Awards
12/10/13 2:45pm

Best Demolition: The Official 2013 Ballot

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They’re gone, but not forgotten.

Our second category of the 2013 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate aims to determine what was, exactly, this year’s Best Demolition?

Thanks to your help, we’ve compiled a list of potential candidates. With some more help — in the form of your votes — we can pick the winner. Before you vote, ask yourself this: Should this category commemorate the best act of demolition, the removal that produced the best results, or the best building that happened to be torn down?

The voting rules for this year’s Swampies are posted here, but they’re not that complicated: You can vote in this category through each of 4 methods: in a comment below, in an email to Swamplot, on Twitter, or on Swamplot’s Facebook page. If you’ve got a favorite candidate, start a campaign! And don’t forget to add why you’re voting for that particular nominee. The polls close for all categories at 5 pm on December 27th.

Without further, um . . . adieu, let’s knock out the nominees for Best Demolition of 2013, shall we?

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The 2013 Swampies
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Featured Posts
12/10/13 12:00pm

ExxonMobil Setting Up a Separate Second New Campus for Itself — in The Woodlands

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Rendering of Proposed Developments at Hughes Landing, The Woodlands, Texas

Yes, ExxonMobil has been constructing an enormous new 20-building corporate campus on 386 acres near the intersection of I-45 and the new Grand Parkway, where it plans to consolidate approximately 17,000 employees from several Houston-area and out-of-state locations. But the oil company is apparently planning a bit of a move in the opposite direction at the same time. It now has plans to lease more than 480,000 sq. ft. in 2 new office buildings in a new separate “satellite campus” 7 miles north. This won’t be a contrasting urban setting for workers seeking something similar to the company’s longtime Downtown Houston tower. It’ll be in Hughes Landing (pictured above), the new mixed-use development on the shores of Lake Woodlands in The Woodlands.

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When 386 Acres Is Not Enough
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Headlines
12/10/13 8:30am

Carving The Groves Out of Humble Forest; Karbach Brewery Expands

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60th Floor, JPMorgan Chase Tower, Downtown Houston

Photo of Sky Lobby, JPMorgan Chase Tower: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool

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12/09/13 3:15pm

Turning On the Brights in a $225K Shearn Cottage

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2008-shearn-01

2008-shearn-06

It measures only 768 sq. ft., but a brightly painted 1930 home trims out its few rooms and doles them out in squared-off 12-ft. increments. The aquatic property is in the Shearn subdivison, located a block south of the Heights Hike-and-Bike trail and up the street from the back of Crockett Elementary’s campus. (Spring Street Studios is also nearby.) The little cottage’s entirety would likely fit inside the footprint of one of the towering townhome units cropping up nearby; waves of redevelopment are drawing nearer. Over the weekend, the property’s relisting by a new agency dropped the price to $224,000;  an initial listing in August 2013 got the ball rolling at $237,900. Will a wrecking ball be next?

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A Little House That Might
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Awards
12/09/13 1:30pm

Favorite Houston Design Cliché: The Official 2013 Ballot

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Ripped and culled from your submissions, here they are: the official nominees in the first category of the sixth annual Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. That would be Favorite Houston Design Cliché. Thanks to all of you who contributed! These awards wouldn’t happen without you.

Here’s the cool thing about voting: You can do so up to 4 times in this category (and in each of the others too) — by leaving a comment in the post, by sending us an email, expressing your preference on Twitter or Facebook. Each will count as a vote — as long as you follow the voting guidelines. Oh, and don’t just tell us which choice you’re voting for, tell us why!

