- 1106 Marconi St. Unit A [HAR]
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What should League City expect with the first Houston-area Cabela’s, set to open in a year’s time near the Big League Dreams Sports Park off the Gulf Fwy. and Big League Dreams Pkwy.? All the wonders of wildlife and its stalkers brought indoors, for your perusal and entertainment. That means vast arrangements of deceased but realistic-looking animals mounted in museum-like displays, a “gun library” where you’ll be able to check out the latest in classic, antique, collectible, or just plain hoard-able firearms, an indoor archery range, a fudge shop, and other tourist attractions. Plus, for local flatlanders who may never have seen one, an actual mountain replica. All displayed as it should be, in a big-roofed, fully air-conditioned space not far from Kohl’s and H-E-B.
At 72,000 sq. ft., the store will only be one-third the size of the chain’s behemoth in Fort Worth, but it’ll be bigger than the outposts in Waco and Lubbock. A company press release says the store will feature log construction, as well as other outdoorsy-store mainstays such as metal roofing, wood siding, and stone add-ons.
Photos of Buda (interior) and Allen (exterior) stores: Cabela’s
Our smashes and blows are special, and are reserved only for those structures that require them.
- Urban Eats Bistro, Market Opening November 12 on Washington Ave [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- 2.7-Acre Property Between Uptown Park and Landry’s Headquarters Up for Sale [Houston Business Journal]
- The Nightingale Room Bar Expected To Open in Late October at 308 Main St. Downtown [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot]
- Owner of Onion Creek, Dry Creek, and Cedar Creek Buys Majority Interest in Montrose Bar Lowbrow, Around the Corner from the Menil [Culturemap]
- New Historical Marker Notes Former Site of Cooley Elementary at Rutland and 17th St. in the Heights [The Leader]
- Southmore Station the Only Instance in 3 Years Where Protests Successfully Halted the Relocation of a Post Office [Houston Advocate]
- Rice University Aims To Reduce Emissions by 20% over Next 10 Years, Be Climate-Neutral By 2038 [Rice University]
- Metro Considering Developing a Rider Code of Conduct To Resolve Issues Like Smoking, Eating [Houston Chronicle]
- Map: See How Long It Takes Houston Residents To Travel To Work, by Census Tract [The Woodlands]
- Coyote Sightings Reported in Neighborhoods Near Memorial Park [Culturemap]
- How Kingwood Has Remained True To Its Initial Design as a Secluded White Middle-Class Sleeper Community [OffCite]
- Acres Homes, Where Horses and Cars Collide [Houston Chronicle]
- Inside Southern Living Magazine’s French Chateau-Inspired Willowcreek Ranch ‘Showcase’ Home [Houston Business Journal]
- Home Invaders Posing as Deliverymen Targeting Victims in Spring Valley, Memorial Villages [KHOU]
- This Weekend’s AIA Home Tour To Feature 7 Houses with ‘Houston Sensibilities’Â [Houstonia]
Photo of Remaining Fragment of Suzanne Sellers’s ‘Muted Hues of History’ Mural, 811 Rusk St.: Swamplot inbox
Since its purchase in August for $86,100, a 1956 Glenbrook Valley property located on one of the mid-century neighborhood’s interior streets has been zhushed for a flip. It’s now back on the market and asking $144,900. Changes are most apparent in the kitchen (above middle, with the original below it) and bathrooms. Tweaks before its listing last week included a new roof, new flooring, repairs to underground plumbing, leveling of the foundation — and home staging with careful attention to corners . . .
- 4407 Marlborough Dr. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID ABOUT STRAKE JESUIT 
“If people want to self-segregate and move somewhere like The Woodlands, great. I’m glad they are free to do that. What I don’t understand is the myopia that self-segregation can create, when people forget that anyone would ever value anything else over clean and shiny (and white) suburbs.
An example of what bothers me so much: I was leaving a Strake Jesuit football game earlier this year, and a Woodlands dad and I fell into conversation on the way out. He commented “this is such a great campus. Too bad it’s in this neighborhood.†As a SJ parent, I didn’t have any choice but to answer him politely, so I murmured something about how the lower property costs made it possible for the school to buy more land to improve and expand. But in reality, I was just incensed by his comments — still am, actually. What, a working class neighborhood doesn’t deserve something nice like a private school campus in it? The school has nothing to offer the neighborhood, and vice versa? The neighborhood has less value in absolute terms because it’s not wealthy, or aesthetically pleasing? What is it about living somewhere like The Woodlands that changes the way a person thinks, that they can look at the (abundant) life going on outside their clean little bubble and not recognize its value? I don’t have an answer to this question — it just bothers me an awful lot.” [Vonnegan, commenting on How The Woodlands Has Gone Astray; A Suitable Houston Honor for the Inventor of Air Conditioning] Illustration: Lulu
There is always excitement surrounding an announcement of a new Randall Davis condo tower — before the design is revealed. Everyone wants to know: What mixture of far-away buildings and long-ago eras will the architecture reference? And what affordable materials will it be constructed from? From atop what garage launch platform will it point toward the sky? And even more simply: How grandiose will it be? Late yesterday, only a few hours after posting news that the developer had announced the impending arrival of a condo highrise adjacent to GreenStreet downtown, Swamplot received the humble design submission pictured above from reader Bill Barfield. He claims to have created the rendering “after much research.”
