Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
No, these aren’t the last. Many more will disappear later.
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- 5 Years After Ike, Some Houston-Area Homes Still Have ‘Blue Roofs’ [MyFoxHouston]
- Slideshow: The High-Tech Structures of Ikea, BP Westlake, Eldridge Place, ConocoPhillips [Prime Property]
- Clutch City Squire Bar Opens Downtown in Alleged Former Brothel on Main St. [Eater Houston]
- Downtown Restaurant Batanga Opening on April 1 with 30-Ft. Tall Bamboo Wall, Hanging Waterfall [Eater Houston]
- Lawndale’s Latest Mural Painted White; New Mural To Debut By Friday [Culturemap]
- Consulting Firm Spirit Environmental Relocating to Part of Former HP Campus in Cypress Creek [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Painted Doors To Be Publicly Installed at 16 Sites in Houston Including Castillo, Hermann, Memorial Parks [Houston Chronicle ($)]
Photo of Reliant Park: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
- 2046 Park Grand Rd. [HAR]
This is what’s going up on some prime spurfront property at the University of Houston. Next to a Chinese restaurant and that prideful parking garage on Spur 5 that inspired the Houston Chronicle’s Lisa Gray and some student rappers back in 2010, the 2-story building at the end of Calhoun Rd. on campus is being billed as Cougar Den Plaza.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY DON’T SCHOOLS LEASE? “HISD needs to get out of the real estate business and set themselves up as a 40 year build to suit lease with AA credit and 10 year options to the end of time, thus allowing private development to be holding the bag in year 41 if the neighborhood has turned and students have migrated elsewhere. Oh, they haven’t? Still top notch? Great, we renew, and will again in 10 years. Hell, the deal would/could even include mandatory capital infusion from the developer (or assigns, sells) upon exercise of option! Why am I not in charge? I welcome people to explain the downside of this idea, truly. I’ve been unable to see it, myself. Oh, and if the peanut gallery tries saying that there would be a developer on the planet who wouldn’t jump on a 40 year lease commitment build to suit with an HISD guaranty is just lying. If HISD defaults on the rent, first of all we should all be stocking up on shotgun shells and bottle water, but more over IF they default the developer has permanent debt, favorable loan terms, and can easily shop the market to backfill with any number of learning institutions who would be licking their chops to get that deal.” [HTX REZ, commenting on Third Ward Residents Protest HISD Proposal To Close Historic School]
HISD TO CLOSE THIRD WARD’S RYAN MIDDLE SCHOOL 
Despite the community’s protests, HISD voted 5-3 last night to close Ryan Middle School at the end of the school year, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Ericka Mellon: “Roughly two dozen speakers — mostly alumni and community activists — blasted the Houston Independent School District over the closure plans, at times nearing tears and shouting from the audience. They called the Ryan closure ‘blatantly discriminatory.'” Ryan’s 263 students, reports Mellon, are the fewest among HISD middle schools; the students will be consolidated about 4 miles away at Cullen Middle School on Scott St. HISD superintendent Terry Grier says that Ryan’s 1958 Elgin St. building might be repurposed into a DeBakey-like health-careers magnet. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The redo of this Chenevert St. warehouse is complete, Mayor Parker announced yesterday, and the Houston Center for Sobriety is ready to give drunk people a place to dry out. Next to the Eastex Fwy., the 84-bed center at 150 N. Chenevert will operate out of a 19,000-sq.-ft. building behind the Star of Hope homeless shelter, across from Irma’s Mexican restaurant on Ruiz and just a few blocks north of Minute Maid Park.
Just a suggestion of an upper story peeks over the palm-y landscaping forming a front courtyard for this 1961 Meyerland Mod facing Brays Bayou. A massing of bulbous shrubbery that only hints at the rocky outcroppings to be found elsewhere on the property marks the approach to the deep-set front door. The updated home showed up in the MLS listings earlier this week, with a price tag of $449,000.