Here are the nominees for favorite design cliché around hereabouts:

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The 2013 Swampies
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Landscape
12/09/13 12:15pm

Soaking It Up in Texas

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SOAKING IT UP IN TEXAS Piano Pavilion at Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TexasBack in Texas for the grand opening of his new “pavilion” for the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth — a design the institution liked so much they decided to name the building after its architect — the loquacious Renzo Piano has a few comments for Dallas writer Betsy Lewis about the Houston landscape: “You may be used to the light in Texas, but it’s a special light. It’s brilliant, stronger than usual. I remember actually one of the first things we did when I came in ’80, Dominique de Menil told me, ‘I want to go to Israel because I’ve been told that Israel is the same light as Texas.’ I don’t know why she said that. By the way, it was not true. But it is true that Israel has a strong light. But in Texas it’s also because of the latitude, because of the absence of mountains, and the clouds and the nature. Nature is also very spatial. It’s flat. When you plant a tree in Texas, it grows up. It’s a real forest. That there’s something in the water in Texas is probably true. Sometimes people believe that countries are different because of funny trees, but anyway . . . There’s something in the water as well. I’m joking. I’m talking about the water table. But anyway things are special in Texas.” [Glasstire] Photo of Piano Pavilion, Fort Worth: Glasstire

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Awards
12/09/13 11:00am

Voting for the Swamplot Awards Begins Today

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Last night nominations closed at midnight for the first 2 of the 8 categories in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: Favorite Houston Design Cliché and Best Demolition. Later today, we’ll kick off the voting when we announce the official nominees for the first of those categories. After that, through this week and part of the next, we’ll work our way through the rest of the categories in sequence, announcing the official nominees and opening the voting for each, one by one.

For the categories for which nominations have not closed, though, we still need your help. Take a look at the suggestions posted in the comments sections of the 6 remaining categories (all the categories are listed here). If you find anything missing, please add your nominations now! If you think you can improve on any of the explanations already submitted, please do so. Or if you see a nomination without any explanation at all, please add a good one! Got photos of any of the nominees? Please send them!

The deadline for nominations in the next 2 categories — Best Houston Transplant and the Ground-Floor Retail Award — is midnight tonight. 

The 2013 Swampies
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Demolitions
12/09/13 10:15am

Here Are the Videos You’ve Been Looking for of Last Night’s Astrodome Launch Failure

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After the countdown Sunday night at 9:30 pm, blasts went off on 3 of the 4 booster towers surrounding the Houston Astrodome. But there was no liftoff. As the towers collapsed into dusty piles moments later, it became clear: The blasts would not be enough to propel the Dome off its foundation and into outer space. They’ll have to find another way.

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No Liftoff
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Headlines
12/09/13 8:30am

Filling the Katy Prairie with Houses; Metro North Line Sneak Peek

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Downtown construction skyline

Photo of SkyHouse Houston construction Downtown: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool

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Featured Posts
12/06/13 2:30pm

Flushing Away Allen Stanford’s Legacy at 5050 Westheimer

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FLUSHING AWAY ALLEN STANFORD’S LEGACY AT 5050 WESTHEIMER Former Headquarters of Stanford Financial Group, 5050 Westheimer Rd., HoustonNoting the extensive changes to the office building at 5050 Westheimer across the street from the Galleria that once served as headquarters for the Stanford Financial Group but has since been taken over completely by real estate firm Keller Williams, Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon zeroes in on the big news: “Stanford’s gigantic personal bathroom is gone.” Reuters reporter Chris Baltimore described the rarely seen first-floor spectacle back in 2009, after an exclusive crime-scene tour, as “a chamber of black granite and mahogany, with a gigantic mirror and granite countertop, flanked with shelves of fluffy white towels and toiletries, including a bottle of ‘Brilliant Brunette’ shampoo.” Notable features: the separate black-toilet room, the huge walk-in shower, and the blank door next to it which served as Sir Allen’s private escape route to the parking deck. Stanford’s entire personal magnet-key-access-only first-floor domain has now been replaced by the offices of KW-affiliated lender and title companies; the Gensler redo of the building has kept some of the green marble but added some red walls, replacing stone-carved messages like Stanford’s HARD WORK, CLEAR VISION, VALUE for the CLIENT with “inspirational and wacky sayings like ‘Complaining=garbage magnet.'” [Real Estate Bisnow; Reuters; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Flushed
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