Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
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- Schlumberger Just Shy of Filling 6-Story Building in Energy Corridor [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Trendmaker Homes Building 372-Acre Clear Lake Community [Houston Business Journal]
- Galveston Rental Resort Escapes Changes Owner, Name; Now Holiday Inn Club Vacations [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Slideshow: Houston’s Latest Trader Joe’s Now Open in Memorial City [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Blue Bell Expanding Brenham Plant by 25 Percent To Meet Growing Demand [Houston Chronicle]
- After Brouhaha Over Downtown Food Trucks, Houston Pavilions Bringing in Fleet of Mobile Food Units 6 Days a Week [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Real Estate Data Company Metrostudy Sold to Hanley Wood for Undisclosed Amount [Houston Business Journal]
- City Council To Hear Plan on Reviving Galveston’s Trolleys [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Completion of FM 646 Expansion Can’t Come Soon Enough for Nearby Businesses [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Treasures Will Be Houston’s ‘Most Scrutinized’ Strip Club for Next Few Weeks After Settlement with City [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Texas Drought Likely To ‘Persist or Intensify’ Over Next 3 Months [StateImpact Texas]
- Interest, Applications for Landmark Designation Building Across Houston [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Slideshow: Houston’s Historic Homes [Prime Property]
- NASA Quietly Begins Selling Off Kennedy Space Center Properties [Orlando Sentinel via Prime Property]
Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Yesterday morning, Macy’s announced that it would be closing its store Downtown at 1110 Main this spring. But what’s going to happen to the building? Mayor Parker, who knows a thing or two about demolition, said yesterday afternoon that Kenneth Franzheim’s former Foley’s is coming down: “Macy’s is losing the lease, and the owner of that piece of property wants to build something else,” she told KUHF News. The owner in this case would be 1110 Main Partners, an entity connected to Hilcorp Ventures, whose president, Doug Kelly, told the Houston Chronicle yesterday that the company has “no specific plans to announce” about the site. Well, announcing plans is one thing:
- 2015 Shadowbriar Dr. [HAR]
Last month, Cite magazine editor Raj Mankad hiked 8 miles through the Katy Prairie to see the prehistoric human remains found during the construction of Grand Parkway’s Segment E for himself. He brought back a few photos and an essayist’s-eye-view of the archaeological saga:
It appeared as if TxDOT had aimed the 15-mile-long highway segment directly at the burial ground. The highway was suspended, figuratively and physically, like an unintentional monument honoring the burial grounds, like Texas was trying to tell anyone in an airplane or spaceship to LOOK HERE. . . . What I saw were several pieces of plywood, propped up on five-gallon paint buckets, covering what I presume to be the human remains and the tools, buffalo teeth, and other objects found with them. The plywood was weighted down with rocks. . . . To my amateur eyes, the excavation looked makeshift and tenuous, not systematic or professional.
- A Heartbreaking Loss: Grand Parkway Segment E Ruins Site of International Significance [OffCite]
- Previously on Swamplot: Grand Parkway Will Pile on the Dead; Old Bones Ordered Out of the Way of the Grand Parkway; Old Dead People Blocking Progress of the Grand Parkway
Photos: Brett Sillers
- Mayor Creates Downtown Retail Task Force; Will Try To Find New Location for Macy’s [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- 1110 Main’s Retail Legacy, From Foley’s Window Displays to Conveyer Belts Running Throughout the Store [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Trammell Crow Co. Likely To Break Ground on 20-Story Energy Center Three in Energy Corridor by End of January [Houston Business Journal]
- Round 2 of Hurricane Ike Disaster Recovery On Its Way [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Bruce Mozlan Quietly Opens Ruggles-Like Restaurant in Former Brownstone Cafe Spot [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Settlement Reached in Pearland-Sugar Land Police Statue Copycat Lawsuit [Glasstire]
- State Promptly Reverses TxDOT Decision To Stop Putting Directions to Gun Shows on Freeway Message Signs [Houston Chronicle]
- How Electronic Freeway Signs Help Ease Traffic [The Highwayman]
- Copperfield Residents Want To Disguise Cell Phone Tower at Lowery Elementary as a Tree [Cypress Creek Mirror]
- Residents of Indigo Lake Estates in Montgomery County Complain They’re Living Next to a Gun Range [abc13]
- Cold Weather Likely To Bring Predators, Nuisance Wildlife into Residential Areas, Warn Specialists [Cypress Creek Mirror]
- Mutual UFO Network Investigating Strange Lights over Cleveland Last Month [abc13]
- John D. ‘Jack’ O’Connell, Man Who Steered the Success of the Astrodome, Has Died [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Ceiling Collapses in Apartment near Kirby, South Loop After Tenant Constantly Ran Hot Water for Heat [Click2Houston]
