Hines has confirmed that it’s considering a 20- or 22-story apartment tower for this block in the Museum District. This photo shows the corner of Oakdale and Caroline St., across from the Asia Society Texas Center and a recently cleared corner lot that wouldn’t sell to the Asia Society Texas Center. A source tells Swamplot that 3 of the 4 properties on this block bound by Caroline, San Jacinto, Oakdale, and Southmore have sold to Hines, and that Hines will take those over on July 1.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Gotta get rid of a bunch of overhead underfoot.
Photo of Hwy. 59 at West Loop: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr pool
In a bend of Buffalo Bayou north of Woodway and east of Voss Rd., the building pods of the 1967-vintage Kerry Glen community — built originally as apartments — sit amid the woodland banks. A top level unit with a view of the bayou — or at least the trees surrounding it — appeared as a listing Wednesday, with a $167,500 asking price.
Former San Antonio Spur point guard and former Dallas Mavericks coach Avery “The Little General” Johnson lost his most recent job a few months ago at the helm of the former New Jersey and now Brooklyn Nets — and now his home, built in 2005 in The Woodlands, is for sale. What can a long career in the NBA buy you? Well, this 7-bedroom, 14,396-sq.-ft. Mediterranean mansion is listed at $8,995,000.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: IN THE HEIGHTS, GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD PEDESTRIANS “Front yard fences in the Heights are to keep people from walking through your yard. Many streets do not have sidewalks, and some pedestrians don’t understand that the edge of the yard is where you are supposed to walk. We don’t have a front yard fence due to the city easement, and people have come up almost to the front door going through the yard. It is a little unsettling.” [Janice, commenting on One in a Row Behind the Orange Show]
KICKING OUT THE OLDIES ON WESTHEIMER 
Just a few weeks after a fire took out one resale shop in Montrose, Culturemap reporter Whitney Radley has noticed that another, BJ Oldies and Antiques just a few doors down, is for lease. Radley seems to suspect that this old watch-your-step reliquary is being booted out for yet another new Westheimer restaurant. Whether the foodies are coming won’t be determined until August, though, when antiquarian owner Becky Pieniadz ups and leaves for her new location just down the road at 1726 Westheimer, joining those like-minded retailers next to Empire Café. Still, Pieniadz doesn’t seem thrilled about having to vacate the 8,600-sq.-ft. building where she’s been since 2008 and box all that %&$# up: “The last thing I wanted was to move out of here.” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user emilycovey
UNDER PLAN, ASTRODOME WOULD SLIM DOWN EXTERIOR, SHORTEN UP AND FATTEN INSIDE 
No, the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation’s estimated $194 million plan to convert the Astrodome into a convention center doesn’t call for the roof to be lowered. Though it does call for the installation of scoreboard-sized glass facing each of the cardinal directions, the removal of ramps and those stair silos, and the introduction of roving marquee spotlights (or so this rendering suggests), it appears that the proposal chosen above all other proposals leaves the exterior mostly alone. Inside the iconic stadium, though, it should be a whole new ballgame: About 60,000 seats will be removed and the sunken floor filled in and raised to be level with the ground, creating a wider space that will also feel flatter, since the ceiling would be 175 ft. high, about 33 ft. lower than it is now. You can read and download the plan in full here. [Scribd via Preservation Houston; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: HCSCC
Photo of graffiti art at Houston Food Park at St. Emanuel and Bell by The One Lee and Cease: Ruben S. via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Here it is, the new corporate headquarters that Southwestern Energy is building for itself in Springwoods Village, just south of the new corporate headquarters that ExxonMobil is building for itself. Construction, reports Fuel Fix, began this week. Speculation about the building began in April, though, when a film-noir-ish black-and-white version of this rendering was leaked via HAIF. It appears that the only difference — you know, besides the Oz-like transformation to the realism of color — is the addition of Southwestern Energy signage, including that little formulaic icon to the left. The 10-story building and 7-story garage, where the company will consolidate about 1,000 Houston employees, will occupy 25.6 acres alongside I-45 and should be ready to go in 2014.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GLASS IS HALF FULL — AND BRIGHT RED “I haven’t had any kool aid but it’s hot enough to have some. Rather than be negative, my point was at least it’s Hines. Look at our skyline and all the great buildings are Hines. There are only a handful of developers that build high quality buildings in Houston, rather than the junk most of them do before they go out of business or scoot back to Las Vegas. Rather than be bitter and wish for a bubble, try being positive. It does the soul good. And lastly, if you don’t like what’s being built, why don’t you get all your money together and show us how you could do better! What do you think was in the spot where you currently live or work? Either a virgin lot, or something that was refurbished, or torn down.” [Loves swamplot, commenting Hines Buying Up Museum District Property To Build Highrise Apartments]
The Mirabeau B. condos apartments in Hyde Park take a lot from the city: The sales center, for example, comprised a pair of recycled shipping containers that were powered by the sun. And now atop the building at 2410 Waugh a photovoltaic canopy is hoarding juice for each of the 14 units; cisterns are stealing rainwater that’s then used on the landscaping and rooftop greenery. Even the development’s moniker has been plagiarized. And so it makes a lot of sense that one of the building’s interior features is inspired by something just as local: a transformer box and a snarl of wires. Houston artist Randy Twaddle, for whom power lines have become something of a muse, installed 65 of these gypsum cement tiles in a 7 ft. by 25 ft. wall at the building’s entrance inside its parking garage. Each 40-pound tile, fabricated by Dallas firm Topocast at a lab at UT Arlington, features a 3D reproduction of one of the particularly twisted scenes that Twaddle can’t seem to help noticing.
