HOW TO REDECORATE IN SECRET 
West U design blogger Joni Webb confesses to the plan she had been pursuing all along: “How do you redecorate without your husband really noticing? If I had told Ben I was going to redo the entire downstairs, he would have had a heart attack. In order to save his life, I never told him. Instead, the changes were done a little bit at a time over the course of a few years. Slowly, slowly, and quietly. Once the countertops had been paid for and forgotten about, I had the walls painted. Well, they needed it anyway!! Once the walls were gray, I lived with the old yellow silk ticking curtains for a while before I changed them out for the grayish taffeta. And who would ever notice a few new slipcovers anyway? Certainly Ben didn’t. He pays so little attention to what I’m doing around the house, he is still oblivious that I have been redecorating for the past couple of years all with a grand scheme in mind.” [Cote de Texas] Photo: Joni Webb
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Teevee reporter Courtney Zubowski follows up on questions raised by some recent photos published on Swamplot: Just how badly trashed is the Astrodome? The county claims to be spending $2 to $3 million a year to maintain the vacant structure, but apparently that amount isn’t enough to keep the place presentable. A burst 8th-floor pipe has drenched the Astroturf, seats are caked with dust, pipe insulation is frayed, and hung ceilings have collapsed on office space:
Look out for a self-driving car from Google navigating strip-center parking lots and ordering tacos from a drive-thru near you. Will they self-valet too?
Video: Google
- Kemah’s 3,000 Parking Spots Not Enough During Tourist Season [Galveston County Daily News]
- Will Hines Announce a New Downtown Skyscraper at Realtors’ Expo Next Week? [Houston Business Journal]
- ‘Dangerous’ Home on Coleridge St. May Soon Be Demolished [InstantNewsWestU]
- FEMA Awards University of Texas Medical Branch $90.1M for Ike Damages [Newswatch]
- FEMA Won’t Reimburse Harris County Housing Authority $7M for Ike Damage Survey [Houston Chronicle]
- Bastard Cabbage Crowding Out Texas Bluebonnets in Central Texas, Making Its Way Eastward [Art Attack]
- Driver Caught in Katy Freeway HOV Lane with Dummy Passenger [abc13]
- Local Speeding Tickets Can Take Years To Fight in Court [KHOU]
- Clear Lake Shores Blogger Jailed for Encouraging People To Spam Councilwoman’s Email [Galveston County Daily News]
- Parking Lot Oasis in Houston [Texas Liberal]
Photo of Evergreen Cemetery, Eastwood: Christopher Newsom via Swamplot Flickr Pool
For the first time since 2008, when Aurora Picture Show left the converted church in Sunset Heights currently commandeered by 14 Pews, the quirky flickhouse founded by microcinema pioneer Andrea Grover will be gaining its own dedicated moviehouse. In the interim, Aurora’s succeeding directors have been organizing film programs from a bungalow on the Menil campus at 1524 Sul Ross. But starting this June, the organization will have a new home with a big screen. It’s a metal-clad building at 2442 Bartlett St. currently used as a studio and gallery by artist and former Aurora board member Molly Gochman, in the small arts compound she owns just east of Kirby.
- 8814 Brae Acres Rd. [HAR]
Trader Joe’s has at last confirmed the second and third of the 3 stores that’ll constitute the idiosyncratic grocer’s Houston invasion. If you’ve been following Swamplot, you already know about these locations: In addition to the already announced shopping-center add-on in The Woodlands (recent construction photo at top), there’s another to be constructed in suburban-style big-corniced splendor (midde photo, above) on Voss just north of San Felipe. And yes — the company is now ready to admit — one in the just-decimated hollows of the once-grand Alabama Theater, last known as the Alabama Bookstop bookstore (bottom photo above).
You must learn to let go. Of these properties. Because they’re getting smashed.
