12/27/12 1:00pm

Your votes have been tallied. Now here’s the moment you’ve almost been waiting for! That’s right: It’s time to announce the second-place winners of the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate!

But first, a note of thanks — to all of you who voted, commented, nominated, campaigned, and cajoled in support of your favorite candidates. You made this extended moment of reflection, recognition, and honor possible. The Swampies belong to you!

You know what they say about runners-up: Should the actual award winners (they’ll be announced in a later post) be unable to fulfill their duties for any reason, these second-place winners will be ready and willing to serve! Let’s have a big round of digital applause, please, for the 2012 runners-up in the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate — the Swampies!

They are:

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12/27/12 8:30am

Photo of Market Square Clock: Candace Garcia via Swamplot Flickr Pool

12/26/12 4:57pm

Christmas Eve was the last day of business for Houston’s only Books-A-Million location, in the Houston Pavilions sorta-mall. Workers at the 1201 Main St. store are now packing the bookstore’s remaining inventory onto pallets (at left), which will be shipped off to the national chain’s warehouses or other locations. (That means there’ll be no goodbye sale.) Books-A-Million had threatened to leave the space back in January of 2011; a quickly arranged sweetened rent deal from its landlord allowed it to stay. But that agreement has now expired, and Pavilions has new owners: A group headlined by former LA Lakers point guard Magic Johnson bought the 3-block complex — out of bankruptcy — this past August.

Photos: Downtown Houston Management District (store); Swamplot inbox (pallets)

12/26/12 9:25am

5 pm today is the deadline. That’s when the polls for this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate will close. Only a few hours are left for you to get you votes in! Is there enough time for a come-from-behind candidate to win? Sure, if enough supporters cast each of their 4 possible votes in each category to sweep it over the top.

Without your votes, will the best candidates win all these categories? We need your help to make the 2012 Swampies the best they can be. Tell us who your favorites are!

12/26/12 8:30am

Photo of Pennington storm damage: KHOU

12/21/12 11:41pm

The official nominees for all 7 categories of this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate have been announced, and voting is well under way.

There are 4 places you can vote for each category. But you don’t have to choose one of them — vote in all 4 if you like:

  • In a comment to the official ballot for the category
  • In an email you send to Swamplot
  • Using Twitter (it’ll help if you use the format spelled out here)
  • In a wall post on Swamplot’s Facebook page

Here, in one convenient place, are links to the official ballots for all 7 categories:

Got a question about voting? You can probably find the answer in this brief voting guide.

Already voted? There’s still time to round up more support for your favorites! Come-from-behind candidates, here’s your chance: All it might take is a little email, Facebook or forum post, or tweet to stir up your friends. If you explain your vote clearly when you make it, you’ll help build support for your choices.

Swamplot will return to regular posting after the Christmas holiday. And voting in all categories will end shortly after that — at 5 pm on Wednesday, December 26th.

12/21/12 10:31pm

Former Houston Rocket Hakeem Olajuwon quietly opened the doors this past week of a brand-new flagship store for his new clothing line, DR34M. It’s conveniently located just off NASA Pkwy., inside a mansion built during the Depression by a Texas oilman — used later for more than 20 years by NASA for its Lunar and Planetary Institute.

The 17,000-sq.-ft. Italianate mansion by the Clear Lake shore was completed in 1930 by Houston city hall architect Joseph Finger for Jim West, whose family sold it to Humble Oil when he died in 1941. Since then, it has been owned by the Pappas restaurant family and Rice University. And in 1969, during the Apollo missions, the nearby Johnson Space Center moved its moon unit here; it stayed until 1991.

Olajuwon, who has made a lot of investments in Houston-area real estate since his 2002 retirement from the NBA, bought the West Mansion in 2006. He had plans to subdivide the sprawling 41-acre estate to sell off to developers, according to news reports. Later reports indicated the mansion would be razed, or that a retirement village would be built around it. But since early this year, workers have been making  extensive renovations to the building, inside and out:

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12/21/12 11:58am

We now come to the final category in the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. We need your help to determine the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of the past year. The official nominees, culled from reader suggestions, are posted below. Which one would you pick to win the award?

Remember, there are 4 ways to vote! And you can vote once using each approved method — that’s 4 votes in all for each award category. Declare your vote in a comment to this post, in an email to Swamplot HQ, in a Tweet, or on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook page. The complete voting rules are available here.

All votes must be in by 5 pm on Wednesday, December 26th. When you vote, please tell us why you made your choice. We’ll include some of the best explanations for the winners when we announce them next week.

The official nominees for the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of 2012 are . . .

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

12/21/12 8:30am

Photo of Memorial Hermann Medical Plaza: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

12/20/12 4:00pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS “As a contractor I’ve learned the sprayer is installed as a matter of cultural/religious practices relating to cleanliness. What may seem odd to you or I is a necessity for some of our neighbors who want to follow their cultural practices.” [Senor, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Diaper Duty]