Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Neither Cape Cod nor Cornwall, but still in high demand.
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- 1103 E. 24th St. [HAR]
A JUDGE’S ANSWER TO SOME OF THOSE TINY GARDEN OAKS QUESTION MARKS 
Erin Mulvaney writes in the Houston Chronicle this week that a county judge has issued a decision regarding the Garden Oaks deed restriction lawsuit that spurred editorial changes to some neighborhood signage earlier this spring. The Garden Oaks Maintenance Organization sued neighborhood couple Peter and Katharine Chang several years ago for building an oversized garage; a jury found earlier this year that the couple had violated the deed restrictions, but that the GOMO wasn’t consistently enforcing its own rules on all properties — including some properties owned by GOMO board members. Mulvaney writes that the recent ruling denied the Changs’ request for $80,000 in legal fees, but did confirm that GOMO doesn’t have the power to enforce the restrictions — at least, not in the specific case of the Changs’ property. It’s still unclear what the impact of the decision will be on GOMO’s authority over the rest of the neighborhood. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of question-marked Garden Oaks sign: Swamplot inbox
Architects James Richards and Ben Olschner, dissatisfied with the current talk of turning the Astrodome into the world’s largest air-conditioned park, have started drumming up support (and selling t-shirts) for their own idea for overhauling the long-empty structure: stripping the building of all but its core steel structure (“like the Eiffel Tower in Paris”, the duo’s website reads) and adding a spiraling hike and bike trail up to the center of the roof. The duo estimates the project would cost $180 million to execute ($62 million less than what the indoor park plan is estimated to cost); they expect the work could be paid for as a public-private effort like the one that funded Discovery Green (and branded all of its features).
The plan (which also removes all nonessential letters, redubbing the place A-Dome Park) calls for the replacement of some 13 acres of existing Dome-side parking lot with live oaks, planted in alignment with the building’s steel columns (as seen here from above). Below are a bunch of renderings showing the trees and walkways in place, and some zoomy depictions of the stripped-down ‘Dome back in action:
Dome Dreams
On Monday afternoon a reader caught part of the smash-and-drag action at 2332 Bissonnet St., right next to Kay’s Lounge. That’s part of the exterior staircase of the 2-story retail-residential structure lying curled up in the foreground; a remaining member of the bar’s shrinking entourage of smaller structures can be spotted peeking around the fence on the right. Â
Greenbriar Goodbye
Swamplot comes to you today fortified by the sponsorship of 4 newly built homes in a row on E. 27th St. in Sunset Heights, otherwise known as 506 E. 27th St., 508 E. 27th St., 510 E. 27th St., and 512 E. 27th St. Thanks for supporting this site!
The development is called Oxford Heights (Oxford and Columbia are the nearest cross streets). All 4 properties were developed and built by Smith Family Homes. Most have 5 bedrooms and 5 baths; all weigh in at approximately 3,250 sq. ft. — including finished third floors (a game room, or that fifth bedroom and bath) of about 460 sq. ft. Downstairs, the floor plans are similar, with some variation. (The dining room is more defined in 506; in 512, you’ll find a bedroom with an en suite bathroom on the first floor.)  All have 2-story porches facing the street, as well as attached 2-car garages facing the alley in back. Inside, you’ll find hardwood floors, extensive closets, and open main living spaces that flow from front to back (as seen in the above interior view of 512 E. 27th).
This part of 27th St. is a mere 7 blocks away from the site designated for a 365 by Whole Foods Market at Yale and the 610 Loop. Come by 506 E. 27th St., 508 E. 27th St., 510 E. 27th St., and 512 E. 27th St. this Saturday, June 18th, from 12 to 2 pm, for an open house where you’ll be able to tour the properties and sample New Orleans-style snoballs (here spiked if you like, we’re told) from another neighbor, Mam’s House of Ice on Cavalcade St.
Swamplot readers pay attention to our Sponsors of the Day. If you’re interested in showing up in this space, follow the directions here.
Sponsor of the Day
The question that’s been bugging a number of Swamplot readers: What’s planned by Fisher Homes for the .38-acre open pit now getting filled in at 829 Yale St., directly across from the company’s 3-story home office mansion? The answer: a 40-unit condo midrise branded as The Victoria. Some 2- and 3-bedroom units hit the market at the beginning of June, running between $460,900 and $835,585; a reader got some shots of the current state of construction earlier today in a morning drive-by.
A look at the floorplans of the parking-footed building’s residential floors shows off the structure’s increasingly hourglass cross-section as the viewer moves upward:
Filling In on Yale St.