- Eastbound I-10 between U.S. 59 and Gregg St. Closed This Weekend for Meadow St. Bridge Repairs [Hair Balls]
- Astros To Host Two Tailgating Trials This Season [abc13]
- Texas City Tex-Mex Institution Taco House Retiring After 50 Years [Galveston County Daily News]
- Concrete Walls Go Up in Memorial Assistant Ministries $4M Expansion [Memorial Examiner; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Commercial Construction Contracts Increase 35% Over Past Year [Houston Business Journal]
- Report Predicts New Retail Development Will Double This Year to 2.2M SF [Houston Business Journal]
- TIRZ 17 Approves $47M Draft Budget for 2013 Capital Projects; Includes Storm Sewer Improvements, Detention Basin, Street Extensions [Memorial Examiner]
- Tanglewood Resident Finds Venomous Snakes in Pool [Click2Houston]
Photo of Eclectic Menagerie Park, Texas Pipe & Supply, Highway 288 at Bellfort: Gonzvales via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN UH FOOTBALL GOT LOST IN THE ASTRODOME “I was at UH in the late 80′s when interest in football among students, alum and faculty was non-existent. Home games were held at the dome, where UH would be lucky to fill even 10% of the seats. The NCAA wouldn’t let UH use Robertson because of its size and condition. Despite that, calls for a new stadium were met with almost universal derision and open hostility from all but the most ardent athletic supporters. At the time, I was among the majority that ignored the football program and as the chairman of the student service fee allocation committee I successfully fought to cap its share of the student service fee. Despite that history, I’m glad UH fought for and succeeded in moving games to Robertson, and I’m glad that the boosters were correct in predicting such a move would rejuvenate interest in the program and the school as a whole. Kudos on the successful program and for the new facility!” [PaulP, commenting on Goodbye, Robertson Stadium: Replacement UH Football Venue Gets Go-Ahead]
Update: Olajuwon’s DR34M store is now open.
Hakeem Olajuwon hasn’t officially announced what he plans to do with Clear Lake’s landmarked Jim West Mansion, which he bought along with the surrounding 41-acre property at 3303 NASA Pkwy. in 2006. But a teaser website suggests that the former Houston Rockets center intends to transform the oil and cattle baron’s former estate — which served for a time as NASA’s Lunar Science Institute — into a flagship store for DR34M, the clothing line he introduced before a New Year’s Eve Rockets game in 2010, but that hasn’t drawn much attention since.
“The DR34M Spring 2012 Collection will launch online and in our new Houston flagship store,” announces the website at Dr34m.com. It’s illustrated with a photo of the 17,000-sq.-ft. Italianate mansion, which was designed by Houston city hall architect Joseph Finger and completed in 1930 not far from the current site of Houston’s Johnson Space Center. “We are busy designing a new line of clothing, collaborating on a collection of leather bags and accessories and sourcing modern furniture,” reads the brief copy, which is accompanied by Olajuwon’s signature.
Here’s the best we could round up for recycling this time. Still looking for more.
- Shell Oil’s Downtown Headquarters at One and Two Shell Plaza To Hit the Market [Prime Property]
- League City Approves De-Annexation of 15 Homeowners from Historic District [Galveston County Daily News]
- Bridgeland Developer Drops Plan To Substitute Apartments and Strip Center for Mixed Use Town Center [Prime Property]
- West U Raises Water Rates 1.8 Percent [West University Examiner]
- First of 40 Del Tacos To Open March 28 [29-95; previously on Swamplot]
- Newly Adopted Galveston Parks Master Plan Recommends $4M in Upgrades [Galveston County Daily News]
- West U Council Considers Acquiring New Parks Land [West University Examiner]
- Someone Keeps Stealing the Storm Grates on North Freeway Feeder Road Near Gulf Bank [Click2Houston]
- Group Wants To Keep Walmart Construction Trucks Off Aging Yale Street Bridge [Houston Chronicle]
- Don’t Tape Your Windows During Storms, Say Hurricane Officials [Click2Houston]
Photo of Tacos Jose, Hwy. 6 at Huffmeister: Christopher Newsom via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: COME BACK NEXT WEEK AND YOU’LL FIND THE ASTRODOME GOOD AS NEW “That’s not the turf . . . it’s carpet they put down for the Houston Rodeo after-hour parties! They use it every year! And the trash is because the rodeo just ended and they have not cleaned it up!” [snf, commenting on Comment of the Day: They Owed It to the Astroturf]