- 1249 Country Place Dr. [HAR]
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ONE MAN’S THRIVING GAYBORHOOD IS ANOTHER’S MONTROSE VALUE-ADD PORTFOLIO 
What is the Montrose Value-Add Portfolio? “48 apartment-units, 13 townhomes, 1 quadraplex and 5 rental homes with 8-units that include 2 garage apartments; for a total of 73 units, 67,960 rentable square feet, with a land tract of 2.09 acres.” Writes a reader who came across the listing: “This is where I live. I love the phrase ‘The Montrose Value Add Portfolio,’ it practically screams ‘knock it down!’ So much for my old gayborhood!” The properties are all within walking distance of the MVAP’s listed address: 409 Stratford St., a stone’s throw from the always-hopping cluster of bars and clubs on Pacific St. to the north and but a little farther from Numbers and Indika to the south. No asking price is indicated in the marketing materials. [Loopnet; brochure (PDF)] Photo: Transwestern.
DON’T Y’ALL GO WORRYING ABOUT THE FALLING PRICE OF OIL NOW 
Houston real estate reporter Ralph Bivins has been watching all those tanking oil prices: “Prices for West Texas Intermediate oil, over $107 per barrel in June, has fallen sharply, dropping below $80 a barrel this fall,” he writes. “WTI closed at $77.18 per barrel Wednesday and dipped even lower on Thursday morning.” But the worst prediction of doom and gloom he’s able to scare up comes from Matthew Deal of commercial real-estate valuation firm Deal Sikes & Associates, who eventually admits that “if oil prices fall precipitously and a significant number of oil rigs are mothballed this winter, Texas real estate markets would be impacted by late 2015.” Otherwise, Houston property prices and demand are supposed to emerge not-so-scathed. And Deal’s partner Mark Sikes says way-out suburbanites have it made: Even though a drop in local job growth is likely to cause demand to dwindle for urban redevelopment sites and land slated for commercial development, he says, “suburban land for new residential communities has plenty of price support because the single-family market has tight inventories. Builders have not yet caught up with the residential boom.” [Realty News Report] Photo of San Jacinto Monument: Andrew Wiseman [license]
A grand total of 26 trees (some of them shown in the top photo of the above before-and-after sequence) surrounding 4 sides of the XO Communications building at 2401 Portsmouth St. just west of Kirby Dr. were felled over the weekend. That’s more than 4 times the number of trees turned to mulch in the overnight removal of street trees surrounding the Kirby Dr. Wendy’s just a few weeks earlier. Does the axing of the XO trees along Portsmouth, Park, Revere, and Norfolk streets in Upper Kirby count as another illegal tree massacre?
Goodbye Oaks, Hello Japanese Blueberries?
- Wedge International Tower Rebranding as 1415 Louisiana; Construction of Adjacent Hilton Garden Inn To Begin by End of Year [Realty News Report; previously on Swamplot]
- Area Near George R. Brown Convention Center Currently Undergoing More Than $1B in New Development [Houston Chronicle]
- Nau Center for Texas Cultural Heritage Breaks Ground, Will Open in Time for Super Bowl 2017 [Click2Houston]
- Construction of Homes in Magnolia Court Subdivision Resumes on Galveston’s West End [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- The Nightingale Room Bar Now Open at 308 Main St. Downtown [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Dak & Bop Less Than a Month Away from Opening in the Parc Binz Building in the Museum District [Culturemap]
- After 30 Years as Pico’s Mex-Mex, Restaurant Will Now Go by Arnaldo Richards’ Picos [Houston Business Journal]
- Dickinson Asks League City, Texas City To Cede Some of Their Extraterritorial Jurisdiction So It Can Expand Its Extraterritorial Jurisdiction [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Galveston County Ranked Eighth on Weather.com List of Worst Places To Buy a Home Based on Natural Factors [Galveston County Daily News]
- Houston Central Library Plaza Will Be Site of Urban Park-Improvement Project [Houston Chronicle]
- City Council Gives OK for App-Based Ride Service Companies Like Uber To Pick up Airport Passengers [Houston Chronicle]
- Prada Marfa Vandal Pleads Guilty, Agrees To Pay Fine Plus $10,700 for Cleanup [Glasstire]
Photo of Nieman Marcus: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
- 10407 Tennis Ct. [HAR]
LAST CALL FOR THE BONEYARD DRINKERY 
It wasn’t the first Houston ingesting establishment to be permitted by the city to allow canine companions and their owners to co-lounge on its patio (that honor belongs to the now-shuttered Ziggy’s on Fairview) but with its attached 7,000-sq.-ft. dog park, the Boneyard Drinkery lived up to its reputation as the quintessential outdoorish hangout where panters, drinkers, and occasional barkers all could coexist in relative harmony. And now, after 4 years, it’s closing. A note posted to the Boneyard Facebook page indicates the property at 8150 Washington Ave. is being sold, and the bar and park will both close on November 30th. “Due to the size of property needed for this concept,” reads the note, “and the outrageous increase of property value in Houston over the last few years, we will not be relocating.” [Facebook; Photo: Boneyard Drinkery via Facebook]
A drive-by berm at curbside and greenery at the entry off a circular driveway double screen a 1965 Briargrove home from its San Felipe location across from Briargrove Elementary School, west of Fountainview Dr. Once past the privacy plantings, however, window walls let in the light and the sights. A recently updated kitchen freshened the property, which emerged from hiding a week ago and has a $799,ooo asking price.
Nature Preserve
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DON’T LET THE LOCALS GET IN THE WAY OF YOUR PROJECT 
“Good idea, let the Peasants with Pitchforks have an Illusion of Choice. Let them pretend to participate, let them vent some hot air, and then throw them a bone to the side so while they bark over that, you build what you were going to build in the first place. Don’t forget, they don’t have any legal standing in this matter, they’re merely a construction nuisance like graffiti or defecating raccoons, just to be handled as a normal course of business.” [commonsense, commenting on A New Sign of Future Development Appears on Heights Hike-and-Bike Trail Site] Illustration: Lulu
Amid much local hullabaloo  in Aggieland today, Houston’s Midway Cos. unveiled its plans for a new campus-adjacent mixed-use complex. By fall 2016, Midway hopes that Century Square will feature an outdoor concert space, a midrise office building and conference center, an apartment building, shopping and dining outlets, and, at least judging from the site plan below, ample space for a pad site or six along busy University Dr.  Not one but 2 new boutique hotels are also slated to go up at the corner of College Ave. and University Dr. across the street from Texas A&M’s polo fields and Emerging Technologies Building and the local IHOP.
neo-urbanizing aggieland
Signs are now up along the feeder road of the East Fwy. near Gregg St., a reader tells Swamplot, announcing an impending construction project on the site where last year demolition crews removed 63 units belonging to the Kelly Village Apartments that had been left to decay after sustaining damage from Hurricane Ike. Scheduled to go up soon in its place is the $800,000 freeway-side park illustrated above, which was announced last year. The 3-acre site near the confluence of I-10 and Hwy. 59 will include a playground, jogging and walking trails, exercise spots, and a community garden.
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Mom’s Letter Leads City To Raze Derelict Fifth Ward Housing
Rendering: Houston Housing Authority
A Park at Kelly Village
In honor of the service and many sacrifices of our nation’s veterans (and the small matter of there being an official day-off for city employees), no demolition permits were issued yesterday. We’ll return to our regular demo cataloging tomorrow.
- Single Family Home Sales Up 12.3% from Last Year with 6,639 Sold in October, According to HAR [Tom Plant’s Houston Real Estate Blog]
- Officials Propose Including Downtown’s Warehouse District in Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone [Houston Chronicle]
- Woodlands’ Howard Hughes Corp. Completes Acquisition of Nearly 2,000 Acres for 4,600-Home Community in Willis Area [Prime Property]
- Shepard Ross, Studewood Hospitality Group Opening The Del in Former Taste of Lebanon Space on Del Monte Dr. [Eater Houston]
- League City Restaurant Sudie’s Seafood House, Known for Its Large Neon Catfish Sign, Has Closed; Property For Sale [Galveston County Daily News]
- City Council Members Question Wisdom of Spending $1.2M To Buy Land for Park at Westheimer and Whitney [Houston Chronicle]
- $4.8M Galveston Beach Restoration Project To Begin December 1 [Click2Houston]
- New Memorial Park Master Plan Includes 8.5 Miles of Mountain Bike Trails [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot]
- Kroger Moving Forward with Fuel Station at Kuykendahl and Bay Bridge in The Woodlands’ Alden Bridge Subdivision Despite Opposition [Isiah Factor]
- The Wheelchair Ramps to Nowhere Along the East Beltway [KHOU]
- Architecture Center of Houston Show ‘Women in Architecture’ Honors Local and International Design Pioneers [OffCite]
Photo of “A Jackson in Your House” by Jamal Cyrus and Walter Stanciell at Alabama and Almeda: David Hollas
Headlines
Here’s the early progress on Spring Branch’s Maravilla Court, a planned 28-home gated community going up in the 1700 block of Pine Chase Dr. on the site of a demolished 1970s-era apartment complex.
aesthetic oases
