COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT THEY’RE PLANNING TO BUILD IN HOUSTON “I always have to chuckle when people are discussing what is being built somewhere in town. ‘Why don’t THEY build . . .’ or ‘Why don’t THEY put in . . .’ There really is no ‘THEY’ sitting back and ‘planning’ what to put in. When property is up for sale, there are numerous buyers out there who already have their OWN project (whatever it is they do) looking for a place at a price they are willing to pay, and usually in a certain part of town. If it’s a medical group, ‘they’ are not going to say ‘Hey, this neighborhood needs a restaurant’ — unless of course they decide to put one inside the medical building they build. But you get my point. These are not planned communities with someone (called ‘They’) at the helm, making decisions. As long as the citizens let the rich ‘good-ole-boys’ swing the vote every time ‘ZONING’ comes up, people can generally build what they want — where they want in Houston, TX.” [Mr-DJ, commenting on Clearing an Empty Lot in the Museum District]
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FILLING COMMERCIAL SPACE BY THE SQUARE FOOT 
A new website launched by a Houston startup aims to simplify the complicated process of leasing and setting up shop in a new office, warehouse, restaurant, or retail space. Kicked off this month with about 1,500 Houston property listings from about a dozen local and national brokers, The Square Foot is targeted at small and medium businesses that have never leased commercial property before. After steering customers to properties that match their criteria, the site intends to smooth out the process of finding helping tenants find furniture, IT services, movers, and related services as well. Co-founder Justin Lee tells Swamplot the site is focusing on Houston for now, but hopes to expand coverage to Texas’s other major cities by the end of the year.
- 502 Avondale St. [HAR]
PUSHING BEYOND “PAWS ON THE PATIO” 
Heights, Midtown, and Washington Ave burger joint Christian’s Tailgate serves dogs too! Pictured at right is a meal of hamburger, fries, a donut, and “doggie beer” from the local chain’s “Mutt Menu” of “gourmet dog treats.” [Christian’s Tailgate Bar & Grill, via b4-u-eat; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Christian’s Tailgate
HOW HAR AGENTS GET THOSE GLOWING REVIEWS ONLINE 
HAR’s pioneering ratings program for real-estate agents gets a bit of scrutiny from the Wall Street Journal’s Smart Money magazine. Among the amazing stats: A mere 1.4 percent of all ratings on HAR come in at less than 4 stars; meanwhile, on Angie’s List 5.9 percent of real-estate-agent reviews have equivalent “mediocre to poor” scores, and on Yelp the number is 18.5 percent. Agents participating in the Houston Association of Realtors program earn an average rating of 4.94 out of 5. How do they chalk up such glowing reviews? “In reality, that 4.94 represents the average score of just 12 percent of the association’s agents. Another 7 percent participate in the rating program but don’t make their results public. The rest — some 17,000 real estate pros — don’t get rated at all, either by choice or because they haven’t completed enough transactions. The group surveys only customers who have closed deals, leaving out everyone who, satisfied or not, walked away. Those qualifications help explain why fewer than 0.3 percent of the Houston agents have been awarded a low one-star rating by their clients — a figure that seems to defy reality, given all the things that can go wrong in a home deal. (The association says low-rated agents often opt out of the program.)” Reporter Alyssa Abkowitz quotes Katy agent Patricia Gant about the one black mark that brought her overall rating down to a comparatively low 4.4 out of 5 stars: “I would’ve never sent [a survey] to her,” she says, “if I’d had any idea that she’d give me one star.” [Smart Money]
- Boiling Notice in Effect After E. Coli Found in Galveston Faucet Water [Galveston County Daily News]
- Flash Flood Watch Today Throughout Houston [Newswatch]
- Southeast Houston Residents Tired of Flooding Along Ledge and Nathaniel [abc13]
- Galveston Council To Consider Using Sales Tax To Pay for $2.7M in City Improvements [Galveston County Daily News]
- Lake Conroe Could Reach ‘Normal’ Levels for First Time in 2 Years After This Week’s Rain [Courier of Montgomery County]
- Houston Area Ranks Low on Survey Measuring Number of Jobs in Reach of Public Transit Service [Houston Business Journal]
- 450 Solo Drivers a Day Paying Tolls To Use I-45 South HOV Lane, Number Expected To Grow to 2,400 by May 2013 [KUHF]
- Homeowners Challenging Parking Ordinance in Briar Gate Subdivision [abc13]
- Three Years After Ponzi Scheme Sentencing, Hart Gallery Owners May Begin Jail Time This Friday [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Linn Energy’s Mike and Carol Linn Selling Fourth Home in 4 Years: Beachtown Retreat, $2.25M [Houston Chronicle; photo above]
- Sicardi’s West Alabama Building the Latest in Houston’s ‘Gray Box’ Architecture Trend [Arts & Culture Magazine]
- Slideshow: The Restoration of Washington Ave.’s Fire Station No. 6 [PreservationNation]
Photo of 2653 E. Seaside Dr.: HAR
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HURRICANE RITAS “I know there are people who ‘go out for Margaritas’ . . . that is, they are looking for a good ’Rita and don’t care that much about the food. However, I don’t think that means a place can succeed if that’s all they’ve got. No shortage in this town of good ’Ritas or good Mexican food or places that can do both, like Hugo’s or Sylvia’s. On the other hand, I have a fond memory of the Ninfa’s on Kirby because they were open right after Ike when most of the city was still without power. Under those circumstances, I thought the food was awesome.” [toadfroggy, commenting on Out with Mama Ninfa’s, in with Maggie Rita’s]
Pardon us, one at a time, while we slip — slowly — into a slightly higher elevation.
