NOTICING THE ASTRODOME-ARENA BAIT-AND-SWITCH 
A major focus of the report on the future of the Astrodome endorsed this week by the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. was a proposal to spend an additional $385 million to replace the neighboring 1974-vintage Reliant Arena. (That’s almost $115 million more than the estimated $270.3 million the team of consultants estimated it would take to raise the floor of the Astrodome and turn it into a smaller “multi-purpose” facility.) And of course, county budget officials are quick to shoot down the resulting proposed $523 million tax-supported bond issue for a new county building, even if the name “Astrodome” is attached to it. But a comment from Ed Emmett quoted in today’s Chronicle makes it appear the county judge wants to call the bluff: “‘The way it was trotted out, we’re going to re-purpose the Dome and we’re going to replace the arena with a new building,’ Emmett said. ‘If we’re doing that, why don’t we use the Dome for the purposes the arena was being used for? Because that would obviously cost less.'” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons [license]
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Flushing another William Floyd home in Memorial Bend, and other cool demo delights:
- League City Begins Unearthing Compton Oak for 1,500-ft. Move [Galveston County Daily News]
- Seabrook-Kemah Bridge To Be Closed for Real Next Friday for Mock Space Shuttle Arrival [Bay Area Citizen; previously on Swamplot]
- 16 Percent of Woodlands Trees Dead or Dying, Finds Audit [Woodlands Villager]
- Forecasters Predict 9 to 15 Hurricanes This Season [KHOU]
- Houston Food Pioneer Georgia Bost of Georgia’s Farm to Market Dies [Culturemap]
- Montrose Hotel La Colombe d’Or Unveils Stash of Picassos, Man Rays, DalÃs [Culturemap]
- How To Clean Up the Former Meth Lab in Your New Home [Hair Balls]
Photo of George Hermann sculpture in Hermann Park: bpawlik via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE PROBLEM WITH ALL NON-OUTRAGEOUS ASTRODOME REDEVELOPMENT CONCEPTS “I’m not attached to the Dome and I don’t know that many people are. When I read this report, like other commentators, I’m thinking . . . thats a lot of money for ‘another venue.’ My impression is that some of the really cool ideas have been suppressed by the Rodeo, which disgusts me. I think a lot of money might be well spent if you are building a unique facility . . . something truly different that would make me load up my family and go there just for that experience. . . . but I don’t want to spend a lot of money just to build ‘another venue’ . . . who’s real purpose is to somehow ‘save the dome.'” [dara childs, commenting on New Life — or Death — for the Astrodome, Now at a Discount]
Arches. Red tile roofing. Arcades. Timbered ceilings. More arches. It’s a seventies-style revival of a Spanish Colonial Revival model on more than an acre of land in Coward Creek subdivision near Friendswood High School. The home’s footprint is a less-than-lot-filling 4,141 sq. ft. on a street with a little breathing room between residences. The asking price: $675,000. Did we mention the arches?
After more than 3 years of negotiations and court battles, the fenced-off 4.85-acre property covered with overgrown and vandalized buildings once known as the Park Memorial condos has at last been sold. Owners of the 108 properties at 5292 Memorial Dr. who were able to hold onto their units after the city declared them unsafe and barred anyone from living there in 2008 (or who snatched them up for low, low prices later) should be receiving their checks soon. The buyer is JLB Properties from Dallas, developers of the Ava apartments on Highmeadow near Hillcroft. The company is reportedly planning a new apartment complex on the Park Memorial site, which sits north of Buffalo Bayou at the corner of Memorial Dr. and Detering.
Okay, scratch that image displayed here yesterday of the Hanover Company’s new apartment tower in BLVD Place from your memory banks — it was just an early study. Replace it with these 2 images, showing the updated design by Chicago architects Solomon Cordwell Buenz. And plug in this measurement as metadata: 29 stories. The drawing above shows how the 358-unit building would look from Post Oak Ln., just behind the long-promised Galleria Whole Foods Market. The view below is from one of the Four Leaf Towers to the north, at San Felipe and Skylark:
- Galveston Pleasure Pier’s Soft Opening Is Tomorrow [29-95.com]
- Landry’s Owned Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Opens on Pier Today [Galveston County Daily News]
- Japanese Chain Uniqlo Eyeing First Houston Location [Culturemap]
- Inside Real Estate Guru Ed Wulfe’s BLVD Place Offices at Post Oak and San Felipe [Prime Property]
- Southwest Agrees To Pay for Hobby Expansion Costs; Plan Moves To City Council Vote Next Week [Houston Chronicle]
- Port of Houston Authority’s Secret Talks To Turn Bayport Cruise Terminal into Military Outpost Collapse [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- In Fare-Free First Week, League City—Galveston Park and Ride Service Averages 250 Rides a Day [Galveston County Daily News]
- Houston Drivers Wasted an Average 21.4 Hours Stuck in Traffic This Past Year [INRIX via Houston Business Journal]
- Houston Ranks Low in Survey Measuring Park Acreage, Access, Budgets in Largest US Cities [ParkScore via Newswatch]
- Mosquito Crop Harvest in Harris County Arrives Early This Year [Click2Houston]
- About 61,500 Harris County Residents Not Counted in 2010 Census [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Point Bolivar lighthouse: Jackson Myers via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN NOTHING IS BETTER THAN SOMETHING “. . . this is Houston, where most people think that something is better than nothing (like a WalMart). If you live here long enough, you learn the hard way to stop expecting much from local developers — even those who build amazing things in other cities. They don’t bother here, mostly because they don’t have to. No zoning, no planning, no architectural or design reviews, hell the 4th largest city in the land doesn’t even have an architecture critic on staff anywhere (only food and arts critics in H-town), so no bad reviews — just kudos from the press for ‘at least’ doing something. Houston has become the land of ‘at least’; at least they built something; at least it’s not an empty lot anymore; at least . . . Empty lots are underrated.” [Jon, commenting on Hanover’s Next Apartment Tower for BLVD Place]
NEW LIFE — OR DEATH — FOR THE ASTRODOME, NOW AT A DISCOUNT 
Notable in the options presented in today’s report from the latest group of consultants to study the future of the Astrodome: lower prices. The cost estimate for demolishing the vacant sports stadium has been marked down to $68 million from the $128 million cited in a 2010 study (possibly in part because the new figure doesn’t include retiring the debt the county still owes on the building). And turning the Astrodome into a multipurpose sports and exhibition facility (the top recommendation from the consultants at Dallas’s Convention Sports and Leisure) is now predicted to cost just $270 million, down from the $324-to-$374-million range cited in the same 2-year-old report. But the consultants also suggested spending an additional $385 million to replace Reliant Arena; they’d also like to get a private developer to build a hotel on the grounds of Reliant Park. [Click2Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
Here’s the rendering Houston’s Hanover Company passed around to drum up the $40 million equity investment its website now indicates is committed to building the structure as part of BLVD Place, just north of the Galleria. The 358-unit apartment tower at the corner of Sky Lark and Post Oak Ln. is listed as a “midrise” in company materials, but it’s all relative: The 20-something stories depicted make the new version a bit shorter than the 57-story design the company had prepared for the site in 2007, as well as the 37-story model announced a year later, before the project got put on hold.
- Hanover Blvd Place [Hanover Co., via Going Up City!]
- Previously on Swamplot: Galleria Pocket Park Fight Ends with TIRZ Reaching into Pocket, Putting Off the Ritz: Boulevard Place Towers Stalled, Hanover Apartment Tower at Boulevard Place: 37 Stories
Image: Hanover Co.
If this West U mansion on Buffalo Speedway brings to mind a game of Clue, chalk it up to its interior layout — and its inadvertent role in a jewelry pilfering attempt by a house-hunting poseur earlier this year.
As with the classic board game, the listing identifies each room by its function. There’s a Music Room. A Loggia. Even a Billiards Room. It was in a Bedroom back in January, however, that an unassuming early guest at an open house allegedly rummaged through a jewelry drawer. He left quickly and empty-handed, but first “body-slammed” the sales agent who had interrupted him. An account of the incident that appeared in the Village News at the time (no longer online, unfortunately) said the perp, believed to have been working high-end open houses in 2 cities, was quickly ID’d, due in part to a fast-and-furious word-of-mouth campaign among Houston-area Realtors to name him and flush-out his whereabouts — and to remind fellow agents to be careful when showing properties.
The upshot? Don’t be surprised one of these days if you’re asked to show an ID and pose for a cell phone photo at a slightly less open open house. No ID required for this tour, though:
It’s clean-up-your-garage day! Or just sit back and we’ll do it for you.
- Hobby Airport Expansion Agreement with Southwest To Be Announced Today [abc13]
- Big New Idea in Astrodome Report Being Revealed Today: World’s Largest Planetarium [abc13]
- Appeals Court Rules Galveston Open Beaches Act Unconstitutional, Orders Retrial [Houston Chronicle]
- Final Council Vote Allows League City Homes To Secede from Historic District [Galveston County Daily News]
- Businesses Along Light Rail Construction Path Received ‘Couple Million’ in Cash Assistance from Metro [KUHF]
- Residents near Bayport Ship Channel Fighting Proposal to Dredge Waterway, Create 450-Acre Island in Galveston Bay [abc13]
- Abandoned Pecan Grove Home Annoys Neighbors [Click2Houston]
- ‘The Rig’ — Pearland High School’s Football Field — Cut Up By Vandals [abc13]
- Is Minute Maid Park Going to Level Tal’s Hill? [Hair Balls]
- Houston Lost More People Than It Gained in Fiscal Year 2011 [The List]
- Galveston Historical Foundation LEED Platinum ‘Green Revival’ House on Avenue Q [Inhabitat]
- Dolce Vita on Lower Westheimer Closed After Early Morning Dumpster Fire [abc13]
Photo of downtown rainbow: mlanza via Swamplot Flickr Pool
