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Swamplotâ€™s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.

Let’s call the end of these things the beginning of their permanence.

Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions

Cypress

07/18/18 5:30pm

Cypress Home Listing Photo of the Day: Stock Footage

2 Comments

14731 Bronze Finch Dr. [HAR]

77433, Closets, Cypress, Homes for Sale

Tree Trio Makes Last Stand on Richmond Ave Esplanade Across from 11 and 9 Greenway Plaza

8 Comments

A Swamplot reader sends photos of a few trees recently marked for chopping on the Richmond Ave esplanade across from 11 and 9 Greenway Plaza, between Timmons Ln. and Edloe St. Pictured at top are the western 2 of the 3 trees total that now stand with white death warrants tacked to their trunks.

The third — shown below — sits closer to Edloe:

Truncation

77046, Greenway Plaza, Trees

Headlines

07/18/18 8:30am

Texas an Oil Powerhouse; Adding to the Harvey Buy-Out Fund

by Meredith Deliso

21 Comments

Triten Real Estate Partners Breaks Ground on Distribution Center Near Port of Houston [HBJ ($)]
Renderings for Midway’s ‘Evolving’ East River Project Were Created as Part of Last Year’s Amazon Bid [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Harris County Getting Another $8M for Harvey Buy-Outs [Houston Public Media]
How to Improve the Recovery Funding Process [The Urban Edge]
4-Mile Section of U.S. 290 Between Little York and Pinemont Reopens After Revamp [Houston Chronicle]
New East End Mural by ARTKUNGFU Tackles Gentrification [Culturemap]
Texas Predicted To Become World’s No. 3 Oil Producer Next Year [CNN]

Photo of the Glassell School of Art: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines

Daily Demolition Report

07/18/18 8:00am

Daily Demolition Report: Winsome Losses

by Swamplot

Swamplotâ€™s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.

This is how we carve out more living space.

Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions

Copperfield

07/17/18 5:30pm

Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: The First Step

2 Comments

8147 Silent Cedars Dr. [HAR]

77095, Copperfield, Homes for Sale

Downtown

07/17/18 3:00pm

Hines Signs Up for 48-Story Highrise on Former Houston Chronicle Digs Downtown

16 Comments

HINES SIGNS UP FOR 48-STORY HIGHRISE ON FORMER HOUSTON CHRONICLE DIGS DOWNTOWN Building permits filed last week for a concrete foundation in place of the Houston–Chronicle-building-turned-parking-lot at 801 Texas Ave. reveal the vertical extent of what Hines has planned for the site: 48 stories. They’ll soon rise up above the fought-over tunnel system where a judge buried the hatchet 5 months ago, awarding Hines’ neighbor Theater Square $200,000, reported Nancy Sarnoff. Theater Square owns the property across Prairie St. from 801 Texas and claimed it had the right to access tunnels beneath the former newspaper building that it needed to connect its own subterranean sprawl to Houston’s broader downtown tunnel system. That hookup is now complete — writes Sarnoff — though the neighboring developer has yet to break ground on its own planned tower. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Brie Kelman

77002, Downtown, Lawsuits, Proposed Development, Redevelopment

Bars and Clubs

07/17/18 12:45pm

New Spaghetti Warehouse Owner Wants To Crack Open Its Soggy Lower Levels for Open-Air Eating Area, Shove Bar Above It

10 Comments

The new owner of the floody Spaghetti Warehouse building downtown has cooked up a novel idea for how to deal with its proximity to Buffalo Bayou: crack open its lower stories and fill them with a floodable dining area that sits below an upper-story bar. Renderings from Diamond Development show how they’re hoping to pull it all off by removing several doors and windows from the back of the 15,000-sq.-ft. building (which an application to Houston’s historic commission notes will be stored away for potential future use) and adding louvers to the building’s east side.

