- 1602 Ainsdale Dr. [HAR]
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A variance to reduce the setback from Caroline and Truxillo was recently approved, clearing the way for this 2-story film studio to go up in Midtown. Dubbed Buffalo Studios, the CONTENT-designed building will sit on a 5,630-sq.-ft. lot at the southeast corner of Caroline and Truxillo, which appears to be currently occupied by a warehouse. The proposed site is catty-corner from the former Houston Light Guard Armory, now open as the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, a block south of HCC and just around the corner from the proposed site of Retrospect Coffee, the cafe and wine bar being built out at that abandoned gas station on La Branch.
MAYOR PARKER ENCOURAGES NEIGHBORHOOD GROUPS INTO LAWN MOWING BUSINESS 
It’s worked for parents — why not the city? A new program will pay civic groups and nonprofit organizations $75 a pop to keep up overgrown lots abandoned by property owners in their neighborhoods. Mayor Parker announced the so-called Mow-Down Initiative yesterday in the Third Ward. How’s it gonna work? First, the city will come in with tractors and run over the big stuff, and then residents will take over, KUHF reports: “[Mayor Parker] says 100 lots around Houston will be included in the program to start, and she expects the city will save thousands of dollars in maintenance costs by engaging civic groups instead of hiring contractors.” Another nonprofit, Keep Houston Beautiful, says it will provide lawnmowers, trimmers, and other equipment for the work, free of charge. [KUHF] Photo of lot in East End: Allyn West
I only regret that I have but one garage to give to this hungry excavator.
- City Issued $5.7B in Building Permits Over Last 12 Months [Prime Property]
- Dr Pepper Snapple Group Closing Spring Facility [Houston Business Journal]
- Downtown’s Little Dipper Set To Open by End of This Month [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Liberty Kitchen Now Open in Former Vida Tex-Mex Spot on San Felipe [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Galleria-Area Residents Worried About Construction Styrofoam Blowing onto Their Property [abc13]
- Hermann Park Has Secured 6 of 9 Art Pieces To Be Installed Next Year [Houston Chronicle ($)]
Photo of the Beer Can House at 222 Malone St.: Molly Block via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A DOME’S RANSOM 
“The problem isn’t that anti-Domers only think about money, it’s that pro-Domers won’t consider it at all. Would you ever tell your mechanic ‘I love my car so much, there’s no amount of money I wouldn’t spend to keep it forever’? No, because that’s an invitation to get swindled — the mechanic knows he can do all sorts of unnecessary work that the actual value of the car doesn’t justify. You’ll end up paying more, which will make it less likely that you’ll actually be able to afford to keep that car forever.
Same thing with the Dome; a lot of people are shouting ‘we’ll keep the Dome at any cost!’ What do you know, along comes a very expensive, not very practical plan for a convention center no one needs. How long will that last before the next person comes along and says the convention center is too old, and we have to spend more money or tear it down?
If you really want to save the Dome, grow a backbone and say that there are limits to how much Houston taxpayers should pour into it; that’s when you’ll get a plan that benefits the community enough to be sustainable. Otherwise you are just keeping the hostage alive until the next payment is due, and that can’t go on forever.” [Alec, commenting on It’s Like a Billboard. On Wheels. For the Astrodome.] Illustration: Lulu
And 4 more blocks to go: Site work began last week here in East Downtown to chunk up the pavement into such tidy piles and clear the way for that 5-block pedestrian path known as the EaDo Promenade. These photos show what the very north end of the path, at McKinney and Bastrop St. a block south of BBVA Compass Stadium, looks like, as of yesterday:
- 1627 Fawnhope Dr. [HAR]
Just north of the Katy Fwy. at Park Row and Park Ten Blvd., construction is underway on Park Ten Center. The 301,932-sq.-ft. complex will comprise a pair of 3-story office buildings designed by O’Brien Architecture out of Dallas. Developed by Lincoln Property and Stonelake, the 150,966-sq.-ft. buildings are being built mostly on spec: Only 1 tenant, and an undisclosed one to boot, has signed on. Houston Business Journal reports that the complex will occupy the Energy Corridor property where a cluster of smaller industrial buildings were demolished back in June.
These elevations show the Kroger Marketplace that’s under construction inside the Towne Lake master-planned community in Northwest Houston. The new 120,000-sq.-ft. grocery store, which will sell home goods, jewelry, and clothes, too, will be located in the so-called “commons area” of Towne Lake at the intersection of Barker Cypress and Tuckerton. Says Fred Caldwell, the developer of Towne Lake, about the new store: “[It] will have an architectural design similar to a Texas Hill Country look. It will be a lot different than the traditional grocery store people see.”
Here are some pics of the rail-ridin’ townhouses Urban Living is developing in East Downtown. These gated 2-story, 2- and 3-bedroom homes crowd in on the lot bound by Lamar, Roberts, and the Southeast Line, which curves away here from the Columbia Tap bike trail and veers toward Scott St.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
We’ll be running down this list. Please say “absent” when we reach your name.
- North Restaurant Newest Tenant To Lease Space at BLVD Place [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot]
- Aldi Now Opening Kemah Store on November 7 [Prime Property]
- Imperial Sugar Land To Unveil Designs for Its ‘Custom-Style’ Homes at Constellation Field This Saturday [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot]
- Comparing Hines’ San Felipe Office Tower to Ashby Highrise ‘Apples to Oranges’ [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- City of Galveston May Take Over Downtown Parking [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- New Rice University Installation Provides an Appreciation of Houston’s ‘Seemingly Ugly Landscape’ [Houston Chronicle]
- Why Texas Is Our Future [Time Magazine ($)]
- Were Brutalist Buildings on College Campuses Designed To Thwart Student Riots? [Slate]
Photo of Jamail Skate Park: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Haven’t decided yet what you think should happen to the Astrodome? The preservation-minded folks at Our Astrodome hope that seeing this 26-ft. bedazzled semi just might do the trick. Starting Monday and running up to the elections on November 5, when voters will decide whether to approve — or not, and, as most suspect, doom the Dome to a more thorough demolition than what’s already happening — that $217 bond measure that would fund a renovation of the stadium into convention space, the tricked-out Dome Mobile will be rolling around town to spread the word about Proposition 2 and the world’s first domed stadium.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE BRICK CANVAS 
“Does anyone have a strong opinion on painting brick? We have an old complex that’s brick. Normally, if it hasn’t been painted I don’t like to paint it. But this brick is different colors (style of brick I guess) on each of the 3 building and it’s pretty ugly.
I’ve debated painting it but I’m not sure if I’ll regret it and, as a second concern, I suck at picking colors so I don’t know what I would paint it.” [Cody, commenting on An Old Home for New Art in Hyde Park] Illustration: Lulu
