Let’s put an end to these:
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- Metro Buys 70 New 60-Ft. Long Articulated Buses in Attempt to Increase Ridership [KUHF]
- More Gateway Memorial City Project Details [Houston Business Journal]
- Galveston Vague About Start Date for Seawall Parking [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Oily Substance Spotted on 2.5 Miles of Galveston Beach [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Mayor Parker on Houston Changing from ‘Redneck White City’ to ‘Boomtown’ [Wall Street Journal via Houston Chronicle]
- Houston’s Super Bowl Bid Looks Quite Different From When City Last Hosted the Game in 2004 [KUHF]
Photo of Audi dealership at Greenbriar and 59: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
“There’s a lot that’s recently been cleared immediately behind the Asia Society,” reports a reader. You know the one, at the corner of Oakdale and Caroline St.? The one whose owners refused to sell, forcing Asia Society architect Yoshio Taniguchi to design around it? Where there was that 1930s vine-covered home being used as a doctor’s office that was supposed to be sold and renovated into a restaurant, but never was?
Well, in February, 5219 Caroline appeared in the Daily Demolition Report. And this photo taken from the median shows what the site looks like now. The reader continues:
All of the neighbors have questioned who owns the property and what is to happen to it. According to HCAD it appeared to be owned by Balcor, the company behind the rather unpopular Parc Binz. . . . We’re wondering if the Asia Society is trying to buy the land . . . [T]he neighbors who live in the town homes across from Asia Society have complained that the social events held on site tend to be quite loud, quite late. Overall, the neighborhood couldn’t be happier to have this organization in its bounds. And, if they were to own that land, if only they’d open a little gourmet coffee shop. That would please hundreds of people. . . . I’ve heard from Asia Society . . . that they’re trying to purchase the land. I think there is something more going on there — but no one is talking at this point.
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: Palace Out, Passing on a Museum District Restaurant Reno, A Museum District Restaurant Conversion Cut Short, Inside Views of Yoshio Taniguchi’s Asia Society Texas Center, Houston’s Next Big Museum District Thing, Whoosh!! What the Bootsie’s Crew Has Been Cooking Up
Photo: Allyn West
Here’s a second rendering of that new office tower Hines tells the Houston Chronicle it hasn’t announced it will build. Of course, a different story is coming out of this neighborhood near River Oaks, where the 35,000-sq.-ft. property on the corner of Spann and San Felipe, purchased in November by an entity connected to Hines, has been cleared of its garden home and staked with flags, as the photos after the jump show:
This rendering shows one of 4 charitable duplexes planned to go up in Meyerland that will be set aside for single-mother families. Construction began late last week on property that’s owned St. John’s Presbyterian Church at 5020 W. Bellfort Ave., between Willowbend and S. Post Oak Blvd., just outside the Loop. One of the 8 units will also be home to an on-site caseworker.
New construction has crept west across Chimney Rock Rd. and onto this Richmond Plaza street south of Bissonnet. Plans for this builder-owned ladder-to-little-loft property, however, may have changed recently. Last week it was relisted with an asking price of $299,000. That’s a big, big price reduction from the $799,000 sought in the previous 6-month listing — perhaps for something new built on the site? (Back in 2010, the 1950 home hit the market at $328,000.) Meanwhile, the lot remains listed by Blum Custom Builders as a potential new home site.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Let’s kick off the week by kicking these off:
- Pearl Hospitality Unveils $81M Renovation Plans for Marriott Opening Downtown Next Spring [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- City Demolished 39 Nuisance Buildings During Demolition Day on Saturday [abc13]
- Rice Village’s Garden Gate Closing Today After 20 Years To Make Way for Hanover Apartment Complex [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot]
- Developers Hope New Viva Cinema Will Speed Up Momentum at PlazAmericas Shopping Center [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Max’s Wine Dive Expanding with Second Location, Opening on Fairview in Montrose This Fall [Eater Houston]
- 13.5-Mile Stretch of 290 HOT Lane Opens Today [Click2Houston]
- Metro Police Issuing Fewer Fare-Jumping Warnings, Citations to Light Rail Riders [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- League City To Refund Magnolia Creek Subdivision Homeowners $1.5M Due To Over-Assessment, Accounting Error [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- HOA, Forrest Lake Townhouse Resident Going To Court Over Flagpole Dispute [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- League City Looks To Desalination for Future Water Needs [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Thieves Stealing Metal Tree Stakes from MacGregor Park [Click2Houston]
