This photo, courtesy of a reader, shows what will eventually hold up the new pedestrian bridge spanning Buffalo Bayou. This view looks south across the muddy water from the Sandy Reed Memorial Trail near Jackson Hill St. and Memorial Dr. toward the Royalton condo tower on Allen Pkwy. Crews have also begun clearing away more trees and brush between this spot and the Adath Yeshurun Cemetery, where the bayou’s master plan shows the Lost Lake will be.
NEW PLANNED PARENTHOOD INCITES PROTESTS IN SPRING 
This 7th Houston-area Planned Parenthood, which signed a 5-year lease and opened last week here at 4747 Louetta Rd. in a Spring shopping center shared by a Chase branch, party supply store, and daycare, doesn’t seem to have received the warmest welcome: Cool Kat Party Supply owner Glenn Mehterian says he moved his main entrance around the corner: “We’ll have more comfort entering our store from the Kroger side,” he tells abc13. And others have been moved to protest the clinic in their own way: Conroe man and Right to Life volunteer Joe Wiegan has come here to pray: “It was a lonesome feeling,” he tells the Montgomery County Courier’s Kimberly Sutton, “but after about half an hour, a man and his young son walked out of the Chase Bank next door and asked if they could join me . . . . He led a beautiful prayer for the unborn and they left with tears in their eyes. . . . .” Then Wiegan was joined by another: “He said he passed by earlier and asked God to please keep me here until he got back by so he could stop and pray with me . . . He was an awesome bear of a man, with a spirit as gentle as a lamb’s.” [abc13; Montgomery County Courier; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Montgomery County Courier
That there’s some pretty bad Feng Shui going down in this commercial for Honda, which was filmed in Vancouver and shown on teevee and the web beginning last October. The man behind the wheel of the CR-V sure is driving some bad chi into the gullet of the far-from-the-prairie home at the end of the T-intersection, to the encouraging narration of Garrison Keillor. But isn’t the house kinda asking for it anyway, what with all that glimmering vortex-popping and all?
And gee, doesn’t the hole stabbing through the house look a heck of a lot like . . . that temporary sculpture that stood on Montrose Blvd. in Houston a few years back? Portal to another dimension? Naah — from here it looks more like a shortcut to Grant St.
Photo of mural near Treebeards and Market Square Park: Swamplot inbox
Near Brays Bayou’s switchback just east of SH 288, this relisted, refurbished 1941 abode in North MacGregor Oaks sports a few water features: a small fountain off the front walkway’s river rock border and a grotto (with koi) beneath a pergola out back. The midblock property has a sidewalk in front (not pictured), but its immediate neighbor in Timber Crest does not — giving the street the feel of a time-warp that’s also apparent in the architectural shift from prewar 2-story homes on urban-size lots to postwar ranch-style ones on deeper lots. Last week, this recently stuccoed property with full quoin dressing returned to the market, at $315,000, after a 6-month rest.
This new build on the corner of Navigation Blvd. and Terminal Rd. has aroused the curiosity of a Magnolia Park resident: Though its utilitarian appearance and ballast-sharing trackside location suggest a storage facility — or maybe a roll-by gift shop for forgetful conductors — a neighbor on Terminal Rd. says he heard it’s going to be the new location of Players Ice House.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ONLY NUMBER I NEED “For me, as someone who routinely buys, restores, and holds these types of property for the long term (including a property right across the street from this one that is roughly the same age / type of construction), the only thing that I consider when determining value (and this a pretty standard / typical metric) is CAP rate. Specifically, I use the CAP rate at current rents and expenses to determine what it is worth today . . . and I calculate a projected CAP rate after renovations to determine what it will be worth with higher rents. The CAP rate is just a simple calculation for the rate of return on your cash in the deal. If you are simply buying a property and continuing on as is, the CAP rate is the return (from cashflow) on your down payment. If you are planning to upgrade the property the CAP rate is the rate of return on your down payment + carrying and renovation costs . . . based on the new rents.” [Jared M., commenting on The End of Another Almost Afton Oaks Apartment Complex?]
Looks like there’s a replacement for the former Vida Sexy Tex-Mex: A reader sends in this photo showing the new vinyl sign from Liberty Kitchen & Oysterette at 4224 San Felipe St. That’s the St. Regis Hotel in the background — and a photo taken here a few months from now might also show in the background that 317-unit apartment complex and parking garage that Mill Creek Residential is building nearby on E. Briar Hollow Ln., where another Swamplot reader heard that the restaurant would be located. A Facebook post in late April from Liberty Kitchen says it hopes to open in “early [s]ummer.”
Photo: Lisa Garvin via Swamplot inbox
A NEW BUILDER FOR THE ASHBY HIGHRISE 
Though it remains to be decided in a court of law whether the 21-story Ashby Highrise will deprive nearby Boulevard Oaks homes of sunlight and rain, there now seems to be a firm at least agreeing to build it: Prime Property’s Nancy Sarnoff reports that Pepper-Lawson Construction has signed on, replacing Linbeck, which decided to back out of the project earlier this year. The Maryland Manor Apartments, shown here standing in the way at 1717 Bissonnet, started coming down last week. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
What used to be just a corner lot and one of those green tell-tale signs in Midtown is becoming a little more parklike, it seems: Parks department rep Estella Espinosa says that Elizabeth Glover Park at Elgin and Austin will be closed through August while crews upgrade lighting and drainage systems and install new features, including a crushed granite plaza, dog run, and bocce ball court. According to a post yesterday at Midtown Houston Rocks, there are 2 other parks getting a similar treatment: Midtown Park at Gray and Bagby and Baldwin Park between Crawford and Chenevert on Elgin, a few blocks southeast of here.
Photo: Allyn West
Double cheeseburger, please. To go.
Photo of Studemont at Hicks: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
This new build on 27th St. in Sunset Heights comes from the firm of serial mod fixer-upper and recent Astrodome chimer-inner Ben Koush. Completed this year, the 4-bedroom, 3.5-bath house also has a garage apartment in the back. On its own for now, the house has been billed as the 1st of 4 planned in a row here just east of N. Main St.; it’s listed at $499,900.
