Headlines
12/06/12 8:30am

Headlines: Ben Milam Demo Details; Germantown Makes History

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Photo of Ben Milam Hotel: Candace Garcia via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Awards
12/05/12 3:00pm

Nominations Are Now Open for 2012 Neighborhood of the Year

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We’ve almost reached the end of the 7 categories in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. So far, we’ve opened nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic, the “It’s Alive!” Award, and Most Overlooked Neighborhood. If you haven’t added your own suggestions for each of these, please do.

The next (and next-to-last) category is Neighborhood of the Year. What qualifications does a neighborhood need to meet in order to be declared Houston Neighborhood of the Year? You tell us — as you make your nomination! Of course, a neighborhood might be considered as a contender for Swamplot’s Neighborhood of the Year award for vastly different reasons than another one might be considered for an award of the same name from, say, a professional association of homebuilders.

Please note that entrants in this category — as well as all the others — need not be located strictly inside Houston’s municipal boundaries. Swamplot tries to track the idea of Houston as it regularly travels outside the city limits. (In fact, the 2009 winner of the Houston Neighborhood of the Year award was . . . yes, Galveston.)

We’re ready to receive your nominations — and convincing explanations — in the comments below, or in an email. If you’re new to this Swamplot-Award-nominating thing, please consult the official rules. This year, who are the contenders for this award?

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Comments
12/05/12 1:44pm

Comment of the Day: Also, Paving Over Their Ancestors

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: ALSO, PAVING OVER THEIR ANCESTORS “Yes we do know what people were doing 10,000 years ago. Basically it’s the same thing we are doing today. Making and raising children, trying to feed our family, and working to have safety, shelter, and clothing.” [Bill, commenting on Grand Parkway Will Pile on the Dead]

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Awards
12/05/12 12:08pm

What Was the Houston Area’s Most Overlooked Neighborhood in 2012?

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Yesterday we added a couple more categories to this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. That means 4 of them have now been opened for your nominations: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic, and the “It’s Alive!” Award. We’ve received a number of terrific nominations for each category so far. Keep those great entries coming for all of them!

Today we introduce the fifth and sixth categories in the 2012 Swampies. And we’ll call this Neighborhood Day. Up first, then, is the award for Most Overlooked Neighborhood.

Some prominent sections of the Houston-area real estate market are now attracting flurries of activity — while in some other areas of the country there’s not much doing. So certain neighborhoods in our region are being looked over carefully by potential residents and investors. What neighborhood in the greater Houston area (yes, we’ll include The Woodlands, other parts far and wide, and even throw in Galveston) rightfully deserves the title of “most overlooked” — and why?

You know the drill by now. We need your smart nominations to make the award in this category valuable. Tell us, in a comment below or in a private message, what neighborhood deserves to win this award. What are you seeing?

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Parks
12/05/12 9:54am

Dying To Get Into State Parks

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DYING TO GET INTO STATE PARKS Texas’s Parks and Wildlife Dept. is considering a novel way to expand parkland. Nothing’s carved in stone, but Ted Hollingsworth, director of land conservation, says that the department will continue to discuss with the Green Burial Council the possibility of “partnering with death service providers or funeral directors” to annex properties adjacent to existing state parks after they’ve been transformed into green burial sites: “We wouldn’t own or manage the cemetery,” Hollingsworth tells teevee reporter Josh Hinkle, “but where people pay for [green] burials a certain part of that payment takes out that land, and pays for that land, that then does get added to the state park. . . . Makes more habitat for turkey, quail, deer, snakes, lizards. . . . Makes more room for trails, picnic areas, all of that. Where we have opportunities to add land, especially not at the cost of the taxpayers, we want to explore those.” Hinkle adds: “However, [Hollingsworth] said bodies would not be near campsites — a relief for regulars like Dave and Kanita Riggle.” [KXAN] Photo of Huntsville State Park: Flickr user TX Diva

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Headlines
12/05/12 8:30am

Headlines: Williams Tower Finds a Buyer; America’s Biggest Malls

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Photo of W. Parkwood Ave. gas station, Friendswood: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Art
12/04/12 4:11pm

Comment of the Day: Art That Even a Bankrupted Developer Could Make

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: ART THAT EVEN A BANKRUPTED DEVELOPER COULD MAKE “It’s actually a field of sewer hookups that never grew into being the apartments (presumably) that they were meant to become. The Art Guys simply appropriated the site for an afternoon to be a sculpture. It’s what they do.” [Robert Boyd, commenting on Headlines: Parking Meters on Washington Ave; Census Finds 812 Missing Houstonians] Photo: The Art Guys

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Awards
12/04/12 3:15pm

Another New Category for the Swampies This Year: The “It’s Alive!” Award

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So far, 3 categories in the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate have been been opened up for your nominations: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, and the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic. Up next: another brand-new category, specially selected for this year’s competition: the “It’s Alive!” Award.

In a dynamic, ever-changing city, 2 opposing themes dominate: extinction and renewal. What better way to celebrate this little circle of life in Houston than with an award for things that you thought were dead and gone — but that have somehow come back. Here, we hope to recognize Houston’s living dead, its undead, and its back-from-the-dead. What, in this lively city this past year, deserves the “It’s Alive!” Award?

Send us your nominations! As usual, your spin will make the difference between a plain ol’ suggestion and a compelling choice for the award. You’ll find all the rules for the nominating process here.

You have until midnight next Monday, December 10, to suggest nominees for both categories announced today. Dig into the comments section below (or the Swamplot inbox) to submit your choices.

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Construction Problems
12/04/12 2:02pm

Grand Parkway Will Pile on the Dead

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GRAND PARKWAY WILL PILE ON THE DEAD An agreement between TxDOT, the Harris County Historical Commission, and 5 Native American tribes over what to do with the prehistoric human remains unearthed in the prairie highway’s path will allow construction of the Grand Parkway Segment E to continue — with only a bump in the road: “Under the agreement, TxDOT will fill the excavated areas and cover them with rip rap, creating a permanent burial site near where the road would cross Cypress Creek, about three miles south of U.S. 290.” The reburial might confuse future anthropologists, though: “[UH professor of anthropology Kenneth] Brown expressed frustration over TxDOT’s handling of the site, saying crews saved some artifacts but ruined the area for richer study. The agency’s crews scraped and sifted mechanically instead of digging by hand. ‘When you scrape, you will find things, but you won’t be able to see how they were associated,’ Brown said. ‘That is a shame because we do not know what people were doing 10,000 to 14,000 years ago, and we won’t know now.'” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of gravesite: abc13

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Awards
12/04/12 1:20pm

Announcing the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic

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Yesterday we introduced the first 2 nominating categories in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. Nominations will remain open until midnight Sunday, December 9, for both awards: Favorite Houston Design Cliché and Best Demolition.

Today, there are 2 more award categories to introduce. And they’re both new to the Swampies. The first of these we’re calling the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic.

Traffic means popularity. Sure, we all like to complain about it when it gets in our way, but is traffic always such a bad thing? Is there anyone or anything that might stand to gain from it? And if a neighborhood, or a new development, or some sort of construction project were to deserve this sort of award, would it be for causing traffic, for lessening it, or for something else entirely? You tell us: What, in the Houston of 2012, deserves to be recognized for its unique relationship with traffic?

As usual, the Swampies are open to the sharp and clever formulations of readers. If you use your nomination to give this category a twist, sell your vision!

More complete instructions covering the nominating process can be found on this page. In the meantime, drive right on ahead to the comments section below to add your nomination. One at a time, please. If it gets too crowded down there, there’s an alternate route: Send your suggestions directly to Swamplot HQ, via our email inbox.

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