Another day of pounding the pavement.
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN ALL WE SEE IS THE VIEW TO A KILL 
“I like the ‘idea’ of this house, and the view of downtown is very nice. However, what about the well-documented health [effects] of living near (or extremely near, in this case) freeways? Are the increased risk of cancer, heart disease, asthma, premature births and so on a worthwhile trade-off for living in a conceptual design statement? Maybe they have some kind of cool air-pollution filtration system….” [Mies, commenting on Self Directed: A Modern House Angled for 288’s Best Freeway Views]
How they gonna fit the burgers into those little canisters for the drive-thru? Beck’s Prime has bought the little 4,000-sq.-ft. standalone retail building at 115 W. 19th St. between Heights and Yale, Nancy Sarnoff reports. The 2-story building with the 4-lane detached drive-thru was last used as a Washington Mutual Bank.
- Another dining option in the Heights [Prime Property]
- Former Washington Mutual [LoopNet]
- Becks Prime
Ignore the alternating reds, greens, and yellows on the renderings: store regional president Scott McClelland says the new H-E-B coming to the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy will have “natural materials” on the exterior — though he says he doesn’t know yet what those materials will be. Getting rid of the colors is just one of the changes requested by attendees of the recent neighborhood meeting. H-E-B announced last week that those same neighbors had selected the “Pavilion” roof design — already the most Menil-like of the 3 decorate-the-box options prepared by San Antonio architects Lake Flato. The vote totals, tallied by Neartown Association president David Robinson: 88 for the Pavilion, 75 for the Sawtooth, and 43 for the Wave. (See all three designs here.)
Move over — we’ve got some new ones supposed to come in. No? Then we’ll just have to smash you up.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WE’RE UNDER YOUR BEACH HOUSE, GRILLIN’ YOUR BURGERZ “It may appear that the homeowner ‘won’ this case, but read the law again. Texas law allows anyone to place a blanket on the beach, right up to the vegetation line, even if it’s an intrusion on the privacy of a seaside home. Basically, you can have a cookout under the house, park your car, spread out, whatever, and the homeowner has zero ability to do anything about it, as the home is within the vegetation boundary.” [mikeyyc, commenting on Texas Supreme Court: Private Properties Can Erode Public Beaches]
“I’m sure there are a 100 foreclosure auctions a day in town,” says a neighbor of this expanded and tarted-up house on 8th 1/2 St., “but this is the only outwardly visible one i’ve seen in the Heights.” Main clue for our tipster that the usual sales process wasn’t working: the Auction.com signs now posted “on every possible surface.” The 3-4 bedroom home is still listed on MLS for $359,000, but bidding will start at $139,000 in Wednesday’s live event at the Intercontinental Hotel near the Galleria. The home — vacant for about a year but painted twice during that time, we’re told — fell into the hands of Fannie Mae in July, and was listed for $369,000 at the beginning of August. Next door: 2 vacant lots that face Studewood, listed for sale the old-fashioned way.
- 739 E. 8th 1/2 St. [Auction.com]
- 739 E. 8 1/2 St. [HAR]
- 821 Studewood St. [HAR]
- Residential Online Auction [Auction.com]
A little Midcentury Modern, a little Galveston: Except here, there’s a view of the oil-stained freeway and Downtown’s skyscrapers in the distance, instead of oil-stained beaches and faraway platforms. UH architecture professor and Renzo Piano Building Workshop refugee Ronnie Self‘s house for himself and MFAH museum shop book buyer Bernard Bonnet is perched on the edge of 288, just north of 59, on the Third Ward’s western freeway frontier. All the living space in the 1,600-sq.-ft. box (HCAD scores him with an extra 256 sq. ft. for that open-air central stairway, but not for the ground-floor utility room) is raised 8 ft. above ground level on a tapered slab, just high enough to peek over the sound wall. Which means that even when 288 fills up with water, Self’s house will still stay dry, above it all.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Qu’est-ce que c’est? Démolition, no?
TEXAS SUPREME COURT: PRIVATE PROPERTIES CAN ERODE PUBLIC BEACHES The state’s high court ruled today in favor of Californian Carol Severance, whose rent house on Kennedy Dr. in West Galveston found itself in front of the vegetation line after Hurricane Rita hit in 2006. The Texas Supreme Court ruled that the state can’t claim an easement on her property — but if the same topography had resulted over a longer period of time, the easement would be okay: “Texas law allows anyone to place a blanket on the beach, right up to the vegetation line, even if it’s an intrusion on the privacy of a seaside home. But in a split decision, the court found that the state’s policy of ‘rolling easements’ — the ever-shifting border between public and private land — does not apply when it’s moved by a storm. At the same time, the court held that policy is justifiable in cases of erosion, which is gradual.” [Houston Chronicle; decision; previously on Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HEIGHTS PLAZA RESIDENTS, TELL US YOUR STORIES “I’d be curious to know what happens to these people after the wrecking ball has come through. Will the folks be homeless? Will they have found their way elsewhere? I’m assuming the latter, but I don’t really know and I think it’s pretty uncommon for many publications to follow-through on this type of article.” [tcv, commenting on Walmart Coming — Everybody Out!]
Workers are dismantling the two half-built-and-holding townhomes at the corner of Jackson Hill and Washington Ave., says the reader who sends us these photos of the activity at the well-known and well-weathered properties. Demolition permits for 915 and 917 Jackson Hill showed up on Swamplot earlier this week. “No bulldozers or anything, looks like they’re disassembling them from the top down,” explains our tipster. Could this be the dawn of . . . a brand-new parking lot for Washington?
WALMART COMING — EVERYBODY OUT! What residents of the Heights Plaza Apartments at 205 Heights Blvd. found on their doors Wednesday: Letters explaining that the Ainbinder Company has bought the entire complex and that no tenants’ leases will be renewed. For residents whose leases are up in December, that’s 30 days’ notice. Ainbinder will be extending Koehler St. through the property and building 2 strip centers on the remaining portions — as part of the Washington Heights District development that will include a new Walmart. “Although the sale of the complex to the Walmart developer wasn’t a surprise,” explains reporter Miya Shay, “the pace of the move out did catch some residents off guard. Developer Michael Ainbinder says he’s willing to work with residents who can’t find a place before their lease expires. . . . The last lease runs out at the end of April, and the developer says as soon as that happens, they will begin demolishing the property.” [abc13; previously on Swamplot]
Residents of the east-facing condos in the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby tower jealous of all the fun their neighbors in the west-facing units have been having with late night partiers at Hans’ Bier Haus next door now have their very own partly open-air next-door bar to mess with: Hudson Lounge opened earlier this week, at 2506 Robinhood. And hey: on this side of the tower, there’s no pesky parking garage to get in the way of any nightclub-condo interaction.
Brothers Adam, Alexander, and Andre Klieber carved the new straight-Mod space out of the former office HQ of Adam and Alexander’s other business, Southampton Homes — after business there slowed down. New swiveling steel doors on the front and back of the 1950 building open to a patio and separate bar pavilion in back.
