- 3707 Falun Ct. [HAR]
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SUNNYSIDE PASSED OVER FOR LIST OF HOUSTON PLACES THAT ALWAYS GET PASSED OVER 
The Texas Low Income Housing Information Service released a statement right after Mayor Turner’s Monday announcement on the Complete Communities program questioning why Sunnyside didn’t make the cut, Steve Jansen reports this week for the Houston Press.  Despite the neighborhood’s oft-heralded blight resume (it made the LARA team during Mayor White’s time in office, and even got rolled into its very own tax increment reinvestment zone last year, a distinction theoretically reserved for “unproductive, underdeveloped, or blighted” areas), Sunnyside didn’t make the list of the first 5 pilot neighborhoods for the new program, which so far looks like it might shuffle existing development money toward the targeted areas without adding any new cash. The statement, coauthored by a Sunnyside-area civic association leader, notes that the neighborhood even has a ready-to-go redevelopment plan that’s been in the work for the past few years.  [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot] Map of pilot areas for Complete Communities program: City of Houston
Artist and regular neck craner Bob Russell took a moment this week to capture the various works currently on display to Pierce Elevated drivers on the south side of the 30-story highrise at 801 Saint Joseph Pkwy. (former host of a variety of hotels and Vedic teaching initiatives before the building entered its more recent era of abandonment and creeping decrepitude). The uptick in broken windows in the last few months doesn’t appear to have much of a connection to the most recent plans for the stripping and remodeling of the building back into some flavor of hotel, as proposed this time around by SFK Development. As far as other signs of change, the name scrawled across the facade’s central panels has been edited since another tipster’s drive-by back in February:
WHERE HIGHWAY 87 CRUMBLED BEFORE THE TIDE 
The part of Texas “[where] storms are what you talk about” is the subject of John Nova Lomax’s dispatch this week in Texas Monthly — more specifically, the 16-mile stretch of coast where the state gave up on rebuilding SH 87 after the last of a series of hurricane washouts in the 1980s. Amid nude beach signage, dolphin carcasses, and the rusting remains of pipelines and 4-wheelers, Lomax meditates on the idea that the battered stretch of coast, where Texas’s beaches and barrier islands begin dissolve away into a Louisiana-style tangle of eroding wetlands, “once functioned as a seawall: there was a natural ridgeline made of shells and sand that was used as a trail by Native Americans, then Spaniards, then Texans. Then the ridge was bulldozed and repurposed to grade Highway 87, the road that no longer exists — and the one bulwark against the sea was gone.” [Texas Monthly] Photo of eroding highway in McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge: US Fish and Wildlife Service
Our thanks today go to Houston’s own Central Bank. The bank is Swamplot’s Sponsor of the Day!
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; Gary Noble, at 832.485.2366; or Ryan Tillman, at 832.485.2307. You can also find out more on the bank’s website.
Standout Houston business support Swamplot. Is it time for your business to become a Sponsor of the Day?Â
Sponsor of the Day
- SLS Properties  Picks Up Bellaire Atrium I and II Buildings [Houston Chronicle]
- Amid Store Closures, Investors Eyeing Houston’s Hurting Malls [HBJ ($); previously on Swamplot]
- Houston-Based Bel Furniture To Open New Showroom, Distribution Center in Transwestern’s West Ten Distribution Center [HBJ]
- Today’s Apartment Renters Want Smart Appliances, Package Dropoff Services, Find UH Researchers [Houston Chronicle]
- 5-Acre Evelyn’s Park in Bellaire Opening Tomorrow on Former Tea’s Nursery Site [abc13; previously on Swamplot]
- TxDOT’s  Katy Fwy. Pavement Project To Provide Spring Valley Village Residents Some Noise Relief [Houston Public Media]
Photo of the University of St. Thomas: BOldbury via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not demolished well.
- 55 Stillforest St. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A HOUSTON LITMUS TEST FOR PARKING LOT PROGRESS 
“That parking lot was epic for decades. Let’s hope it was actually reconstructed, and not just the lunar craters poured over with asphalt. The next good flood will tell.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on Richmond Ave’s Contender for Worst Parking Lot in Houston Gets Smoothed Over] Photo: Swamplot inbox
BART TRUXILLO, 1942-2017 
In 2006, the former brewery structure now hosting the Magnolia Ballroom was the first building in Houston to get protected landmark status — and was not the last, probably thanks in part to the life work of its restorer. Bart Truxillo bought the then-vacant building on the edge of Market Square in the late sixties, not too long before buying and restoring the crumbling Queen Anne Mansfield house in the Heights; both structures are now on the National Register of Historic Places. Truxillo later helped found what’s today known as Preservation Houston, and start the organization’s Good Brick Awards during the demolition-rich years of Houston’s first oil boom, as Lisa Gray notes today in the Chronicle; after years of work restoring historic buildings around town and serving a bunch of other history-minded groups, he died yesterday at age 74. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Magnolia Ballroom building on Franklin St.: Brewery Tap HTX
The 20,000-sq.-ft. building at 11902 Spears Gears Rd. is getting cleaned up for a new gig as a school for Harris County students in recovery from addiction and substance abuse. The spot formerly housed the county’s Highpoint School North, one of several campuses around town that took in expelled students, but has been shut down since 2015. The county Department of Education signed off on the new use for the building this week, and says the school should open in September with capacity for up to 30 post-rehab students for now. The building sits just north of Davis High School, tucked next to the 2-acre lot that’s been built up since 2014 into the grounds of Cá»±c Lạc Buddhist Temple.
