COMMENT OF THE DAY: SANDWICHES TOOK THEIR IDENTITY A point of History: Quiznos “Q†logo established in 2004. NewQuest Properties was founded in 2001, and has only had its current logo. [Houstonian, commenting on What To Expect at the Sign of the Q]
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Harris County Housing Authority interim CEO Tom McCasland takes a visitor from Portland along the path of the bike trail he hopes will soon connect Downtown Houston seamlessly to the city’s northwestern suburbs. From Georgia’s Market downtown they head out the MKT Trail into the Heights, which dead ends near the Shepherd-Durham overpasses. “The lot turned into a truck path, which ended at a decrepit railroad bridge. We took a sharp right down a singletrack path along the edge of the bayou far below us,” writes Elly Blue, who’s been touring U.S. cities to assess their bikeability. McCasland, an advocate for expanding Houston bikeways, tells the Houston Press‘s John Nova Lomax that “part of the city’s latest grand biking plan is to dynamite [that burned-out bridge] and rebuild it as a bike/pedestrian thoroughfare. The trail will then continue along White Oak Bayou’s banks and connect with the existing trail that begins at West 11th and TC Jester and heads north through Timbergrove, Garden Oaks, Oak Forest and all the way up to Acres Homes.”
How well does a store built of structural glass hold up under gunfire? Probably better than your typical plate-glass storefront — though the repair costs are likely to be higher. A reader sends Swamplot this photo showing the smaller of 2 glass panels damaged by bullets earlier this week at the brand-new Apple Store in Houston’s Highland Village Shopping Center. Between the hours of 4:40 and 5:40 Monday morning someone in a vehicle speeding down Westheimer shot at 5 businesses, including 2 gas stations and the Cantoni furniture showroom past Gessner. No one was injured. Apple Store customers were routed to the building’s rear entrance after it opened for business, according to Click2Houston reporter Courtney Zavala.
Views of the damage from the outside, from Monday’s TV report:
Never lived in. Never finished, actually, since its start in 2004 by the owner’s son, a builder. An update posted last week to the property listing says “an unfortunate automobile accident prevented completion.”
As is, the stucco structure on 1.2 acres in Braeburn Acres has 2 silo-shaped wings. One contains a room 50 ft. in diameter intended to hold the living, dining, and kitchen areas. Above the center of that combo space is a skylight within a dome that rises 18 ft.
- Houston Ranked One of America’s Fastest-Growing Cities, Behind Austin and Dallas [Forbes, via Prime Property]
- Bullritos, Qdoba Mexican Grill Opening near Chipotle in Webster Area [Galveston County Daily News]
- Slideshow: Inside Southern Living’s $1.4M Showcase Home in Bellaire [Houston Business Journal]
- Driver Accuses League City of Misusing Red Light Ticket Funds [abc13]
- Licensed Hunters Now Allowed To Remove Alligators from Texas Neighborhoods [abc13]
- Greater Houston Partnership Supports Hobby Expansion [Houston Politics]
- Study Painting for Sam Houston Mural from Houston’s Demolished Grand Central Station Shows Up in Dallas Auction [Culturemap]
- Tour of Private Living Spaces in Downtown Residential Buildings This Saturday [Houston Chronicle]
- 1875 Farmhouse in Woodland Heights Designated Historic Landmark (PDF) [Houston Planning]
Photo of Klunkert Farmhouse, 2911 Julian St.: Houston Planning & Development Dept.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RICE MILITARY MARCH “I walk around in Rice Military and between the old homes, new townhouses, ditches, curbs, overgrown lots, old pea-gravel concrete, newer brick-u-luxe pavers, electrical and cable boxes, new mailbox clusters, construction vehicles, and general chaos, there is hardly any contiguous sidewalk in any block in any direction.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on Where the Sidewalk Takes a Little Break]
THE LANIERS DOWNSIZE 
Heriz, Aubusson, and Kerman rugs; antique music boxes; Dresden porcelains; sterling silver tea sets; antique Limoges dinnerware; Roger Clemens-autographed baseballs; Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Alexandra Knight handbags; Manolo Blahnik alligator pumps, and a few lightly worn outfits from Yves St. Laurent, Bill Blass, and Prada are among the items you may expect to find at the upcoming garage sale being thrown by Port Commissioner Elyse Lanier and her husband, former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier. The occasion: the recent sale — after almost 3 years on the market — of their 13,386-sq.-ft., 11-bathroom River Oaks estate (pictured) at 3665 Willowick for more than $6 million, a bit more than half their original asking price, and another notch below the just-under $7 million they resigned themselves to when they dropped the asking price for the last time late last year. Why the sell-off? “I just don’t have room to fit it all,” Elyse Lanier tells society reporter Shelby Hodge. The Laniers will take only a subset of their stuff into the 2 apartments they’re combining on an upper floor at the Inwood Manor highrise on San Felipe. They’re jettisoning too much to fit into the Laniers’ old 3-car garage; the sale will take place at the Houston Design Center instead. [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HAR
A Timbergrove Manor home that changed hands in November 2011 is back on the market and asking $440,000 following an overhaul. Gone is the brown exterior, repainted in a spicy mustard tone, perhaps in homage to Harvest Gold. Other changes to the home built in 1964 include a new roof, new windows, and an automatic driveway gate. Inside, the 3-bedroom, 2-bath home gained stone, tile, granite, carpet, and lighting. Plus fresh paint in shades of pale yellow.
