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Swamplotâ€™s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.

They’re making more of it:

Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions

Homes for Sale

09/17/18 5:30pm

Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Fountainhead

302 Shadywood Rd. [HAR]

77057, Fountains, Homes for Sale, Tanglewood

09/17/18 5:00pm

Houston-Area Population Will Break 10M by 2040, Says METRO Study

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HOUSTON-AREA POPULATION WILL BREAK 10M BY 2040, SAYS METRO STUDY Making it more peopled than 40 different states are right now. Granted, the “Houston area” that METRO’s study encompasses — defined as Harris, Montgomery, Waller, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Galveston, Chambers, and Liberty counties — already spans more land than 4 states. The full breakdown on the transit agency’s website features more maps like the one above — on which more populous areas appear darker — showing 2025 estimates and historical data for years past. The area’s current population: somewhere around 6 million, according to census data. [METRONext] Map of Houston area’s estimated population distribution in 2040: METRONext

Maps, Population, Quicklink

09/17/18 2:45pm

Southwest Key Says It Has 41 Days To Open Its Immigrant Kids Center on Emancipation, Otherwise It Won’t Have the Money To Open At All

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In a lawsuit it filed Friday against the City of Houston, the government contractor tasked with housing thousands of child immigrants across Texas, Arizona, and California says it’s got until October 28 to open the building it leased at 419 Emancipation Ave. — now preemptively dubbed Casa Sunzal — otherwise the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement will pull its funding for the planned facility.

The nonprofit’s biggest beef with the city (and in particular the Mayor, who grinned in June at the idea of a permitting “slow-walk” for the center) is that the compound shouldn’t be classified as a detention facility but rather a residential one. Yes, the company says in its filing, “children are verbally discouraged from leaving,” the campus, but they “are not physically restrained if they try to.” 240 kids ages “0 to 17,” were originally slated to shack up in the compound, according to the Chronicleâ€™s Lomi Kriel. The majority of them — Southwest Key says now — would be minors that crossed the border by themselves, as opposed to those separated from their parents upon arrival in the U.S.

Casa Sunzal

77003, East Downtown, Lawsuits, Proposed Developments

Demolitions

09/17/18 12:45pm

Edgy 9th St. Corner Compound Now Crumbling on the Inside

Most of the corrugated metal buildings that occupied the inner sanctum at 620 W. 9th St. are down now, but the hidden Heights compound’s still got its edge. “There are strange things poking up from the fence,” the same ones that have been there for over a decade — reports a reader — sticking up, “like heads on spikes.â€

Actually, not all the props on W. 9th St. east of Waverly are heads; torsos, full bodies, and skeletal figures appear as well, along with some more abstract metalwork:

Neighborhood Fixtures

77007, Demolitions, Houston Heights

09/17/18 9:45am

A Soaring View of Progress on the 23rd St. H-E-B

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Red hyphenated signage hasn’t yet put a name to the building, but you can see all the other makings of H-E-B’s second second-story Houston grocery store from above in the video at top. The footage starts off over N. Shepherd, then pans around the corner of 23rd St., offering a view of the former Fiesta site from the south.

Back in March a spokesperson for the grocer told The Leaderâ€™s Landan Kuhlmann to expect a “late fall opening,” meaning the store’s debut could coincide roughly with the 2 year anniversary of the dry zone modification its management pushed for prior to construction.

Previously on Swamplot: The New Second-Story Heights H-E-B on N. Shepherd Is About To Begin Construction; H-E-Bâ€™s Plan and Backup Plan for the Double Decker Heights Dry Zone Store; H-E-B Will Double Down on a Heights Dry Zone Store or Not Build At All;Â Yes, The Heights Dry Zone Petitioners Really Did Collect Enough Signatures For a Vote;Â Heights Dry Zone Signature Gatherers Return from the Hunt Victorious;Â Former Fiesta Site Preps for Teardown as Heights Dry Zone Petitioners Circle;Â H-E-B Would Like To Plant a Store in a Wetter Heights Dry Zone;Â Somebodyâ€™s Trying to Legalize Beer and Wine Sales in the Heights Dry Zone