Photos: Harris County Department of Education
New Paths Near Greens Bayou
For the last couple of weeks we’ve been learning a lot about the properties on the 2017 Good Brick Tour taking place later this month. Thanks to Preservation Houston for sponsoring us again today!
The classic Victorian home (c. 1895) now at 309 Sampson St. is one of 6 historic houses moved to this East End neighborhood in 2014 to save them from demolition — for townhomes. A comprehensive renovation preserved the home’s remarkably intact detailing inside and out and breathed new life into the house and its neighborhood.
This East End home is one of 5 award-winning historic houses and buildings welcoming visitors with guided tours from noon to 5 pm on both Saturday, April 29, and Sunday, April 30 — as part of Preservation Houston’s 2017 Good Brick Tour.
Purchase advance tickets online for $25 per person through Thursday, April 27. Tickets will be available for $30 per person at any tour location during the weekend. Tickets are valid both days of the tour and provide 1 admission to each location.
All the properties on the tour are award winners — Preservation Houston has bestowed Good Brick Awards for excellence in historic preservation on each of them. The other tour locations are:
- Fire Station No. 2, 317 Sampson St., East End: Up-to-date interior design transformed a turn-of-the-century fire station (1910) into a private home with brass fire poles intact.
- Isabella Court, 1005 Isabella Ave. at Main St., Midtown. A spectacular courtyard and unique apartments distinguish this one-of-kind Spanish Colonial Revival-style building (1929).
- 2219 Kane St., Old Sixth Ward Historic District: A quaint Folk Victorian cottage (c. 1900) preserved as an architect’s office and guest house.
- The Dentler Building, 1809 Summer St., High First Ward Historic District: A crumbling 2-story apartment house (1923) that found new life as a contemporary single-family home.
Swamplot appreciates its sponsors! Find out here how to become one.
Sponsor of the Day
W.A. PARISH COAL PLANT NOW RUNNING ‘CLEAN’ IN RICHMOND, HELPING BOOST OIL EMISSIONS FURTHER SOUTH 
The years-long retrofitting of the W.A. Parish coal plant next to Smithers Lake in Richmond was capped off last week by a valve opening ceremony, at which the plant’s new Petra Nova carbon dioxide collection machinery was ceremonially turned on (though NRG says its been running since September). The new machinery is currently the largest such capture operation in the country, and might help knock the plant down a few notches from its recent high score on the carbon pollution rankings. Monica Simmons of the San Antonio Current, however, points out this week that whether the project actually results in a net reduction of CO2 emissions is something of a question mark: The project, which has been in the works since the over-$70-a-barrel days of 2010, is helping to pay for itself by piping that excess CO2 down to Jackson County and into the ground at the West Ranch oil field — which NRG says will help the folks there squeeze out 15,000 barrels of oil a day instead of 300. [San Antonio Current; previously on Swamplot] Photo of W.A. Parish Generating Station and labeled Petra Nova add-ons: NRG
- CBRE: Houston Commercial Real Estate Market ‘Slower But Not Sluggish’ [Houston Public Media]
- Warehouses the Hottest Niche in Houston’s Recovering Real Estate Market [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Whitestone REIT Plans To Buy Uptown-Area Mixed-Use Development Blvd Place, Build Additional Phase [Realty News Report]
- PJ’s Coffee of New Orleans To Add 9 Locations to Houston Area [HBJ]
- Agu Ramen Coming to Sugar Land Town Square in Next Few Months [Houston Chronicle]
- Katz’s Deli and Bar To Replace Katz’s Express in The Woodlands [Eater Houston]
- Metro Looks at How To Provide Buses Outside Its Service Area [Houston Public Media]
- The Woodlands the 6th Best City To Live in America in 2017, According to Data Site Niche [Houston Chronicle]
- American Lung Association Ranks Houston Among the Most Polluted Cities in the United States [Click2Houston]
- Residents Frustrated with Illegal Dumping in Northeast Houston Neighborhood [KHOU]
- Why Mosquito-Borne Illness Is Becoming More Common in Texas [New York Times; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of the Post Oak: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Everything becomes a little different once it is demolished out loud.
