COMMENT OF THE DAY: WELCOME TO THE FUTURE OF HOUSTON “This is the kind of thing that every kid who lives here will remember 40 years from now. ‘Remember that weird light show thing they had at the airport?’†[Cap’n McBarnacle, commenting on Here’s Your Splashy New Welcome Sign, Houston]
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A reader is wondering what mysterious forces have brought to a halt plans for the sushi restaurant at 7801 Westheimer on the corner of Stoneybrook, a block west of Hillcroft — the former site of the ABC Flower & Garden Center. Construction on The Fish and Knife Sushi Bar and Club (at least that’s what the sign calls it) began about 3 months ago, says our reader: “They were blowing and going 7 days a week. Then, about 6 weeks ago, all construction halted.” Nothing’s been going up since, save a healthy serving of weeds.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
And now it begins: the nominating process for the 2010 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate, highlighting the best and most of the Houston landscape over the past calendar year. To make this year’s awards the best they can be, we need your help!
Our first category: Favorite Houston Design Cliché. Last year this award was won by “Lakes of” Subdivisions, with “Lick and Stick Stone” coming in a close second place. The year before that, the winner was “Tuscanization.†What Houston building, shopping center, streetscape, home, interior, neighborhood, or yard cliché deserves recognition this year? Your suggestions for this award may be inspired from stories on Swamplot or from your own keen eye.
Nominations for this category are now open! Enter your nomination in a comment to this post only or — more privately — to the Swamplot tip line, with the subject line “Nomination: Favorite Houston Design Cliche.†Nominations will be accepted for one full week, after which the best-presented choices will be opened for voting.
Readers are allowed to submit as many nominations as they like in this category, but your choices will have a better chance of succeeding if you use the opportunity to make your point in a clever and convincing way. When the actual awards are open for voting next week, each selected nomination will be introduced with some edited bastardization of the arguments readers made in the nomination — so be eloquent and persuasive! If you can send photos in support of your nomination, that’s great — illustrations will likely help make your case to voters. Send submissions to the Swamplot tip line, but be sure to identify them and indicate what they’re for.
Comments to this post will be counted as nominations only. Nominations may be seconded, expanded, or improved. Even simple “me too†posts will help an entry find a place on the actual ballot, but they won’t be counted as votes for the winner. The actual voting in this category will begin next week. Are you ready? Have at it!
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2010 [Swamplot]
The future looked a bit dire last week for the strange, dilapidated bungalow hiding in the back of a parking lot of the old HPD HQ building, just across the Gulf Freeway from the Downtown Aquarium. A 10-day online auction for the city-owned building ended with no bids. And the requirements of the bidder looked a little steep: partial demolition, repairs, a move, and restoration.
But a second one-day-only last-chance auction produced — surprise! — an actual bidder at the initial $1,000 asking price. Lucky winner Kirby Mears says he’s representing an “out-of-town client” who plans to restore the 1872 home to its original condition. “She’s very excited,” he tells Swamplot. But he says the former residence of Sixth Ward carpenter and contractor Gottlieb Eisele — last used as an office for the HPD’s old Explorer program — is in bad shape: “It will be a major restoration, and in the end have a new roof which will match the original in design, slope, and eave details.” It’ll also have a new home:
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Making a second or late appearance on the city’s permit report: a block of the Katy Freeway cleared several years ago.
Backsplash from a stream of strange particles falling from the sky, or is that just some mucky stuff bubbling up from underfoot? Either way, what better way to say, “Welcome to Houston”? The night lights are now on at “Radiant Fountains,” the new collection of pipe-assembly sculptures by New York artist Dennis Oppenheim, commissioned by the Houston Arts Alliance, working with Houston Airport Systems — whose offices are nearby — under the city’s 11-year-old “percent for art” policy. Recently completed on JFK Blvd. near Rankin Rd., they’re meant to greet newly arrived passengers from IAH. Andrew Vrana from Metalab — the local architecture firm that coordinated the installation — captures an early glimpse of the splashy action on video:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DONUT RUSH HOUR IN OAK FOREST 
“That Shipley’s must draw folks from miles around. Theres almost always a long line of cars, often extending out onto Ella. I am always amazed too at the long lines late at night…who eats donuts at 11pm? I guess they’re night shift workers.
Yep, they need to re-do that whole shopping plaza and center it around that Shipleys, providing tons of drive-thru space :)” [JRo, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: The Ella Square Deal] Photo of Shipley’s Donuts, 3410 Ella Blvd.: Chad & Susan Harris
Yes, it’s that time again — for Swamplot’s annual review of the best, most, and much too much of Houston’s local real-estate scene. Are you ready to help select the winners? It all begins next week!
