Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
These shall be swiftly expunged from the landscape without a trace.
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- 10031 Green Tree Rd. [HAR]
Glen Park resident and periodic White Oak Music Hall critic Beth Lousteau sends along this Tuesday retelling of a Mother’s Day encounter with a work crew apparently having a go at some vegetation along Little White Oak Bayou near 210 Glen Park St. The property, including the warehouse across an unpaved road, was bought last spring by White Oak W2 Investments, an entity controlled by the White Oak Music Hall developers. Lousteau says that workers on the site told her they’d been tasked with clearing a nicer view to the water, but that the boundary between the purchased property and the county-owned floodway land wasn’t marked.
Here’s a brief glimpse of the scene reportedly taken that Sunday, when Lousteau encountered the work crew mid-whir:
Glen Park
A group called the Houston Heights Beverage Coalition PAC is hoping to bring about a vote on allowing beer and wine sales in the technically dry section of the Houston Heights. The group published a notice on May 5th announcing an application to the city to start collecting the petition signatures required to get the measure on a local option ballot.
Here’s the text of the required public notice:
Watering Down the Dry Laws
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MAKING SURE THE HOUSE WINS HOUSTON’S TOXICITY GAMBLE 
“Its very clear that the east side of town has the largest concentration of known pollution release points (permitted and otherwise). However, you can also easily see that there are corridors extending to the north, northwest, and south. They follow the most active freight rail lines, and the heavy industry that got built up all around them. And then there’s hazmat stuff like this, which can be located basically in any warehouse, office warehouse, distribution center, or manufacturing facility in any part of town — and it won’t get onto the map. (Remember the explosion in West, TX? Not gonna be on the map.)  . . . If you want the best odds on avoiding all that stuff, then find yourself a relatively new neighborhood that was built as greenfield development, check historical imagery on Google Earth to confirm what was there previously, buy a house in the interior of it, and be sure that you’re getting your water from a large, well-run water system. You should never drive into the city for any sort of business, civic, or educational function without donning a gas mask, and you should bring bottled water from home. Or you could just accept that there are some risks in life and balance them with the things you value — whatever that may be.” [TheNiche, commenting on That Blood Red Stuff in the Bayou May Not Be Spring Branch’s Biggest Problem Right Now] Map of Houston area Superfund sites: EPA Enviromapper
Today’s sponsor of this site is Edible Earth Resources. Swamplot sure appreciates the support!
If you’ve been inspired to get some sort of edible garden installed at home or work, you’ll want to know about Edible Earth Resources. Edible Earth Resources is a full-service edible-focused landscaping and consulting firm in Houston, and they’re experts in soil health, plant health, and food production. Edible Earth Resources offers design, installation, and ongoing maintenance services to help you grow your own nutritious produce in a manner that’s safe for your family, healthy for your property’s ecosystem, and protective of our water supply.
For more information, please see the Edible Earth Resources website.
Swamplot’s Sponsor of the Day program is a great way to demonstrate to readers that your business supports this site’s Houston coverage — and to attract some valuable attention in the process. You can find out more about the program here.
Sponsor of the Day
Friday’s tours of the 1920s underground water reservoir buried along Buffalo Bayou are already booked up, but the space will be open to the public Thursdays through Sundays from here on out. A 30-minute tour of the Cistern is $2 (except on Thursdays, when access is free), but reservations are required either way.
Can’t wait for the next open timeslots to scope out the space? Artist Donald Lipski’s Down Periscope is already up and running on the lawn above the reservoir, allowing digital spelunkers access to a light, a camera, and a microphone permanently installed in the space below. Off-site viewers can also queue up on the contraption’s website to take remote control of the installation for 5-minute intervals and swivel around in the underground chamber at will:
What’s Down Below
- General Electric Power Conversion To Move North American Headquarters to Houston [HBJ]
- St. Francis Episcopal Day School Planning New High School on 23-Acre Plot in Piney Point Village [HBJ]
- Mark’s American Cuisine in Montrose Suspending Restaurant Service May 29 To Become Events Space [Houston Chronicle]
- RDG + Bar Annie on Post Oak Going Back to Former Cafe Annie Name [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- More Than 21% of Houston Millennials Live at Home With Their Parents, Finds Zillow [HBJ]
- Montgomery and Fort Bend Added to List of Counties Eligible for Post-Flood FEMA Aid [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- More Than 10,000 Households Experienced Some Form of Flooding Last Month, Latest Report Shows [Space City Weather; previously on Swamplot]
- Parts of Westheimer Parkway and Clay Road That Were Formerly Flooded Reopen [Houston Chronicle]
Photo: Russell Hancock 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.
Better get these out before the surroundings converge.
- 20303 Kickapoo Rd. [HAR]
The latest addition to the growing collection of signage at the Westview Dr. crossing of Spring Branch: a shiny new stick-in-your-yard-style biohazard warning sign, one of a number that popped up over the weekend along stretches of the creek that got the full vermillion treatment after last week’s chemical-fueled warehouse fire about a mile upstream. The newcomer joins the inveterate kiddo-crossing and school-zone signs tipping off drivers to the proximity of both Moritz Pech Family Park and Valley Oaks Elementary School, along with a Keep Spring Branch Clean & Green! anti-litter placard and a vintage No Dumping $200 Fine.
Other indicators of last week’s spill include the multi-colored booms still strung across the waterway (shown here looking south):
Trickling Through the Memorial Villages
Joining the lunchtime crowd in front of the 1600 Smith St. tower today: the towering inflatable rabbits of Australian artist Amanda Parer. Brookfield Properties, which owns the downtown office tower complex where the rabbits are loitering, is sponsoring the leporine art installation’s 4-stop North American tour of other Brookfield commercial properties. The bunnies spent some time in New York City before getting transplanted downtown for a week; they’ll be hopping off to LA and then Denver after the tour’s Houston leg wraps up this Saturday the 14th.
The installation is called Intrude, an allusion to the rabbit’s time-honored place in modern Australian lore as an ecological disaster. Here are a few more daytime angles on the critters, which are also getting lit during their nights downtown:
Downtown From Down Under
The walls came down last week at the southwest corner of Edloe and W. Alabama streets, in the wake of a demo permit issued the week before. A few readers had eyes and lenses on the spot, which is currently listed for lease on LoopNet as 3000 Alabama Ct. but goes by 3501 W. Alabama in other county records. The walled complex (shown mid-teardown at the start of last week) was sold to St. Luke’s in 2009 by Metsun Senior Living, though it’s rumored to have been a former residence of deceased Greenway Plaza mastermind Kenneth Schnitzer.
St. Luke’s, whose main land holding sits catty-corner to the Alabama Ct. property, also owns the office park across Edloe, visible to the east of the freshly-emptied lot in this shot below from later last week:
Alabama Ct.
UTAH’S MALAWI’S PIZZA TO PLANT FAKE TREE NEXT TO DOUBLE MATTRESS FIRM IN SIENNA PLANTATION 
Malawi’s Pizza (which currently has 3 locations sprinkled along a stretch of northern Utah between Salt Lake City and Provo) is planning the first of some 20 Houston-area locations, writes Katherine Feser. The fast-casual-with-fine-china chain’s main shtick, other than the life-size acacia tree model in each restaurant? The company says it donates nutritional supplements and allotments of grain to folks in Malawi in proportion to the number of pizzas sold each month. The first Houston spot is planned for 8731 Highway 6 Center (a new retail strip immediately west of the double Mattress Firm on Highway 6) in Missouri City.  Another location may be on the way to Central Square in Midtown; the company says it hopes to open 4 Houston-area locations by the end of 2017, while also expanding to Dallas and Virginia. [Houston Chronicle] Rendering of Highway 6 Center: Hunington Properties
- BG Group To Vacate BG Group Place Downtown by the End of the Year Following Shell Merger [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Single-Family Home Price in Houston Rose 3.8% to $208,000 Year-Over-Year in the First Quarter [Houston Chronicle]
- $3.5M, 55-Bedroom, 55-Bathroom Pearland Home Has Been on the Market for Over a Year [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- NFL Star Adrian Peterson Behind New 35K-SF Houston Gym O Athletik with Indoor Soccer Field, Sand Volleyball Pit, Running Hill [ESPN]
- Austin Export Hopdoddy Burger Bar Opening First Houston Location in River Oaks District on May 30 [Culturemap]
- Uber Competitor Wingz Launches at Hobby and George Bush Intercontinental Airports [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- How Houston Starting City Planning Without Land Use Restrictions [The Urban Edge]
- Where Are Houston’s Great Suburban Parks? [Houston Chronicle]
- City, Lakewood Church, Clay Walker To Host Flood Victim Benefit Concert Featuring Brian McKnight, Regina Belle, Tim McGraw, Kid Rock, Darius Rucker [abc13]
- 40-Ft.-Tall Inflatable Bunnies Go Up in Front of 1600 Smith Street with More on the Way [Culturemap]
Photo of Beck’s Prime at 2615 Augusta Drive: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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