- Invasive ‘Crazy Ants’ Slowly Displacing Fire Ants in Southeastern United States [Houston Chronicle]
- American Society of Interior Designers Home Tour Runs Until May 27 in Fort Bend [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Houston Architect Frank Zeni’s Impossible-To-Miss Metal Home in the West End [Houstonia Magazine]
- Galveston’s West End Gets First Landmark Designation [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
A HEIGHTS RETAIL RESURRECTION 
The Leader is reporting that the Baptist Temple Church on Rutland and 20th St. in the Heights has sold 2 of its oldest buildings to Braun Enterprises, which says it will tear them down and replace them with less sacred spaces — that is, retail or a restaurant. If the almighty dollar has triumphed, there’s still a silver lining — or so Charlotte Aguilar suggests, reporting that the sale of the buildings — the church’s original sanctuary, built in 1912, and a larger one built in 1940 — will fund a $3 million renovation to its remaining 65,000-sq.-ft. T.C. Jester Building on 20th; a new 300-seat sanctuary will be added and classrooms and offices updated. [The Leader] Photo: Charlotte Aguilar via The Leader
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SCOURGE OF THE PEDESTAL SINK “. . . I noticed from the photos that the sink was replaced with one of these impractical pedestal sinks — one of these things where you can’t put *anything* except a tiny bar of hotel soap on. I realize that the previous sink probably was small, too, but if you’re going to replace a sink, can’t you replace it with something more practical? I know that some interior designers love them because they think a tiny sink makes small bathrooms look bigger, but there must be better solutions than this. Pedestal sinks may be fine for powder rooms, but certainly not for full bathrooms. I know of one case where a woman sold her house because she was fed up with not having any storage space in the bathrooms (among other reasons). And I once toured a house where someone had replaced a double-sink vanity with 2 pedestal sinks and then ended up building a really ugly, made-in-garage storage thing to put in between the sinks to compensate for the lost storage space. Ugh.” [Sabaushi, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Mint Condition]
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: HOW TO MEMORIALIZE A CITY OF OPEN SPACES, ONCE ALL THE VACANT LOTS ARE FILLED “. . . I’ve been saying for a long time that the city should be actively acquiring and developing one lot in each neighborhood as a pocket park with some kind of unique sculpture or statue as its centerpiece. Some kind of consistent theme of that sort could form the basis for grassroots tourism of a unique variety. Sort of a park crawl rather than a pub crawl . . . or perhaps both at the same [time]. Houston’s best assets, after all, are our neighborhoods. We should show them off.” [TheNiche, commenting on Headlines: Vargo’s Comes Down; The Honeywood Trail House of Honey]
- 2158 Chilton Rd. [HAR]
PERUSING THE WOODLANDS 
This is the only one of the homes to be featured in this Saturday’s AIA walking tour in the Woodlands that’s active on the market. With a view of Lake Woodlands at 34 East Shore Dr., the 6-bedroom, 8,400-sq.-ft., never-lived-in house designed by Bobby McAlpine is going for $5.2 million. The listing indicates that 5 open houses are scheduled for May and June — with the first this Sunday. The place also features a staircase that might induce a feeling of déjà vu. [AIA Houston; HAR; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HAR
So the days are numbered for Ruth’s Chris on Richmond — that much is obvious. And a reader sends us this photo showing the steakhouse’s next location, in that Uptown pad site where Prosperity Bank used to be at 5433 Westheimer. (And you can see the aloft Hotel in the background.) A rep from Ruth’s Chris says it should be open by July. And marketing materials from building owner AmREIT seem to position the steakhouse as an anchor for a redevelopment project on this triangular slice of property bound by Westheimer, W. Alabama, and Yorktown: A flyer on the company’s website mentions “a renovated office building” that doesn’t seem to have had a named tenant since Prosperity moved out and took its logo away almost 3 years ago. There’s also a second, 3,000-sq.-ft. retail space that AmREIT’s advertising as available on that building’s first floor. Attempts to contact AmREIT for details about the project haven’t been returned.
- You’re never too far from a great meal [Ruth’s Chris]
- RelocationWire [Eater Houston]
- Mixed-use redevelopment in the upscale Galleria area [AmREIT]
Photos: Swamplot inbox
