MOON TOWER INN’S BICYCLE PARKING SCORE 
Whenever it gets around to reopening as a brewery, Second Ward hotdog HQ Moon Tower Inn will still have only a single off-street parking spot — thanks to an accommodation agreed to by the planning commission. Owner Evan Shannon agreed to provide rack space for 40 bicycles instead of the 5 additional car spaces that would have otherwise been required at 3004 Canal St. Helpful in securing the exception from the city: a few bike-riding employees — and plenty of on-street parking in the food stand’s mostly industrial neighborhood. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Marty E.
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The three buildings listed as 6204 Main St. lie not on the tree-lined block near Rice University, but rather its mixed-use counterpart on North Main. Asking $260,000, the property includes a vacant warehouse flanked by two homes, squeezed onto a quarter-acre in the Rodgers Park area, just south of Sunset Heights and 2 blocks from Metro’s Heights Transit Center.
The warehouse anchors the southeast corner of N. Main and E. 23rd. It’s in “poor condition,” according to the listing. The adjacent houses, meanwhile, are generating rental income. They date back to the late 1920s. The dimensions of every room are described as 10 ft. x 10 ft.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
What we got to take down today:
- Potential 70-Percent Property Tax Increase Dampens Enthusiasm for Woodlands Incorporation [Houston Chronicle]
- Baylor College of Medicine’s Empty Hospital To Become an Outpatient Center [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Former Gallant Knight Location at 2511 Bissonnet Will Be 23-and-Up ‘Speakeasy’ Bar [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Asia Officials Could Help Bring Houston-Dallas High-Speed Train [Texas on the Potomac via Houston Business Journal]
- Texas Representative Looks To Halt Insurance Company Desertion After 11,000 Policies Dropped Statewide [Galveston County Daily News]
- Workshop To Discuss New Galveston Noise Ordinance on May 1 [Galveston County Daily News]
- Yoshio Taniguchi’s New Asia Society Texas Center Opens to Visitors This Weekend [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Homebuilding with Houston’s Night-Herons [Houston Chronicle]
- Behind the Scenes at the Bayport Terminal U.S. Customs Office [Houston Business Journal]
- Old Houston Photos Matched Up with Present-Day Views [Hair Balls]
- Montrose Duplex Goes Craftsman [River Oaks Examiner]
- Tips for Furnishing Your First Home [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Minute Maid Park on opening day: Candace Garcia
ALL FOR THE WEEK 
Looks like a Good Friday to take an early break for a holiday-filled weekend. Swamplot will be back Monday with more Houston real estate fun. Photo of poolside hallway, former St. Joseph’s Hospital convent, 1905 Crawford St., Downtown: Flickr user Melted Plastic [license]
- Houston Metro Area Now the Fifth Largest, According to Census Estimates [Houston Chronicle]
- Proposal To Add Toll Lanes to U.S. 290, Texas 288 Scheduled for Vote on Tuesday [Houston Chronicle]
- Alamo Drafthouse To Open New Theater in Vintage Park, near 249 and Louetta, by End of Year [Community Impact Newspaper via Prime Property]
- From Seattle to Houston, Apartment Construction Surge Threatens To Stall Growth in Rents [Bloomberg]
- BBVA Compass Sign Going Up at Dynamo Stadium [Houston Business Journal]
- Slideshow of Sugar Land Skeeters’ New Stadium [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Drought Conditions Officially Gone [KUHF]
- Citing Low Aquifer Levels, State Officials Encourage Residents To Conserve Water [Bay Area Citizen]
- Woodlands Woman Scares Off Burglar Dressed Like Spider-Man [Click2Houston]
- Four-Foot Alligator on Pearland Pkwy. Service Road Stops Traffic [abc13]
- Festival To Celebrate Transformation of Houston’s East End [KUHF]
Photo of Discovery Green fountain: lc_db via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TO KILL A GIANT COCKROACH “It’s not really dead. While we’re asleep it will emerge from the scrap heap and continue to wander under the cover of night. Somewhere a husband will find it and attempt another violent execution, only to have the wife frantically call him home when it crawls back out the next day.” [mek ju, commenting on Giant Neon Cockroach That Haunted Southwest Freeway, Eradicated at Last]
