Notices
02/21/11 12:28pm

The Folks Who Make Swamplot Possible

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Attractions
02/18/11 8:40pm

Comment of the Day: Lost Tomb of the Grand Parkway

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOST TOMB OF THE GRAND PARKWAY “The bulldozed-over ones will make for some serious headscratching in the 23rd century when they are dug up and ‘discovered.’ Maybe the Asiatic Proconsul will use it as propaganda/proof [that] Global Manifest Destiny was already in the making in the early 21st century.” [SL, commenting on The 6,000 Garden Gnomes of Emperor Qin: Let the Great Houston Grave Ransacking Begin]

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Attractions
02/18/11 1:52pm

The 6,000 Garden Gnomes of Emperor Qin: Let the Great Houston Grave Ransacking Begin

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This weekend, while New York crowds flock to a recently opened exhibit of Forbidden City treasures belonging to China’s last emperor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Houstonians will have a chance for a much more satisfying and interactive experience with the wonders of the ancients: Crowds here will be swarming to plunder a replica of the massive gravesite of China’s first emperor. It has come to this: Forbidden Gardens, the garden-free (and yes, until now open-to-the-public) little 60-acre museum and cultural center on the Katy prairie has found no buyer willing to purchase intact its collection of 6,000 one-third-scale terracotta soldiers from the 2,200-year-old Xi’an tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di, its one-twentieth scale model of Beijing’s Forbidden City, or its many other handcrafted and made-in-China models of historic Chinese treasures. So everything in the museum will be sold off piece by piece, in one giant 2-day artificial-grave-side blowout liquidation sale.

“CASH ONLY!! ALL SALES ARE FINAL!!” screams a notice posted to the ordinarily staid museum’s website:

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Comments
02/17/11 11:04pm

Comment of the Day: Contemplating the Mysteries of Meyer Park

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: CONTEMPLATING THE MYSTERIES OF MEYER PARK “[I] drive by meyerpark twice a day going to and from work and i have no idea of exactly what the heck is going on in that massive construction site. In this day and age you would think the developer would have a website, a billboard, a flyer or something that provides the general public with more information about what’s going on. They’[ve] completely demolished several of the buildings but they left the tower in place. That leads me to believe they are going to some how use it as part of the new design. In addition to the Luby’s we need another restaurant like a Cheddar’s with Good food for a low price. I just think this area has so much potential for growth and [its] location is ideal.” [Joe_lsu, commenting on The New Smash Hits at the Meyer Park AMC 16 Theater]

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Houston Data
02/17/11 3:32pm

New 2010 Census Numbers Document Houston’s Trickle-In Decade

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Houston’s population grew by just 145,820 over the last 10 years and now stands at 2,099,451, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released some Texas data from the 2010 Census today. The City of Houston’s 7.5 percent population growth rate was lower than the double-digit rates achieved by San Antonio, Austin, and Fort Worth, but still ranks ahead of the city of Dallas, whose numbers barely budged. (From 1990 to 2000, Houston’s population increased by 19.7 percent.) It’s a slightly different story for the surrounding areas: Harris County is still the most populous county in the state by far, growing 20.3 percent since the last census, to 4,092,459. But nearby Fort Bend, Montgomery, Waller, Brazoria, and Chambers counties all grew faster. Fort Bend County’s 65.1 percent growth rate over the last 10 years ranks it as the second-fastest-growing of the largest 20 counties in the state (Williamson County, north of Austin, is filling up faster by only a few percentage points.)

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Buying and Selling
02/17/11 1:52pm

Eisele on the Go: Parking Lot House All Broken Up Over Move to Old Sixth Ward

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In separate moves on Tuesday and Wednesday night, Cherry House Moving rolled pieces of this sold-at-auction stray house from its longstanding freeway-side location in the parking lot of the police station downtown to a new home opposite the corner of Sabine and Lubbock in the Old Sixth Ward. First though, the former home of woodworker Gottlieb Eisele was chopped down the middle and decapitated. Architect and housewrangler Kirby Mears, who snapped the above photo of Tuesday night’s journey down Sabine St., says that’s not a problem, because he’d already planned to replace the structure’s bungalow-style roof — which was built in the 1920s after a lightning strike — with a gable roof meant to match the 1872 original. One exception: The home’s new roof will feature lightning rods.

Both halves of the house are now sitting on steel beams and wheels at the new site, Mears reports. “We are in the process of determining exactly where it will go. As soon as it is set on a foundation, the new roof will begin. Drying it in is our first priority.” Here’s his preliminary drawing of the new Sabine St. elevation:

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Highland Village
02/17/11 11:12am

The Next Moves at Highland Village: Apple Store, Restoration Hardware, Tootsies Replacement

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Apple fans, don’t be distracted — as Swamplot was earlier this week — by the construction being set up on the west side of the newish Highland Village Shopping Center building that houses Sprinkles Cupcakes at 4012-4018 Westheimer. Unless, of course, you’re wanting to know where the new Restoration Hardware will go once it relocates from across the street. The newly expanded housewares store will take up all of the space on the Galleria side of Paper Source.

Meanwhile, here are your verified coordinates for Houston’s first non-mall Apple Store: After a little bit of demo work, it’ll go on the east side of the same building (shown above), at the Drexel driveway. Across the street, there appears to be less urgency now that Tootsies has fled to West Ave, but the shopping center’s management still plans to tear down the stylish but now-vacant building the women’s clothing boutique occupied at 4045 Westheimer:

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Comments
02/16/11 2:15pm

Comment of the Day: This Is the Land of My Ancestors

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: THIS IS THE LAND OF MY ANCESTORS “The lot is two 3,000 sq ft lots. The old house sat right in the middle on the West side of the property, so it would not have permitted construction of another building unless it was moved to the back of the lot. That’s not really economic use of the property. By the time the building was moved and renovated, costs would have been very high. There was a carport attached on one side as well, which didn’t help. In any case, the structure was gone when I drove by at 5 [yesterday] evening. . . . that’s the way it goes sometimes. Almost every home my ancestors lived in is gone. None of my Mom’s childhood homes exist any more – they are all open fields.” [Ross, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Waterfall Fall]

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Bankruptcies
02/16/11 1:50pm

Houston’s Borders Will Remain Open

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HOUSTON’S BORDERS WILL REMAIN OPEN As expected, the Borders Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today and announced the closing of 200 of its 644 bookstores nationwide. Nine of the announced store closings are in Texas, but Houston survived this round of cuts. All 7 Houston-area stores — on Kirby at West Alabama, in the Galleria, Meyerland Plaza, the Baybrook Mall, at IAH, in Stafford, and the Woodlands — will remain open. [Wall Street Journal; list of store closings; previously on Swamplot]

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Buying and Selling
02/16/11 12:28pm

HAR’s Dancing Home-Sales Figures: Last January Doesn’t Look Quite as Good as It Did Before

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One of the more surprising stats in the latest residential home-sales data released yesterday by the Houston Association of Realtors, Swamplot’s numbers expert is kind enough to point out, is a whopping almost 40 percent drop in the number of listings that were active last January. Whazzat mean? That there were 40 percent fewer active listings this January than in January 2010? No, it’s screwier than that: The latest HAR report says that there were almost 40 percent fewer active listings in January 2010 than their own reports told us a year ago. Revising last year’s numbers down so dramatically, of course, makes it a whole lot easier for the local real-estate organization to announce at least one piece of news in this month’s press release: Listings are up 13.7 percent over this time last year!

But the new report doesn’t mention any adjustments. And it makes similar — though less dramatic — changes to last year’s data in several other categories.

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