Photo of abandoned house at Bingham and Elder: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON’S MISSING DISTRICT OF GOOD-ENOUGH OLD BUILDINGS “I think the general feeling on this one from historically/architecturally sensitive people like myself is that while it’s not the greatest building ever built in Houston, it’s a lot greater than what is on at least 100 of the blocks downtown. This is where you get to the difference between Houston and a city like San Antonio, which still has a significant historical flavor in its downtown. Most historic buildings are not great, they’re average. If you only preserve the landmarks, most of your historic stock gets wiped out and you lose that historic dimension in your city. San Antonio does not allow its historic buildings to be torn down, and thus maintains a vibrant historical (and walkable) downtown core, while leaving plenty of room for new buildings. Houston started out with roughly as many early 20th century buildings as San Antonio had, it just didn’t preserve them.” [Mike, commenting on Houston Club Building Will Be Demolished, Say Auctioneers]
If you look closely at these new renderings of Robertson Stadium’s replacement that UH released a couple of weeks ago, you can see the Downtown skyline. UH, a member of the Big East starting in 2013, says that this 40,000-seat, $105-million stadium — whose naming rights are still being shopped around — will be built with a new east-west orientation, at least in part because that’ll make the skyline look real nice on teevee.
More details and even more renderings:
UP IN THE PINES TO STOP THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE 
Three hours north of Houston in Cherokee County, reports Brantley Hargrove, protesters interfering with a 485-mile section of TransCanada pipeline being built to carry diluted bitumen south to refineries on the Gulf Coast faced some resistance of their own: “[An] 18-wheeler bearing a cherry picker to pluck protesters out of trees slowed as it approached a shouting, sign-wielding crowd. Several young men leaped in its path. One fell beneath the truck. The others screamed and pounded the hood with their fists. A deputy rounded the front of the truck and drove the protesters back, loosing clouds of pepper spray. [A 75-year-old woman], standing off to the side of the road, caught a gust of the burning mist.” Separately, TransCanada’s website notes its plans for the Houston Lateral Project (shown in red on the map), a 47-mile spur that will come close to Beltway 8. [Houston Press; Gulf Coast Project] Map: TransCanada
YEAH, THAT’S THE ONE 
“Watching the speculation machine has been fun so far,” the source of yesterday’s enormously vague tip about the impending demolition of a “major Houston property” whispers to Swamplot: “I can tell you . . . that one of the commenters already named the property/properties in question.” And no, it isn’t Macy’s. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Seth Bienek
- 1325 Castle Ct. [HAR]
ENOUGH SQUARE FOOTAGE TO QUIBBLE OVER “We bought a fairly new house this year. We were all surprised when the appraiser’s square footage was 7 percent (200 square feet) smaller than what they had listed on HAR. Turns out the builder built the original owners a smaller house than they paid for. Some of their original closing documents showed the smaller square footage, but others had the larger number, so we understood why they were confused. We adjusted our offer price based on the revised square footage and called it good. . . . BUT as it turns out [the original owners] had been paying property taxes on the larger square footage. Now it’s our turn to pay the property taxes and I’d like to get the square footage corrected. Our estimate is that we’ll be overpaying by $600 this year if the error isn’t fixed. Unfortunately, I’m reading this information [PDF] from the HCAD website. I’m not sure whether this is a ‘clerical error’ or a ‘substantial error.’ For a substantial error, you apparently can’t protest unless the error causes the property to be over-appraised by more than one third (!). And for clerical errors, they say that inaccuracies in estimation such as estimating the square footage of a house, cannot be changed. I’m guessing I could push this as a clerical error (tell them they must have transposed some numbers when filling in their system). Has anyone done this with success? Or are we just screwed?” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot]
Did you know Macy’s had a store Downtown? Well, not for much longer. Macy’s announced this morning that its 1110 Main St. location will be shuttered this spring. Clearance sales will start January 7 and continue for up to 11 weeks. The store debuted in 1947 as the Foley’s flagship (at right) in a 791,000-sq.-ft. Kenneth Franzheim building. The company will close 5 Macy’s and one Bloomingdale’s in other cities as well.
- Macy’s Outlines Normal-Course Adjustments to Stores Portfolio [Business Wire]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Mostly Glass Building That Won’t Be Replacing the Downtown Macy’s
Photos: jaraylee182004 (Macy’s), Jim Parsons (Foley’s)