GIANT NEON COCKROACH THAT HAUNTED SOUTHWEST FREEWAY, ERADICATED AT LAST 
Bubba, the cockroach enshrined in an enormous neon sign for Holder’s Pest Control, which stood guard for years along Westpark next to the Southwest Freeway, will not return to the Houston skyline, the company reports. The 8-ft.-by-16-ft. sign was taken down in 2004, after Holder’s relocated. But after almost 8 years of residence in a company warehouse, the sign was “cut up and hauled off for recycling” earlier this year, reports Travis Alford. That menacing, old-fashioned cockroach is no longer a part of the brand identity of the company now known as Holder’s Pest Solutions, and it won’t be coming back. Holder’s just-unveiled new logo instead features a gentle curve at its top that references instead a much more modern feature of Houston: the Astrodome. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Holder’s Pest Control
A studio, spa, and amped-up patio share a 10,000-sq.-ft. lot in Garden Oaks with this 2-or-3-bedroom house of 1,800 sq. ft. The master bedroom’s open-ended double shower features hot tub access and views of — and from — the great outdoors. Rooms overlooking the back yard have lots of windows, too. The days of curtain-free living here may be numbered, however. A listing photo (at top) shows something under construction rising over the fence, its neighborly vantage point yet to be determined.
Those fishy figures in the photo above might look like just another bit of street art wheatpasted onto just another dilapidated East Downtown building, but they signaled a life-changing event for one Swamplot reader. QR code included. The images are based on the work of Spanish graffiti artist El Pez — the reader’s favorite. So what happened when she and her boyfriend drove past them on Congress St. between Hutchins and Bastrop last Sunday?
This should go without a hitch.
- Hines Joining 1,000-Acre Inside Beltway Industrial Project West of I-45 [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Some Sugar Land Residents Oppose Inclusion of Apartments in Imperial Sugar Site Project [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Galveston Houston Authority Votes To Eliminate ‘Scattered Sites’ from Public Housing Master Plan [Galveston County Daily News]
- All That Land-Clearing Next to La Marque’s Walmart Is for a Sam’s Club [Galveston County Daily News]
- American Spectrum Realty Sells Two Park Ten Buildings, Industrial Property [Houston Business Journal]
- 102-Year-Old Carroll House To Become Independence Heights’ First Protected Landmark [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston’s Retail Market Vacancy Rate Dropped, Added Jobs in 2011, According to Report [GlobeSt.com]
- Houston Office Market Absorbed 900,000 SF in First Quarter of 2012 [KUHF]
- Galveston Contractors Discuss Ike Funding Nightmares [abc13]
- Conroe To Abandon Metered Parking in City-Owned Lot [Courier of Montgomery County]
- Forecasters Predict Less Hurricane Activity Than Average This Year [Houston Chronicle]
- Haven’s Stolen Hive Replaced with Bedroom Bees [MyFox Houston; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of Houston Ship Channel: bpawlik via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Houston’s 13th annual “What Shall We Do with the Astrodome?” media season kicked off yesterday with a tour of the shuttered facility open to local reporters and photographers willing to sweat a little in the no-longer-air-conditioned space, sign a release, and hold their noses. What was that offending scent? Teevee news reporters politely referred to it in their reports as “mildew” or a “musty” odor, but Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia calls it as she sniffed it: “The smell of mold was overwhelming,” she reports.
EXXONMOBIL’S HUMBLE GIFT TO THE CITY? 
What will happen to its well-shaded 44-story downtown headquarters building at 800 Bell St., once ExxonMobil decamps for the new campus the oil giant is building at Houston’s northern reaches? The company “has not announced what will happen to its downtown building,” writes longtime real estate reporter Ralph Bivins about the iconic 1963 tower that houses at its top the storied Petroleum Club. “One of the most interesting rumors we’ve heard about it is that Exxon Mobil will donate the building to the City of Houston for municipal offices. You know, we can’t sell it, so let’s just give it to Annise Parker instead.” [Culturemap] Photo: Flickr user lc_db
