Open water is one lot away from this 1996 resort-style contemporary home on one of Tiki Island’s knuckle-ended land nubs that protect the tiny coastal community’s interior canals. That gives the peninsula property a vista beyond (and at) neighbors across the pond. The home has double-decker vantage points and 170 ft. of waterfront. But boats aren’t the only amenity floating around the property.
Sure, set your sights on these small fry, but there’s no telling what we could blow up if we put our minds to it.
Photo of 5511 Griggs Rd.: Cody Lutsch
Someday, your Prince’s (hamburgers sign) will go. If you hail from the kingdom of the Heights, today appears to be that day. Swamplot reader Rachelle Varnon sends in the above photo, taken just a short while ago, of the old N. Shepherd Prince’s Hamburgers sign as it sits, mounted on a royal coach for a northern journey. “I saw a bucket truck by the old sign [pictured at left] at 15th and North Shepherd today on my way to lunch,” she writes. “By the time we returned, the sign was down.”
Where’s it headed?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO BUILD A SUBWAY IN HOUSTON 
“A subway WILL work in Houston, albeit at a significantly higher cost. I’m a civil engineer who builds tunnels, nationwide. They’re not even significantly more expensive in Houston than elsewhere. Tunnels in LA, NY, Chicago, Montreal, London etc all have to deal with bedrock — which is very expensive to tunnel through. Instead, Houston uses open-cut excavation and massive soil amendments + ground water pumping to tunnel. For example — the depressed portions of US-59 from Shepherd to Montrose (or the depressed portion of Beltway 8 from Boheme to I-10) are essentially a tunnel with no roof because they’re lower than the bayou and the ground water table; it took expensive soil amendments and pumps to build that, the same as a subway. Our commuter rail tunnel projects in LA are bidding for between $18M-$20M per mile of track, while the at-grade portions are only about $4M per mile. We consistently find that tunnels cost about 4x-5x as much as at-grade track. Meanwhile, elevated track costs roughly $25M a mile (6x at-grade costs). . . .” [Ornlu, commenting on Comment of the Day: How About a Rail Line Along the Bayou?] Illustration: Lulu
Online arts publication Glasstire is reporting that Rice University’s public-affairs office has confirmed plans to demolish the University’s most famous metal-sided structure. Known since the mid-1980s as the School of Continuing Studies Speros P. Martel Building, the southern half of the 45-year-old duo was dubbed the “Art Barn,” and was originally home to the Rice Museum, a predecessor to the Menil Collection.
John and Dominique de Menil paid for the construction of both corrugated buildings in 1969, and selected the architects, Howard Barnstone and Eugene Aubry. The structures were created to house Rice’s art and art history departments, along with the de Menils’ Institute for the Arts, which the couple moved from the University of St. Thomas after a dispute with that institution. The de Menils later left Rice to start their own little Menil Collection in Montrose. The simple, unassuming design of the structures they left behind became the inspiration and model for a series of “Tin Houses” —Â Galvalume-clad homes designed by Houston architects primarily in the West End and Rice Military area.
LATEST EXPLETIVE-LADEN, LANDLORD-BLAMING, BAR-CLOSING TIRADE COMES FROM THE USUAL 
Cottage Grove lesbian bar The Usual shut down its patio-by-the-railroad-tracks location last week, and marked the occasion with a Facebook announcement declaring enough was enough: “We planned on remodeling but our landlord refused to pay for all the roofing and electrical needs (as most of you know was much needed) . . . we decided to say fuck it and we will do it and make The Usual look better than ever . . . but then we got news that our renewal would double our rent and our landlord is such a dick he knows we can’t afford that and he is so greedy and wanting to sell the property and could not because we were still there, he knew he had to get us out . . . well . . . we fought and fought but unfortunately had to make the decision to move . . . we will be absent for a short while but will return soon and can’t wait to see all of you!” A mysterious post on Yelp from a first-time reviewer points to an alternative — or perhaps additive — explanation for the sudden closing of the bar at 5519 Allen St., facing onto T.C. Jester: a TABC license that had expired at the end of last November. A more recent Facebook posting declares The Usual is “On the hunt for our NEW location!!! Only going bigger and better!!” [The Usual on Facebook, via Culturemap] Photo: LoopNet
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Clearing some strip-center and feeder-road denizens to make way for a new Alexan, and other tales of local sacrifice:
Photo of Kemah Boardwalk marina: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
CAN YOU HELP US GET PAST 3K? Thank you to all of those who took the opportunity on the Monday holiday to step up your involvement with Swamplot a notch by liking us on Facebook. So now it’s the weekend and we’re finding ourselves just a bit shy of 3,000 Facebook likers. Er, followers — that sounds better. If you haven’t signed on already, can you help us past that milestone? All you need to do is click on the blue button in the box at left — the one that says “Like.” Thousands of Houston real estate fans will like you for doing so — and we will too.
The 1998 transformation of a former auto shop on Washington Ave to the 9-unit Lopresti Lofts was a bit of a quirky redo. McGregor Real Estate Group gave the building a mash-up of infill materials, various porch-balcony-terrace views of downtown, and a piggyback stucco-faced addition topped by roof flaps saluting crisply above each unit (top). The amalgamation sits right across across the street from the gated entry of peaceful, park-like Glenwood Cemetery. A corner unit (in the building, not the graveyard) listed last week but quickly dropped its asking price by $20K to $370,000. Inside (above), lots of tubing ties together 4 levels of wide, somewhat open, sometimes high gallery space . . .
We’re counting no fewer than 5 construction cranes in this view looking east along the north side of I-10 from N. Eldridge Pkwy. But what’s that one-story building going up in the center of the photo on the north side of the I-10 feeder, south of Shell’s Woodcreek campus and east of ConocoPhillips, on N. Dairy Ashford? It’s a new daycare facility for Shell.
Photo: David Elizondo
A few Swamplot readers have been sending in pics of the “Stop Historic Districts” yard signs that have been up in the First Ward for the last few weeks, the vast majority of which — at our readers’ report — have shown a remarkable affinity for lots owned by real-estate firm Urban Living or its affiliates. The signs (including the one on Crockett St. between White and Silver shown above)Â have given voice to the otherwise silent former sites of older First Ward building stock, as they jettison their former inhabitants to make room for larger, glitzier, and generally taller new construction.
