HOW TO DO RIVERSIDE TERRACE ON $647.32 A DAY 
This 1930 brick and half-timbered 4-bedroom home on Riverside Dr. in Riverside Terrace sold for $205,000 on January 14th. With no apparent updates, the unrenovated property, which sits on a 12,560-sq.-ft. lot, sold again at the end of August — for $350,000. [HAR]
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Like the Houstonaire Motor Inn, the Colonel Sanders’ Inn, and the Ramada Inn before it, the Greenway Inn and Suites on the south side of Hwy. 59 between Kirby Dr. and Buffalo Speedway is only a memory now. But it took more than a name change to off it: This redo is final. Thanks to a reader, we have these postcard-ready images from the final checkout proces over the weekend to remember it by. The buildings at 2929 Southwest Fwy. were built in 1965.
Chickening Out
Overhangs, cutouts, and eyebrow arches shade the balconies and patios of a 2005 stucco contemporary in Lancaster Place. The townhome’s price in its relisting today by the same agent, $749,990, is $100K less than in its initial appearance back in April. Price reductions in the interim sought $799,900 in May and $775,000 in July before the previous listing terminated Tuesday. The corner unit differentiates its footprint from a not-so-identical twin next door with sprout-and-chrome accents — and more:
Minty Fresh
- 1914 34th St. [HAR]
Will all the gawkable dark mystery disappear from Downtown once the last few long-abandoned towers standing get cleaned up or knocked down? Maybe, but in the meantime we have these latest events to consider, around and about the former Heaven on Earth Plaza Inn at 801 St. Joseph Pkwy. (at Travis), which was operated by an organization affiliated with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for most of the nineties (before the city shut it down, in 1998).
A couple of readers have reported seeing some recent activity in and around the 31-story building, which was built as a Holiday Inn in 1971 and later converted to a Days Inn — before taking a different spiritual path:
Falling to Earth from Heaven on Earth
- Fish-Shaped Amphitheater Under Construction at New Smither Park Next to Orange Show [Culturemap]
- Village School Developing 15 Acres of Land, Expanding Campus with Ziegler Cooper Architects Design [Houston Business Journal]
- Wheatley High School Demolition Halted Until At Least Sept. 9 or When Court Rules on Preservation Group Lawsuit [Houston Chronicle]
- What Congestion Might Mean for a Commute’s ‘Planning Time Index’ in Houston [The Highwayman]
- Galveston at 10% Above Its Normal Hotel Revenue, 1.5% Above Occupancy Despite Seaweed Invasion of 2014 [MyFoxHouston]
- Darling Homes Building 2 Patio Collections in Woodforest, Unveiling New Neighborhood in Sugar Land This Month [Prime Property]
- Some 9,600 Plants Seized from Marijuana Field in Polk County [Montgomery County Police Reporter]
- Galveston Pet Owners Worried About Presence of Coyotes Near Residential Neighborhoods [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- How the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Installed a 2-Ton, 36-Foot Tall Sculpture on Its South Lawn [Inside the MFAH via Glasstire]
- A Play-By-Play of the Downtown Tour on Those Double-Decker Buses [Houstonia]
- What Architecture Historian Vincent Scully Got Wrong About Houston [Houstonia]
- Photographer Captures Downtown Houston Intersections Using a Drone [The Texican]
- Photos: The Pay Stations, Honesty Boxes and Parking Huts of Downtown Houston’s Surface Parking Lots [Not of It]
Photo of 1823 Old Place in Sam Houston Park: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
A CHICK-FIL-A IS GOING INSIDE PENNZOIL PLACE 
If there’s gonna be a downtown office building collecting a few fast-food drive-thru franchises in its basement — minus the drive-thru parts, that is — it might as well be one with some street cred, right? Last year, a Sonic moved into the basement of Pennzoil Place, the Philip Johnson-designed double-trapezoid building pair on the block bounded by Milam, Rusk, Capitol and Louisiana. The building’s owners are now about to carve out more space for retail on the building’s lower floors — though only one of the added slots (at the corner of Rusk and Louisiana) will actually have direct access to the street. Joining Sonic in the building’s underground tunnel zone — along with an expanded eating area, revamped escalators, and a few more lease spaces — will be downtown’s fourth Chick Fil A. But don’t line up quite yet: The projected $1.2 million in renovations necessary to create the new spaces won’t be complete until early next year. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot; more info (PDF)] Photo: Flickr user telwink [license]
To create some buzz about an updated 1929 cottage with bumble bee trim tones in a section of the Heights dubbed Pinelawn, viewing of the property was put on hold until the weekend, several days after its listing last month for $437,500. Tiers of patios, porches, decks, and pavers help extend the living space outdoors. The fully-fenced corner compound is located up the block from Field Elementary School.