Video: Brandon DuBois

Doubly Decked Out

77008, Grocery Stores, Houston Heights, New Construction, Retail

Headlines

09/17/18 8:30am

Assessing Galveston 10 Years After Ike; Harvey-Born Crowdsource Rescue Now In Use for Florence

by Meredith Deliso

Trulia: Houston-Area Home Values Have Appreciated 48% Over the Past 6 Years [Houston Chronicle]
SLS Properties Shares More Details on Plans for Former Chevron Campus in Bellaire [HBJ ($)]
Houston-Based Residential Firm Franklin Team Joins Cloud-Based Brokerage [HBJ ($)]
Crowdsource Rescue Website Created During Harvey Now Being Used for Florence [Houston Chronicle ($)]
The State of Galveston 10 Years After Ike [Houston Chronicle ($)]
Sneak Peek Inside Tanglewood Renovation Featured on Saturday’s MA+DS Home Tour [Houston Chronicle]
Study of Voucher Holders Finds Black Renters Pay More for Rent Than White Renters [The Urban Edge]

Photo of new construction in Southside Place: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines

Daily Demolition Report

09/17/18 8:00am

Daily Demolition Report: Holey Toledo

by Swamplot

Swamplotâ€™s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.

It’s outta here.

Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions

Homes for Sale

09/14/18 5:45pm

Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Way Out

1612 Sage St. [HAR]

77009, Homes for Sale, Woodland Heights

Public Transportation

09/14/18 5:15pm

Examining the Odds of a METRO Light Rail Connection to Hobby

17 Comments

Both Red- and Purple-Line connections to Hobby Airport made METRO’s latest shortlist of proposed projects around town. They’re indicated above by the blue segment which runs east from the Red Line’s current terminus at Fannin South and past a proposed spur that’d reach up to the Purple Line’s last stop at Palm Center Transit Center. Together with all the proposed bus route upgrades colored orange, they’d cost the agency about $3 billion to build.

That price tag is on the high end of what METRO expects to have in its budget for projects over the next 2 decades: somewhere between $1 billion and $2.8 billion, according to the Chronicle‘s Dug Begley. Planning for the worst case, the agency also released a plan B — which eschews all airport rail connections in the name of frugality:

Transit Wishlist

Airports, Hobby Airport, Metro, Metro Rail, Public Transportation

Avondale

09/14/18 12:45pm

Spenga’s Upper-Deck Gym Will Jut Out Real Close to Its Neighbor

2 Comments

SPENGA’S UPPER-DECK GYM WILL JUT OUT REAL CLOSE TO ITS NEIGHBOR Just 8 in. will separate the cantilevered fitness studio’s eastern, over-the-edge portion from the eaves of the 1915 home adjacent to it — reports abc13’s Christine Dobbyn — which will soon house Arden’s Picture Framing and Gallery. The 15,700-sq.-ft. lot where the new retail building’s planned at 307 Westheimer is currently going up; Italian restaurant Michelangelo’s went to pieces on its west side last December (the east was all parking). [abc13; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of 307 Westheimer Rd.: Spenga

77006, Avondale, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Retail

09/14/18 10:00am

Groundbreaking Machinery Spotted in Levy Park’s Side Yard

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The southeast corner of Richmond and Eastside is seeing some vehicle traffic for the first time since a 3-story office building and parking lot were demolished on it in 2016. Personnel from Van & Sons Drilling Service hit the vacant spot on Monday, taking care to protect the grass by sliding some wooden boards underneath their truck, pictured above. TheÂ just-under-an-acre property is the only patch of greenery present at the intersection; the rest is all ’60s-era office space.

Behind the corner parcel lies Levy Park. It’s bounded by a private street that runs past the vacant field, as well as the adjacent Primrose School of Upper Kirby and Kirby Grove office building. You can see the 16-story office towering over the school in the photo below, looking east: