DOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 
Best holiday wishes to all! Swamplot will be back on Tuesday, for last-minute Swamplot Award fun. Here’s your link to all the ballots. Time to vote! Photo: Architecture Center Houston
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The official nominees for all 9 categories of this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate have been announced, and voting is under way!
There are 4 places you can vote for each category. But you don’t have to choose one of them — vote in all 4 if you like:
- In a comment to the official ballot for the category
- In an email you send to Swamplot
- Using Twitter (it’ll help if you use the format spelled out here)
- In a wall post on Swamplot’s Facebook page
Here, in one convenient place, are links to the official ballots for all 9 categories:
- Favorite Houston Design Cliché
- Best Demolition
- Best Parking Lot Dining Experience
- Most Notable Recycling Effort
- Houston’s “No Zoning†Award
- The Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl
- Best Neighborhood Upgrade
- Neighborhood of the Year
- Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate, 2011
Got a question about voting? You can probably find the answer in this brief voting guide.
Already voted? There’s still time to round up more support for your favorites! Come-from-behind candidates, now’s your chance! All it takes is a little email, Facebook or forum post, or tweet to stir up your friends. Explain your vote clearly when you make it — maybe that’ll inspire a groundswell of support!
Voting in all categories will end at 5 pm next Tuesday, December 27th.
- How To Vote in the 2011 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Awards Ballots 2011 [Swamplot]
It’s come down to this: the final category in the 2011 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. Here, we set about to choose the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of the past year. The official nominees, culled from your suggestions, have now been posted. You get to pick the winner.
Remember, readers get to vote once using each separate approved method — that’s 4 votes in all for each award category. Declare your vote in a comment to this post, in an email to Swamplot HQ, in a Tweet, or on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook page. The complete voting rules are here. When you vote, please tell us why you made your choice. We’ll include some of the best explanations for the winners when we announce them next week.
The official nominees for the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of 2011 are . . .
- Houston Pavilions Taken Over by Receiver; Sale or Foreclosure Likely [Houston Chronicle]
- New Highrise Buffer Zone Ordinance Passes City Council [Memorial Examiner; previously on Swamplot]
- Shoppers Scurry from Galleria Jewelry Store Robbery Scene [Houston Chronicle]
- 3 Years after Ike, Half of First-Round Federally Funded Projects Complete or Almost Done [Galveston County Daily News]
- Record Hess Tower Sale Closes [Houston Business Journal]
- Duke Realty Buys Christus St. Catherine Medical Buildings in Katy [Houston Business Journal]
- Camping Out for Chance To Buy Air Jordan 11 Concords [Culturemap]
Photo of Gulfgate Shopping Center: Fox 26 Houston
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THEY STILL MAKE IT HERE “Houston isn’t a small, postindustrial city like Portland where PhDs drive cabs because they’re there for the ‘quality of life.’ Houston is a big industrial city that still makes stuff. You can’t look at a ‘cruddy’ low-rise industrial or manufacturing district and wish to replace it with trendy lofts, because those industrial districts are a big part of the city’s prosperity. The oil company office jobs could choose to locate *anywhere*; they choose to locate in Houston because it’s close to where their industrial operations are.” [Keep Houston Houston, commenting on The Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl: The Official 2011 Ballot]
Please vote for one of these official nominees in this, the second-to-last category of the 2011 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. It’s for one of the biggies: Neighborhood of the Year. Where’d all the nominations come from? From you!
You can vote for your favorite nominee any or all of 4 ways: in a comment beneath this post, in an email to Swamplot, from Twitter, or in a post on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook page. Here are the official voting rules. If you want to start a campaign on Facebook or some online forum in support of your choice, go right ahead. Just make sure all the votes get in by 5 pm on Tuesday, December 27th.
Which Houston-area neighborhood deserves to be called this year’s Neighborhood of the Year? Here are the official nominees:
From the Austin company that sends those little camera-wielding drones into the East Downtown sky, here are the latest views of construction progress on what you’re now supposed to call BBVA Compass Stadium. Expected completion date: sometime next May.
Ford, tough. A holiday respite for most everybody else, though.
- City Approves Bike-Sharing Program, Leases Fleet of Nissan Leafs [Houston Politics; previously on Swamplot]
- Bankruptcy Means Only Privately Owned Strip of Beachfront in Front of Seawall Could Go up for Sale [Galveston County Daily News]
- Merger Means Sugar Land Skeeters’ Stadium Will Be Constellation Field [Houston Business Journal]
- Music Community Debates Merits of Amended Noise Ordinance [Hair Balls]
- Craigslist Renting Scam Costs Couple $15K [abc13]
- Texas’s Population Grew More Than Any Other State Last Year, Census Says [Texas Tribune]
Photo of Villa de Matel, Idylwood: Molly Block [license]
On we go to the “neighborhood†categories in the 2011 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate! First: Which little slice of Houston deserves to win the award for Best Neighborhood Upgrade?
The official nominees, culled from your choices and descriptions, are listed below. Now’s your chance to choose the winner! Add your vote to a comment below, send it in an email to Swamplot, announce it on Twitter, write it on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook page — or all 4! (That’s right, if you follow these rules, each of you can vote 4 times.) If you think you can drum up more support for your favorite candidate, go right ahead! Just make sure all votes are in by 5 pm on Tuesday, December 27th.
The nominees for Best Neighborhood Upgrade are . . .
Clearing a patch of Patchester, space for Moon Tower Inn renovations, and more:
- Houston Housing Market Continued Climb in November, HAR Says [Prime Property]
- Most Outdoor Burning Restrictions Lifted in Harris County [Memorial Observer]
- Harris County ‘Never Anticipated’ $100K City Drainage Fee Bills for Reliant Park and Downtown Properties [abc13]
- City Sues Owner of Ella Park Terrace Landfill for Flooding Neighbors’ Homes [Click2Houston]
- Lowe’s Tells Galveston It Won’t Construct First Island Store for at Least a Year, Despite Agreements [Galveston County Daily News]
- Galveston Housing Authority Nets $25M for Public Housing Projects [Galveston County Daily News]
- Mytiburger, Building, and Land for Sale in Oak Forest [Eater Houston]
- 58 Years Later, Houston Man Pays $1 Parking Ticket [CBS Houston]
Photo of City Hall from the Hobby Center: Ed Schipul [license]
16 of the 25 official station names announced today for Metro’s new East End and Southeast light-rail lines and North Line extension include slashes. No, you won’t need to choose between Cesar Chavez and 67th Street: The Cesar Chavez/67th St. station will honor both. Same for MacGregor Park/MLK. The term “EaDo” has made it on to a station name — but only as part of the EaDo/Stadium team — not to be called “EaDo Stadium” of course, since Spanish bank BBVA Compass just paid a lot of money for the exclusive naming rights to the new soccer venue.
A few other station names you’ll want to be careful with:
KITCHEN ETHICS: PERMIT OR NO PERMIT? “I’m not sure who to go to on this, but I live in Eastwood and am doing a total upgrade of my kitchen. I’m going back and forth on whether to go through the city permit process or not . . . am trying to figure out the pros and cons. We have guys doing the construction that will work with us either way on it. Any thoughts?” [Swamplot inbox]