Gonna clear these away for some newness.
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- Officials Confirm Downtown Macy’s Will Close Saturday [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Airport Systems Planning International Spaceport at Ellington Field [abc13]
- Residential Real Estate Brokerage Firm Redfin Expanding into Houston [Houston Business Journal]
- Capitol Bar Partner: Midtown Area Around Main and McGowen ‘Making a Comeback’ [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Exxon Mobil Plans Multibillion-Dollar Baytown Plant Expansion [Fuel Fix]
- Following Complaints, TxDOT To ‘Restripe’ Confusing Lanes on Northwest Fwy. near 34th St. [Click2Houston]
- Six Oddities About Downtown Macy’s [Hair Balls]
Photo of Buffalo Bayou: Russell Hancock via Swamplot
CHANGES COMING TO OFF-STREET PARKING IN HOUSTON 
City council approved today by a vote of 14-2 changes to the off-street parking ordinance that hasn’t really been tweaked since 1989. The changes, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Mike Morris, will remove one-size-fits-all requirements that seem to have been rankling smaller bars and restaurants — and their support groups like OKRA — inside the Loop: “The ordinance loosens rules on how close parking lots must be to a building’s front door, makes it easier for businesses to share parking, allows substitution of bike parking for car spaces, cuts parking for historic buildings and allows the creation of “special parking areas” so neighborhoods can create new rules tailored to their needs.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of parking lot behind Tony Mandola’s Gulf Coast Kitchen: Swamplot inbox
WHAT IT MEANS TO WALK WITH THE ART GUYS 
Following them in his van as they hiked all 26 miles of Little York, photographer Otis Ike seems to have had time to come to terms with the piece the Art Guys are calling “The Longest Street in Houston:” “Having to explain the project in its most basic form allowed me, early on, to see Little York Road as an intricate social passage in which the Art Guys and myself were temporary and secondary to the basic necessities of the road’s users,” he writes today on Glasstire: “Yet there was something spectacular that started to emerge . . . . The Art Guys had become a moving target for me to frame the city and comment on the way that we manipulate, pave and . . . program the earth in the name of selling shit to people in cars.” [Glasstire; previously on Swamplot] Photo of the Art Guys on Highway 290: Otis Ike
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE PAY WAY “ALL new highways should be toll roads. Every last one of them. If you use it, you pay for it. If you don’t use it, no harm to you. You don’t HAVE to drive it. YOU decide by your actions if you wish to pay more. Nothing makes more sense economic equality-wise than that.” [Thomas, commenting on TxDOT Presents Toll Lanes Down the Middle of 288]
Each of these purple specks — or black holes, depending on your perspective — represents a demolition permit issued by the city in 2012. The planning and development department has posted this and a few other maps online with an overview of demographic data.
After the jump, you can see in more detail the demos inside the Loop from 2012 and 2011, juxtaposed with other maps showing the permits for single- and multi-family construction. You know. For balance:
LOW-CAL RESTAURANT TO OPEN INSIDE WESTHEIMER’S HIGH STREET REDEVELOPMENT 
The shell shown here was about as high as High Street got before the ambitious mixed-use development was scrapped in 2008. In 2011, the property was sold and the project downsized by Dinerstein and given a timeless, compensatory new name: Millennium High Street. Yesterday, reports the Houston Business Journal, the redevelopment at 4410 Westheimer announced a new tenant: Season 52, a low-calorie restaurant with 2 other Texas locations, will open sometime this April. Besides the restaurant, reports Olivia Pulsinelli, Millennium High Street is expected to include 15,000 square feet of retail and 336 apartments. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
Be sure to chew thoroughly before taking the next bite. Okay, go.
- Invesco Bought Williams Tower for $412M [GlobeSt.com]
- Aldi Announces First 9 Store Locations [abc13;Â previously on Swamplot]
- Austin Firm Buys 1,000-Acre Pointe West Resort for $1.65M in Foreclosure Auction [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Architect Michael Gaertner Leaves 9-Story Seawall Hotel Project [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- While Pearland Waits for New Killen’s BBQ, Killen’s Steakhouse To Sell Barbecue Starting March 30 [Eater Houston]
- 414,000 Harris County Workers Commute from Neighboring Counties, Finds Census Data [The Highwayman]
- Texas Bill Banning Texting and Driving Advances to Full House for Consideration [MyFoxHouston]
Photo of I-45 along Pierce Street: Russell Hancock via Swamplot
HOUSTON PAVILIONS TO BE RENAMED, REBRANDED 
Clearly, former NBA star Earvin Johnson knows the value of renaming — and Houston Pavilions, which Magic and other investors bought back in August, will be given a new moniker of its own, reports the Houston Business Journal’s Shaina Zucker: Today, @HouPavilions tweeted an invitation to a party on April 4 at San Jacinto between Dallas and Polk during which the mall-ish complex will reveal its new name and new brand strategy. “[R]etailers and restaurants,” the invitation says, “will have booths featuring complimentary tastings and interactive activities including Wii Bowling, a basketball hoop-off for the chance to win a signed Houston Rockets basketball and more.” [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user cjt3
Note: A TxDOT spokesperson has confirmed that the total cost of the project is $1.3 billion. Story updated below.
This map shows where commuters would get in and out of the toll lanes that TxDOT says it will build in the grassy median of Texas 288 — part of a project it’s proposing to help deal with Med Center congestion and development southwest of town by widening 26 miles of the highway between U.S. 59 and County Road 60. Several new overpasses at intersections and upgraded connections to the Loop and Beltway 8 are also included in the project, which TxDOT says will cost about $1.38 million $1.3 billion. The full extent of the project will be rolled out tonight at a public hearing in Houston and again on Thursday in Pearland.
- Public Hearing [TxDOT]
- TxDOT schedules 2 hearings on proposed Texas 288 improvements [Houston Chronicle]
- More Concrete Coming on SH 288: 26-Mile Toll Road to Pearland [Hair Balls]
Map: TxDOT
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DRIVE FOR OAK FOREST RETAIL “The Oak Forest area is probably as good as its going to get right now in terms of retail. There is still a vacancy in the newish shopping center where Plonk sits, behind the Starbucks drive thru. At least we avoided a payday loan storefront, so that’s something. At Ella and the railroad tracks we got a storage place. Where Theatre Suburbia used to be, across from Oak Forest Elementary, we got a credit union. We bundle the children into the car, drop them off at Oak Forest Elementary, drive thru Starbucks to get a latte, drive thru Walgreens to get our prescriptions, drive thru Shipley’s to get donuts, drive thru Chase to make an ATM withdrawal to pay for our coffee and donuts. There is absolutely no reason for Oak Forest area residents to expect anything other than what we have. As long as residents have to get in their car to get a bite to eat, or pick up groceries, most won’t mind driving a bit further to Central Market or Whole Foods for a more upscale shopping experience. The only recent project I can think of where someplace actually became more pedestrian-friendly is the addition to the Oak Forest Public Library, with a new entrance on Oak Forest Drive.” [matx, commenting on Comment of the Day: That’s a Different Kind of Growth in Oak Forest]
- 10261 Valleywood Dr. [HAR]
As a checkerboard of townhome development builds out the Rosewood neighborhood south of Midtown, this sunny yellow house with poppy red shutters rather emphatically states its enduring presence on a corner lot it has occupied since before the Southwest Fwy.’s south-of-downtown bypass cut a slice through the block 3 lots away. Today, the orderly 1930 property presents itself as an urban compound, though one softened by its back-in-the-day side porch, pergola, and garden.
MACY’S DOWNTOWN: WHILE SUPPLIES LAST! 
A Macy’s spokesperson tells Nancy Sarnoff that after 66 years on Main St. the department store will be locking up for good “probably Saturday.” As Kenneth Franzheim’s former Foley’s awaits an expected demolition, Sarnoff reports a rather unglamorous retail experience inside: “Only two floors in the 10-story building were open Monday. The first housed the store’s remaining merchandise. It included everything from dishes to fur coats, but the pickings were slim. . . . The second level had furniture and fixtures. Everything was for sale, including lighted display cabinets, mannequins and cardboard boxes for holding small pieces of jewelry.” [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jim Parsons
