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This latest rendering of the global headquarters that Phillips 66 plans to build in Westchase during the next few years doesn’t seem all that different from an earlier one published on Swamplot in June — except it comes from CEO Greg Garland and was shared with Houston-area employees this morning in an email. Additionally, Garland’s message says that construction could begin by the end of the year on the 14.2-acre campus just north of Westheimer along the Beltway 8 feeder. After the jump you can see a pair of floor plans included with the rendering that show some of the planned amenities, like a dining room, coffee shop, fitness center, and Grab-and-Go:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ASHBY HIGHRISE, LIKE A ROCKET 
“I think the Yao Ming reference is a show of support for the project. Like Ming, the Ashby Highrise will be a highly valued source of inspiration for the commoners in its shadow. I’m glad people are finally coming together on this.” [Alec, commenting on New Ashby Highrise Fence Graffiti Talks Hoops, Holdups] Illustration: Lulu
On a site just west of where Hines says it is considering building a 17-story office tower and where Randall Davis is building 10 more condos just south of River Oaks on San Felipe, builders Rohe & Wright say they are going to put up these 10 townhomes. The Saint Honoré development is planned to stand right next to the Winfield Gate townhomes — also built by Rohe & Wright — on a property bound by San Felipe, Welch, and Revere. Ranging from 5,000 sq. ft. to 7,800 sq. ft., each 3-story, 4-bedroom home would sit atop a below-ground floor that comes with built-in suggestions for what to do with it, including (but not, of course, limted to) “golf simulator, caretaker’s quarters, wine cellar, home theater, fitness gym, gala room, safe room or space for a car collection.” They’re starting at $2.2 million.
WHAT HOUSTON’S GROCER GROWTH MIGHT MEAN FOR RANDALL’S 
Real Estate Bisnow predicts that in the next year and a half as many as 60 new retail centers anchored by grocery stores will pop up in the Houston area. And not only are the stores proliferating, reports Catie Dixon, they’re getting larger: Many of these new buildings will balloon to 100,000 sq. ft. While national chains like Aldi, Trader Joe’s, Sprouts, and Fresh Market are being introduced to Houston, regional ones like H-E-B are expanding. Of course, adds Dixon, this means that there might be a loser: “Baker Katz/X Team International partner Jason Baker [says that] all this grocer competition will cause fallout — for example, he tells us there’s a strong rumor that Randall’s won’t be around much longer.” [Real Estate Bisnow; previously on Swamplot] Photo of closed Flagship Randall’s at 1407 S. Voss Rd.: Allyn West
Here’s another of the occasional photos a reader sends of the construction progress of the Whole Foods at the mixed-use BLVD Place just north of the Galleria. Thanks to the photos that span almost a year now, you can watch the development develop here at the intersection of San Felipe and Post Oak Blvd.: Witness the preliminary site work beginning last August to the installation of piers and rebar in October and the rising of the parking structure in February. So what else is new? That parking structure appears just about ready, and even more dirt has been moved around — where those cars are parked in the foreground — for the proposed Hanover apartment tower.
- BLVD Place coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
A 60-year-old home by Houston architect Wylie W. Vale (above) makes demolition news in Briarcroft, plus a few other domestic put-downs.
- Springwoods Village Town Center Moving Dirt Around [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Galveston Installs Interactive Street Signs in Tourist Areas [KUHF]
- City Ramping Up Program To Calm Neighborhood Traffic with More Speed Bumps [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- As Houston’s Critical Mass Bike Rides Grow, So Do Motorists’ Complaints [KUHF]
- Despite Recent Rains, Most of Southeast Texas in Severe to Extreme Drought [Click2Houston]
- UT Spends $2.7 Million To Create New Program To Study How To Rid Texas of Invasive Species [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Antique Warehouse Owners Find Traces of Galveston’s Prostitution Past in Old Oleander Hotel [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Rice University Gets Latest Public Art Piece with Installation of Six-Ton Sculpture [Glasstire]
Photo of Lay Plaza Park at 1900 White Oak: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Some of the green that goes with this early player in energy-conscious home building in Bellaire could be the $200,000 price increase over its sale last July, when it went for $1.35 million. The ca. 2002 limestone-and-stucco property with Texas Hill Country stylin’ — designed back then for her own family by architect Kathleen Reardon — popped back up on the market earlier this week with a $1.55 million asking price. Some of the enviro-sensitive elements are visible from the get-go, such as the deep overhangs on the eaves. Others are buried deep in the lot — where a network of caverns 250-ft. deep use underground temperatures to regulate the air conditioning and heating. Solar panels and low-water landscaping also play the green card.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WITH A BULLDOZER AND A PUBLIC WORKS BUDGET, YOU TOO CAN WORK MAGIC! 
“Maybe we’re the only folks that would consider watching such a show, but it would be interesting if one of the networks would create an Extreme Makeover: Cityscape Edition. Imagine if Peter Park were given a TV show size budget for each episode to improve the urban blueprint of a small area such as this. Think of how such a show could change our nation’s perception and understanding of our cities.” [Thomas, commenting on Why the Sidewalk at the Washington Ave Five Guys Burgers Isn’t Walkable] Illustration: Lulu
So the site where the 21-story Ashby Highrise is going up appears to have been cleared now of the Maryland Manor apartments and bordered with a nice new fence, which appears to have been freshly tagged with some carefully considered —Â commentary? The reader who sends these photos suspects that the all-caps shout-outs to 2 of Houston’s most well-known towers showed up early this morning
- Ashby Highrise coverage [Swamplot]
Photos: Swamplot inbox
KEEPING ONE MONTROSE TREE IN RESERVE 
The developer of those spur-side homes planned for this Westmoreland lot between Marshall and W. Alabama St. says that the old live oak shown in the photo isn’t going anywhere. In fact, Arpan Gupta tells Swamplot that a 1,410-sq.-ft. reserve area — as one commenter notes on the site plan — is being established around the tree’s “drip line” to set aside a park that not just the homeowners will be allowed to use. Additionally, explains Gupta, architecture firm Knudson and tree service Arbor Care have both been employed to take protective measures — mulching, fertilizing, fencing, etc. — during the “stress of construction.” [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
Once the scrap pile is cleared, Hanover will begin building a 12-story residential tower on this site near Rice Village. The demolition started yesterday to get rid of the aging Village Apartments facing Tangley and the Garden Gate facing Morningside; these properties share the block bound as well by Dunstan and Kelvin with the Village Commons restaurants. And that might be why — unlike its shorter predecessor on the other side of Dunstan, which you can see looming in the background in the photo above — this proposed tower isn’t planned to have any street-level retail. A notice sent earlier this year to Southampton residents suggests that it will have about 200 units.
Struggling to make themselves heard above the whoosh of traffic along the Washington Corridor, Better Houston’s Pedestrian Pete (a.k.a. one-time mayoral candidate Peter Brown) and visiting Harvard prof and city planner Peter Park take a very short stroll in this recently uploaded video. Their objective? To lament the guy wires, utility poles, and other hindrances for would-be pedestrians on the few feet of sidewalk they traverse in front of Five Guys Burgers and Fries and Buffalo Wild Wings in this strip center near Leverkuhn at 3939 Washington.
- Improvements Along Wash Ave [Pedestrian Pete]
Video: Pedestrian Pete
