Headlines
07/19/12 8:30am

Headlines: The Mayor’s Six-Shooters; The Governor’s Rebuilt Mansion

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Photo of Discovery Green: James Ray via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Comments
07/18/12 11:39pm

Comment of the Day: Scrapes Off a Little Easier Though

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: SCRAPES OFF A LITTLE EASIER THOUGH “Wallpaper is to houses what tattoos are to people. When you get it, you think that it looks great and cannot wait to show your friends. Twenty to thirty years later, you cannot look at it without going ‘ughhh’ and shuddering to yourself.” [Old School, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Kitchen Sampler]

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Braeburn Gardens
07/18/12 3:20pm

Braeburn Gardens Kennel Ready To Roll Over

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Leaping canines on a custom gate further boost the through-the-crate view of a property in Braeburn Gardens that has been home for 35 years to The Courtyard Kennel. The compound, once a show dog facility, sits on more than an acre. The assemblage of structures includes 800 sq. ft. of indoor-outdoor kennels and pet care facilities, dog runs, covered patios, and enough outdoor spaces and landscaping to keep 4-legged pets and their 2-legged friends amused. There’s also a 1955 house, a portion of which appears to have been a business office, and a driveway that, fittingly, doglegs across the corner lot.

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Mixed Use
07/18/12 1:37pm

The Woodlands Landing Huge New Pedestrian Complex

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THE WOODLANDS LANDING HUGE NEW PEDESTRIAN COMPLEX The Woodlands’ next big mixed-use development will be named after famous aviator, philanthropist, and recluse Howard Hughes. Hughes Landing will sit at the upper east end of Lake Woodlands, west of The Woodlands Mall and north of the East Shore neighborhood. Its 66 acres will eventually be covered with 8 office buildings, a boutique hotel, shops and entertainment venues, and apartments. Plus: a boardwalk and pier jutting into the lake. First to go up in the new development will be another one of those Gensler-designed office buildings, One Hughes Landing, shown above. Construction on it starts this fall; the building is expected to be finished by the end of next year. [Business Wire]

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Leasing
07/18/12 12:39pm

Doctors Without Borders: Kelsey Seybold Clinic Taking Over Pole Position at Meyerland Plaza

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Does the conversion of 2 former Borders Books locations (or at least part of them) into some sort of medical facility constitute a trend? Texas Children’s Pediatric Associates is building a clinic in the former Borders mezzanine space in the not-in-River-Oaks Centre at River Oaks at the corner of West Alabama and Kirby. And Kelsey-Seybold announced yesterday it’ll be turning the former Borders store in Meyerland Plaza — along with the long-vacant Planet Music space above it — into a new medical clinic and pharmacy. Of the 72,000 sq. ft. in the new “Multi-Specialty Care Center,” 27,000 will be used as warehouse space, according to a company press release.

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Headlines
07/18/12 8:30am

Headlines: Buying Back the Esperson Buildings; Filling the Studios at Hardy and Nance

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Photo of Fifth Ward gas station near 59 feeder: David Elizondo via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Comments
07/17/12 11:42pm

Comment of the Day: What Springwoods Village Hotels Will Have Going for Them

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT SPRINGWOODS VILLAGE HOTELS WILL HAVE GOING FOR THEM “these hotels will kill it. even WITHOUT the exxon HQ there, hotels in the Woodlands area are underserved, try finding a room on a weekend night @ the pavilion. it’s about $150 to stay @ marriott/hilton/nothing special spots. and you must stay there, or be that guy with a real job who drives 30 miles drunk from the Jimmy Buffett concert. they will have that rarified air of both business travel monday-friday + just about any weekend packed. it won’t be anything architecturally or intellectually inspired, but it will be a runaway success.” [HTX Rez, commenting on Closest Hotel to ExxonMobil, from Scratch]

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Art
07/17/12 5:03pm

Preserving Houston’s Ben Milam Hotel in 13 Backpacks

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The latest creation of Julia Gabriel, Houston’s favorite doomed-building-backpack artist, focuses on the long-vacant Ben Milam Hotel at the corner of Crawford and Texas downtown, left alone as a long-foul-ball target outside Minute Maid Park since — well, at least since the days of Enron Field. Before then, Gabriel notes, it was Houston’s first-ever fully air-conditioned hotel, the first in the city to have a TeeVee in every room, and the first to feature a rooftop swimming pool.

The artist’s rendition of a now-vanished Westheimer duplex-turned-antique store (featured on Swamplot last month) required just a single bag with straps. But to capture the ghostly spirit of the Ben Milam at 1717 Texas Ave., she needed 13 separate packs, bags, totes, and purses. Pinned to a wall, they follow the contours of a photo Gabriel snapped of the structure’s north face back in March (at top). Attached to the backs of you and your dozen-closest friends, though, who could figure out that secret history? Here’s a video of Gabriel foreshadowing the inevitable demolition of architect Joseph Finger’s 1928 creation, by showing how her own assemblage comes apart, bag by bag:

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Development Strategies
07/17/12 12:20pm

Closest Hotel to ExxonMobil, from Scratch

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CLOSEST HOTEL TO EXXONMOBIL, FROM SCRATCH Has it been your lifelong dream to develop a quaint little hotel in the town center of a brand-new 1,800-acre “eco-themed” community in the shadows of the formerly woodsy new suburban-style corporate campus of the world’s largest oil company world’s largest publicly traded oil company? All righty, then: Now’s your chance! CDC Houston announced today that it’s looking for proposals from would-be developers of the very first hotel in Springwoods Village, on a site “in walking or shuttle distance” of ExxonMobil’s humongous new office hub, currently under construction just west of where I-45 spits out the Hardy Toll Rd. The Houston subsidiary of New York real estate firm Coventry Development Corp. plans to reach a total of 1,400 hotel rooms in Springwoods Village eventually. [Previously on Swamplot] Map: Springwoods Village

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Headlines
07/17/12 9:30am

Headlines: Downtown Charity Bar; Upper Kirby Newcomers

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Photo of former Trinity Portland Cement Company site at N. Hutcheson and Freund: HAIF user Kylejack

Lancaster Place
07/16/12 3:28pm

Scenes from the Dunlavy Fiesta Farewell Shopping Experience

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Last night at the Fiesta on Dunlavy was the last night at the Fiesta on Dunlavy. Photographer-about-town Sarah Lipscomb, who began shopping at the store on the corner of West Alabama back when it was a Safeway, grabbed a few shots of the grocery store’s interior as she strolled the aisles there one last time:

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