COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOU WOULD CRY TOO IF IT HAPPENED TO YOU “ALAIISEBY: pronounced ‘Alayzbee’. As Long As It’s In Someone Else’s Back Yard. This is the principle of land use in Houston. No one gives a crap that a builder/developer is going to do something that adversely affects a homeowner as long as it is in someone else’s back yard. Homeowners think that no zoning is great because their back yard is just fine. And when something happens to someone else’s back yard, it doesn’t matter. Thus, instead of coming together around attrocities like the Ashby High Rise and the Heights Walmart, homeowners cast scorn on those who are affected by bad land use decisions because it is someone else’s back yard and doesn’t matter. Let the West End take one for the team so people can [buy] bb guns at 3 am at Walmart. Southhampton should have to live next to a highrise because they make too much money and deserve a little taste of how much Houston sucks. Homeowners who do not live within the protective confines of deed restricted developments should come together and support some sort of land use restrictions in Houston. But they don’t because it doesn’t matter as long as it is in someone else’s back yard.” [ALAIISEBY, commenting on Riverside Terrace Assisted Living: Whatever It Is, You Should Be Against It]
Sign up for the Newsletter
There had to have been a pretty good view of the developing oil business from the back windows of this home. It was built in 1843 on the eastern bank of Goose Creek in what’s now Baytown, and probably enjoyed those first quiet 60 years before anyone suspected there’d be any oil back there. A little after 1916, though, it must have smelled pretty nasty, backing up to the state’s first offshore oil field.
It went on the market as an estate sale in August: first at $89,000, then lower after a $10K price cut in November. Someone put a contract on it late last week.
On Tuesday we added a couple more categories to this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. That means 4 categories are now open for your nominations: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Teardown, Parking Lot of the Year, and Drive-Thru of the Year. Keep those great entries coming for all of them!
The next award category speaks for itself. Well, almost: Walmart of the Year. The big-box retailer was in the news — and featured in many commercial breaks as well — for much of this past year in Houston, planning and opening new locations, managing PR campaigns, and stirring up . . . uh, interest. So. What important qualities does a Walmart have? And what thing or place or idea or concept — or heck, even actual Houston-area Walmart location — deserves the honor of being declared Walmart of the Year?
Yes, this is another brand-new award category for the Swampies, and we’ll obviously need your smart nominations to make it work. Tell us who or what deserves the Walmart of the Year award — in a comment below or in a private message. Consult the official nominating rules if you like. What’s your choice?
- Now Taking Your Orders for Drive-Thru of the Year [Swamplot]
- Your Nominations, Please, for Houston Parking Lot of the Year [Swamplot]
- Best Teardown of 2010: Who Are the Contenders? [Swamplot]
- What Are Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché? [Swamplot]
- The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2010: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2010 [Swamplot]
Late Update, 12/16: The implosions are back on, scheduled for December 19th.
Update, 12/8 3:30 pm: FortBendNow is reporting that this weekend’s implosion has been canceled and will be rescheduled later.
Fort Bend County fans of large building implosions won’t have to drive all the way into Downtown Houston to watch the next big boom. It’s gonna be taking place right in the heart of Sugar Land, this weekend! Johnson Development Corp. will be knocking down an old furnace house and a bin building — 2 metal structures from the former Imperial Sugar Refinery — this Sunday morning at 7. The ongoing demolition project is necessary so the company — part of a public-private partnership with the Texas General Land Office and the City of Sugar Land, run by private equity firm Cherokee — can create a giant historic-themed development on the surrounding industrial acreage, celebrating the area’s rich history of refinement. The Imperial Sugar Company, no stranger to refinery explosions itself, shut down the plant in 2003.
Something’s grinding to a halt at the former home of Crime Stoppers:
From the window of his office behind the Galleria, Swamplot reader Warren Pattison snaps this view showing a crane installing a large sign on the site of a new office tower scheduled to go up at 3009 Post Oak Blvd. That’s the former site of Tony’s Ballroom, wedged between the Water Wall and the West Loop. An executive with the U.S. unit of Swedish project development and construction company Skanska announced back in January that the project should begin construction by the end of this year, but the company didn’t close on the deal to buy the land — from a subsidiary of Hines — until September. The company will be financing the building by itself. A fanciful view of the design for the now-19-story tower, by local architecture firm Kirksey, as it might appear if no buildings or billboards were nearby, and everybody abandoned the West Loop:
So far, 3 categories in the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate have been been opened up for your nominations: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Teardown, and Parking Lot of the Year. Up next: another brand-new category, specially selected for this year’s competition: Drive-Thru of the Year.
There are of course so many drive-thrus to choose from in the greater Houston region. But surely one stands out? Maybe it has special accommodations for unique vehicles; or maybe it’s outfitted in a way that prevents all those nasty exhaust fumes from blowing into your car; or maybe it’s the kind of place that makes you just want to drive on thru. Really, it’s up to you to decide. What drive-thru is worth idling for?
As usual, your spin will make the difference between a plain ol’ nomination and a compelling choice for the award. You’ll find the rules for the nominating process here. What makes your favorite drive-thru deserve this honor?
You’ll have until midnight next Monday to get your orders in for both categories announced today. So take your time, think about it, and pull on up to the comments section below (or the Swamplot inbox) when you’re ready with your nomination.
