- 705 C.R. 411 [HAR]
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Voting begins this afternoon for the penultimate category in the 2016 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: the Neighborhood of the Year Award. A big thanks to everyone who took the time to submit a nomination!
Please note: This category is not meant to recognize the Houston area’s “best” neighborhood (whatever that might mean). It’s meant to recognize the area’s Neighborhood of the Year — which affords you, the voter, much more latitude in your choice. It also means that it’s especially important that, as you vote, you take time to tell us why the nominee you’ve selected deserves special attention above all this year’s other worthy contenders.
You can votes 4 times for this category (as is the case with all of this year’s awards) — once each by means of a comment below, an email to the Tip Line, and a proclamation of your affections on Facebook or Twitter.  If you aren’t familiar with Swamplot voting rules, check out the explainer here — and be sure to get your friends in on the action (which ends on Tuesday, December 27th at 5 pm, when voting for all categories will close).
Without further ado, we present the nominees for 2016 Neighborhood of the Year:
The 2016 Swampies
Rice University announced this week that the opera house it plans to build in the parking lot next to the Shepherd School of Music will, in fact, be designed by the classic-leaning architecture firm of Allan Greenberg — and formally released what appear to be a couple of the same renderings that Swamplot posted back in June, after a reader’s encounter with the above presentation materials on campus. Like the Baker Institute, the design looks to be covered over in classic-ish details more or less reminiscent of Rice’s older buildings; the towers on the south side of the opera house also roughly match the one on the Humanities building, which Greenberg also designed.
West Lot U-Turn
Today Swamplot is sponsored by the 4-bedroom, 4-and-a-half-bath home at 712 E. 9th St. in the Houston Heights. Thanks for the support!
Brickmoon Design was inspired by a series of Creole cottages by New Orleans architect Ken Tate, the company reports, when it designed this 4,162-sq.-ft. property. The builder, Smith Family Homes, has constructed a number of homes in the Heights. You’ll find a careful attention to detail in the finishes and craftsmanship of this home.
The first floor is centered around a side-facing courtyard. The family room, which features a wood-burning fireplace and windows on 3 sides, faces onto this courtyard as well as the front porch. The 7-ft.-wide central entry hall passing between the family room and the dining room leads — through a pair of French doors — to a side veranda facing the courtyard. The kitchen (photo at top) faces onto the veranda and courtyard; there’s an option to add an outdoor kitchen that would sit at the veranda’s far end.
The first-floor master bedroom suite, entered through a private vestibule, also has views into the courtyard. Behind it is the master bath (pictured above) and an even larger walk-in closet. Rooms on this floor have 11-ft. ceilings. The attached garage is accessed from the alley.
The second story also has views into the side courtyard — from a vestibule suitable for use as a homework station as well as from the 17-ft.-by-23-ft. game room. Each of the 3 upstairs bedrooms has it own bathroom; there’s also a separate walk-in storage closet.
The home is zoned to Harvard Elementary School. Shops along Studewood are just down the block; the well-known restaurants on 11th St. to the north and White Oak Blvd. to the south are easily walkable.
If you’d like to see more details — including the distinctive rafter tails and some views of the site-crafted trimwork — check out the property website. Further information, including floor plans, are available on this page of the Smith Family Homes website.
Don’t miss out on Swamplot’s Sponsor of the Day program; here’s how to participate.
Sponsor of the Day
The Montrose Management District reports that the first of its shiny new neighborhood marker signs went up over the weekend at Montrose Blvd. and Dallas St., despite the recent movement in the ongoing lawsuit between the organization and the group of property owners petitioning to dissolve it. The case, which was filed in 2012, is still open, though the judge recently filed a handful of findings and judgment documents stating that not all of the signatures that went into forming the district were valid, and that the agency must pay back the $6.5 million it’s collected since then. The district has said it has no plans to do that any time soon, and intends to keep on keepin’ on until any appeals wrap up, which could be years from now.
The signage is part of the sundry prettification projects the district has planned for the neighborhood, which include redoing the colored lighting on the bridges over US 59 — thanks to a funding assist from the city, TxDOT, and the Houston Galveston Area Council:
Sightings on W. Dallas
- Houston Apartment Rents Dropped 3.7% Year-Over-Year in November, Finds Axiometrics [Realty News Report]
- Local Foods To Open Fourth Location in Downtown’s Former Byrd’s Department Store on Main Street [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Hugo Ortega and Tracy Vaught’s Restaurant Xochi To Debut Inside Marriott Marquis Downtown Next Month [Eater Houston]
- Northpointe Shopping Center Planned Next to Silverado Theater in Tomball [HBJ]
- Karbach To Build $4.5M Warehouse at Karbach Street Facility in Wake of AB-Imbev Sale [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Greater Houston Partnership: The Worst is Now Over for Houston’s Economy Amid Steady Job Growth [Houston Public Media]
- The Reasons Why Hundreds of Houston Homes Are Still in Need of Ike Repairs [Houston Public Media]
- Bill Signed by Obama Aims To Expedite Ike Dike Study on Houston Hurricane Flooding Protection [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of Hermann Square: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Peaceful country living until the bulldozer strikes.
- 4414 Seminole St.[HAR]
The final wave of ballots for the 2016 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate begins this afternoon! This week’s first new category open for voting is the Houston High Water Award. Which of the nominees on the roster have earned this prestigious accolade? That’s for you to decide!
