Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Let’s try to remember not how it was at the end, but how it was when it was best — or all that we knew.
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- 19 Half Moon [HAR]
The Downtown Redevelopment Authority is kicking off the engineering phase of its project to run a 2-way bike path along the east side of Bagby St. The new thoroughfare — to be designed by engineering firm Jones Carter — would begin more precisely on W. Dallas St. by the Allen Center parking garages off I-45, then cross Clay St. and hug the curve shown distantly in the rendering above before heading 2 thirds of a mile north up Bagby past 4 adjacent parks. Also on the route: the Houston Public Library, City Hall (shown fronting McKinney in the view at top), the Hobby Center, and Bayou Place.
After crossing Buffalo Bayou, the path would make a right turn and continue east on Franklin St. Following one more right, it comes to an end on Congress, at an elevated drop-off point above the Buffalo Bayou bike trail that crosses through Sesquicentennial Park:
Bayou Biking Connection
Deer Park’s government officials are taking a long weekend in order to move out of their existing 2-story, brick city hall building on E. San Augustine St. and into the new, 5,000-sq.-ft. bigger one (pictured at top) directly adjacent to the east. Remaining in their current building would have required repairs to address “mold and asbestos-abatement issues,” forcing them out of it for at least a year, according to City Manager James Stokes. The move to the new building is now expected to take 2 business days, after which the government will reopen on Tuesday.
This video timelapse condenses the 13-month construction process into about 90 seconds:
Municipal Switch-Up
- Houston Home Prices at All-Time Highs, Finds Latest HAR Report [HBJ]
- Far North Area Fastest-Growing Market for Houston Home Starts, According to Metrostudy [HBJ]
- 514-Acre Master-Planned Community Baytown Crossings Planned for Baytown [HBJ]
- Wedge Properties Management Acquires 6-Story Office Building Three Sugar Creek in Sugar Land [Realty News Report]
- New Restaurant UB Preserv Opens on Westheimer Across from Hugo’s [Food & Wine]
- Old-School Tex-Mex Restaurant Fiesta Loma Linda Has Closed After More Than 60 Years in the East End [Houston Chronicle]
- Maps Offer New Insight into Level of Hurricane Harvey’s Destruction to Houston Area [Houston Chronicle]
- Texas Sends State Action Plan for Harvey Recovery to HUD Where It Now Awaits Federal Approval [Houston Public Media]
- New Video Rendering Offers a Virtual Bird’s Eye View of the New Houston Botanic Garden [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of the Marriott Marquis: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Moisten before removing.
- 1901 Southwood Dr. [HAR]
Construction broke ground in March on America Gardens, the star-spangled first venue Syn Hospitality has planned as part of a 4-bar complex dubbed Midtown Common it’s developing on Caroline St. And already, Core Church Midtown has fled the block and taken refuge in the CrossWalk Center, a 2-story structure in the Near Northside. Formerly home to Employment Training Centers Inc., it’s on N. Main 3 blocks south of Quitman — next door to Label Warehouse’s building — and houses a facility that assists convicts recently released from jail.
The 5,000-sq.-ft. now-vacant strip center in Midtown had been home to the church since 2016. When the neighboring construction wraps up, America Gardens and its 3 planned accomplices —Â Don Chingon, the Social House, and Wishful Drinking — will abut the empty building’s west side, as indicated in the map below:
Midtown Common
Making an appearance on the city planning commission’s agenda this week: a proposal for a 16-ft.-deep, aluminum-sheathed steel canopy shown at top outside The Revere at River Oaks condos on Welch St. that’ll soon break ground in place of the 2-story River Oaks Manor condo complex demolished on site last June. Kirksey Architecture’s design for the canopy calls for it to hang out over the condo’s entrance and extend to an adjacent drop-off area, a widening of the existing street that’s planned just north of the 9-story, 33-unit building.