A couple of readers are curious about some Museum District action, catty-corner from the Children’s Museum. “Could hardly believe my eyes this morning,” writes one. “SOMETHING is going on at the empty lot at Binz & LaBranch (next to the soon to be opening Lucille’s). Old foundations and stumps have been dug up. There’s even a port-a-potty on-site. What I don’t know, however, is WHAT is being planned for this site. I thought maybe the readers would have a clue.” Well, here’s an old one:
Betsy to heaven, and other worldly releases:
- Finger Will Raze Former Art Institute Building at San Felipe and Sage for Luxury Apartments [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
- Ikea Becomes Largest Solar Owner in Texas with Launch of Solar Panels at Houston Store [Houston Business Journal]
- Panera Bread Opens League City Location Today in Victory Lakes Town Center [Galveston County Daily News]
- Experts Say Shell Towers a ‘Safe’ Investment for Duncan Money [Houston Chronicle]
- Treasures Files Retaliation Lawsuit After City of Houston Declared Strip Club a Public Nuisance [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Conroe in Talks with Willis About Buying Excess Water Rights from Proposed Catahoula Aquifer Wells [Courier of Montgomery County]
- Humble Man Accused of Selling Foreclosed Home He No Longer Owned for $50K [Click2Houston]
Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
WHERE PHILLIPS 66 WILL HANG OUT FOR A FEW YEARS IN WESTCHASE 
On its way to building a new headquarters at some yet-to-be-revealed location “within the I-10 and Beltway 8 corridors,” newly jettisoned refining and chemicals company Phillips 66 announced back in March that it’ll be parking employees in a few separate temporary office locations in the meantime. Many will stay in the Two and Three Westlake Park office buildings on Memorial Dr. east of George Bush Park where they are already. But a previously unidentified third temporary location has just been revealed: The top floors of the Pinnacle Westchase building at 3010 Briarpark, where the company will be taking over 209,482 sq. ft. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Pinnacle Westchase
MAKES THE ART REAL Artist and punk rocker Mark Flood — who made a practice of setting up studio space in decaying, abandoned buildings — explains Houston to New York Times arts blogger Randy Kennedy: “Q. You’ve described Houston as an “oil-stained, overdeveloped parking lot, packed with cars, littered with advertising, designed for profit, not people.†Why have you stayed there all these years? A. I don’t hear any anger in that description. Merely truth telling, which freaks people out. I’ve just always liked Houston. I could operate there. I could drive around. I had a pickup truck. And it was a city that fed my work with something — I call it reality. Houston is more real than most places, more real than New York.” [NYT]
OUT WITH MAMA NINFA’S, IN WITH MAGGIE RITA’S 
What’s behind the rebranding of the 3 non-Navigation Ninfa’s Mexican Food restaurants — on Kirby at Richmond, Post Oak north of San Felipe, and the Gulf Fwy. feeder Rd. at Winkler — into Maggie Rita’s Grill & Bar locations, and the attendant replacement of the well-known Houston restaurant’s Tex-Mex classics with . . . tapas? Besides freeing himself and co-owner Carlos Mencia from licensing payments for using the Ninfa’s name, Suave Restaurants’ Santiago Moreno explains, switching to the Maggie Rita’s chain means a lighter menu that customers might be able to eat from as often as 3 times a week. But by his calculation the food switch may not make much of a difference anyway: “We’ve found out consumer decisions are made by women,” Moreno tells Eric Sandler. “When we track what makes a woman decide where to eat Mexican food, it has to do with margaritas. It has nothing to do with food.” The changes won’t effect Ninfa’s on Navigation, which has been owned since 2007 by Legacy Restaurants. [Eater Houston] Photo of Ninfa’s at 1650 Post Oak Blvd.: AmREIT
