- 10370 Hammerly Blvd. #24Â [HAR]
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN HOUSTON KEEPS ITS HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS STRICTLY PROFESSIONAL 
“Houston is a city of practical and economical people. Emotion does not drive the focus of our communities like San Francisco or New Orleans. If it is economical to refurbish an old establishment for modern luxury, Houston will do it. If neighborhoods neglect their historic landmarks for 20 to 30 years and have the institutions fall into disrepair, they will cost the tax payers in a time where our budget is upside down.” [Mr.Clean19, commenting on Until We Forget the Alamo Wasn’t Always Just a Tex-Mex Chain] Photo of melted Witch’s Hat, since restored: Claude B. Anello
“I don’t think Friendswood needs to become East Pearland,” Eddie Carpenter told the Friendswood city council last week during a public comment session — responding to another speaker’s references to the chain-rich bustle of FM 518 and Pearland Pkwy. as an example of what Friendswood is lacking. What sparked the pair of assertions? A push to rezone the above corner lot at FM 518 and Leisure Ln., currently up for a potential switch from office use to commercial — with word being that Chik-Fil-A and Panera Breads are both interested in setting up shop on the corner. The space is just over a quarter mile down the road from Friendswood’s own relatively restaurant-franchise-dense hub on E. Parkwood Dr., near the town’s H-E-B. The lot in question has been cleared since the listing shot above was snapped, in conjunction with various acts of dirt-pushing.
- Residents warn city that Chick-fil-A would turn Friendswood into east Pearland [Houston Chronicle]
- Friendswood City Council Meeting (April 3, 2017)Â [City of Friendswood]
Image of lot at FM 518 and Leisure Ln.: LoopNet
Lot To Think About
Our sponsor today is the home at 4110 Stanford St. in Montrose pictured here, offered for sale by Nan and Company Properties. Thanks for supporting Swamplot!
If this 3-bedroom brick home catches your eye, take a look inside! It’s located 2 blocks east of Montrose Blvd. and 2 blocks north of Richmond Ave., in a neighborhood called First Montrose Commons. Built in 2012, it includes several features geared toward energy efficiency: 16 SEER AC, a tankless water heater, and low-e glass windows, allowing for better insulation.
The formal dining room is at the front of the 3,158-sq.-ft. home — on your left as you enter — with 3 windows facing the front yard and a fourth looking onto the entry porch. Directly across the entry hall is a small study facing the porch. You can see a bit of the butler’s pantry, lined with storage, leading from the dining room to the kitchen at right in the photo above.
The living area and the kitchen form a continuous space at the back of the home; triple windows and a set of French doors link them to the back patio. The entertainment area includes a stone fireplace surrounded by built-in cabinetry and 2 high windows facing the side yard. In the kitchen you’ll find granite countertops, 2 full ovens, Thermador appliances, and seating for 5 at the island breakfast bar.
Each of the home’s 3 bedrooms includes an en suite bathroom and a walk-in closet; there’s an additional half-bath downstairs. You’ll find hardwood floors throughout the home — even in the bedrooms. The master bedroom includes crown molding and built-ins; its bathroom includes a jetted tub, dual sinks, and a separate vanity.
The back patio has a covered section and includes flagstone landscaping and a slate walkway. A set of stairs past it leads directly to a 589-sq.-ft. garage apartment. The apartment has a full kitchen with granite countertops, a bathroom tiled in slate, and a walk-in closet.
More information and more photos are available on the property website. If you’re interested in this home, please call Walter Aymen of Nan and Company Properties at 713.714.6454 — or email him at walter.aymen@nanproperties.com.
Take Swamplot readers on a tour of what your company has to offer: Become a Sponsor of the Day!Â
Sponsor of the Day
UNTIL WE FORGET THE ALAMO WASN’T ALWAYS JUST A TEX-MEX CHAIN 
“Once you start erasing history, who knows where it ends?” writes Cort McMurray in today’s Chronicle, scripting out a taste of potential dystopian franchise future for Houston and Texas’s most prominent landmarks should that bill that would gut preservation rules across the state make it through the legislature this session. The problem with the bill, he argues, is that it “makes forgetting easy” — and “in a place with no patience for memories, no place is sacred.” Before launching into a scene depicting how the Alamo might come to be repurposed into imaginary family-friendly megachain Casey Dilla’s, McMurray writes that “using a broad, vaguely worded standard — just what does ‘widely known’ mean? — to address the question of what’s historically significant to a community is a little like rewriting Hamlet entirely in emojis: a lot of really important stuff is going to be lost. And we will be left with a state that’s little more than the affable hell of FM 518 at Highway 288, traffic and pavement and an endless supply of family-friendly chain restaurants, serving an awful pastiche of Tex-Mex.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Mural commemorating Peacock Records, the former home of which was demolished last month: Spectrum Audio
- Houston Home Foreclosure Rate 52% Below the Average Pre-Recession Rate, Finds ATTOM Data Solutions [Houston Chronicle]
- Concerns Rise About Downtown Houston’s Affordability During Urban Land Institute Conference [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- BHGRE Gary Greene To Move River Oaks Office To Larger Location 2 Blocks Away [Houston Chronicle]
- Red Wing Shoe Co. Has Relocated To Larger Building in Southwest Houston [Houston Chronicle]
- Briargrove Staple La Vista Relocating to Former Pizza Hut in Lazybrook/Timbergrove [Culturemap]
- Florida-Based Ice Cream Chain Twistee Treat Aiming To Open 40 to 50 Houston Spots in the Next 5 Years [HBJ]
- Video: What It Was Like To Ride Astroworld’s Roller Coaster Greezed Lightnin’ [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Critical Mass March: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
In every demolition, the hidden silence sleeps.