You can vote in 4 ways for this award —  by commenting below, by emailing us, or by posting on Facebook and Twitter. Make sure all 4 of your votes count by checking out the official voting guidelines, posted right here; don’t forget to stir up support for your favorite nominees from your friends, and don’t forget that voting for all categories will end on December 27th at 5 pm.Â
If you haven’t already sent in your choices for the first 5 categories — that’s Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, the “Where Are They Now?” Award, Best Industrial Incident, and Special Achievement in Parking — here’s your chance to catch up! (And for those of you keeping count, we’ll have our last 2 categories open for voting later this week.)
Now, take a gander at the Houston High Water Award’s official nominees:
The 2016 Swampies
THE GRAVESITE BREAKUP MYSTERY NEAR ALDINE MIDDLE SCHOOL 
Who, exactly, ordered the unannounced, interrupted, and apparently haphazard plant and gravestone removal at the unmarked Aldine Cemetery near Aldine Middle School last week? As of Friday, Mike Snyder writes, the local sheriffs  were still trying to figure that out — as were some of the (living) family members of the buried, and unofficial Aldine historian Elizabeth Battle, who had been working to get the cemetery its own historical marker. Battle tells Snyder she’d been under the impression that “people . . . barreling in and destroying graves without contacting the descendants” wasn’t something that was likely to happen; University of Houston professor and periodic gravesite construction advisor Ken Brown notes that any disturbance of the 30-ish headstones, even by the property’s owner, should have required a court order. [Houston Chronicle] Photo of semi-cleared Aldine Cemetery on Aldine Meadows Rd: State rep. Armando Walle
The complex containing Midway’s planned H-E-B-and-midrise at the southeast corner of Heights Blvd. and Washington Ave. won’t be named Northbank Buffalo Bayou after all, Nancy Sarnoff reports this week — it’ll be called Buffalo Heights. Above is Ziegler Cooper’s rendering of the proposed structure, which would take up the northwest corner of the old Archstone Memorial Heights apartments property (which was bought in 2014 by the current owners). That development previously gave its moniker to the surrounding neighborhood; it remains to be seen if this latest rebranding attempt will stick.
The new midrise would sit about half a mile south of the official southernmost edge of the Houston Heights (as drawn for voting in last month’s local-option Heights moistening election), and about half a mile north of Buffalo Bayou (though only a quarter mile from the Buffalo Wild Wings a few blocks west down Washington Ave). The new design shows off 5 stories of apartments (tallying up as 232 units) on top of the 2-story H-E-B, with about 37,000 sq. ft. of office space and a couple of other retail spots in the mix.
First of Its Name in Memorial Heights
Today on Swamplot our sponsor is Mosaic Clinic Dermatology. Thanks for supporting this site!
Mosaic Clinic Dermatology is an award-winning, highly rated general dermatology practice with multiple Houston locations: in Upper Kirby at 2211 Norfolk St. Suite 405; in Midtown at 902 Fairview St. Suite 1; and in the Tanglewood area (convenient to the Galleria) at 5757 Woodway Dr. Suite 185a.
Mosaic Clinic Dermatology has just introduced its own professional-grade cleansing cream (pictured here). It’s now available at all 3 clinic locations — and from this page online.
The clinic treats all skin conditions — including acne, eczema, and skin rashes. The Mosaic Clinic’s dermatologists are available for both scheduled appointments and last-minute urgent skin visits. You can schedule same-day and Saturday appointments online or by phone. And here’s an idea: Use your end-of-year insurance benefits for skin cancer screening and to get suspicious moles tested.
Check out the Mosaic Clinic Dermatology website — or call (281) 941-5556 for immediate assistance.
Local businesses are getting great results from sponsoring Swamplot. Find out more about our Sponsor of the Day program here.
Sponsor of the Day
STRAY CAT ADOPTION CAFE TO BE TAKEN IN BY KINDLY HEIGHTS DANCE STUDIO 
 Jack Witthaus writes that cat lady and CPA Renée Reed has finally found a home for El Gato Coffeehouse, a long-planned cafe intended to double as a venue for playing with up-for-adoption cats. Reed has been looking for a space since at least June, when she announced a partnership with the Houston Humane Society to help socialize and find homes for the organization’s rescue animals, à la Austin’s Blue Cat Cafe. Witthaus reports that Reed is signing a lease with  yoga and dance studio NiaMoves on Pecore St., which will be leasing part of its property — that’ll include enough space for both a cat lounge and the 53-ft.-long shipping container where food and drink prep will be sequestered, for reasons of city health code. [Houston Business Journal] Photo of NiaMoves at 508 Pecore St.: Nia M.
Cafe Finds a Home
- Photo Tour through Hanover Montrose Apartment Tower [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- More Than 100 Homes So Far Sold at Hillwood Communities’ Master-Planned Community Pomona in Manvel [Realty News Report]
- Checking in on the George R. Brown Convention Center Renovations So Far [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Homewood Suites by Hilton Houston Near the Galleria Sold to Undisclosed Buyer [HBJ]
- Dumpling Restaurant Planned for Former el Tiempo Parking Lot at 223 Westheimer [Realty News Report; previously on Swamplot]
- Metro Ridership Declined in November, Affected by Unemployment Rate [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- White Oak Music Hall Ordered To Pull Plug on Outdoor Amplified Music Until Dec. 30 [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Residents Raise $7,500 Bond Through Garage and Bake Sale To Enforce Restraining Order Against White Oak Music Hall [Houston Chronicle]
- El Campo Home Claiming Largest Swimming Pool in the World On the Market for $3.5M [abc13; previously on Swamplot]
- 8 Years Later, Ike-Damaged Roof Repaired for South Houston Resident Through City’s Blue-Tarp Program [Houston Public Media]
Photo of Buffalo Bayou Park: Ruben S. via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Mostly it is demolition which teaches us about the worth of things.