- Amazon Planning To Build $136M Warehouse in Pinto Business Park in Northwest Houston [Click2Houston]
- How Houston Developers Are Experimenting with Millennial, Baby Boomer Offerings [HBJ]
- Drees Custom Homes, Perry Homes Unveil Home Plans for Grand Central Park in Conroe [Houston Chronicle]
- How to Address the ‘Affordability Crisis’ in Houston [Houston Chronicle]
- UH Will Rename Street, Erect Statue in Honor of Roy Hofheinz in Legal Fight Over Basketball Arena Name Change [The Texas Tribune]
- El Gato Coffeehouse Cat Café Looking To Open in Early 2017 Somewhere in Houston [Houstonia; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Area Ranked 20 Out of 30 U.S. Metro Areas for ‘Walkable Urbanism’ [The Urban Edge]
- PocketCab Ready To Launch New Dispatch App for Taxi and Limo Companies If Uber Leaves Houston [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- City Allocates More Than $21M for MLK Boulevard Reconstruction [[Houston Public Media]
- Volunteers Clean Up Overgrown Evergreen Cemetery in the Fifth Ward [KHOU]
Photo of Discovery Green: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Whether too cozy, contemporary, or waterlogged, it’s time for these to go.
The 24.5-acre plot along the W. Sam Houston Pwky. formerly snagged by Schlumberger’s Cameron International looks to be back on the market, a reader notes. Dow Chemical’s quadruple-decade-plus facility got cleared off the land at the end of 2009 following the purchase of the property by an entity connected to Apache Corporation; the spot was sold to Cameron in 2013, when rumor had it that the company would build a skyscraper’s worth of office space on the site. The property was listed afresh by Newmark Grubb Knight Frank around the end of April.
Energy Corridor Fadeout
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY HOUSTON GREENSPACES CAN’T SHARE THE GREEN 
“The big money is coming from private donations (Buffalo Bayou Partnership, Hermann Park Conservancy, Memorial Park Conservancy), most likely with ‘strings attached’ that require that they must be used in a specific park. I’m sure the Parks and Rec people would love to do more special projects in the neighborhood parks, but it’s also going to require someone with deep pockets to step up for them.” [slugline, commenting on The Places a 117-Ft.-Tall Yellow Corkscrew Tower Could Fit In Along Buffalo Bayou] Illustration: Lulu
The 4-story apartment complex going up on the northeast corner of Westheimer and Fondren roads (where Prosperity Bank and Landry’s Seafood Restaurant were torn down in a mildly apocalyptic display back in 2014) is now pushing leases and offering would-be tenants a chance to scope the place out. The place has also gotten a name tweak since the project was first announced: the former Crest at Fondren is going by West & Fondren these days.
The complex has sprung up just south of the late-seventies garden-style Victoria Place apartments (which appear to have been bought 2 summers ago by an entity controlled by developer Michael Novelli). The Fondren-side entrance of the 4-story building is clearly labeled as such:
Briargrove Revival
Windows and wood are now covering much of the front of Vinoteca Poscól’s previous strip center location at 1609 Westheimer Rd. The spot is being prepped to open as Jimmy Chew Asian Kitchen, which touts a laundry list of east- and southeast-Asian countries as contributors to its particular fusion mix. About Online reports that the business is connected to Irwin Palchick of F Bar Nightclub, and will cater to the post-last-call crowd as well as to lemonade enthusiasts.Â
The wooden addition, which appears to be establishing the restaurant’s patio territory, engulfs the space previously fenced off as such by Poscól, along with some former sidewalk acreage.  Here’s what the space used to look like, before the wine bar’s midsummer departure:
Montrose Makeover
- 35-Acre Energy Corridor Development Republic Square Put on Hold Amid Oil Rout [Houston Chronicle]
- Hines Partnership Turning 6-Building Office Complex Greenspoint Place Over To Its Lender [Houston Chronicle]
- UT’s Plans for the 300 Acres It Bought in Houston Do Not Include a Full ‘4-Year Campus with a Mascot’ [Houston Chronicle]
- How the Grand Parkway Will Help and Hurt North Houston Retail [HBJ]
- Inside Morgan Group’s New Luxury Pearl Apartments Near CityCentre in Memorial Area [HBJ]
- French-Vietnamese Restaurant Le Colonial Opening in River Oaks District in August [HBJ]
- West U Now the Richest City in Texas with Median Household Income of $207,429, According to 24/7 Wall Street [PaperCity Magazine]
- Houston-Galveston Area Council Bring Back Regional Safety Council To Confront Traffic Safety [Houston Public Media]
Photo: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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