- Your Nominations, Please, for Houston Parking Lot of the Year [Swamplot]
- Best Teardown of 2010: Who Are the Contenders? [Swamplot]
- What Are Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché? [Swamplot]
- The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2010: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2010 [Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WOULD MAKE A MORE PROPER HOUSTON WELCOME “All that said, I still regret that we didn’t put up two enormous inflatable gorillas, standing on either side of JFK Blvd., like the statues of [Isildur] and Anárion flanked the river Anduin in The Lord of the Rings.” [RWBoyd, commenting on Here’s Your Splashy New Welcome Sign, Houston]
Passed on to Swamplot: an “anonymous call-to-arms of sorts” distributed to the front doors of a few residents on the Hwy. 288 edge of Riverside Terrace. A reader who received the crooked yellow flyer complaining about the encroachment of businesses into the area tells Swamplot “I would find it hilarious if it didn’t make me so angry.” Our tipster notes in the author of the double-sided note an apparent “disjunction between the things that irritate them (‘Speed Racers’ and ‘sexual deviants’) and the alleged causes (businesses, like Denny’s).”:
I don’t even know how to respond – I thought about creating another flyer, actually using my name, and systematically debunking each of their complaints, but that would probably just get my house egged.
At issue: a future “assisted living facility” apparently being planned for 2323 Prospect St. The author of the flyer doesn’t exactly know what’s going in there, but writes adamantly that it can’t be good:
What kind of services are being provided and to whom these services are being provided is unknown at this time. Will this pending facility provide services for the released mentally fragile, released prisoners, sexual deviants, homeless or for drug rehab? Whatever! This business is not safe for you, your family, our block, our neighborhood and our community.
The complete flyer:
Yesterday we introduced the first 2 nominating categories in the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. Nominations will remain open until midnight Sunday for both awards: Favorite Houston Design Cliché and Best Teardown.
Today, there are 2 more award categories to introduce. And they’re both new to the Swampies. The first one is for Houston’s Parking Lot of the Year.
What qualities would a lot have to have to for it to qualify as Parking Lot of the Year? In a city full of places to park, what would make one stand out? The ease of the parking experience? Additional on-site or nearby attractions? The fact that the site is being used for parking in the first place? As usual, the Swampies are open to the sharp and clever formulations of readers. When you use your nomination to give this category a twist, sell your vision!
More complete instructions covering the nominating process can be found on this page. In the meantime, you’ll find plenty of spaces available for your nominations in the comments section below — and in the Swamplot inbox, if you’d prefer a more private venue.
Note: Nope, not tonight. See update below.
Sometime after 9 pm tonight — if rain doesn’t postpone its scheduled journey from 3012 Erastus St. in Houston’s Fifth Ward to a new home on Lyons Ave. — this abandoned house will become art. That’s not just the contention of Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, the two demolition artists responsible for the move; it’s actually detailed in the city permits they obtained for “Fifth Ward Jam,” a temporary public-art project they’re creating with funding from the Houston Arts Alliance. After Wooten House Movers set up the structure in its new location, Havel and Ruck will start tearing it up and reconstructing it. But the move is what will make it art — because the city says so. “The permit office had a hard time categorizing just exactly what to call our project,” Havel tells Swamplot:
Is it a house, is it a sculpture? Is it both? The black and white rules of permitting needed to be utilized. The best way to do that is to first call the house a structure in order to obtain the permits to move it. However, once the house is placed on the property, it ceases to be an inhabitable structure and will be transformed into a sculptural environment. So, somewhere along the moving route, whether it is half way between two sites or when it physically enters the new site, it will be officially categorized as a sculpture.
So when we reconstruct the house into a sculpture, we do not need a building permit because it is now a sculpture. Pretty funny logic, if you ask me, but it makes sense. The permit guys were certainly scratching their heads, but we got our permits.
Just what is there left to clear on the corner lot next to Little Woodrow’s in Midtown? Plus: a garage in Sunnyside and single-story in South Park get the boot.
Residences
WHITE OAK RESTAURANT REVIVAL More evidence of an Onion Creek Coffee House magnet effect? A reader notes that Houston Press food critic Katharine Shillcut is now reporting that D’Amico’s Italian Market Cafe will be opening a second location early next year, at 2802 White Oak Dr. in the Heights. (The restaurant’s current spot is in the Rice Village.) D’Amico’s will be joining additional outposts of Tacos A Go-Go and Christian’s Tailgate on the same stretch of White Oak, just west of Studewood. [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot]
Earlier today, we introduced the first category in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate, celebrating best and most this city has to offer. And now nominations are open in a second category: Best Teardown.
Sure, teardowns are raw, physical acts, but emotional, historical, cultural, artistic, literary, sonic, and ecological aspects are often hard at work too. What property would you honor as Houston’s Best Teardown — and why?
If you’re like most people and have a little trouble remembering buildings once they’re gone, feel free to scroll through Swamplot’s archive of demolition stories to refresh your memory. Then add your thoughtful and well-argued nominations for this coveted award to the comments section below — or send them in a private message to Swamplot HQ. If you’d like a more complete description of the nominating process, see these instructions.
Nominations for both award categories announced today will remain open until midnight this Sunday. Can you knock a few out now?
BUT IT WAS WORTH IT “‘…the most miserable place in the world. . . .’ ‘Early reports from Houston said that when people came out on any given morning you could find as many as four bodies lying dead in the streets, victims of the previous night’s mayhem.’ You’d be forgiven if you thought this was the Houston of today. But actually this is Houston in the 1830s.” — Chronicle blogger J.R. Gonzales, discussing Houston: A Nation’s Capitol, Houston Arts & Media’s new feature-length documentary about the early development of this city. [Bayou City History] Trailer: Houston Arts & Media