But the approval Pelican Builders is now seeking isn’t for the 4-ft.-5-in. that the canopy will encroach on the public right of way. In the application, the developer states that it already has an agreement for that portion of the structure. Instead, this approval is for the 11-ft.-4-in. section of the canopy between the right of way and the building, which requires a variance separate from the one that already covers the small portion (overlaid with a criss-cross pattern below) that they city has agreed to permit:
Cover Story
- Courtyard by Marriott Breaks Ground in Generation Park off Beltway 8 [Houston Chronicle]
- Jones Carter Selected To Lead Project To Redesign the Bagby Street Corridor [HBJ]
- Mayor Turner Proposes ‘Tight’ Fiscal 2019 Budget Post-Hurricane Harvey [Reuters]
- Advocates Seek To Apply Fair Housing Rule to Harvey Funds [Houston Chronicle]
- Developer Marvy Finger Reflects on Building in Houston Since the 1960s [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern To Unveil Second Major Art Installation This Week [Houston Public Media]
Photo of Galveston: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Goodbye to Fondren’s Boardwalk Apartments . . . and other local farewells:
- 1211 Gale St. [HAR]
Shots of the massive waterfront development planned in Kingwood east of Woodland Hills Dr. show it situated around 2 adjacent and existing lakes that neighbor both the San Jacinto River and the Clubs of Kingwood golf course. The 300-acre project — dubbed Herons Kingwood Marina and recently stumbled upon by online architectural sleuth Urbannizer — lays out a plan to link the 2 bodies of water and transform them into marinas with docks, pedestrian paths, and outdoor amusements.
The water-level rendering above from Italian architecture firm Torrisi & Procopio shows a boat parking lot fronting a shopping center that’s planned beside the west marina. From the air in the rendering at top, you can see the eastern marina neighbored by skyscrapers, described by the architect’s website as home to hotels, restaurants, shops, and apartments. A narrow channel leads to the other, aquatic area in the distance.
Here’s where both lakes sit now, just south of Barrington Kingwood — a 200-acre, loop-shaped neighborhood:
The Liveable Lake
ABBOTT SIGNS OFF ON HARRIS COUNTY’S HARVEY ANNIVERSARY FLOOD BOND VOTE 
In a letter to the Commissioners Court yesterday, Gov. Abbott approved Harris County’s request to hold an August 25 bond election that would pay for a long, not-yet-finalized lineup of flood control projects. On the short list so far: “the buy-out of all of the county’s high-priority areas at highest-risk of flooding, approximately 5,500 properties,” Judge Emmett tells the Chronicle’s Mihir Zaveri — as well as the financing of “some portions a much-discussed third reservoir northwest of the city,” and “numerous bayou and creek widening projects.” Also included: a handful of detention basins and drainage improvements to waterways in both Houston and the MUDs of unincorporated Harris County, according to the flood control district. The district now has about 4 months to compile the list, during which time Harris County “plans to launch a public outreach campaign to seek input on what to include in the bond package, as well as drum up support for the measure.” [Houston Chronicle ($), previously on Swamplot] Photo of Sesquicentennial Park and Franklin St. during Harvey: Kelsie H. Dos Santos
- New Howard Hughes Apartment Project Coming to Bridgeland [HBJ ($)]
- Hines Acquires Broadstone Tinsley Park from Crow Holdings for Undisclosed Price [CoStar Group]
- Houston’s Largest Subleases So Far This Year [HBJ ($)]
- Near Northside Development of 68 Affordable Units Now 100% Leased [Realty News Report]
- Downtown Now Home to More Than 8,000 Residents [Bisnow]
- Houston’s Housing Market Cools as Home Prices Stall, According to Trulia [Culturemap]
- Factory-Built Modular Home Starts To Take Shape in the Heights [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Mapping the Rates of FEMA Assistance Approval in Houston [Houston Public Media]
- The Winning Design of the Seeds of Sharpstown’s Architecture Competition [OffCite]
- Houston’s First Whole Foods Market 365 To Include Peli Peli Kitchen and Juice Society [Culturemap]
- Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken Opens on Wash Ave [Houstonia; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of the University of Houston: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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