- Big Motion Media [Texas Video and Post]
Video: Jack Hattingh
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Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Today’s report combines the last demolitions permitted last year, on Thursday and Friday. A little more wire steel and wire cleanup in the Heights, plus a smattering of shatterings further out:
Who won what in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate? You’ll find the answers here!
This announcement caps an almost month-long process that began with calls for nominations in 10 separate award categories. After the official nominees were presented, voting was opened up to all readers.
Winners of the 2010 Swampies: We salute you for your unique contributions to this city. It takes a lot to stand out in Houston’s real estate landscape. On Swamplot, Houston real-estate fans have noticed you!
Big thanks are due to the many Swamplot readers who took time to nominate, evaluate, vote, and comment on competitors in each category. It’s your descriptions and observations we’ve featured below. Does this honor roll of award winners — along with the list of runners up — provide a good snapshot of this year in Houston real estate? Let us know what you think!
The winners of the 2010 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate are . . .
HEADWATERS OF THE HOUSTON SHIT CHANNEL A sewer collecting system on the northern banks of Buffalo Bayou near Lockwood donated more than 100,000 gallons of untreated waste to the waterway last night. City officials expect the problem to be fixed sometime today. [MyFox Houston]
It’s the end-of-year rush. Don’t get left behind! Get yer demo permits now.
CONTINUE READING THIS STORY
The polls have closed and the votes have been tallied. Now here’s the moment you’ve been waiting for! Well, almost: It’s time to announce the second-place winners of the 2010 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate!
But first, a note of thanks — to all of you who voted, commented, nominated, campaigned, and cajoled in support of your favorite candidates. You made this extended moment of reflection, recognition, and honor possible. The Swampies belong to you!
You know what they say about runners-up: Should the actual award winners (they’ll be announced soon) be unable to fulfill their duties for any reason, these second-place winners will be ready and willing to serve! Let’s have a big round of digital applause, please, for the 2010 runners-up in the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate — the Swampies!
They are:
The Village News is reporting that the Hanover Company has purchased the 4.5-acre site in the Rice Village once slated for Randall Davis’s Sonoma development, and is ready with plans to build a large — though far less grandiose — retail-and-apartment project on the site. Davis and partner Lamesa Properties made a mess of the site 2 years ago, purchasing a stretch of Bolsover St. from the city and demolishing several buildings’ worth of retail and office space before facing the credit markets and figuring out they wouldn’t be able to get financing for the project.
Hanover’s project, called Plaza View Hanover at Rice Village, is scheduled to include 385 “high-end” apartments, 14,000 sq. ft. of retail or restaurant space, and a multi-level parking garage, all in what its designers label a pedestrian-friendly design. What’s that plaza we’ll be viewing? An almost-17,000-sq.-ft. public space along Morningside, with a “water feature, grass lawn, large trees, and restaurant dining spaces.” According to Hanover executive veep John Garibaldi, 55,000 sq. ft. of retail space, 34,000 sq. ft. of office space, and an 8,000-sq.-ft. grocery store were cut from the earlier Sonoma plans. Much of the towering nouveau pomposity of the Sonoma design has been cut too. Along Kelvin St., Hanover’s buildings will reach 6 stories tall; 5 stories along Morningside and Dunstan.
The demos return with a sextuple knockdown, including an odd little mod on Mignon and an old 1928ish number hogging too much land in the Museum District.
“If you were located a tad above sea level, between a river, a gulf and a bayou, where it’s hot and humid enough to rot any plant or animal, and were the site of several industrial plants, you’d stink, too.” Where’s Ann Huey talking about? Oh, Beaumont: “. . . home to a lot of homes with history, or no history, or that are history. There’s old money, new money, and no money.” There’s much in this introduction to our East Texas neighbor that should sound awfully familiar to a Houstonian — even if you’ve never had a chance to visit.
- Video Lunch: Year in Review, #5 [Beaumont Enterprise]
Video: Ann Huey
THE KING OF KHAKI IS DEAD Interior designer Herbert Wells, who brightened up the heavily curtained homes of Houston’s upper crust with modern design, passed away just before Christmas, at the age of 86. The Connecticut native could only see out of one eye, but guided the design of homes with architects Frank Welch and Howard Barnstone, among others. Two more recent projects, completed with design partner, Jerry Jeanmard: The transformation of the Wiess House on the corner of Main St. and Sunset into a new President’s House for Rice University, and the renovation of the River Oaks Country Club. [Houston Chronicle; interview]
Here’s a first look at the not-so-distant future of Lower Westheimer, just a block east of Montrose, where sushi chef Tyson Cole and the owners of Austin’s Uchi and Uchiko restaurants plan to open a first Houston venture. The new Houston Uchi won’t be taking over the whole corner. The neighboring spaces will instead be available à la carte: The new owners are picturing as many as 3 separate businesses (one with a second floor and rooftop deck) leasing the 4,700-sq.-ft. building that used to house Caffe Den and Privé at 908 Westheimer. Also available, around the corner on Grant St.: a little 714-sq.-ft. structure with the address of 904B Westheimer. It’ll share restrooms with Uchi, which will be taking over the former Felix Mexican Restaurant space on the corner, at 904A. The left side of the Grant St. rendering above is the only view we’ve seen so far that shows any part of Uchi itself, but it contains a few clues about how Austin architect Michael Hsu (creator of the original Uchi on South Lamar as well as Houston’s Sushi Raku in Midtown) plans to transform a vintage Tex-Mex classic into something sushi-worthy. It looks like at least a few of those arched windows will stay:
Demo fans, your late Christmas gifts will arrive . . . tomorrow. The long holiday weekend for city employees — and doomed structures — only ended today.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: COLD CASE, RICE VILLAGE “Seems to me a little backwards math could figure this one out. The trajectory (calculated from point of entry through roof vs point of breakage of the glassware) and size of object thrown (amount of melting can be estimated based on size of ice recovered vs time and temperature) should be able to figure out very close which balcony the blocks came from.” [tanith27, commenting on Iced Again: A White Christmas Comes Early to Hans’ Bier Haus]
This early Nixon-era single-story at 418 Thamer Circle, which hit the market a few days before Christmas, offers plenty of domestic secrecy: no windows onto its Hunterwood surroundings, a walled-in central courtyard with a pool, a long and curving front driveway, and a three-quarter-acre lot on a cul-de-sac. And you’ll find plenty of era design in this home just north of the fairways of Houston Country Club, too: skylights, crimson laminated countertops, an old-school intercom system, and a showroom’s worth of sliding glass doors. Plus some old wallpaper styles that you didn’t think you’d have to kick around anymore:
Only a few hours are left to get your votes in for this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. The polls close today at 5 pm. Is there enough time for a come-from-behind candidate to win? Maybe, if enough supporters cast each of their 4 possible votes to sweep it over the top.
Without your votes, will the best candidates win all these categories? We need your help to make the 2010 Swampies the best they can be.