- Lone Star College Launches $500M Bond Construction Package [Houston Business Journal]
- Tomball City Council Approves Tax Incentives To Lure Businesses Downtown [abc13]
- Bars To Tap 8th Wonder Beer Today; Tours of EaDo Brewery To Start Soon [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Major Drainage Canal Construction Project To Close Lanes on Westheimer near 610 Starting Sunday [KUHF]
- East End Cleans Up 100,000th Graffiti Site Through Abatement Program [abc13]
- Last Chapter in Houston Retail Closing with Downtown Macy’s Shutter, Says Historian [KUHF; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of Bob Casey Federal Courthouse at Smith and Rusk: Bob Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WALKING IN OAK FOREST “Greater Oak Forest probably has fewer opportunities to be walkable than either the newer or older master-planned communities (i.e. Eastwood or The Woodlands). The older ones have secondary thoroughfares spaced at shorter intervals, so for instance every four blocks instead of every ten blocks; they were built with sidewalks; deed restrictions tended to be weaker; and they were much smaller to begin with, easier to escape on foot. The newer MPCs were designed to have jogging trails and interconnectivity for recreation rather than for transportation, but that’s something at least to walk around for. The Oak Forest walkability problem is apparent if you just look at Google Earth. It’s a big gigantic green splotch with only one viable commercial strip running through it and 34th Street (across the tracks) as the red-headed stepchild of neighborhood retail. The neighborhood streets tend to run parallel with the commercial strips with perpendicular streets at much less frequent intervals. It’s not walkable. It wasn’t intended to be walkable by design. When I lived in that area, I’d walk two miles to Petrol Station and back. That’s how I justified to myself indulging in the Rancor Burger. But then . . . you have to understand that I am insane. Not as profoundly insane as the Art Guys, but I’m the sort of person that will walk alone from Montrose to Bellaire and back via the TMC from between 10PM and 3AM for no particular reason. Normal, sane people aren’t gonna walk like I walk. But don’t get me wrong. I suspect that Greater Oak Forest’s relative lack of walkability or mixed-use potentials is part of what draws the big money in. They prefer it to be insulated from the urban core physically, aesthetically, and demographically. If you own property there, you will prosper. [TheNiche, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Drive for Oak Forest Retail]
PEARL BAR LOCKED OUT ON WASHINGTON AVE. 
Landlord Eva Hughes has changed the locks on her building, reports Chris Gray, for Pearl Bar’s non-payment of rent: According to Hughes’s attorney, adds Gray, eviction “proceedings” are underway. This isn’t the first time the tenants at 4216 Washington Ave. have had a visit paid by such sober guests: “[I]n January agents from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and state comptroller’s office visited the bar and confiscated cash to count against a back-tax bill a comptroller’s spokesman estimated at more than $40,000.” [Hair Balls] Photo: Pearl Bar
Looks like there’s something coming soon to the former Palazzo’s Tratoria at 2300 Westheimer. (And, presumably, someone’s coming to deal with that raggedy palm tree.) A Swamplot reader sends in this photo of the sign for “60 Degree Mastercrafted” with Master Chef Fritz Gitschner. The new dining concept wasn’t immediately available for comment. Palazzo’s has 2 other locations in Westchase and Briar Grove.
- Coming soon! [60dmc]
- Party Pans, Pizza, Pasta [Palazzo’s]
Photos: Loves swamplot
THIRD WARD RESIDENTS PROTEST HISD PROPOSAL TO CLOSE HISTORIC SCHOOL The steps in front of Ryan Middle School were the site of a rally yesterday in protest of an HISD proposal to close and consolidate the historic Third Ward school. HISD says the proposal calls to move students to Cullen Middle School on Scott St. because of low enrollment at Ryan, shown at right, which opened on Elgin St. when Yates High School moved to a new location in 1958. But teevee reporter Demond Fernandez says that the protestors see it “as a pattern of closing schools in predominately African-American communities. . . . And they say if HISD trustees move to pass a decision like that tonight, they may be prepared to go to court.” [abc13] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
THE SPORTS BAR THAT’S REPLACING THE SAXOPHONE ON RICHMOND 
Will we soon see a 70-foot red pitchfork here? Now that the Orange Show has moved that big blue horn out of the way, the former Billy Blues club at 6025 Richmond near Fountain View is getting a new sign and a renovation, a Swamplot reader notes, for the sports bar Diablo Loco Wings y Mas. Last week, Bob Wade’s 70-foot “Smokesax,” made out of Beetle parts, was trucked across town to the Orange Show’s Munger St. warehouse. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