What are the categories for the third annual Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate? We’ll be announcing them beginning on Monday and continuing through the week. (If you’ve got any killer last-minute suggestions, feel free to send them our way before then.) The awards will honor the neighborhoods, developments, designs, personalities, dreams, and absurdities that continue to make Houston real estate so entertaining.
Once each award category has been announced, we’ll need your help to come up with the right slate of official nominees. You be the judge: What was notable in 2010? What caught your eye and wouldn’t let go? What valiant efforts are deserving of recognition? And what brilliant comments can you add to encapsulate the story?
The voting methods and rules will be different this year. But all nominations and votes for these awards will come from Swamplot readers. We hope you’ll participate and join in the fun!
CAN’T BEAT THAT TOUR OF ITALY “It’s getting more competitive out here, and the better restaurants are continuing to perform well and the lesser ones are being replaced,†— Planned Community Developers’ Steve Eubanks, comparing the success of the recently opened Olive Garden in the area to the recent fate of Amici Ristorante in PCD’s own Sugar Land Town Center. Amici, which is closing its doors after two years of operation, was developed by Bruce McMillian and Jeff Vallone, son of famed Houston restaurateur Tony Vallone. Eubanks describes the Olive Garden off the 59 Freeway at Sweetwater Blvd. in Sugar Land as already “one of the top-performing restaurants in the chain.” [Houston Business Journal]
A 28-story long-abandoned see-through Downtown hotel demolished for the views — but: the underground parking will be spared. (Phew!) Also: finishing off the Ella Square Apartments, and no more swimming at Candlelight Trails.
WILL THEY EVER GET TO PLAY THE HOUSTON FLOOD? 
In a rare and surprising victory for regional realism, prospective fans have chosen to name Sugar Land’s new minor-league baseball team the Skeeters, the Atlantic League team’s management announced yesterday. Defeated at the baseball ballot box: also-rans the King Canes and Lizard Kings. Fans should be able to watch the Skeeters and swat mosquitoes from $8 seats in Sugar Land’s new strip-mall-inspired open-air stadium on the banks of Oyster Creek by the 2012 season. While one rendition of the new team’s logo pictures a mosquito piercing a baseball with its proboscis, an animated version (featured at the top left of every page on the team’s new website) depicts it angrily and repeatedly stabbing into Fort Bend County on a map of Texas. (See also less-charitable responses to the name from Around the Loop and Deadspin.) [Skeeters News; previously on Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS “Humanity’s job is to cover over everything and rebuild every 100 years. That’s why we have archeologists.” [Bill Shirley, commenting on Comment of the Day: Must Have Lost Something in There Somewhere]
Skybar owner Scott Gertner has found a new space for his jazz club. It’ll be on the 3rd floor of Houston Pavilions — one block west of the House of Blues and Lucky Strike, and directly across the open-air mall from “swing space” originally planned for retail but now being leased as office space by an energy company. Scott Gertner’s Skybar, on the 10th floor of the office building at 3400 Montrose, closed over the summer, after Gertner tired of dealing with building maintenance issues left unaddressed by a new owner.
Houston Pavilions’ 3rd floor is pretty high up there, but Gertner says the new venue will drop the SkyBar name for the multi-level space (it’ll just be called Scott Gertner’s). At 13,000 sq. ft. (and a capacity of 700), it’ll be slightly larger than the old club too. He tells Chronicle reporter Joey Guerra the new interior, designed by Uptown Sushi architect Isaac Preminger, will feature 3 outdoor patios, an “arena-style” stage, and a full kitchen. Directly downstairs from the club, at the corner of Dallas and Fannin: BCBGMaxAzria and McCormick & Schmick’s, shown above.
- Scott Gertner comes downtown [29-95]
- Houston Pavilions Coverage [Swamplot]
- Previously on Swamplot: Why Scott Gertner’s Skybar Is Leaving the Montrose Sky, Scott Gertner’s Skybar Closing, May Take the Whole Building with It
Photo: Flickr user sabotai
SETTING UP A NEW PUBLIC PARK THING AT THE FORMER TEAS NURSERY 
Bellaire’s city council approved an agreement earlier this week that makes the future of the 5-acre property that used to be Teas Nursery a little more clear: It’ll be some sort of public space, but the exact details will be worked out by a new conservancy, with input from the public. A foundation controlled by two Bellaire brothers bought the property at 4400 Bellaire Blvd. late last year — after the nursery’s owners announced plans to sell it off piece by piece to homebuilders. The Jerry and Maury Rubenstein Foundation now plans to deed the land to the city. Under the agreement, half of the conservancy’s members will be appointed by the city, and half by the foundation. [Previously on Swamplot]
A sizable chunk of a just-north-of-610 apartment complex crashes to the ground, along with some littler residences scattered about town:
