Cleaning up on Main St., and other effacing anecdotes.
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- 4130 Grennoch Ln. [HAR]
A SEAWALL IN CANADA TAKES A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO COMBATING COASTAL EROSION Meanwhile, in Vancouver: Those familiar with Galveston’s frequent sand replenishment projects likely know that flat seawalls can exacerbate beach erosion by reflecting wave energy that would dissipate more readily in a natural sandy setting. In response so-called king tides pummeling the coast of Vancouver, a Canadian landscape artist collaborated with a biologist and engineers to address beach erosion in a new way. Blending principles of ecology, hydrology, and aesthetics, Metamorphous incorporates boulders, plant life, and an angular a steel structure intended to rust away altogether in less than 100 years. The functional public art piece slows the flow of water as it rushes inland, causing sand to be deposited on the beach for the first time in resident memory. [Citylab]
As of yesterday, the home at 2115 Wroxton is on the market again — this time for $4.5 million, and with some zoomy new angles among the listing photos. Â When last we left the home in February of this year, the Southampton property had been listed (for the second time) for just under $3.5 million, and was bracing for auction with a minimum bid of $2.9 million. But the property was pulled from the market at the end of May, with no recorded sale. (The mod was first listed for $3.75 million in September 2013, but was pulled the following July.)
The new listing allows prospective buyers to peer across 1 of the 3 courtyards to Wroxton St. out front (above), and to gaze down into the pool through the solar screen (below):
Third Time’s The Charm
 on That Stern and Bucek Mod in Southampton... "Pin It")
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THAT PAIN IN YOUR CHEST MIGHT BE MORE THAN JUST NOSTALGIA 
“If someone wants to sit down to do an oral history with me and my husband, it will basically contain a list of every former club or restaurant you can expect to be overhauled beyond all recognition or torn down. The Pig? The Ale House? Fabulous Satellite Lounge? RIP, Lucky Burger. Your memory will live on in our hearts – maybe literally, lodged in an artery, hardened to the realities of tear-it-up-and-do-it-over Houston.” [Andrea, commenting on Tyvek Ghost of Lucky Burger Rises at the Corner of Richmond and Mandell] Illustration: Lulu
Our thanks today go to The Westin The Woodlands for being Swamplot’s Sponsor of the Day.
As it nears completion, The Westin The Woodlands already stands tall along the northern bank of the Woodlands Waterway — the picturesque, tree-lined canal and path system that winds through The Woodlands’ downtown, connecting attractions such as the Riva Row Boat House and The Woodlands Mall to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. The design of the building is the product of a partnership between Boston-based Elkus Manfredi Architects and the Houston office of Gensler. The cast stone and glass façade of the hotel hugs the curve of the water, with the resulting geometry reflected throughout the hotel’s exterior and interior. Dallas-based waldrop+nichols studio designed the interiors.
The hotel at 2 Waterway Square Place will include 302 guestrooms and suites, 15,000 sq. ft. of meeting and event space, a pool on the rooftop, and 2 new food-and-drink establishments: CURRENT restaurant and SideBar, an indoor-outdoor nightlife venue. The Howard Hughes Corporation is planning an official unveiling and opening of the 13-level hotel for late February, 2016. You can see more renderings and get additional information on this page of the Westin Hotels website.
Interested in reaching Swamplot readers with your company’s message? Take the first step toward becoming a site sponsor by contacting us on the Swamplot sponsorship line.
Sponsor of the Day
No need to evacuate the area, but aerial footage from the developers shows the Typhoon Texas waterpark currently brewing at 555 Katy Fort Bend Rd, just south of I-10 on 43 acres of Katy Mills Mall-adjacent land. Ground was broken on August 20, and the park (pictured conceptually above) is slated to make landfall on May 27, just before the start of Atlantic hurricane season.
Aquatic amusements will include a 1,500-ft. lazy river, facilities for slideboarding (which turns going down a waterslide into a competitive sport), facilities for regular sliding, a 48-foot-tall play structure, and a 27,000-sq.-ft. wave pool. (That’s larger than the one at the New Braunfels Schlitterbahn, for those of you keeping score.) Typhoon backers hope that the park will become a regional draw along the lines of the 3 Schlitterbahns, Spring’s Splashtown, and Astroworld (RIP).
This oddly-soothing drone video captures the sense of calm over the developing theme park:
Suburban Hurricane Hunting
Renderings presented for the first time at last month’s Spacecom convention show the latest round of updated designs for the first phase of the planned spaceport campus that will nestle between the existing Ellington Airport runways and Space Center Blvd. in Clear Lake. The images show a campus that is notably more conventional than what might have been suggested by the curvilinear designs released in 2013. The new plans most resemble a suburban office park version of Thomas Jefferson’s plan for the University of Virginia, complete with surface parking lots tucked behind 2-story buildings stepped back from a central roadway axis.
Ellington Swing
- Houston’s Luxury Home Prices Down 7% in the Third Quarter Compared To Last Year, Finds Redfin [Houston Chronicle]
- So Far 43 Home Sites Pre-Sold at Tiger Woods’ Luxury Golf Resort Bluejack National in Northwest Houston [HBJ]
- Goodwill’s Computer Works Downsizes To Noticeably Smaller Location at 171 N. Sam Houston Parkway East [TechBlog]
- The Brisket House Opening a Third Location in Former Fuddruckers Near the Champions Area in March 2016 [Houston Chronicle]
- First Phase of $200M Memorial Park Makeover Begins with Groundbreaking of Eastern Glades Project [HBJ]
- Gulf Coast Rail District To Study Options for Rail Line Along I-10 Corridor Connecting To Downtown Amtrak Station [Houston Public Media]
- Luxury Bus Service Vonlane Launching Houston-Austin Route Beginning Jan. 17 [Culturemap]
- Mobility Houston Project Wants Your Ideas on Ways To Improve Transportation [Houston Chronicle]
- 4-Alarm Fire at Palms on Westheimer Apartment Complex Damages 36 Units [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Williams Tower: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Not humungous enough in River Oaks, and other woeful tales of inadequacy.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY WOULD HOUSTON WANT TO REJECT A NEW UNIVERSITY? 
“Well, oil prices are down, the city is going broke and there are op-eds suggesting that the political end of the oil industry is what the future holds in store. I absolutely do not trust UH to ideologically lead the city out of this mess. It’s as simple as that, and I can’t be the only person who thinks that. Anyway, almost every large city has more than one public university system, and it’s somewhat extortionist to insist that everything be channeled through UH simply because that’s what UH prefers. UH has failed to keep pace with the ambitions and upward mobility of its home city, and doubling down on its inadequacies by adopting a defensive stance is exactly the wrong move.” [anon22, commenting on The Best Views of the New UT Houston Campus Are Available Now from the Fairway on the 5th Hole, Above a Trash Heap] Illustration: Lulu
CONSUMERS SEEK TO ESCAPE FROM HEAVY SMOG BY BUYING MORE CARS Meanwhile, in China: Unusually heavy smog levels led to disruptions across the country this morning. Beijing issued its first-ever Red Alert for unsafe air quality, shutting down schools and business across the capitol as particulate matter measurements topped out at 10 times higher than World Health Organization safety standards. National news agency Xinhua reported a deadly 33-car pileup in Shanxi province, exacerbated by poor visibility due to smog. On the East Coast, Hangzhou air traffic faced delays caused by smoggy conditions, which reduced visibility to 250 meters. Smog levels are expected to continue at today’s extreme levels for several more days. November smog is also thought to have contributed to a spike in car sales — the commonly held perception that air is cleaner inside a car is thought to be boosting vehicle purchases. Increased auto ownership in the past decade is ranked alongside coal-fired power plants as a leading cause of Chinese air pollution. [Independent, Xinhua, Bloomberg]
“Some buzz” has made its way back to the Ivy Lofts developers since news of the plans for Houston’s tiniest condos began to spread — so much buzz, in fact, that Novel Creative Development is responding to the pushback with a change in sales tactics. The group announced in an email that Ivy Lofts buyers will have the option to lump 2 adjacent units together and customize the floorplan, giving residents more space if needed.
The promotion team is also working hard to rebrand the proposed floorplans with the names of famously dense cities, instead of describing the units by their size. “It’s not fair to label these spaces by square footages,†says marketing director Brandon Vos in a RE/MAX press release. “We had to come up with new names since so many rooms double in usage.”
The newly internationalized units include The Tokyo, the project’s itsy-bitsiest floor plan, which measures in at 300 sq. ft. and will be priced starting at $119,000.
Doubling Up at Ivy Lofts
- 23 N. Heritage Hill Cir. [HAR]
Were you kinda liking that new billboard installed on the second story of the building at 312 Main St. — the one that posed serious, possibly life-changing questions to passengers exiting the Preston St. light-rail station? Well, you’ve got less than 10 days to enjoy it, depending on long fast used-car-dealer Texas Direct Auto wants to take to comply with a city citation posted to the building yesterday — unless it can get those pesky inspectors to back off.
A notation on the red tag declares that the facade-smothering sign is in violation of the city’s sign code — namely that it was not erected in connection with a “business purpose”: “A business purpose shall not include any property, building, or structure erected or used for the primary purpose of securing a permit to erect a sign,” the note reads. (That echoes a portion of the definition in section 4602, in case you’re following along at home with regulations in hand.) Here’s a snapshot of the documents stuck to the building’s ground floor, as submitted to the Twitterverse by Houston Chronicle writer Evan Mintz, whose employer last week declared in an editorial that the sign should be illegal:
A Red Tag Downtown