Clocking in at $437,500
BUYERS WILL RESTORE WEINGARTEN MANSION, EXPAND KITCHEN, CALL IT HOME 
The owner of a offshore-drilling-rig fabricating company in Baytown and his wife, a real estate agent, have bought the former Weingarten mansion at 4000 S. MacGregor Way in Riverside Terrace —Â and they’re announcing plans to restore the property with the help of architect David Bucek, whose firm was responsible for the redo of the Menil house. Darryl and Lori Schroeder tell Nancy Sarnoff they plan to live in the 1935 home and “keep as much original as we can” — but that apparently doesn’t mean holding the kitchen to its current size. Darryl Schroeder tells Sarnoff they bid full asking price, or $2.25 million, for the decaying estate designed by Joseph Finger for grocery-store magnate Joseph Weingarten. MLS records appear to show he’s being a bit modest, however: They record a sales price of $2.75 million, or $500,000 over the asking price. (The discrepancy might otherwise be explained by the Schroeders’ additional $500,000 purchase of the 1.58-acre property next door at 3932 S. MacGregor Way, though that property was listed separately.) Readers hoping the 4.73-acre property might one day find its way into the hands of the neighboring University of Houston, possibly as a house for a future president, take note: The 68-year-old president of Lone Star Energy Fabricating is a UH alumnus. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HAR
If you were wondering how a street-facing block of neat-in-a-row East Downtown townhomes might appear after being taken over by the opportunistic spirit exemplified by a bunch of north Houston strip-center businesses, rest your aching brain: Artist Carrie Marie Schneider has already done some of that hard a-visualizing work for you. Her mashup above combines signs from independent businesses along Veterans Memorial Dr. (the stretch between I-45 and Richey Rd.) with a row of recent townhomes on the 2600 block of Capitol St., between Live Oak and Nagle. The image, a projection of which constitutes a small part of her recently opened exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum, is one way to imagine a “real free-enterprise” conquest of more corporate-seeming block-by-block townhome developments. Blocks like the one pictured under all that signage “once seemed uncanny in Houston for their enforced coherence,” she writes in OffCite. “Now they’re difficult not to encounter.”
- Right Here, Right Now: Houston [CAMH]
- The Mixed Use Future of Now [OffCite]
Image: Carrie Marie Schneider
Mixed Use Mashup
The Chronicle’s Erin Mulvaney has thrown data from Apartment Data Services into this interactive Google map — to give you a zoomable picture of where all the new apartments are heading in Houston. The green pins show the 19,923 units (in 72 projects) that have opened recently; the red dots show the 23,781 (in 85 complexes) that are currently under construction; and the yellow dots indicate the additional 18,065 apartments (in 61 new developments) that are proposed — or at least the ones the data company is aware of.
- Multifamily construction projects spread over Houston region [Prime Property]
Map: Erin Mulvaney/Houston Chronicle
Mapping New Construction
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday city offices were open.
Let’s see what wonders a few machines can make of these.
- Galleria Office Tower Replacing the Courtyard on St. James Place Gains 2 Floors; Will Break Ground on Sept. 8 [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Museum Park Cafe Opening Sept. 5 on Ground Floor of the Parc Binz Midrise [Food Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza Chain Gino’s East Coming to The Woodlands, Other Texas Cities [Houston Business Journal]
- Inversion Coffee House Removes Distinctive Window Stickers Depicting ‘Inversion’ Art Project [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Public Input Wanted on Short-Term Fixes for Southwest Fwy. Traffic Backups [Houston Chronicle]
- West Loop the Most Congested Freeway in the State, Reports Texas A&M Transportation Institute [Houston Chronicle]
- Metro Holding Public Meetings on Design of the Harrisburg Overpass [The Highwayman]
- Demolition of Historic Wheatley High School Begins, Angering Fifth Ward Alumni Who Say HISD Promised Preservation [Houston Chronicle]
- Officials Warn Western Montgomery County Residents Against Burning as Drought Conditions Worsen [Houston Chronicle]
- ‘Boys from Houston’ Documents the City’s Music Scene During the 1960s [Rocks Off]
- Photography Exhibition Documents Everyday Life and Labor Along the Houston Ship Channel [Houston Chronicle]
- What Joel Kotkin Gets Wrong About Suburban-Style Sunbelt Cities [Grist]
- Copperfield ‘Under Siege’ by Hundreds of White and Cattle Egrets; Forced To Close Playground [KHOU]
- Photos: The Pumpjacks, Oil Well Pumps, Decorated Oil Derricks, and Disguised Well Sites of Los Angeles [The Atlantic]
Photo of 1920 W. Alabama St.: Molly Block via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
We’re making a clean sweep of things for the long weekend. How about you? Swamplot will be back on Tuesday for more Houston real estate fun.
Photo of future Elan Heights Apartments: Marc Longoria
And We’re Off
