Two days after Swamplot reported the local-tech-nerd-soul-crushing rumor that Amegy Bank has purchased the Post Oak Park–West Loop site of computer retailer Micro Center, a few new and possibly conflicting (but maybe not) pieces of information have emerged about a possible deal. Yesterday, in response to a reader question posted on the Micro Center Facebook page, the company posted what at first appears to be an outright denial of the rumor:
Mimicking the pipe-wrench-jaw-like multistory balcony near the top of BG Group Place (seen in blocky form at right in the rendering above), there’ll a tree-toothed notch carved into the eastern edge of the top floors of the just-unveiled design for 6 Houston Center. But this new $250 million spec office tower won’t just be a little more roughly cut than its neighbor — it’ll be a bit shorter, too. The 30-story structure is planned for the block surrounded by Rusk, Walker, Caroline, and San Jacinto streets, directly north of the LyondellBasell Tower at 1 Houston Center, on what’s currently a surface parking lot.
Photo of the Fred Hartman Bridge: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
59 FEEDER ROAD CONSTRUCTION WITHOUT END 
“Why is there always construction on the feeders between Weslayan and Kirby especially when it seemed like nothing needed to be done?” writes a Swamplot reader, who is under the impression that the work started sometime last summer. “It looks like they are only redoing the road, not adding sewers, nor laying power lines, and doesn’t seem to making it wider. One side is done and then they come back and do the other side! . . . I hope you can find out why they are tearing up a perfectly good feeder road.” Alas, doing so would spoil the chance to indulge in the fantasy of having encountered along the Southwest Fwy. a truly eternal feeder-road replacement cycle. We’ll illustrate that here with the above photo from earlier today of a fresh concrete placement (with shopping cart) on the north side feeder just west of Kirby Dr. Update, 2/27: Clever reader JD finds an actual report outlining the scope of the reconstruction project from last year posted in an obscure online publication. Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RENT VS. RE-BUY DECISION 
“I once rented a self storage unit. My wife (then girlfriend) and I were condensing from two apartments to one. After a year and a half of paying the rental fee, I did the math. For what I had paid on the storage unit, I could have bought, brand new, everything I was storing in it. So we ended up emptying the unit and tossing whatever we didn’t immediately have use for. Bottom line, the storage unit was some of the worst money I’ve spent in my entire life. I suspect that’s often the case.” [Walt, commenting on Old Prince’s Hamburger Sign Is Leaving North Shepherd for Points Even Further North] Illustration: Lulu
A collection of a couple dozen or so bungalows along E. 31st 1/2 St. between Yale and Cortlandt in Independence Heights just a block or so north of the 610 Loop is the city’s newest historic district — and perhaps the one with the most colorful name: Starkweather. The subdividing of the neighborhood predates the establishment of Independence Heights as an actual independent city in 1915, but most of the homes were built between the late 1920s (when the city was annexed by Houston) and the 1940s. They were originally marketed to the African American community in the neighborhood. Here’s a map:
NEW LOCAL FOODS IN FORMER TACO MILAGRO ON KIRBY AT WESTHEIMER KINDA ALMOST READY TO OPEN SOON 
The project manager from homebuilder Frasier Homes busy turning the interior of the shuttered patio-fronting Taco Milagro space at 2555 Kirby Dr. into a second location for Benjy Levit’s upscale sandwich shop Local Foods tells Eater Houston’s Darla Guillen that construction will likely be complete in a couple of weeks. How long after that before it opens for duck confit and falafel on wheat? “Shouldn’t be too far behind that completion date,” Guillen says an employee tells her. But we’re guessing they’ll take down the old Taco signage outside before then. Photos snapped of the corner shopping center space’s innards show a completed serving counter with display case and some colorful banquettes. The first Local Foods took over the former Antone’s space in the Rice Village in 2011. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Eater Houston
Taking away a big number on Montrose, and these little numbers around town:
Photo of yesterday’s demolition of Westcreek Apartments, 2021 Westcreek Ln.: Jack Miller
How do you feel about Houston’s airborne cancer hotspots? That’s easy! Just pick up a copy of the latest issue of Cite magazine and run your fingers over the top of it: Cite 93‘s front cover has been embossed with a map diagramming the area’s cancer risk. The places where airborne toxins mapped by the EPA are most prevalent are in the pits.
The mapped information here isn’t exactly fresh — it’s from the 2005 National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, and the data only account for airborne known-cancer-causing toxins that are tracked by the EPA. Though it’s posted online, the map version isn’t exactly easy to find. But bravely thumbing his nose at Houston’s proud and longstanding tradition of hush-hushing location-based cancer hazards, Cite editor Raj Mankad gives Swamplot readers the secret recipe for finding the browsable map:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO BUILD A NEIGHBORHOOD MOAT WITH DEED RESTRICTIONS 
“Instead of throwing lawsuits around, the people in River Oaks should start a Buy Protect Sell program. Buy pieces of land around their subdivision as they come up for sale. Protect those pieces of land by putting restrictive covenants on them (height regulations in particular, since their concern has been the proliferation of high rises in their area). Then sell the properties with the restrictions in place.
B/P/S has been used for about a decade by environmentalists elsewhere in the country. It could be used to preserve the low-rise character around a neighborhood. The drawback is that it can be costly for poorer neighborhoods, but River Oaks could well afford it.” [ZAW, commenting on Neighbors File Suit To Stop Hines San Felipe Tower; Silo Sightseeing] Illustration: Lulu
The self-proclaimed “industry insider” behind a new office-space rumor website tells Swamplot that it’s “well-known . . . amongst the tenant/landlord representative crowd” that Amegy Bank has purchased the 4.13-acre site at 1717 West Loop South just north of San Felipe that’s currently home to Houston’s only Micro Center store. The owner and would-be seller of the property, according to county tax records, is the Ohio-based parent company of the 47,800-sq.-ft. computer and electronics store, which has been operating in that location since 1994. There is only one other Micro Center location in Texas.