Sure, send us anything: “I think I read in your blog recently that you wanted people to send you photos of blocked or unpassable sidewalks in Houston,” writes the reader who sent in these images. They show a tiny community garden — which appears to support its own utility pole — implanted in the sidewalk area on Ferndale St. just south of Westheimer, across the street from the River Oaks Plastic Surgery Center. The sidewalk break fits between 2712 Ferndale St. and its big brother next door, The Belle Meade at River Oaks condo building, at 2929 Westheimer.
MEDITERRANEAN TWINS IN BAYOU PLACE 
Two replacement restaurants operated by a single owner are now set for the Bayou Place spot Downtown left vacant by Mingalone Italian Bar & Grill when it closed a year ago. Little Napoli Italian Cuisine is moving from its place up the street to share a kitchen with Kabobs Grill Mediterranean Cuisine in the space at 540 Texas Ave. [b4-u-eat; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Mingalone
Please, brave crews: Unburden the land of these fretful structures. So that the earth may breathe.
- Houston Homes Sales Jumped 9 Percent Last Year, Finds Texas Quarterly Housing Report [Prime Property]
- Office Tower at Shepherd and Fairview, Renamed ‘The Bellevue,’ Undergoing $2.7M in Renovations [Houston Business Journal]
- The Woodlands Now a ‘Destination for Diners’ [Houston Chronicle]
- Invasion of the Breastaurants: Austin’s Bikinis Sports Bar Opening in The Woodlands; Bone Daddy Next [Houston Business Journal]
- Man Chains Himself to Tree Metro Plans To Move to MacGregor Park [Houston Chronicle]
- Verizon Wireless Theater Changes Name, But Not Sign [Culturemap]
- Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co.’s Cottage Grove Brewery Opens for Sneak Peek [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot]
- City To Expand Single-Stream Recycling to 30,000 to 50,000 New Homes Over Coming Year [Houston Politics]
- ERCOT Returns More Power Lines to Service in Preparation for Summer [KUHF]
- Houston Could Slip Back Into Dry Spell, Warn Drought Experts [KUHF]
- First Major Wildfires of 2012 Tear Through West Texas [StateImpact]
Photo of Williams Tower: Candace Garcia
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN THE BULLDOZERS HEAD FOR SHARPSTOWN “. . . The Heights used to be pretty shady too. Times change. Neighborhoods change. Sharpstown’s day in the sun is coming, but it’s still a ways off. It’s not hard to look at the wave of redevelopment that has poured out from the center of Houston and realize Sharpstown is the path of growth. Back in the 80′s West U houses were being bulldozed by the dozen. Soon lots of folks were priced out of West U and the bulldozers turned to Bellaire. Now they are turning south all the way to the South Loop. Meyerland is in play too. Right now the primary western barrier is the edge of the Bellaire HS zoning map. As Meyerland continues to improve though, the childless pioneers who don’t care about school zones will be the first to start the gentrification process in Sharpstown. Eventually . . . critical mass. If the neighborhood associations were smart, they’d start their own tax district and ear mark all the proceeds for demolition of the junkiest properties. Demo some junk. Demo some more junk. Hold the land as it appreciates. Sell it to a developer who has a plan to build that you like (not just the highest bidder). Pour the land sale money into more demolition. Rinse. Repeat.” [Bernard, commenting on Headlines: Selling the Astrodome in Pieces; Felix Mexican Restaurant Sign Mystery]
Pulling into the Pei Wei parking lot on FM 1960 just north of 290 for lunch yesterday, Swamplot reader David Hollas came upon “a whole bunch of commercial real estate signs that reminded me of that tasty sandwich place called Quiznos.” Looking closer, he realized the signs belonged to Houston commercial real estate company NewQuest Properties. Hollas notes “the logos are nearly identical.”
Photo: David Hollas
