JURY: STANFORD GUILTY ON 13 OF 14 COUNTS Houston real estate and Ponzi scheme impresario R. Allen Stanford has been found guilty of 13 counts of fraud, obstruction of a federal investigation, and conspiracy to launder money. The charge he bought Super Bowl tickets for an Antigua securities regulator didn’t stick, though. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
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The Children’s Assessment Center is passing around this sketch showing the huge expansion the child-sexual-abuse resource center is planning at 2500 Bolsover in the Rice Village, just east of Kirby. (The view is along Bolsover, with Kirby at the far left.) The existing 55,000-sq.-ft. building, shown on the far right, opened in 1998. An additional 75,000 sq. ft. of space will go in a 4-story structure that’ll sidle up to it and connect to the existing floors. A new conference and training center will fit inside, along with space for the 44 partner agencies the CAC works with. To make room for the addition, the existing 330-car parking garage will be torn down; a new 420-car garage will go up along the Kirby side, right behind the new Frost Bank built on a portion of the former Village Plaza Shopping Center.
- Houston Most Diverse Region in the Country; Pearland and Missouri City Lead the Way [Houston Chronicle]
- Road Closures This Week at IAH [abc13]
- Slideshow of Dynamo Stadium, Opening on May 12, on Schedule, Budget [Houston Business Journal]
- Developer Planning 5-Story Hotel on Seawall Blvd. [Galveston County Daily News]
- Company Seeking Approval for Multistory Housing Development on East Beach [Galveston County Daily News]
- TxDOT Figuring How To Spend Extra $2 Billion in Transportation Funds [KUHF]
- Sunday Washington Ave Churchgoers Sick of Seeing Leftover Trash from the Drake [abc13]
- Forest Service Conducts Controlled Burn of 120 Acres in Jones State, Sam Houston National Forests [Courier of Montgomery County]
- Allen Stanford Jurors Can’t Reach Verdict [Stanford Watch]
- Car-Sharing Service RelayRides Expands to Houston [KUHF]
- Applying for an FHA Loan Before April 1 Can Save You Money [Culturemap]
- Photo Tour: Montrose, Just North of the US-59 Boundary [HAIF]
Photo of Main and Rusk St.: Flickr user darktiger via Swamplot Flickr Pool
A graduate of the crape myrtle school of chainsaw insta-pruning appears to have gotten a little creative with the oak trees surrounding the Burger King at Yale and the 610 North feeder sometime over the last 2 weeks. The oak trunks are still standing tall, but all its broccoli-like heads have been knocked off. Is this the work of a rogue landscaper, or a concerted action meant to send a message to any other oaks that dare raise their leaves near power lines, feeder roads, or fast-food signage? “Its the most bizarre thing, and one can only presume it will get more odd appearing once they start to sprout out,” a Swamplot reader notes. “I know there are regulations to plant parking lot trees, but I guess there are none to make sure that they remain? There must be a story behind this odd act, but I can only drive by and drop my jaw each time I see it.”
More closeups of the oak hackery, and a “before” view, courtesy of Google Street View:
THE COMING FLOOD OF NEW RIVER OAKS-AREA APARTMENTS IN MONTROSE Some local stats from research firm Axiometrics: 32 new apartment properties, holding a total of 8,700 units, are currently under construction in Houston. Of that total, 15 of them — accounting for 4,300 apartments — are in the “Montrose-River Oaks” area. Occupancy rates for similar existing properties in the same neighborhoods are currently in the mid-90-percent range; rents have been increasing at an annual rate of 9.1 percent as of January. [Real Estate Bisnow]
KELLER WILLIAMS’S NEW OFFICES ARE IN THE OLD STANFORD FINANCIAL GROUP BUILDING 
“To this day, people still refer to 1400 Smith as ‘the old Enron building,’ even though the company collapsed more than a decade ago and Chevron now owns the property. Will 5050 Westheimer face a similar fate? That’s the building that housed Stanford Financial Group, whose founder, R. Allen Stanford, is awaiting a jury verdict on federal charges that he ran a $7 billion investment fraud. . . . Bruce Kink of Keller Williams said the company chose the space for its prime location directly across from the Galleria mall. He doesn’t focus on who used to occupy it. ‘They removed the name out front,’ Kink said. ‘To us it’s 5050 Westheimer.'” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Plumbing the depths of institutional history for its 100th anniversary, the university shines a spotlight on the 2.5 miles of underground tunnels lurking below campus.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Had its century. Time for ours.
- Houston Officials To Meet with ‘Distressed’ Future Ashby Highrise Neighbors on March 12 [Memorial Examiner; previously on Swamplot]
- Condo Association at Royalton River Oaks Sues Contractors Over Corroding Crown [Prime Property]
- League City Council Approves Plan for $187M in Road Expansion Projects [Galveston County Daily News]
- Woodlands Development Standards Committee Denies Abortion Prayer Sign [Woodlands Villager]
- League City Aiming for Simpler Drought Contingency Plan Before Summer Starts [Galveston County Daily News]
- Dowling and Texas Intersection Closed This Week For Light Rail Track Installation [KUHF]
- Texas City Residents Tired of Neighboring Limestone Company’s Constant Booms [Galveston County Daily News]
- State Climatologist Careful to Avoid Mentioning Global Warming in Titles of Talks at State Agencies [KUHF]
- Menil Byzantine Fresco Chapel Closes; Future Still Undecided [Houston Chronicle]
- Rediscovered Rice University Relics Include Remnants of 1950s-Era Computer, President’s Top Hat [Houston Chronicle]
- Artist Charlie Stagg Leaves Behind House of Glass Bottles and Aluminum Cans in Vidor [Culturemap]
Photo of Bob Fowler sculpture in Texas Medical Center: lc_db via Swamplot Flickr Pool
And which way to the house of chads? Newly christened in Eastwood: the Brohaus. A reader who guesses the sign might mark an unofficial frat house or “architecture student commune” from nearby UH reports the letters went up recently on this structure on Polk St. near Weaver.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
In a letter sent to Southampton residents, Mayor Parker says she is recommending that the city settle the lawsuit filed against it by the developers of the proposed Ashby Highrise. “Unfortunately, the city has no legal basis for stopping” the building from being constructed, she writes: “Even success in the courtroom in the City’s litigation against the developers . . . would not halt the project, since the developers would still be able to proceed with their current permit application, which mirrors that which the city was compelled to approve in 2009.”
Instead, Parker writes that the settlement will allow the city to “ensure some control” over certain aspects of the multi-story residential tower: “It will also eliminate any possibility that the developers can build a project as large as that sought in 2007, or that the City may be subject to damages for its failure to approve that permit applications, either of which can happen if the City loses the current litigation.”
A reader wants to know what happened to the section of the new Heritage West Bikeway along White Oak Bayou as it passes under I-45 just north of Downtown (shown above, facing west).
I take this bike trail to UHD out of the Heights. It has been about three weeks since I last used it. This section was brand new, I think less than 6 months old and it has been torn up. In the distance you can see another orange fence, where the new trail starts again and then abruptly ends at a construction site where they are building a bike bridge.
I am curious to know if anyone has info about why a new section is torn up already. I’m looking forward to a completed trail that will connect the Heights directly to Downtown and Minute Maid park.
If nothing else, it’s a pretty sweet pic about how Houston infrastructure is always “improving”, no matter how new it is.
- Previously on Swamplot: New North Downtown Bikeway Close to Almost Ready To Open
Photo: Swamplot inbox
