larger than 2,200 square feet“ — including garage and porch square footage. If you’ve got an opinion about that, the meeting will be on June 20th at the Heights Fire Station from 6 to 8. [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Photo of 511 E. 24th St.: HAR
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE NEXT ASTRODOME ELECTION IS ALREADY SCHEDULED, ANYWAY 
“Great to see that a bill specifically tailored to torpedo the Astrodome has been shot down. The state politicians should not meddle in local county affairs. Did anyone ever ask Houston and Harris County voters to spend millions upon millions to host another Super Bowl? Or to upgrade Reliant Stadium to please McNair? If the county’s financing plan is legitimate (no bonds issued, and a referendum not required), let them continue. Harris county voters have already spoken by voting Emmett and others in. They’ll have their chance to vote them out if needed. The revitalized Dome could be something special — why waste a unique structure and a Houston landmark?” [Blake, commenting on The Bill To Force an Astrodome Garage-ification Election Is Dead, Again, For Now] Illustration: Lulu
