Architect John Kirksey has an idea for building a park on 36 blocks in south Downtown — just north of the Pierce Elevated, between Louisiana and Caroline. But he doesn’t own the land, and he’s not proposing to buy it up. So Kirksey’s plan isn’t for a single park space — it’s for a bunch of linear walkways. Okay, call it a series of extra-wide sidewalks on the east-west streets. Here’s how it might look, driving through:
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
If you haven’t knocked it, try it.
Photo of El Real Tex-Mex at Westheimer and Waugh: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
HOW TO KEEP PROPERTY TAXES LOW — AT THE TOP 
Using figures from a study put together by the Service Employees International Union last year in support of striking janitors, Steve Jansen’s cover story in this week’s Houston Press highlights some spectacular feats of Houston highrise taxcutting: “For the 2011 tax year, if the owners of a class A skyscraper or office complex protested HCAD’s appraised value in front of HCAD’s appraisal review board or district court, they were 77 percent likely to have the value cut (and Âalmost always by millions). By contrast, only 55 percent of owners of single-family homes won their appeals with HCAD.” Total resulting savings on those high-dollar tax bills: $58 million in 2011 alone. This year, HCAD is raising the market valuations on many of the city’s fanciest office buildings by more than 50 percent. But don’t expect those numbers to hold when the companies have lawyers at the ready. For 2012, 70 percent of large downtown commercial office property owners went ahead with property-tax lawsuits against HCAD. [Houston Press] Photo of Wells Fargo Plaza, which through lawsuits and negotiated settlements gained valuation reductions totaling $380 million between 2006 and 2011: Matthew Colvin de Valle [license]
Smile and step carefully. No fewer than 16 security cameras are installed in this battened-down Braeburn Acres property, a 2007 custom design by Cameron Architects. It’s a big, big stucco-over-concrete-block house — more than 10,000 sq. ft. — with 50 stone columns supporting a double-decker carousel of arches and tile-topped rotundas. The cleared 1.2-acre lot includes a pool-in-progress and very little landscaping (other than lawn). Maybe that explains why a cartoony rendering (at top) is employed as the listing’s featured photo.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: REAL ESTATE LISTING PHOTOS WITH THAT LITTLE EXTRA SOMETHING “I know exactly how this house must smell. And I love it.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on A Woodsy, Bayou-Side Meadowbrook Home]
A project to improve a 2.9-mile stretch of the Southwest Fwy. feeder road between South Shepherd Dr. and Newcastle St. could get started as early as May 1, a rep from TxDOT says. And the Upper Kirby Management District contributed some funds to the $19 million project, which might give you an idea about what to expect.
Photo of street bricks, Indiana St. near Commonwealth: Larry Zerante
ART GUYS WORKING WITH SHIP CHANNEL IN NEXT ‘EVENT’ 
At the site shown here in Pasadena near the old Paper Mill and Washburn Tunnel, where General Antonio López de Santa Anna is said to have been captured during that historically succinct Battle of San Jacinto, the Art Guys are planning their next performance: They’ve announced they’ll crack out their batons and “conduct the sounds of the Houston Ship Channel.” (Not sure what that could look like? Go see it for yourself.) Jack Massing and Michael Galbreth, the helmsmen of “12 Events,” a yearlong series of monthly head-scratchers that commemorate their 30 years of Houston mischief, have so far in 2013 shrugged off their divorce from the Menil, signed their names for 8 hours at the Julia Ideson Library on National Handwriting Day, and walked all 29.6 miles of Little York Rd., the longest in Houston. Next up, once they’ve conducted the Ship Channel waters? The Art Guys unwind a spool of thread, and then — wait for it — wind it back up again. [The Art Guys; Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: JimmyEv via Waymarking
The Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation this week approved a June 10th deadline for all private proposals to redevelop the Astrodome. That’s a notable event not only because of the somewhat hurried timeframe, but also because the organization appears to have left out a possibly minor step: Formally requesting private proposals to redevelop the Astrodome in the first place.
If that sounds a little odd to you, rest assured this sort of oversight is entirely within character for the 13-year-old quasi-governmental body, whose major achievement has been to shepherd Houston’s most famous building on a steady path from viable sports, entertainment, and celebrity ball-shagging venue to decaying, moldy relic. Hasn’t the corporation been soliciting plans all this time?
In the middle of last summer, Interfaith Ministries closed on almost 76,000 sq. ft. of Midtown property spanning 2 catty-corner blocks just north of HCC, including the PrimeWay Federal Credit Union building shown here at 3303 Main St.; the organization says it’s closing in on the $12.5 million needed to fund the renovation of the 39,000-sq.-ft. bank into its headquarters and the construction of a new 14,000-sq.-ft. Meals on Wheels distribution center at Elgin and Fannin.
Dark-stained flooring and darker-stained paneling, cabinetry, and such transform parts of this 1955 ranchburger into something akin to an in-country cabin. The home and its woodsy lot sit off a shoot of Sims Bayou in Meadowbrook, near Old Galveston Rd. south of Park Place Blvd. Last week, not long after its initial listing in late March, the recently re-mulched property with the shingled-cottage mailbox dropped its asking price $5K — to $134,999.
