- 5010 De Milo Dr. [HAR]
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There’s a sign up for the bank that financed the project, but that’s about it for a large construction project that just got going in Blodgett Park. Crews are digging on the southeast corner of Blodgett and La Branch streets, south of the 59-288 crotch and one block north of MacGregor Elementary. A few 75-year-old duplexes stood on the site until last month.
And they are digging — about 8 ft. deep so far, says reader Seán Murphy, who passed by the site at 1508 Blodgett St. and sent photos of the scene: “They’ve got piles keeping back a make-shift retaining wall up against the adjacent townhomes” (see photo at left). Going into that spot: a 36-unit apartment structure on top of a podium garage. According to permits approved earlier this month, the project is being called The Hampstead.
The Hampstead
- Enterprise Products Partners To Construct World’s Largest Ethane Export Terminal in the Houston Ship Channel [Houston Business Journal]
- CHI St. Luke’s Breaks Ground on $110M Medical Facility in Springwoods Village Near the ExxonMobil Campus [Prime Property]
- Seafood Restaurant Holley’s to Open in July in Former Sushi Raku Space in Midtown [Eater Houston]
- Cupcake Cowgirls Opening Downtown Galveston Location in Early July [Galveston County Daily News]
- Galveston Historical Foundation Includes Mainland Properties on Annual At-Risk List for First Time [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- More Than 40,000 People Moved to Harris County, 21,000 to Fort Bend County from 2012 and 2013; a Quarter of Harris County Growth Came from International Relocations, According to Census Data [Houston Business Journal; Storymap]
- ‘Winds of Change’ Blow Through Houston’s Second Ward [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- The Top 10 Issues Affecting Real Estate in 2014 [Prime Property]
- City Council Delays Vote on Regulations for Services Like Uber, Lyft Until July 30 [Houston Business Journal]
- Officials Working Around the Clock To Clear What They Say is the Most Seaweed They Have Ever Seen [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of George R. Brown service on-ramp demo: Alec Lasar via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Clear Lake laps placidly (at least for now) at the shore of a Mies-inspired home designed in 1974 by Houston architect Edmund Furley and located in Glen Cove (the one in League City, not the one near Houston’s Memorial Park). The waterfront retreat’s undated renovations (top) are attributed to interior designer J. Randall Powers and William Caudell (the still-living designer, not Bill Caudill the late CRS architect). Photos in the property’s listing last week generously tour the interior and grounds, but present just one through-the-gate peek at the home’s front (above). There’s a $4.3 million asking price dangling above the wowza waterside spread, but its $12 annual maintenance fee appears to be a real deal.
Weather Channel
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT HIGHER GAS PRICES COULD MEAN FOR HOUSTON 
“The 64 billion dollar question for Houston is whether the benefits from a spike in gas prices (i.e. increased activity in the energy sector, more jobs, better wages, etc.) would be enough to offset the significant increase in cost of living that would be associated with higher gas prices. I would suspect that it would not as the cost of housing has already put the squeeze on many household budgets already.” [Old School, commenting on New Oil Company Report Holds Out Houston as Shining Example of a ‘Sprawling Metropolis’] Illustration: Lulu
- 6970 Brace St. [HAR]
The folks at Shell may not have known a new campaign was about to kick off declaring Houston to be “The City of No Limits,” but a new report from the oil company on the future of cities around the world certainly helps reinforce a just-as-proud image of our 8,778-square-mile Texas spread. “New Lenses on Future Cities,” one of a series of just-released “scenario” studies sponsored by Shell in conjunction with The Centre for Liveable Cities in Singapore, classifies urban areas around the world into 6 distinct categories based on common features.
Houston, according to the researchers, is too large to be considered one of the Prosperous Communities, and hasn’t earned its way into the Developing Mega-Hubs or Urban Powerhouses clubs. (It certainly doesn’t qualify as an Underprivileged Crowded City or Underdeveloped Urban Centre either) Instead, the report says Houston is a seminal example of a Sprawling Metropolis, proudly featuring it on some accompanying infographics illustrating the archetype (see the green square above). (Other members of this distinctive group of 41 cities include Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, and Los Angeles.)
‘No Limits’ for a High Energy City
- Houston Home Sales Were Down 7.3% in May as Prices Reach Record Highs [Tom Plant’s Houston Real Estate Blog]
- Brazoria in Talks To Bring New Water Park Within City Limits [Houston Chronicle]
- Caldwell Developing 250K SF Retail Project at Towne Lake in Cypress Anchored by a Kroger [Houston Business Journal]
- Katy Residents Fear Planned Walmart on Westheimer Pkwy. at Falcon Landing Will Bring Congestion, Crime [Click2Houston]
- Bosta, First of Balcor Hospitality’s 2 Dining Concepts Going into Parc Binz, Set To Open Thursday [Food Chronicles; previously on Swamplot]
- H-Town StrEATs Owners Launch Kickstarter for Upcoming Heights Doughnut Shop [Eater Houston; Kickstarter; previously on Swamplot]
- Teen Who Vandalized Shuttle Replica at Space Center Houston Ordered To Write Letters of Apology [Click2Houston]
- ‘Volunteer’ Tomatoes and Herbs Attack Clear Lake [Centerpointe Communicator]
- Why Renters Are Ending Up in the Suburbs [CityLab]
Photo of renovations of the former Texaco Building at 1111 Rusk St.: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
- 8045 Turquoise Ln. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ROOMS IN THE OLD RICE HOTEL HAVE BEEN SHUFFLED AROUND A BIT 
“Jim is absolutely correct. The Old Capitol Club was adjacent to The Flag Room, on the first floor. The Flag Room space is now Sambuca. A little internet sleuthing pulls up a dining room shot of some built in booths surrounding structural columns that now frame the stage at Sambuca.” [Josh, commenting on The Rice Hotel’s Storied State Bar, a Favorite Among Lawyers, Will Soon Turn into a Lawless Kitchen] Illustration: Lulu
If the Greater Houston Partnership is eager to include some exhibits or animated GIFs to go along with the video footage of cars driving through imaginary barriers, shiny skyscrapers, and smiling people that pepper its new campaign celebrating Houston as The City of No Limits, it might want to look at the work of California computational biologist [and former Houstonian and longtime Swamplot reader] Ian Rees. Using data from the American Community Survey, Rees mapped structures in the region by the decade they were built, grading their concentration with varying shades of blue.  The result helps us visualize the decades-long march of Houston housing ever outward. His map, shown above, was featured in a series of articles on the Next City website on urban sprawl, a few of which compare Houston’s growth to those of other major U.S. cities.
Unfortunately, the data (and the dancing blue construction hotspots) stop in 2010, and we’re left to ourselves to wonder whether Houston is still on track to continue its now-officially-enshrined core mission. An earlier version of Rees’s map breaks out the last recent decade into 2 separate frames, helping to illustrate the scale and sequence of the more recent Inner Loop construction revival:
See How We’ve Sprawled
LUCKY BURGER FLOATS ON 
And there it is, like a floating keg tossed into the water after a decades-long cookout: the empty hull of Lucky Burger. It all seems a bit forlorn, writes the Swamplot reader who sent in this photo of the tapped-out fast-food joint at the corner of Richmond and Mandell. A for-lease banner from the property’s landlord, Braun Enterprises, now covers the painted-on Lucky Burger sign on the side of the barrel. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