- 12609 Boheme Dr. [HAR]
REST OF THE ALAMO TO BE REMEMBERED IN GHOSTLY GLASS ECHOES Meanwhile, in San Antonio: New renderings are out of the plans for a redo of the Alamo’s streetscape, showing the missing pieces of the mission-fort’s compound’s original courtyard outlined in glass walls. The structure was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015; the under-development master plan for redoing the area around the existing structure would cede nearby street territory to pedestrians, landscaping, and the glass wall markers. The redesign would also use glass panels in the ground to showcase the buried rubble of some of the original compound walls, uncovered in last year’s digging around. [The Rivard Report]
Swapping in for the tubelight-bedecked elm that’s been standing in the middle of Axelrad Beer Garden at the corner of Almeda Rd. and Alabama St.: this way-past-sapling Shumard red oak, carefully trucked, tipped, and dropped into place earlier this week, as captured in the Yakety-Sax-tracked video montage above. The changeover comes at the end of the original tree’s years-long shuffle toward death, per the bar’s telling: the group was advised to evict the tree when they first started setting up the space — as it was already old, and had been hit pretty hard by that tire-revealing 2011 drought — but opted to keep it around for a few years instead.
Following a recent lightning strike from which it would never quite recover, the tree finally lost enough branches that the bar owners opted to put it out of its misery:
Series of Tubes in Midtown
Today on Swamplot our sponsor is PORTERS, a new restaurant planned for College Station that’s raising investment funds on the NextSeed crowdfunding platform. Thanks for the support!
PORTERS is now under construction at the focal point of Century Square, a 55-acre mixed-use development by Midway just across University Dr. from the main campus of Texas A&M University. PORTERS will sit on the ground floor of The George (a luxury boutique hotel from the Valencia Group), adjacent to a 9,000 sq.-ft. green that will anchor the development (at the center of the site plan, above). If this configuration reminds you somewhat of CityCentre in Houston, there’s a reason for that: CityCentre was developed by Midway, and it’s serving as a model for Century Square.
PORTERS is backed by Midway executives and the Chill Restaurant Group — general manager Charles Criswell and executive chef Bill Greenwood. They describe the restaurant as an “approachable, contemporary, and upscale eatery,” centered around a “wood-centric” grill and a craft butcher providing handcut steaks and chops to order. (That’s a rendering of the entry and butcher area at top.) The 6,000-sq.-ft. facility will include two 50-seat dining areas, a smaller private dining room, an outdoor patio, and additional seating in a bar area. You can find a whole lot more detail about the plans for this restaurant here.
If opening a restaurant like this in Bryan—College Station strikes you as an interesting idea, you’ll want to look into the PORTERS offering on NextSeed. NextSeed is a national crowdfunding platform that makes it easy to invest funds in local businesses and potentially see financial returns with monthly payments. PORTERS is just one of the offerings currently available to investors on NextSeed. Between its Texas affiliate and its newer national platform, NextSeed has facilitated more than $3 million in small business investments.
The minimum investment in a NextSeed offering is $100 (yes, you read that right) — and anyone can invest. Recent changes in the law now make it possible for people of all income levels to join entrepreneurs in creating new concepts for their cities (or the cities of their alma mater). NextSeed carefully reviews every deal before presenting an opportunity to investors on its website. On NextSeed, Houstonians are empowered to invest in local bars, restaurants, salons, and other places they’re excited about.
Got a deal Houston should know about? Swamplot’s Sponsor of the Day program is an effective way to spread the word.
Sponsor of the Day
Sunday’s the deadline for giving the city of West University some honest feedback on which of 3 proposed park layouts you think would best flatter this residential lot at 6446 Sewanee Ave. — along with any specific details you like about the other 2 options. The home’s former owner, architect James M. Hughes, passed away just over a year ago; Hughes bequeathed the property and some funds to West University for conversion into Jennie Elizabeth Hughes Park (named after his mother, who bought the empty lot back in 1928).
Option A of the choices highlights the corner lot’s time as a residence by adding a rocking-chaired, freestanding front porch as an entryway (though of a totally different design from the existing front porch). That option would also include a partial outline of the house’s foundation:
Sewanee Ave. Parking
- Skanska’s Capitol Tower Now Going Up, with Bank of America Confirmed as  Anchor [Realty News Report; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Home Sales Up 11.7% Year-Over-Year in March, Finds HAR [Houston Chronicle]
- The Profile of an Average Texas Homebuyer, According to Texas Association of Realtors [HBJ ($)]
- Airbnb To Collect the 6% State Hotel Occupancy Tax Starting May 1 [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Buc-ee’s Building What Its Hails as the Largest Car Wash in the World in Katy [HBJ]
- Houston City Council Bans Panhandling, Public Encampments for the Homeless [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of Jerry’s Artarama: Ruben S. via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Treachery and demolition are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.
- 7521 Schoenau Rd. [HAR]
