Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Our fresh technical resources have furthered the disintegration of solid masses of masonry into slender piles of rubble.
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- 5531 Cedar Creek Dr. [HAR]
All 10 slabs are in place for the row of 2-stories — dubbed Avenue Meadows — that community organization Avenue CDC wants to plant along Meadow Lea Dr. in Northline just south of Berry Rd. and just shy of the bend where Madie Dr. begins. Each 1,304-sq.-ft. house will sit on somewhere between 5,100 and 5,400 sq. ft. of land (with the exception of 72 Meadow Lea — the westernmost lot — which bookends the development at 8,414 sq. ft.). Half of the structures will look like the one shown in the rendering at top — nicknamed The Monarch (and noted as plan A in the site plan below).
The others lose the carport and go by the name The Admiral:
Meadow Lea and Madie
The Holiday-Inn-turned-Days-Inn-turned-Heaven-on-Earth-Hotel at 801 St. Joseph Pkwy. has now been posted to CoStar by commercial broker CBRE following a 2-week period of higher-than-usual on-site cleanup activity. Crews removed debris from its garage and pool late last week; and just yesterday, 2 workers scaled nearly all 31 stories of its western face to take down the semicircular light box of the Days Inn sign that once hung near the top of it (see photo above).
The seller, SFK Development, bought the property in 2012 — becoming the building’s third owner in its post-Maharishi era. (The building — which for a time was home to a Vedic school run by the former Beatles spiritual advisor — was shut down by the city in 1998.) Since then, it has been fertile ground for numerous urban explorers, as well as the imagination of several would-be redevelopers.
The sale listing includes images of possible makeovers:
Heaven On Earth Up for Grabs
CITY COUNCIL APPROVES MUD FOR 800 NEW HOMES ON PINE CREST GOLF COURSE 
Houston’s city council voted today to approve a proposal to create a municipal utility district for an 800-house development Meritage Homes wants to build on the former Pine Crest Golf Course. The golf course, which lies within the 100-year floodplain, is located at the corner of Gessner and Clay in the Brickhouse Gully watershed — where 2,300 residential structures flooded during Harvey. Today’s vote was on a proposal identical to one that was considered by the council last October but instead referred to the mayor’s office for further review. A representative of Meritage Homes told the Chronicle following the initial proposal that it would publish an analysis of “where or how floodwaters would flow across the surrounding land” after construction. But it later decided not to — reported the Chronicle’s Mike Morris — claiming that such a study would have been “irrelevant” in light of the city’s new standards for building in floodplains. A no vote by city council today would not have necessarily killed the project, council member Brenda Stardig noted to Morris — although it would have forced Meritage to find an alternate source of funding for the neighborhood’s infrastructure. The developer bought the 150-acre former golf course from MetroNational last year. [Houston Chronicle; more; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Meritage Homes
- Ikea Under Contract To Buy 160 Acres in Generation Park [HBJ]
- Colliers: Houston Office Market Had 1.5M SF of Negative Absorption Recorded in the First Quarter [Realty News Report]
- East-West Furniture Relocating Headquarters to Industrial Distribution Facility Near Beltway 8 [Houston Chronicle]
- Slideshow: The 10 Most Expensive Homes Sold in Houston Last Month [HBJ]
- Less Than 20% of Harvey-Flooded Homes Were in MUDs, Finds Report [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- FEMA-Funded Hotel Stays End for Nearly 1,400 Harvey Victims in Texas [Houston Chronicle]
- Galveston County Commissioners Want GLO Less Involved in Harvey Recovery [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Fort Bend Study To Explore Levee at Barker Reservoir [Houston Chronicle]
- White Oak Music Hall Reaches Settlement with Neighbors in Noise Lawsuit [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of the Lakes on Post Oak, Uptown: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Buildings are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around.
- 23522 Creekview Dr. [HAR]
After hauling all 6 of their endangered Victorian cottages 8 blocks and arranging them neatly off Sampson St. 4 years ago, Michael Skelly and Anne Whitlock are now ready to part with the 2 pictured at top. $700,000 is the asking price for both structures — which occupy a single 5,000-sq.-ft. lot at 3408 Garrow St. They’ve been on the market for a week.
Since relocating them, Skelly and Whitlock have also redone the interiors of the 2 cottages:
Firehouse Backyard
A wide spectrum of paint shades and window shapes fronts W. 15th St. in the rendering above of Hampton Heights — the 5-story residential row Surge Homes has planned just west of Dian St. in Shady Acres. Its 2-story parking podium is about the same height and length as the site’s current resident: Car Cafe, a 37,341-sq.-ft. used-car dealership headquartered in a windowless warehouse. Just under two thirds of an acre — shaded red in the aerial above — comprise the lot at 1800 W. 15th where the garage sits now.
- 1800 W. 15th [Surge Homes via HAIF]
Rendering and aerial: Surge Homes
Shades of Shady Acres
- Mixed-Use Development Katy Village Slated for 84-Acre Site Across I-10 from Katy Mills Mall [HBJ]
- The Houston Neighborhoods That Saw the Biggest Drops in Average Sales Price [HBJ ($)]
- Denver Co-Working Venue Office Evolution Coming to Houston [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston-Based CenterPoint To Acquire Midwestern Energy Company Vectren Corp. in $6B Deal [Realty News Report]
- Under Proposed FEMA Maps, 97% of Dickinson Would Be in the 100-Year Flood Plain [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Traffic, Harvey Fallout Among Houston’s Biggest Problems, Finds Kinder Houston Area Survey [HBJ]
Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Fear not – we will have these flattened and forgotten in no time.
- 32319 Archer Prk. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SELF-DRIVING BUS ASPHALT PALIMPSEST CHALLENGE 
“Have any readers here taken the [southbound] exit off of 59 to the West Loop lately? If some hypothetical autonomous driving system could navigate that tangle of past and present lane markings, then they might just have something to build on.” [TimP, commenting on METRO Now Testing Out Self-Driving Buses for Houston] Photo: Roy Luck [license]
The Southmore bridge — known to get real cozy with floodwaters as they course down 288 — made its last stand this weekend as crews cleared the way for a new, presumably higher roadway that’ll be built in its place. Lanes of 288 — pictured above from the northbound side — shut down to accommodate the demolition. The bridge itself had been closed since earlier this month closed on Friday. Now, thru-traffic is being detoured to the Blodgett and Binz St. bridges across the highway via its north- and southbound feeder roads. The estimated opening date for the new structure: mid-to-late next year.
- Southmore Bridge [Drive288]
Photos: Swamplox inbox (from Southmore); Drive288 (from 288)
High-Speed Demolition