- Randall Davis Aiming Downtown Condo Highrise for the Corner of Rock n’ Roll and the Blues [Swamplot]
- Randall Davis coverage [Swamplot]
Rendering: Bill Barfield (bill_b)
CURIOUS POLL PUSHERS WANT TO KNOW: SHOULD THE COUNTY SPEND ANY AMOUNT IT WANTS ON AN ASTRODOME REDO? 
The last time a concrete proposal to spend public money to repurpose the Astrodome was on the ballot, Harris County taxpayers voted it down. So how hard could it be to come up with a new poll showing potential voters aren’t especially eager to shell out for the latest floated idea, to turn the public facility into a giant indoor park — about which no details, price tag, or even feel-good drawings have yet been released? Maybe harder than you might think: In stories about a survey sponsored by KHOU and Houston Public Media whose results were released yesterday, a few news outlets did produce dutiful variants of a “Taxpayers Oppose Money for Astrodome” headline. But coming to that conclusion from the actual data collected in the survey might have been a bit of a stretch. Here’s the somewhat ambiguous wording of the question presented, with no context, to likely voters in the coming election: “Harris County proposes turning the Astrodome into an indoor park. Should the taxpayers of Harris County spend any amount to make the Astrodome into an indoor park if no private investors want to fund the entire project?” 31 percent said yes, 51 percent said no, and 17 percent of respondents said they didn’t know. The subset of respondents who thought they were being asked if they’d be willing to give county government a blank check for a plan they’ve never seen wasn’t broken out separately. [Houston Chronicle; KHOU; Houston Public Media; Astrodome coverage on Swamplot] Photo: Russell Hancock
- Prospective Buyers Have Until November 14 To Bid on 21-Acre Tarkett Vinyl Flooring Plant Between Sawyer Heights Target and Studewood Kroger [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
- Design of New Chinese Mandarin Language Immersion Magnet School at W. Alabama and Yorktown Inspired by Chinese Character for ‘Brightness’ [Houston Business Journal]
- Prohibition SupperClub & Bar on Prairie St. To Open for ‘Mock Lunch Service’ Starting Today [Culturemap]
- Most Likely of 9 Possible Routes for Dallas-to-Houston High-Speed Rail Are BNSF Railway Right-of-Way, Along High-Voltage Electric Transmission Lines [Texas Tribune]
- Buffalo Speedway Now Closed at US-59 for as Many as 30 Days for Frontage Road Reconstruction Project [abc13; previously on Swamplot]
- Only Company ‘Deliberately Trying To Block Enforcement’ of Houston’s New Payday Lender Regulations Is Power Finance, Owned by State Rep. Gary Elkins [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- City Councilman Michael Kubosh Wants to Rename Hadley St., Home of Music World Entertainment, ‘Destiny’s Child Lane’ [MyFoxHouston]
- The Original Eatsie Boys Food Truck Now For Sale on Craigslist for $18,500 [Houston Chronicle]
- Despite Dumb Name, Blaffer Art Museum’s ‘Buildering: Misbehaving the City’ Is a Great Show About Urban Stunts [Glasstire]
- How Climate Change Is Fueling Miami’s Real Estate Boom [Businessweek]
Photo of East Loop at Buffalo Bayou: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Hunkered down behind a tagged security curtain, a bunker-like commercial building in Midtown’s mid-section popped up on the market overnight with a $585K asking price in a “lot-priced” listing. The corner building of uncertain vintage fronting Fannin St. has a history with commercial printers (and insurance companies), and more recently, shoe repair. Adkins Printing struck an exterior inlay on the building’s forehead (above) that’s still visible behind current signage, as is some faint lettering from its days as the offices of Pound Printing and Stationery. More recent signage attached the building’s blank north side (at right) touts available “stationary,” a spelling more appropriate perhaps to Al’s Handmade Boots, the store now occupying half of the building, than to the location’s printing history.
In announcing earlier today the new condominium tower he and Astoria partner Roberto Contreras are planning to build downtown, Randall Davis wasn’t so specific about the location he has in mind for the highrise building. But sources tell Swamplot it’s planned for a portion of the block bounded by Polk, Caroline, Austin, and Dallas pictured above. That would put it on what’s now a surface parking lot adjacent to the Dirt Bar (tag line: “We Play Rock n’ Roll”) and across the street from the House of Blues, at the eastern end of GreenStreet (formerly Houston Pavilions). Noodle fans will remember the Dirt Bar spot at 1209 Caroline St. as the former home of Josephine’s Italian Restaurant. The Reserve 101 bar is on the corner at 1201 Caroline St., next door.
- 2018 Branard St. [HAR]
Getting the Sheet Metal Out
Clearing More Space for Townhomes North of Rice Military
From reader Mark Lawrence come these farewell views of the almost-a-full-block compound one block north of Washington Ave at 1101 Reinerman St. that belonged to J and L Sheet Metal from the late eighties until recently. The company sold its land, bounded by Reinerman, Moy, Nett, and Center streets, to MHI McGuyer Homebuilders in late August. A sign taped to the front door (at right) notes the metal fabrication business is moving out of the Westwood Grove neighborhood, further north to 14102 Chrisman Rd., near the intersection of the Hardy Toll Rd. and Beltway 8.