The slats would go in place of the parking-lot-fronting wall shown missing part of its face during Harvey:

Floodable Food Court

77002, Bars and Restaurants, Downtown, Flooding, Redevelopment

Crime

07/17/18 10:00am

HPD Has North Houston Mattress Store Murderer in Custody

HPD HAS NORTH HOUSTON MATTRESS STORE MURDERER IN CUSTODY The manhunt for alleged mattress store killer Jose Gilberto Rodriguez came to an end at N. Eldridge Pkwy. and Wortham Landing Dr. earlier this morning after a brief police chase, reports abc13. Just last night, Chief Art Acevedo identified Rodriguez — a 46-year-old parolee who was released from prison last September — as a suspect in 3 homicides over the last several days. He was believed to be driving a dark Nissan Sentra — Acevedo explained — that he took from his latest victim, an employee of the Mattress1One pictured above at I-45 and Crosstimbers found shot to death in the store yesterday afternoon. Previously on Saturday night, the manager of a Mattress Firm across from the Willowbrook Mall walked into that location’s back office and found a 28-year-old female employee lying dead between 2 mattresses. Between the 2 retail slayings, Rodriguez also allegedly shot and robbed a METRO Lift driver (who’s expected to recover), and earlier last week, killed a 62-year-old woman after breaking into her house on Bent Pine Dr. in Cypress. [abc13] Photo of Mattress1One at 4400 N. Fwy.: Jessica Willey

77022, Crime, Quicklink, Retail

Headlines

07/17/18 8:30am

Harvey Buyout Dropouts; Houston’s Most Expensive Airbnb Rentals

by Meredith Deliso

4 Comments

California-Based Wilson Investment Properties Picks Up 19 Buildings Across 6 Industrial Parks in Houston [Houston Chronicle]
Mixed-Use Project Breaks Ground within CityPlace Development in Springwoods Village [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
Construction To Start Next Month on Rice University’s New School of Social Sciences Building Designed by Rogers Partners [Houston Chronicle ($)]
Rethink, a Coworking Space Geared Toward Real Estate Professionals, Opening in Houston Next Year [HBJ ($)]
20-Year-Old Asiatown Dim Sum Spot Ocean Palace Getting Revamp [Eater Houston]
Houston Habitat for Humanity Relaxes First-Time Homebuyer Rule Post-Harvey [Realty News Report]
About 20% of Applicants Approved for Harvey Home Buyouts Have Dropped Out of the Program [Houston Public Media]
Dimensions of James Reese Career and Technical Center To Be a Few Feet Shorter Than Planned To Avoid Sugar Land Grave Sites [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot]
Mapping the Most Expensive Airbnb Rentals in Houston [HBJ]

Photo of Ferris wheel at Truck Yard: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines

Daily Demolition Report

07/17/18 8:00am

Daily Demolition Report: MacArthur Withdrawal

by Swamplot

2 Comments

Swamplotâ€™s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.

The select; the elite; the next to be gone:

Daily Demolition Report, Demolitions

Friendswood

07/16/18 5:30pm

Friendswood Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Open Gym

1909 San Miguel Dr. [HAR]

77546, Friendswood, Homes for Sale, Interiors

Former McGowen Cleaners Now Looks More Vibrant as Restaurant Redo Takes Shape

A row of 3 tall windows now opens up the Fairview-St.-side of the former McGowen Cleaners, currently being converted into a health-minded restaurant dubbed Vibrant on the corner of Morse St. As for a patio shown cut into the building’s windowed corner in earlier renderings from architect Lake Flato — it’s yet to be installed. But a bunch of other outdoor features such as shrubs, grasses, and the beds that hold them are now in place outside the structure.

They’ve taken over the frontage previously occupied by chopped-up pavement:

Hyde Park

77019, Hyde Park, Montrose, Renovations, Restaurants

Apartments

07/16/18 12:30pm

Corner of Westheimer and Revere Now Has a Higher, Residential Calling

27 Comments

On deck for the Berryhill Shopping Center on the corner of Westheimer and Revere: Stanmore River Oaks, an 8-story apartment building planned in place of the site’s existing tenants Antique Pavilion, Prism Cleaners, and the original Berryhill Baja Grill. This Thursday, Houston’s city planning commission will consider the developer’s request to slide the planned building (depicted at top from the north) up to sit just 10 ft. from Westheimer — closer than the existing strip pictured above, behind the variance sign that’s now up on the property.

If the commission signs off, landscaping could go up too along the roadway in the fashion depicted below: