You always knew that place. It had style, it had grace. It wasn’t a winner. It was on Lady . . .
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A “massive” sheet of glass from a wall surrounding an outdoor recreational area of the 2727 Kirby condo tower fell from the 7th floor to the street and damaged a car sometime after June 21st of last year, according to a lawsuit filed against the developer by the building’s owners. No one was injured, but the incident sparked a round of investigations into the building and the discovery, according to the lawsuit, of additional construction problems: with the glass railings on the balconies of individual units, portions of the metal wall-panel system and the exterior tile cladding, the fire sprinkler system, and the building’s waterproofing, among other things. The lawsuit follows an earlier confidential settlement agreement for other claims against the developer that was worked out last year. Oh, and for those of you keeping score at home, a spokesperson for the building owner says 38 of the building’s 77 units have been sold so far.
- Lawsuit alleges condo defects [Houston Chronicle]
- Tower of troubles at 2727 Kirby [Prime Property]
- 2727 Kirby coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Michael Bludworth
A reader whose office faces the old Sheraton-Lincoln Hotel at 711 Polk St. downtown reports that demolition work on the former Beatles hangout is now “in full swing”:
They are taking down the building literally floor by floor. So far they have removed all the utilities on the roof and the entire top floor. Seems like a very labor intensive project. I plan to take a picture everyday and make a time lapse video. Can watch it in reverse and pretend they are revitalizing southern downtown!
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: The Plot To Kill Sheraton-Lincoln, Old Sheraton-Lincoln Hotel To Be Torn Down for the Views and Parking Spots, Downtown Sheraton-Lincoln Redo: Too Many Reservations, The Beatles Slept Here
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVIDE “So what’s the deal with the ‘Conroe’ vs. ‘The Woodlands’ location name ambiguity? Seems to me that a lot of people living up that way have a Conroe mailing address but claim the name “The Woodlands†when saying where they live. The address of this listing is 0 Darby Loop Conroe, TX 77385, and in the first sentence of the listing description, the realtor claims it is ‘…in The Woodlands!’ (emphasis unaltered). Recently I tried to mail something to my uncle who lives in the ‘The Woodlands,’ but I had his mailing address listed as ‘Conroe.’ So I called him to verify, and he gave me a really long explanation that explained nothing and only confused me more. In the end, he instructed me to write ‘The Woodlands’ on the envelope, even though he mentioned that the name ‘Conroe’ is actually on the sign at his local Post Office.” [Superdave, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: House Chopper]
59 BORDERS: THE END 
Late addition to the Borders Books store closing list: The company’s 27,483-sq.-ft. store at that retention-pond-by-the-freeway shopping center in Stafford, Fountains on the Lake. The Stafford location is expected to be the only Houston-area casualty of the company’s bankruptcy, and is scheduled to close by “late May.” It and 2 dozen other stores around the country were added to the 200-store axe list at the end of last week. [Revised closing list (PDF); previously on Swamplot] Photo: Melissa M.
LOOKING FOR HOUSTON ZERO “In Chicago, there is a ‘zero-point’ at State and Madison, where all addresses move from zero away from that intersection. It seems that Houston has some semblance of this system, as addresses go lower the closer to Buffalo Bayou (on N/S streets at least) and as they cross the bayou, even-numbers go from the west side to the east side. My question is, where is Houston’s null address point? Allen’s Landing? Is it a single point that then radiates due East/West and North/South, or does it follow the bayou? Maybe someone could write a Google map script that plots all the addresses in Houston under the number 100. . . . ” [Swamplot inbox]
- 0 Darby Loop, Conroe [HAR]
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
It’s only what you can knock down that can make some sort of difference.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: EXIT STRATEGY FOR EXXONMOBIL’S NEW NORTH HOUSTON CAMPUS 
“Exxon has sufficiently resurrected the 1980s suburban mall layout. Congratulations. Now, when they decide to move even farther from the educational core of their hometown (read: Willis HQ 2025), they can create “Spring Creek Mall†and populate the landscape with a sampling of deep-discounted soft goods clothing, closeout electronics, and heavily salted/large portion family dining. Everybody wins here.” [jg, commenting on A First Look at the Plans for ExxonMobil’s Humongous New Corporate Campus North of Houston]
Sporting a new stick-on West Elm look outside but a more modern feel inside, the rebuilt Mai’s Restaurant will open next month, a year and 2 months after a fire gutted the Midtown Vietnamese pioneer. A Swamplot reader who lives nearby and says he’s been “waiting patiently” to eat there again sends in this photo from this morning of the building front at 3403 Milam, along with a few notes and questions. But first, a few sneak peeks at the restaurant’s not-quite-finished interior from earlier this week:
Counting from the date on the notice taped to the front door, it’s only been a little more than 2 weeks since Terlingua Border Cafe got locked out of its space at the southern end of that super-festive Shops at Memorial Heights strip center at 920 Studewood. But already people have begun to notice the restaurant’s absence. A couple of Swamplot readers sent in these pics of the Border Cafe ghost town. A snapshot of that friendly little letter from the landlord, after the jump:
Local nonprofit Historic Houston is no longer accepting donations of building materials, and is closing its salvage warehouse and ending its salvage program, reports the organization’s founder and executive director, Lynn Edmundson. The organization stored and sold donated historic building materials reclaimed from doomed houses at a leased warehouse and yard at 1307 W. Clay and a separate “overflow” facility across the street at 1214 Joe Annie. Historic Houston’s 9-year-old salvage program typically removed and saved doors, windows, flooring, shiplap, siding, stair rails treads, and plumbing and lighting fixtures from old houses slated for demolition.
So far, ExxonMobil hasn’t revealed any specific information about the new 389-acre North American headquarters just south of The Woodlands it’s apparently already begun sitework on. According to reports, all contractors working on plans for the enormous campus have been ordered to keep their work on the project secret. The new campus is meant to bring together somewhere between 15,000 and 17,000 employees now working in various locations around the Houston area and in Virginia. But documents submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers provide some detail on the plans for an enormous office park near the Harris County-Montgomery County border. The site is bounded by Spring Creek to the north, I-45 to the east, and the proposed 1,800-acre mixed-use development called Springwoods Village to the west and south. The plans were submitted by Palmetto Transoceanic, a mysterious entity that has been viewed as a proxy for the oil company in this area.
“For the price of a mid-priced Lexus,” notes a reader, “you too can have your very own possibly William Floyd designed MCM in Robindell, Swamplot’s 2009 Most Under Appreciated Neighborhood.” That would be this 3-bedroom, 1-bath, but . . . uh, high-mileage foreclosure on the corner of Bob White and Grape St., which just came onto the market earlier this week. Really, did William Floyd design this place? “It seems like a reasonable guess,” says our informant, who notes the 1960 house “only kinda looks like a 1/4 scale model of McNamara Elementary School around the corner.” Sure, all those modern buildings look alike:
