- 401 Lakeshore Dr. [HAR]
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: REALTY CHECKS ON THE HOUSTON HOUSING MARKET 
“‘The fundamentals of the economy are sound’? OK — so it’s obvious that a housing market is ‘strong’ in the eyes of a Realtor if total sales volume is up while average prices hold steady or gradually increase. It means Realtors have more business and make more commissions. From a homeowner’s point of view, there are some worrying trends: average days on market is increasing, inventory is increasing, condo and townhome prices are falling, rents are falling. Higher home sales numbers just means people are moving. It doesn’t mean the economy is doing great.” [Realtor®, commenting on Sugar Land Arena’s Musical Debut; I-10’s Car Vending Machine Open for Business] Illustration: Lulu
Here’s the site plan from the folks running the Day for Night festival, showing how the art installations and music stages will be laid out in the decommissioned post office at 401 Franklin St. this weekend. The Downtown building was sold last year to Lovett Commercial, which will be redeveloping the building over the next 8-ish years into a mixed-use complex called Post HTX. The circle sketched onto the gray-shaded area marked above as The Courtyard appears to match up with the circular garden feature visible in this aerial shot (looking northwest across Franklin St.) — here’s a closer view:
Post-Post Office Downtown
Swamplot is sponsored today by Houston’s own Central Bank. Thank you for the continued 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; Gary Noble, at 832.485.2366; or Ryan Tillman, at 832.485.2307. You can also find out more on the bank’s website.
Let Swamplot readers know about your business:Â Become a sponsor.Â
Sponsor of the Day
The city signed off this week on the plan to put an outdoor concert and performance venue into one of the Willow Waterhole Bayou detention basins along S. Post Oak Dr., north of the intersection with S. Main St. Specifically, the project is planned  alongside the basin just north of Gasmer Rd., west across S. Post Oak from that area previously wrapped in barbed wire to reserve it as habitat for endangered Texas prairiedawn. Rebecca Elliot writes that the stage will be paid for by the California-based Levitt Foundation, which has performance spaces geared toward public concerts and events in 6 cities around the country (and more in the works). The Houston venue will have to host at least 25 public events per year, and the city will be on the hook for up to $1 million in repairs during its first 15 years of operation.
Like some of the city’s other basin-bottom park infrastructure, the structure will be designed to flood on occasion: the rendering above shows the structure largely elevated on stilts, with the basin’s smaller permanent retention pond reflecting fireworks behind it. The structure should be somewhat hurricane-resistant, too — at least  according to an information packet dating back to 2012. That packet also included a drawing of the potential placement for the stage, along with some landscaping and parking lot layout:
Staging in Westbury
- First Look Inside Downtown’s New Marriott Marquis Hotel Opening Next Week [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Food Bank’s ‘End Hunger’ Building Off I-45 in the Heights Sold [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Apartment Rents Among the Slowest Growing Nationally, Finds RENTCafe [HBJ]
- Fusion Taco To Open Second Houston Restaurant in the Heights in January [Houston Chronicle]
- Luxury Men’s Clothing Store Established Bespoke Coming to Downtown’s The Jones on Main [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Fitness Facility Yoga Athletex To Debut in Spring Branch in January [Houstonia]
- Uber To Remain Operating in Houston At Least Through the Super Bowl [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of Reggae Hut Cafe: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
The secret to having it all is starting from scratch.
- 1232 Rue De La Paix Way [HAR]
Austin-based Shiner-wielding Bird’s Barbershop opened up its first Houston location last week in the remodeled 1955 retail strip at 420 E. 20th St., on the end of the building formerly home to J & R Boudin and Frenchy’s Sausage Co. The bubblegum pink parking stripes were joined by the spots above over the summer, as well as the circular window now floating in the middle of a wall where the facade’s westernmost door used to be.
A rep from the company says the Houston store was designed with community swimming pools in mind, which explains the interior tile scheme and watery motifs:
420 in the Heights
STATE LEADERS LOOK TO BAN PROPOSED GALVESTON BAG BAN, STOP LOCAL CALIFORNIA-IZATION 
Members of Galveston’s city council expect to vote next year on a ban on plastic bags, writes Harvey Rice this week — and also expect the state government to try to overturn that ban, whether by lawsuit or through new legislation. Proponents of the ban note that the bags frequently make their way into the water around the island, where they may start new careers decorating the local beaches or killing birds and turtles that try to eat them. Rice notes that top members of the state government believe, however, that the bigger problem is Texas cities being “California-ized” (as governor Greg Abbott called it) by their own locally-developed rules; this include the 2014 Denton fracking ban that inspired a no-local-oil-and-gas-regulations-allowed law last session, invalidating dozens of older municipal ordinances around the state. Attorney general Ken Paxton has also sued Brownsville over a fee on retailer bag use, and supports the ongoing lawsuit that put the brakes on Laredo’s recent bag ban (which in turn caused Port Aransas to quietly stop enforcing its own ban, until the Texas supreme court weighs in). The Chronicle‘s editorial board also notes that state senator Bob Hall from Edgewood in Northwest Houston has already filed a bill for the upcoming legislative session aimed at eliminating all local bag rules. [Houston Chronicle] Photo of Galveston seagulls: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
A lawsuit filed yesterday by a group of 9 residents of the area around White Oak Music Hall asks for both a temporary and permanent stop on the construction and permitting of the permanent outdoor stage planned for the venue, as well as its required entourage of new bathrooms. The suit also asks for a stop on all other amplified outdoor events at the complex (including those on the other smaller outdoor stages by bar-on-a-stick Raven Tower), and for damages related to noise nuisance issues — allegedly including sleep deprivation and bass-fueled vibrations strong enough to rattle windows and picture frames. (There’s also an affidavit from a schoolteacher in support of the plaintiffs’ contention that a neighborhood child diagnosed with a specific condition has been suffering panic attacks directly related to the noise.)
The map above of the area around Little White Oak Bayou‘s I-45 crossunder was included with the group’s filing. The map shows the 2-part venue’s stages in red and Raven Tower in its signature blue, along with some quarter-mile radius circles drawn over the sea of orange residential land; pink is for parking lots, and yellow shows the venue’s Lawn area.
Stage Fight
Our sponsor today is Jamestown Estate Homes. Thanks for supporting Swamplot!
Jamestown Estate Homes wishes you a Merry Christmas!
For the third year in a row, the team at Jamestown Estate Homes has sent out its holiday cards. In years past they’ve donned tacky Christmas sweaters and matching plaid flannels. But this year they decided to represent their alma maters.
From top left:
- The company’s president, Greg Hawes, earned his BS in Math from the University of Texas at Austin.
- Project coordinator Lindsey Bechtold earned her BA in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin.
- Construction manager Mike Prejeant earned his BS in Civil Engineering from Louisiana State University.
- Controller Katy Hawes earned her MBA from Rice University after getting her BS with high honors in Molecular Biology from the University of Texas at Austin.
- Sales and marketing director Victoria Hawes earned her MA in communications from Purdue after graduating first in her class with a degree in corporate communication from the University of Houston.
Jamestown Estate Homes completed 7 custom homes in the Memorial Villages, Oak Forest, and Fall Creek in 2016. 2017 will be an exciting year for Jamestown Estate Homes as the company continues to focus on the Memorial Villages and Garden Oaks/Oak Forest communities, build its new office in the Heights, and expand into new markets. To learn more about Jamestown Estate Homes click here — or simply email Victoria Hawes directly at victoria.hawes@jamestownestatehomes.com.
You can view Jamestown Estate Homes’ custom home offerings in the Memorial Villages at 11323 Surrey Oaks and 11926 Broken Bough by visiting open houses in both locations this Sunday, December 18th, from 2 to 4 pm.
Is it your holiday wish to become a Swamplot sponsor? Make it so!
Sponsor of the Day
- Houston Home Sales Up 22.7% to 5,706 Year-Over-Year in November, Finds HAR [Realty News Report]
- Developer Long Lake Acquires 549 Acres in Rosenberg for New Residential Community [HBJ]
- Kroger-Anchored Village at Riverstone To Break Ground in Fort Bend County Community Riverstone Next Year [HBJ]
- First Public Performance at $84M Arena Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land This Sunday [Culturemap]
- Car Vending Machine Carvana Now Open Off Katy Freeway [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Germany-Based Grocery Store Lidl Planning League City Location [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- How Rising Federal Reserve Interest Rates Would Impact Houston Homebuyers [HBJ]
- Mapping the Character of a City [The Urban Edge]
Photo: o texano via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
With every hit of the excavator, new verbs are created.
There’s a 7-entry roster of Total Wine & More locations now included in the Yellow Pages listing for the Houston area — though the first Houston outpost of the Maryland-based liquor store only opened up in late October, in the decommissioned Office Max near Willowbrook Mall. But apparent new addresses for the store (known in Connecticut for its run of criminally low alcohol prices) include the former sites of 3 of Houston’s 4 remaining Fresh Market locales (all of which shut down in May).  Those old Fresh spots (the ones of Holcome Blvd., Memorial Dr., and San Felipe St.) have all been issued recent remodeling permits with Total Wine noted as the occupant. Other locations apparently in the works are in Baybrook Mall (which is hiring) and a box site in Richmond at 5472 W Grand Pkwy., reclaimed following Sports Authority’s fall and retreat from Texas.
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Fallen Sports Authority Files for Bankruptcy, Prepares for 140-Store Shutdown; Undermined Sports Authority To Abandon Texas As Other Big Boxes Advance with Guns;Â Rice Epicurean Giving Up the Groceries, Leasing 4 Locations to Fresh Market
Photo of Total Wine & More at 7640 Cypress Creek Pkwy. in Willowbrook: Total Wine & More
Box Wine Refresh
